Warriors of God

Chapter One

In which Prague stinks of blood, Reynevan is followed, and then—by turns—becomes bored by routine, is full of recollections and longing, celebrates, fights for his life and drowns in a feather bed. And all the while, Europe turns somersaults, gambols and frolics.

Prague stank of blood.

Reynevan sniffed both sleeves of his jerkin. He had only just left the hospital, and while there—as is usual in a hospital—blood had been let from almost everyone, boils were regularly lanced and amputations took place with a frequency worthy of a better cause. His clothing might have absorbed the smell; there’d have been nothing unusual about that. But his jerkin just smelled like a jerkin. And nothing else.

He raised his head and sniffed. From the north, over on the left bank of the River Vltava, came the smell of dried weeds being burned in orchards and vineyards. Moreover, from the river came the smell of mud and rotting flesh—the weather was hot, the water level had dropped considerably and the exposed banks and dried-out sandbars had for some time been supplying the city with unforgettable olfactory impressions. But this time it wasn’t the mud that stank. Reynevan was certain of it.

A light and changeable breeze was blowing intermittently from the Poříčí Gate to the east. From Vítkov. And the ground at the foot of Vítkov Hill might indeed have been giving off the smell of blood, since plenty of blood had soaked into it.

But that couldn’t be possible. Reynevan adjusted the shoulder strap of his bag and walked briskly down the lane. The smell of blood couldn’t be coming from Vítkov. Firstly, it was quite far away. Secondly, the battle had been fought in the summer of 1420. Seven years before. Seven long years before.

He passed the Church of the Holy Cross, making good speed, but the stench of blood hadn’t faded. On the contrary, it had had grown more intense. For now, all of a sudden, it was coming from the west.

Ha, he thought, looking towards the nearby ghetto, stones aren’t like soil; old bricks and plaster remember much, much lingers on in them. What they absorb stinks for a long time. And over there, outside the synagogue and in the streets and houses, blood flowed even more copiously than in Vítkov, and a little more recently. In 1422, during the bloody pogrom, at the time of the upheaval that erupted in Prague following the execution of Jan Želivský. Enraged by the execution of their popular tribune, the people of Prague had risen up to seek revenge, to burn and kill. The Jewish district, as usual, took the brunt of it. The Jews had nothing at all to do with Želivský’s death and weren’t in any way responsible for his fate. But who cared?

Reynevan turned beyond the graveyard of the Church of the Holy Cross, passed by the hospital, entered the Old Coal Market, crossed a small square and ducked into the gateways and narrow backstreets leading to Dlouhá třída. The smell of blood had faded into a sea of other scents, for the gateways and backstreets bore every imaginable stench.

Dlouhá třída, however, greeted him with the powerful and heady aroma of bread. As far as the eye could see, celebrated Prague bread and rolls lay golden and fragrant on bakers’ stalls and counters. Although he had breakfasted in the hospital and wasn’t hungry, he couldn’t resist and bought two fresh rolls at the first stall he came across. The rolls—called caltas—were shaped so erotically that, for a while, Reynevan wandered along Dlouhá třída in a dream, bumping into stalls, lost in thoughts that raged like desert winds about Nicolette. About Katarzyna of Biberstein. There were several extremely attractive women of various ages among the passers-by he bumped into and jostled, lost in thought. He didn’t notice them. He apologised absent-mindedly and went on, by turns chewing a calta and staring at it spellbound.

The stench of blood in the Old Town Square brought him to his senses.

Ah well, thought Reynevan, finishing the calta, perhaps that’s not so strange—blood is nothing new for these streets. Jan Želivský and nine of his companions were executed right here, in the old town hall, having been lured here that Monday in March. After that treacherous deed, the town hall floor was washed, and red foam streamed under the doors and flowed—it was said—all the way to the pillory in the centre of the town square, where it formed a huge puddle. And soon after, when the news of the tribune’s death provoked an outburst of fury and the lust for revenge in Prague, blood flowed along all the surrounding gutters.

People were walking towards the Church of Our Lady before Týn, crowding into the courtyard leading to its doors. Rokycana will be preaching, thought Reynevan. It’ll be worth listening to what Jan Rokycana has to say, he thought. It’s always paid to listen to Jan Rokycana’s sermons. Always. Particularly now, at a time when the current events are supplying subject matter for sermons at a simply alarming rate. Oh, he has plenty to preach about. And it’s worth listening to.

But there’s no time. There are more pressing matters, he thought. And there’s a problem. Namely, that I’m being followed.

Reynevan had become aware of being followed quite some time before. Right after leaving the hospital, by the Church of the Holy Cross. His pursuers were cunning, kept out of sight and hid themselves very adeptly. But Reynevan had cottoned on. Because it wasn’t the first time.

He knew—in principle—who was following him and on whose orders they were acting. Although it wasn’t especially important.

He had to lose them. He even had a plan.

He entered the thronged, smelly, noisy Cattle Market and mingled with the crowd heading towards the Vltava and the Stone Bridge. He needed to vanish and there was a good chance of doing so in the crowded bottleneck on the bridge, in the narrow corridor linking the Old Town with the Lesser Quarter and Hradčany, in the hubbub and crush. Reynevan wove through the crowd, jostling passers-by and earning insults.

“Reinmar!” One of the people he bumped into, instead of calling him a “whoreson” like the rest, greeted him with his baptismal name. “By God! You, here?”

“Indeed. Hey, Radim… What’s the bloody stink?”

“It’s clay and sludge.” Radim Tvrdík, a short and not very young man, pointed at the bucket he was lugging. “From the riverbank. I need it… For you-know-what.”

“I do.” Reynevan looked around anxiously. “I do, indeed.”

Radim Tvrdík was—as the enlightened few knew—a sorcerer. Radim Tvrdík was also—as even fewer members of that enlightened circle knew—obsessed with the idea of creating an artificial person, a golem. Everybody—even the more poorly enlightened—knew that the only golem ever to have been created was the work of a certain Prague rabbi whose name, probably misspelled, was given as “Bar Halevi” in surviving documents. Long ago, that Jew, so the story went, used clay, sludge and mud scooped from the bottom of the Vltava to make the golem. However, Tvrdík—and he alone—presented the view that the causative factor was played here not by ceremonies and spells, which were in any case well known, but rather by a specific astrological configuration that acted on the sludge and clay in question and their magical properties. However, having no idea what the precise planetary configuration might be, Tvrdík operated using trial and error, gathering clay as often as he could, hoping one day to finally chance upon the right kind. He also took it from various places. But that day he had gone too far; judging from the stench, he had taken it straight from near some shithouse or other.

“Not working at the hospital, Reinmar?” he asked, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand.

“I took the day off. There was nothing to do. It was a quiet day.”

“Let’s hope it’s not one of the last,” said the magician, putting down his pail. “Times being what they are…”

Everybody in Prague understood, knew what “times” were being discussed. But they preferred not to talk about it and would cut short their speech. Cutting off one’s speech suddenly became widespread and fashionable. The custom demanded that the listener assume a thoughtful expression, sigh and nod meaningfully. But Reynevan didn’t have time for that.

“On your way, Radim,” he said, looking around. “I can’t stop here. And it’d be better if you didn’t, either.”

“Eh?”

“I’m being followed. Which is why I can’t go down Soukenická Street.”

“Being followed,” said Radim Tvrdík. “By the usual chaps?”

“Probably. Cheerio.”

“Wait.”

“What for?”

“It isn’t wise to try to lose your tail.”

“What?”

“To the tailers, attempts to lose the tail are a clear sign that the tailee has a guilty conscience and something to hide,” the Czech explained most astutely. “Only a thief fears the truth. It’s sensible not to go down Soukenická Street. But don’t dodge, don’t weave around, don’t hide. Do what you usually do. Attend to your daily activities. Bore the trackers with your boring daily routine.”

“Meaning?”

“I’ve developed quite a thirst digging up sludge. Come to the Crayfish. Let’s have a beer.”

“I’m being followed,” Reynevan reminded him. “Aren’t you afraid—”

“What’s there to be afraid of?” The wizard picked up his pail.

Reynevan sighed. Not for the first time, a Prague magician had surprised him. He didn’t know if it was their admirable calm or simply a lack of imagination, but some of the local wizards often appeared unbothered by the fact that Hussites could be more dangerous than the Inquisition to anyone who indulged in black magic. Maleficium—witchcraft—was among the deadly sins punishable by death in the Fourth Article of Prague. The Hussites were no laughing matter where the Articles of Prague were concerned. Self-proclaimed “moderate” Calixtines from Prague were the equal of radical Taborites and fanatical Orphans in that respect. Any sorcerer who was caught was put in a barrel and burned at the stake in it.

They turned back towards the town square along Knifemakers Street, then Goldsmiths Street and finally St. Giles Street. They walked slowly. Tvrdík stopped by several stalls and shared some gossip with the stallholders he knew. As was standard, sentences were cut short more than once with “times being what they are…” which was received with wise expressions, sighs and knowing nods. Reynevan looked around but couldn’t see his pursuers. They were keeping well out of sight. He didn’t know how it was for them, but he was beginning to find the boring routine deadly boring.

Fortunately, soon after, they turned from St. Giles Street into a courtyard and passed through a gateway to emerge opposite the House at the Red Crayfish. And a small tavern named identically by the innkeeper without a scrap of imagination.

“Well I never! Just look! Why, if it isn’t Reynevan!”

Four men were sitting at a table on a bench behind the pillars on the ground floor. They were all moustachioed, broad-shouldered and dressed in knightly doublets. Reynevan knew two of them, so he also knew they were Poles. Even if he hadn’t, he could have guessed. Like all Poles abroad, these men were conducting themselves noisily and arrogantly, with ostentatious boorishness that in their opinion would emphasise their status and elevated social position. The funny thing was that since Easter, the status of Poles in Prague was extremely low and their social position even lower.

“Good day! Welcome, noble Asclepius!” One of the Poles, whom Reynevan knew as Adam Wejdnar, bearing the Rawicz coat of arms, greeted him. “Sit you down! Sit you down, both of you! Be our guests!”

“Why are you inviting him so readily?” said another of the Poles, grimacing with feigned disgust. He was also a Greater Pole, known to Reynevan as Mikołaj Żyrowski and sporting the Czewoja coat of arms. “Do you have a surfeit of cash or something? And besides, the quack works with lepers! He’s liable to infect us with leprosy—or something even worse!”

“I’m not working in the lazaretto now,” explained Reynevan patiently, not for the first time. “I’m working at Bohuslav’s hospice now, here in the Old Town by the Church of Saints Simon and Jude.”

“Yes, yes.” Żyrowski, who knew everything, waved a dismissive hand. “What are you drinking? Oh, blow it, forgive me. Let me introduce you. My lords Jan Kuropatwa of Łańcuchów bearing the Szreniawa arms and Jerzy Skirmunt bearing the Odrowąż. Excuse me, but what is that fucking smell?”

“Sludge. From the Vltava.”

Reynevan and Radim Tvrdík drank beer. The Poles were drinking Austrian wine and eating stewed mutton and bread. They were talking ostentatiously loudly in Polish, telling each other funny stories and responding to each one with thunderous guffaws. Passers-by turned their heads away, swearing under their breath. And occasionally spitting.

Since Easter, specifically since Maundy Thursday, the Czechs’ opinion of the Poles hadn’t been too high. Indeed, their position in Prague was also pretty low and evincing a downward trend.

Around five thousand Polish knights the first time, and around five hundred the second, had come to Prague with Sigismund Korybut, Jogaila’s nephew, pretender to the Bohemian crown. Many had seen in Korybut hope and salvation for Hussite Bohemia, and the Poles had fought valiantly for the Chalice and Divine Law, shedding blood at the Battles of Karlštejn, Jihlava, Retz and Ústí. In spite of that, even their Czech comrades-in-arms didn’t like them, in part because the Poles routinely found hilarious the Czech language in general and Czech names in particular, but also because Korybut’s treachery had seriously damaged the Polish cause. The hope of Bohemia was thus a total failure: for the Hussite king in spe was in cahoots with Catholic lords, had betrayed the matter of sub utraque specie Communion and broken the Four Articles he had sworn to uphold. The plot was uncovered and foiled, Jogaila’s nephew found himself in prison rather than on the Bohemian throne, and the people began to treat Poles with downright hostility. Some of them left Bohemia at once. But some remained, thereby apparently showing their disapproval of Korybut’s treachery and their support for the Chalice, and declaring their readiness to fight on for the Hussite cause. And what of it? The Czech people continued to dislike them. It was suspected—not without reason—that the Poles couldn’t give a stuff about the Hussite cause. It was claimed they’d stayed because, primo, they had nothing and nowhere to go back to. They had marched to Bohemia as wastrels pursued by courts and warrants, and now, to make matters worse, they had all—Korybut included—been saddled with curses and infamy. And because, secundo, they were only fighting in Bohemia in the hope of lining their pockets and gaining spoils and land. And because, tertio, they weren’t actually fighting, but rather taking advantage of the absence of the Czechs to fuck their wives.

All of those claims were genuine.

Hearing Polish spoken, a passing Praguian spat on the ground.

“My, they really don’t seem to like us,” observed Jerzy Skirmunt, in his comical accent. “Why’s that? How odd.”

“I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss.” Żyrowski stuck out his chest, displaying the silver horseshoe of the Czewoja arms to the street. Like every Pole, he subscribed to the ridiculous view that as a nobleman, even though a totally impoverished one, he was equal in Bohemia to the Rožmberks, Kolovrats, Šternberks and all the other wealthy families put together.

“Perhaps you couldn’t,” said Skirmunt, “but it’s still odd, my dear.”

“The people are astonished.” Radim Tvrdík’s voice may have been calm, but Reynevan knew him too well. “Astonished to see armed knights carelessly making merry at a tavern table. These days. Times being what they are…”

He trailed off in accordance with the custom. But the Poles weren’t in the habit of observing customs.

“Meaning when the crusaders are marching on you, eh?” Żyrowski chortled. “With a great force, wielding fire and sword, leaving only scorched earth behind them? And any moment—”