Reynevan indicated he did, but only with a tilt of his head. He wasn’t certain if he could go into details. And if so, how deeply. The wagon’s new passengers were indeed his temporary companions in misery, but that didn’t mean at all that they needed to know the facts and details of the business Kochłowski was engaged in. Which was selling horses, arms, powder and balls to Hussites.

“They caught the three of us, all on one day,” said Jan Kuropatwa, clarifying things. “On the Krakow road between Bielsko and Skoczów. We had a couple of wagons, we were transporting… You can guess what. For you know what is transported along that road.”

Reynevan knew. Everybody knew. The Krakow road running through Cieszyn and the Moravian Gate—a route linking the Kingdom of Poland with Bohemia—was one of the few trade routes that fell outside the embargo imposed on Hussite Bohemia. Goods from Poland travelled practically constantly and unhindered along that road to the Kingdom of Bohemia, owing to the agreement reached between the Moravian gentry and wealthy Catholics. The Moravian Hussites didn’t undertake plundering expeditions on the lands of Catholics, and the latter turned a blind eye to the shipments and convoys passing through Cieszyn. The agreement was informal and the equilibrium unstable, occasionally disturbed by some incident or other. As was apparent.

“Racibórz’s men from Pszczyna captured us,” continued the miles polonus. “It was a squad hired by that she-wolf Helena, the widow of Duke Jan. Pszczyna is hers, I mean Helena’s, as a result of a widow’s bequest. The old hag rules Pszczyna as a sovereign duchess and grows bolder and bolder.”

“And does so illegally, the harlot,” Kochłowski growled furiously. “For she does so not on her own but on Cieszyn lands! Which is against the law!”

Reynevan knew what it was all about. The gap in the blockade exploited by merchants only existed owing to the astute politics of Bolko, Duke of Cieszyn, who protected his duchy by not impeding the Hussites or interfering with their shipments. The practices of the widow, Duchess Helena, who resided in Pszczyna, and her son, Duke Mikołaj of Racibórz, differed markedly. They never passed up a chance to get under the skin of the merchants trading with Hussites, even on other people’s estates.

“Plenty of our men rotted away in the dungeons of Pszczyna or were beheaded,” continued Kuropatwa. “When they caught us, we thought we were doomed to end our days on the scaffold. Sir Jakub and Sir Klemens and I had already commended our souls to God… But we remained in the dungeon less than a week. They took us to Racibórz, turned us over to someone else, the Devil only knows who. And now they’ve shoved us in here and are taking us somewhere. Who, where, for what and in whose service, the Devil only knows.”