“Neplach believes this highly confidential Vogelsang will reveal itself to me? Just because Peterlin was my brother?”

“However faint, there is a chance,” the goliard agreed gravely. “And Flutek is desperate. It’s known that Prokop the Shaven has been planning a plundering raid on Silesia for a long time. Prokop is very much counting on the Vogelsang, it’s part of his strategy. He has to know whether the Vogelsang—”

“Whether the Vogelsang has been compromised.” Reynevan finished the sentence, suddenly understanding. “The group may have been unmasked, its members captured and turned. If the agent seeking contact with the group were to be caught… I mean, if I were caught, if I were seized and executed, it would be proof of betrayal. Am I right?”

“You are. And now what do you say to my advice? You’ll treat it more seriously and vanish while you can?”

“No.”

“They’re putting your head on the block. And you’re letting them. Like an utter simpleton.”

“What counts is the cause,” Reynevan said after a long pause, and his voice was as solemn as a bishop’s at Corpus Christi.

“What?”

“What matters most is our cause,” he repeated, and his voice was as hard as a gravestone. “When the good of the cause is at stake, individuals matter not. If, thanks to that, the noble cause of the Chalice moves a step closer to victory, since it’s meant to be a stone thrown at the ramparts of our ultimate triumph… I’m prepared for that sacrifice.”

“Not for a long time.” It turned out the beguiler hadn’t been asleep at all. “Not for a long time have I heard anything so inane.”

*

And my dad was a carter

What he earned he spent on whores

And I’m just the same

What I earn I give to them!

The villagers of Mieczniki watched gloomily as the three riders swayed in their saddles. The one who was singing, accompanying himself on the lute, was wearing a red, horned cap with dishevelled grey hair sticking out of it. One of his companions was a handsome young man and the other an ugly dwarf in a tight hood. The dwarf looked the most drunk of the three. He could barely stay on his horse, was roaring in a deep voice, whistling through his fingers and accosting girls. The peasants had fierce expressions but didn’t approach or start a brawl. The one in the red cap had a short sword in his belt and looked threatening. The ugly dwarf was patting an ugly club hanging from his saddle, whose thicker end was bound with iron and which was equipped with an iron spike. The peasants couldn’t have known the club was a notorious Flemish goedendag, a weapon which the French knighthood had been on the receiving end of at the Battles of Courtrai, Roosebeke, Cassel and elsewhere. But its appearance was enough to discourage them.