“Stop talking nonsense, will you? I asked if you can cure it.”
“I can. Show me where it hurts.”
Chapter Five
In which we leave our heroes for a short time and move from Bohemia to Silesia, to see what some of our old—and new—friends were up to at more or less the same time, give or take a month or so.
Haven’t I seen him somewhere before? thought Wendel Domarasc, magister scholarum of the Collegiate School at the Church of the Holy Cross in Opole, looking at his guest. Haven’t I seen him somewhere? And if so, where? In Krakow? In Dresden? In Opava?
The voices of pupils came drifting in from outside the window, chorally reciting stanzas from Statius’s The Thebaid. Every now and then, the recitation was interrupted by a yell—the usher supervising the class was correcting a pupil’s Latin using a rod and encouraging him to try harder.
The guest was tall and slim to the point of thinness, but strength could be sensed in him. He wore his greying hair in the fashion of a clergyman and his felt cap—Wendel Domarasc would have bet any money—concealed a tonsure or the remains of one. The magister was also willing to bet that the visitor might also have lowered his eyes, humbly bowed his head, put his hands together and mumbled a prayer like a monk. He could have. If he’d wanted to. Now he clearly didn’t want to. He looked the magister straight in the eye.
The visitor’s eyes were most strange. Their unmoving keenness was unnerving and sent tingles down Domarasc’s neck and back. But their strangest feature was their colour—that of iron, the colour of an old knife blade, darkened by use. The realism was enhanced by reddish spots on the irises, just like flecks of rust.
“Ecce sub occiduas versae iam Noctis habenas astrorumque obitus, ubi primum maxima Tethys imu… impulit… Ouch! Oh, Good Lord Jesus!” The young pupil blew on his stinging hands.
Wendel Domarasc, magister scholarum of the Collegiate School at the Church of the Holy Cross in Opole and main sleeper agent of the Taborite intelligence service, head and coordinator of the spy network in Silesia, sighed softly. He knew who the visitor was—he’d been warned he would come. He knew on whose orders the visitor was there and whose authority he represented. He knew what authorisation the visitor had to give orders, and also the penalty for failing to carry them out. That was all Domarasc knew. Nothing more. In particular, not the visitor’s name.
“Well, yes, m’lord.” He finally decided on a form of address as courteous as it was neutral. “Hard times have come to us lately in Silesia. Hard times, indeed… I don’t say that, please understand, to shirk my duties or to justify idleness, no, not at all. I make efforts, Brother Prokop need not worry—”
He broke off. The visitor’s iron-grey gaze, it turned out, also had the remarkable ability to stem garrulousness.
“In February of last year,” Wendel Domarasc shifted to shorter and more precise sentences, “the Union of Strzelin was established, as you surely know. Silesian dukes, the starostas and councils of Wrocław, Świdnica, Jawor and Kłodzko. Its aim: to eliminate Czech networks operating in Silesia and then to mobilise their armies to strike Bohemia.”
The visitor nodded to indicate that he knew. But the expression didn’t change in his iron-grey eyes.
“They smote us hard,” continued the spy without emotion. “The bishop’s Inquisition and the counter-intelligence of Albrecht of Kolditz and Půta of Častolovice. The abbots of Henryków, Kamieniec and Krzeszów. The Świdnica sleeper agent and several of our people in Wrocław were arrested in the autumn. Somebody was made to testify, or somebody betrayed us, for by the second Sunday of Advent, the Jawor cell had been reeled in. Most of our agents from the Nysa region were arrested in the winter. And this year, not a month has gone by without somebody being caught… Or killed. Terror is spreading. People well disposed to us are dying. Merchants collaborating with us are dying. The people are in the grip of fear. It’s difficult to recruit new agents in these circumstances. It’s difficult to infiltrate—the risk of betrayal and entrapment is growing… Brother Prokop, I realise, isn’t interested in the difficulties, but in outcomes, results… Please report that we’re doing what we can. We’re doing our jobs. I’m observing the rules of the trade and doing my—”
“I didn’t come here to inspect you,” the man with the iron-grey eyes interjected calmly. “I have my own tasks to accomplish in Silesia. I visited you for three reasons. Primo, you’re the safest cell and my own safety matters to me somewhat. Secundo, I need your help.”
The magister breathed out, swallowed and raised his head more boldly.
“And tertio?”
“You need Prokop’s help. Here it is.”
The iron-grey-eyed man unfastened his bundle and drew from it a large package wrapped in sheepskin and tied with a leather strap. The package thumped down heavily on the table, announcing its contents with a muffled clank. The spy held out a bony hand covered in liver spots that looked like a hawk’s talons.
“This is precisely what we need,” Wendel said, feeling the package. “Gold and the spirit of victory. If Prokop gives me more gold and a few more victories like Tachov, Silesia will be his in a year.”
“Numquam tibi sanguinis huius ius erit aut magno feries impre… imperdita Tydeo pectora; vado equidem exsul… exsultans… Ow! Ouch!”
“You mentioned,” the magister scholarum said as he closed the window, “that you are counting on my help.”
“Here’s a list of what I’ll need. Please get it quickly.”
“Hmm… It’ll be arranged.”
“I must also meet Urban Horn. Please inform him. Have him come to Opole.”
“Horn’s not in Silesia. He had to flee. Someone informed and they were almost upon him. He killed one of the bishop’s thugs and heavily injured another in Milicz… Ha, just like in a knightly romance… I think he’s in Greater Poland now. I don’t know exactly where. As a special agent, Horn isn’t subordinate to me and doesn’t report to me.”
“Tybald Raabe, in that case. Get him here.”
“There’ll be a problem with that, too. Tybald is imprisoned.”
“Where? Who has him?”
“He’s at Schwarzwaldau Castle. Sir Herman Zettritz the Younger has him.”
“Organise a swift horse for me.”
Sir Herman Zettritz the Younger, the Lord of Schwarzwaldau, sat sprawled on a chair resembling a throne. The wall behind his back was covered with a slightly sooty tapestry depicting, according to all the signs, the Garden of Eden. Two filthy hounds lay at the knight’s feet. Alongside, at a table covered in food, sat the knight’s entourage, who were only slightly cleaner than the hounds and consisted of five armed burgmen and two women whose profession wasn’t too difficult to guess at.
Herman of Zettritz shook breadcrumbs from his belly and the family arms—a red and silver aurochs’ head—and looked down at the priest standing before him in the humble pose of a supplicant.
“Right then, laddie,” he said. “What was your name again, priest? I’ve forgotten.”