“As for me,” drawled the foreigner Siestrzeniec, “I feel personally offended by your deception. Lucky for you, m’Lord Bedřich, your clergyman’s cassock protects you. Otherwise, I would teach you some manners on the duelling ground. And knock you into the middle of next week.”

“Lord Szafraniec and Lord Oporów are waiting in Zator!” Spytek of Melsztyn interjected heatedly. “We were meant to lead them to Moravia and protect them on the way. Hetman Prokop promised to assist and escort the Polish mission! And we gave our knightly parole—”

“The Chamberlain of Krakow,” said Bedřich, linking his fingers on his chest, “and the Deputy Crown Chancellor are already riding to Odry and will probably get there before us. They are being guided by trusted men and don’t need protection. Now, since Jan of Kravaře went over to the Chalice and allied with the Tábor, the roads there are safe. So enough of this jabbering, gentlemen. To horse and let us ride!”

“Perhaps it is acceptable among you Czechs,” said Mikołaj Kornicz Siestrzeniec, grinding his teeth, “to feed knights lies, to lead them up the garden path and call their speech ‘jabbering.’ In Poland it doesn’t go unpunished. Lucky you are protected by—”

“Protected by what?” roared Bedřich, already in the saddle. “My cassock? Where do you see a cassock? And anyway, fuck that! I tell you to your face: I had my suspicions, I didn’t trust any of you, so I had to put you to the test, all of you. Do you understand, Kornicz? And what of it? Did I offend your delicate Polish honour? Do you want to fight? Do you want satisfaction? Come on, then! Which of you—”

He didn’t finish. Samson Honeypot rode over on his lancer’s stallion, caught Bedřich by the collar and the seat of the pants, hauled him from the saddle, lifted up the yelling Czech and hurled him into the duckweed-covered pond. There was a splash, a foul smell drifted up and the frogs fell silent for a moment.

Samson waited in the utter silence for the preacher to emerge, green from the weed and spitting out mud.

“My delicate honour was offended,” he said. “But this will suffice as satisfaction.”

Chapter Ten

In which we visit Wrocław once again, during the days preceding Easter, for many things happen there which it would be simply a shame not to talk about.

That morning a sudden rain fell and when the sun rose, it lit a copper and gold fire on the Wrocław churches. The roof over the nave of Saint Elizabeth’s Church shimmered like the Golden Fleece, the twin spires of Mary Magdalene shone blindingly, the domes and helmets of Saints Nicholas, Adalbert, Dorothy, James, the Holy Spirit, Saint Mary on the Sand and all the thirty-five Wrocław churches gleamed. A heavenly luminosity was reflected in the wet roofs of the city, a city that appeared to be now equally everlasting.

A little bell rang melodiously in the Church of Corpus Christi. Wrocław was awake and people were already bustling around near the Świdnica Gate.