“Flutek.”
“Exactly. Which is why you’ll all go to Prague. And I’ll continue on my way. To White Mountain.”
Chapter Seven
In which Reynevan removes a stone from a kidney and becomes a father as a reward. As part of that same reward, he also becomes a spy. And takes the rough with the smooth.
White Mountain was the name of a treeless hill west of Prague, a short distance from the Premonstratensian monastery in Strahov. Armies marching on Prague had used the foot of the hill several times as a camp. As a result, the residents of neighbouring villages, tired of requisitions and robbery, got the hell out and the area became deserted. Armies came and went, but White Mountain had its own permanent residents. Bohuchval Neplach, called Flutek, turned White Mountain into the headquarters and training centre of the Hussite intelligence service. Flutek could have resided in Prague itself, but didn’t want to. He didn’t like the capital and was afraid of it. Prague—let’s face it, even in moments of peace and quiet—was like a slumbering but unpredictable bloodthirsty monster. Praguians were easily moved to anger and their outbursts were terrible to those they didn’t like.
Few in Prague liked Flutek.
Which was why Flutek preferred White Mountain. He liked to say that because he, Bohuchval Neplach, resided there, the name “White Mountain” would go down in the history of Bohemia. Children, he liked to say, would learn that name.
The day was dawning and it was beginning to rain as Reynevan passed the once wealthy but now plundered and desolate Strahov monastery. When he reached White Mountain, the day had fully dawned and it was raining steadily. The drenched sentries on the stockade ignored him completely, while the guard at the gate waved a hand towards the parade ground. Without being accosted by anyone, he led his horse to the stable. Some men in the stable eyed him up, but none of them asked him anything.
The espionage centre was being enlarged. The rain further intensified the pervasive smell of recently sawn planks and planed beams, and shavings littered the ground. Behind the old cottages and barns peeped new buildings, bright with fresh planks and beams, oozing resin from their ends. Without arousing anybody’s curiosity, Reynevan went over to one of the new buildings, which was long and low and resembled a large granary. He entered the hallway, then a large room full of smoke, steam and damp. And men, eating, talking and drying their clothing. They stared at him. Wordlessly. He withdrew.
And looked into another large room. Around forty men were sitting on benches, listening attentively to a lecture. Reynevan knew the lecturer, an elderly man, a spy, rumour had it, who’d been in the service of Charles IV. The old codger was so decrepit that the rumour was plausible. Why, judging from his age and appearance, the old man could even have spied for the House of Přemyslid.
“And if something should go wrong…” he lectured, coughing. “If you are ever cornered, then remember: it’s best to start yelling in a crowded place that it was the Jews, the Jews caused it all, it was a Jewish plot. Put a piece of soap in your mouths, get a good lather up with water at the town well, spit and cry: ‘Save me, help, I’m dying. The Jews have poisoned me, it’s the Jews.’ The people will at once attack the Jews, a disorderly confusion will begin and the Inquisition, having abandoned your trail, will pursue the Jews instead, while you can flee in peace. Do the same if you are captured and taken to be tortured. In that instance, play the fool, protest your innocence, say that you’re an unwitting instrument and that the Jews are guilty. ‘They forced me, they bribed me with gold.’ You will be believed, be sure. They always fall for it.”
“My, my! Reynevan!”
The man who shouted to him was Slavík Candát, whom Reynevan knew from his university days. When Reynevan was just beginning his education, Slavík Candát had already been studying for at least eight years and was older than most of the doctors, never mind the magisters. “Studying” was actually stretching it a bit—Slavík Candát did visit the academy from time to time and was even seen there occasionally. But he could be found much more often in one of the whorehouses in Na Perštýně or Krakow Street. Or in the town jail, where he was often put for taking part in drunken brawls and causing disturbances after dark. Although no longer a youngster, Candát adored brawling, so it was no surprise when he enthusiastically joined the revolutionary movement after the Defenestration. Reynevan hadn’t been at all surprised to see him working for Flutek in the spring of 1426, during his first visit to White Mountain.
“Greetings, Slavík. What, have you become a secretary?”
“Eh? You mean these?” Candát indicated the sheets of paper and quill pens he was carrying. “They’re letters from Heaven.”
“From where?”
“I’ve been promoted,” boasted the eternal student, pulling his fingers back over a bald pate as though combing his hair. “Brother Neplach transferred me to the propaganda department. I’ve become a scribe. An artist. Almost a poet. I write letters that fall from Heaven. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“Then listen.” Candát took one of the sheets and squinted at it through weak eyes. “A letter by Our Lady from Heaven. Which I wrote yesterday: “‘Faithless folk, base and perverse generation,’” he began, his voice transforming into preacherly exaltation as he read, “‘God’s wrath and calamities will fall on you, your labours and your flocks. Since you do not profess the true faith but listen instead to the Roman Antichrist, I shall turn my face from you. My Son shall judge you for the evil you have committed in His holy Church and destroy you as He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. And there will be a weeping and gnashing of teeth, amen.’
“Letters from Heaven, get it?” explained Candát, seeing that Reynevan didn’t get it at all. “Letters from Jesus, letters from Mary and Peter. We write them as propaganda. Agitators and emissaries learn them by heart and go to enemy countries to propagate them to the locals. In order—as our director says—to confuse the local folk so they don’t know who’s a friend, who’s an enemy or what’s what. That’s what letters from Heaven are, get it? Like this letter by Jesus, listen. Note how beautifully written it is—”
“Slavík, old chap, I’m in a bit of a hurry—”
“Listen, listen! ‘Sinners and scoundrels, your end is nigh. I am patient, but if you do not abandon Rome, the Beast of Babylon, I, my Father and all my angels will curse you—’”
“Brother Bielawa?” A voice from behind Reynevan saved him. “Brother Neplach urgently requests your presence. If you would follow me.”
One of the freshly erected buildings was imposing and resembled a manor house. It had several rooms on the ground floor and several austerely equipped chambers on the first floor. One of the chambers contained a large and not at all austere bed in which Flutek was lying, covered with an eiderdown and groaning.
“Where’ve you been?” he howled wildly at the sight of Reynevan. “I sent men to Prague and Kolín in search of you! And you… Ooh… Ooooh… Aaaaagh!”
“What’s the matter? Oh, don’t say anything. I know.”