The Heretic

by David Pilling

  I swallowed, trying not to look at the girl. “I have come from Lord Zizka,” I said, “he regards you and your brethren as heretics. Unless you agree to recant, and beg for mercy, the worst will follow.”

  Martin seemed unperturbed. “We know of Zizka,” he replied, “some weeks ago he burned fifty of us at the village of Klokot.”

  “There will be no mercy from him,” said Elisabeth, in a soft, breathy voice that made me shudder, “so let him come. We have made our peace with God.”

  I was unaware of the incident at Klokot, where Zizka ordered fifty Adamites, men and women, to be put to the flames. The people of the island knew exactly what to expect from the general, and I had talked myself into going on a fool's errand.

  “I've persuaded him to relent,” I said, “surrender, and a few of you may yet be saved. Fight, and all of you will die.”

  They both laughed. “Fight?” exclaimed Martin, “none of us bear arms, friend. To kill one's fellow man is the ultimate crime against God. Beasts in the wild rend each other. We are not beasts. God gave us the ability to think, to reason. To love.”

  “Come,” he added, “let me show you what I mean. We'll take you to our village.”

  I dismounted and led my mare after this pair of holy simpletons, wondering if all the Adamites were like them. If so they were mad, of no danger to anyone except themselves.

  It was late autumn, and the trees dripped gold and brown leaves. There was already a biting chill in the air. Unless the Adamites had the sense to cover their bodies in the winter months, Zizka had no need to slaughter them. They would soon die off anyway.

  Their village, if such it could be called, lay on the edge of the woods at the south-west corner of the island, close to a muddy riverbank. It reminded me a little of Robert Stafford's outlaw camp in the Weald in Sussex, except smaller and even dirtier. Seven or eight ramshackle lodges were scattered about a forest glade, large enough for two people, made of twisted branches and overlaid with roofs of heaped leaves and moss. They looked likely to blow over in a strong wind.

  The glade stank of piss, dung, wood smoke, and the predictable reek of unwashed bodies. Perhaps a dozen Adamites squatted or lounged about a spluttering fire inside a rough circle of stones. They were all naked, and they all stank. Something foul bubbled inside a dented old pot set up over the fire.

  Nobody paid any heed to our arrival. One couple, an older man with a pot belly and a much younger girl, no older than fourteen, frantically copulated under a tree. The man grunted like a pig as he thrust inside her, pale flabby buttocks thrashing up and down. A woman with a shock of greying red hair knelt in prayer beside the river. Occasionally she uttered a high-pitched shriek and hugged herself, weeping.

  “You see?” said Martin, “the innocence of the life we have made here? This is how Adam and Eve dwelled in the Garden of Eden before they were tempted.”

  “You call rape innocent?” I demanded, pointing at the couple under the tree. Martin laughed again. The patronising tone of it filled me with rage.

  “There is no question of rape,” he said complacently, “such terms were invented much later, after mankind had descended into sin and lost its way. The girl was quite willing. There is no crime in sexual congress, friend. God wants us to breed. Our children, born into blessed innocence, will be infused with the Holy Spirit.”

  “It matters not if the partners are kin,” this amazing lunatic babbled on, “a father may impregnate his daughter, a brother his sister, and so on. Those who first condemned incest as a sin were liars.”

  “To lie is a sin,” Elisabeth added gravely, “the worst sin of all. Adam and Eve were led into temptation by a lie. For the sake of that lie they were driven out of Eden, and took to wearing clothes, hiding their true forms. We reject that original lie.”

  I looked around the squalid glade, my head swimming at the stench, and spotted a group of five children. They squatted outside one of the lodges, playing listlessly in the dirt. Like the adults, they were naked, and put me in mind of a brace of skinned rabbits. Their bodies were savagely malnourished, bellies protruding, limbs like twigs, faces pinched with hunger.

  “If you won't recant for your own sake,” I urged Martin,“at least save the children.”

  The other man looked shocked. “This is your notion of mercy?” he cried, “to send us to Paradise, separated from our children? To leave them behind in the world as orphans, dependent on the charity of others? Zizka's cruelty is limitless.”

  My voice started to crack. “For God's sake,” I pleaded, “see sense. They will all be killed.”

  Martin and Elisabeth shook their heads and looked kindly on me, as though I was the madman. I was tempted to get the children out at swordpoint. Granted, I was outnumbered, but the Adamites rejected violence, even in self-defence. Besides which, they were all so enfeebled by hunger I reckoned I had an even chance of cutting my way through them.

  A thought struck me. What if the brats refused to come? Their heads were probably stuffed full of the insane creed of the Adamites. I couldn't rescue anyone who had been taught to welcome death.

  Roused by our voices, some of the people around the fire started to stir. One huge fellow with blacksmith's shoulders and a thick mat of golden chest hair raised himself on one elbow. He blinked at me, snuffling under his breath like an old sow.

  “You have done all you can, friend,” said Martin, “now you must leave. At once.”

  There was a hint of fear in his voice. I believe he was genuinely concerned for my safety: perhaps some of his companions had not entirely relinquished violence. The big man in particular was glaring at me with the light of battle in his eyes. One of his huge hands reached out and closed around a rock.

  Martin was right. I had done all I could, and it made no sense to stay and risk my skin any further. He and Elisabeth called out a fond farewell, as though we were old friends, as I mounted my horse and rode away.

  Zizka's troops were still drawn up in battle array when I returned. The general listened to my sad report in silence, while his priests nodded and tutted and smiled knowingly at each other.

  “Just as we expected,” gloated the thin-lipped swine I had taken a particular dislike to, “your pity was wasted on them, Englis.”

  “The Devil has stolen their wits,” another shaveling remarked piously, “as well as their souls.”

  I ignored them and looked at Zizka. Even now, I hoped he would show mercy. “There are children among them, my lord,” I said quietly, “our enemies might choose to slay innocents, but we are Christian men. True Christians.”

  Zizka didn't seem to hear me. “Advance banners,” he ordered in his bass rumble, “I want the island scoured clean by sundown.”

  I took no part in what followed. Three of our young knights also refused, on the grounds that it was unchivalrous to slay unarmed women and children, even heretics. The priests branded them cowards and weak-minded appeasers. Zizka said nothing. Unlike his peasant soldiers, who were required to abide strictly by his Regulations of War, noblemen enjoyed a certain privilege. He had too few knights under his command to risk alienating or punishing those in his service.

  The rest of his troops went berserk. Whipped into an ecstasy of bloodlust, they stormed the island in under an hour, sweeping it from end to end and putting every Adamite they found to the sword. A select few, on Zizka's orders, were dragged out for special treatment.

  I saw Martin and Elisabeth among the pitiful group of naked prisoners herded across the river. Our soldiers jeered and cursed and spat at them, called them Antichrist, flogged their bare backs with bowstrings and spear-butts.

  This was only the start of their torments. Two of our baggage wagons carried spars of timber. To my horror, these were now unloaded and methodically pieced together to form six crucifixes, some ten feet high. At the same time our men scooped out a row of post-holes in the soft earth close to the riverbank.

  There were ten prisoners. Six of the shivering wretches, two of the
m children, were hauled out of line and forced to lay flat on the crucifixes. Then, as the priests howled prayers and benedictions, thick iron nails were hammered through their wrists and ankles, pinning them to the timber.

  The remaining four were ordered to stand knee-deep in the river. Elisabeth was one. Her blue eyes gazed at me even as six Hussite knights drew their broadswords and set about hacking the defenceless prisoners to death.

  While the water turned red and the air filled with screams, the crucifixes were raised and planted firmly inside the post-holes. The nailed Adamites shrieked and writhed, an obscene parody of Christ's torment on the cross. Blood flowed freely from the wounds in their bodies and watered the earth beneath.

  I, along with the four knights who had refused to follow Zizka's order, stood apart. “God forgive us,” muttered one, “today we have forfeited His goodwill.”

  “We shall be punished,” said another,

  God, I think, was already at work. My punishment was to watch, helpless, as the people I had tried to save were tortured to death before my eyes.

  Now I started to reap the consequences of my folly. I had come to Bohemia in search of a cause worth fighting for. In Lord Zizka, I hoped to find a man I could love as well as serve. I was a great fool. Zizka might have been King Harry's soul-brother. They were both men of iron, with iron souls and lumps of iron in place of hearts.

  It was too late to recant. I had pledged myself to the Hussites, body and soul, and could only see out the contract.

  To whatever end.

  14.

  Zizka left his victims to rot and marched straight back to Caslav. After my refusal to assist in the massacre, I feared I might be in disgrace. Instead he gave me a commission.

  “You showed courage at the island,” Zizka grunted when I was summoned to his pavilion, “courage to speak with the heretics alone, and to defy my orders. I will overlook your disobedience. Once. Repeat the offence, and you will be punished according to the Regulations of War. Understand?”

  “Yes, my lord,” I replied with a bow. A worm of fear trickled down my spine. I had been flogged once, in Normandy (my back still carried the scars) and had no wish to repeat the experience.

  Zizka snapped his fingers. A clerk stepped forward and placed a roll of parchment in his hand.

  “I know you are brave, Englis,” he said, “and that you can fight. Now we shall see if you can lead.”

  He unrolled the parchment and pressed it flat on his desk. “Your name has been entered on the muster roll as a captain of horse, in charge of twenty lancers. May Christ guide your sword in the battles to come.”

  Life was easier for a while after my promotion. Zizka marched away with half his army to conduct a hellish winter campaign in southern Bohemia, leaving me behind to drill my men. The general called them lancers, but really they were ordinary sergeants, armed with long spears. They were an eager but dull-witted set, farm lads who had never backed anything more lively than a carthorse. I spent my days teaching them to ride in step and knock vegetables off stakes at the gallop, and my nights inside a warm tent, dreaming of wine, whores and England.

  As ever, there was little in the way of sinful amusement: Zizka's damned Regulations strictly forbade drunkenness, gambling and the presence of whores in camp. All the things that make army life bearable. Still, it was better than sitting outside Catholic strongholds in the cold, dodging arrows and dysentery.

  My peace didn't last, nor did I expect it to. Bohemia was rotten with fear. You could almost smell it. The shadow of the Dragon hung heavy over the entire country, and the spirits of our troops at Caslav could not be lower. Prayers were sent up, day and night, for God to stop the hearts of Sigismund and his German allies.

  The Almighty was deaf to their pleas. In the early days of November, Sigismund's vanguard finally stormed over the border. They moved quickly, razed a couple of towns and marched straight on to Kutna Hora, some fifty miles east of Prague.

  As soon as word reached Caslav of the invasion, every officer was summoned to an emergency council of war. In Zizka's absence our commander was Lord Cenek of Wartenbeg, a darkly handsome, smooth-tongued nobleman who had already changed sides once. Selfish and unreliable, he was also the most powerful of the Hussite nobles. Zizka distrusted him, but could not afford to do without his money and soldiers.

  “Sigismund advances at speed,” said Cenek, “Humpolec and Ledec have already fallen to him. Caslav lies directly on his line of march to Kutna Hora. Many of the citizens there are loyal to Sigismund and the Pope. My spies report rumours that the burghers sent secret messages to the Hungarian court, begging the King to come and liberate them.”

  “Turncoats,” spat a hard-faced knight to my left, “they should have been driven out or executed when we took over the city.”

  Cenek smiled at him. “Let us not be quick to judge,” he said mildly, “the German miners at Kutna Hora never renounced their allegiance to Sigismund.”

  “Turncoats and murderers!” exclaimed another knight, “they have the blood of good Christians on their hands.”

  The German miners they spoke of formed an uncomfortably large community of Catholics at Kutna Hora. Strict Catholics, they were only tolerated so they could mine the rich veins of silver under the town. I had heard dark tales of the evils they committed at the start of the war. It was said they seized Hussite civilians and threw them down the shafts of the mines. Over sixteen hundred were supposed to have died in this way, suffocated and crushed to death in the deep darkness under the earth.

  “Zizka has broken off his campaign in the south,” Cenek continued, “he should reach Prague in a matter of days. Our task is to hold off Sigismund as long as possible until Zizka arrives.”

  “Let the Dragon come!” barked the knight who had first spoken, smacking his fist into his palm, “we shall keep a warm welcome for him.”

  The Dragon showed an unexpected flash of cunning. Instead of banging his head on the heavily fortified camp at Caslav, as the Germans did at Zatec, Sigismund marched around our position and advanced on Kutna Hora via indirect roads. This was probably done on the advice of Pipo Spano, the Italian condottiere he had hired to lead his armies for him.

  News of Sigismund's clever side-step reached us in the middle of a snowbound December. Our troops huddled in their tents or around massive campfires, anything to keep their blood flowing in the iron grip of winter. Zizka had arrived at Caslav from Prague with his army, including hundreds of the armoured war-wagons I had heard so much about. The sight of those lumbering behemoths, each drawn by teams of six dray horses, filled me with confidence.

  His troops inspired a different reaction. The majority of them were Táborites, so-called because they named themselves after Mount Tábor in the Bible. They were the largest of the splinter groups among the Hussites, and their beliefs went far beyond anything preached by Jan Hus. The Táborites founded their doctrine on the Bible alone, rejecting all later Christian dogmas as false and impure. Private confession was forbidden, they refused to admit the existence of Purgatory, and demanded extreme simplicity in church services. This meant no vestments, no altar cloths, no vessels or cups or chalices. Just a plain board and a priest in simple garb, reciting the words of Christ in their oldest written form.

  My clearest memory of Caslav is of watching the columns of wagons rumble into camp, followed by long files of Táborite peasant-soldiers slogging along the icy roads on foot. The air was still and cold, the night sky clear, and the deep voices of Zizka's troops, raised in song, echoed among the white hills:

  “Ye who are God's warriors and of his law,

  Pray to God for help and have faith in Him,

  That always with Him you will be victorious,

  Christ is worth all your sacrifices, He will pay you back an hundredfold,

  If you give up your life for Him you will have eternal life,

  Happy is he who believes this truth.

  The Lord commands you not to fear bodily harm,

>   And commands you to put down your life for your brothers,

  Archers, crossbowmen, men of knightly rank,

  Scythemen and macebearers from all walks of life,

  Remember always the Lord benevolent.

  Do not fear your enemies, nor gaze upon their number,

  Keep the Lord in your hearts; for Him fight on,

  And before enemies there is no need to flee.

  You beggars and wrongdoers, remember your souls!

  For greed and theft don't lose your lives,

  And pay no heed to the spoils of war.

  And with this happily cry out – “At thee! Have at thee!”

  Savour the weapon in your hands and shout “God is our Lord!”

  This was the great war-hymn of the Hussites, “Ye Who Are Warriors of God.” Trapped on the page, it reads like a mediocre hymn, but the Táborites roared out the verses with spine-tingling passion. They believed fiercely in the truth of every word.

  “The Lord commands you not to fear bodily harm.” Nor did they. The average soldier fights for pay, only risking life and limb if absolutely necessary. Fanatics such as the Táborites had no such fear of death. Much like your janissaries, O Sultan, they fought in the certain knowledge of salvation. To die in battle, fighting against the enemies of the Lord, was to be welcomed. A sweet release into the hereafter, life everlasting among the angels.

  It was comforting to have such fearless warriors on our side. Their severe beliefs made little difference to me - the Táborite priests could hold their services in a field for all I cared, with the sheep and cows for a congregation.

  Outmaneovured by Sigismund, Zizka left a strong garrison to defend Caslav and marched hurriedly to Kutna Hora. We reached the town late on a Saturday, the twentieth of December. The arch of the northern sky was lit up by the glow of many fires. Sigismund's army had fallen to plundering and burning on the march, the usual parade of unspeakable cruelties, massacres and rapes and even crucifixion of defenceless innocents. These atrocities, committed by so-called Christians against other Christians, only served to slow up their advance. Otherwise they might have reached Kutna Hora before us, reducing it to smoke and ashes before sweeping on to Prague.