It appeared to Blažena Pospíchalová that the stained-glass window suddenly shattered in a great brilliance and that a great luminosity flooded the altar and the presbyter. It appeared to her that she heard the flapping of wings and the rustling of feathers right over her head; it appeared to her that it would tear the wimple from her head. It only lasted a moment.

“And he was gone,” said the priest, finishing the sermon in complete silence. “They stood up, but none could see him any longer.”

Two tears rolled down Marketa’s cheeks.

Just two.

The Taborites were driven out of the town and the gate was barricaded. They began to shoot from the walls again. There was no chance of Samson being carried, but some Czechs brought pavises and covered with them the wounded man and the others who were with him.

“Expectavimus lucem…” said the giant suddenly. “Et ecce tenebrae…”

“Samson…” When Scharley spoke, his voice caught in his throat.

“What had to happen, has happened… Reinmar?”

“I am here, Samson. Hold on… We’ll carry you—”

“Let it go. I know.”

Reynevan wiped his eyes.

“Marketa… O luce etterna…”

Samson’s voice was so faint they had lean close to hear his words.

“Describe it,” he suddenly said quite clearly. “Describe all that has befallen you.”

They said nothing. Samson tilted his head to one side.

“Consummatum est,” he whispered.

And those were the last words he uttered.

And the sun was turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. From each side despair and horror peeped out. And effigies of true and false gods tumbled, and with their fall all the peoples disdained life in this world.

The heavenly firmament was rent from East to West. And suddenly luminosity—lux perpetua—arose. And from it came the voice of an archangel and it was heard in the lowest depths.

Dies irae, dies illa.

Confutatis maledictis,

flammis acribus addictis,

voca me cum benedictis…

Reynevan wept unashamedly.

From Cheb and Kynžvart, the old chronicler monk from the Augustinian monastery in Żagań scratched with his quill, Prokop’s victorious army returned home in the month of February, on Tuesday ante festum sancti Matthie, celebrating it with a triumphant entry into Prague. And there was much to celebrate. They had taken notable captives and were bearing loot and spoils on three thousand wagons, some so heavy that they needed to be pulled by ten, twelve and even fourteen horses. And what they were unable to take, destruxerunt et concremaverunt, they destroyed, making of it embers and ashes. In Meissen, Saxony and Thuringia, twenty towns were burned down and two thousand villages depopulated. And in Upper Franconia there was nothing even left to count; just one great desert remained.

And it was later said in Prague and the whole of Bohemia that it was such a splendid ride that even the oldest folk could not recall when the Czechs had accomplished something of the like.