“Though I warned him not to incite my subjects.” The knight grew serious. “Sing any fucking songs you like about Wycliffe and the Antichrist, I told him, call priests leeches, because they are. But don’t fucking tell the peasants that everyone’s equal before God and soon all property will be common, including my estates, my burg, my granary and my treasury. Or that they don’t have to pay duty because a just, divine order is coming to abolish all duties and rents. I tried to dissuade him, I warned him. He didn’t listen, so I threw him into the dungeon. I haven’t decided what to do with him yet. Perhaps I’ll have him hanged. Or just flogged. Perhaps I’ll tie him to the pillory in the town square in Landeshut. Perhaps I’ll turn him over to the Bishop of Wrocław. I need to improve my relationship with the episcopate since it’s soured a little lately, haa-haa-haa!”

The grey-eyed priest knew, of course, what it was all about. He knew about the attack on the Cistercian abbey in Krzeszów that Zettritz had committed the year before. The guffaws of the knights at the table suggested that they must also have taken part in the robbery. Perhaps he was looking on too intently, perhaps there was something in his face, because the Lord of Schwarzwaldau suddenly straightened up and punched the armrest of his throne.

“The Abbot of Krzeszów burned three of my farmhands to death!” he bellowed, with a roar the aurochs in his arms would have been proud of. “He acted against me. He fucking crossed me, though I warned him he wouldn’t get away with it! He accused the men of supporting the Hussites without any proof and sent them to the stake! And all in order to show me disrespect! He thought I wouldn’t dare, that I wasn’t strong enough to strike at the monastery! So I taught him a lesson!”

“The display took place,” said the priest, raising his eyes again, “if I recall, with the help and complicity of the Trutnov Orphans under the command of Jan Baštín of Porostlé.”

The knight leaned over and his eyes bored into the spy’s.

“Who are you, you damned priest?”

“Haven’t you guessed?”

“I have indeed,” rasped Zettritz. “And it’s also true that I taught the abbot a lesson with your invaluable Hussite help. But does that make me a Hussite? I take Communion in the Catholic way, I believe in Purgatory and I call on the saints in need. I have nothing in common with you.”

“Apart from the spoils plundered from Krzeszów and split half-and-half with Baštín. Horses, cattle, swine, coin in gold and silver, wine, liturgical vessels… Do you think, m’lord, that Bishop Konrad will absolve you in exchange for any old troubadour?”