We were on the road for two weeks. Travelling all day and resting only in the darkest hours of the night, we made good time lest some other witch hunter or lynch mob deliver justice on our target before our arrival.

On the road, I began to meet the warband. I soon came to know Thies Faust, the green-eyed man with the cane. ‘Boy,’ he called to me from his horse, and I looked at him. ‘Do you know any medicine?’

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said.

‘Keep your eyes open when we arrive in Bohemia,’ he said. ‘You have a lot to learn from us.’

I was bored by the long hours on horseback, and my arse hurt, so I asked him ‘like what?’

‘I’m a chirurgeon,’ he said, wiping a loose strand of black hair away from his eyes. The constant jolting of his horse caused it to fall back into place instantly. ‘Which means I know medicine.’

‘But what medicine?’ I pressed him. I heard Gunnar laugh behind me.

‘Do you eat honey?’ he asked me, and I nodded, though it had been a rare indulgence back in Bielefeld. He continued, ‘I can use honey to heal the sick and the wounded.’

‘Honey?!’ I exclaimed. Truly the world of the witch hunter was fascinating and magical. During the long journey I thought of my father several times, though I restrained further tears, but it was the intriguing conversation with the witch hunters that kept me sane.

‘Yes, honey,’ he repeated. ‘Maybe you’ll like healing. It feels very good to save a life.’

Gunnar scoffed at that, and interrupted. ‘The boy has the heart of a warrior. Did you see him run at Godke armed with naught but his fists? He’ll prefer taking life to saving it.’

I frowned, remembering how sad I’d been at my father’s death. I didn’t want to inflict that pain on others. ‘I don’t want to kill,’ I said.

Thies rode closer to myself and Godke, ‘don’t worry Karl. We’re not murderers,’ he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d seen them kill, but it had been in the heat of battle. ‘We only kill witches, and only once they’ve confessed. If people try to save the witches then we defend ourselves, as we did in Bielefeld, but we don’t kill people unless we have to.’

Gunnar scoffed again but Thies shot him a glance that could have felled a bull and the massive Swede quickly shut his mouth. I thought about what Thies had said, and I guessed that killing to protect yourself was okay. That’s what my father had been doing, trying to kill Godke to protect himself and his sister.

On the trip, I also came to know Hurland, the oldest member of the warband. Though the travelling mostly took place in silence, I was captivated by the stories that Hurland would tell whenever our spirits began to fall. Though I’m sure that the other members of the warband had already heard the tales a number of times before, I do not believe that Hurland told them solely for my benefit. I think he just enjoyed telling stories. Most of his tales were biblical, and many of them involved great heroes and a lot of violence, which appealed to me. Some stories he related from personal experience.

‘There was an Elector I once served,’ he began. ‘Who was Lutheran, which was also the faith of his wife. The faith of your town.’

‘I’m Catholic,’ I said, and Hurland raised both eyebrows in surprise.

‘Indeed. Well, the Elector’s people were split between his faith and that of the Calvinists. After some years the Elector eventually converted to Calvinism, much to the chagrin of his wife. He attempted to convert his people to Calvinism, but his wife led a rebellion and he eventually backed down and allowed people to worship according to their consciences.’

‘Did he divorce his wife for leading the rebellion?’ I asked.

‘His wife, the Duchess, was an exceptionally intelligent woman, but she could be very temperamental. She was very angry at the Elector for trying to impose his religion on his subjects, even though that was his legal right, and she threw plates and glasses at him. Despite all that, she was the mother of eight children to the Elector. They’re still married to this day.’

I frowned at that, ‘who was the Elector in your story? The one you said you served?’

Hurland smiled at my question. ‘It would be unbecoming to name the characters in my story. Perhaps I invented them,’ he said, though I did not think that to be the case – even if only because I wanted his stories to be true, like the ones from the Bible.

Eventually our horses’ legs carried us all the way to Bohemia. It was not significantly different to Ravensberg: the grass was green and the trees were thick, yet the people spoke a strange tongue. They were also acting strangely, agitatedly, and Godke didn’t like the look of them.

‘They seem perturbed,’ he said. ‘Be on your guard.’

Men were speaking little, issuing furtive uncomfortable glances at all those who passed near them. They held their purses close and gave us a wide berth. That was not altogether surprising considering what I already knew from Hurland’s teachings: Pilsen was a Catholic-controlled city in a Protestant country. What I did not know at the time was that Bohemia was in the middle of a massive civil war in which the Protestants had finally decided to take control of the nation. The city was sizeable, or at least it was bigger than Bielefeld, but many of the storefronts were closed and some of the houses had wooden planks nailed over their windows. The town guard seemed to outnumber the civilians on the streets.

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‘Let’s do this and get out as quickly as we can,’ Godke added, and Hurland nodded. He was afraid that the Bohemian Revolt would not remain a local affair for long.

Our warband entered Pilsen early in the afternoon, and we dismounted and stabled our horses. The warband donned their weapons and armour, and despite my enthusiastic lobbying, Godke refused to give me a sword. I noticed that Jacob also carried no arms of any kind and wore no armour other than the robes across his body.

Godke and Hurland went to seek out the town’s aristocracy and when they returned, Godke explained the situation to us.

‘The accused poisoned the main city well. He was an alchemist,’ Godke explained, and the warband nodded as if that was all the evidence they needed. ‘He has no family except a younger brother,’ he added, and I did not know why that was relevant. But that was why I was an acolyte: to learn.

To that end, after the brief conversation had ended I asked Godke about it.

‘We don’t just deal in guilt and innocence, Karl. We also deal in execution, and if we execute a witch we are entitled to their wealth. But some people don’t recognise that right, though it is law in most civilised places. That’s what happened in Bielefeld; the witch’s son attempted to protect his inheritance.’

I nodded, it made sense. Though I was too young to resolve my own cognitive dissonance regarding this issue, I could imagine how angry people would get if they lost family and then the executioner came after their possessions.

‘So what do we do now?’

‘The accused is in the witch house. We have to extract a confession before we can legally execute him,’ Godke said, and he was already motioning for Thies and Gunnar to follow him.

‘Why do we need Thies?’ I asked. ‘Is the witch sick?’ During the fortnight on the road, I’d learnt that Thies was a chirurgeon, a healer. But even if the witch was ill, it didn’t make much sense to me. Why heal a man on the path of execution?

Godke laughed. ‘No, Karl. But sometimes the knowledge of a chirurgeon can be useful when a witch doesn’t want to confess.’

I nodded, and Godke led the four of us to a small wooden building about the size of my house back in Bielefeld, but less well kept. In reality, it was little more than a shack. A single guard armed with a polearm stood watch outside the door, but he opened it for Godke. He, Thies and I entered the unlit building, while Gunnar stood watch outside.

The building comprised only a single chamber, but it was both tall and wide. Dozens of Bible verses were nailed to the walls, and a pair of chain-linked manacles were nailed to the back wall. A man was slumped against the wall, his narrow wrists bound by the manacles, and as we approached he raised his head to assess us. I’d heard that most witches were women, but I figured that anyone could take a pact with the Devil. He had thin, dark hair and patches of dirt caked against his skin in various locations. He showed no emotion at our approach.

‘I am Godke,’ my master said to the captive. When he received no response, Godke continued. ‘You are accused of being a witch. Will you confess to this?’

The man locked eyes with Godke and for a moment I thought he was going to spit at him, but then he simply shook his head. ‘Ne,’ the man said. It quickly became apparent that the man spoke no German and had only known to deny the charge of witchcraft from Godke’s questioning tone.

‘Should I get a translator?’ I offered, but Godke shook his head and Thies put a finger over his lips to signal me to silence.

Godke then began speaking in the Bohemian language and my ability to follow the conversation was lost. The only thing I could pick up was that the witch’s name was Bohdan Lanik, and of course that he would not confess.

Eventually Godke turned to face me. ‘He recited the Lord’s Prayer word for word. Time for you to earn your keep. Karl, go get a razor from the carriage.’

I nodded, and with all the energy of a child I ran back to the stables where our carriage was resting. I foraged through it until I found the simple piece of dated metal. It had a concave shape, and the long side was sharpened gratuitously.

Pocketing the blade I went to leave the stable. I had walked only a few feet when I noticed that I was not alone. Another child, with a few years and inches of height on me, had entered the stable. He had wispy blond hair and a gleam of anger in his eyes. And he was looking straight at me.

‘Hello,’ I said uncertainly. There was something strange about the child.

There was silence. Eventually, the child spoke, but they were words I could not understand, presumably because they were in Bohemian.

‘I don’t speak Bohemian,’ I said, but in response the child drew a knife and all need to use words to communicate vanished instantly.

‘What do you want?’ I asked uselessly as my assailant slowly approached me. My hand slipped into my pocket and clasped the razor. I’d never had to defend myself before, but I was eager for the chance to prove myself like the heroes in Hurland’s stories. I was scared, but I thought of Gunnar and Godke and how they wouldn’t be afraid to face such a challenge. I tried to invigorate myself for the coming confrontation, but I succeeded only in wishing that I had not returned to the carriage alone.

Suddenly, the child ran at me and it was only my youthful reflexes that allowed me to step to one side and avoid the frustrated swing of his knife. Now he was behind me, but instead of turning to face him I ran into the now open street. I’m not ashamed that I chose to run rather than fight, as I was but a boy. I had not the courage nor the honour of a man yet, and the absence of these otherwise desirable traits probably saved me from a solid beating that day.

I didn’t expect my attacker to follow me through the streets, but he hid his knife and pursued me. I thought about hiding, but I was fast and he did not gain any ground on me until I stopped at the witch house.

Gunnar laughed when he saw me panting. ‘You could have paced yourself,’ he suggested, but the reason for my haste became apparent as my pursuer emerged from the crowd, the knife back in his hands.

He charged me, but Gunnar needed only one arm to halt him dead in his tracks. The other arm deftly plucked the blade from my attacker’s hand and threw it aside.

‘What do we have here?’ the massive Swede asked.