Reynevan spent a week thinking over the conversation he needed to have with Jutta. He feared such a conversation, feared the consequences. Jutta had often talked with him about the teachings of Huss and Hieronim, about the Four Articles of Prague, and generally about the principles of Hussite reform. And although she could be quite sceptical regarding certain doctrines of Utraquism, never did she—not with a single word, nor even with the slightest allusion or suggestion—manifest what he feared: a proselytiser’s zeal. The monastery in White Church—the conversation with the abbess left him no doubt—was tainted with the errors of Joachim of Fiore, the Builders of the Third Church and the Sisterhood of the Free Spirit. The abbess, the nuns—and probably the converses, too—venerated the Eternal and Triple Great Mother, which linked them with the movement of the followers of Guglielma the Czech as the female incarnation of the Holy Spirit. And of Maifreda of Pirovano, the first Guglielmite popess. On top of that, the nuns clearly practised white magic, thus linking themselves with the cult of Aradia, the Queen of the Witches, called in Italy La Bella Pellegrina. But although Reynevan hovered around Jutta as vigilantly as a crane, seeking a sign or a hint, he never caught anything. Either Jutta was skilfully disguising it, or simply was not a fervent and zealous neophyte of the Joachimite, Guglielmite or Aradic heresies. Reynevan couldn’t rule out either the first or the second possibility. Jutta was both clever enough to be able to disguise it and sensible enough not to throw herself headlong into something. In spite of the feelings they appeared to share, in spite of their frequent, enthusiastic and inspired lovemaking, in spite of the fact that their bodies appeared not to have any secrets from each other, Reynevan understood he still didn’t know everything about Jutta and was a long way from deciphering all her secrets. And if it were true that Jutta hadn’t utterly thrown in her lot with heresy, that she was hesitating, doubting or simply that she had a critical attitude, he oughtn’t to bring up the subject.

On the other hand, he oughtn’t to delay or stand passively by, either. He still took the Green Lady’s words to heart. In Silesia, he was an exile, a wanted outlaw, a Hussite, an enemy, a spy and a saboteur. What he was, what he believed in and how he lived his life exposed Jutta to danger and harm. The Green Lady, Agnes of Apolda, Jutta’s mother, was right—if he had even a little decency, he wouldn’t put the girl at risk, wouldn’t allow her to suffer because of him.