“I’m from the Vogelsang,” he said when asked to identify himself. “Reinmar of Bielawa. Take me to your leader.”
The Orphans were on the march. Having abandoned their camp outside Rengersdorf, Královec’s army was heading northwards. They’re going straight into the Ścinawka valley, he thought. I don’t have to persuade or convince them. Without my complicity, they’re doing just what Duke Jan wanted. Could it be a sign from God? I don’t have to do anything or betray anyone. At least not actively. I’ll simply stay silent. Keep to myself what happened. Jutta will be saved…
The column—its flanks protected by the cavalry and infantry—was probably half a mile long, numbering more or less a hundred and fifty war wagons and four dozen wagons carrying provisions. It took some time for the patrol to deliver Reynevan to the hejtmans. To the very head of the column, far beyond Schwedeldorf.
“Reynevan!” Jan Královec of Hrádek appeared extremely surprised. “You’re alive? They said Sir Půta had tortured you to death in Kłodzko. That you’d fallen into their hands, you and Rzehors… How the hell—”
“Now’s not the time, Brother. Not the time.”
“I understand.” Královec’s face was set as hard as ice. “Tell me what you know.”
Reynevan took a deep breath. Jutta, he thought. Jutta, forgive me.
“Jan of Ziębice is marching on you from the north with a thousand horse. They mean to strike you on the march. Treat you to another Kratzau.”
At the sound of the name, Královec gritted his teeth. The other hejtmans murmured softly. Jan Kolda of Žampach was among them, as was Matěj Salava of Lípa. There was a man similar to Matěj and bearing an identical coat of arms, no doubt his brother Jan. There was Brázda of Klinštejn, sitting on a huge grey destrier, as usual flaunting the ragged staffs of the Ronovci family crest. There was Vilém Jeník of Mečkov, Hejtman of Litomyšl, whom Reynevan knew by sight. There was Piotr of Lichwin, called “the Pole,” the current commandant of Homole Castle, captured by the Hussites in the spring. And it was Piotr the Pole, hair as black as a raven’s, who spoke first.
“What else,” he asked in an evil voice, “did Jan and Půta order you to tell us? What are you to persuade us to do?”
Reynevan replied with emphasis, face turned not towards the Pole, but towards Královec. “I was to persuade you to do precisely what you are doing. To march north, into the Ścinawka valley. You are heading into a trap, straight into Jan of Ziębice’s jaws. Had I been a spy, as the Lord of Lichwin implies, it would have sufficed to say nothing. But I’m warning you, thereby averting defeat and destruction. You don’t even know what it’s costing me. If you consider me a spy, kill me. I won’t say another word.”
“This is Reynevan,” said Brázda of Klinštejn. “He’s one of us! And he is indeed warning us. What could he achieve by warning us?”
“He would halt the march,” said Vilém Jeník slowly, “and give the enemy army the time they need. Give time for the villages we are going to ransack to flee with their belongings. I don’t know this man—”
“But I do.” Královec cut him off sharply. “I order the column to stop. Brother Vilém, patrols and forays to the north and towards Kłodzko. Brother Piotr, Brother Matěj, form up the cavalry.”
“Do we build a wagon fort?”
“We do,” confirmed Královec, standing up in the stirrups and looking around. “Over yonder, beyond that stream, at the foot of the hill. What’s the name of the village we just passed? Does anybody know?”
“Stary Wielisław.”
“We shall set it up there. Onwards, brothers! Look lively!”
Reynevan had seen a wagon fort—or vozova hradba—being built a good few times, but never so efficiently. Královec’s Orphans scurried to and fro and the order and organisation were admirable. First of all, a nucleus was created, a ring of supply wagons, inside which the packhorses and cattle were hidden. The actual hradba—a square of war wagons—was quickly assembled around the centre. The wagoners smoothly manoeuvred their conveyances into the appropriate positions. The horses were unharnessed and led into the centre. The wagons were assembled wheel against wheel, with the left rear wheel of the wagon in front chained to the right front wheel of the following one, lending a stepped profile to the barricade of wagons. Artillery—trestle guns and cannons of various calibre—were set up in gaps left every few wagons. Each of the walls was built of fifty war wagons, and the entire wagenburg created a square the sides of which measured at least two hundred paces.
Before it began to grow dark, the wagenburg was in place. And waiting.
“We were planning to take Kłodzko by treachery,” Brázda of Klinštejn repeated, pensively stopping with his spoon above a pot. “But nothing came of it. All our men in the town were caught and tortured to death. Rzehors was among them; they say he was cruelly tortured on the scaffold in the town square. And rumour had it that you also met an equally hideous end. I’m glad you survived.”
“I am, too.” Reynevan clenched his teeth. “But Bisclavret is dead also. They killed him. It’s the end of the Vogelsang.”
“You are left. You survived.”
“I did.”
Brázda began slurping his soup again, but only briefly.
“If the Silesians don’t come… If it turns out that… You could be in trouble, Reynevan. Are you afraid?”
“No.”
They said nothing and slurped the soup. Smoke drifted up from the campfires. The horses in the inner ring of the wagenburg snorted.
“Brázda?”
“What?”
“I didn’t see any preachers with the hejtmans. Neither Little Prokop nor Krejčíř…”
“Little Prokop…” Ronovci blew his nose. “Little Prokop is in Prague, advancing his career. He’s on course to become a bishop. Krejčíř fell at Kratzau, hacked to pieces along with his sling shooters. There was nothing left of him to gather up. We had one more priest, but he was frail and fell ill. He died. We buried him near Duszniki. It’ll be two Sundays ago.”
“You’ve been left…” Reynevan cleared his throat. “You’ve been left without spiritual solace?”
“There’s always vodka.”
Darkness fell quite quickly and suddenly—it was the twenty-sixth of December after all. And then the patrols, the forays and Piotr the Pole’s cavalry returned. Horsemen began to flood into the square of the wagon fort lit by campfires.
“They’re coming!” Piotr the Pole gasped out to Královec. “They’re coming, Brother! That German Reynevan was telling the truth. They’re coming! A host of knights, some thousand horse! Silesian eagles on their banners, also the emblems of Opava! They’ve entered the valley, they’re not far from Kłodzko! They’ll be here before dawn!”
“Will they strike?” asked Jan Kolda. “They were planning, as at the Battle of Kratzau, to strike the marching column—when they see that we’re at readiness, will they attack?”