Instead of returning to the witch house, I entered the tavern after checking that Godke was absent. I donned my leather armour and weapons and carefully crossed Magdeburg until I came to the Witch House.

‘Are you ready?’ I asked her upon opening the door.

‘Are you?’ she replied.

I had manacled her wrists when I had left earlier that evening, but now I released her from her bindings and took her hand in mine. There was a guard outside the building but he was not positioned directly next to the door and he could not see inside the building. After I decided that I was in fact ready – not a decision that was made easily – we exited the witch house.

The guard was almost as young as I had been when I’d first started witch hunting, and I rendered him unconscious with a simple surprise blow to the back of the head. I carried his body inside the witch house under the cover of darkness. He had been armed with a pike which I lifted from his body and offered to Elisabeth, but she shook her head.

‘You will protect me,’ she said.

I hid the pike in the witch house and led Elisabeth to the stable. I was careful to keep away from any townsfolk who were wandering the streets of Magdeburg and could recognise Elisabeth. Thankfully, we were not discovered and I put Elisabeth into Godke’s horse’s saddle. I mounted my own horse, and threw a few coins to the stablemaster before we rode away from the stable. There was no time to leave a note for Godke as I would have had to write it at the tavern and there was a good chance that we’d be recognised there.

We broke into a canter as we approached the northern Magdeburg city gate. Unfortunately, my plan began to come apart almost as soon as it had begun.

For there, at the road leading out of the city, stood Godke.

He’d had been one step ahead of me the whole time, it seemed. Though I was not so sure: he began to draw his pistol, but the fact that he had not held it ready indicated that he was as surprised by my appearance as I was by his.

Not only that, but if he had suspected my dishonesty he would probably have tried to stop me at the witch house, rather than at the road to the north of Magdeburg. In fact, the reason why I had chosen the road to the north was because we had come to Magdeburg in the opposite direction and I didn’t want Godke to follow us. To this day I do not know what Godke was doing on that road. Perhaps we were just unlucky.

I was forced to make a quick decision, but so reluctant was I to fight Godke that I did not even draw my pistol.

‘Turn around!’ I shouted to Elisabeth and she complied. She was evidently an experienced rider and we both about faced on our separate horses and fled from Godke.

At first Godke did not call to me as I fled and in a way that was worse than when I had run from Jaromil in Leer. Godke was likely saddened and angered by my betrayal, and I wondered if the reason he did not fire his weapon was because he was conflicted. I’m sure he would have said that it takes time to load a wheellock weapon, but he was well-practised with his pistol and some doubt lingered in my mind.

Godke and I both knew that our partnership had come to an end and, more importantly, that my blood-oath to kill him had come into play. He had killed my father and now, eight years later, I would have my revenge if we ever met again. A part of me hoped we wouldn’t.

‘I’ll kill you Karl! You have signed your own death warrant!’ he eventually shouted at me. I knew he’d rush to pursue us as quickly as he could so we took the southern exit from the city. ‘I taught you everything you know – you will not be able to defeat me!’

At first we cantered down the road which led back to Dessau, but I was concerned that Godke would catch up to us despite the time it would take for him to find a horse and question the town guard as to our point of departure, so after we passed a small town called Schonebeck we made our own path through the underbrush to the side of the road. I could see Dessau in the distance through the trees.

We eventually came upon its outlying districts and skirted them, entering through a different gate than the one nearest our point of arrival. I found us a quiet, unbecoming inn in what appeared to be the shady end of town to sleep in. There were few people awake in Dessau as it had been hours since the sun had set so I was made to pay extra for the accommodation. I didn’t have much money left, but Elisabeth searched her steed and found some silver coins that Godke had apparently set aside in the saddlebags. I paid twice the going rate for our beds and for our horse’s stablings but I was able to get the innkeeper and the stablemaster to swear to secrecy. Unfortunately a late dinner cost us the last of our coin, and I was forced to consider resorting to petty theft in order to finance our escape. I decided to conserve my strength during the night and resolve that issue the next day.

I slept fleetingly as I was unable to suppress what felt like an urgent need to remain alert. When dawn came, we left the town before there was time for Godke to search it in daylight, skipping breakfast to retrieve our steeds and set out for Leipzig. Neither of us specifically chose Leipzig, but from what I knew it was a sizeable city within a day’s ride from Dessau and I wanted to disappear as quickly as possible so it seemed like a good destination. It was dusk and the markets were beginning to quieten when we arrived, but I was impressed by the number of traders and stalls present there. Sadly, it brought to mind our dire financial situation and I once more considered our options.

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I refused to trade the lifestyle of a hunter of men for that of a hunter of coin and I made the decision not to become a thief, even though our situation was desperate. Instead, I convinced Elisabeth to sell Godke’s horse upon our arrival at Leipzig. I got a poor price for the beast but the silver kreuzers we received in exchange would cover the costs of our survival in the short term.

As we waited for sleep to take us, Elisabeth and I planned idly in our separate beds. I would have liked for us to have shared a bed, as I was wracked by crippling loneliness brought on by Fleur’s absence and the fact that I was, for the first time in my life, no longer part of a family unit, but I did not ask to cross the floor threshold that separated our billets. Perhaps I would have had more courage to do so if Elisabeth was not so pretty, though it may simply have been the danger of our situation that enabled me to resist temptation.

In either case, we discussed returning to Metz. I was again afraid that Godke would outpace us and Elisabeth feared that I would arrive to find Fleur in Godke’s keep and my house burned to the ground. I dismissed her concerns more readily than my own: despite his profession, Godke had a code of honour and he would not take his anger out on Fleur. She had travelled with us for years and it would not be honourable to bring a woman into our conflict. Elisabeth enjoyed no such protections due to her status as an escaped witch and the woman who had ostensibly driven me to an act of betrayal.

Yet Metz was still a risky proposition as Godke would expect to find us there if he could not subdue us in eastern Germany. Additionally, it would take weeks to reach France from Leipzig, as we would be forced to travel slowly due to the fact that we had only one horse between us. We had only the money remaining from the sale of Godke’s horse, which would be hard-pressed to cover our food and accommodation for that length of time. The prospect of thievery again crossed my mind, but I was loathe to consider it unless I had no other choice.

Eventually the night came and I was taken by an untimely deep sleep, probably because I’d slept so poorly the previous night. Unfortunately, I had failed to pay the innkeeper to keep quiet and I was awoken at the middle of the night by the slamming of the door and Elisabeth’s reactive scream as Godke burst into the room.

Thankfully I had possessed the good sense to sleep with my weapons beside the bed though Godke, his face full of unencumbered rage and a vein in his temple pulsing with ferocity, did not attempt to prevent me from recovering my sword. I stumbled into my boots and stood to face him, brandishing Joyeuse before me.

Karl, honourable men do not kill other honourable men by stabbing them in the back, he had said to me all those years ago in Pilsen and that day he lived by it. The only light came from the moon emanating through the open second storey window and the room was cramped, but not all fights can take place on high mountaintops or on the banks of fast-flowing rivers. Some fights aren’t sung about or remembered, and this was one of them.

I raised Joyeuse in a preparatory stance and Godke raised his own blade similarly. ‘Get out,’ I told Elisabeth, and she was in no mood to argue. She went to pass Godke and leave through the doorway but he moved to stand in her path. I swung my sword at his opposite shoulder to prevent such a manoeuvre and the duel began in earnest as he parried my strike. My distraction worked and Elisabeth slipped out with our remaining silver kreuzers. I hoped she would wait for me, but it was unlikely. If I died, Godke would pursue her and drag her back to Magdeburg in pursuit of Christian Wilhelm’s payment.

Godke swung at me deftly. Not all of his strikes had the full force of his body behind them yet I was unable to determine which were feints and which were true attempts at wounding me so I was forced to parry all of them. It was exhausting and he pushed me away from the door until I had my back against the window. My leather jerkin and pistol lay on the floor at the head of the bed near where I was standing.

‘You betrayed me, Karl,’ Godke said, and as with Jaromil I considered trying to gain the upper hand by distracting him with words.

‘You betrayed your humanity,’ I said.

‘Your failure to kill Jaromil got Thies and Gunnar killed,’ he replied, his lips spitting poison, ‘and your failure to kill me now will get Elisabeth killed.’

I roared and foolishly lashed out in anger at the truthful attacks. I allowed myself to be played. In retrospect, I should never have tried to best Godke in a non-combat arena such as repartee, he was much more experienced than me and the only advantage I had was my youthful age and vitality. He easily blocked my poorly struck thrusts and threw an attack of his own at my feet which I was too slow to block. Thankfully in the darkness his sword clipped the metal toe of my boot and deflected the blade so that it struck my ankle with its flat side. It hurt and I was sent tumbling to the ground but it did not breach the skin. Yet I was now on the floor and Godke looked down upon me in simultaneous anguish and disappointment.

‘I’m sorry, Karl,’ he said in a vastly different tone to his earlier taunts. However I was not yet bereft of life, and as he went to strike me with his sword I kicked him in the knee with the heel of my right foot and though he was able to say on his feet, I sent him stumbling back to the other side of the room in an involuntary hobble. I wasted no time jumping to my own feet and gathering my pistol and armour before looking out the window.

It was only a second storey room but still the height was daunting. Elisabeth was nowhere in sight. A few lanterns had turned on in response to the ruckus and I turned to face Godke. He had recovered from the momentary setback and was charging at me. That was a more daunting prospect than the room’s height so I wasted no further time and leapt from the window, trying to gain enough distance to clear the inn’s signpost below.

I landed with a practised roll and immediately decided to head for the stable. Tencendur was billeted there and it was possible that Elisabeth was also nearby. Godke lacked the courage to leave the building through the window as I had and was likely busily descending the inn’s stairs as I ran through the dark city streets. I knew that as I had fled the duel Godke had every right to shoot me, so I ran as quickly as I could.

I was only one block from the inn when Elisabeth appeared atop Tencendur. ‘Quick, get on!’ she said and I needed no further urging. I leapt atop the horse and let Elisabeth keep the reins for the time being and she took us out of Leipzig. The city faded behind us as she kept Tencendur at a gallop until we were certain that we were away.