She relaxed when dusk began to fall—people seldom arrived during the night, and she knew that many people were planning to leave at daybreak. The Hussites had gone. They had marched south, taking the route to Kostomłoty, Strzegom, Bolków and Landeshut. Perhaps they had returned to Bohemia? Now the smoke had stopped blackening the sky during the day and the glow of fires wasn’t lighting up the night sky. People were tired of wandering, they wanted to go home. Back to their burned-out houses. To the ashes of their towns and villages. To Sobótka, Gniechowice, Górka, Frankenthal, Arnoldsmühle, Woskowice, Rakoszyce, Słup. And many, many others, with names that sounded strange and meant nothing to them.

An ox lowed; a goat bleated. A child started crying somewhere among the wagons, and Elencza of Stietencron quickly dashed past beside Dzierżka. Having finished her work with the others in the kitchen, Elencza didn’t join them to sleep and rest. Elencza appeared never to rest. For seven days, during which Dzierżka supported the camp organisationally and financially, Elencza only rested when categorically instructed to do so. Dzierżka didn’t like to be categorical with Elencza. She saw how the young woman reacted to it. She saw it the first day when Elencza Stietencron arrived in Skałka on Tybald Raabe’s chestnut. When Dzierżka foolishly thought she knew how to shake the young woman out of her torpor and apathy.

“Woe is Silesia,” repeated a stout Wrocław burgher, a merchant whom not even the presence of armed forces could prevent from taking to the road with a cart full of goods.

“Accursed Silesia,” repeated a miller from Marcinkowice.

The refugees gathered around the campfire—a kind of camp council that had spontaneously formed, made up of people with evident authority—nodded and muttered. Dzierżka was the only woman among them. They were mainly grave-looking peasants with the faces and bearing of natural leaders. Aside from the stout Wrocław burgher, there was also the miller from Marcinkowice near Brzeg, a leaseholder from near Kątowy, two mercenaries in livery faded by the dust of many roads and an innkeeper from Górka. There was a barber-surgeon from Sobótka, who was much in demand. He was a Minorite from the monastery in Środa Śląska, a senior monk; the younger ones were tirelessly attending to the sick and wounded. There was a Jew, from God knew where. There was a knight. One of those impoverished ones, but still a remarkable sight among the others.