“I must also meet Urban Horn. Please inform him. Have him come to Opole.”

“Horn’s not in Silesia. He had to flee. Someone informed and they were almost upon him. He killed one of the bishop’s thugs and heavily injured another in Milicz… Ha, just like in a knightly romance… I think he’s in Greater Poland now. I don’t know exactly where. As a special agent, Horn isn’t subordinate to me and doesn’t report to me.”

“Tybald Raabe, in that case. Get him here.”

“There’ll be a problem with that, too. Tybald is imprisoned.”

“Where? Who has him?”

“He’s at Schwarzwaldau Castle. Sir Herman Zettritz the Younger has him.”

“Organise a swift horse for me.”

Sir Herman Zettritz the Younger, the Lord of Schwarzwaldau, sat sprawled on a chair resembling a throne. The wall behind his back was covered with a slightly sooty tapestry depicting, according to all the signs, the Garden of Eden. Two filthy hounds lay at the knight’s feet. Alongside, at a table covered in food, sat the knight’s entourage, who were only slightly cleaner than the hounds and consisted of five armed burgmen and two women whose profession wasn’t too difficult to guess at.

Herman of Zettritz shook breadcrumbs from his belly and the family arms—a red and silver aurochs’ head—and looked down at the priest standing before him in the humble pose of a supplicant.

“Right then, laddie,” he said. “What was your name again, priest? I’ve forgotten.”

“Father Apfelbaum,” said the priest, raising eyes the colour of iron, Zettritz noted.

“So he is.” He stuck out his jaw. “So he is, laddie. The Tybald Raabe you ask about is in my dungeon. I locked the rat up, for he’s a heretic.”

“Is that so?”

“He sang rude songs about priests and made fun of our Holy Father, the Pope. He was showing around this amusing picture, here, with Pope Martin V in a pigsty tending swine. The Pope is the one wearing the tiara, third from the left. Haa-haa-haa!”

Zettritz was weeping with laughter and his burgmen joined in. One of the hounds barked and was kicked. The grey-eyed visitor smiled affectedly.