“Saint Dorothy’s,” Prokop the Shaven interjected dispassionately, demonstrating no worse a knowledge of Wrocław. “And there, on Piasek Island, is the Church of Our Lady. Beyond Piasek is Ostrów Tumski, beyond it the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross, beside is the cathedral, which is still being built. Over yonder… Ołbin, the great Premonstratensian monastery. And over there, Saint Catherine’s and the Dominican Saint Adalbert’s. Satisfied? Know everything now? Splendid, because you won’t see Wrocław’s churches close at hand. Not this time, at least.”
“Naturally,” said Jan Tovačovský of Cimburk, nodding. “It would be madness to attack the city.”
“O thee of little faith!” Little Prokop grimaced and spat. “Had Joshua thought like you, Jericho would be standing to this day! It is the might of God that brings down walls—”
“Leave God be,” Dobko Puchała interrupted calmly. “Jericho or not, only a quite deranged fellow would storm Wrocław now.”
The Hussite leaders muttered, in the main agreeing with the opinions of the Moravian and the Pole. The gleam in the eyes of Královec, Jan Bleh and Otík of Loza attested to the fact that they would willingly have tried if they could have.
“But we are here.” Prokop, as usual, didn’t miss the gleams. “From quite far away to this den of the Antichrist. We have journeyed hard and long, and it would be a sin not to give the Antichrist a lesson in religion.”
Before them, at the foot of the hill, the River Ślęza, wide and flooding the meadows, with storks wading in it, flowed along its shallow course. Birch woodland was becoming clothed in a delicate, fresh green. Bird cherry trees were beginning to bloom. Marsh marigolds and buttercups were flowering in the wetlands and dandelions in the meadows. Reynevan looked away from the signs of spring. The main forces of the Tábor and Orphans were crossing the Bystrzyca via the captured bridge in Leśnica, beside the smoking embers of the customs house.
“We’ll give the people of Wrocław and the Antichrist bishop a lesson they won’t forget,” continued Prokop. “That small village at the foot of the hill—what’s it called?”
“Żerniki, good sire.” One of the obsequious peasant guides hurried over. “And that’un is Muchobór—”
“Burn them both down. You deal with it, Brother Puchała. Over there, and I see a mill over there… And another. And there’s a village… And there’s another… And what’s that? A wooden church? Brother Salava!”
“At once, Brother Prokop!”
An hour hadn’t even passed before fire and smoke began rising into the sky, the stench of burning making the fresh spring air unbreathable.
I tire of marching with pike and gun,
I would find more joy with my darling one…
Wistful subject matter was beginning to dominate noticeably in the repertoire of Prokop’s army’s marching songs. Weariness of war was making itself felt more and more.
Leaving Wrocław behind, they marched southwards, with Ślęża looming up suddenly and menacingly on their right from the flat landscape. The peak of the mountain, though not at all of imposing height, was veiled as usual in elongated clouds—it looked as though the clouds gliding across the sky had snagged on the peak and remained there.
They marched on Strzelin and Ziębice quite quickly, not even doing much pillaging. In truth, there wasn’t much left to pillage. Jan Kolda of Žampach, stationed and left at the post on Ślęża, was waiting idly in the castle, but often set forth, plundering anything that was fit to plunder and burning anything that could catch fire. The odd priest or monk hanging by a rope from a roadside tree could usually be put down to Kolda’s men, although one couldn’t rule out the spontaneous initiatives of the local peasant community, often taking advantage of the opportunity to settle accounts with their parish priest or monastery for old grudges and injustices. Reynevan feared for White Church, pinning his hopes on the agreement reached with the Patriciate of Strzelin and the Duke of Oława. And the dense forests concealing the monastery.
The sight of Ziębice, calling forth memories of Adèle and Duke Jan, was like a red rag to a bull to him. He tried talking to Prokop, hoping to convince him to break the agreement with Jan and attack the town. But Prokop was unmoved.
All he achieved was permission to join Dobko Puchała’s cavalry units harrying the vicinity with forays. Prokop didn’t protest. He didn’t need Reynevan now. While Reynevan took out his anger, burning with the Poles the hamlets and granges surrounding Ziębice.
On the fifth of May, the day after Saint Florian’s Day, a strange mission arrived in the Hussite camp. Several richly attired burghers, several high-ranking clergymen, several knights, including—judging from their coats of arms—Zedlitz, Reichenbach and Bolz, and on top of that a Pole bearing the Toporczyk arms. The entire company joined in secret negotiations with Prokop, Jaroslav of Bukovina and Královec long into the night in the only surviving building of the Cistercian grange. When, at dawn, Prokop issued the order to move out, everything was explained. Another agreement had been reached. Following the example set by Jan of Ziębice, Bernard of Niemodlin, Ludwik of Oława, Helena of Racibórz, Przemko of Opava, Kazko of Oświęcim and Bolko of Cieszyn had all decided to save their own estates by entering into negotiations.
The talks with the Silesian dukes had fuelled rumours in the army that it marked the end of the plundering raid and that it was time to go home. Rumours were circulating that the march ordered by Prokop on Nysa would shift to Opava, and from there the army would carry straight on to Odry in Moravia.
“Perhaps we’ll be home by Pentecost,” said Dobko Puchała, lending credence to the rumour when asked. “In that case,” he added, winking at Reynevan, “we ought to torch something here before we go, hadn’t we?”
Oh, my sorrow, my grief!
I cannot find out,
Where I shall spend the first night,
When my soul flees the body…
The sky was shrouded in black clouds, a cold wind was blowing and a thin rain fell from time to time, pricking like needles. The weather had a clear influence on the songs sung by the Poles.
This perfidious world told me,
That my life would be long,
Yesterday it did not tell me,
That my life would be long…
Puchała’s destination was the village of Berzdorf, the grange of the Henryków monastery, which was protected by the Ziębice agreement. Wanting at one fell swoop to send up in smoke the ducal grange in Ostrężna and the little church in Wigandsdorf that had survived by a miracle and not stay too far behind the army moving swiftly towards Nysa, Dobko divided his detachment into three combat squads. Reynevan and Samson remained with the commander. Scharley didn’t take part in the operation, since he was suffering from a bout of diarrhoea so severe that even magical medicine was unable to help him.
They rode through rough country, crossing narrow gorges with tributaries of the Oława flowing at the bottom, carrying peat-brown water over rocks and around fallen logs. Beside one such stream, Reynevan saw the Washerwoman.
Only he and Samson noticed her. She didn’t raise her head at all, however, even though the detachment had crossed a stream barely twenty paces from her. She was very slight, and the slightness of her figure was additionally accentuated by her clinging dress. Reynevan couldn’t see her face—it was completely hidden by her long, straight, dark hair, which fell right down to the water over which she knelt and was being caressed by the slow current.