“Brother Prokop!” the gunner repeated. “Do we blast?”
Prokop the Shaven looked at the walls and towers of Kolín, the red tiles merging prettily with the autumn colours of the leaves in the neighbouring forests and thickets.
“Why are you in such a hurry to blast?” he replied with a question. “To demolish? It’s a Czech city, by God! Patience, we’ll soon go to neighbouring lands where you can have a good blast, flatten a few buildings. But I need Kolín intact and negligibly damaged. And that’s how we’ll take it.”
Kolín, quite as though wanting to express its opposition and disapproval, replied. There was a booming and crashing from the walls, belches of smoke appeared on the battlements and stone balls whistled, all ploughing into the ground about twenty paces from the earthworks of the first line of the siege. Lord Diviš Bořek of Miletínek, trapped in Kolín, was lacking neither powder nor the will to fight.
“We shall compel Sir Diviš Bořek to surrender,” said Prokop, anticipating the question. “And we’ll capture the town without destruction, without slaughtering after we storm it and without plundering so that the people of Kolín will think well of Brother Hertvík, who will soon be hejtman here.”
The Hussite commanders surrounding Prokop guffawed in chorus. Reynevan knew many of them, but not all. He didn’t know Jan Hertvík of Rušinov, who it turned out was already certain of the nomination for Hejtman of Kolín. Among the other Orphans, he had seen Jan Královec of Hrádek and Jíra of Řečice before, and guessed that the fair-haired and cheerfully smiling giant was Jan Kolda of Žampach. Among the Tábor commanders, he recognised Jaroslav of Bukovina, Jakub Kroměšín, Otík of Loza and Jan Bleh of Těšnice.
“Thus.” Prokop straightened up and looked around, indicating he wasn’t only talking to the gunner, but to the others as well. “Thus, please don’t rush, don’t be hasty, don’t waste powder—”
“Are we just to wait outside these walls?” Jan Kolda asked with audible disapproval. “Stand idly by?”
“Who said idly?” Prokop said, leaning against the stockade. “Brother Jaroslav!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Has Flu—Has Brother Neplach finally sent his Stentorians?”
“He has,” confirmed Jaroslav of Bukovina. “Ten of them. Ugly buggers all… They stink so foully of booze and onions they could knock a big man over. But they have wonderful voices…”
“Then send them to the walls to yell. Day and night. Particularly at night, it works best at night. Does Lord Bořek have children in Kolín?”
“A daughter.”
“Have them shout about the daughter, too. And you, Brother Kolda, since you don’t like to stand idly by…”
“Yes, sir!”
“Take your cavalry and patrol the villages on both sides of the Labe. Warn the locals one more time that if anybody tries to supply food to the town, they will sorely regret it. If we catch anyone with even a single scone, with even a single sack of kasha, we’ll cut off both their hands and both their feet.”
“Yes, sir, Brother Prokop!”
“Get to work, then. Back to your men, I won’t keep you any longer… And you, Brother, why are you still here?”
“We could fire the large bombard…” grunted the gunner beside the cannon. “Just one more time… Before evening…”
“I knew you’d not bear it.” Prokop sighed. “Very well. But first come with me, I’ll inspect your position to see what you have your cannons trained on. Greetings, Scharley. And greetings to you, Brother Bielawa. Come with me. I’ll soon devote some time to you.”
Reynevan was racking his brains trying to figure out how they had met. Prokop the Shaven and Scharley had appeared already to know each other at that first meeting at Shrovetide in 1426, in Nymburk, to where their company was sent from Hradec Králové. Who knows if it hadn’t saved all their lives, when first the Hradec Králové Warriors of God and then the ones from Nymburk, who were seeing spies and provocateurs everywhere, were becoming ever more suspicious and ill-tempered? Invoking Peterlin and Horn hadn’t helped, since it turned out they had been such secret collaborators that their names didn’t mean much and offered no protection. God only knew what would have happened if Prokop hadn’t appeared. He didn’t fall on Scharley’s neck or greet him effusively, but it was obvious they knew each other. How remained a secret that neither of them was inclined to explain or discuss. It was known that Prokop had studied at Charles University and at foreign schools. Reynevan assumed he had met Scharley during one of those journeys.
Reynevan, Scharley and Samson followed Prokop and the gunner along a line of trenches, stockades and fascines. Prokop inspected the bombards and mortars, spoke to gunners and pavisiers, patted crossbowmen on the shoulder, shared earthy jokes with flailmen beside campfires and asked the halberdiers if they were short of anything. He found time to talk to the women busying themselves around cauldrons, tasted the troops’ kasha and ruffled the fair hair of children hanging around the kitchen. And to raise his arms modestly when the Warriors of God cheered in his honour.
It lasted quite some time. But Prokop hadn’t forgotten about them, either.
They returned to face the town walls.
Prokop’s army had arrived at Kolín more quickly than expected, giving the residents of the cottages outside the town little time to save themselves by fleeing inside the walls with whatever they could carry, leaving the Taborites and Orphans considerable stores of food, plenty of livestock and cottages with almost all the necessary tools and utensils. It was thus no surprise that the Warriors of God built their main camp there, surrounded by a barricade of wagons and a corral for the horses. Numerous campfires were burning between the cottages and shacks, hammers clanged in forges and tools clattered in wheelwrights’ workshops. Clothes dried on washing lines. Pigs squealed and sheep bleated. Unsavoury smells drifted from the latrines.
“Why are you here, Brother Bielawa?” Prokop suddenly asked.
Reynevan sighed furtively. He’d been expecting that question.
Reynevan had decided to undertake an expedition to Trosky Castle. He’d made the decision quite spontaneously, it should be said, with the unbounded and passionate enthusiasm of a young widow. That enthusiasm and spontaneity didn’t especially please the sorcerers from the Archangel, Fraundinst and Štěpán of Drahotuše in particular. They both had their doubts, not just concerning Axleben’s information but also the legendary abilities of the legendary Rupilius the Silesian. Axleben, they claimed, was confabulating to distract attention from his embarrassing failure with Samson. Rupilius the Silesian was most probably not at Trosky Castle. And even if Rupilius the Silesian happened to be there, then the chance he would be able to help was precisely zero—for, according to rough calculations, Rupilius the Silesian was about ninety, and what could one expect from such a fossil?
Telesma, however, took Reynevan’s side. Telesma had heard about Rupilius the Silesian, had even met him briefly, and considered his qualifications in the field of spiritualism and astral beings to have been confirmed and verified half a century before. No harm in trying, he pronounced. An expedition to Trosky was an opportunity for Samson Honeypot that ought to be taken, and quickly at that. Rupilius, it was true, was aged four score years and ten, and at that age it’s a well-known fact: you catch a chill, sneeze and fart, and without knowing it you are passing into the astral plain.