“Not for long,” confirmed Jan Čapek. “Or perhaps long enough for you to see your error? Perhaps you’ll spurn the Roman farce and turn towards the true faith? Don’t make a face! It’s happened to better men than you. Sir Bohuslav of Švamberk, may God rest his soul, changed his life almost from one day to the next, being promoted from a captive to the Tábor’s chief hejtman. When brother Žižka took him prisoner and threw him into a dungeon in Příběnice, Sir Bohuslav saw his mistake and received the Chalice. We have a priest here, as you see. And so? Shall I ask for the Chalice?”

The squire spat on the floor. “Shove your Chalice, heretic,” he answered back proudly. “You know where.”

“Blasphemer!” yelled Father Buzek, leaping up and spilling wine on himself and his neighbours. “To the stake with him! Have him burned, Brother Čapek!”

“Burn money?” Jan Čapek of Sány smiled hideously. “You must be drunk, Brother Buzek. He’s worth at least four thousand groschen. While there’s the faintest chance they’ll pay a ransom for him, no one will lay a finger on him—even were he to proclaim Master Huss himself a leper and a sodomite. Am I right, Brethren?”

The Hussites agreed enthusiastically, roaring and banging their mugs on the table. Čapek gestured to the guards to escort the captive out. Father Buzek glared angrily at him and then poured close to half a quart of Hungarian wine into himself in a single draught.

“You lust after a mean penny, like the Pharisees!” he said, and his words were already quite slurred. “And P-Paul wrote to Timothy: The love of money is the root of all evil. Which while some coveted after, they have erred from… Hic… The faith… And no covetous man hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God… You cannot serve God and Mammon!”

“We’d rather not,” said Jan Kolúch of Véska, laughing, “but we have to! For let me tell you, there’s no life without Mammon.”

“But there will be!” The preacher filled his cup and emptied it in one gulp. “There will be! When we triumph! Everything will be shared; all ownership and property will vanish. There will be no rich or poor, no poverty or oppression. Happiness and divine peace will reign on Earth.”

“What nonsense,” said the stooped old woman spinning in the corner. “Pious old soak.”