“My parole. We crossed swords, after all.”

Reynevan, not knowing how he found the strength, finally stemmed the bleeding from Samson’s head by repeating a spell over and over. And realised that he was quite awash in blood himself. Everything went black. He stopped feeling the pain.

Because he had lost consciousness.

Chapter Twenty-Two

In which the fever eases and intensifies by turns, but the pain increases. And, to make matters worse, they have to flee.

He regained consciousness in semi-darkness, saw the darkness yield before the light and the light merge into the gloom and combine with it, creating a shadowy, translucent suspension. Umbram fugat claritas, flashed through his head. Noctem lux eliminat. The Aurora, Eos rhododactylos, rose and painted the eastern sky pink.

He was lying on a hard pallet and any attempts to move caused pains to shoot through his shoulder and scapula. Before he even touched the thickly bandaged place, he recalled in detail the bolt that had been there, the fletching of goose feathers at the front, an inch of ash wood and another of iron point sticking out at the back. There was still a bolt in there. An invisible and immaterial bolt of pain.

He knew where it was. He’d been in many hospitals, so the funk of many fevered bodies, the stench of camphor, urine, blood and decay was nothing new to him. And superimposed on it, the unending and intrusive melody of soft snores, moans, groans and sighs.

The reawakened pain in his scapula pulsated, neither subsiding nor easing, radiated across his back, up to his shoulders and downwards to his buttocks. Reynevan touched his forehead, felt the wet hair under his hand. I’m feverish, he thought. The wound is festering.

Things are looking bad.

“God help us, Brother, may God help us. We’re alive. We’ve made it through another night. Perhaps, dammit, we’ll get out of this…”

“You’re Czech?” Reynevan turned his head towards the pallet on his right, from where his neighbour—as pale as death and with sunken cheeks—had greeted him. “What is this place? Where am I? Among friends?”

“Aye, among friends,” muttered the pale man. “We’re all good Czechs here. But in truth, Brother, we are far, far away from our boys.”

“I don’t underst—” Reynevan tried to raise himself but fell back with a groan. “I don’t understand. What hospital is this? Where are we?”

“In Oława.”

“Oława?”

“Aye,” confirmed the Czech. “It’s a town in Silesia. Brother Prokop made a truce and an agreement with the local herzog… Not to ravage the lands here… And the herzog promised to take care of the Taborite wounded.”

“But where is Prokop? Where’s the Tábor? And what day is it today?”

“The Tábor? Far, faaar away… Heading home. And the day? Tuesday. And the day after tomorrow, Thursday, will be a holiday. Nanebevstoupení Páně.”