refuge of the Protector of the Hands, the priest For. Are you with them, too?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I set off at full tilt for the sanctuary. I don’t like it when people come looking for my old teacher in the middle of the night.
All the grounds of the cathedral were brightly illuminated with oil lamps. The warm July night was quiet and serene. There was only a solitary cricket chirping merrily under a bush, playing his little concert for all those who refused to sleep. Even as I ran, I knew that I could be too late. Whoever it was that had been looking for For, they had already done what they wanted to do. But I was propelled by the insane hope that everything might turn out all right, even though I realized that was simply impossible.
The statue of the knight locked in eternal combat with the ogre flashed by like a ghost; the statues of the gods flitted past in a blur of faces and figures. The path curved to the left, but I ran straight on across a flowerbed, crushing the sleepy, pale blue flowers with the mournfully drooping petals.
Forward, forward!
The gloom of the archway sucked me in and instantly spat me out at the other end. I went flying into the dwelling of Sagot, on the way snatching the crossbow out from behind my back. The accursed sweat was flooding into my eyes so that I couldn’t see properly or—even worse—aim properly. The door into For’s chambers . . .
I was too late. The door wasn’t there anymore. It had been chopped into several pieces and was no more than a heap of rough boards lying on the floor. I burst straight into the room—a stupid thing to do, I won’t argue, but just at that moment I wasn’t in any state to think straight.
I was greeted with weapons. About a dozen naked swords and a couple of lances very nearly made holes in Harold from every direction. The only thing that saved me was the sudden way I came to a halt. And, of course, that thunderous howl from For:
“Nobody move! He’s one of ours!”
Everybody there froze on the spot, and only then was I able to see that the men threatening me were the good priests of Sagot. Their expressions were determined and not exactly friendly, but I had to assume they had serious reasons for that in the form of the five dead bodies lying on the floor. The dead men’s clothes were anything but priestlike. Only those who considered themselves members of the Guild of Assassins dressed like that.
“For, are you all right?” I asked, trying to make out my teacher behind the wall of priests.
“What could possibly happen to me?” my teacher boomed, pushing his way through his volunteer bodyguards.
And indeed, if you discounted the bruise on his face, very much like the one on my own, only brighter and fresher, and his torn priestly robe (the ceremonial one, I think), For was certainly alive and perfectly well.
“Brother Oligo, remove these . . .”
“Of course, Master For,” a bearded priest said with a nod. “There are still plenty of places left under the apple trees . . .”
It was interesting to wonder just how many dead men who had threatened the health of the glorious brothers were buried in that garden under the old apple trees. Quite a lot, I imagined.
“I suppose you won’t be informing the guards?” I asked, just to be on the safe side.
One of the brothers, who was wiping the blood off the floor, gave a loud guffaw, a simple sound that perfectly expressed his attitude to that error of the gods that bore the title of the municipal guard.
“I need to have a talk with you,” said For. He seemed a bit depressed.
“What happened here?”
“Nothing too serious. I come back here from the Chapel of the Hands, ready to eat a hearty supper and at the same time ask you about what’s going on in this vain world of ours, and suddenly . . . Well, I see that the door into my chambers has been chopped into pieces in a most brazen fashion and the dead men you’ve already seen are walking around in my rooms. I might have forgiven the poor sinners for just walking around! But they were also rummaging through the drawers of my desk and sticking their noses where they had no right to look. Well, I got really angry