“I ought to have all of you tortured one after the other, my friends,” he snarled, “since there’s something fishy about this whole business with the tax collector and his money. And you all look suspicious to me. But in memory of Piotr of Bielawa, I shall not.” The priest’s eyes bored into Reynevan. “I shall get over the bishop’s money—I was not fated to receive it. But our accounts are settled. Out of my sight. Get you gone and to Hell with you.”

“Reverend Brother.” Scharley cleared his throat. “Passing over the misunderstandings… we were counting on—”

“On what?” Ambrož snorted into his beard. “That I would permit you to join us? That I would take you under my wing and escort you to Hradec? No, Master Scharley. You were imprisoned by the Inquisition and thus may have been turned by them. In short, you may be informers.”

“You insult us.”

“Better to insult you than my own good sense.”

The arrival of one of the Hussite commanders, an amiable fat man resembling a questor or a pork butcher, relieved the tension, “Brother Ambrož—”

“What is it, Brother Hlušička?”

“The burghers have paid the ransom and are coming out, women and children first, as was agreed.”

“Brother Velek Chrastický,” Ambrož beckoned him, “take the riders and patrol the perimeter of the town to prevent anyone fleeing. Everyone else, follow me. Everyone, I said. I charge Lord Brázda of Klinštejn with the temporary supervision of our… guests. Onwards!”

A column of people was indeed emerging from the Radkov Gate, anxiously and reluctantly passing between a double file of Hussites bristling with blades. Ambrož and his staff stopped nearby, surveying the men coming out. Very carefully. Reynevan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in anticipation of something dreadful.

“Brother Ambrož,” asked Hlušička, “will you be giving a sermon?”

“To whom?” The priest shrugged. “To that German rabble? They don’t understand our speech, and I don’t feel like talking in their tongue, for… I say! Over there! Over there!”

His eyes flashed rapaciously like an eagle’s and his face suddenly froze.

“Over there!” he roared, pointing. “Over there! Seize them!”

He pointed at a woman muffled up in a mantle, carrying a child. The child was trying to break free and sobbing spasmodically. The soldiers parted the crowd with their pikestaffs, hauled the woman out of the crowd and tore off her mantle.

“That’s no woman! It’s a fellow dressed in a frock! A priest! A papist! A papist!”

“Bring him here.”

The priest was dragged over and thrown down onto his knees. He was trembling in fear and kept his head stubbornly bowed. He had to be forced to look Ambrož in the face. And then he closed his eyes tightly and his mouth moved in a silent prayer.