The Stradunia in spring indeed turned out to be quite a serious natural obstacle. Marshy meadows stood underwater and the current washed the trunks of the riverside willows, silver in their raiment of thick, downy pussy willow. The river marshes teemed with frogs.
Urban Horn’s horse danced on the road, kneading the mud with its hooves. Horn tugged on the reins.
“To Duke Bolko!” he shouted at the guards on the bridge. “Envoys!”
Horn shouted it a third time, but the guards looked on in silence and continued pointing at them their crossbows and harquebuses resting on the bridge’s balustrade. Reynevan began to feel anxious. He kept glancing back at the forest, wondering if they would make it into the trees if the need arose.
Four horsemen rode out of the forest on the far bank. Three of them stopped just before the bridge and the fourth, in full plate, rode onto the bridge with a thudding of horseshoes. The coat of arms on his shield was not—as Reynevan had first thought—the Czech Odrzywąs, but the Polish Ogończyk.
“The duke will receive envoys!” called the rider. “Over here, to our bank!”
“On your knightly parole?”
The Ogończyk lifted his visor, which kept slipping, and stood up in the stirrups.
“Hey!” There was amazement in his voice. “But I know you! You’re Bielawa!”
“And you,” Reynevan recalled, “are Sir Krzych… of Kościelec, aren’t you?”
“Will Duke Bolko guarantee us knightly inviolability?” Horn interrupted the exchange of pleasantries.
“His Lordship the Duke gives his parole.” Krzych of Kościelec raised an armoured gauntlet. “He would never harm young Lord Bielawa. Come hither.”
“Well, well, well,” said Bolko Wołoszek, Duke of Głogówek and heir to Opole, drawling out his words. “Prokop must respect me since he sends such notable personages to parley. So notable and so celebrated. Not to say notorious.”
The duke’s entourage mumbled and muttered. His officers had gathered in a cottage at the edge of the village of Kazimierz and consisted of one herald in a blue tabard adorned with the gold Opole eagle, five armoured knights and one priest, also armoured, in a breastplate and couters. Of the knights, three were Poles; apart from Krzych of Kościelec, the duke was accompanied by a Silesian Nieczuja whom Reynevan knew and a Prawdzic he didn’t. The fourth knight had the silver hunting horn of the Falkenhayns on his shield. The fifth was a Knight Hospitaller.
“Sir Urban Horn,” continued the duke, scowling at the emissary, “is famous the length and breadth of Silesia, mainly from the orders for his capture sent by the bishop and the Inquisition. And who do we have here, gentlemen? That heathen Horn—a Beghard, heretic and spy—acting as emissary in the service of the arch-heretic, Prokop the Shaven.”
The Knight Hospitaller grunted malevolently. The priest spat.
“While you, I see,” Wołoszek continued, shifting his gaze to Reynevan, “have utterly thrown in your lot with the heretics. You must have sold your entire soul to Satan and serve him devotedly since he sends you as an envoy. Or perhaps the master heretic Prokop thought if he sent you, he would gain something, owing to our old amity? Ha, if he counted on that he is mistaken. For I tell you, Reynevan, that when everybody in Silesia was denigrating you, calling you a thief and a brigand, ascribing to you the foulest crimes—including the rape of a maid—I defended you, not allowing anyone to slander you. And do you know the outcome? I looked a damn fool.
“But I saw my error,” concluded the duke after a pregnant pause. “I saw my error! The mission of an Antichrist carries no weight, I shall not talk to you. Forward, guards! Seize them! And bind that rascal!”
Reynevan struggled and his knees buckled when Krzych of Kościelec pinned him down from behind, seizing him by the shoulders in his powerful hands. Two servants caught Horn by the arms as a third deftly wound a rope around his elbows and neck, tightened it and tied a knot.
“God sees.” The priest raised a hand in a theatrical gesture. “God sees, Duke, that you act rightly! Firmetur manus tua, may your hand be made strong when it chokes the hydra of heresy!”
“We are emissaries…” Reynevan grunted in the grip of the Pole. “You gave your parole—”
“You are emissaries, but of the Devil. And parole given to heretics is empty. Horn is a traitor and a heretic. And you are a heretic. You were once my comrade, Reynevan, so I shall not order you bound. But shut your trap!”
He did as he was told.
“I shall turn him over to the bishop,” said the duke, nodding at Horn. “It is my duty as a good Christian and son of the Church. Where you are concerned… I’ve already saved you once as an old friend. And now I also mean to release you—”
“What?” roared the priest as the Falkenhayn and Knight Hospitaller growled. “Release a heretic? A Hussite?”
“And you shut your trap, Pater.” Wołoszek flashed teeth beneath his moustache. “And only open it when requested. I release you, Reinmar of Bielawa, mindful of our erstwhile friendship. But it’s the last time, by God’s wounds! The last time! Don’t come before my eyes again! I’m leading a crusading force. Soon I shall join my company with the bishop’s men, and together we shall march to Opava to wipe you heretics from the face of the Earth. God willing, the Bishop of Wrocław will recognise me as a good Catholic! Who knows, perhaps he will cancel my debts. Who knows, perhaps he’ll return to me what he once stole from the Duchy of Opole. Thus, let’s hold high the cross, God thus wishes, and we march, march on Opava!”
“The wind blows ashes around where once the suburbs of Opava stood,” said Horn, arms bound. “Yesterday, Prokop was at Głubczyce. Today, he’s even closer.”
Bolko Wołoszek leaped forwards and punched Horn hard in the ear.
“I said,” he hissed, “I won’t talk to you, turncoat, much less listen to your prattle.”
“Reynevan!” He turned around violently. “What was he saying about Opava? Taken? Unbelievable! Let him go, Sir Krzych!”
“Opava held out,” answered Reynevan, rubbing his shoulder, “but the suburbs went up in smoke. Kietrz and Nová Cerekev also, and before them Hukvaldy and Ostrava. Hradec nad Moravicí and Głubczyce survived only due to the good sense of Duke Wenceslaus. He parleyed with Prokop, paid the ransom and saved the duchy. Or at least part of it.”
“Am I to believe that? Believe that Przemko of Opava didn’t join battle with the Hussites? Let his son negotiate with the Hussites?”
“Duke Przemko is crouching behind the walls of Opava Castle as quiet as a mouse, keeping his eyes on the fires that are burning wherever he looks. And the young Duke Wenceslaus clearly has good sense, which is enviable and ought to be imitated.”
“God will punish those who have fraternised with the heretics and parleyed with them,” the priest exploded. “A pact with a heretic is a pact with Satan! Whoever enters into one is damned for ever. And here, on Earth, while they’re alive—”
“Your Grace,” shouted a soldier in a kettle hat, bursting in to the cottage. “A messenger!”
“Bring him here!”