“Whoresons,” said the bishop, wrapping himself up in the mantle and sitting down. “Stinking cheesemakers. Wine, Grzesiu? Drink, don’t be afraid. It’s not poisoned.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Hejncze, looking at the bishop over his goblet. “I regularly take a magical mithridate.”

“Magic is a sin,” said the bishop, chuckling. “What’s more, poisons exist for which there are no antidotes and which no spells will help. I assure you there are. I’ll tell you more about them another time. But now you speak. What news of Bamberg? My spies inform me that you also visited the Bishop of Bamberg. What of him?”

“I understand Your Eminence is not enquiring about his health?”

“I don’t give a shit about his health. I’m asking whether he will join the crusade. Will he offer soldiers, cannons, guns? And if so, how many?”

“His Excellency Frederick of Aufsess,” said the Inquisitor, his face as grave as pneumonia, “avoided an unambiguous answer. In another words, he was evasive. Oh well, evasion appears to be permanently and inextricably linked to a bishop’s mitre. But the truth peeps out from behind the evasion. It peeps out—to quote the ancients—like an arse from the nettles. It is true that one’s own needs are uppermost. In Franconia and Bavaria, the town mob is fomenting, the peasantry is becoming unruly. Reports emerge from France of the Virgin, Jehanne d’Arc, the holy warrior of God. Rumour has it that when La Pucelle is done with the English she will lead her people’s army against lords and prelates. And Hussites? The Hussites are far from Bamberg, no one in Bamberg fears them, no one believes they will get that far, and even if they do, the city walls are high and formidable. In a word, Bamberg cares nothing for the Hussites. Let those who have reason to, fear them. Those are the words of His Excellency Bishop Frederick.”

“To hell with him, the old ass. What about the Archbishop of Magdeburg? I believe you visited him, too.”

“I did. Archbishop Gunter of Schwarzburg is too prudent to underestimate the Hussites. He doesn’t rule out a crusade and calls enthusiastically for defensive alliances. He is systematically building an army; he now has more than a thousand men under his command. But certain problems, I tell you sincerely, have arisen. For the Archbishop is most irate. With you, Bishop Konrad.”

“Indeed,” said Konrad bluntly.

“He is irate about an individual who enjoys your good graces,” continued Hejncze. “I refer to Birkart Grellenort. The archbishop presented me with a long list of charges. I won’t bore you with them, for most are trivial matters: murder, rape, black magic. Also robbery: Archbishop Gunter accuses Grellenort of the theft committed in September 1425 of five hundred grzywna in taxes. But what arouses the greatest fury in the archbishop is a certain non-human, a sverg named—I believe—Skirfir, an alchemist and a sorcerer whom the archbishop wanted to torture and burn, but whom Grellenort impudently abducted. In order to make use of him.”