“What do you need?” asked the Bishop of Wrocław, spreading his arms. “After all, you have already dealt with Witold. You deftly caught the envoys who were carrying the crown to him and you’ve led King Sigismund up the garden path. Witold has settled for the Order of the Dragon and resigned himself to the fact that magnus dux is the apex of his career.”

“Witold has not and will not agree to that. Sigismund knew what he was doing by opening up that Pandora’s Box of ambitions in Lutsk. Now Witold won’t rest until he takes Lithuania out of the union. He is a threat to Poland.”

“The greatest threat to Poland,” said the Bishop of Wrocław, snorting, “are the Poles themselves. That has always been and will always be true. But I am prepared to negotiate. But negotiations must be ut des: I give, so that you may give. But you don’t want to give anything, won’t cede anything. What does that leave us with?”

“And what ought I to cede? And what would I receive in return?”

“You give something, I’ll give something. Clara pacta, boni amici. Listen, O Bishop of Krakow—one day a cardinal, the chaplain of the chosen nation. If you leave Silesia in peace, I’ll leave you the East, the evangelical mission and the conversion of the schismatics. I’ll let you be the bulwark. Witold is indeed causing damage, unravelling what you have for so long and diligently woven. Which means he is indeed a threat. And will be for as long as he lives. And if he… stopped living? Suddenly and unexpectedly?”

Oleśnicki said nothing for some time.

“It doesn’t befit me to listen to this,” he finally responded. “It absolutely does not. Moreover, I believe purely theoretically that the trouble would be in vain. Witold is too well protected for an assassination attempt to succeed. Neither could he be poisoned. He has serving him numerous Lithuanian sorcerers, and only drinks water from mysterious Samogitian springs. He is immune to poison.”

“To known poisons,” Konrad corrected him. “Only to known ones. For unknown ones also exist, poisons about which no one has heard—even in Venice, never mind in some Hyperborean Samogitia. And as it is said: Ignoti nulla curatio morbi. In Duke Witold’s shoes I’d beware, for he may not survive the year if we come to agreement.”

“And is there a chance?”

“Will you hinder the Polish army invading Silesia? Will you stop supporting the Hussites, Wołoszek and Korybut?”

“Those matters are at the discretion of the King of Poland. I am not he.”