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Epigraph

Dies irae, dies illa,

solvet saeculum in favilla,

teste David cum Sibylla…

Day of wrath and doom impending,

David’s word with Sibyl’s blending!

Heaven and Earth in ashes ending!

O, what fear man’s bosom rendeth,

When from Heaven the Judge descendeth,

On whose sentence all dependeth!

Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth,

Through Earth’s sepulchres it ringeth,

All before the throne it bringeth…

“Dies Irae,” either Thomas of Celano (1200–1265) or Latino Malabranca Orsini (d. 1294), translated to English as “The Day of Wrath” by William Josiah Irons, 1849

Prologue

Tararara, tararara, tararara dum, dum, dum…

Lacrimosa dies illa

qua resurget ex favilla

iudicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce Deus.

Oh my, oh my, the day of wrath is nigh, m’lords and gentle listeners, nigh is the day of wrath, an ill-fated day, a day of tears. The Day of Judgement and of punishment is nigh. As it is written in John’s epistle: Antichristus venit… unde scimus quoniam novissima hora est. The Antichrist is coming, the last hour is coming. The end of the world and of all existence is nigh… In other words: things are bloody lousy.

The Antichrist, m’lords and dear listeners, will come from the tribe of Dan.

He shall be born in Babylon. He shall come at the end of the world and shall reign for three and a half years.

He shall erect a temple in Jerusalem, reign over the kings and lay waste the Church of God. He will ride atop a fiery furnace, performing wonders wherever he goes. Displaying his wounds, he shall delude good Christians. He shall come with fire and sword, and blasphemy shall be his weapon, and treachery his arm, and destruction his right hand, and darkness his left. His face is as of a wild beast, with a high forehead and eyebrows grown together…

His right eye is like a star shining at dawn, his left unmoving, green as a cat’s, with two pupils instead of one. His nose is like a chasm, his maw measures an ell, his teeth a span. His fingers are like iron scythes.

Hey, hey! And why raise a clamour at an old man, m’lords? Why so quick to browbeat him? For what, for what ills? That I frighten you? That I blaspheme? That I am a storm crow?

I make no prophecies, m’lords! I speak the truth, the pure, honest truth, as stated by the great Church Fathers. Why, and laid down in the Gospels! They are apocryphal, you say? And what of it? This whole world is apocryphal.

What do you bring, gentle maid? What foams so in those vats? Could it be ale?

Oh, first class… Świdnica ale, without doubt…

I say! But look through the window, m’lords! Do an old man’s eyes deceive him? Am I mistaken or is the sun at last breaking through the clouds? Great God, yes! It marks the end of this foul, rainy weather. Indeed, just look at the light flooding the world, shining down from the skies in a bright beam. And the radiance fills the world…

Lux perpetua.

That’s how you’d like it. Eternal. You could like that…

What are you saying? That since the foul weather is over it’s time to leave the inn and be off? That since it’s so, instead of blathering on I should quickly finish the tale? Say what happened next to Reynevan and his beloved Jutta, to Scharley and Samson at that time, a time of those cruel wars, when the lands of Lusatia, Silesia, Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria ran with blood and were blackened by flames?

Right away, m’lords, right away. I shall tell you, for my tale is also coming to its natural ending. Though I must also tell you that if you ready yourself for a happy or joyous ending to the tale you will be sore disappointed… What? You say I frighten you again? I croak? But how, do tell, may I not croak? When such dreadful things do happen in this world? When throughout Europe all one can see is the tumult of battle?

At Paris the blood is not yet dry on the swords of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Burgundians and Armagnacians. Ever is there killing and fire on the French sod, war is ever waged. It will last a hundred years, will it?

England foments with revolt, Gloucester quarrels with the Beauforts. Some evil will come of it, indeed, mark my words, between the houses of York and Lancaster, between the White and the Red Roses.

Cannons roar in Denmark, Eric of Pomerania clashes with the Hanseatic League, wages a vicious war with the Counts of Schleswig and Holstein. Zurich is in conflict with the cantons, threatens the unity of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Milan battles with Florence. On the streets of Naples mercenaries from Aragon and Navarre wreak havoc.

Sword and fire rage in the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Vasily clashes in virulent skirmishes with Yury, Dmitry Kosoy and Dmitry Shemyaka. Vae victis! The defeated weep crimson tears from their bloody eye sockets.

The valiant János Hunyady subdues the Turk. The children of Árpád have the upper hand! But the shadow of the Crescent hangs—like the Sword of Damocles—over Transylvania, over the valleys of the Drava, the Tisza and the Danube. The Magyars are doomed to suffer the same sorry fate as the Bulgarians and the Serbs.

Venice quails as Murad II slaughters Epirus and Albania with a yatagan dripping blood. The Byzantine Empire shrinks to the size of Constantinople; John VIII and his brother Constantine watch anxiously from the walls to see if Osman is heaving into view. Unite, Christians of the East and West, against your common foe! Be reconciled and unite!

But it’s probably too late…

That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

Dies irae…

King David prophesied it in the Psalms, the prophet Zephaniah foretold it, the pagan Sybil augured it. When you see a brother sending his brother to death, the young rising up against their parents, a wife deserting her husband and one nation waging war against another, when you see a great famine over the whole world, great pestilence and much ill, then you know that the end is nigh.

Eh? What are you saying? That what I describe occurs every day, repeatedly and again and again? And by no means only recently, but for centuries, over and over? Ha, both you, noble knight with the Abdank coat of arms, and you, honourable Brother of Saint Francis, are both right. You are also right, noble lords, as are you, pious monks, and you, gentlemen merchants, nodding your heads and making wise faces. You are right. There is evil and transgression everywhere. We see fratricide every day, treachery again and again and blood spilled endlessly. Behold, indeed, an age of betrayal, rape and violence, an age of ceaseless warring. How then, with this all around us, can we know: is it now the end of the world or is it not? How can one judge? What signs will show us, what signa et ostenta?

You still nod your heads, noble gentlemen, good burghers and pious brothers, I see. I know what you think, for I also have oft pondered on it.

Perhaps, I thought, it will come about without a sign? Without a larum? Without a warning? Simply: boom! And the end, finis mundi? Maybe there’s no mercy? Perhaps there isn’t one innocent person in Sodom? Perhaps, since we are a perverse tribe, we won’t be given a sign?

Please, don’t be afraid. We will. The Evangelists have promised. Both the legal and the apocryphal ones.

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the Earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring. The powers of Heaven shall be shaken. And so shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from Heaven. And his kingdom shall be divided towards the four winds of Heaven.

Movebuntur omnia fundamenta terrae: the earth and sea will tremble, and with them the mountains and hills. And the voice of the archangel will sound from the heavens and will be heard in the lowest reaches.

And for seven days there will be great signs in the heavens. And I shall tell you what they will be. Hark!

On the first day, a cloud will come from the north, and a bloody rain will fall from it all over the Earth.

While on the second day, the Earth will move out of her place; the gates of Heaven will open from the East and the smoke of a huge fire will obscure the whole sky. And on that day, there will be great fear and terror in the world.

Then on the third day, the abysses of the Earth’s four corners will yawn and all the world will be filled with the foul stench of brimstone. And thus it shall be until the tenth hour.

On the fourth day, the sun’s disc will be obscured and there will be a great darkness. The heavens will be tenebrous without sun or moon; the stars will stop shining. Thus shall it be until morning.

On the sixth day, the morning will be foggy…

Chapter One

In which Reynevan, trying to pick up the trail of his beloved, encounters much adversity. To be precise, he is accursed. At home and abroad, standing, sitting and doing his work. And Europe, meanwhile, is changing. Developing new forms of warfare.

The morning was foggy, and quite mild for February. There had been a hint of a thaw in the air all night; the snow began melting at dawn, and the prints of iron-shod hooves and the ruts made by wagon wheels filled at once with black water. Axles and swingletrees creaked, horses snorted and wagoners cursed drowsily. The column of almost three hundred wagons made slow progress. The pungent, choking smell of salt herrings hung over the column. Sir John Fastolf rocked sleepily in the saddle.

A thaw had suddenly set in after a few days of frost, and the wet snow that had been falling all night quickly melted. Water dripped from the snow lying heavily on spruce trees.

“Haaave at theeem! Kill them!”

“Haaaa!”

The noise of the sudden battle frightened some rooks. The birds flew up from leafless branches, the leaden February sky became flecked with a shifting black mosaic and the chilly, damp air was filled with cawing. The clang and thud of iron. And yells.

The fighting was short-lived but fierce. Hooves ploughed up the slush, mixing it with mud. Horses whinnied and squealed shrilly. Men uttered cries, some warlike and others of pain. It began suddenly and was soon over.

“Huzza! Cut them oooff! Cut them ooooff!”

Then again, more quietly, further off, the echo bounced around the forest.

“Huzza! Huzzaaa!”

The rooks cawed, circling above the trees. The thudding of hooves receded. The shouts died away.

Blood stained the puddles, soaked into the snow.

The wounded esquire heard the rider approaching, alerted by the snorting of a horse and the jangling of a bridle. He groaned, tried to stand up but fell back. His efforts intensified the bleeding, the crimson stream pulsating more strongly between the plates of his cuirass and flowing down the armour. The wounded man settled back harder against a fallen tree trunk and drew a dagger. Aware how feeble a weapon it was in the hand of a man who couldn’t stand, whose side had been pierced by a spear and whose ankle was twisted after falling from his horse.

The approaching bay colt was a pacing horse, its unusual gait immediately visible. The bay’s rider didn’t have the sign of the Chalice on his chest, so wasn’t one of the Hussites the esquire’s troop had just been fighting. He wasn’t wearing armour. Or carrying a weapon. He looked like an ordinary traveller. The wounded esquire knew only too well, though, that in the month of February Anno Domini 1429, no one was simply travelling in the Strzegom hills or the Jawor plain.

The rider examined him at length from the height of his saddle. At length and wordlessly.

“That bleeding needs staunching,” he finally said. “I can do it, but only if you toss that dagger aside. If you don’t, I’ll ride off and you can cope by yourself. Decide.”

“No one…” the esquire grunted. “No one will pay a ransom for me… So don’t say I didn’t warn you—”

“Will you toss the dagger aside or not?”

The esquire swore softly, took a big swing and flung the dagger away. The rider dismounted, unfastened his saddlebags, then knelt down beside him, holding a leather bag. He used a short folding knife to cut through the straps attaching the two parts of the breastplate to the cuirass. After removing the armour, he slashed open the blood-soaked gambeson and looked intently, bending low over the wound.

“Nasty…” he muttered. “Looks very nasty. Vulnus punctum, a stab wound. It’s deep… I’ll put on a dressing, but can do no more without help. I’ll carry you to Strzegom.”

“Strzegom… besieged… Hussites…”

“I know. Don’t move.”

“I think…” The esquire panted. “I think I know you.”

“Well, I never, your face looks familiar to me, too.”

“I am Wilkosz Lindenau… The esquire of Lord Borschnitz, may God rest his soul… The tournament in Ziębice… I escorted you to the tower… For you are… For you are Reinmar of Bielawa… Aren’t you?”

“Aha.”

“Why, it’s you,” said the esquire, his eyes opening wide in terror. “Christ. It is you.”

“Accursed at home and excommunicated abroad? Indeed. It’s going to hurt now.”

The esquire clenched his teeth hard. Just in time.

Reynevan led his horse. Hunched over in the saddle, Wilkosz Lindenau groaned and moaned.

Beyond the hill and forest was a road, and beside it, not far away, some blackened ruins, the remains of demolished buildings that Reynevan could just about recognise as the former Carmelite monastery of the Order of Beatissimae Virginis Mariae de Monte Carmeli, which had once served as a house of correction, a place of isolation and punishment for sinful priests. And beyond it was Strzegom. Currently under siege.

The army besieging Strzegom was large; at first glance, Reynevan estimated it to be a good five or six thousand men, thus confirming the rumours that the Orphans had gained reinforcements from Moravia. The previous December, Jan Královec had led a plundering raid on Silesia with a force of almost four thousand soldiers and a proportional number of war wagons and artillery. There were a good five hundred wagons at Strzegom and as far as the artillery was concerned, it was time to put on a show. Around ten bombards and mortars roared, shrouding the artillery positions and approaches in smoke. Stone balls whistled towards the town, slamming into the walls and buildings. Reynevan knew what the targets were from the missile strikes: the Dziobowa Tower and the tower over the Świdnica Gate—the main bastions on the southern and eastern sides—along with the magnificent town houses in the town square and the parish church. Jan Královec of Hrádek was a seasoned commander and knew whom to torment and whose property to destroy. How long a city defended itself usually depended on the morale of the Patriciate and the clergy.

In principle, one might have expected a storming after the salvo, but there was nothing to suggest it.

The duty detachments were firing crossbows, hook guns and trestle guns from behind earthworks, but the remaining Orphans were lazing about around campfires and the cauldrons in the camp kitchens. Nor was there any heightened activity in the vicinity of the senior officers’ tents, over which standards with the Chalice and the Pelican were waving listlessly.

Reynevan was leading his horse towards the headquarters. The Orphans he passed showed little interest in them; no one stopped them, no one shouted a challenge or asked who they were. The Orphans might have recognised Reynevan; many knew him, after all. They might just have been uninterested.

“They’ll slit my throat…” muttered Lindenau from the saddle. “They’ll slash me to ribbons… Heretics… Hussites… Devils.”

“They won’t touch you,” said Reynevan, trying to convince himself as a patrol armed with bear spears and gisarmes approached them. “But to be on the safe side, say ‘Czechs.’ Greetings, Brothers! I am Reinmar Bielawa—do you know me? We need a physician! A medic! Call a physician please!”

The moment Reynevan entered the headquarters, Brázda of Klinštejn hugged and kissed him, after which Jan Kolda of Žampach, the brothers Matěj and Jan Salava of Lípa, Vilém Jeník and others he didn’t know began to shake his hand and slap him on the back. Jan Královec of Hrádek, Hejtman of the Orphans and leader of the expedition, gave no lavish display of emotion. And didn’t look surprised, either.

“Reynevan,” he said, greeting him quite coolly. “Well, I never. Welcome, O prodigal son. I knew you’d return to us.”

“It’s time we finished it,” said Jan Královec of Hrádek.

He was showing Reynevan around the lines and positions. They were alone. Královec wanted them to be alone. He wasn’t certain who had sent Reynevan and with what information and was expecting confidential messages intended for his ears only. Having learned that Reynevan was nobody’s envoy and was bringing no messages, his face darkened.

“It’s time we finished it,” he repeated, climbing up onto an earthwork and measuring with a hand the temperature of a bombard’s barrel, which was being cooled with untreated animal hides soaked in water.

He glanced up at the walls and towers of Strzegom. Reynevan was still looking back at what was left of the Carmelite monastery. The place, where—an absolute eternity ago—he had first met Scharley. An absolute eternity, he thought. Four years.

“Time we finished it.” Královec’s voice shook him out of his reverie and recollections. “It’s high time. We’ve done our job. December and January were enough for us to capture and sack Duszniki, Bystrzyca, Ziębice, Strzelin, Niemcza, the Cistercian abbey and monastery in Henryków, plus innumerable small towns and villages. We taught the Germans a lesson, they won’t forget us. But Shrovetide is past, it is Ash Wednesday, the ninth day of February. We’ve been warring for well over two months and during winter months at that! We must have marched a good forty miles. We are hauling behind us wagons heavy with spoils, driving herds of cattle. And morale is falling, the men are weary. Świdnica, outside which we were encamped for five whole days, repelled us. I’ll tell you the truth, Reynevan: we didn’t have the force to storm it. We fired cannons, hurled fire onto the rooftops and spread terror, thinking the people of Świdnica would surrender or at least wish to parley, pay a ransom. But Lord Kolditz was undaunted and we had to leave there empty-handed. Strzegom has clearly taken heart, for it also holds out valiantly. And once again we intimidate, sow terror, fire cannons and chase around the forests with Wrocław patrols trying to beset us. But I’ll be frank: we’ll have to leave here empty-handed, too. And go home. For it is time. What do you think?”

“I don’t think anything. You’re in command here.”

“I am, I am,” said the hejtman, spinning around on his heel. “In command of an army whose morale is failing fast. But you, Reynevan, shrug and think nothing. And what do you do? You save a stricken German. A papist. You bring him here, ordering our medic to treat him. You show a foe mercy. Before everybody’s eyes? You should have slit his throat in the bloody forest.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I swore…” Královec snarled through his teeth. “That after Oława… After Oława, I vowed I would show mercy to none of them. None.”

“We can’t stop being people.”

“People?” said the Hejtman of the Orphans, almost frothing at the mouth. “People? Do you know what happened in Oława? On Saint Anthony’s Eve? If you’d been there, you’d have seen it.”

“I was, and I did.” Observing unemotionally the hejtman’s astonished expression, Reynevan repeated: “I was in Oława. I ended up there a few days after Epiphany, soon after you left. I was in the town on the Sunday before Saint Anthony’s. And I saw it all. I also witnessed the triumph that Wrocław celebrated because of Oława.”

Královec said nothing for a moment, gazing from the earthwork at the bell tower of Strzegom parish church, where the bell had begun to toll, resonantly and sonorously.

“Why, you weren’t only in Oława, but also in Wrocław.” He stated the fact. “And now you’ve come here, to Strzegom. Like a bolt from the blue. You come and go. How and from where—no one knows. People have begun to talk, to gossip. To suspect.”

“Suspect what?”

“Easy, easy, don’t take umbrage. I trust you. I know you had important matters to deal with. When you bade us farewell on the battlefield at Wielisław on the twenty-seventh of December, we saw that you were hastening to attend to some important—extremely important—matters. How did you fare?”

“I solved nothing,” said Reynevan, without concealing his bitterness. “But I am cursed. Cursed standing, working and sitting. In the hills and the vales.”

“How so?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I adore long stories.”

The fact that something uncommon would happen that day in Wrocław Cathedral was communicated to the congregation gathered within by the excited murmurings of the people standing closer to the transept and the chancel. The latter could see and hear more than the rest, who were crammed tightly into the nave and the aisles. Initially, they had to settle for guesses. And rumours borne in a swelling, repeating whisper that spread through the crowd like the rustle of leaves in the wind.

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