Reynevan had seen a wagon fort—or vozova hradba—being built a good few times, but never so efficiently. Královec’s Orphans scurried to and fro and the order and organisation were admirable. First of all, a nucleus was created, a ring of supply wagons, inside which the packhorses and cattle were hidden. The actual hradba—a square of war wagons—was quickly assembled around the centre. The wagoners smoothly manoeuvred their conveyances into the appropriate positions. The horses were unharnessed and led into the centre. The wagons were assembled wheel against wheel, with the left rear wheel of the wagon in front chained to the right front wheel of the following one, lending a stepped profile to the barricade of wagons. Artillery—trestle guns and cannons of various calibre—were set up in gaps left every few wagons. Each of the walls was built of fifty war wagons, and the entire wagenburg created a square the sides of which measured at least two hundred paces.

Before it began to grow dark, the wagenburg was in place. And waiting.

“We were planning to take Kłodzko by treachery,” Brázda of Klinštejn repeated, pensively stopping with his spoon above a pot. “But nothing came of it. All our men in the town were caught and tortured to death. Rzehors was among them; they say he was cruelly tortured on the scaffold in the town square. And rumour had it that you also met an equally hideous end. I’m glad you survived.”

“I am, too.” Reynevan clenched his teeth. “But Bisclavret is dead also. They killed him. It’s the end of the Vogelsang.”

“You are left. You survived.”

“I did.”

Brázda began slurping his soup again, but only briefly.

“If the Silesians don’t come… If it turns out that… You could be in trouble, Reynevan. Are you afraid?”

“No.”

They said nothing and slurped the soup. Smoke drifted up from the campfires. The horses in the inner ring of the wagenburg snorted.

“Brázda?”

“What?”

“I didn’t see any preachers with the hejtmans. Neither Little Prokop nor Krejčíř…”

“Little Prokop…” Ronovci blew his nose. “Little Prokop is in Prague, advancing his career. He’s on course to become a bishop. Krejčíř fell at Kratzau, hacked to pieces along with his sling shooters. There was nothing left of him to gather up. We had one more priest, but he was frail and fell ill. He died. We buried him near Duszniki. It’ll be two Sundays ago.”

“You’ve been left…” Reynevan cleared his throat. “You’ve been left without spiritual solace?”

“There’s always vodka.”

Darkness fell quite quickly and suddenly—it was the twenty-sixth of December after all. And then the patrols, the forays and Piotr the Pole’s cavalry returned. Horsemen began to flood into the square of the wagon fort lit by campfires.