“Aye!” said Paszko Rymbaba, getting excited. “The cities there are wealthy and the castles’ treasuries are full. Like that Karlštejn people keep talking about. We’ll capture and pillage it—”
“Oh, hark at him,” snorted the Kottwitz knight with the red bar in his coat of arms. “Why, Karlštejn isn’t in Hussite but Catholic hands. The fortress is being besieged by the heretics—the crusade is meant to bring them relief! Rymbaba, you stupid old goat, you understand nothing about politics.”
Paszko Rymbaba flushed and bristled his moustaches.
“Beware who you call stupid, Kottwitz!” he yelled, drawing a war hammer from his belt. “To hell with politics; I know how to crack heads!”
“Pax, pax,” said Bożywoj of Lossow calmly, pulling the Kottwitz knight, who was now leaning across the table gripping a misericord, back into his seat. “Peace! Both of you! You’re behaving like children! All you know is boozing and brawling.”
“And Sir Hugo of Kottwitz is right,” added Traugott of Barnhelm. “Verily, Paszko, you don’t understand the mysteries of politics. We speak of a crusade—do you even know what a crusade is? Like Gottfried de Bouillon, Richard the Lionheart, Jerusalem and so on. Now do you understand?”
The Raubritters nodded, but Reynevan would have bet anything that not all of them had.
Buko of Krossig drained his mug and slammed it down on the table. “Blow Jerusalem, Richard the Lionheart, bullion, politics and religion,” he announced soberly. “We’re going to plunder whoever we come across, and that’s that, and the Devil take him and his faith. It’s said that people like Fedor of Ostrog, Dobko Puchała and others are already doing that in Bohemia, and that they’ve lined their pockets nicely. Are we—the Angelic Militia—their inferiors?”
“We are not!” yelled Rymbaba. “Buko’s right!”
“By Christ he is!”
“To Bohemia!”
But the euphoria was brief, extinguished like a flash in the pan by the curses and dangerous looks of the sceptics.
“The aforementioned Puchała and Ostrogski,” said Notker of Weyrach, who had been quiet until then, “feathered their nests by fighting on the winning side. So far, the crusaders have brought back more bruises than wealth from Bohemia.”
“True,” confirmed Markwart of Stolberg a moment later. “The men who fought at Prague in 1420 described the Meissen knights of Henryk Isenburg attacking Vítkov Hill—and how they fled, leaving a mountain of corpses behind them.”
“They say that Hussite priests fought beside the soldiers, howling like wolves, striking fear,” added Wencel of Hartha, nodding. “Even womenfolk fought there, wielding flails, as though seized by insanity… And those who fell alive into Hussite hands—”
“Nonsense!” said Pater Hiacynt, waving his hand dismissively. “True, Žižka was at Vítkov, and the devilish force he sold himself to. But Žižka is dead. He’s been frying in Hell for a year now.”
“Žižka wasn’t at Vyšehrad on All Saints’ Day,” said Tassilo of Tresckow, “and although we had a fourfold advantage, we still took a severe beating from the Hussites. They smote us and routed us so badly, it shames me to recall how we fled—in panic, blindly, as far away as possible, until our horses began to wheeze. And five hundred men lay dead on the battlefield, the most eminent of Czech and Moravian nobility.”
Stolberg said, “I didn’t know you were at the Battle of Vyšehrad, Sir Tassilo.”
“I was. For I went like a fool with the Silesian army, with Kantner of Oleśnica and Rumpold of Głogów. Yes, yes, gentlemen, Žižka’s gone to Hell, but there are other mighty warriors in Bohemia. We saw that on All Saints’ Day, and you’ll have to face them if you join a crusade to Bohemia.”
“Blow that.” Hugo of Kottwitz broke the silence. “Empty threats! They beat you because you didn’t know how to fight. I also fought the Hussites at Petrovice in 1421, under the command of Lord Půta of Častolovice, and we gave them a thrashing they won’t forget in a hurry! And we took plenty of spoils—I got the Bavarian suit of armour I’m wearing now from there—”
“Enough talk.” Stolberg cut him off. “Let us decide. Are we going to Bohemia or not?”
“I am!” Ekkehard of Sulz announced thunderously and proudly. “We must root out the evil of heresy, simple as that. Burn out the leprosy before it eats everything away.”
“I’m going, too,” said Wencel of Hartha. “I am in need of spoils—I plan to wed.”
“By the teeth of Saint Apolonia!” Kuno of Wittram leaped up. “Some spoils could come in handy!”
“Spoils are one thing,” Woldan of Osiny mumbled, a little hesitantly, “but I heard that whoever takes the cross will have his sins forgiven. And one has sinned greatly… Oh, indeed!”
“I’m not going,” said Bożywoj of Lossow bluntly. “I won’t go looking for trouble in foreign parts.”
“Me neither,” said Notker of Weyrach calmly, “because if Sulz is going, it means the matter is dubious.”
An uproar broke out again, curses were exchanged and Ekkehard of Sulz had to be forcibly returned to his seat with his short sword half-drawn.
“Personally,” said Jaśko Chromy of Łubnia, after things had calmed down, “I’d sooner go to Prussia to fight the Teutonic Knights with the Poles. Or vice versa, depending on who pays better.”
For a while, everybody was talking and shouting over one another, until finally Błażej, the wavy-haired Poraj, gestured for the company to be quiet.
“I won’t join this crusade,” he announced in the subsequent silence, “for I won’t follow bishops and prelates like a pup. I won’t be set on anybody like a cur. What is this crusade? Against whom? They’re Czechs—not Saracens. They carry a monstrance with them into battle. And if they don’t like Rome? Or our Bishop Konrad and the other prelates? I’m not surprised. I don’t like them, either.”
“You blaspheme, Sir Błażej!” roared Ekkehard of Sulz. “Czechs are heretics! They believe in heretical teachings! Burn churches! Worship the Devil!”
“They go around naked!”
“And they want their wives to be common property!” screamed Pater Hiacynt. “They want—”
“I’ll show you what the Czechs want,” Błażej interrupted thunderously. “And in sooth you will think about with whom and against whom you should march.”
At an obviously agreed sign, a not-so-young goliard in a red pointed hood and a doublet with an elaborately trimmed edge approached and took a rolled-up parchment from his doublet.
“May all faithful Christians know this,” he read, sonorously and resonantly, “that the Kingdom of Bohemia continues to endure and will last for ever with God’s help, to the death, according to the articles written down below. Firstly: that the word of God shall be freely expressed in the Kingdom of Bohemia and that priests may preach it unhindered—”
“What is this?” called Sulz. “Where is it from, minstrel?”
“Let him be,” said Notker of Weyrach, frowning. “Never mind where it’s from. Go on, lad.”
“Secondly: that the Body and Blood of Christ the Lord be given under both kinds in the form of bread and wine to all the faithful. Thirdly: that the secular power of priests over wealth and worldly goods be taken from them, so that, for their own salvation, they return to the rules of the Bible and the life that Christ led with his apostles. Fourthly: that all mortal sins and other offences committed by the priesthood against divine law—”
“It’s a heretical text!” shouted Pater Hiacynt. “Merely listening to it is sinful! Do you not fear damnation?”
“Shut your trap, Pater!”
“Silence! Let him read on!”
“—be punished and condemned. Namely: simony, heresy, taking money for baptisms, confirmations, confessions, communion, holy oil, holy water, masses and prayers for the deceased, for fasts, for ringing bells, for the parish, for buying and selling offices, benefices and prelatures, for promotions, and for indulgences—”
“Well?” Sir
Błażej stood with arms akimbo. “Is that not true?”
“Further,” continued the goliard, “the heresies resulting from this and from shameful practices of adultery, begetting of sons and daughters out of wedlock, sodomy and other debauchery, anger, arguments, fights, backbiting, tormenting and robbing of simple folk, collecting fees, duties and donations. Every just son of his mother, the Holy Church, ought to reject that, renounce it, deplore it like the Devil and be disgusted by it—”
Further reading was disrupted by a general uproar and confusion, during which, Reynevan noticed, the goliard noiselessly slipped away with his parchment. The Raubritters yelled, swore, shoved and threatened each other, and blades began to grate in scabbards.
Samson nudged Reynevan.
“I’d say you ought to glance through the window,” he murmured. “And fast.”
Reynevan did. And froze.
Three riders were entering the Kromolin stronghold.
Wittich, Morold and Wolfher Stercza.
Chapter Eighteen
In which modernity boldly encroaches on knightly traditions and customs, and Reynevan, as though wanting to vindicate the title of this book, makes a fool of himself. And is compelled to admit it. In front of the whole world.
Reynevan had reason to feel shame and anger, for he had succumbed to panic. At the sight of the Sterczas entering Kromolin, he was overcome by senseless, idiotic anxiety. His shame was all the greater because he was completely aware of it. Rather than assessing the situation soberly and following a sensible plan, he reacted like a frightened and hunted animal. He jumped through a window in the chamber and bolted between the sheds and shacks, towards the thicket of riverside willows that he hoped would offer him safe, dark sanctuary.
He was saved by luck and the cold that had been troubling Stefan Rotkirch for several days.
The Sterczas had set their snare well. The three brothers entered Kromolin, while the remaining three men—Rotkirch, Dieter Haxt and Eagle Owl of Knobelsdorf—had arrived unseen at the settlement some time earlier and manned the most probable escape routes. Reynevan would have run straight into Rotkirch, who was lurking behind a shed, were it not for the fact that Rotkirch sneezed so loudly his frightened horse kicked the shed with a great thud. Although panic had frozen Reynevan’s brain and turned his legs to jelly, he stopped in time, doubled back, crawled on hands and knees under a fence and hid behind a pile of firewood. He was shaking so much, the entire pile appeared to be rustling as though buffeted by a strong wind.
“Psst! Psst, young m’lord!”
Beside him, behind the fence, stood a boy of about six in a felt cap and a blouse reaching halfway down his calves, tied around his waist with twine.
“Psst! To the cheese store, m’lord… The cheese store… Yonder!”
He looked where the boy was pointing. A stone’s throw away was a rectangular wooden construction, a kind of booth with a pointed shingle roof, raised more than five yards above the ground on four sturdy posts. The structure looked more like a large dovecote than a cheese store, but above all, it resembled a trap without an exit.
“To the cheese store,” urged the boy. “Quickly… You can hide in it—”
“That?”
“Aye. We always hide there,” he lisped.
Reynevan didn’t debate the point, particularly since someone whistled nearby, and a loud sneeze and stamp of a horse’s hoof heralded the approach of the snivelling Rotkirch. Fortunately, Rotkirch rode straight into a goose shed and the birds began squawking raucously. Reynevan knew that this was the moment. He ran, bent over, beside the wattle fence and reached the cheese store. And froze. There was no ladder and no way of clambering up the smooth oaken posts.
Cursing his stupidity under his breath, he was about to continue running when he heard a soft hiss, and a knotted rope descended like a snake from an opening above him. Reynevan seized the rope with his hands and feet and climbed up it in a flash, to find himself in a gloomy, stuffy space permeated by the smell of old cheese. The person who had let the rope down and helped him climb inside was the goliard in the red jerkin and tailed hood. The same one who had just read out the Hussite declaration.
“Hush,” he whispered, putting a finger to his lips. “Be quiet, m’lord.”
“Is it—”
“Safe here? It is. We always hide in here.”
Reynevan might have tried to ascertain why, if they hid there so regularly, they weren’t regularly found, but there wasn’t enough time. A sneezing Rotkirch rode right past the cheese store without giving the building a second glance.
“You are Reinmar of Bielawa,” said the goliard in the gloom. “Brother of Piotr, who was murdered in Balbinów.”
“Correct,” Reynevan replied. “And you are hiding here out of fear of the Inquisition.”
“Correct,” the goliard confirmed. “What I read in the tavern… The Articles—”
“I know what those articles were. But the men who just arrived are not the Inquisition.”
“Could have been, though.”
“Indeed. And it looks as though you have protectors. But you hid, nonetheless.”
“And didn’t you?”
The cheese store had numerous openings in it, no doubt to provide free circulation of air for the drying rounds of cheese, but they also offered a panoramic view of the entire stronghold. Reynevan pressed his eye to a hole facing the tavern and the illuminated courtyard. He could see what was happening, though it was too far away to hear anything, but it wasn’t at all difficult to guess.
The council of war in the tavern was still going on, only a few men had left it. So the Sterczas were chiefly greeted in the courtyard by dogs, as well as some esquires and a handful of Raubritters, including Kuno of Wittram and John of Schoenfeld with his bandaged head. Actually, the word “greeted” is an overstatement, since few of the knights even looked up. Wittram and the other two were still devoting all their attention to a ram’s skeleton, from whose ribs they were stripping the last shreds of meat and shoving them into their mouths. Schoenfeld was quenching his thirst with malmsey, sucking it through a straw stuck between his bandages. The blacksmiths and merchants had gone to bed, the wenches, monks, goliards and Romani had prudently vanished, and the servants were pretending to be very busy. Which meant that Wolfher Stercza had to repeat his question.
“I asked,” he thundered from his elevated position in the saddle, “if you’ve seen a young man answering to the description I just gave you. Is he or was he here? Will somebody finally deign to answer my question? Have you gone deaf, damn you?”
Kuno of Wittram spat a mutton bone straight under the hooves of Stercza’s horse. Another knight wiped his fingers on his jerkin, glanced at Wolfher and slid the hilt of his sheathed sword into a better position to be drawn. Schoenfeld gurgled through the straw without looking up.
Rotkirch rode up, followed a moment later by Dieter Haxt. They both shook their heads under the enquiring stares of Wolfher and Morold. Wittich swore.
“Who has seen the fellow I described?” Wolfher repeated. “You, perhaps? Yes, you, big man, I’m talking to you. Have you seen him?”
“No,” answered Samson Honey-Eater, who was standing by the tavern. “I have not.”
“Whoever saw him and shows me where he is,” said Wolfher, leaning on his pommel, “will get a ducat. Well? Here is the ducat, in case you think I’m lying. Just point out the fellow I’m searching for. Confirm he is or was here. Whoever does it gets this ducat! Come on—who wants to earn some coin?”
One of the servants reluctantly walked over, looking around hesitantly.
“M’lord, I s—” he began. He didn’t finish, for John of Schoenfeld kicked him hard in the backside. The servant lurched forwards onto his hands and knees, then leaped up and fled, limping.
Schoenfeld put his hands on his hips, glared at Wolfher and mumbled something indistinctly through his bandages.
“Eh?” Stercza leaned over from the saddle. “What did he sa
y?”
“I’m not sure,” replied Samson calmly, “but I think it was something about fucking Judases.”
“I believe so, too,” confirmed Kuno of Wittram. “By the barrel of Saint Willibrord! We don’t like Judases here in Kromolin.”
Wolfher flushed and then paled, clenching his fist around the handle of a whip. Wittich moved his horse and Morold reached for his sword.
“I wouldn’t,” said Notker of Weyrach from the doorway of the tavern, flanked by Tassilo of Tresckow and Woldan of Osiny, with Rymbaba and Bożywoj of Lossow behind him. “I advise you not to start, gentlemen. For I swear by God that what you start, we shall finish.”
“They murdered my brother,” panted Reynevan, his eye still pressed to the hole in the wall of the cheese store. “Let’s hope they’ll start quarrelling. The Raubritters will cut them to pieces and Peterlin will be avenged.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
He turned around. The goliard’s eyes shone in the dark. What is he suggesting? wondered Reynevan. That I shouldn’t count on a quarrel or on revenge?
“I don’t want to fight,” said Wolfher of Stercza, softening his tone, “and I’m not looking for trouble. See how courteously I ask. The fellow I seek killed my brother and dishonoured my sister-in-law. It’s my right to seek justice—”
“Oh, gentlemen,” said Markwart of Stolberg, after the laughter had stopped. “It was a poor choice bringing your grievance to Kromolin. I advise you to seek justice elsewhere. In the courts, for example.”
Weyrach snorted and Bożywoj of Lossow roared with laughter. Wolfher paled, aware that they were mocking him, and Morold and Wittich gnashed their teeth in frustration. Wolfher opened and closed his mouth several times, but before he managed to say anything, Eagle Owl of Knobelsdorf galloped into the courtyard.
The Tower of Fools Page 29
