Reynevan sniffed both sleeves of his jerkin. He had only just left the hospital, and while there—as is usual in a hospital—blood had been let from almost everyone, boils were regularly lanced and amputations took place with a frequency worthy of a better cause. His clothing might have absorbed the smell; there’d have been nothing unusual about that. But his jerkin just smelled like a jerkin. And nothing else.

He raised his head and sniffed. From the north, over on the left bank of the River Vltava, came the smell of dried weeds being burned in orchards and vineyards. Moreover, from the river came the smell of mud and rotting flesh—the weather was hot, the water level had dropped considerably and the exposed banks and dried-out sandbars had for some time been supplying the city with unforgettable olfactory impressions. But this time it wasn’t the mud that stank. Reynevan was certain of it.

A light and changeable breeze was blowing intermittently from the Poříčí Gate to the east. From Vítkov. And the ground at the foot of Vítkov Hill might indeed have been giving off the smell of blood, since plenty of blood had soaked into it.

But that couldn’t be possible. Reynevan adjusted the shoulder strap of his bag and walked briskly down the lane. The smell of blood couldn’t be coming from Vítkov. Firstly, it was quite far away. Secondly, the battle had been fought in the summer of 1420. Seven years before. Seven long years before.

He passed the Church of the Holy Cross, making good speed, but the stench of blood hadn’t faded. On the contrary, it had had grown more intense. For now, all of a sudden, it was coming from the west.

Ha, he thought, looking towards the nearby ghetto, stones aren’t like soil; old bricks and plaster remember much, much lingers on in them. What they absorb stinks for a long time. And over there, outside the synagogue and in the streets and houses, blood flowed even more copiously than in Vítkov, and a little more recently. In 1422, during the bloody pogrom, at the time of the upheaval that erupted in Prague following the execution of Jan Želivský. Enraged by the execution of their popular tribune, the people of Prague had risen up to seek revenge, to burn and kill. The Jewish district, as usual, took the brunt of it. The Jews had nothing at all to do with Želivský’s death and weren’t in any way responsible for his fate. But who cared?

Reynevan turned beyond the graveyard of the Church of the Holy Cross, passed by the hospital, entered the Old Coal Market, crossed a small square and ducked into the gateways and narrow backstreets leading to Dlouhá třída. The smell of blood had faded into a sea of other scents, for the gateways and backstreets bore every imaginable stench.