They didn’t talk. They fled in silence at a gallop, following the Biała into the Kłodzko valley. Without knowing when, they found themselves at a crossroads, on the road running parallel with the right bank of the Nysa. Since noon, crowds of refugees had been moving along the road. They were being driven on by panic. By desperation.

The companions merged into the crowd. No one paid attention to them. No one showed any interest in them. No one came after them. No one was interested in a common crime, a trivial murder, an unimportant victim, an unimportant perpetrator. There were more important matters. Much more important. Much more dangerous. Sounding in the shaking voices of the refugees from the south.

Bobošov was burned down. Lewin was burned down. Homole and Štěrba Castles were besieged. Mezilesí was in flames. The invaders were marching through the Nysa valley, burning and murdering indiscriminately. A powerful army numbering several thousand Hussite heretics. The notorious Orphans under the command of the notorious Jan Královec.

Almost half a century later, fidgeting on a hard stool, an old chronicler monk from the Augustinian monastery in Żagań straightened up the parchment on his lectern and dipped his quill pen in ink.

In medio quadragesime Anno Domini MCCCCXXVIII traxerunt capitanei de secta Orphanorum Johannes dictus Kralowycz, Procopius Parvus dictus Prokupko et Johannes dictus Colda de Zampach in Slesiam cum CC equites et IV milia peditum et cum CL curribus et versus civitatem Cladzco processerunt. Civitatem dictam Mezilezi et civitatem dictam Landek concremaverunt et plures villas et opida in eodem districtu destruxerunt et per voraginem ignis magnum nocumentum fecerunt…

The monk jerked up his head in terror on smelling smoke. But it was only weeds being burned in the monastery garden.

Chapter Nineteen

In which Reynevan tries to help in the capture of the town of Kłodzko, insistently, doggedly and using various means, in other words, as the chronicler was to write half a century later, per diversis modis.

Kłodzko, whose panorama they saw in the morning, turned out to be a mass of red tiles and golden roofs perching on a hillside, descending to the very waters of the Młynówka Canal which encircled the hill. Reflected in the water of the Nysa, wide at this point, the slope was crowned by the castle hill dominating the town with its towers.

The road was still blocked by the conveyances of refugees, their stinking livestock and stinking young. The closer to the town, the greater the number of wagons, the hubbub became louder, the children appeared to be reproducing spontaneously and the stench suddenly intensified.

“The Old Horse Market is ahead of us.” Rzehors pointed. “And the Wygon suburb. Soon there’ll be the bridge over the Jodłownik.”