I am now about 100 pages in, and it is starting to pick up a little!

Right now, there are six people sheltering from a sudden storm in the Cursed Tower (where any cross brought across the threshhold bursts spontaneously into flame):

Our Hero Ordener, the heir to a Count, who is in disguise as a common soldier afaict just because he enjoys suddenly revealing that he isn't one at dramatic moments;

Benignus Spiagudry, the local coroner/mad scientist, who is in disguise as Anyone Who Is Not Spiagudry because he was forced to desecrate a corpse is his care and is therefore a wanted man;

Hans of Iceland, the outlaw, who is in disguise as a monk, and is the one who forced him to desecrate said corpse because he wanted the skull to drink the blood of his enemies out of;

Orugix, the official Trondheim executioner and his wife, who are not in disguise, but are *totally* rocking the "we are executioners who live in a cursed tower so we might as well go all out and be GOTH AS HELL" life;

And a Lutheran pastor who as is as far as I know not in disguise (? seems unlikely)

Ordener is there because he has bribed Spiagudry to take him to the hideouts of Hans because Hans has stolen some papers that will prove the innocence of the falsely persecuted father of Ordener's paramour Ethel, who is also being courted by the brother of Ordener's fiancee who is part of a plot to destroy Ethel's father using a proletarian revolt led by a patsy who is in disguise as Hans, except said fiancee's brother is actually secretly the illegitimate son of the executioner's brother (and, worst of all, enjoys reading French adventure novels!!!)

Still not sure what the pastor is doing there.

MEANWHILE, an "Anonymous Personage" has driven up to the nearby town in a gilded, but unmarked, carriage.