“Odry is ahead of us. Let us make haste.”

The sentries in the watchtower saw the detachment and shouted a request for identification. Chains rattled, the drawbridge thudded down and the portcullis grated as it rose up. They rode in with a rumble of hooves, first through the gatehouse, then into the narrow streets, among workshops, shops and merchants’ houses.

“Your medicine is wearing off,” moaned Prokop. “Jesus Christ, Reynevan, it hurts so much I’m about to fall from the saddle…”

“Patience. I just have to find an apothecary’s shop…”

“There’s one in the town square,” said Bedřich of Strážnice, riding alongside. “Always used to be. Unless it’s already been plundered.”

The town of Odry owed its development to its location in the so-called Moravian Gate, a depression between the ranges of the Sudety and Carpathian Mountains on the route leading from the drainage basin of the Danube to the Odra and the Vistula. The route—linking the south to the north, Danzig and Toruń to Buda, Krakow to Vienna and Venice, Poznań and Wrocław to the Venetian states on the Adriatic—was naturally an important trade route along which merchants’ caravans moved unceasingly.

The road had grown deserted with the rise of the Hussites, when merchants began to avoid a region constantly in flames and in revolt. The embargo did the rest. But in 1428, Dobko Puchała of Węgrów, a Polish knight of the Wieniawa arms and a celebrated veteran of Grunwald who had also vanquished the Teutonic Knights at the Battles of Radzyń and Golub—and was now an ally of the Tábor—captured Odry and settled there. Puchała and his brave Polish followers swooped down on the country like hawks, burning what they could and slaughtering anyone who resisted. Having ensconced himself in Odry, he successfully cut Olomouc off from Opava, which was in an anti-Hussite coalition, preventing Przemko of Opava and the Moravian nobility from coordinating their actions. In so doing, Puchała became a thorn in their side and the target of numerous attacks which, however, he always managed to repulse successfully. In fact, repulsing them wasn’t enough for him and he attacked enemy demesnes, sowing fear and starting fires to terrify the Catholics cowering behind castle walls. Now, though, after Jan of Kravaře had gone over to the Chalice and allied with the Tábor, Puchała controlled all the roads, including the most important road for the Hussites, the Cieszyn one, along which endlessly flowed transports of weapons and groups of Polish volunteers to Odry. There were so many soldiers in Odry that the town resembled a military camp. Most of the streets were blocked by siege engines, combat wagons and bombards, delighting the children frolicking on them.

“I’m going to the castle to meet Puchała,” announced Prokop. “Brother Pardus, take care of quartering the men. Reynevan, find an apothecary’s shop, purchase what you need then come and bring the patient relief. And please hurry, because tardiness is liable to enrage the patient.”

“Let’s hope the apothecary has the ingredients—”