“Whether Croatia, Poland, Bohemia, Serbia or Moldova, it’s all one to the bishop.” Allerdings pouted. “All one damned thing. All Slavic nations. Enemy nations. And thus hostile to us, good Germans.”

“Ha, ha. Very droll.”

“I swear. And do you see the paradox?”

“I do not.”

“By harming the canon, the bishop harms himself. Otto Beess was almost the only person in the Wrocław Chapter who still supported the bishop regarding papal supremacy; increasingly, the rest of the prelates and canons openly support conciliarism. Thanks to his intrigues, the bishop has rid himself of allies and things may end poorly for him. The Vatican Council in Basel approaches. That council may bring about many changes. Are you listening to me? What are you doing there?”

“Cleaning my boot. I’ve trodden in some shit.”

After the spring of 1428, Wrocław was an island in a sea of warfare, an oasis in a desert of destruction. Even so, although fenced off from the world by the waters of the Oława and the Odra, although defended by mighty walls, the Silesian metropolis was far from basking in the blissful luxury of safety and the certainty of tomorrow. Wrocław recalled the previous spring too vividly. Its recollections were so vivid and realistic as to be almost palpable. The glow as Brzeg, Ryczyn, Sobótka, Gniechowice, Środa Śląska and the nearby Kątów burned still lived on in them. Wrocław recalled the beginning of May, when it looked down at the army of Prokop the Shaven from the city walls through eyes running from the smoke drifting from Żerniki and Muchobór as they burned. And six weeks hadn’t even passed since the day the Orphans had marched downstream beside the Odra from the south, when all the bells in the metropolis had sounded the alarm of their arrival at Oława, barely a day’s ride away.

Wrocław was an island in an ocean of war, an oasis in a wilderness of charred ruins and ashes. The region south of Wrocław became a fire-ravaged wilderness. Now, almost thirty thousand people were seeking sanctuary within Wrocław’s walls, a city with a population of fifteen thousand in times of peace. Wrocław was crowded—not to say overcrowded. Existing in a mood of uncertainty and menace. In an aura of paralysing fear. Denunciations were commonplace.