“Ah!” said Scharley, livening up. “Confiscated? I like that. I like the sound of that!”
“Don’t sneer. Have you never wondered why such a fire flared up from a spark that leaped from the pyre in Constance here in Prague, in Bohemia? I’ll tell you. Do you know how many priests there were in the Prague diocese? Six thousand. How many monasteries? A hundred and sixty. Do you know that in Prague itself, every twentieth person wore a habit or a cassock? And how many parish churches were there in Prague? Forty-four. Wrocław, I remind you, has nine. In Saint Vitus’s Cathedral alone, there were exactly three hundred ecclesiastical positions. Can you imagine the fortune taken from prebendaries and annats? No, Scharley, it could not and cannot go on like that. The secularisation of church property is absolutely necessary. The clergy has control over too much worldly property. Such an immense concentration of wealth and power can only cause anger and social tensions. It has to end: their wealth, their tyranny, their hubris, their arrogance, their power. They must return to what Christ instructed them to be: poor and humble servants. And it wasn’t Joachim of Fiore who came up with it first, not Ockham, not Waldhauser, not Wycliffe and not Huss, but Francis of Assisi. The Church must be transformed. Reformed. From a church of magnates and politicians, braggarts and fools, obscurantists and hypocrites, from a church of Inquisitors, from a church leading a crusade of criminals, of creatures like, for example, our own Konrad, Bishop of Wrocław, it must transform into a church of Francises.”
“You’re wasted working in hospitals. You ought to be a preacher. With regard to me, you can ease off a little. We have enough—a surfeit, even—of preachers in the Tábor, and some of their sermons are enough to make one bring up one’s breakfast. So have mercy on the scrambled eggs and celery and rein it in a little. You’ll be denouncing simony and debauchery next.”
“Indeed! No one observes church vows or rules! From Rome down to the bottom, to the remotest parish, nothing but simony, dissipation, drunkenness, demoralisation. Is it any wonder there are comparisons with Babylon and Sodom and thoughts of the Antichrist? That the saying ‘omne malum a clero’ is doing the rounds? That’s why I’m in favour of reform, even of the most radical kind.”
Scharley tore his eyes away from the burned-down Knights Hospitaller’s priorate and the charred walls of the Church of Our Lady at the End of the Bridge.
“You’re in favour of reform, you say? Then I’ll gladden your ears with a story of how we, the Warriors of God, put theory into practice. In May of this year—the news of this probably reached your ears—we set off under Prokop the Shaven on a plundering raid to Lusatia. We sacked and burned down quite a few places of worship, including some churches and monasteries in Hirschfeld, Ostritz and Bernstadt, and also—which might interest you—near Frydland, on the estates of Ulrik Biberstein, your beloved Katarzyna’s uncle, I believe. Although we stormed Zgorzelec, we didn’t manage to capture it, but in Lubań, taken on the Friday before Cantate Sunday, we fell upon a dozen priests and monks, including refugees from Bohemia, Dominicans who had sought refuge in Lubań. Prokop ordered them executed without mercy. So we did. The Czech priests were burned to death, the German ones clubbed to death or drowned in the Kwisa. We organised a massacre of a similar scale four days later in Złotoryja… You have a strange look on your face. Am I boring you?”
“No. But I think we’re talking about completely different things.”
“Indeed? You wish to change the Church, you say. So I’m telling you how we are changing it. You claim to want reforms, even the most radical. I remind you that several kings—such as the Polish Bolesław the Bold, the English Plantagenet Henry the Second, and Wenceslaus the Fourth here, in Prague—have already reformed unruly prelates. But what did it achieve? One rabble-rousing Stanisław of Szczepanów executed, one turbulent priest Thomas à Becket stabbed, one troublemaker John of Nepomuk drowned. A drop in the ocean! Not radical enough. Small scale instead of wholesale. For me, I prefer the methods of Žižka, Prokop and Ambrož. The results are definitely more noticeable. You said that every twentieth Praguian wore a cassock or a habit before the revolution. And how many will you encounter in the street today?”
“Not many. Beware, we’re going under the Stone Bridge, they always spit from it. And occasionally piss.”
Indeed, the bridge’s balustrades were teeming with street urchins trying to spit or piss on every boat, barge or punt passing beneath. Fortunately, too many vessels were gliding by down below for the street urchins to manage to insult more than a few. Reynevan and Scharley’s boat had luck on its side.
The current was carrying them nearer to the left bank. They sailed past the badly damaged archbishop’s palace and the ruins of the Augustinian monastery. And beyond, above the charred remains of the Lesser Quarter and the river, the rock of Hradčany rose impressively, proudly crowned by the Hrad and the soaring spires of Saint Vitus’s Cathedral.
The boatman shoved the vessel into the current with a boathook and they picked up speed. The right bank, beyond the city wall, was covered with the dense buildings of the Old Town, while the left bank was more rustic—almost entirely taken up by vineyards that at one time, before the revolution, mainly belonged to the monasteries.
“Ahead of us is Saint Francis’s, if I’m not mistaken.” The penitent pointed to a church tower on the right bank. “Shall we disembark?”
“Not yet. We’ll sail over to the weir—it’s a stone’s throw to Soukenická Street.”
“Scharley.”
“Yes.”
“Slow down for a moment. We’re in no hurry, and I’d like to…”
Scharley stopped and waved at the girls in the soapmaking workshop, causing a concert of giggles. He shook a fist at some kids who were sticking out their tongues and shouting childish insults. He stretched and glanced at the sun peeping out from behind the church spire.
“I can guess what you want,” Scharley said.
“I listened to your reflections about historical processes,” replied Reynevan, “although Samson tells me every day that revenge is a vain thing. King Xerxes lashing the sea is pathetic and ridiculous. All the same…”
“I’m listening with attentiveness. And growing anxiety.”
“I’d love to get my hands on the whoresons that killed Peterlin. That Birkart Grellenort in particular.”
Scharley shook his head and sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that. Do you recall, my dear Reinmar, Silesia two years ago? And the black riders shouting: ‘We are here!’? The bats in the Cistercian forest? Huon of Sagar saved our arses then. Had Huon not made it in time, the hide from our arses would be hanging today, beautifully dried, above Birkart’s fireplace. I pass over the minor fact that Birkart is clearly a minion of Bishop Konrad, the most powerful individual in the whole of Silesia, a man who merely has to bend his little finger to have us impaled. And that Grellenort himself isn’t just some ordinary thug, but a sorcerer. The fellow can turn into a bird, and you want to catch him, you say? And how, I wonder?”
“A way could be found. It always can; all that’s needed are good intentions. And a little cunning. I know it’s madness to return to Silesia, but even insane enterprises can succeed if the plan is feasible. Am I right?”