An uproar broke out again, curses were exchanged and Ekkehard of Sulz had to be forcibly returned to his seat with his short sword half-drawn.

“Personally,” said Jaśko Chromy of Łubnia, after things had calmed down, “I’d sooner go to Prussia to fight the Teutonic Knights with the Poles. Or vice versa, depending on who pays better.”

For a while, everybody was talking and shouting over one another, until finally Błażej, the wavy-haired Poraj, gestured for the company to be quiet.

“I won’t join this crusade,” he announced in the subsequent silence, “for I won’t follow bishops and prelates like a pup. I won’t be set on anybody like a cur. What is this crusade? Against whom? They’re Czechs—not Saracens. They carry a monstrance with them into battle. And if they don’t like Rome? Or our Bishop Konrad and the other prelates? I’m not surprised. I don’t like them, either.”

“You blaspheme, Sir Błażej!” roared Ekkehard of Sulz. “Czechs are heretics! They believe in heretical teachings! Burn churches! Worship the Devil!”

“They go around naked!”

“And they want their wives to be common property!” screamed Pater Hiacynt. “They want—”

“I’ll show you what the Czechs want,” Błażej interrupted thunderously. “And in sooth you will think about with whom and against whom you should march.”

At an obviously agreed sign, a not-so-young goliard in a red pointed hood and a doublet with an elaborately trimmed edge approached and took a rolled-up parchment from his doublet.

“May all faithful Christians know this,” he read, sonorously and resonantly, “that the Kingdom of Bohemia continues to endure and will last for ever with God’s help, to the death, according to the articles written down below. Firstly: that the word of God shall be freely expressed in the Kingdom of Bohemia and that priests may preach it unhindered—”

“What is this?” called Sulz. “Where is it from, minstrel?”

“Let him be,” said Notker of Weyrach, frowning. “Never mind where it’s from. Go on, lad.”

“Secondly: that the Body and Blood of Christ the Lord be given under both kinds in the form of bread and wine to all the faithful. Thirdly: that the secular power of priests over wealth and worldly goods be taken from them, so that, for their own salvation, they return to the rules of the Bible and the life that Christ led with his apostles. Fourthly: that all mortal sins and other offences committed by the priesthood against divine law—”

“It’s a heretical text!” shouted Pater Hiacynt. “Merely listening to it is sinful! Do you not fear damnation?”

“Shut your trap, Pater!”

“Silence! Let him read on!”