Only four times did they have to make a rapid exit. First in Racibórz, when Rzehors escaped a trap set by the Inquisition by jumping from a first-floor window into the town square, followed by a dramatic chase down Long Street all the way to Saint Nicholas’s Gate. Then the three of them fought their way out of a trap outside Ścinawa, when they were greatly helped by a fog that rose on cue from the marshes of the Odra. In Skorogoszcz, they had to gallop like hell to outrun a mounted squad that went after them when a mercenary unit guarding the customs post on the Nysa became suspicious of them. And outside Namysłów, a local cooper was listening to Rzehors and Reynevan when Bisclavret, who was covering them, caught the cooper’s son, who had been sent in secret to alert the guard in the town, and hauled the twelve-year-old into the chamber. Before you could say “Judas Iscariot” three times, the boy was writhing on the dirt floor, stabbed by the navaja, the cooper was wheezing with blood gushing from a severed throat, his wife and daughters were wailing at various pitches and the company were hurdling fences to reach their horses which had been left in the thicket.

“In the fight for a good cause there are no ethics.” Rzehors straightened up proudly when, a short time later, Reynevan reproached him, particularly for the boy. “When the cause demands killing, one must kill. The spirit of destruction is at the same time the spirit of creation. An execution in a good cause isn’t a crime, hence one may not shirk from it. Thus, with head held high and a sure step, we enter the stage of history. We are changing and shaping history, Reinmar. When the New Order comes, children will be taught about it in school and all the world will learn the name of what we are doing. The word ‘terrorism’ will one day be on the lips of the whole world.”

“Amen,” Bisclavret added.

Rzehors and Bisclavret found out the name of the Namysłów agent who had turned the cooper and set out to kill him. They stabbed him to death as he returned from a tavern one night and were reunited with Reynevan in two days.

Day by day, it had to be admitted, the spirit of destruction was becoming more and more creative.

“Stop whingeing.” Bisclavret grimaced at the sight of Reynevan’s expression. “One day we’ll get an order from Flutek and we’ll head off together, the three of us, to stick a knife in the belly of that Grellenort who killed your brother. Or Duke Jan of Ziębice. Or the Bishop of Wrocław himself. Will you be whingeing then, talking nonsense about ethics and honour?”

Reynevan didn’t answer.