“I’m afraid I can’t—”
“Be seated, Reynevan.”
“Who was that—”
“The hanged man? It doesn’t matter in the slightest now.”
“Was he a traitor? A Catholic spy? He was, I gather, guilty?”
“Eh?”
“I asked if he was guilty.”
“In the eschatological sense?” Flutek shot him a nasty look. “The Final Judgement and all? If so, I can only refer to the Nicene Credo: Jesus, crucified by Pontius Pilate, died, but rose and will come in glory again to judge the quick and the dead. Everyone shall be judged for their thoughts and deeds. And then it shall be established once and for all who was guilty.”
Reynevan sighed and shook his head. He only had himself to blame. He knew Flutek. He shouldn’t have asked.
“Thus, it doesn’t matter who he was,” said Flutek, nodding towards the beam and the severed rope. “What matters is that he managed to hang himself while we were breaking the door down. That I didn’t manage to force him to speak. And that you didn’t identify him. You claim it wasn’t him—not the man you allegedly eavesdropped on when he was plotting with the Bishop of Wrocław in Silesia—is that true?”
“It is.”
Flutek cast him a hideous glance. Flutek’s eyes, as black as a marten’s and which pointed down his long nose like the openings of two gun barrels, were capable of looking extremely hideous. At times, two tiny golden devils would appear in Flutek’s eyes which suddenly turned somersaults in unison. Reynevan had seen them before. And they usually heralded something very unpleasant.
“But I think it isn’t,” said Flutek. “I think you’re lying. And have been from the start, Reynevan.”
No one knew how Flutek had ended up working for Žižka. Rumours had circulated, naturally. According to some people, Bohuchval Neplach—real name Yehoram ben Yitzchak—was a Jew, a pupil of a rabbinical school, whom, on a whim, the Hussites had spared during the massacre of the ghetto in Chomutov in March 1421. According to others, he wasn’t called Bohuchval but Gottlob and was a German, a merchant from Plzeň. Still others said he was a monk, a Dominican, whom Žižka—for unknown reasons—had personally rescued from the massacre of priests and monks in Beroun. Other people claimed that Flutek had been a parish priest in Čáslav, who joined the Hussites just in time and whose neophyte zeal had helped him ingratiate himself so effectively with Žižka that he landed himself a permanent post. Reynevan was in fact inclined to believe the last rumour. Flutek must have been a priest; his outrageous hypocrisy, duplicity, dreadful egoism and almost unimaginable greed spoke in favour of it.
It was indeed to his greed that Bohuchval Neplach owed his nickname. In 1419, Catholic noblemen captured Kutná Hora, the most important centre for extracting ore in Bohemia. Cut off from the mines and mints in Kutná Hora, Hussite Prague began striking its own coin, pennies with such low silver content that were practically worthless. Consequently, the Prague coins were scorned and contemptuously nicknamed “fluteks.” Thus, when Bohuchval Neplach began to serve as the head of Žižka’s intelligence, the nickname “Flutek” stuck to him in a flash, for it soon turned out that Bohuchval Neplach was prepared to do anything for even a single flutek—even stooping to pluck one from a pile of shit. Bohuchval Neplach never, ever passed up a chance to steal or embezzle one.
How Flutek managed to keep his position with Žižka, who harshly punished embezzlers in his New Tábor and fought thievery with an iron fist, was a mystery. And why Flutek was later tolerated by the no less principled Prokop the Shaven was also a mystery. Only one explanation was possible: Bohuchval Neplach was an expert at what he did for the Tábor. And experts can be forgiven a great deal. Should be forgiven. For experts are rare and hard to come by.
“If you want to know,” Flutek continued, “I have had extremely little confidence in your tale, as indeed I have had in you, from the very beginning. Clandestine meetings, secret counsels and international conspiracies are all very well in literature and suit someone like, let’s say, Wolfram of Eschenbach. It’s pleasant to read Wolfram’s stories of mysteries and conspiracies… about the mystery of the Holy Grail, Terre de Salvaesche and all sorts of Klinschors, Flagetanises, Feirefizes and Titurels. There was just a bit too much of that literature in your account. In other words, I suspect you were simply lying.”
Reynevan said nothing, just shrugged. Quite ostentatiously.
“There can be various reasons for your confabulations,” continued Flutek. “You fled Silesia, you claim, because you were persecuted, threatened with death. If it’s true, you didn’t have any other choice than to curry favour with Ambrož. And how more effectively than to warn him about an attempt on his life? Then you were brought before Prokop. Prokop usually suspects fugitives from Silesia of being spies, so he hangs the lot of them and per saldo comes out on top. So, how to save one’s skin? Why, for example, by making revelations about a secret counsel and a conspiracy. What do you say, Reynevan? How does it sound?”
“Wolfram of Eschenbach would envy you. And you’d be bound to win the tournament in Wartburg.”
“So you had enough reasons to confabulate,” continued Flutek imperturbably. “But I think there was really just one.”
“Of course,” said Reynevan, knowing full well what he was getting at. “Just one.”
The two golden imps appeared in Flutek’s eyes. “The most appealing hypothesis to me is that your chicanery is designed to distract attention from the matter of greatest import. Namely, the five hundred grzywna stolen from the tax collector. What say you, physician?”
“The same as usual.” Reynevan yawned. “We’ve been through all this. I’ll respond in an unoriginal, boring way to your unoriginal, boring question. No, Brother Neplach, I won’t share the money stolen from the tax collector for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t have the money, because I wasn’t the one who stole it. Secondly—”
“So who stole it?”
“To be boring: I have no idea.”
The two golden imps leaped up and turned a lissom somersault.
“You’re lying.”
“Naturally. May I go now?”
“I have proof that you’re lying.”
“Oho.”
“You claim,” said Flutek, his eyes drilling through Reynevan, “that your imagined moot occurred on the thirteenth of September and that Kaspar Schlick took part in it. But I know from first-rate sources that Kaspar Schlick was in Buda on the thirteenth of September 1425. Thus, he couldn’t have been in Silesia.”
“You have third-rate sources, Neplach. Wait a moment, it’s an entrapment. You’re trying to trick me, ensnare me, and not for the first time—am I right?”
“You are.” Flutek did not bat an eyelid. “Sit down, Reynevan. I haven’t finished with you yet.”
“I don’t have the money and I don’t know—”
“Be quiet.”
They said nothing for some time. The imps in Flutek’s eyes calmed down, almost vanished. But Reynevan wasn’t deceived. Flutek scratched his nose.