“You’re Czech?” Reynevan turned his head towards the pallet on his right, from where his neighbour—as pale as death and with sunken cheeks—had greeted him. “What is this place? Where am I? Among friends?”
“Aye, among friends,” muttered the pale man. “We’re all good Czechs here. But in truth, Brother, we are far, far away from our boys.”
“I don’t underst—” Reynevan tried to raise himself but fell back with a groan. “I don’t understand. What hospital is this? Where are we?”
“In Oława.”
“Oława?”
“Aye,” confirmed the Czech. “It’s a town in Silesia. Brother Prokop made a truce and an agreement with the local herzog… Not to ravage the lands here… And the herzog promised to take care of the Taborite wounded.”
“But where is Prokop? Where’s the Tábor? And what day is it today?”
“The Tábor? Far, faaar away… Heading home. And the day? Tuesday. And the day after tomorrow, Thursday, will be a holiday. Nanebevstoupení Páně.”
Ascension Day, Reynevan quickly calculated, forty days after Easter, falls on the thirteenth day of May. So today is the eleventh. I was wounded on the eighth. That means I was unconscious for three days.
“You say, Brother, that the Tábor is leaving Silesia?” He continued to pry. “Does that mean the end of the expedition? That we’ve stopped fighting?”
“Were you told not to talk politics?” A woman’s voice sounded. “You were. So please do not. Please pray. To God for your health. And for the souls of this hospital’s founders. And please remember our benefactors and donors in your prayers. Come on, Brethren in Christ! Whoever can stand, to the chapel!”
He knew that voice.
“You’re conscious, m’Lord Lancelot. Finally. I’m glad.”
“Dorota…” He sighed, recognising her. “Dorota Faber…”
“It’s nice of you to recognise me, m’lord.” The harlot smiled at him sweetly. “Nice indeed. I’m glad you’ve finally awoken… Oh, and the pillow isn’t so stained with blood today… So perhaps you’ll recover. Let’s change the dressing. Elencza!”
“Sister Dorota…” grunted someone from the other wall. “Me leg’s hurting me dreadful—”
“There’s no leg there, son, I told you. Elencza, over here.”
He didn’t recognise her right away. Perhaps it was the fever, or perhaps the time that had passed, but for a long while he looked uncomprehendingly at the fair-haired, thin-lipped young woman with pale, watery eyes. With the once-plucked eyebrows growing slowly back.
It took some time for him to realise who she was. It helped that the young woman clearly knew who he was. He saw it in her anxious look.
“The daughter of Lord Stietencron… The Goleniowskie Forests. Ścibor’s Clearing… You’re alive? You survived?”
She nodded, smoothing her apron with a nervous movement. And he suddenly understood where the fear in her eyes came from, where the terrified grimace and trembling of her narrow mouth.
“It wasn’t I…” he mumbled. “It wasn’t I who robbed the tax collector… I had nothing to do with it… Everything you’ve heard… Everything you’ve heard about me is rumour and falsehood—”
“That’s enough talk.” Dorota Faber cut him off seemingly sternly. “Time to change the dressing. Help me, Elencza.”
They tried to be gentle, but in spite of that, he hissed in pain and groaned loudly several times. When they unwound the bandages, he wanted to see the wound but was unable to lift his head. A diagnosis by touch had to suffice. And by smell. Neither diagnosis was promising.
“It’s festering,” Dorota Faber confirmed calmly. Her face was bathed in an aura of saintliness in the beam of sunlight shining through the small window. “It’s festering,” she repeated. “And swelling. Ever since the barber-surgeon removed the splinters of the bolt. But it’s better than it was. Better, m’Lord Lancelot.”
Her face was bathed in saintliness, and a bright gold halo also appeared to be framing the head of Elencza of Stietencron. Martha and Mary of Bethany, he thought, feeling giddy. Divinely beautiful. They’re both divinely beautiful.
“My name’s not…” His head was spinning faster and faster. “My name’s not Lancelot… Nor Hagenau… I am Reinmar of Bielawa…”
“We know,” Martha and Mary replied from the light.
“Where’s my comrade? A big man, almost a giant… He’s called Samson…”
“He’s here, calm yourself. His head was cut. The barber-surgeons are treating him.”
“How is he?”
“They say he’ll recover. He’s very strong, they said, and hardy. Supernaturally hardy.”
“Dammit… I must see him… Help him…”
“Lie still, m’Lord Reinmar.” Dorota Faber straightened his pillow. “You won’t help anyone as you are. But you might harm yourself.”
The hospital of Saint Świerad beside the church with the same saint as its patron—one of two in Oława—was subordinate to the town council and run by Premonstratensians from the Church of Saint Vincent in Wrocław. Apart from the Premonstratensians, male volunteers worked in the hospital, and female ones, like Dorota Faber and Elencza of Stietencron. The patients were almost entirely Hussites—Taborites and Orphans—mainly severely wounded or very seriously sick. There were also cripples. All of them in a condition that had compelled Prokop to leave them because of the impossibility of moving them. On the strength of the truce and agreement forced on Ludwik, Duke of Oława, the hospital of Saint Świerad was made available to them. They were being treated there and had been guaranteed unmolested passage to Bohemia. Some of the Czechs being treated didn’t overly trust the word of Duke Ludwik and held out little hope regarding the truce and guarantee. The further away Prokop marched, they claimed, the less binding became the truce. Having the Warriors of God at the very gates, and before them the prospect of conflagration and destruction, Duke Ludwik was inclined towards concessions and promises—anything to save his duchy. Now, with the Warriors of God over the hills and far away, the threat had vanished and the promises become hollow. And hollow promises butter no parsnips.
The following day, having woken up, Reynevan glanced at the pallet on his left.
Samson Honeypot was lying in it. With a bandaged head. Unconscious.
Reynevan wanted to get up and see how he was. He couldn’t. He was too weak. His swollen left shoulder was throbbing with pain and the fingers of his left hand had lost all feeling. The smell of gangrene was intensifying.
“Among my things…” he groaned, vainly trying to raise himself up, “was a casket… A copper casket…”
Elencza sighed. Dorota Faber shook her head.
“When they brought you here, you had nothing. Not even any boots. They treated you with mercy, but that mercy didn’t extend to your chattels. They picked you clean.”
Reynevan felt a wave of heat spread through him. Before he had time to swear or gnash his teeth, his memory returned. And with it, relief. The priceless casket had remained with Scharley. When he was suffering from diarrhoea, Reynevan had treated him with magic, using the sorcerer Telesma’s amulets. Setting off on the foray with Puchała, he had left the casket with Scharley.