“Indeed. There is even talk of peace and of recognising Sigismund as king. The conditions are his receiving of the Four Articles of Prague and the legalisation of church estates being secularised. Sigismund, naturally, would never agree to anything of the kind and will break off the negotiations. Prokop knows that perfectly well and consented to the talks in order to show that Sigismund and the Catholics are the aggressive party, seeking war and not peace. That’s obvious, but not to everybody. The affair has caused an acrimonious division in Prague. The Old Town supports the talks and calls for reconciliation and for Sigismund to be crowned King of Bohemia. The New Town won’t even hear of it. Preachers are feeding the flames from the pulpit. At Our Lady of the Snows, they’re calling Sigismund the ‘King of Babylon’ and the ‘Red-headed Rascal’ and are inciting the people to deal with ‘advocates of compromise’ and ‘traitors.’ While in the Old Town, at the Church of Our Lady before Týn, they’re appealing for extermination of the ‘fanatics’ and ‘radicals.’ As a result, Prague is split into two hostile camps. Saint Gall’s, Horská and Poříčí gates have been barricaded and the streets fenced off with chevaux de frise and chains. All day and all night at the frontier, guns fire, bolts whistle and balls fly. There are regular skirmishes that end with blood foaming in the gutters. The two sides regularly search for traitors and it’s extremely easy to be accused of being one. It was high time to get out of there. Blažena… Hmm… Mistress Pospíchalová announced she had inherited a house near Šumperk. And when the issue with you came about, when Sýkora told us you’d be taken via Šumperk, I took it as a sign from Providence. We left Prague without a second thought. Or a single regret.”

“And now what?” said Reynevan, without trying to keep the mocking tone out of his voice. “Will you be staying here? To settle down and till the soil? Or perhaps you think about marriage?”

Scharley looked at him. With a surprisingly serious expression.

“I think, my friend, about you,” he replied, equally seriously. “Were it not for you I’d have headed in quite a different direction from Prague. Down the Buda road, straight towards Hungary and then on to Constantinople, to be precise. But it turned out that first I’d have to help a comrade. To extract my comrade from the difficulties he had foolishly got himself into. But has he?”

“Scharley—”

“Has he or not?”

“He has.”

“Is he in the shit? Right up to his bloody neck?”

“He is.”

“Tell all.”