“What will they do to us?”

“Sell us,” whispered back his neighbour, the one who had earlier quietened and warned him. “They’ll sell us to our deaths. They’re martahuzes, sire. Man traders.”

At dawn, Reynevan used all his strength to press himself against and cuddle up to the others crowded on the dirt floor in a moaning and trembling swarm. He had no inhibitions. What mattered was every little scrap of warmth. Even if it stank. In any case, he wasn’t worth any more than the stinking rest.

For he was only worth three hundred Prague groschen. Or around ten Hungarian ducats. Or about as much as two cows, with a sheepskin and a gallon of beer thrown in.

At daybreak, there were shouts, curses, foul insults, kicks and blows of whips. The people crammed into the enclosure were driven out one by one through the gate in the palisade and then put into wooden yokes with holes for their heads and hands. They were driven, blows of whips raining down on them, into a marching column.

Reynevan’s yoke stank of vomit. No wonder. It bore the dried remains of it.

Pimple-Face, in the saddle of the shaggy piebald, whistled through his fingers. Whips cracked. The column set off. The captives were praying aloud. Whips cracked again.

The nightmare had its good side. Urged by blows to trot, he began to feel warmer.

Judging by the sun, they were heading east. The pace was easier than it had been at daybreak; they weren’t being forced to trot, but not owing to mercy or compassion. Two people—an older man and a woman—had fallen and couldn’t stand up, even though the man traders hadn’t spared blows or kicks. The column was driven on, so Reynevan didn’t see what happened to the pair, but he had his forebodings. He heard Pimple-Face angrily calling Hejtman Jelínek every name under the sun for supplying him with “cadavers” and cursing his men for “damaging the goods.” The result of the incident was that they were allowed to walk more slowly. And were flogged more seldom.

Reynevan was limping, had bruised a heel; he hadn’t walked such a distance for a long time. To his right, a young man, his equal in years, panted under the weight of the yoke. In the night, being decidedly less numb than the others, he had introduced himself in snatched sentences as a carpenter from Jaroměř on his journeyman years, moving from village to village perfecting his craft. He’d been assailed on the way from Jičín to Žitava and captured. Through sobs, the journeyman begged Reynevan that if by some miracle he should escape to inform Alžběta, the daughter of master Růžička, a Jaroměř tailor. He declared that if he got away, he would inform anyone Reynevan wanted. Reynevan didn’t suggest anyone. He lacked trust. And didn’t believe in miracles.