Reynevan shook his head, tossing wood onto the bonfire that he and Berengar Tauler had lit in the centre of the nave. Samson sighed. He was sitting a little way off, reading a book dug out by candlelight from an enormous pile under the pulpit. When the church was being plundered, no one was tempted by the books. They were of no use, after all.
“We’re sitting pretty here.” Drosselbart broke off another board from the matroneum in the chancel. “There’s plenty of firewood. It’ll last till summer.”
“And there are things to eat,” added Bisclavret, biting a bone-dry sausage he’d found in the vestry. “It turns out it’s true what they say: qui altari servit, ex altari vivit.”
“And one can always find something to drink out of.” Rzehors raised a captured Communion cup full of wine. “You don’t have to lap it up like a dog from a barrel… And there’s reading matter… Isn’t there, Samson? Samson!”
“I beg your pardon?” The giant raised his head. “Oh, yes… You won’t believe it—I found a sentence in Polish in this Latin work. And the work dates from 1231, from the times of Henry the Bearded. There’s a date on the title page, look: Anno verum Millesimo CCXXXI, and under it, as clear as day: benefactor noster Henricus Cum Barba Dei gratia dux Slesie, Cracouie et Poloniae…”
“What does that sentence in old Polish say?” Drosselbart asked with interest. Samson read it aloud.
“Nonsense.”
“Indeed.”
“And a crap rhyme.”
“Agreed.”
Footsteps, clanking, rattling and a hubbub of excited voices echoed from the vestibule. Brands and torches lit up the gloom and the shapes of people entering the church. Scharley swore. It turned out they were being visited by Pešek Krejčíř, a preacher of the Orphans, one of Little Prokop’s subordinates. Krejčíř was followed by several youngsters bearing arms. Scharley swore again.
In both the Tábor army and among the Orphans, women always accompanied the marches, mainly taking care of provisioning and cooking, occasionally nursing the wounded and sick. The women, usually widows, took their children with them. When the boys grew up, a new form of unit emerged in the Hussite armies—youth squads. The units grew quickly, absorbing shepherd boys and street urchins on the marches. They also quickly became the mascots and favourites in the army. Pets of the soldiers, favoured and indulged by everyone. Sensing their status and privileged position, the beloved boys became spoiled and unruly. Hussite propaganda, presenting them as the “Divine Children of the New Order,” propagated and nurtured fanaticism and cruelty in the youths, and such seeds—like among any group of children—fell on extremely fertile ground. The merry brood became known as “sling shooters,” for they were mainly armed with slings, the weapons favoured by shepherds and street urchins. Reynevan, however, had never seen the youths use their slings in battle. Or actually fight at all. But he had seen the youngsters in other circumstances. After the Battle of Ústí, the “Children of God” had cruelly blinded fallen Saxons by thrusting sharpened sticks through the slits in their helmets. Not so long ago, in Głuchołazy, at the Battle of Nysa, in Bardo, in Frankenstein and Złotoryja, they had beaten, kicked, stoned and mutilated the wounded and poured boiling water and milk over them.
“What is this?” Krejčíř asked sternly, pointing at the chalice Rzehors was drinking from. “Do you break the law, Brother? Do you seek punishment? All spoils are to be put in a common barrel! Whoever keeps even a single trinket will be punished! As the Holy Bible clearly states! Achan, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, who stole a garment and gold from spoils belonging to God, was stoned and burned in the Vale of Achor!”
“It’s only silver-plated brass…” muttered Rzehors. “Very well, have it.”
“And what is this?” The preacher snatched the book from Samson’s hand. “What is this? Know you not, Brother, that the New Era dawns? And the New Era has no need of either books or writing, for God’s Law will be written in our hearts? And may the old world go up in flames!”
The book with the Polish sentence from 1231 was tossed onto the fire.
“May the old world perish! And with it its false wisdom! Begone! Begone! Begone!”
With each cry, he tossed a book into the flames. First a Tractatus, then a Codex and a Cronica sive gesta flew into the fire as Samson stood by with arms hanging loosely, smiling. The smile made Reynevan feel uncomfortable. Krejčíř brushed dust from his hands, snatched a spiked, metal-headed club from one of the sling shooters, looked around and entered one of the aisles. He spotted a painting. The Adoration of the Christ Child.
“The New Era!” he yelled. “Man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold to the moles and to the bats! Saith the Lord God: turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations!”
He swung and the club shattered the painted board. One of the boys giggled foolishly.
“Thou shalt not make thee any graven image!” the preacher roared, striking more paintings with the club. “Of any thing that is in Heaven above! Or that is in the Earth beneath! Or that is in the waters beneath the Earth!”
The Expulsion from Paradise was reduced to matchwood, a triptych of the Annunciation was split and fell from the wall and The Adoration of the Magi was broken in two. Saint Hedwig, luminous and misty like the works of the Master of Flémalle, was chopped up. Krejčíř destroyed them with abandon as the sound of wood splintering echoed around the church. He turned his frenzied assault onto some murals and smashed the faces of cherubs on a frieze. And then he saw a sculpture. A painted wooden figure. Everybody saw it. And was dumbstruck.
It stood, head slightly bent, gathering in its delicate hands the drapes of a robe whose every carved fold sang a paeon to the sculptor’s artistry. Arched backwards slightly, but proudly, as though wanting to display her swollen belly, the pregnant Madonna looked down on them with carved, painted eyes, and Gratia and Agape shone from them. The pregnant Madonna smiled, and in her smile the artist had expressed greatness, glory, hope and the light of dawn after the black of the night. And the words magnificat anima mea Dominum, uttered softly and with love.
Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Et omnia quae intra me sunt.
“No sculptures!” bellowed Krejčíř, raising the club. “No statues! I will punish the carved images of Babylon!”
No one saw him move, but Samson was suddenly standing in front of the figure, shielding it from the preacher, barring the way to it with his arms spread in the shape of a cross.
What is he doing? wondered Reynevan, seeing Tauler’s horrified expression and Scharley’s face frozen in a grimace of resignation. What the hell is he doing? It means suicide to challenge an Orphan preacher… In any case, Krejčíř is, by and large, right… In the New Era, idols and graven images will not be honoured, they will not be bowed down to. Risking his life for a sculpture carved from a lindenwood log? Oh, Samson…
The preacher took a step back, astonished, but quickly recovered his composure.
“Would you shield an idol? Defend a graven image? Do you mock the words of the Bible, O blasphemer?”