Urban Horn had plenty of other important matters. And the chances for Reynevan—now promoted to the rank of assistant—of a rapid return to Jutta were diminishing.
They didn’t stay in Świdnica long but travelled to Nysa, after saying farewell to Bisclavret.
“We’ll meet again.” Bisclavret looked Reynevan deep in the eyes as they said goodbye. “We’ll meet again when the time comes. Lest you forget, I shall reappear in your snug little convent and remind you of your duties.”
It sounded a little like a threat, but Reynevan wasn’t concerned. He didn’t have time. Horn was hurrying him.
They rode towards Opole, a region Horn considered reasonably safe. The heir of the land, the young Duke Bolko Wołoszek, was being taken more and more seriously in matters concerning the Opole and Niemodlin regions. Bolko’s antipathy to the bishop and his dislike of the clergy and the Inquisition were widely known. He would not permit any brutality in the Opole region. The bishop and the Inquisitor had threatened the young duke with excommunication, but Wołoszek made light of it.
Horn and Reynevan didn’t have a permanent base but were constantly on the move, operating between Kluczbork, Opole, Strzelce and Gliwice, contacting people coming from Poland: from Olkusz, Chęciny, Trzebinia, Wieluń, Pabianice and even Krakow. There were plenty of issues to deal with and pacts to negotiate. Reynevan, who mainly sat in on the transactions in silence, was amazed by Urban Horn’s commercial ability. He was also amazed by the degree of complication of issues he had previously thought childishly simple.
No two balls, it turned out, were entirely the same. The handgonnes used by the Hussites mainly shot balls with a calibre of one finger. A finger and a grain of barley was the typical calibre of harquebuses, while the barrels of heavier harquebuses had a calibre of two fingers. The barrels of trestle guns were unified to a calibre of two fingers and one grain. Urban Horn had to negotiate the supply of all the kinds of balls in suitable quantities with the owners of Polish forges.
Nor was all gunpowder alike, it became clear, and it was much changed since the times of Berthold Schwarz. The proportions of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal had to be weighed out scrupulously, depending on what weapon they were intended for—hand weapons needed powder with a higher concentration of saltpetre, and gunpowder containing more sulphur was needed for trestle guns, cannons and bombards. If the mixture was wrong, the powder was unsuitable and only fit for fireworks—poor ones at that. The gunpowder also had to be precisely granulated. If it wasn’t, it separated out during transport: the heavier saltpetre sank downwards to the bottom of the container and the lighter charcoal remained on the surface. Stable and inflammable pellets were created by spraying the ground powder with human urine, and the best results came by using the urine of people who drank much and often. Thus, it was no surprise that powder manufactured in Poland enjoyed a deservedly good reputation on the market and Polish powder mills well-deserved fame.
“I almost forgot,” said Horn as he was returning after completing another transaction. “Scharley sends his regards. He asked me to tell you that he’s well. He’s still in the Tábor, in the field army. Jakub Kroměšín of Březovice is now hejtman of the field army, since Jaroslav of Bukovina fell in October during the siege of Bechyně. Scharley was at the siege, he also took part in the plundering raids to Austria and in the attack on the Upper Palatinate. He is, as I’ve probably said, well. Healthy and cheerful. Sometimes excessively so.”
“What about Samson Honeypot?”
“Samson’s in Bohemia? I didn’t know.”
They set off for Toszek the following day, to talk to Poles about balls, calibres, sulphur and saltpetre. The matter had begun to bore Reynevan somewhat. He was dreaming about returning to the convent and Jutta. He hoped for something to happen that would take him back there.
And something did.
“We’ll have to part,” announced a frowning Horn after returning from the collegiate church in Opole, where he often went, but always alone, without Reynevan.
“I have to go. I hadn’t expected… I admit I hadn’t expected it to happen so fast. Reinmar, war has broken out again. Královec’s Orphans have crossed the Silesian border through the Lewin Pass. They’re flying along, straight for Kłodzko. You may not manage to reach the town before Královec begins the siege. But you have to go there. Right away. To horse, friend.”
“Farewell, Horn.”
It was the fifth of December 1428. The second Sunday of Advent.
He rode to Brzeg along the Krakow road, and on the way, news caught up with him. Královec’s Orphans had wreaked havoc on the Kłodzko valley. Bystřice had gone up in smoke and the townspeople had been massacred. Královec had not yet attacked Kłodzko itself, was not even close, but panic had begun to sweep through Silesia, as it had in March. The roads had become crammed with refugees.
Reynevan hurried. But not to Kłodzko. He rode to White Church. To Jutta.
He wasn’t far away now. He passed Przeworno, he could see Rummelsberg. And then—on a forest track—he felt magic.
Beside the road lay a horse’s skeleton. It was faded, quite overgrown by grass, undoubtedly a memento of the plundering raid in spring. Reynevan’s steed was frightened and started, snorted and danced on the spot. It wasn’t the skeleton that had frightened the horse, however, not a wolf or any other animal. Reynevan felt magic. He was able to sense it. Now he could feel it, smell it, hear it and see it in the intense odour of damp and mould, in the cawing of crows, in the browned and frozen stalks of wild celery. He felt magic. And when he looked around, he saw the source.
A thicket of leafless trees concealed a small wooden building. A church, probably made of larch wood, with a pointed, slender bell tower.
He dismounted.
An attempt had been made to burn down the church, which lay right on the route of the Warriors of God. Looking at the charred front wall and very blackened columns flanking the entrance, Reynevan saw that fire had not completely consumed the building; it had probably been put out by rain. Or something else.
The interior was quite empty, the church having been stripped of everything it contained, which couldn’t have been much. The rest had been vandalised. The three-sided chancel at the end of the nave was full of planks and rags, probably the remains of the altar. The marks of fire were also visible there in the form of black patches of charred wood. Had it been a fire of wrath, a fire of destruction and hatred, a fire of blind vengeance for the pyre in Constance? Or just an ordinary campfire, started to heat up a pot of yesterday’s lumpy kasha, in a place offering shelter from the rain and cold? One couldn’t be certain. Reynevan had seen both kinds of fire in captured churches.
The magic he had felt was emanating from the church. For there was a hex on the ground where the altar had once stood. A hexagon plaited from sticks, bast, strips of birch bark and colourful wool and thread, with the addition of yellowed fern, woodruff, oak leaves and a herb called erysimon, which considerably increased the Dwimmerkraft or magic power. That type of hex was typical for peasant witches or members of the Elder Race. Somebody—either the witch or the Elder One—had brought it and placed it there. As an act of reverence. To show respect. And sympathy.