“Meaning when the crusaders are marching on you, eh?” Żyrowski chortled. “With a great force, wielding fire and sword, leaving only scorched earth behind them? And any moment—”

“Quiet,” Adam Wejdnar interrupted him. “I shall reply thus to you, m’Lord Czech: your reprimand is misplaced. For the New Town is indeed quite empty, for when, as you said, those days came, the New Town followed Prokop the Shaven in great numbers to defend the country. So if any New Town citizen were to scoff at me, I’d keep my counsel. But not a soul went from here, from the Old Town. That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“A great force is coming from the west,” repeated Żyrowski. “The whole of Europe! You won’t hold out this time. It’ll be your end, your demise.”

“Ours,” repeated Reynevan with a sneer. “But not yours?”

“Ours, too,” Wejdnar replied morosely, gesturing for Żyrowski to be quiet. “Ours, too. Regrettably. It turns out we made a rotten choice of sides in this conflict. We should have listened to what Bishop Łaskarz said.”

“Aye and I should have listened to Zbigniew Oleśnicki,” said Jan Kuropatwa, sighing. “And now we’re stuck here like beasts in a shambles waiting for the butcher to come. May I remind you, gentlemen, that a crusade the like of which has never been seen is heading towards us. An army of eighty thousand men. Electors, herzogs, counts palatine, Bavarians, Saxons, soldiers from Swabia, Thuringia, the Hanseatic towns, on top of that the Landfried of Plzeň—why, even some mavericks from overseas. They crossed the border at the beginning of July and besieged Stříbro, which will soon fall; perhaps it already has. How far is Stříbro from here? Just over twenty miles—they’ll be here in five days, by my reckoning. It’s Monday today. On Friday, mark my words, we’ll see their crosses outside Prague.”

“Prokop won’t stop them; they’ll defeat him in battle. They are too numerous,” said Żyrowski.

“When the Midianites and Amalekites attacked Gilead,” said Radim Tvrdík, “they were like grasshoppers in their multitude, and their camels were as numberless as the grains of sand by the sea. But Gideon, commanding barely three hundred warriors, defeated and dispersed them. For he was fighting in the name of the Lord of Hosts with His name on his lips.”

“Yes, yes, indeed. And the shoemaker Skuba defeated the Wawel dragon. Don’t mix fairy tales up with reality, m’lord.”

“Experience teaches us,” added Wejdnar with a sour smile, “that if the Lord takes sides, it is usually with the more powerful army.”

“Prokop won’t hold back the crusaders,” Żyrowski repeated pensively. “Ha, this time, m’Lord Czech, even Žižka himself wouldn’t save you.”