The kitten rubbed itself against Peter’s leg, and the vagrant nearly jumped up. He thought someone was already beating him. It’s the worst thing – at the legs with boots. With a wooden sole, too! After that the road is like hell.

“Sit, noodle. With his songs... What sort of songs?”

“There are merry ones. Bawdy ones, if you need. For ferrymen.” Under his eyelashes there reigned plausible darkness. There swarmed unrealisable hopes, promising to become realised. “Rafters like bawdiness. Dances: ovenzek, kozeryika... Then there are noble ones: about knights, about vows. I can sing a ballade about the battle of Osobloga. I’ve composed it myself...”

He wanted very much to make an impression on them. After all, today was the sixth anniversary of the battle.

“Composed, he did,” the taverner laughed, and there echoed a deep snicker from the side. The officer, apparently. “He posed, posed and composed. Magpies chirred for him, odd-even...”

Peter felt insulted. He opened his left eye: “That’s for somebody else – magpies. And I’ve seen everything. I was in the Home Guard, on the slope. I had a spear – a big one. With jags. They had given spears to all of us.”

“Don’t,” said the officer suddenly. “Jas, not about Osobloga. Leave the guy alone. I’ll pay for him.”

“He’ll pay,” the taverner’s bass crackled with a strange, a bit impudent smirk. “He’ll pay me, odd-even... Make me happy for the rest of my life. Walking along the Rahovez quay with a cane I’ll be: tap-tap, tap-tap...”

Peter Sliadek wondered silently at Jas Misiur’s courage. A plain taverner – yet he isn’t afraid to talk this way to a frontier guard... It looked as if he wouldn’t be beaten up. To ask for some porridge? Maybe he’ll show a bit of generousity... Cooked buckwheat, with lard...

However, instead of buckwheat Peter decided to get insulted for good and all.

“It’s a good ballade. Very good. I’ve done my best. When I sing it, everyone asks to repeat. And clap their hands. Here, this is about the Stooped Knight, how he was fighting over Siegfried of Maintz...”

Tapping with his heels and diligently thumping the rhythm on the table edge, Peter began in full voice:

The officer’s laughter was an answer to him. The lady echoed sonorously, clapping her hands clothed in travel gloves. The taverner Jas was droning like a bell. Even the lanky mage deigned to smile with the corner of his mouth. The kitten, scared, leaped away to the stairs, bent its back and hissed.

“Hey, wife! Porridge for the singer! With goose cracklings! Why, you did amuse us, odd-even...”

“Have you really been at Osobloga?” asked the officer suddenly, getting up. In his bird-like, piercing eyes there was a question much more serious than it could seem at first glance. Only that Peter couldn’t understand why the officer gave such importance to this. “Don’t you be afraid, answer honestly. If you lie, I won’t punish you. Have you?!”

“I have...”

“With a spear on a slope?”

“With a spear.”

“Whose standard was there to the left of you?”

“The prince’s. Of Razimir of Opolie.”

“Why, you don’t lie... And what where the thoughts?”

“Whose? The prince’s?!”

“Yours.”

“When?”

“Then. On the slope.”

Peter felt irresistible need to answer the truth. This happened to him rarely and almost always ended with beating. “I felt pity. That I’m on the slope, and they are on the other shore. The Stooped Knight, and Jendrich Dry Storm, and everyone. Were I in their place... I couldn’t see well. But I was looking... I’ve been there, honestly. We were driven through the ford afterwards.”

“Killed?”

“Yes,” Peter Sliadek frowned gloomily. “My spear... In his belly, running; and he made “hah” and died. The rest I don’t remember.”

“Tell the boy, Jas,” nodded the officer, staring straight at the taverner. “I see your tongue’s dancing in your mouth. You want to, so tell him. We’ll wait upstairs. When Seingalt arrives, let somebody announce us.”

The stairs creaked under his feet.

The taverner was looking at the floor for a long time. Then he raised his eyes at the tall mage. The mage nodded subtly. Peter was nervous: he didn’t understand what was happening, and odd things always threatened to turn to bad ones. To snatch his lute and escape?

Were it not for the promised porridge that had appeared in front of him, Peter would have escaped.

But the porridge... with goose cracklings!..

“Eat, noodle. Look at him – trod on the enemy’s shade, odd-even... You saw yourself – the tavern’s empty. Today it will be empty, and tomorrow too. People know when father Misiur doesn’t want to see nobody. And then you turn up. I looked at you: skinny, ribs stick out, only the eyes burn. I think – all right, I’ll feed him. It’ll go on my account in heaven. Like this chicken you were,” the taverner nodded at the mage, and Peter wondered once more at Jas’ odd courage. And also at the strange comparison.

Nothing in common!

“Only that you disturbed me, lad. Troubled my soul. Well, listen. If there’s not enough porridge, I’ll tell to bring some more...” 

The smoke over the Pshesek’s outskirts was well seen. The tavern stood on a hill, above the crossing of the Kichora and Wrozlav roads – a busy place, and the village where Jas Misiur used to buy provision could be seen distinctly. There, shots of flame. They are burning down Pshesek, sons of bitches. Thanks to the Blessed Virgin, they are doing it reluctantly, lazily. Were it not for a skirmish at Toad Hill, they would give up on it. But now... The taverner was looking from behind his hand, racking his brains in guesses: who had risked grappling with the fighters of the Maintz margrave? Somebody from Opolie’s frontier guard that had been beaten at the border? Not likely. The frontier lads took to their heels, they’ll run away till Osobloga. But now the Maintz men, angry like a devil on Christmas, will vent their fury on this village. It will be good if they do without slaughter – rape a dozen of women, beat up some husbands, rob some cellars...

“What’s on, Jas?”

“A holiday, wife. A holiday it is. Soon we’ll be dancing kozeryika.”

His wife began crying, sweeping her tears with the apron. Never mind, let her. Better now than later on. By midday they’ll get to the tavern, the villains. Then they need to be received, pleased, doused with beer. Maybe they won’t burn it down. But first – to take Lukerda to the hideout: they’ll spoil the girl, these devil’s spawns, and who’ll need her, spoiled? And, save God, carrying a bastard, too...

Honour can’t be cleaned by a dowry.

“Jas, they’re riding!”

The taverner peered, blinking. Riding they are. The horses worn out, barely moving. Five riders on three horses. Who the hell they are? Not alike Maintz men, those have well-fed horses, and riders too...

“Jas, ‘tis Jendrich!”

What a sand-blind. Only now did Jas Misiur recognize the man sitting sideways on a chestnut mare to be Jendrich, nicknamed Dry Storm, the chieftain of a gang renown throughout Opolie. So this is the one who attacked the Maintz men! Probably he’d thought to intercept a train but ran into something else. Handsome Jendrich, known for his proud seat, now looked like a wet chicken. Had it not been for the second rider who’d helped him, he would’ve fallen from his horse. With his moustache into the dust. And his face all bloody.