“But for Prokop…” he said softly. “But for the fact that Prokop has forbidden me from laying a finger on you, you and that Scharley of yours, I’d have got what I wanted out of you already. With me, everybody finally talks; not one person has ever stayed silent. You, too, be certain, would tell me where the cash is.”
Reynevan was more experienced now and wasn’t to be frightened. He shrugged.
“Yeees,” Flutek continued after another break, looking at the rope hanging from the ceiling. “And this one would also have talked. I’d have wrung a testimony out of him, too. It’s a real pity he managed to hang himself. Know what? For a moment, I really thought he might have been in that grange… You really disappointed me by not recognising him…”
“I constantly disappoint you. It sorrows me greatly.”
The imps jumped slightly.
“Really?”
“Really. You suspect me, order me tailed, lie in wait for me, provoke me. You question my motives and constantly forget about the single, most important one: the Czech who was plotting in the grange betrayed my brother, turned him over to die at the hands of the Bishop of Wrocław’s executioners and even bragged about it to the bishop. So, had it been him hanging from that beam, I wouldn’t have skimped a farthing on a thanksgiving Mass. Believe me, I also regret it’s not him. Nor any of the others whom you’ve shown me at other times or asked me to identify.”
“True,” admitted Flutek, in a—probably feigned—reverie. “I once had my money on Diviš Bořek of Miletínek. My other tip was Hynek of Kolštejn… But neither of them—”
“Are you asking or stating? Because I’ve told you a hundred times it wasn’t either of them.”
“Yes, after all, you had a good look at both of them… When I took you along with me—”
“At the Battle of Ústí? I remember.”
The entire gentle slope was covered with bodies, but the most macabre site was by the River Zdižnice which ran along the bottom of the valley. There, partly stuck in the bloody mud, towered a mountain of bodies, human corpses mingled with those of horses. It was obvious what had happened. The boggy banks had prevented the men from Saxony and Meissen from fleeing, prevented them long enough for them to be caught first by the Taborite cavalry, and a moment later by the howling horde of infantry rushing after them. The mounted Czechs, Poles and Moravians didn’t waste much time and hacked to death anyone in their way, then swiftly set off in pursuit of the knighthood fleeing towards the town of Ústí. Meanwhile, the Hussite infantry—Taborites and Orphans—remained longer by the river. They slaughtered every last German. Systematically, keeping order, they surrounded and crowded them together, then flails, morning stars, clubs, halberds, gisarmes, voulges, bardiches, spears and pitchforks went into action. They gave no quarter. These Warriors of God, covered from head to foot in blood, shouting and singing as they returned from the battle, were leading no captives.
On the other bank of the Zdižnice, in the region of the Ústí road, the cavalry and infantry still had their hands full. The clanging of iron, roaring and yelling could be heard among clouds of dust as black smoke floated over the ground. Předlice and Hrbovice, hamlets on the far bank, were in flames, and judging from the sounds, a massacre was taking place there, too.
Horses snorted, twisted their heads, flattened their ears, shifted uneasily and stamped. The heat was unbearable.
Riders thundered towards them, raising dust, among them Rohač of Dube, Wyszek Raczyński and Jan Bleh of Těšnice and Puchała.
“It’s almost over.” Rohač hawked, spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “There were some thirteen thousand of them. According to initial estimates, we’ve dealt with about three and a half thousand so far, but the work’s not over yet. The Saxons’ horses are weary, so they won’t get away—we’ll add some more to the reckoning. I’d say we’ll be putting up to four thousand to the sword.”
“It may not be Grunwald,” said Dobko Puchała with an unpleasant grin. The Wieniawa crest on his shield was almost indiscernible under a layer of bloody mud. “It may not be Grunwald, but it’s still beautiful. What, Your Grace?”
“M’Lord Prokop.” Sigismund Korybut appeared not to have heard him. “Isn’t it time to remember Christian mercy?”
Prokop the Shaven didn’t answer. He rode downhill, to the Zdižnice. Among the bodies.
“Mercy’s one thing,” said Jakubek of Vřesovic, Hejtman of Bilina, angrily, riding a little to the rear, “but money’s another! Why, it’s simply a waste! Look at that one without a head—the crossed gold pitchforks on his shield mean he’s a Kalkreuth. A ransom of at least six thousand pre-revolutionary groschen. That one with his guts hanging out, with a pruning knife in a field divided diagonally on his shield, is a Dietrichstein. An eminent family, at least eighteen thousand…”
Right by the river, the Orphans stripping the corpses pulled a still-living youngster in armour and a tunic with a coat of arms from under a pile of bodies. The youngster dropped to his knees, put his hands together and begged. Then began to scream, was hit with a battleaxe and stopped.
“Sable, a fess bretessé argent,” Jakubek of Vřesovic observed unemotionally, an expert in heraldry and economics both, apparently. “So he’s a Nesselrode. Of the Nesselrode counts. About thirty thousand for the whippersnapper. We’re wasting money here, Brother Prokop.”
Prokop the Shaven turned his peasant’s face towards him.
“God is our judge,” he said hoarsely. “The men lying here didn’t have His seal on their brows. Their names weren’t in the Book of the Living.”
After a pregnant silence, he added, “In any case, no one asked them to come here.”
“Neplach?”
“What?”
“You keep ordering me to spy, yet your thugs are still following me. Will you continue to have me spied on?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I can’t see the point—”
“Reynevan. Do I teach you how to apply leeches?”
They said nothing for a while. Flutek kept looking back at the severed rope hanging from the beam.
“Rats leaving a sinking ship,” he said pensively. “Not only in Silesia do rats conspire in granges and castles, look for foreign protection and kiss the arses of bishops and herzogs. Because their ship is sinking, because they’re shitting themselves, because it’s the end of false hopes. Because we’re on the rise and they’re falling, all the way down to the shithouse! Korybut took a tumble, there was a pogrom and a massacre at Ústí, the Austrians were beaten hands down and slaughtered at Zwettl, Lusatia is aflame right back to Zgorzelec. Uherský Brod and Pressburg are terrified, Olomouc and Trnava tremble behind their walls. Prokop is victorious—”
“For the time being.”
“What do you mean?”
“At the Battle of Stříbro… Rumour has it—”
“I know what the rumours say.”
“A crusade is marching on us.”
“Nothing new.”