“You are going…” said the priest, grimacing as he felt his bandaged side. “Alone, through a land whose citizens have been severely harried by your brothers in faith, severely enough to arouse in them sinful thoughts of vengeance. I cannot even vouchsafe for my parishioners. Indeed, I have taught them to love their neighbours, but in recent years theory has diverged considerably from practice. It is possible that the local people will want to discuss religion with you in the same way that the Hussites did with me; I mean with fists and boots. Are you not afraid?”

“I am not,” replied Reynevan, a little too quickly and a little too frankly. “I’ve stopped feeling fear.”

“Oho,” said the priest, noticing Reynevan’s tone and glancing at him keenly. “I know that state of mind. And not by any means from reading the Good Book. I didn’t hear the words of your prayer,” he added, “but I am certain that at one time I said similar. Often and long enough that I felt the urge to utter the word ‘litany.’”

“Indeed?”

“Sadly,” said the clergyman, gravely. “I have known the burden of loss, I know how heavily it can weigh on one. Such that one can neither stand nor raise one’s head. Praesens malum auget boni perditi memoria; the memory of lost happiness heightens one’s present misery. But we shall all be transformed. At the sound of the last trumpet, for the trumpet will blow and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be transformed. For that which is corruptible must take on incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must take on immortality.”

“Eschatology. Something more?”

“Indeed. Reconciliation with God.”

“Penance?”

“Reconciliation. For in Christ, God reconciled the world with itself, disregarding people’s sins, but putting in us the word of atonement. So if someone remains in Christ he is a new creation. Old things have passed away and behold, all things are become new. Whomsoever chooses the right path will have lux vitae, the light of life.”

“Life is darkness. In tenebris ambulavimus, we walk in darkness.”

“We shall be transformed. And there will be light. Would you like to confess your sins?”

“No.”

The border between the duchies should have been marked by posts, stones, mounds or other signs. Reynevan didn’t see any. In spite of that, it was easy to say where Opava—whose herzog had reached agreement with the Hussites—ended. And where the Duchy of Racibórz—which had always been hostile to the Hussites—began. The border was delineated by smouldering fires. The blackened, burned-out remains of villages that had existed, but were no more.