Reynevan, Scharley and Samson followed Prokop and the gunner along a line of trenches, stockades and fascines. Prokop inspected the bombards and mortars, spoke to gunners and pavisiers, patted crossbowmen on the shoulder, shared earthy jokes with flailmen beside campfires and asked the halberdiers if they were short of anything. He found time to talk to the women busying themselves around cauldrons, tasted the troops’ kasha and ruffled the fair hair of children hanging around the kitchen. And to raise his arms modestly when the Warriors of God cheered in his honour.

It lasted quite some time. But Prokop hadn’t forgotten about them, either.

They returned to face the town walls.

Prokop’s army had arrived at Kolín more quickly than expected, giving the residents of the cottages outside the town little time to save themselves by fleeing inside the walls with whatever they could carry, leaving the Taborites and Orphans considerable stores of food, plenty of livestock and cottages with almost all the necessary tools and utensils. It was thus no surprise that the Warriors of God built their main camp there, surrounded by a barricade of wagons and a corral for the horses. Numerous campfires were burning between the cottages and shacks, hammers clanged in forges and tools clattered in wheelwrights’ workshops. Clothes dried on washing lines. Pigs squealed and sheep bleated. Unsavoury smells drifted from the latrines.

“Why are you here, Brother Bielawa?” Prokop suddenly asked.

Reynevan sighed furtively. He’d been expecting that question.

Reynevan had decided to undertake an expedition to Trosky Castle. He’d made the decision quite spontaneously, it should be said, with the unbounded and passionate enthusiasm of a young widow. That enthusiasm and spontaneity didn’t especially please the sorcerers from the Archangel, Fraundinst and Štěpán of Drahotuše in particular. They both had their doubts, not just concerning Axleben’s information but also the legendary abilities of the legendary Rupilius the Silesian. Axleben, they claimed, was confabulating to distract attention from his embarrassing failure with Samson. Rupilius the Silesian was most probably not at Trosky Castle. And even if Rupilius the Silesian happened to be there, then the chance he would be able to help was precisely zero—for, according to rough calculations, Rupilius the Silesian was about ninety, and what could one expect from such a fossil?

Telesma, however, took Reynevan’s side. Telesma had heard about Rupilius the Silesian, had even met him briefly, and considered his qualifications in the field of spiritualism and astral beings to have been confirmed and verified half a century before. No harm in trying, he pronounced. An expedition to Trosky was an opportunity for Samson Honeypot that ought to be taken, and quickly at that. Rupilius, it was true, was aged four score years and ten, and at that age it’s a well-known fact: you catch a chill, sneeze and fart, and without knowing it you are passing into the astral plain.