“Get a move on there!” yelled Pimple-Face from the front. “The castle is before us! Drive those swine uphill, it’s about time they moved their legs!”
Whips whistled. Blows and curses rained down.
They were driven through a narrow gate into a walled outer bailey which narrowed towards the west, overshadowed by the walls of the upper castle. The yokes were removed. Reynevan felt the back of his neck with a numb hand to discover it had been rubbed raw. The journeyman carpenter began to say something to him but broke off with a cry when the thong of a whip struck his back.
“Line up, curs!” Pimple-Face roared. “Stand in line! Keep your traps shut!”
Pushed and prodded, they lined up by the wall. There were thirty-three people with him—Reynevan was only now able to count exactly—including seven women, four old people and three striplings. Neither the old people nor the boys appeared fit for slave labour. He wondered why they’d been captured.
He had no more time to wonder further.
The way to the gate leading to the upper castle from the outer bailey was up a wooden, partially roofed staircase. A group of richly attired men was descending it, to be greeted by the captain of the guard and several vassals at the bottom.
“And what do we have here, Hurkovec?” asked a well-built man with a fair moustache leading them. There was no doubt who he was: his loose-fitting haqueton was decorated with the motif of a winged fish, the crest of the Bergow family. The man was the Lord of Trosky Castle, Otto of Bergow in person.
“What do we have here?” he repeated. “A few peasants, beggars, women and children. I thought, Hurkovec, I’d made a few things clear to you. You were meant to supply me with Hussites, you good-for-nothing. Hussites, not peasants caught at random. Think I shall pay you for peasants? Most of whom are probably mine anyway?”
“As God is my judge.” Pimple-Face beat his breast and bowed low. “May I not live to see tomorrow, Your Lordship! They are Hussites, most surely Hussites. Heretic scum, one and all, true sons of Huss.”
“They don’t look it,” said another knight, young and handsome, wearing a bell-shaped cap over curled hair. Almost every hem of his clothing was finished with rounded serrations, as fashion demanded. “They don’t look it,” he repeated, approaching, covering his nose with a serrated sleeve, “but let us ask for form’s sake. I say, old woman! What are you? Do you venerate Huss as your god?”
“I am innocent! Good sir! I am a poor widow!”
“And you, peasant? Do you receive communion under both kinds?”
“I am not guilty! Mercy!”
“They lie, Your Lordship,” Pimple-Face assured him, bowing. “They lie, the heretical swine, trying to save their skins. Wouldn’t you, in their place?”
The handsome knight glanced at him with vicious contempt, looking as though he’d strike him for such a suggestion. But he confined himself to spitting.
And then turned to Bergow and an older knight in a quilted doublet standing alongside, with a dignified face and proudly pouting mouth. Reynevan was certain he’d seen him before somewhere. After a moment’s thought, he realised he also knew the man in the bell-shaped cap.
“I don’t know, I truly don’t know, Sir Otto.” The dignified man turned to Lord Bergow, spreading his arms. “We have orders from the patriciate of the Six Cities. Bautzen placed an order with me. Sir Hartung Klüx of Czocha, here present, represents the interests of Zgorzelec; Sir Lutpold of Köckeritz, who will soon be here, represents Löbau. But our orders are for Hussites. Not some chance and lamentable rabble.”
Otto of Bergow shrugged. “What can I say, noble Sir Lothar of Gersdorf? Just one thing: this chance rabble will be begging for mercy in Czech before they burn at the stake in Bautzen or Zgorzelec. Like genuine Hussites. Indistinguishable.”
Lothar Gersdorf nodded in understanding and in agreement with the logic. And Reynevan now recalled where and when he’d seen him and the handsome, serrated Hartung Klüx in the bell-shaped cap. He’d seen both of them two years before. In Ziębice. At the tournament on the Feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary.
Gersdorf, Klüx and several of the other knights stepped aside to confer. A handful of knights who had previously been silent also approached the prisoners. Two of them didn’t bear coats of arms. The third, dressed most richly, had on his doublet a shield divided into six vertical silver and red bands, the universally known coat of arms of the Schaff family. Reynevan also remembered seeing Gocze Schaff, the Lord of Gryf Castle, at the Ziębice tournament. So, the man at Trosky must have been his brother Janko, the heir and Lord of Chojnik Castle.
A clanging and thudding of hooves resounded from the gate and guardhouse as a detachment of soldiers rode into the outer bailey. They were preceded by two heralds. One, dressed in white, was carrying a blue standard with three silver lilies. The yellow standard of the other herald bore a red stag’s antler. Reynevan felt a lump in his throat. He knew that coat of arms. More acquaintances had arrived. The new arrivals reined in their horses and dismounted, carelessly tossing the reins to panting servants, then walked up to the lord of the castle and bowed with respect, but proudly. Apart from the pikemen and bowmen, only a young page wearing a large beret with three ostrich plumes remained in the saddle. Indifferent to being thought of as a rogue, a jester and a fool, the page led his horse through a sequence of dressage steps. Horseshoes rang on the cobbles.
“Lord Bergow. We cordially greet you!”
“Lord Biberstein, Lord Köckeritz. May I welcome you warmly.”
“If I may: Lord Köckeritz’s and my knights and clients: Sir Mikuláš Dachs, Sir Henryk Zebant, Sir Wilrych Liebenthal, Piotr Nimptsch, Jan Waldau and Reinhold Temritz. Are we in time for the banquet?”
“Both for the banquet and for business.”
“So I see.” Ulrik of Biberstein, Lord of Frydland, cast his eyes over the captives against the wall. “Though it is a third-rate sight. Unless it’s what’s left after the Six Cities creamed off whatever decent goods there were. Greetings, Lord Gersdorf. Lord Klüx. Lord Schaff. How goes it? Has the deal been struck?”
“Not yet.”
“So conclude it.” Biberstein rubbed his hands. “And to the banquet, to the banquet! By Saint Dionysius, I’m dying for a drink!”
“That can easily be done.” Otto of Bergow nodded towards the pages.
Reynevan remembered from the accounts of the Hussite hejtmans that Mikuláš Dachs—who had arrived with the Lord of Frydland and went back to him after inspecting the captives—was a client of the Bibersteins. His expression was eloquent. A shake of the head expressed the rest.
“It gets ever worse, I see,” said Biberstein, taking a large goblet from a servant. “The goods become poorer and poorer, Sir Otto, the quality becomes more and more inferior. A sign of the times, a signum temporis, as my chaplain would say. Oh well, we’ll pay what they’re worth, so let’s talk prices. In the year of our Lord 1419, one paid in Kutná Hora sixty groschen for a Hussite seized and meant for torture and execution, and three hundred for a heretical preacher—”
“But it was a buyer’s market then,” Bergow interrupted him. “In 1419 it wasn’t difficult to catch a Hussite, for the Catholics were winning. Now the Hussites are on top and the Catholics are losing, so a Hussite captive is a rarity, a veritable rarity. And therefore dear. And the lords of the Landfried inflate the prices themselves, creating precedents. Oldřich of Rožmberk pays nine thousand groschen ransom. After the Battle of Tachov, the Bavarians and Saxons bought back their own men even more dearly. For as much as twelve thousand groschen a head.”