“And easier to get hit in the head,” observed the wavy-haired Poraj. “And hit hard.”

“You grow timid, Sir Błażej Poraj Jakubowski,” called Otto of Glaubitz, the ear hacker. “What is there to fear? You only live once! And don’t we risk our necks here, making a living from pillaging? What can you grow rich on here? A merchant’s purse? But in Bohemia, in a full-scale war, if you’re lucky enough to take a knight alive, you can demand a ransom of six hundred score groschen. If you kill a man, take his horse and armour, that’s at least twenty grzywna. And if we take a city…”

“Aye!” said Paszko Rymbaba, getting excited. “The cities there are wealthy and the castles’ treasuries are full. Like that Karlštejn people keep talking about. We’ll capture and pillage it—”

“Oh, hark at him,” snorted the Kottwitz knight with the red bar in his coat of arms. “Why, Karlštejn isn’t in Hussite but Catholic hands. The fortress is being besieged by the heretics—the crusade is meant to bring them relief! Rymbaba, you stupid old goat, you understand nothing about politics.”

Paszko Rymbaba flushed and bristled his moustaches.

“Beware who you call stupid, Kottwitz!” he yelled, drawing a war hammer from his belt. “To hell with politics; I know how to crack heads!”

“Pax, pax,” said Bożywoj of Lossow calmly, pulling the Kottwitz knight, who was now leaning across the table gripping a misericord, back into his seat. “Peace! Both of you! You’re behaving like children! All you know is boozing and brawling.”

“And Sir Hugo of Kottwitz is right,” added Traugott of Barnhelm. “Verily, Paszko, you don’t understand the mysteries of politics. We speak of a crusade—do you even know what a crusade is? Like Gottfried de Bouillon, Richard the Lionheart, Jerusalem and so on. Now do you understand?”

The Raubritters nodded, but Reynevan would have bet anything that not all of them had.

Buko of Krossig drained his mug and slammed it down on the table. “Blow Jerusalem, Richard the Lionheart, bullion, politics and religion,” he announced soberly. “We’re going to plunder whoever we come across, and that’s that, and the Devil take him and his faith. It’s said that people like Fedor of Ostrog, Dobko Puchała and others are already doing that in Bohemia, and that they’ve lined their pockets nicely. Are we—the Angelic Militia—their inferiors?”

“We are not!” yelled Rymbaba. “Buko’s right!”

“By Christ he is!”

“To Bohemia!”

But the euphoria was brief, extinguished like a flash in the pan by the curses and dangerous looks of the sceptics.

“The aforementioned Puchała and Ostrogski,” said Notker of Weyrach, who had been quiet until then, “feathered their nests by fighting on the winning side. So far, the crusaders have brought back more bruises than wealth from Bohemia.”