Help right from God
And Trust in Him
The singing rose about the wagenburg, growing louder, more powerful and triumphant. Dust settled behind the retreating cavalry.
Rohač of Dube, knowing it was the moment, turned towards the mounted Hussites waiting in formation and raised his mace. A moment later, Dobko Puchała gestured likewise towards the Polish cavalry. A sign from Jan Tovačovský set the mounted Moravians at battle readiness. Hynek of Kolštejn slammed his visor shut.
From the battlefield, the cries of the Saxon commanders ordering their knights to begin another charge could be heard. But the cavalry were falling back, turning their horses around.
“They’re running awaaay! The Germans are running awaaay!”
“After them!”
Prokop the Shaven breathed out and raised his head.
“Now…” he said, panting heavily. “Now their arses are ours.”
Reynevan abandoned the company of the Poles and Radim Tvrdík quite unexpectedly—he simply stood up abruptly, said goodbye and left. A short, meaningful glance at Tvrdík signalled his intentions. The sorcerer winked. And understood.
The stink of blood was all around again. Surely, thought Reynevan, it’s coming from the nearby shambles, from Kotce Street and the Meat Market. But perhaps it isn’t? Perhaps it’s different blood?
Perhaps it was the blood that foamed in these gutters here in September 1422, when Ironmongers Street and the streets around it were witness to fratricidal fighting, when the antagonism between the Old Town and the Tábor once again led to bloodshed. Much Czech blood had flowed in Ironmongers Street then. Enough for it to still stink.
And it was the stench of blood that sharpened his vigilance. He hadn’t seen his trackers, wasn’t noticing anything suspicious and none of the Czechs walking along the streets looked like a spy. Despite that, Reynevan permanently felt someone’s eyes on his back. The men trailing him, it appeared, weren’t yet bored with the boring routine. Very well, he thought, very well, you good-for-nothings, I’ll treat you to some more of this routine. Until you’re sick of it.
He went down Glovers Street, crammed with workshops and stalls. He stopped several times, feigning interest in the goods and looking around furtively. He didn’t see anyone following him, but he knew they were somewhere around.
Before reaching Saint Gall’s Church, he turned, entering a backstreet. He was heading towards the Karolinum, his alma mater. He enjoyed attending university debates and quodlibets as part of his routine. After having received Holy Communion under both kinds on Quasimodogeniti Sunday, the first after Easter in 1426, he had begun to regularly attend the lectorium ordinarium. Like a true neophyte, he wanted to learn the mysteries and complexities of his new religion as fully as possible, and he acquired them most easily during the dogmatic debates which were regularly organised by members of the moderate and conservative wings, grouped around Master Jan of Příbram, and members of the radical wing, drawn from men of the circle of Jan Rokycana and Peter Payne, an Englishman, Lollard and Wycliffite. But those disputes became truly impassioned when they were attended by genuine radicals, men from the New Town. Then things became thrilling indeed. Reynevan witnessed someone defending one of Payne’s Wycliffite dogmas being called a “fucking Englishman” and having beetroots thrown at him. The elderly Křišťan of Prachatice, the university’s distinguished rector, was threatened with being drowned in the Vltava. And a dead cat was flung at the venerable Petr of Mladoňovice. The audience gathered there often resorted to fisticuffs; teeth were knocked out and noses broken in the Meat Market near the Karolinum, too.
But some changes had occurred since those times. Jan of Příbram and his followers were revealed to have been involved in Korybut’s plot and punished by banishment from Prague. Since nature cannot bear a vacuum, the debates continued, but after Easter, Rokycana and Payne suddenly started to be considered moderates and conservatives. The men from the New Town—as previously—were considered radicals. Uncompromising radicals. There was still fighting during the debates; insults and cats were still tossed around.
“M’lord.”
He turned. The short individual standing behind him was all grey. He had a grey physiognomy, a grey jerkin, a grey hood and grey hose. The only vivid accent about his entire person was a brand-new truncheon turned from light-coloured wood.
Reynevan looked back, hearing a slight noise behind him. The other character blocking the exit to the alley also had a truncheon. He was only a little taller and only a little more colourful than his companion, but his face was much more repugnant.
“Let us go, m’lord,” said Grey, without raising his eyes.
“Where to? And what for?”
“Don’t offer any resistance, m’lord.”
“Who ordered this?”
“Lord Neplach. Let us go.”
They didn’t have far to go, as it happened, just to one of the buildings on the southern frontage of the Old Town Square. Reynevan couldn’t work out exactly which one; the spies led him in from the back, through gloomy arcades stinking of mouldy barley, through courtyards, hallways and staircases. The interior was quite sumptuous—like most houses in that quarter, it had been taken over when the wealthy Germans who had owned it fled from Prague after 1420.
Bohuchval Neplach, called Flutek, was waiting for him in the drawing room beneath a light-coloured, beamed ceiling. A rope was tied to one of the beams. A dead man was hanging from the rope. With the toes of his elegant slippers touching the floor. Well, almost. They were about two inches shy.
Without wasting time on greetings or other outdated bourgeois customs, barely glancing at Reynevan, Flutek pointed at the hanged man. Reynevan understood.
“No…” He swallowed. “That’s not him. I don’t think… No, no it isn’t.”
“Take a closer look.”
Reynevan took a closer look, good enough to be sure that the rope digging into the swollen neck, contorted face, bulging eyes and black lolling tongue would come back to haunt him during his next few meals.
“No. That’s not him… In any case, I can’t be sure… I saw him from the back…”
Flutek snapped his fingers. The servants present in the drawing room turned the hanged man so that his back was towards Reynevan.
“That man was sitting. Wearing a cloak.”
Flutek snapped his fingers. A moment later, the corpse, now cut down, was draped in a cloak and sitting in a curule chair—striking quite a macabre pose, bearing in mind the rigor mortis.
“No.” Reynevan shook his head. “Don’t think so. That man… Hmm… I’d definitely recognise him by his voice—”
“Regrettably, that’s not possible.” Flutek’s voice was as cold as the wind in February. “If he could speak, I wouldn’t be needing you at all. Go on, get that carcass out of here.”
The order was carried out at great speed. Flutek’s orders always were. Bohuchval Neplach was the head of the Tábor’s intelligence and counter-intelligence operations, reporting directly to Prokop the Shaven. And while Žižka was alive, directly to Žižka.
“Be seated, Reynevan.”