“Oh, you sinners and scoundrels,” he read solemnly. “Your end is nigh. I am patient, but if you don’t sever your ties with Czech heresy, if you continue to offend the Mother Church, I will curse you for ever. I shall send down on you hail, fire, thunderbolts and tempests to destroy your work. I shall lay waste your vineyards and seize all your flocks. I shall punish you with bad air and bring great poverty down on you. Thus do I admonish you and forbid you from listening to Hussites, heretic masters and other whoresons, the servants of Satan. And whoever betrays Me will not see eternal life, and blind and deaf children will be born to him—”

“Fraud!” shouted somebody from the throng in a thunderous bass. “Swindling papist falsehood! Don’t believe that, brothers, good folk! Don’t give credence to fraudulent bishops!”

The soldier on the scaffold ran over to the edge and shouted some orders, pointing to where the voice came from, and the crowd swayed as halberdiers marched in, jostling people with their pikestaffs. Reynevan stopped. Things were becoming interesting.

“‘Mother,’” someone yelled from a completely different part of the square, in what sounded like a familiar voice. “The Roman Church calls itself the ‘Mother’! But it is a cruel serpent and spat poisonous venom onto Christianity when it raised a vicious cross in its bloody hands against the Czechs and proclaimed from its venal mouth a crusade against true Christians! Priestly immorality dripping with mendacity wants to kill in Bohemia God’s immortal truth, which considers God Himself its proliferator and defender! And whoever raises a hand against God’s truth will suffer death and the torment of damnation!”

The clerk on the scaffold issued orders and pointed, and mournful bruisers in black jerkins began to force their way through the crowd towards the voice.

“Rome is a venal harlot!” bellowed a new voice from a fresh location. “The Pope is the Antichrist!”

“The Roman Curia is a gang of thieves!” sounded a similar bass voice, but from somewhere else entirely. “They aren’t priests, but sinful scoundrels!”

A lute strummed away and a very familiar voice sang loudly and brightly.

The truth is of Christ

Lies are of the Antichrist

The priests conceal the truth

for they fear it,

Deceiving the common folk!

The people began to laugh and take up the song. The halberdiers and the sorrowful men scurried around in various directions, swearing, poking and striking with their pikestaffs, combing the square in search of the hecklers. In vain.

Reynevan stood a better chance. He knew who to look for.

“God help us, Tybald Raabe.”

The goliard retreated at the sound of the words, backing into a fence and frightening a horse standing on the other side. The horse thudded a hoof against the wall of the stable and snorted and other horses followed it.