“My dear Reinmar,” he finally said, abandoning the annoying mannerism of addressing him as “young master,” “if you expect any advice from me, it’ll be dead simple. Flee from Silesia. I’d warn you that you have plenty of enemies here, but you’re perfectly aware of that, after all. For that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? So listen to some good advice: flee to Bohemia. Your enemies here are a tiny bit too powerful for you to harm them.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed, unfortunately.” The goliard looked at him keenly, fixing him with a piercing gaze. “In particular Jan, Duke of Ziębice, is a little beyond your reach. I know he plundered your possessions—I saw how he ruined Sir Piotr’s fulling mill. And I know sufficient about the circumstances of Adèle Stercza’s death to be able to see through your designs. Thus, I advise: abandon them. Duke Jan doesn’t give two hoots about your declarations of vengeance against him.”
“Your conclusions are too hasty,” said Reynevan, sipping from a cup of wine, which was indeed a little too watered down. “Too hasty, Tybald. Perhaps I have other tasks and affairs in Silesia, another mission? Would you dissuade me from them? You? After what I saw in Niemcza town square?”
The beguiler chortled. “Good, wasn’t it?” It grinned, showing crooked teeth. “They were racing about in the crowd like spaniels, spinning around like turds in an ice hole…”
“It’s our job,” said Tybald Raabe more seriously. “Agitation is vital. And Malevolt works with me, helps me, as you saw. Supports our cause. He shares our convictions.”
“Oh!” Reynevan showed his interest. “Regarding the teachings of Wycliffe and Huss? The abolition of papal primacy? Communion sub utraque specie and modifications to the liturgy? The need for reform in the Church?”
“No,” interrupted the beguiler. “None of that. I’m not an idiot, and only an idiot could believe that your Church is reformable. But I still support every revolutionary movement and insurrection. For the goal is nothing and the movement is everything. The world must be shaken at its foundations. Call forth chaos and confusion! Anarchy is the mother of order, for fuck’s sake. Let the old order crumble, let it go up in flames! And in the ashes will remain a shining diamond, the dawn of eternal victory.”
“I see.”
“Like hell you do. Innkeeper! More wine!”
The innkeeper, surprisingly, appeared to have taken to heart Malevolt’s snide remark, because he began to serve slightly less watered-down wine. The effects weren’t long in the coming—the beguiler posing as a Samogitian was soon leaning against the wall, snoring. And since the inn had emptied, Reynevan decided it was time to talk frankly.
“I need a place to hide, Tybald. And for a longer rather than a shorter time. Until Christmas. Perhaps even longer.”
Tybald Raabe raised an enquiring eyebrow, and, without needing further prompting, Reynevan gave an account of what happened in Ciepłowody. In detail.
“You have plenty of enemies in Silesia,” the goliard concluded, none too originally. “In your shoes, I wouldn’t go into hiding but would take to my heels. At least as far as Bohemia. Haven’t you considered such a solution?”
“I must… hmm… stay.” Reynevan avoided his gaze, not certain how much he could reveal. For Tybald Raabe was a sly fox.
“I get it.” The latter winked knowingly. “Got orders, have we? I knew Neplach would know how to use you. I expected that. Urban Horn did, too. Horn also guesses what this is all about.”
“And what is it all about, if one may ask?”
“The Vogelsang.”
“What is the Vogelsang?”
“Hmm, ahem…” Tybald coughed unexpectedly and scratched his nose in embarrassment. “I don’t know if I ought to tell you. Since you’re asking, it means Flutek didn’t tell you. Though I reckon it’s better for you not to know.”
“What is the Vogelsang?”
“In 1423,” Gregorz Hejncze said to Łukasz Bożyczko, “Jan Žižka ordered the creation of special task forces, which were to be sent beyond Bohemia’s borders into enemy territory, where Žižka was already planning to transfer the fight for the Chalice. The forces were meant to operate in strict secret, quite independent of the usual spy networks. Their sole task was to prepare the way for aggressive forays into neighbouring countries. They were supposed to help the Taborites with their plundering raid by using sabotage and acts of terror and by spreading panic. The groups were set up and sent out. To Austria, Bavaria, Hungary, Lusatia and Saxony. And Silesia, naturally. The Silesian group received the code name—”
“The Vogelsang…” whispered Bożyczko.
“The Vogelsang,” Tybald Raabe confirmed. “As I was saying, the group reported directly to the commander-in-chief. Contact was maintained using special liaison agents. It happened that the Vogelsang’s liaison agent perished—he was murdered—and then contact was lost—the Vogelsang simply vanished. The reason appeared clear: the group feared treachery. Each fresh liaison agent might have been a plant and that suspicion was reinforced by a wave of arrests directed at the networks and subgroups set up by the Vogelsang. Neplach thought long about whom to send. Someone the Vogelsang would trust.”
“And he did.” Reynevan nodded. “For Peterlin was the Vogelsang’s liaison officer. Am I right?”
“You are.”
“Neplach believes this highly confidential Vogelsang will reveal itself to me? Just because Peterlin was my brother?”
“However faint, there is a chance,” the goliard agreed gravely. “And Flutek is desperate. It’s known that Prokop the Shaven has been planning a plundering raid on Silesia for a long time. Prokop is very much counting on the Vogelsang, it’s part of his strategy. He has to know whether the Vogelsang—”
“Whether the Vogelsang has been compromised.” Reynevan finished the sentence, suddenly understanding. “The group may have been unmasked, its members captured and turned. If the agent seeking contact with the group were to be caught… I mean, if I were caught, if I were seized and executed, it would be proof of betrayal. Am I right?”
“You are. And now what do you say to my advice? You’ll treat it more seriously and vanish while you can?”
“No.”
“They’re putting your head on the block. And you’re letting them. Like an utter simpleton.”
“What counts is the cause,” Reynevan said after a long pause, and his voice was as solemn as a bishop’s at Corpus Christi.
“What?”
“What matters most is our cause,” he repeated, and his voice was as hard as a gravestone. “When the good of the cause is at stake, individuals matter not. If, thanks to that, the noble cause of the Chalice moves a step closer to victory, since it’s meant to be a stone thrown at the ramparts of our ultimate triumph… I’m prepared for that sacrifice.”
“Not for a long time.” It turned out the beguiler hadn’t been asleep at all. “Not for a long time have I heard anything so inane.”
*
And my dad was a carter