“Blasphemer!” yelled Father Buzek, leaping up and spilling wine on himself and his neighbours. “To the stake with him! Have him burned, Brother Čapek!”
“Burn money?” Jan Čapek of Sány smiled hideously. “You must be drunk, Brother Buzek. He’s worth at least four thousand groschen. While there’s the faintest chance they’ll pay a ransom for him, no one will lay a finger on him—even were he to proclaim Master Huss himself a leper and a sodomite. Am I right, Brethren?”
The Hussites agreed enthusiastically, roaring and banging their mugs on the table. Čapek gestured to the guards to escort the captive out. Father Buzek glared angrily at him and then poured close to half a quart of Hungarian wine into himself in a single draught.
“You lust after a mean penny, like the Pharisees!” he said, and his words were already quite slurred. “And P-Paul wrote to Timothy: The love of money is the root of all evil. Which while some coveted after, they have erred from… Hic… The faith… And no covetous man hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God… You cannot serve God and Mammon!”
“We’d rather not,” said Jan Kolúch of Véska, laughing, “but we have to! For let me tell you, there’s no life without Mammon.”
“But there will be!” The preacher filled his cup and emptied it in one gulp. “There will be! When we triumph! Everything will be shared; all ownership and property will vanish. There will be no rich or poor, no poverty or oppression. Happiness and divine peace will reign on Earth.”
“What nonsense,” said the stooped old woman spinning in the corner. “Pious old soak.”
“We shall secure divine peace with our swords,” Jan Čapek said seriously. “We shall buy it with our blood. And we deserve a just reward for it, including Mammon. We didn’t fight a revolution, Brother, to return to that miserable hole, Sány. And to my sorry excuse for a stronghold, to my watchtower, which a hog almost knocked over by rubbing against it. Revolutions are fought in order for things to change: for the worse for the losers, for the better for the winners. Do you see, honoured guests, honourable Reinmar and Scharley, that coat of arms high up on the wall? It’s the crest of Sir Jan of Michalovice, known as Michalec. The castle where we are feasting, Michalovice, was his family seat. And then what? We seized it from him! We were victorious! When I find the time, I’ll get a ladder, take down that shield and hurl it on the ground; why, I’ll even piss on it. And I’ll hang my heraldic stag on the wall on a shield twice as large! And I shall rule here! Sir Jan Čapek of Sány! Lord of Michalovice!”
“Indeed, indeed!” Štěpán Tlach joined in from the dish of ribs. “The revolution is victorious, the Chalice triumphs. And we shall be great lords! Let’s drink to it!”
“Great lords! Only for hens to laugh at,” said the old woman by the spinning wheel with venomous contempt as she adjusted the bobbin on the flyer. “You’re bare-arsed brigands. Parvenus whose coats of arms drip paint when it rains.”
Štěpán Tlach threw a bone at her but missed. The other Hussites paid no attention to the old woman.
“But Mammon…” continued the preacher, pouring wine copiously and becoming increasingly incoherent. “Mammon ought not to be served. Yes, yes, the Chalice will triumph, the true way will be victorious… But the covetous shall not inherit… the Kingdom of God. Listen to me… Hic—”
“Enough.” Čapek waved a hand. “You’re drunk.”
“I am not! I’m sober… hiiic… And thus do I say to you: Let us venerate… Let us venerate… Pax Dei… For they shall be damned… The Chalice will triumph… Triuuumph… Eeey…”
“Didn’t I tell you? Drunk as a lord!”
“I’m sober!”
“You’re drunk!”
“To prove you’re not drunk,” said Jan Kolúch, twirling his moustache, “do as I say. Stick two fingers down your throat and say: Grrr! Grrr! Grrr!”
Priest Buzek managed the first “Grrr,” but on the second choked, rasped, goggled and vomited.
“Go on and puke,” said the old woman scathingly over her distaff. “Hope you puke your own arse out.”
Once again, she was ignored; the company was clearly accustomed to it. The vomit-spattered preacher was shoved out of the hall. There was a thudding as he fell down the stairs.
“In actual fact, honoured guests,” said Kolúch, wiping the table with a hat left behind by Father Buzek, “we’re some way short of outright victory. We’re sitting and feasting at Michalovice, which was seized, as Brother Čapek said, from Sir Jan Michalec. We’ve captured Mladá Boleslav, Benešov, Mimoň and Jablonné. But Michalec didn’t flee far, only to Bezděz. And where is Bezděz? Go over to the window and look northwards and you’ll see it, a mere two miles away, over the river. Two miles! When one of us sneezes, Lord Michalec in Bezděz shouts, ‘Bless you!’.”
“Unfortunately,” Štěpán Tlach said gloomily, “Lord Michalec has no blessings for us, but would rather wish us damnation. But we cannot march on Bezděz, it’s impregnable. We’d barely chip its walls.”
“That is the truth, unfortunately,” Vojta Jelínek said over his shoulder as he pissed into the hearth. “And there’s no shortage of other castles and lords nearby who wish us a cruel death. Petr of Vartenberk menaces us every other day from Děvín, a stone’s throw away. Six miles from here is Ralsko, lorded over by Sir Jan of Vartenberk, known as Chudoba…”
“You’ve met Bohuš of Kováň, Lord of Frýdštejn,” added Čapek. “You know what he’s capable of. And there are others…”
“Aye, there are,” Kolúch growled. “We do hold the more strategic castles: Vartenberk, Lipý, Český Brod, Bělá pod Bezdězem and of course Michalovice. Most of the length of the trade route is still controlled by the papists and the Germans. The Lords of Dohna control Falkenberg and Grabštejn castles. Mikuláš Dachs, a client of the Lusatian Bibersteins, is the burgrave of Hamrštejn. That old brigand Hans Foltsch, a mercenary from Zgorzelec, has designs on Roimund Castle. The brothers Jan and Jindřich Berk of Dubá control Tolštejn—”
“Kinsmen,” boasted Brázda of Klinštejn. “The Ronovic family, as I am.”
“Kinsmen like you exercise the Berks’ hounds,” interrupted the old woman at the spinning wheel.
“Of the brothers from Dubá,” snorted Jan Kolúch, “Jindřich is particularly ill-disposed to us, for we took Lipý from him. It’s said he vowed in the church in Žitava that he wouldn’t eat meat until he ejects us from Lipý Castle. I’d say his fast will last a long time.”
“Indeed!” shouted Štěpán Tlach, slamming his fist down on the table. “Damned be any man who tries to remove us. Just let him try! We, the Orphans, stand firm here!”
“Aye! We stand firm!”
Čapek frowned. “It’s not enough just to be here and bay like dogs on a chain. That’s not how Brother Žižka taught us. The best form of defence is attack! Strike the foe, give him no rest! Wait not until the foe arrives with his rabble but march on him, enter his domain with fire and sword. Strike them, the Lord said to the Israelites. And it is time to strike! It is time to muster and strike: Frýdštejn, Děvín, Ralsko, Roimund, Tolštejn—”