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charlie-rulerofhell · 15 days ago

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Sed Proditionem || chapter 7

Morituri Te Salutant

Štěpán is given a grand offer. Henry is confronted with his past (anyone surprised?). Žižka is telling a tale of happier times. Samuel is putting his German skills to the test. Then two naked swords are presented (how indecent!), and war is declared.

{read it below or here on AO3}

(very short) tag list: @shmuel-ben-sarah-kcd2, @bad-system

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PREVIEW

The crowd watched his agony with excitement and bated breath. The second man fell down to his knees, covered his eyes with both hands and broke down in tears.

Štěpán took parchment and quill back into his hands, placed it carefully on his knees and began to write. Omnes enim, qui acceperint gladium, gladio peribunt, the one who takes up the sword, will die by the sword. But who helps us decide whether it's the sharp, merciful executioner's sword that a delinquent deserves or the ruthless brutality of a blunt axe?

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If it's meant to be then it will be So I met him there and told him I believe.

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The smell of a lush green forest paired with that of a freshly cut field and dry hay. Only faintly noticeable, the remnants of thick, suffocating smoke and charred wood and cloth had burned themselves into his nose, into his mind. None of it would matter soon. Soon, everything would reek only of death.

Štěpán put quill and parchment down on the crate next to where he was sitting, folded his hands in his lap and watched. He had managed to claim a good viewing spot for himself, here on a wagon loaded with dried meat and fish. They had a lot of wagons in this camp, so many that Žižka had complained about their inefficiency as they were only making slow progress on their way north, but then again, thirty thousand men needed a lot of supplies. In the few hours that Štěpán had now travelled with King Władysław Jagiełło's and Grand Duke Vytautas's army, they had perhaps advanced four or five miles, if not less than that. Now, with the approaching night, their expedition had stopped altogether, and they had set up their camp in and around a sparsely wooded forest that let up a hill to a clear top, only covered by a meadow and some fields. It was this hill top that the Polish King had chosen for the execution of the punishment. It was here, where hundreds of soldiers and civilian camp followers alike had now gathered to watch. It was almost grotesque, Štěpán thought, how many people had come to witness two men hanging themselves.

One of them had cried and begged when Grand Duke Vytautas had delivered the verdict in his cousin the King's name. Janosh had translated his choking stutters for Štěpán, how the man had pleaded for mercy, because what should his family at home think of him when he didn't return in honour and glory, but rather executed and wrapped in linen? Vytautas had replied that he wouldn't return to them at all. Instead, he would be hanging here until the end of time, the only question was how well he built his own gallows and whether his body would become a feast for the crows or for the wolves.

The other man, the one with a bald spot on the back of his head in the form of a heart, had not shed a single tear. He had cursed. At the King and the Grand Duke, and at God, so much Štěpán could understand. Janosh had refused to translate the rest for him.

Štěpán craned his neck to peer across the masses of heads that were all turned towards the platform where the two men were hammering the last nails into their own coffin, but the braided black hair and the green kaftan were nowhere to be found. Disappointing, but not surprising. Janosh seemed to be busy here in this camp, and his busy path lead surprisingly often to the King's tent. He had so far not given Štěpán any good explanation for why that was the case, but it wasn't like this one day of travelling together had offered them much time for talking. Štěpán would have to ask him later, and then he would not let Janosh go before he gave him a satisfying answer.

The crowd fell suspiciously silent, and Štěpán looked back over to the platform. The balding man was tying the last knot into the noose, then he looked up to the sky that was painted the same colour as the fire he had caused. The other man froze, watching in horror as his comrade placed a stool under the crossbeam and stepped up to throw the end of the rope over it so he could tie that too. Then he took a deep breath and turned to the masses. With a bellowing voice he shot another salve of curses across the hill, ending it all by putting his right fist to his heart before he finally grabbed the noose and hung it around his neck. Then he kicked the stool underneath his feet. It fell, but did not slide away as he had intended, and so he only fell down a few finger's breadths until his fall was stopped by the legs of the toppled stool. Not nearly enough to break his spine. His eyes got wide, his face took the colour of poppies, then of violets, he choked and gurgled and thrashed around with every limb of his body, and then he did scream and cry, but his voice was not as strong now as it had been before, only a broken, feeble breeze.

The crowd watched his agony with excitement and bated breath. The second man fell down to his knees, covered his eyes with both hands and broke down in tears.

“What do you think of this punishment?”

Štěpán lifted his eyes from his own words, and saw Žižka standing next to him. He had taken off his shining plate armour and the white coat, was only wearing a simple tunic and a short-sleeved padded jacket now, with a cap on his dark, combed back hair that looked as if he wanted to go hunting. His expression did not show any strong emotion, neither shock nor satisfaction, but the one eyebrow that still responded to his facial muscles was raised expectantly.

“I think it's cruel,” Štěpán replied honestly.

“Hm,” Žižka made, and it was no confirmation but no objection either. “Do you think it's fair?”

He looked back to the man hanging from his noose. His body was still twitching, but Štěpán believed, hoped that he was at least not conscious anymore. Fair. The law was fair, and if it was supposed to stay that way, then there was no room for thinking in it. Thinking only bore personal sentiments, and those would always cloud better judgement. Laws and and the established consequences of breaking them on the other hand were set in stone, for everyone to read and act accordingly, and that was what made them fair. But even a tablet of stone would not last forever. “I know that it was necessary,” Štěpán answered, because that at least he was certain of.

“So you understand the reason why Jagiełło had to do it?”

“They violated and murdered good people. Civilians. That is a war crime.”

“What else?”

Štěpán kept silent for a moment, watched as the hanged man's body finally fell still. His eyes were open, they looked blood-red from the distance, or perhaps it was only the reflection of the evening sky. “They burned a church. I heard that they also desecrated the host. King Jagiełło wants to be seen as a faithful Christian. It's how he justifies his campaign against the Teutonic Order, by proving that there is no reason for any further crusades.”

“Good.” Žižka sounded proud, almost paternal, and Štěpán realised that he had never before heard anyone talk this way to him. The tone was dangerous, because it made him long for more, and because he knew that it was a fallacious longing that could not be satisfied, as deep below the apparent pride resentment was hiding. “Anything else?”

Štěpán did not care for the fallacy. He wanted to hear that voice again. He couldn't. The man was swinging left to right with his red eyes wide open, the other convict tried to stand up again, but his legs were so weak that they gave in underneath him and he fell back to his knees. The crowd's suspense had been broken, they were screaming at him now, insulting him in Polish and Lithuanian and Ruthenian, Czech and Tatar, urging him to finally face his deserved fate and take his own life.

“What did these men do?” Žižka continued, still sounding like a father who was guiding him kindly, and it bathed the grim scene in front of him in a much more bearable light. “What did they do to the church, to the houses and crops, what does that mean for us, for this expedition?”

“They burned it.” Štěpán almost snapped the quill in two as he realised. Reddened, dead eyes, clouds moving fast across the sky, mirroring the sun's flames and the darkness of the night. “Fire. They set it on fire. Which caused pillars of smoke to rise up that were likely visible from many miles away.” He turned back to Žižka. Somewhere in his one steel-blue eye and below all the hair of his moustache, a fond expression was hiding. “Do you think they've seen it? Do you think the Order is already on our tails?”

“My guess is that we'll know once we get to the Drewenz River.”

“You're expecting them to wait for us there.”

Žižka crossed his arms, and the short jacket made them look twice as big as they normally did. The mind of a strategist, the body of a warrior. Far away from what Štěpán was, but maybe in a few years, when he had spent more time with Žižka and his band, who knew how things were then. Given they even made it this long, that was. “Jagiełło is still in good spirits. We haven't heard anything of the Order on our whole way, and he believes that it's a good sign. I believe an enemy lying in silence is far more dangerous than one who screams at you from afar. But we'll see.”

“It's said that the Order has heavy artillery. If they saw the fires and know our path, they might already be waiting somewhere near an open field that we'll have to cross, lying in ambush and waiting to shoot us down once we get there.”

Now, Žižka did smile. It was visible in the wrinkles next to his eyes, and from the way his teeth bared. “You spent too much time with Kubyenka and Janosh, boy. It made you start to think like a bandit. No. if there is one thing we can rely on about the Order, it is their knightly honour. They will want to face us in a proper battle. Defeat us by demonstrating that they truly are the best skilled warriors in Christendom.”

The best skilled warriors in Christendom. A phrase that had been thrown around the camp the whole day, sometimes whispered as a warning, sometimes spoken in taunt, as if it was only a mocking name that bore no resemblance to reality, but everyone could see through the mask of fear that painted the jest a lie. It was an entirely different thing to hear it from Žižka's lips now. Not as a jest, and not in fear either, only as a blunt matter of fact. “So do we even have a chance?”

“The odds could definitely be worse. Even with Sigismund's and Wenceslas's support, it will be hard for the Germans to gather enough soldiers to meet the size of our force. But I'd assume that they are better equipped than us. And they are definitely more disciplined.” His eye wandered to the platform, where the second man had finally finished his gallows too, and was now trying to attach his own noose to the beam. His hands were shaking so much that the rope slid down again and again. The crowd became impatient. “You forgot one reason, boy, why Jagiełło had to do it. Disobedience. There is no room for disobedience in a battle like this.”

“Are you mad at us?” He wrapped the words into a question, but it was needless, Štěpán could hear the reproach in his voice, and it wasn't directed at the two plunderers. Žižka did not reply. Just as needless, he could not have given Štěpán more confirmation than that. “I thought you wanted us to come. It was you who asked us for it in Prague.”

“But not under these circumstances. With Capon being here in disguise as some nameless, itinerant knight, and you, you have run away from your guardian like a thief.”

“I'm old enough to decide over my whereabouts for myself.”

“We both know that's not how it works. You're still a vassal in Dubá's service. If you're lucky he'll only have you whipped for disobedience, if he decides to show more strictness, he might as well have your ears cut off for deserting.”

“I'm his assistant, Žižka, not his soldier.”

“And yet you ran. Even though you knew that Dubá relies on you, that he needs you to help him with the work he cannot tend to on his own anymore, now that he is old. You studied the law just for that cause.”

Štěpán pouted. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about all this before, how Sir Ondřej would fare now that Štěpán hadn't even left him a message about where he went, and what happened to the old Lord in case Štěpán wouldn't return. He really didn't need Žižka to make him feel bad about it too, but perhaps that was just one of the downsides that came with his paternal tone. Or it was simply the commander in him spurring him on. How many ears must he have cut off when one of his band had not followed his orders? Had that been why Kubyenka had threatened to do the same to him back in the gorge? How many times had he witnessed Žižka doing it to one of their men? Štěpán put the quill down and wrapped his arms around his body. The corners of his mouth dropped even further. “So what? Sir Ondřej will find someone else who can study the law. I'm just a tool to him, I'm not indispensable.”

“That is not relevant here, boy. You disobeyed him. I need you to understand what such disobedience can lead to under different circumstances.”

Štěpán looked up to the gallows on the platform, with the two dead men underneath of whom one was still breathing. He had finally managed to tie the noose to the beam and had draped it around his neck, but he hadn't jumped yet. He might not have to, his legs were trembling so severely, Štěpán was certain they would just give in on themselves any moment now. On the trees of the nearby woods, the crows were inviting him to feed them faster.

“You won't engage in the battle.”

Štěpán spun around so quickly, the parchment almost slipped off his lap. “What?”

“You will stay at camp.”

“At camp? Together with the women and children and the cooks and sutlers?”

“Together with all the other folks who are not fit for battle, yes. Now, do not open your mouth and your eyes so far, it makes you look like a fish. What did you expect, boy? You have barely any military training, we'll have no use for you on the battlefield.”

This was atrocious! The long ride for over a week, sharing a single room with the other five in some reeking tavern on the side of the road, the jump from the Zlenice castle wall, nearly breaking his ribs, leaving Šárka behind. All for nothing? If this was the retribution for his disobedience, Žižka might as well have asked him to hang himself in front of everyone too, it would have been much less cruel of a punishment. “I did not come all this way to be shoved to the sidelines! Let me at least wait somewhere where I can watch the action, I do not have to participate in it!”

Žižka's right eye and the rest of his face had become just as cold and motionless as the blind left one. “I say it one more time, and it will be that last time, Štěpán. I do not have any use for you there.”

“But I might have use for him.”

Štěpán turned to look for the source of the deep, but youthful voice that had uttered these words in broken Czech. The man had stopped a few steps away from them, near a wagon of dried fruit. He was dressed noble and way too warm for the temperature that was still as burning as a hearth, despite the approaching night. A black cap of velvet, crowned with golden thread and a smoke coloured gemstone brooch in the middle. Velvet on his coat too, trimmed with silver depictions of vines and in between them eagles with spread wings. A man of the Polish King then. Štěpán was sure he had seen him at Jagiełło's side before. A young, proud face, he could not be much older than Štěpán was, bright eyes that looked down on him, despite Štěpán's raised position, from the way the man had his chin tilted up, a smug smile tugging on the left corner of his lip.

“Oleśnicki,” Žižka greeted the man, but he did not bow, nor did his voice show any kindness.

The fish face returned to Štěpán's expression, and he could not have cared less. Oleśnicki. Zbigniew Oleśnicki, the King's very own secretary. He slid off his crest, landed on his feet a bit roughly, stumbled, noticed how parchment and quill had fallen down to the ground. “Sir, I … I'm honoured, by your presence, Sir.” He bowed down in a hurried greeting, and to pick his equipment back up, making it look as if he wanted to kiss the secretary's feet, and he felt ashamed over it immediately, his cheeks blushing. “And I'm also honoured that you would … Wait, what did you say?”

Zbigniew Oleśnicki's knowing grin grew even further. “I'm assuming you heard correctly, young Lord of Tetín. I, and that is also to say, the King of Poland, Władysław, second of his name, Jagiełło, have a special task for you.”

Štěpán felt as dizzy as after his fall with the birch tree. Žižka did not share his excitement. “For him? The King has assigned a task to the ward of some Bohemian nobleman?”

“Not any nobleman, if I am correctly informed.” Zbigniew Oleśnicki turned his head to Žižka, but he did not lower it the slightest, and his smile became cold. Žižka looked like he would have loved to punch his face in, and Štěpán decided to ignore that too. “Lord Ondřej of Dubá and Zlenice is one of King Wenceslas's highest judges, is he not? And I have heard that Lord Dubá has thoroughly instructed his ward in all aspects of the law.”

Štěpán grinned proudly, bowed his head and felt his ears glow with pride. “That is correct, Sir.”

“Furthermore, the young Lord of Tetín has proven his worth only this morning when he courageously rushed in to stop these two criminals and their horde from causing any more carnage. Oh.” A scream interrupted his words, but it quickly died off as the noose closed around the man's neck. He was luckier than the first one. The fall had broken his spine at once. “A pity. You would not know it from his cries and screams, but he had quite the singing voice. It was a nice distraction on our way here.”

“You still have not explained yourself yet, Oleśnicki.”

The King's secretary glared down at Žižka, and his eyes looked almost as pale and cold as those of Petr of Haugwitz. Erik, Štěpán reminded himself. Erik of Lies. “I believe I have explained myself very well.”

“You said that Štěpán is educated and has proven his worth to our cause. The same thing can be said about a hundred other men here. Could be said about deputy chancellor Mikołaj Trąba for example. Could be said about you.”

“Yes, but I am not suited for this role, as I will have to guard the King during battle and cannot be distracted by anything else. And the chancellor has already refused.”

“So you're asking him,” Žižka said, and Štěpán felt his fists clench with anger over how Žižka talked about and for him. The quill snapped, the pieces fell to the ground. He bent down once more to collect them, and felt the two men's disparaging looks weigh down on him. “The seventh son of some Czech family who came to serve under Sokol's mercenary banner. Who is here without his guardian's leave, meaning that his name will not be mentioned anywhere and that he will clearly not be missed.”

The secretary laughed drily. “You make it sound as if I wanted to send him to the vanguard, Jan, as cannon fodder to those German bastards. It is an honourable task.”

“I want to hear it,” Štěpán finally interrupted their quarrel. “And as the one being offered the task, I will be the one to decide.”

Žižka took a deep sigh, shook his head, but then stepped back with an inviting gesture forward that screamed It's your grave to dig. Behind him, the two men were swinging almost peacefully from their gallows. The crowd had already cleared to a large extent, a dead man did not seem to be nearly as exciting to watch as one fighting with death and losing.

The satisfied grin returned to Zbigniew Oleśnicki's face, and Štěpán could sense that it had more to do with Žižka being put in his place than with Štěpán's agreement. “The offer that I want to make you, young Lord, is to write history for us. Quite literally, that is.”

“You … You want me to write the chronic. Over the events of the battle.”

“See? I knew you were smart enough for this work.”

“Well, I, thank you for the offer, Sir, I …”

“And where would he be,” Žižka interrupted his stammering, “during the fighting?”

“With the King, of course.”

Štěpán's face got so hot, he was certain it would soon have to melt away. By the King's side, with the war raging around him. Listening to the King's orders, taking notes of them.

“On the battlefield.”

“At the rear end of it, yes. He would have to be there, to witness everything and write it down.”

“It would be an honour,” Štěpán hurried to say, before Žižka could utter any more objections. “A great honour, thank you, Sir, I will be glad to do it, and I will not fail you or the King.”

Zbigniew Oleśnicki smiled contentedly, and then he grinned even wider when he turned to Žižka to bid him farewell with a bow. Žižka did not return the gesture.

“This is a good thing for me, Žižka,” Štěpán finally said when the secretary had left them. Most of the crowd had disappeared too and had gone to prepare everything for the night. Somewhere in the shadows of the forest, a single man was sitting on a tree stump, watching over the two corpses like the crows in the leaves above him. A stern, but noble face, long, straight hair falling on his back, and the hat he held in his hands looked like it was of the red velvet the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas's crown was made of, but it was hard to tell from the distance.

“Even more than that,” Žižka said, taking no notice of the man, “it is a good thing for Oleśnicki. Guard the King, eh? I'm sure that sly eel is already praying for a chance to save Jagiełło's life, so he can crawl up his arse even further.”

“So what? Then we're killing two birds with one stone. You said it yourself, I'm not a fighter, but I know about the theories of war, and how to write them down. Christ, I've been doing the writing all this time!” He waved the broken pieces of the quill around and tried not to think about the sad impression it must make. “This was made for me. And I don't care whether he's only using me. Or whether he hopes to erase my name, and put his own one down on the chronic afterwards. It's still a chance for me to prove myself the way I know.”

Žižka took a deep sigh, rubbing the back of his hunter's cap. But then his face finally smoothed, and he took the cap off, and as he reached forward to place it on top of Štěpán's head, his full moustache was lifting under a smile. “Well, then I suppose I owe you my congratulations. Just be careful, alright? That's all I'm asking of you, son.”

Son. Štěpán chuckled softly over the word, his chest felt as full as if he had breathed in all the air of the hilltop, swollen with happiness and pride. Under the shadows of the trees, the man raised his head and, as if he had given a silent command in a language only he understood, the first crows rose up from the branches, rushing in with eager screams to devour their feast.

* * *

It started raining as they were nearing Kauernick at the Drewenz River crossing, and the cooling rain lifted everybody's mood immediately. The air started smelling beguilingly of damp grass and soaked earth, the birds started singing again, as they had no reason to hide any longer, and it was only with great effort that Henry could resist the urge to whistle along with them. He stood up in his stirrups, let his gaze wander over the rolling meadows surrounding them, seemingly stretching out to the end of the world, and over the mile long retinue of riders and foot soldiers and camp followers and hundreds and hundreds of wagons, roaring louder than the bells of Saint Peter and Paul on the Vyšehrad would on a Sunday. It was not all that long ago, Henry thought, that he had visited his father there for the first time. Telling him about their failed plan in the gorge, asking burgrave Radzig Kobyla which route he should follow, that of his fate or his heart. Whatever path calls out for you, his father had said, I want you to know that there will be at least someone else walking it with you. He had been talking about himself that day, and Henry had been convinced he might as well have left the at least out completely, because who else would be there to have his back in every twist and turn he walked on? How lonely he had felt back then, how blinded he had been by the rut of his life and by frustration over his own actions, and it had robbed him of his ability to see. He had a family beyond his father. A brother who had not even blinked an eye when Henry had asked him to come. Friends he would die for and who would die for him. And Hans.

Kurva, Henry thought, shifting around in his saddle. The scar on his hip got more and more uncomfortable. And his arse hurt. An adventure like this was all well and good, until one realised that it involved days and weeks of riding without end.

“Strange, isn't it?” Hans said next to him with glee in his voice, because either his saddle was softer than Henry's, or his arse was, or he was simply too delighted to take notice of it. Which might just have been the case. Hans was grinning so widely, Henry wouldn't have been surprised if he just stretched out his arms like wings any moment now, as if they were twenty again. “How well we have advanced so far! As if Lautenburg was the only place where the Order had stationed any of their men.”

“Žižka believes it might be some kind of ruse.”

“Yes, because he is the king of ruses, but that does not mean that everybody is constantly rusing everybody else.”

“It's plausible though. When we got here yesterday morning, we had no problem to find and follow the route of the expedition until we caught up with them. Why should the Teutonic knights miss it? All this chaos and the fires.”

Hans shook his head, rolled his eyes. “Because they are kept busy in Schwetz.”

“Nah. They must have smelled the rat by now.”

“Oh, cheer up, Henry!” He let go off the reins to give the rear of Henry's thigh a slap with the back of his hand, and they were truly riding for too long now, because his skin felt sore there too, and Henry pressed his teeth together and shifted his weight once more. “Why don't you want to believe that just this once luck is on our side? You know how it is, fortune favours the brave!”

“And that's us? The brave?”

“Of course it's us! We're quite brave, I'd say.” Hans turned his face to him, and it was a beautiful sight, the soft raining moulding his golden hair into locks, dampening his brows and lashes and beard, like dew sticking to blades of grass in the morning. Hans laughed. It was honest, and it made Henry smile back in return, even when he did not feel like it. “God knows you're one of the bravest men I know, Henry.”

“Oh, I don't know about that. At least I wasn't the one who left so much behind for this journey. You left Rattay for this. You gave up your name and took on this travelling knight persona.” He swallowed down a lump in his throat that came with the realisation. “If you die, your body will be buried with all the rest, without any headstone to recognise and remember you by. I think you're much braver than me.”

Hans shook his head, laughed up to the clouded sky. “Christ's wounds, Henry, you really know how to brighten every mood!”

Henry rode his horse closer to him, so close that, when he reached out his hand, he could grasp the reins together with Hans. Rough skin on light leader gloves. A promise, and Henry realised with pride that he could give it, because now he actually meant it. “I won't let that happen. If someone wants to strike you down, they will have to get past me first.”

“And the same thing goes for you. Whatever happens, I will protect you with my life, Henry.” Hans put his left hand down on Henry's, held him tight. A promise too, but also an apology. Stop it, Henry wanted to say, there is nothing you have to feel sorry for, but he kept it to himself, did not want to interrupt Hans, not in such a moment of honesty that they hadn't shared for what felt like an eternity. “To the others here I'm only Sir Ignatius of the Cornflower, but you and me, we both know who I truly am. The Lord of Rattay who has sworn to keep his vassals safe. And more importantly than that, I have sworn an oath to you specifically. That I would always be by your side, no matter where life leads us. Now, I …” He cleared his throat. Somewhere ahead, a quiet turmoil passed through the front half of their expedition as they entered yet another dense forest. Henry furrowed his brow, tried to remember, but he couldn't. “I know I have not always succeeded at that,” Hans continued with sincerity and shame. “And I … I think I can understand why you had to leave to Prague for a while. I've tried my best to be a lord and a father, and in doing so, I may sometimes have failed to be a lover, and even more so, a friend. But my oath still stands, Henry, and I will do everything in my power to live up to it going forward.”

Henry shook his head, not over the words that had moved him to his core, but because he really could not make any sense of it, and then he leaned over to Hans and whispered with the greatest frankness: “Look, that's very sweet and all, but what oath are you bloody talking about?”

Hans let go off his hand and spun around to him in his saddle, as if he had never heard a more crushing insult. “The oath I spoke to you on my wedding of course.”

“What?”

“After the celebrations. Down by the water, uhm …” He shook his head and his gaze wandered off into the distance as he tried to recall the events, because apparently he could not remember shit either, so was he fucking making this up? “Žižka was there too! It was just before Godwin joined us, I think, all naked on that horse. I tied a ribbon around your wrist.”

“A ribbon?”

“Henry!”

“I'm sorry.” He had to laugh over Hans's outrage that was just too ridiculous, especially considering that he did not seem to know what he was talking about all too well either. “I'm afraid I do not remember much from that night.”

“Well, neither do I, but that moment was special to me.”

“And I'm certain it was special to me too, back then.”

“Clearly.” Hans averted his gaze and pouted, and it was so childish that Henry's laugh grew into a full heartfelt bark. “It was so special to you, in fact, that you just forgot all about it.”

“Yeah, like I forgot about everything else. What do you mean, Godwin got naked on a horse?”

Now Hans had to laugh too, raising both his eyebrows at Henry. “God help me, Henry, you must have been more wasted than I was, when you even forgot about …” His words died off, the smile vanished. He stood up as far as he could, but all that was visible in front of them was the darkness of the woods, the path twisting and turning so wildly between bushes and creeks, that one could barely make out another dozen rows of their army. But the rest of them they could hear. Their shouts and the neighing of their horses as reins were pulled, and they felt the tension as clearly as the coldness of shadow and rain. “What's going on?”

“Halt!” someone screamed, out of sight from Henry's position. The horses stopped, as if they had run into an invisible wall. Hans's chestnut gelding pranced back and forth and snorted in protest from how hard he had to pull the reins. The riders in front of them whispered to each other as if the Messiah himself had appeared. Or the Devil. It was hard to tell.

“Stay here,” Henry said, then he already guided his horse into the undergrowth to make his way past the others. Slowly over the forest's earth that the rain had turned into mud. Listening to the whispering of the other Bohemian mercenaries who seemed to be just as clueless as he was, and then to the talk of the Polish troops that rode before them, of which Henry could only understand little. He did not have to. The tone of their voices and the panic on their faces was enough to realise that it was indeed the Devil they had encountered.

Thorny blueberry bushes and fern and moss, then some Polish riders with a roaring, yellow lion on their sky-blue shields had to move aside so that Henry could bypass a channel of rainwater. One of them cursed in Polish, the other one knew better and insulted him in broken Czech. “Eh, what are you doing, you fool, stay in line!”

“I need to get to Žižka,” Henry retorted like it was a plausible excuse.

It was not. The lion Pole only rolled his eyes at him. “Right, like we all don't need to get to someone. Why don't we just all storm forward and trample each other down, eh?”

Henry cursed, first internally, then a little stronger externally, before he spurred his horse on again. More blueberry bushes, more fern, then the ground turned from mud into sand and stone as the forest got lighter. He had moved past two or three Polish banners, had got to a point in their group where more crests of Saint George were visible, and much further ahead still, the three goat heads around a ring of Jan Sokol of Lamberg's crest. Behind his banner, the forest cleared for a wide riverbed, the Drewenz. And right next to where the bridge had to be, the wooden walls of the Kauernick castle rose up. Above it, thick clouds darkened the sky on one side, while on the other, the sun had forced her way back out of her hiding. Somewhere behind the trees, Henry thought, there had to be a pretty rainbow. He did not get to waste any more mind on it, because when he once more looked at the castle that lay half in shadows, half in bright sunlight, he realised that it wasn't a castle at all. The construction had towers and walls, but they were entirely made of wooden planks, not of stone, and with larger empty spaces in between, making it look like the structure was entirely built of balustrades, instead of solid walls. On its multiple storeys, men were standing, draped in white cloaks, icicles growing out of the wooden platforms like stalagmites, and on the highest points of each tower, banners were flapping in the wind. Black crosses on white fields.

Audentis fortuna kiss my arse.

“Henry!”

He turned left and saw Katherine waving at him from between the group of riders. Kubyenka was by her side, and his face was rutted by wrinkles of confusion that were as deep as the Rattay castle moat.

“Hey!” Henry greeted, trying his best to bring his horse back in line to meet up with them. “What is going on there?”

“How the hell should we know?” Kubyenka just retorted without taking his eyes off the wooden building at the end of their road. “Ask the captain.”

“I'd love to.” He looked to the front again, to Jan Sokol's banner raised high above the heads of at least a hundred more riders and almost just as many wagons, some of them placed so closely next to each other that not even the Tatar Golden Horde in full speed could have rushed through them. Impossible. Then he looked back over his shoulder to where the winding path disappeared between massive beech trees and even more massive pines, and the road was crowded now like the Prague streets on a market day, because everyone was curious, everyone wanted to see and know more, and somewhere far, far down the trail between the closely huddled masses, Hans was still waiting for him, and Henry cursed again and even more profoundly than before, making the sign of the cross just in case.

An hour or so later, the whole expedition had left the forest and set up their camp near the Drewenz River, opposite the wooden construction of the Teutonic knights. Which had turned out to be something not all that unlike a castle, namely the Order's sentry fortification of the river crossing. And a fucking huge one at that. Immediately after giving the command to wait and settle south of the river, King Jagiełło had sent two heralds over to the fortification, both to scout and to talk. The talking had not proven particularly successful. There was no room for negotiating, no bargaining to be had. They had not erected their defence for the past week for nothing, the Teutonic knights had declared. Their goal was clear, their Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen had given the order himself. Not a single Polish or Lithuanian soul, or a Bohemian or a Tatar one for that matter or one of whatever hole they had crawled out of, was to set foot north of the river. And if they did anyway, they would get shot down with hand cannons and bombards within seconds.

“They believe such a threat can stop us,” Kubyenka had said to Henry as the heralds had brought back the Order's drastic declarations. “This Ulrich fella must think that because we're such a weird bunch of a troop and follow two cousins who were stuck in their own family quarrel not too long ago, we'd be easy opponents to them. Ha. He surely never made the acquaintance of the devil's pack before.”

Henry wasn't quite sure whether the pack could truly serve as a good example for a mismatched team in light of their most recent successes, but he kept that thought to himself.

Now, they were waiting. Right in front of King Jagiełło's big tent of red and white cloth with embroidered eagles, in which he usually brought his council together. Or the important people, as Henry liked to call them. Žižka was part of those important people. Since the last evening, some time after the self-execution of the two string-pullers of the Lautenburg plundering, Štěpán was part of them as well. And for some unexplainable reason, whenever the council got together, Henry had also noticed Janosh to mysteriously disappear. “Perhaps Jagiełło is an enjoyer of good food,” Hans had said when Henry had asked him about it. Sam, who had been riding close by, had raised his brows at him, but kept his mouth shut.

Both Hans and Sam had retreated to their own tent that they shared with the rest of the pack, and Mirtl and Kubyenka had come with them. They could spend the waiting more sensible, Kubyenka had suggested, such as by filling their stomachs. “What about you, woman?” He had looked at Mirtl with these words. “I'm sure you can make us something nice.” Hans and Sam had screamed their cautionary “No!” in perfect unison.

“Well, at least they have not attacked us yet.” Kat crossed her feet, her arms were crossed already, twinen herself into a double-twisted pretzel. “They have full control over the bridge and the Kauernik castle, they could have easily come at us by now.”

“A bridge is not a good ground to fight on,” Godwin objected, but his eyes were clouded by wariness when he moved them over to where the fortification and its menacing cross banner towered over the hundreds of roofs of tents.

“But they had the moment of surprise on their side. They said it themselves, they had waited for over a week, while we hadn't even expected them.”

“Especially not so many.”

“What do you think,” Henry asked hesitantly, feeling the weight of heavy lead on his heart press down even further, “what's the size of their army?”

Godwin shook his head. He had taken off his cap, to knead it between his hands, and sweat pearled on his naked scalp. His eyes avoided Henry's as good as they could, and at first, Henry believed he wouldn't answer at all, caught between wanting to give them the honesty they deserved and not wanting to crush their morale, but then he took a deep sigh. “From the looks of it and judging by what the two lads reported back, their army must come close to the size of ours. A few banners less perhaps, but they have a large amount of artillery on their side.”

Henry nodded and looked back up to the nearest tower. At least a dozen men were waiting up there in the heat of noon, only small spots of white, like the bird shit on the Karolinum's roof, but even from this distance, Henry recognised the cannons they held in their hands. Pointed at the Polish-Lithuanian troops that had gathered right in front of them like pigs for slaughter. And he knew that they had proper bombards too, their own little Fingers of God. Perhaps that was the gift one was granted for carrying God's cross out into the world. But then again, right after their stay in Trautenau, when they had just rode up the first slopes of the Giant Mountains, Godwin had told them of the other reason why he had agreed to come with them, next to saving his friends' arses, that was. The Teutonic knights were liars, he had told them, hypocrites. Claiming to spread the Christian belief only to justify their hunger for territorial gains and power. Tearing down everything in their way that was not following God's will yet, all while not following it themselves, but rather a flawed interpretation of their faith that was only interested in wealth and ostentation and violence. And those weren't even his own words, Godwin had explained, but those of Master Jan Hus himself, and if anyone would know it was him.

Right?

On that morning, at the foot of the Giant Mountains, it had all made sense to Henry. Now, a week later, staring up to the knights in their white armour, glowing in the sun like angels sent down to deliver divine punishment, he wasn't so sure anymore. Or perhaps, all of these thoughts were presumptuous, or nothing of this had anything to do with God at all, but rather with Hans and his continuous invocation of fortuna, and the dung pile of bad luck that he must have shovelled onto himself with it by now.

“And yet,” Kat began, and Henry was thankful she interrupted his circulating, gloomy thoughts, “they haven't released a single shot yet, even when they could have easily done so.”

“I don't think they're interested in a proper battle, not yet,” Henry replied. “Perhaps they are even hoping that this fortification of theirs will be enough to serve as a warning that will scare us off before any fighting can even take place.”

“Their Grand Master might hope so,” Godwin pondered with a shake of his head, shattering Henry's naïve wishful thinking to pieces. “But the rest of his men? I doubt it. Jagiełło and Vytautas have advanced so far, they won't just return now, and neither does the Order want us to. The war has already been started, the men are hungry for blood, theirs just as much as ours.”

“But we cannot go any further either,” Henry said, crossing his arms in front of his chest, wool and leather clinging to the skin of his shoulders, wetted from both rain and sweat. “We won't be crossing the Drewenz, that they have made sure.”

There was worry on Kat's face as she looked up at him, and fear. The work of setting up camp had messed up her hair, one strand had come loose, stuck to her full cheek, still wet and glistening in the light of the resurfaced sun like a cobweb. “So what, will the battle be fought here, right by the river?”

“I hope not. I still haven't learned how to swim.”

“Believe me, son,” Godwin laughed bitterly, “no man can swim in heavy armour. And you don't want to witness the horror of a whole troop drowning as they slowly feel their own boots and platelegs run full of water, dragging them down to their grave.”

“You talk like you've seen it before.”

Godwin's eyes were fixed on him, but his gaze was somewhere far away, lost in the past, and then he lifted his head and looked up to the crow sitting on the pole of the red eagle banner and to the dark storm clouds in the distance. “I've seen enough.”

They stood in silence for a while. Listening to the sounds of thousands of soldiers talking, and letting their armour clatter as they kept themselves busy with battle practice, or the metal pots and wooden bowls of those who tried to distract themselves with cooking and eating. They listened to their own thoughts too, and somehow those managed to be even louder than the camp around them, because the tense silence was felt by all of them, and no songs were sung and no laughter shared.

Henry clasped his shoulders tighter and thought of the past week, of Hans, of the warmth of his back pressed to his chest at night, the smell of his hair that was so uniquely Hans, sweet like violets and wooden and fresh like a forest, and Christ, how long he had believed to never feel this close to him again, and then Henry raised his eyes and saw two soldiers walking past them, a taller one with a long face like a horse and a shorter one whose head was covered by a black scarf he had wrapped around himself as protection from the sun. And suddenly he heard his voice.

You will die here, István said. He will die here. He will fight like the brave, chivalrous noble that he is, until someone pushes him off the bridge like a coward. And you will watch him sink, unable to save him. Until the only thing left is that ugly shield with that flower that you made for him yourself, floating on the surface of the river, and then even that will be washed away. And he will be buried in some mass grave on unconsecrated ground to rot in Hell like I do. And no one will return home to tell the tale. The man with the black scarf turned his head. His round face, his curved, thin lips, his light brown, taunting eyes. All because you could not be satisfied with the life you had, he said, and then his lips twisted into a wicked smile. Always restless, always striving, always hungry. How well I raised you, boy.

The cover of the tent was pushed open, and Henry jumped at the sudden sound and movement. The man with the scarf narrowed his eyes in confusion. Blue as the summer's sky, and his lips were fuller too, his chin more angular, his cheeks hollow. Henry turned his back to him.

About two dozen men left the King's tent, all in silence and discontent, while many more remained inside, not looking any happier. Henry could catch a quick glimpse at the lowered, darkened faces of those sitting around a large, round table, lit up by a few candles placed between them. Of the Polish King he could only see the golden spikes of his crown, while his cousin, the Lithuanian Grand Duke, was standing at the far end of the tent, wrapped in darkness like into a cloak. Opposite the King, was Štěpán, almost lying across half the table as he apparently tried to bring the parchment he was writing on as close to the dim candlelight as possible. His bent body obstructed the view on most of the people next to him, but the black hair and the green embroidered kaftan of the one sitting by his side was still unmistakable.

Žižka left the tent as one of the last, then he waited for the two men coming after him, before he closed the cover for good. His shoulders lifted and fell under a deep sigh, and when he turned, he looked as exhausted as if he had just spent a whole day listening to the Prague archbishop preach. Judging by his hardened expression, the council meeting seemed to have proven just as little insightful.

“So?” Godwin asked.

Žižka shrugged. “Many ideas have been posed. Jagiełło has listened them all and will now have to consider them.”

“So he has not made a decision yet?”

Žižka shook his head.

“How long will it take?”

“With so many people and languages and experiences and expectations?” Žižka laughed the bitter laugh of someone who was on the brink to losing his rag. The wrinkles on Kat's face grew even deeper. “Who knows. Might be weeks.”

“But we don't have that long,” Henry burst out.

Žižka looked at him like one would look at a gullible child, and Henry certainly felt like one too. “I know that. And Jagiełło knows it too. I'm sure he has realised by now that his council of primoribus consiliariis, as the smart people in there like to call it, is not as fruitful as he hoped. He will have to narrow the number of counsellors down if he hopes to make a proper decision.”

Henry nodded, because it made sense. Too many cooks spoiled the broth, he had learned that many years ago, when he had once helped Matthias steal Beran's dice, as retribution for a trick the old turner had played on him, and it had taken them a whole night of plotting and drinking and arguing, until Fritz and Henry had decided to figure out a plan on their own. At the start of the next day, the dice had been theirs. Acquired rather dishonourably, but perhaps the ends truly justified the means.

He looked past Žižka to the closed tent, tried to listen for the talk inside, but either the tent's walls were too thick or they had not picked up their conversation yet and were still sitting in uncertainty and gloom. “What about Janosh? Will he be part of that smaller council?”

“Janosh? I doubt it. But he will be part of the decision making.” Žižka seemed to notice the baffled look Henry gave him, because he laughed and placed a strong hand on his shoulder. “There are a lot of things between Heaven and Hell that you do not and will not understand, lad.”

“But let us at least understand one thing, Žižka,” Godwin interrupted before Henry could ask any of the questions that were burning on his tongue. “What are our options? Clearly, we won't be storming Kauernik anymore as we had intended to.”

“No, that one is out of the question. Vytautas insists on fighting here and now, but Jagiełło won't agree to that, he's way more level-headed than his cousin. Come on, let us walk back to our tent, all the talking has made me thirsty.” He set himself into motion, and Henry, Godwin and Kat followed him like sheep running after their shepherd. “The solution that I consider the most sensible would be to find another river crossing. We could move east, to the headwaters of the Drewenz. But the terrain on this side is covered in dense forest, we would only advance slowly with all these damned wagons, and the Order will be on our arse the whole time. We would also have to go by Ilgenburg eventually, where many of these German fuckers are living in and around the castle. The easiest thing to do there would be to sack the town.”

Kat lifted her skirt as their way led them down to a small basin between two hills that the previous rain had filled well. “So more killing of innocents?”

“Let's just hope that the punishment of the Lautenburg plunderers has provided a deterrent example for the others.”

“Sure, because the rest of this army is so much more peaceful,” Kat murmured with a voice bitter as bile.

Henry put his boot down into the mud, and thought of Matthew and Fritz and the table full of empty beer mugs, and Matthias was lying flat on his back on the ground, he could not remember whether it had been the alcohol or one of the other boys who had knocked him down. Henry's feet were unsteady on the wet ground, balancing Fritz up on his shoulders, and Fritz was pissing through the window right onto Beran's bed. “I have been drinking enough all night,” Fritz had said. “It will barely stink.” Beran had stormed out of his house in panic, naked as God had created him, screaming at his wife that he had known all along they should have repaired that damned roof a while ago.

A few months later, it had not been rain nor piss seizing his bed, but the greedy hands of flames. Henry's unsteady feet on the ground. Not only mud this time, but blood and ash and scorched earth. War is a nasty business, whispered so clearly into his ear, that Henry spun around, convinced that the soldier from before must have followed them, that his blue eyes, his broad chin must have only been a mask, but there was no one with them. He felt cold all of a sudden, despite the summer heat. “Do you think we can make it?” A question out of curiosity second, and out of a need for distraction first.

“To Marienburg?” Žižka asked. “No, they won't let us get much further north. As soon as we cross the river, there will be battle.”

“How well are they equipped?” Godwin lifted a bigger branch from the ground and tossed it to the side. They had reached the outer rows of trampled fern and scattered beeches now that lined the edge of the forest. The tents around them showed the colours of Moravia and Bohemia. “Do we have any definitive numbers on how many men the Order has?”

“Enough to win, that's all that matters.” Žižka greeted Kubyenka who was sitting by a cooking pot, and stopped a few feet later in front of their tent, where he opened a crest to take out a bulbous bottle of wine. Sweet red, mixing with the smell of boiled onions and mutton, and leather and steel. The muffled talking inside the tent stopped, a plank bed creaked, then Sam and Mirtl stuck their heads through the tent opening with expectant looks, and Hans walked past them, stepping outside and over to where Henry stood. Somehow their hands met while neither of them was looking at the other one.

Žižka took a large sip of the wine, before he finally turned and faced his pack. His eyes moved from Kubyenka up to Kat, and then over to Sam and Mirtl, and to Godwin, and finally rested on Hans and Henry. “You know, I'll admit it. When you came to us yesterday, I was furious. I thought that last month in our dear Alma Mater you had all made your decisions, and I considered them wise ones. Choosing family and duty and the safety of your own skin seemed like the right thing to do. And then you fucked it all over. For what? For adventure? Or for me? No, no, spare me your answers.” He drank from the wine again, even longer this time, and when he finally put the bottle down again, he used his free hand to rub his blind eye, while the right one glistened like a layer of fresh ice on a lake. “Your motivations do not matter. Because when you all will meet your fate out there on the battlefield, whatever it may be, I will feel responsible for it one way or another. But I have learned to accept your decision anyway. And you know what? I'm even glad about it. It's a nice end to our tale, isn't it?” He laughed, and it sounded almost mad.

Hans squeezed Henry's hand a little tighter. Godwin and Kat raised their brows at each other. Mirtl looked up to Sam, until they both seemed to realise something the others couldn't and took a quick step away from each other. Kubyenka reached up from where he was sitting, took the bottle from Žižka's hand and poured the rest of it into the cooking pot, where the alcohol went up in smoke.

Žižka shook his head as if in disbelief. “So many years of having you bastards constantly on my arse. And now I led you until the end of the world. Just so we can all die here together.”

* * *

Lake Lubian was only a gigantic hole of black, as if someone had drained all the water out of it and replaced it with pitch. The Polish soldier down at the bank with his feet in the knee-high reed weaved his torch around wildly, perhaps to chase away the bloodsuckers, and Žižka thought that if he let it slip in all his brandishing and had it fall into the pitch lake, it might make for a nice fire.

But then again, it was warm enough as it was. Though the air smelled like rain. It might take a while until it had reached them, tomorrow morning perhaps. When the battle began.

Žižka narrowed his eye as he looked to the opposite, northern side of the lake, but it was too dark to recognise anything, now that the sun had already set, and a small kink in the middle of the lake blocked the view on the Tatar camp from where he was standing. He could make out the Lithuanians, however, over to his left, but only in the form of a soft glowing light between the trees, as they had built their tents a little way off the lake, up on the low line of hills, under the protection of the forest. And a little bit further into the same direction, the Teutonic Order had settled. Resting and waiting for the day to come.

Insects were buzzing, frogs were croaking, birds were screaming. In the tops of the trees, the wind moaned, it pushed the water into the banks, rustled the reed and the duckweeds, stroke his hair with its warm fingers. Štěpán still had his hat, and whenever the boy was not with Jagiełło, he was wearing it with pride. Hm. Žižka would have to get a new one, after the battle. A proper one, like those that the Polish nobles liked to wear. It would be a treat to himself.

“No, I tell you, it never looked like that before.”

Žižka turned his face away from the water to where the conversation was coming from. Three Polish soldiers, patrolling the southern end of Lake Lubian as sentries, but they seemed to be more interested in what was happening up above in the sky rather than in front of them by the water.

“And I tell you, it's the clouds.”

The wind carried their words well enough to hear them, and spending a month at their side had helped him to understand their funny language, even when he still could not speak it very well, and yes, fuck it, living together with that great Polish ox for so long had certainly had an impact too, because no one of their pack could have been ignorant to all that babbling, even if they had tried.

“And clouds come in perfect circles now, eh?”

“My mama used to say that the moon is wearing a crown,” the second one argued. “It happens.”

“I'm sure there's some rather simple explanation for it,” the third one added in the slurred, mumbled drawl of a village boy, and then he blathered something on waves of light and crystals of ice, of which Žižka only understood half, and at least half of that incorrectly it seemed.

“I'm not only talking about that ring, you blockhead,” the first one said again. “There are patterns on the moon too, don't you see them? It's like a blade. And it falls down onto this ring, right there.”

Žižka looked up to the sky as if the young man's request had been meant for him as well. There was a ring around the moon, of bright blue in the middle, fading into a larger circle of a muddy, almost blood-red colour on the outer edge. The moon itself was only a white disk to him, for anything else the sight of his one remaining eye was much too poor.

“Even if it was a blade,” the second one retorted, “what's it to tell us? That we all die tomorrow?”

“Of course not! Because this ring, the crown as you called, that's clearly the tonsure of a monk. And it's falling down on the monk's head. On the Teutonic Knights.”

“What?”

“Well, they … They are Christian crusaders. Surely, it's a sign for them.”

“I've never seen one of those German knights with a tonsure,” the third one slurred.

“It's an omen! It doesn't have to be an exact depiction of reality. You read and interpret it.”

“Interpret it as a butcher's knife and a nice plate of pork then. I'm fucking starving.”

The first one wanted to argue back, but his words died in his throat as he got interrupted by Žižka's shadow emerging from the darkness of the tall-grown reed. “It's the moon,” he said in Polish, before his knowledge failed him and he resorted to Czech again. “Take it as a good sign if you must, if it lifts your spirit for the battle tomorrow, just don't let it discourage you. Nobody can tell you whether an omen is truly an omen. It's like a magic trick. It only has meaning when you believe in it.”

Žižka turned and walked away from them under their silent stares. Perhaps they hadn't understood a word of what he had said, and even if they had made some sense of it, they couldn't have grasped its true meaning anyway. The remnants of a past.

He was still lost in thoughts when he returned to the pack, and when he let his gaze wander over their faces, all nine of them sitting here together by the campfire, the recent memories mingling with older ones. Janosh raised his eyes at him, Henry and Hans argued, Kubyenka leaned over to look at the Latin gibberish that Štěpán wrote down. And then Žižka saw him sitting on the trunk between Godwin and Kat, a teeth-baring grin in the middle of his scarred face, laughing like a madman. “They are yours,” the Devil croaked. “You can grapple with them now. Like it always should have been.”

“It did happen, Henry, why won't you believe me?”

“Because I do not remember shit!”

“Yes, but you do not even remember Godwin riding naked on a horse, and how could you forget a sight like that!”

“Oh, I agree with Hans here,” Kat purred, giving Godwin a teasing look. “That is a sight no one could forget.”

“How would you know,” Hans replied. “You weren't even there for most of the evening. Other than …” He must have noticed Janosh and Godwin staring over at someone close to their fire, because he interrupted his own words as he turned and his face brightened up when he saw that it was Žižka who had approached them. “Žižka! You were there with us too, perhaps you can help me out.”

Žižka sighed as if in annoyance, but then he smiled, and it was a fond and honest smile. He stepped into their circle and over to the gap between Kat and Godwin. Sitting down right on top of Hynek's lap, had he actually been there with him. The thought made him grin like a fool. “Help you out with what?”

“Our dear Henry here does not want to believe me that I gave him a special oath once. On my wedding night.” Henry shook his head with the hiss of a laugh, but Hans ignored his protests as well as only the pope could. “Now, I have to admit, I don't remember all too much either, we were all pretty pissed that night, but I do know that you were there with us. So please, tell me you can at least confirm to the oath, eh?”

“To the oath?” Žižka laughed, as he reached forward to take the plate Janosh handed him. It smelled deliciously of quark dumplings and braised onions and white cabbage tossed in lard. “Oh, I can confirm to a lot more than that. Because unfortunately, I do remember everything about that cursed night.”

“Everything?”

“Of course.” He grabbed a dumpling, dipped it in the onion juice, and took a generous bite. “Sure, we were all guzzling like dray horses as soon as the ceremony was over, me included, but apparently booze does not affect my brains as much as it does yours.”

“Hold up.” Henry pointed his finger at him, blinking slowly. He seemed tired or a little drunk perhaps, but that was probably for the better. One day had passed since they had sacked Ilgenburg. One day since the Order had sworn their revenge. Only this evening had they arrived in Faulen, and found the Teutonic knights having made their camp on the other side of a shallow valley between the villages of Grünfeld and Tannenberg. Everyone knew that battle was only mere hours away. “What about Godwin riding naked down to the river. Did that happen?”

“It did.”

To his left, Godwin's body set itself into motion, as he made the sign of the cross. “Good Lord, help me!”

“Well, tell us then!” Henry laughed and leaned back with crossed arms, until his shoulder was rested against the Bird's one. “Tell us everything you know.”

On the other side of the fire, his brother cleared his throat. Samuel held a bowl of food in his hands, either a refill or he had not eaten anything at all yet, but at least it seemed like he had finally got some good sleep. Perhaps it had to do with the prostitute the boy had got for himself, but that was none of Žižka's business. “I don't believe that will be necessary.”

“Yeah, you should be scared, Samuel,” Žižka wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and then he wiped the back of his hand on his brown woollen hose, and then he had nothing to wipe that on, but he figured it would be soaked with all kinds of worse liquids soon anyway, “because I tell you, what this man gets up to when he's drunk, now, we could all learn a thing or two from that. Or better not.”

The prostitute looked up at Samuel with those round eyes of hers, as dark and inscrutable as the lake, but there was a smile playing with her lips. “Well, now I'm curious too.”

“Oh, and I am!” Kubyenka lifted his gaze from the boy's writing, and he grinned as wickedly as a wolf. “Cannot wait to hear of someone else making more of a drunk fool of himself than I usually do.”

“Did,” the boy muttered without looking up.

Samuel blushed, but strangely, the colour did not make its way onto his cheeks but only to the tips of his ears.

“Yes, Žižka, pray tell, you will?” Janosh gave the cooking pot one last stir, before he got to his feet, to walk over to a crate that was positioned next to where the boy was sitting. “Cheer us up with story. No one here sleep tonight anyway.”

Žižka stabbed a piece of cabbage with his knife and gestured into Štěpán's direction with it. “Not as long as the boy is writing his chronic.”

“Don't worry,” Štěpán replied, his eyes still fixed on the parchment, and he bit the end of the quill absent-mindedly. “I won't be recording any of your embarrassing debaucheries, I'm only recounting today's events.”

“You'll have plenty of time for all that tomorrow and after the battle. And if you won't have any time after that, well, then it doesn't matter anyway, does it?” He shoved the cabbage into his mouth, before spitting parts of it back out and into the fire as he suddenly raised his voice. “And now look up when an elder is talking, boy!”

Štěpán winced, his head snapped up, the hunter's cap slipped into his eyes. It was a little too big for him, but even that could not stop the boy from wearing it all day.

Žižka regarded him with a crooked smile, then he turned right to face Kat. She only shook her head at him and rolled her beautiful eyes, and Žižka had to fight the urge to press gentle kisses to her eyelids, but he swore silently that he would do it later tonight. Janosh was right. None of them would get a wink of sleep anyway. And who knew if there would still be chances for kisses when tomorrow had passed.

“Fine, I'll tell you as much as I remember. But bear with me, yes? It's been almost seven years for me too, and I'm anything but a storyteller. So interrupt me one time too many, and I might stop altogether, understood? And no getting busy with each other while I'm talking, the looking at your elder order goes for all of you. You included, Bird, just to be clear. Alright, now listen.”

Kat moved a little closer, leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. He could feel her hair tickle his chin, her breath on his throat, then she reached out a hand and trailed the creases on his hose.

“I thought we said no busy getting.”

“Well, Kubyenka, that obviously does not apply to the captain. So if you feel that you necessarily have to enjoy yourself, you'll have to make do with me, for better or worse. And now shut it and prick up your ears, yes?

Good, now how do I set this up? Ah, with the beginning perhaps. The wedding celebration. Now, that was quite the feast, I tell you, I have not seen so many people in flower crowns in my whole life together, ha! The music was entertaining enough, you picked quite the troupe there, I have to say. The fiddler was godlike on his strings, pardon my words, father. Yes, I cannot lie, I was not really in the mood for any dancing that day, and can you blame me? In the months that had passed since Suchdol, the Devil had caused me some headache, I can tell you. If we hadn't found that fisherman's clothes, well, that is to say, if we hadn't asked nicely to borrow it …”

“And by nicely you mean with a knife pressed to the poor fella's throat.”

“Not a deed I'm proud of, Kubyenka, but yes, thank you for mentioning it. If we hadn't put the Devil in these clothes, I'm sure the only way he would have left those celebrations had been in shackles. So you can imagine that I was rather anxious at first. Of course we could get the fucker out of every cell, but I still hoped to spare us the hassle. Now, your father, Henry, he tried his best to get me distracted. And I do believe that, had we downed just a few cups of wine less that evening, our conversations would have taken a different direction, and who knows if we had even waged our campaign against the Rosenbergs then. Would have saved us a lot of trouble, if it wasn't for that bloody wine that day. Matěj might still be alive. But then again, we would have missed out on so much fun too, ha!”

“You digress, Jan.”

“Ah, yes, apologies. The wedding celebrations, that's what we wanted to talk about. I remember that you had the whole courtyard of the Rattay castle plastered with tables. Only one square in the middle was left empty, for all the people to dance, around a tree that was put in the middle.”

“A maypole, wasn't it?”

“Oh, what a miracle, Henry, your memory has been restored!”

“Of course he would remember that, Capon. After all, it was Henry who later tried to climb that pole, with an empty cooking pot covering his eyes. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let us rather return to the evening celebrations, because that was when disaster first began to arise.

At that point, the feast had gone on for several hours, and almost all the plates and pitchers on the tables had been emptied. A few guests had even returned home already. Of those that had stayed, half were hanging from their seats with their heads on the table. I had just got myself into a nice conversation about clouds. When I think about it now, it wasn't all too different from the talk that some sentry guards down at the lake had just now. They talked about the patterns on the moon being an omen for a slaughtered monk, can you imagine, ha! Only that back then, this Czernin nobleman tried to argue that those little feathery clouds were a sign for good weather because they resembled the wings of the angels. I told him that it might just be due to the warm air that carries them, but what do I know, I'm not a scholar, eh?

While we were having this talk, Kubyenka here somehow got into an argument with the Devil. I could not hear what it was about but suddenly that fool got up and began to sing.”

“Oh, I remember that! It was quite a nice singing, I had not expected that from that whoreson. He, Janosh, is the hare done by now, all this listening makes my stomach rumble.”

“Ah, done yes, but need more flavour of smoke.”

“Fuck the smoke, I just want the meat.”

“Kubyenka is right. The Devil did sing well. So well, in fact, that the musicians invited him up on stage, and they performed together. You cannot imagine how scared I was. Had anyone recognised him, the whole celebration would have been over at once. And Samuel certainly did not help with his cheering and jumping up on the table and kicking down the empty plates. Or perhaps it did help, because the movements of those hips certainly drew all the attention away from the Devil.”

“Aye, Sam, why don't you ever show us these moves when we're sober enough to appreciate them?”

“I do not know much about your faith, bruder, but I am certain that even proposing this speaks of unchristian thoughts.”

“So I went to the fucker and told him to get off the stage, or otherwise neither God nor that fisherman's hat could help him. And he only shouted at me that he could just as well sing bare arse naked, he was not afraid of anyone. And then he actually started to take off his clothes, one piece after the other. Godwin and me managed to drag him down there before he could get to, well, the more interesting bits. But he refused to put the hat back on, and as you can imagine, with that ginger hair of his and that hideous cut he was shining like a beacon. And when we begged him to put it back on, he only replied that we might just shave him a tonsure, because who would suspect Dry Devil to be among the monks!

Now, as chance would have it, there were monks present that day, three of them, who came from the Sasau monastery I believe, as well as two nuns from Prague.”

“Yes, you're right. Jitka's father insisted on inviting them. To wash away the sins of the night that would undoubtedly be committed. I told him that we'd have our own priest there with us, but he explained that Godwin was one of the reasons he was so worried about any possible infamies.”

“Ts. Christian men. So obsessed with other people's sins, while they go out and defile every woman in their way.”

“Seems you spent too much time with the Jews, wench.”

“Oy, watch your tongue, Kubyenka!”

“It was no Jew who taught me that but the men themselves, thank you for your concern.”

“He, I am talking here! If you don't want me to continue, just say so, otherwise keep it quiet, yes? I need to concentrate, that next part is where it gets a bit confusing. Good. So, Godwin and me tried to persuade Hynek to put his hat back on. And while we were still talking to him, we suddenly heard this scream. And the next thing we see is Katherine running at us. In a nun's habit, followed by the three Sasau monks.”

“Me?”

“Don't act as if you don't remember.”

“Hm. I wish I didn't.”

“Now, before they could reach us, Hynek just ripped off the rest of his clothes, turned and ran. Screaming from the top of his lungs that he would crush the skull of everyone who got in his way, either with his bare hands or with other bare limbs he had. Of course we had to follow him. And the Little Bird, who had just helped Henry get his brother off the table, ran after us as well, and he yelled at the guards that we came across that this was nothing they had to worry about, or nothing out of the ordinary anyway. Ha. I also remember that Janosh tried to fight off the monks with some hook on a rope that he gathered somewhere, while throwing coins at them as if he wanted to feed the pigs. And then Kubyenka came and spilled milk all over the ground, and then he released two kittens that he had hidden under his jacket. No clue whether it worked or not, but at least it caused some distraction, I can tell you that.

So we followed the Devil all the way down the hill, to that stream south of Rattay. The night had sunken by then, it was a beautiful night, clear and warm, with the brightest moonlight you can imagine. Hynek let himself fall down into the water and called us cowards, urged us to take off our clothes as well. And we did. We all did, God, you know how contagious this man's insanity could be.”

“I miss the fella.”

“I miss him too, Kubyenka. I miss him too.”

The fire in the middle of their camp sizzled. The hare smelled delicious, both of meat and smoke. Kat's hair tickled his chin, and he leaned his head to the side to nestle his cheek against it.

“So,” Godwin asked carefully. “Where did I get the horse from?”

“I cannot tell. For some reason, both you and Kat were not with us when we ran down to the stream. That was where you two gave each other the oaths, so you were right about that, Capon. It happened as soon as we were all naked as on the day of our birth. Kubyenka said something about no secrets being hidden now, and the Bird proposed that he would have to seize that opportunity. You wanted to have proper wedding ribbons, but of course we did not bring any with us. So we tore our clothes for you. You, Hans, took a part of my sleeve. And Janosh gave Henry a shred of his beautiful embroidered coat. I watched over your oath personally as your very own priest and tried to make it as ceremonial as I could.”

“How very blasphemous of you, Jan.”

“Oh no, Godwin. The truly blasphemous act happened when you came riding down to us on that horse. Calling yourself the Dragonslayer. And you asked for a lance to be given to you, because, as you stated, you saw a lot of snakes in the water there. Made Henry fall over from laughing, or maybe it was just all the wine from before. He almost drowned in the stream, but we managed to pull him out.”

“What about me?” Katherine's fingers rested on his knee, her thumb drew circles into the side of his thigh. “Where did I go?”

“You do not remember?”

“I wouldn't have asked if I did.”

“Well, we found you with the bride. In the Lord's chambers. You were sitting on the bed, still dressed in that nun's costume, and she was … She knelt in front of you. And it wasn't for praying. Although you tried to convince us that it was only girl's things you were doing there.”

“Wait, what?” Capon snapped up from Henry's shoulder, his eyes big as plates. “I honestly believed you were doing girl's things! Shame on you!”

“Well, it wasn't a complete lie, now, was it?”

Silence settled down on them again. The story had lifted their moods, had eased the tension of concern and fear, but now that it was over, it all seemed to be falling down on them as bone crushingly heavy as the Nebakov tower. Žižka let his gaze trail from one face to the other and wondered in which of these eyes he would be granted to look into once the next day would come to its end. They are yours, Hynek whispered into his ear. Like it always should have been. Then why couldn't he do more for them? Why had they all come to his aid, while all he did was to help Jan Sokol lead the banner they would fight in, sending them into their certain death?

“It wasn't such a bad idea, you know?” Žižka began slowly. “The nun's habit, I mean. To mingle with them. Perhaps it even inspired me for that whole plan with Father Thomas back then. I wish we had that now.” He looked up to the moon, tried to search for the crown, the monk's tonsure, but the fire was too bright, and the clouds had grown taller. “Not a habit. But a trick, you know? Someone dressed up as one of them, sneaking into their rows. Someone who could spy for us from inside their camp, tell us what they're planning, sabotage them perhaps. I'm tired of them always being a step ahead of us.”

He felt Godwin's stare rest heavily on him. “Is this still about the Order, Jan?”

“The Order, Rosenberg, what difference does it make? They're all the same fuckers. I tried my best to fight them as honourably as I could, but do they stick to these rules? No. And I'm a bandit. Most of us here are bandits, first and foremost. And way more than honour we know about saving our own arses.”

“I will do it.”

Žižka blinked. Multiple times with his right eye, then even rubbing his blind left one that had started to itch again, as if his senses could have somehow betrayed him, as if he had not actually seen Samuel's lips moving. “What?”

“I will go over there and infiltrate their camp.”

Kubyenka let the piece of hare meat sink down that he had just shoved past his teeth. “Have you lost your mind, lad?”

“I feel the same as you, Žižka. I am tired of them playing us like a keyle. These fuckers tear a river of blood into this land, Christianising everyone who gives in to the fear and killing the rest. If there is anything I can do to help us make them pay, I will gladly do it.”

“Sam,” Henry reached out a hand and placed it on Samuel's shoulder, “they are not von Bergow.”

His brother did not look at him. His bright, piercing eyes were fixed on Žižka entirely, as if Samuel wanted to make him see his determination. Žižka saw it. He understood. “Like you just said. It's all the same.”

“You'd have to sneak into their camp.”

Mirtl spun around to him, with shock on her face. “You're not actually considering it, Žižka, are you?”

“I know how to do that,” Samuel answered him without paying attention to the woman. “I'm skilled at moving around at night without being seen.”

“Hm. Until you do something stupid again and threaten the whole mission.”

“It is true, I let myself be misguided by my own personal vengeance before. But I have learned.”

“You're a hot-headed little shit,” Žižka replied with a crooked smile. “You will never learn.”

Samuel only shrugged his shoulders. The decision was made already, Žižka knew that as well as him. “You asked for someone to infiltrate their camp. I can do that. Next to Katherine, I am the closest thing to a spy we have. But Katherine could not move around there as freely as I can. Once inside, I would just be one soldier among thousands. And I speak German. At least well enough so they would not notice.”

“Samuel,” Mirtl whispered. She was scared now. Whether it was out of genuine affection or because she worried to be left alone after cutting her ties with Rosenberg, Žižka could not tell and it did not concern him.

“It's risky,” Žižka pondered. “There are many things that could go wrong. They might see through your game. Perhaps they will already kill you once you try to get into their camp. Or you succeed but don't make it back in time, and so you'll have to engage in the battle, but on the opposite side.”

“Risks that I am willing to take.”

“Can we at least talk about it again?” This time, Mirtl took his hand, and the touch made Samuel wince and spin around to her. Certainly not a gesture he was used to then, but he did not pull his hand back either. “Just the two of us?”

Samuel nodded, and after exchanging some more looks with the rest of the band, they both stood up and left to walk the paths of the camp.

They all went silent again. Their eyes were boring into him as if they wanted to nail him to the cross, but Žižka did not feel like giving them the honour of showing any guilt.

“Damn it, Žižka,” Kubyenka finally said with a sigh. “You should not have suggested that”

“It was just an idea. I never thought someone would be so foolish to take it and run with it.”

“It's Sam we're talking about here.” Henry shook his head, massaged his temples, squeezed his eyes shut. “The biggest, most stubborn fool of us all.”

“As the only reasonable one here,” Kat replied, “I'd like to object. You are all stubborn and foolish. Spending time with you is like walking around with a herd of oxen.”

“The only reasonable one?” Capon breathed out a laugh that sounded like hot iron plunged in cold water. “You slept with my wife. On her wedding night.”

“Should I just have let her be lonely and forgotten? While you were gone, following your own desires?”

“I think,” Godwin interrupted them before their fight could escalate, “we should let the story about that wedding rest. Audimus sed non judicamus.”

“Well, speaking of rest,” Kubyenka stretched his arms with a yawn, “I will hit the hay, try to get some sleep in. Perhaps with a good nightcap before.”

“You will do no such thing.” The boy grabbed parchment, quill and ink, and stood up as soon as Kubyenka did. “I will come to bed with you. Definitely not to get any rest, but at least to make sure you'll keep your hands off the bottle.”

“You're worse than my own mother.”

Henry got to his feet too, quickly followed by Capon. “I thought your mother had forgotten you in some barn?”

Kubyenka's explanations were lost to the seclusion of their tent as the four of them disappeared inside and pulled the cover tightly shut behind them, quieting their words.

“I talk to council,” Janosh said. The campfire reflected in his dark eyes and on the little braid and made the brooch with the cross bottony on the right side of his chest shimmer as if the gold had started to melt. “When Sam want to go to Order of Germans, it best we wait a little before battle so he can return and give information.”

“Good. But better not mention Samuel and this whole plan directly. I doubt that Jagiełło would approve of us acting on our own accord like this.”

Janosh lifted himself off the trunk, looked over to Žižka, shook his head and laughed. “Take Janosh for fool?” Then he was gone, not waiting for an answer. There was no answer needed. They both knew that Žižka valued him and his counsel higher than he even valued his own.

“Well.” Godwin was the last one to stand up. “I was asked to join the mass tomorrow morning. I suppose, or hope rather, that it will be in Polish, not in Latin, and that gives me even more reason to try to find some sleep now, so I will be rested enough to understand at least some of it. Unless,” he turned to Žižka and Kat, regarded them with a raised brow, “you want me to stay a bit longer.”

Kat did not reply, and Žižka took his time with thinking it over, but eventually he shook his head, because there was something he needed to express, something he could only say when they were alone. “No. No, I agree, Polish is hard to understand, you better try to clear your mind.”

Godwin nodded, then he disappeared into the tent.

A deafening silence. Most of the camp was still pretty much awake, armour clattered, people were walking, talking, laughing, some even tried to sing, though it sounded more like the tune someone would whistle to themselves when walking up to the gallows. Kat's hand was resting in his now, and he let his fingertips feel the callous on her palm, from all the battles she had had to fight that she never should have. With him and for him, and before they even met. Had he not found her fighting? Fighting to survive? A dead child pressed against her violated body, against her empty heart. Parts of her pain he could understand. Parts stemmed from a battle that had been much harder to fight than any battle Žižka had ever had to experience.

“Should we be defeated by the Order tomorrow, should … should I fall,” he took a deep breath, and felt his vision get foggy, “do not try to be heroic. Tell them that you are skilled in medicine. Make them understand that they have better use for you alive than dead.”

“And offer my services to the men you fought? To ask myself about every man that I treat whether he might be the one who killed you?”

“And even if you treat that very man, what does it matter? He will have slaughtered me and I will have slaughtered many of his comrades before that. This is war, Kat.”

“It's so senseless,” she whispered.

“But you will make a great impact tomorrow.”

“That will be senseless too.” She lifted her head from his shoulder, and once her warmth was gone, he could feel the wet spot she had left behind. “Treating one wounded man after the other, just to send them right back out to the battlefield. Like wanting to stop the wind with bare hands.”

“Hm.” He raised his eyes to the sky, where the clouds had fully covered the moon now, and they were moving as fast as if they tried to flee. Running east. Away from the war. “Have you noticed that it smells different here? The wind? More damp in a way, more like salt. Or perhaps I'm only imagining it.”

“I think you are.” She leaned over to kiss him.

It was a long kiss. Intimate, but not passionate, reassurance of what was, instead of desire for more. He put his hands on the sides of her face, and she put hers on his, and when their lips finally parted, he still held her close, to not lose the feeling of her, the reassurance of something that was alive. “You need to live, Kat,” he breathed out. “Promise me that. You need to go back to Prague and build your shelter, with or without me.”

She opened her blue eyes, blinked at him through golden drops on her long, dark lashes, and there was something new on her face, something like a smile born out of hope. “So if you survive, you will come with me? You will leave your thoughts about Rosenberg behind, and the fires of this battle, and you will settle down with me in Prague. Can you promise me that?”

The fire hissed. A Polish soldier sang a melancholic verse of home and love. The air tasted of dampness and salt, or perhaps it was just the kiss they had shared.

Žižka nodded. “I can.”

* * *

Getting into the camp of the Teutonic Order had been as easy as a child's play, so ridiculously easy in fact, that Samuel would have loved to shout it out for the Germans to hear just to taunt them more. Sure, they had stopped him at one of the gates they had left open in their fortification of stacked tree trunks and lined up wagons, had pointed at his chest with their rather impressive halberds, but he had only given them the most confused look he could muster and had answered their questions in German with the words “What do you mean, where have I been, I was out there taking a piss, because in here you cannot do that without having someone stare at your cock, have you seriously not seen me walk past you just moments ago?”, and that had really been all that was needed.

From the inside, the Teutonic camp was not all that different to their own. Tents and wagons, horses in makeshift stables and horseshit on the ground. Just like the Polish-Lithuanian union, their army consisted of a large number of mercenaries, so Samuel did not attract any attention in the light, padded armour he had chosen. Only sparsely did he catch a glimpse of the knights themselves. He saw one through an open tent sheet, sitting in solitude by the candlelight, polishing his longsword. He saw one pass him by when he had just made his way up the hill to the accommodations of what seemed to be merchants, and Samuel kept his eyes lowered to the ground, as the man strode past him with firm steps, dressed in his full plate armour, with a cross on his chest, a white coat over his shoulders and the back of his hounskull adorned with tall-standing peacock feathers.

Samuel stopped a little bit longer by a larger cooking area, listening to the conversations, but barely anything was of interest. Žižka had given him clear instructions before he had given him leave. Find out how many banners they have, how they will be positioned and who will stay in reserve. Get more information about Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen's troops in particular. Manipulate their weapons or armour or food if an opportunity arises. Return with the first beams of sunlight. Keep clear of any dangerous situations and most importantly, do not engage with the knights. Samuel did not plan to violate any of these orders, and why should he? He valued his own life too much to expose it to any unnecessary risks. Žižka counted on him, and he did not plan to break his trust yet another time. Besides, he wasn't only doing this for himself or for Žižka alone, but for all of his brothers in arms. And not only for them either. Kurva.

Samuel turned away from the cooking site and continued his stroll through the camp. There was a bulky, square tower built up on the hill, used as a lookout, and to store weapons and ammunition perhaps. On the side Samuel was walking up to, the white Teutonic banner hang, with its large black cross, like a warning or a taunt. The dying bed of their Saviour. Carried on the backs and chests and around the necks and in the hearts of those who wielded their swords to bring down all the heathens and the murderers of Christ. What a farce. You want to slay the ones who killed your Saviour? Go to Rome.

Somewhere to his left, a large pyre had been piled up, used to burn refuse and everything that could not be utilised for cooking. The stench of charred wood and decay filled the air, and for a brief moment Samuel found himself back in Kuttenberg, and perhaps even back in Prague, it was hard to tell which nightmares belonged where and which were even real, when it had been so long. They are not von Bergow, Henry had said. If only it were that simple. It had almost seemed as if there were tears in her eyes, but it was hard to tell, because she kept her emotions well hidden, even from him. “Don't leave me,” she had said, and Samuel had only shaken his head at her. “If you were scared of war, you shouldn't have come with me.” She had taken his hand. A pathetic pleading on her face that looked as if she had wanted to fall to her knees any moment to clasp and kiss his feet. “It's not the war I'm afraid of. It's being alone. I've risked too much, Samuel.” He had explained to her that if he didn't go, they all might die the next day anyway, and that this could be the only chance to ensure their victory. He had not claimed that he was doing this for her, because it would have been a lie. The woman he wanted to protect with this suicide mission was long dead. Redemption. Atonement. Forgiveness. Ah, fuck it all.

“He, Dietrich!”

There were not many people around at this time of night, and at first Samuel was sure someone must have mistaken him, but then he noticed the young man a few feet away, leaning against the beams of the tower, who winced at these words.

“It looks like rain,” someone behind Samuel said in German, and when he turned around, he noticed a man with dark, tied back hair and a chin beard that made him look like a goat. He wore the white waffenrock of the Order, with its black cross covering his whole front. Did not look like a knight though. The shoes he was wearing were too cheap for that. A squire perhaps? “Did you make sure the ammunition is kept dry?”

Dietrich shrugged his shoulders. “Sure.”

“Are you sure that you will, or are you sure that it is?”

“The crates are by the tower. Which is where they're meant to be to be kept dry.”

Goat regarded the barrels and crates with a pointed look. If it truly started to rain, they would not be spared at all, and it was clear that both Goat and Dietrich were aware of that. “By the tower, yes. But not in the tower.”

“Are you mad? Do you have any idea how heavy these crates are? You want me to carry them all inside on my own?”

“If that saves our arses tomorrow then yes, that's exactly what I want you to fucking do.”

“I'd be busy with that all night!”

“This is an order, you slacker. And now stop complaining and get yourself moving, or I'll tell Marshal Wallenrode about this, and he'll have you sit a donkey.”

“Alright, fine, calm down. I'm at it.”

Both Dietrich and Samuel watched Goat disappear somewhere between the tents, Dietrich with an outstretched tongue, Samuel with the patience of a hawk that had just sensed his chance. He waited a little bit longer, until Dietrich had turned with a loud moan and started to examine the lids of the first barrels, until he finally stepped closer to him. “He.”

The young man looked back over his shoulder in annoyance. “What? Do you also want to have me sit a donkey?”

“Actually I just wanted to offer you some help.” He smiled as kindly as he knew how to. “That is, I wanted to ask you whether I should do it. Carrying the ammunition, I mean.”

Dietrich furrowed his brow. “Why should you?”

“Because you do not deserve being ordered around and talked to like this. Besides, I don't think I will find any sleep tonight. So I would rather spent the time keeping my hands busy, and this will keep them busy alright.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Dietrich's face lit up like the waste and shit down in the fire by the foot of the hill. “Holy Mother Mary, thank you so much! He, if you survive the battle tomorrow, well, and if I survive too, that is, come to me and I'll return the favour. I'll give you, I don't know,” his eyes wandered around until they landed on Sam's hands and the rings on his fingers, “the first pretty jewellery I can find on one of these heathen bastards, yes?”

Samuel smiled again, and this time he actually meant it, though not in the way the German might read it. “Sounds fair.”

“Just ask for Dietrich from Wallenrode's seventh banner, yes? Can't believe you actually do this, you madlad. Ah, God be with you, friend! See you tomorrow after the battle, eh?”

“Lehitraot,” Samuel replied, and immediately bit his own tongue. Then he quickly recited a berakhah of gratitude, as Dietrich had not heard it. He was already too far gone into the direction of the cooking site, to enjoy the free night he had so miraculously been granted. Samuel hoped it would be his last.

Midnight must have come and passed, because hardly anyone walked the paths of the camp anymore. The noise that an army made during the last hours before walking into battle, died down, the frenzy of nervousness and excitement shifted to cold fear and realisation. Even the two guards above in the tower had become silent like a grave. Waiting, hoping, praying. It was perfect. Gave him all the time he needed.

One lid after the other he lifted and placed neatly next to the vessels. The few crates and barrels that had been brought into the shelter of the tower he carried outside and placed them next to the others. Some of them he had to push and drag, as they were too heavy to lift them up on his own, but those were the ones he could least afford to miss out. Small cannonballs and gunpowder, saltpetre and sulphur. He left it all to drown. No one would notice, not at this time of night, not before it was too late.

He could not tell how long it took him. Half an hour perhaps, maybe more. When he was done, he stood next to his work for a while, hands pressed into his sides, head lifted to the sky, letting the coolness and the wind dry the sweat on his skin. Then he felt the first drops of rain on his face, and it painted the widest grin to his lips.

Samuel relished the weak rain for a few moments longer, until he finally decided to continue his walk through the camp. There must be other tasks for him to do here, or one or the other secret to uncover. He would not return to Žižka and the others until he had tried everything in his power to turn the tide. Until he had been of proper help. Until he would have proven to them that he was worth putting trust in. Until he had made it up to her.

He walked back down to the cooking site and thought about poisoning their food, but when he had reached it he realised that there were still to many men present and awake to even get near one of their pots. To the stables then? Judging by the sounds he had heard before and by the smell, they must have a few thousand horses at this camp, but what good was the strongest cavalry with cut reins and saddles, or horses who were too weakened by a sudden attack of shits to carry even a sack of grain, let alone a man?

“He, you!”

Samuel stopped, squeezed his lips and eyes shut in frustration, before he turned around with a faint smile. “Yes?”

A young man was standing in front of him. No cross visible, only dressed in a simple tunic like a common soldier. He had his sleeves rolled up, presenting both thick, dark hair and deep, worm-like scars on his lower arms. So not the best soldier either. “Got nothing to do?”

“Well, actually I just wanted to …”

The scarred one interrupted him before he could come up with an excuse. “You know what I think? That it's way too late for a I just wanted to. Except for when that I just wanted to is related to eating and gambling with us.” He lifted his left hand and pointed to the light of a fire somewhere between the tents. Around a low table built from a wine barrel and a wooden plank, three more men were sitting, all staring at him as if Samuel held the answers to all their sorrow. Two of them were dressed as simply as Scararm was, mercenaries most likely. One wore the white cloak of the Order.

Samuel shook his head and feigned regret. “I'd love to, but the Marshal said …”

“The Marshal is not here.” Scararm really seemed to make this interrupting a habit as well as he could. “Now, come on, don't let me beg!” He leaned closer to Samuel and lowered his voice to a whisper. “We could really need a fifth man in our group, or the game won't work.”

Samuel cursed internally with the all the worst words he knew, then he gave Scararm a bitter smile. “Sure. Why not?”

He sat down at the table with him, and responded to the greeting of the two other mercenaries with an appreciative nod. One of them spoke in a thick German dialect that was hard for him to understand, Bavarian perhaps. It made the third one, a guy with short but messy hair as light as silver, seem as noble as a lord, despite his clothes telling a different story.

The Teuton did not greet him. He only leaned back to stare at Samuel with small, sapphire eyes, that became even smaller from his scepticism. “Who are you fighting for?”

Samuel did not dare to hesitate with an answer. “Wallenrode.” It was the only name he knew anyway, and if the Order's banners were anything close to the Polish-Lithuanian ones in structure and size, they too would have over three-hundred men each, enough not to get recognised.

The Teuton nodded. “Then we'll fight side by side tomorrow.” He reached across the table and offered Samuel his hand. “Ludwig.”

“Hans.” Samuel might not be the kind of name the Order liked to hear among their men. Besides, he had been called by that name once before, just a few months ago, by none other than Hans himself. It had saved his arse back then. Might as well try his luck twice.

“Where are you from, Hans? You can throw first, Winrich, we're complete now.”

If the Teuton went on like this, Samuel would end up hanging from the rope of his own lies rather soon. He tried his best to not give it any more thought and pick the first thing that came to his mind. Which was the story of this drunken mamzer. If they asked any more questions, he might as well tell them that he was lost in a barn by his mother as a babe as well. “A small village near Leipzig.”

“Ha!” Silverhair shouted, before he pushed the dice over to Scararm. “I'm from Leipzig too! Three fours. Here, Hans, take as much as you want. No need to save it all for after the battle tomorrow, we'll have plenty of food from their camp then.”

Samuel gave the plate in the middle of the table a wary look.

“I'm not sure if I want to eat that food of theirs,” the Bavarian replied. “Who knows what those heathens put in there.”

“Ach, a sausage is a sausage, isn't it?” Silverhair replied. “Who cares what kind of meat they made it of? And if one of these cannonball Tatars made it from the flesh of their own people, then all the better, eh? What are you waiting for, Hans? It's not poisoned, I would know, I made it myself.”

“Thank you, but I'd rather not. I'm not hungry.”

“I know how you feel.” Scararm gave him a fond, sympathetic smile. “I'm so nervous too, if I'd eat anything now, I might just puke it all back out.”

“Exactly.”

“Na, but even you two can have a small piece of bread at least, eh?” Silverhair shoved the plate over to the side at which Samuel and Scararm were sitting. “It's still warm, and the butter is wonderfully greasy.”

Scararm took the bread and a knife and gave it a try. Silverhair smiled proudly. The Teuton narrowed his sapphire eyes again.

“Is there,” Samuel started and tried not to let his unease show, “anything I can wash my hands with before?”

The Bavarian laughed. “Had a proper fear shit just now, hadn't you? Ach, don't feel bad for it, we all know that too well. There's a trough over by that weapon rack. Four fours”

“Thank you.” He felt the heavy eyes of the Teuton on his back, as he went over to the trough. The man did not trust him at all. Brilliant. Then at least they had one thing in common. The water reeked of the hands of hundreds of men that had used it for over two days, and he would have been better advised to just use the trickling rain instead, but it would have to suffice for now. He spoke the blessing as quietly as he could, before turning back around to the others.

“Damn it!” the Teuton shouted. “I was so certain you must have exaggerated! He, Hans, what were you doing there? Sounded like you were talking to the water. Did you bewitch it?”

“Yes.” He shrugged as he sat back down. “Back home in Leipzig, the Inquisition is after me for my sorcery. That's why I'm here, in fact. I had to flee.”

Scararm widened his eyes in a way that reminded Samuel all too painfully much of Štěpán. “For real?”

“Oh, quite real.” He leaned forward, as if no one outside this little group of men was supposed to hear his next words. Sometimes, he thought, the most impudent, blatant lie was the best way to obscure the truth. “Give me a few tufts of chervil, cranesbill and forget-me-not, and I'll make a potion that will turn you into a toad.”

The surprise in Scararm's expression vanished, but he smiled and shook his head. “Well, now I am certain that you're pulling my leg.”

“I can pull legs too, you know, just with a snap.”

“He,” the Bavarian laughed, “maybe you can hex something that will clear my bowels, if you know what I mean. Might be the food, eh, no offence, but I haven't felt this full all my life.”

“Just wait until the battle tomorrow,” the Teuton said to him, but his eyes were still fixed onto Samuel, as if he was looking for something in his face that he hadn't yet found, “that will clear you up alright. Now, throw the dice, Hans, it's your turn.”

“I …” He looked down at the shaker the other man had handed him. This was obviously no game of Farkle or any of the other ones the drunkards in King Salomon's Tavern had liked to engage in. “I don't know how.”

“It's liar's roll.”

“I have never played that before.”

“Never played it? Well, aren't you something.”

“At least he will be easy to clean out then, eh?” Silverhair joked.

“But you've got coins, at least?” the Teuton asked. “We're not playing just for fun here.”

“I …” Drek. Lies and witchcraft would not help him out this time. Because how could they help him out, when all the coins he had to offer where fucking Prague groschen? “Not much.”

“Ach, show it.” Scararm gave him a nudge with his shoulder.

“No, listen, I would rather just sit here and talk with you. I'm not keen on losing everything I have on a game that I don't know.”

“Calm yourself, it was just a jest. We won't be fully cleaning you out, don't you worry.”

“No, I mean it, it would be better if I didn't …”

Scararm exercised his favourite thing to do and interrupted him once again, though this time not with words. Instead he reached over and loosened the purse from Samuel's belt in a single, swift motion that would have made even Katherine envious. “We will take half of what you have as a wager, alright, the rest will remain with you.”

“I'm serious!” His voice was harsh now, the hand he brought down on Scararm's wrist heavy. The purse fell down on the table, rattling from what obviously was anything but not much of coins. Then silence fell across their table, and it was so tense that one could have cut it even with the bluntest knife. Samuel took a deep breath, swallowed down the soaring panic, collected his wits. Keep clear of any dangerous situations, do not engage with the knights. Why had he ever agreed to this? If Žižka hadn't have him whipped for his foolishness once he returned to the others, it was solely out of personal affinity. “I have some really bad luck with these kind of games,” he began again, much calmer and kinder now. “Just yesterday, Dietrich really bled me dry like some fatstock. He had it especially easy with me, since I was quite drunk, you know, after Ilgenburg.”

Silverhair nodded with an understanding look, and Samuel felt a large portion of the tension leave his body with a sigh. “You don't have to be ashamed of that, I can understand you. It was truly horrible. Even I emptied half a bottle on my own.”

“Half a bottle,” the Bavarian burst out, “hear hear!”

“It was strong wine, you prick!”

“I wish, I had a whole barrel of wine,” the Teuton mumbled, and he sounded hateful now, but at least his small eyes had finally loosened their grip on Samuel. “I would pour it down those bastard's throats until they choke on it, one after the other. Two sixes. The woman's screams … I don't even want to think of what they did to them.”

Samuel kept his mouth shut. It was true, he thought, the sacking of Ilgenburg had not gone nearly as peacefully as they all had hoped and as Jagiełło had ordered. Innocents had been killed, and it had made them all furious, including Žižka and the King himself. But the only things plundered had belonged to the Order, no woman, man or child had been defiled, and those who had raised their hands to beg for mercy had been granted mercy. At least that Grand Duke Vytautas's cruel punishment after Lautenburg had ensured.

The Bavarian grabbed a particularly fat sausage from the plate. “They are heathens, what do you expect? They cut off their breasts of course, and from the boys they cut off their dicks, like the Jews do.” He took a large bite of the sausage, and grease spilled all over his beard.

Samuel clenched his hand to a fist, and then he slammed it down on the table. Fury on his face, his teeth gritted. “We will get our revenge tomorrow, am I right?”

“Oh, that much I promise you,” the Teuton replied with a wicked grin. “I tell you, if I can catch one of them alive, I'll do as they did and as the Jews do, and get me a slice of his cock.”

Scararm tossed the shaker around, making the dice inside rattle. “Are you a sodomite, or what?”

“I dare you to say that again,” the Teuton hissed, and his eyes were narrowed, though this time not at Samuel. Scararm did not dare. He only muttered another claim of dice and numbers, and so the Teuton leaned back on his seat again, in an apparent act of confidence. “I'm particularly interested in some Tatar cocks, you know? I'd like to see how much smaller they are than ours.”

“Of those wild men?” The Bavarian lifted his free, left hand and brought thumb and index finger so close together they almost touched, while taking another bite of his sausage, and squeezing meat mush out between his teeth as he spoke. “Na, I doubt you'll have much luck with that. I'm sure they're so tiny you won't even know where to make that cut.”

“You won't do that,” Silverhair said. It was clear that he was the kindest and most considerate one of the group, but he also did not seem to be a coward. “In fact, I believe you're only talking like this because you want to pour some honey over the fact that they pushed you off to fight with Wallenrode like a common mercenary or lay knight. Because as the squire of a knight-brother that just hurts too much.”

“There's nothing I need to pour any honey over. It was a just punishment for what I did.”

“Pf.”

“Besides, serving under High Marshal Wallenrode is anything but an honour. And I'm sure these Barbarians from the east will pose worthy opponents. You lied, Winrich.”

“I did not.” Silverhair lifted the shaker to demonstrate that he had in fact thrown four sixes and told the truth. The Teuton cursed and gathered the last coins from his purse to hand them over. “Just leave it be, Ludwig, will you? You know just as well as all of us here that von Jungingen considers the Tatars and Lithuanians the easiest prey. That's why they positioned us on the left wing to fight them, they believe we're the weakest banners of all their troops. You won't find any honour there tomorrow.”

“They even left all artillery with us because they believe we need it,” Scararm added.

Interesting. So all mercenaries and lay knights were fighting under Wallenrode on the left flank. With all of the Order's artillery, that hopefully would serve them shit tomorrow if his plan worked. That could be information for Žižka and Jan Sokol and the other commanders to use. But would that be enough? Samuel looked to the sky that was still covered so densely that not even the glow of the moon was visible. The rain fell only in the faintest, softest drops, but the wind promised more to come before morning. What time was it anyway? He had promised Žižka to be back before the first sunlight, and he still had to sneak out of the enemy's camp and back over to their own.

“Yes, you're right,” the Teuton bit back. “Not everyone in our banners is well-trained as me and Hans. So what? Gives us all the more chances to prove ourselves tomorrow.” And then Samuel saw, out of the corner of his eye, how the Teuton reached forward and snatched his purse that was still lying between them on the table. “I will show them that they were wrong about me. Calm, Hans, I won't take much, and I will return it in a moment, even with interest on top if you wish, but don't tell the church, ha!”

“Ludwig, please!”

The Teuton did not listen to him. He just threw the pouch around as if he wanted to weigh it, mumbling “Would you look at that, that's way more than you made it seem,” and then he pulled the strings open and took the first coin out. For a long, terrifying moment he held the groschen between his fingers like it was some foreign insect he had never seen before. Both his movements and his face had frozen to ice, together with Samuel's heart that felt like it had stopped beating altogether. He wanted to say something, make up another lie. He wanted to beat the Teutons face in and run. He did neither.

The Teuton placed the coin on the table, and took another one. And another. Then he turned the purse upside down and emptied all its content so that the metal jangled on the wood like the chains of a man led up to the gallows. “Where did you get them?” he whispered tonelessly.

“I … I won them.”

“When you were gambling against Dietrich, eh? I thought you had nothing but bad luck.”

“And I had. I lost against him the whole night, and the one time I did win, he paid me with that shit!”

“Which one of Wallenrode's banners?”

Samuel did not reply. The seventh, he wanted to say, because that was what Dietrich had said, but what then? The Teuton would not stop. In which lance, he would ask, under whose command? Samuel wouldn't have answers to any of that. The only thing he knew of was the rope around his neck. The rope he himself had tied, out of his lies and his foolishness and his pathetic bravery.

“I don't understand,” the Bavarian muttered to himself, and was it his heavy dialect or Samuel's intellect failing him, because it suddenly sounded like he was speaking a language Samuel had never heard before.

“Which banner?” the Teuton asked again.

“Are you meshuge, Ludwig, what are you accusing me of?”

He noticed his mistake as soon as it had slipped from his tongue. Not from the sound itself, since no word spoken made sense to him anymore, not even his own. But he noticed it from the way the others glanced at him. Scararm and Silverhair full of surprise, the Teuton full of disgust. The Bavarian looked like he had choked on the last bite of his sausage.

“Scheiße,” Samuel breathed out.

And then he jumped up from his chair, knocked the wooden table plank over and sent all the bloody coins flying right into the Teuton's face. Samuel turned and ran. Where to did not matter, they would sound the alarm soon enough, and then the Germans would find him, wherever he was trying to hide. No, he had to get out of here. Follow one direction until he reached the end, climb the wagons, the piles of trunks, break a leg in the process, everything was better than getting caught by the crusaders with their menacing crosses of their God's demise.

Samuel did not get very far. Someone threw himself onto his back, and he was pressed flat to the ground, seeing nothing but wet earth and scarred arms. He pushed back with an elbow, tried to get one hand free enough so he could pull the knife that he had hidden under his jacket. Just cut the fucker open, and then kill the rest too, he had won against greater odds.

Mud splashed as heavy iron boots stepped right into his sight, and when he bent his neck to look up, he saw the white coat of the Teuton and the narrowed sapphire eyes looking down on him. Then the world became as black as that looming cross on his chest, as the Teuton raised his right feet and brought it down on Samuel's temple.

* * *

The sun was relentlessly hot when Godwin left the shelter of the tent roof that had been spread over the altar. It was the second mass this morning, and this time, even more people had gathered. After a long and interesting dispute in the earliest hours of the day, Mikołaj Trąba, the bishop of Halicz and one of King Jagiełło's Council of Eight, had asked Godwin if he liked to say mass together with him, but Godwin had refused. “What good would it do?” he had told the bishop. “All I can speak is Czech and Latin, but most of your flock will be Polish and Lithuanian. And wasn't that the essence of our discussion, that the Christians should be able to listen and understand the word of our Lord in a language that is closest to their own heart?”

King Jagiełło had spent the whole of the second mass kneeling down in front of the cross with his head bent. His cousin, Grand Duke Vytautas, had kept his chin raised high, while he was standing in the back row of all Christians gathered, his arms crossed over the armour he had not taken off, not even before God, his expression stern. He took the King aside the very moment Trąba ended the mass.

“Vytautas made it clear that he is tired of waiting,” Žižka explained. “He is younger than his cousin and more hot-headed, but also more experienced in battle. He does not see the point in waiting any longer, especially not since the Order's troops are long on the battlefield.”

“But what about Samuel?” Henry asked.

The question lingered heavily above them, just as heavy as Žižka's answer that he did not give because it wasn't needed. This is a battle, it said. We don't have the privilege to wait for one single soul amongst thirty thousand.

After the second mass, King Jagiełło gave the order to move all troops forward to the edge of the forest where they had set up their camp, but only so far. The area that had been chosen for the battle was a large, triangular area of empty, sparsely wooded meadows, situated between forests and the villages of Tannenberg, Grünfeld and Ludwigsdorf. Both the field that the Teutonic knights had taken for the arrangement of their troops and that on which the Polish-Lithuanian union would assemble, were slightly elevated on chains of hills, while the territory in between was a marsh valley, traversed by a small stream. The valley was not only much harder to navigate. It was also a deathtrap for whatever side tried to attack first.

“I don't like how close they are,” Kubyenka said, peering out from the tree line to which they had walked and onto the open field.

“They try to intimidate us,” Žižka replied.

Godwin watched them closely, the silver-white wall of thousands of soldiers on the other side, and even more so, the few men that had been sent down into the valley with their white cross banners held high. Two lances of around ten people each, one to the far left, one on the right, even seemed to have crossed the stream already. All of them riders, all of them in full plate armour, glowing in the sun like bonfires. Or boiling in the sun, that was.

“When wait long enough,” Janosh expressed what Godwin too was thinking, “Germans might all be striked down by heat. And horses just collapse under arse.”

“That would be a rather dishonourable way of winning this battle,” Hans mumbled.

“Who gives a fuck?”

They all turned to look at the only one of their group who had not cared to step forward and examine the enemy's lines. Mirtl seemed to be boiling just as bad as the knights on the battlefield, despite the shadow of the trees. Her fists were clenched, her head was lowered as if she was ready to attack the first person who gave her a reason to the same way a bull would. Her face showed more emotion than Godwin believed to have seen on her in all the two weeks they had travelled together. Lips squeezed shut, nostrils flared, eyes piercing like lances, all fury and desperation.

“Who gives a fuck,” Mirtl said again, “how close they are and how hot it might be and how their horses may feel? Samuel has not returned. Does that not bother any of you?”

“Samuel has made his decision,” Žižka replied pragmatically. “Now we can only hope that it was worth it.”

“Worth it for whom? For whom, Žižka?”

“Mirtl.” Katherine stepped forward now, slowly reaching out a hand, but hesitating before it could touch Mirtl's arm. “We're all worried, trust me. But our worry won't bring Sam back. And the only thing we can still do for him is to protect our own lives as good as we can.”

“What even for?” Mirtl said, and then she closed her eyes and shook her head as if she regretted her own words.

“The Teutonic Order has gathered their troops just as they had planned,” Godwin tried to calm her now, but it must have sounded pathetic, as he did not believe in a single word himself. Just follow the experiences of your first few years of priesthood, he told himself. It does not matter if you believe in it, as long as you can make them. “Nothing on their side looks like they had been disturbed. And discovering an intruder in their camp would definitely be a disturbance. Who knows, maybe Samuel has long returned, and he just hasn't managed to find us yet? It wouldn't surprise me, it's like the whole of Prague has come together here!”

Apparently, Godwin's first years of priesthood were worth a damn. For a few moments, Mirtl watched him silently, her expression now back to the blank darkness that Godwin was used to from her. Then she turned on her heels and left. Without a word or explanation, without looking back when Henry shouted after her where on earth she was planning to go.

“Should I try talk to Jagiełło again?” Janosh offered, with a grief in his voice that betrayed his words.

“No,” Žižka responded. “It's too late for that.”

It soon turned out that, while it might be too late for Samuel, it was not in the slightest too late for the Polish King to waste even more time. Another hour or so must have passed, when he called a few hundred of his soldiers together, among them Žižka and the rest of the band. Jagiełło offered to knight everyone he had summoned, Janosh explained, and after their bold action in Lautenburg, the King seemed to have asked for the pack in particular. Godwin, Žižka, Henry and Kubyenka gave their gratitude, but refused. It seemed all of them had different paths in mind for their life after the battle than committing themselves to the Polish King. Štěpán was not asked, as his presence here was still rather secretive. Janosh was not asked either, and neither the King nor Janosh himself offered any explanation for it. Hans was the only one of their group to accept the accolade, much to everyone's surprise, and while Henry rolled his eyes at him as he went to kneel down in front of Jagiełło, Hans only returned it with a wink. “What?” Hans laughed when he got back to the group afterwards. “Sir Ignatius of the Cornflower is nothing but a fairy tale. So who wants to hang me when I neglect my knightly duties, hm?”

Henry had barely managed to tell the lad what a fool he was, when the sound of a horn echoed through the forest, followed by the clopping of hooves and the agitated shouting of people. “It's Germans,” Janosh told them, the same moment that the crowd parted and two riders came riding through the woods, right up to the King, one of them in the coat of arms of the King of the Romans, a black eagle in a golden field, the other one with the Pomeranian red griffin on his chest. Weapons were drawn, curses were spoken, all understandable to Godwin, even those uttered in languages he did not know.

Jagiełło stepped forward in his silver and golden armour, the cloak of red velvet surrounding him like the pallium of the Virgin Mary, his crown resting gracefully above his high forehead like a halo, and Vytautas followed him like a shadow. “You wish to speak to me?” the King said. “Then speak.”

The two Teutonic heralds dismounted their horses and went closer to him. The crowd held their breaths. Next to Godwin, Štěpán was fighting with the parchment he had hastily thrown over his left arm so he could write down everything that was said. His quill stopped in the middle of a word, when the heralds bent their heads and pulled out two naked swords, just to run them into ground right at the feet of the King.

“Your Majesty,” the Pomeranian envoy began. “Through us, the deputies standing here, the Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen sends you these two swords as aid. They are to remind you that you, together with your cousin and his army, shall delay less and fight more boldly than you have yet shown, and that you shall not continue your hiding in the forest and groves and postpone the battle any longer.”

A murmur went through the crowd, hissing like the wind in the leaves above. Štěpán hurried to write the words down, but his hand was shaking so much that the quill did not seem to find any purchase, and Godwin reached out a hand to hold the parchment for him. King Jagiełło's face was as hard as stone, only his full dark beard trembled as his mouth twitched in an anger he could barely hold back. Behind him, Grand Duke Vytautas lowered his eyes, and his long, straight hair almost hid the smile that was showing on his face.

“In case you believe that you have too little space to arrange your troops,” the envoy of the Roman King spoke, “you may simply say so, and the Grand Master Ulrich will withdraw from the plain he has chosen for his army as far as you want. He even offers to move to any area of your liking, as long as it ensures that your delaying of the battle will finally come to an end.”

They both bent their heads, had spoken all the words that they had come to deliver. King Jagiełło's retinue had become silent as a winter's day. The King himself had regained his composure. Vytautas was still smiling, but now he did so with his face lifted, showing it openly to everyone who dared to look.

Then the King took another step forward, and even the thrushes in the treetops above had stopped their mournful song. “We accept the swords that you send us,” King Władysław Jagiełło spoke, lowering his right hand on one of the erect standing swords, grabbing its hilt with the force of a vice. “And in the name of Christ, before whom all stiff-necked pride must bow, we shall do battle.”

* * *

The plate armour felt ten times as heavy on Henry's chest as it would usually do. Carrying the lance in his hand for much longer seemed to be as impossible to him as if he had been asked to carry his anvil. The sun was burning the earth as if she wanted to set it all on fire. It was an honour, he knew that, to have been given a lance, but he did not feel honourable now. He felt scared. Scared for his own life. Scared for his brother.

Hans was riding right behind him, the crossbow ready to shoot. Just like all of the thousands of men in front and behind them and those to his sides, he had tied a bunch of straw to his weapons, so that the others could tell him apart from their foes in the heat of the battle. He doubted that it would work. Who would seriously have a clear enough mind to pay attention to that, once the chaos had begun? He knew he had chosen this himself. He had wanted the adventure, had wanted to stand by his friends and by Henry, to fight the righteous fight. But if you took away the few cross banners on the other side, what even remained to distinguish them from their enemies?

Žižka looked left to where Jan Sokol of Lamberg was sitting high on his tall black horse, the visor of the hounskull closed, but he would recognise the man even if his whole body was covered in tar. Just like in old times, he wanted to say but the time for chitchat was long over. Now they both had to prove that they still had it in them. The dirty fighting, the banditry. And the fucking staying alive. He had promised it, after all, to return to Prague. With her. A promise he might soon regret. Ah, fuck that. If he truly got a chance for regret, he might as well celebrate, because it would mean that he was still breathing! And worries about the future belonged on a battlefield just as little as those about the past. Here, he had to keep his wits sharp and think about the fight, and nothing but the fight. And about cutting someone's guts out.

Godwin made the sign of the cross and began yet another Ave Maria. He had started speaking them once they had all taken their assigned position on the battlefield. The prayer helped him calm his nerves, and he was curious how many Ave Marias it would take until the battle finally started. He was already at forty-six.

Kubyenka spat down on the ground, and the Tatar fella to his right laughed like a rusty cartwheel and followed suit. Cultural exchange without any language skills, ha. Never let it be said that he, the great Kubyenka of the boomstick, was not a man of the world! It made his decision to leave the rest of the pack on the left wing and fight together with the Tatars and Lithuanians on the right side, much easier to bear. He had to admit that he had questioned it for a moment or so, right when the enemy had pulled up with all their fancy cannons, hand-held ones and much-too-big-for-a-hand ones. When it all went down in flames, he would at least want to have people by his side who were just as used to fighting messy and unconventional as he was. And this Golden Horde in their funny leather and fur armour looked just like the right bastards for that job.

Janosh looked down from the knoll that Jagiełło had chosen for himself and his retinue. The perfect position to keep an eye on everything and navigate. With an ocean of horse skin and colourful cloth and metal right down below, shimmering like it was filled to the brim with pilchards. With nothing but the camp and the reserve lying behind them. With the King by his side, and his chance to prove to everyone, and most of all to himself, that all the years as a bandit had not made him forget what he had learned as a child. He put his hand to the straw on the hilt of his sword that he had neatly tied into a braid. Just for the sake of it. Or perhaps so he didn't feel all that alone.

Štěpán had been given a small chair and a desk, and it felt completely out of place out here on the battlefield. Sure, they had put him into armour too. It was the first time he ever wore a full set of one, it pinched and itched in all the wrong places, especially under a merciless sun like this, and he wondered how useful it would prove in case of an attack. There was a sword next to him that he had no expertise in wielding. And that ugly bollocks dagger on his hip. And Janosh. He raised his eyes from the parchment, caught the nervous gaze of secretary Zbigniew Oleśnicki, and then the fond smile of Janosh, as he turned around just this moment, and nodded at him. Štěpán nodded back, bent down again and wrote. The very last words that the King had spoken to his people. Nunc armemini et mecum mori potius, quam vivere, pro eadem nunc non timeatis, he wrote. Now arm yourself and rather die with me than to live, and do not be afraid. Ego enim, o milites mei, vobiscum sive ad vitam sive ad mortem. For I, my soldiers, am ready to go with you, whether it will be to life or to death.

Katherine washed her hands one last time, or so she told herself, in a lie she wanted to believe in. Everything was prepared. A tent that they had positioned nearby the camp, almost a mile behind the last lines of the battle formation. Medical devices, needles and thread, scalpels and bone saws, bandages and ointments that stung into her nose. Four cots, because that was all her and the two surgeons she would work with could tend for. Those who managed to drag their mutilated bodies here would not stay for long anyway. And those who fell on the battleground itself and were too injured to go back … Well, those only God could help. She dried her hands on a clean cloth and looked over to the hill on which the King had positioned his very own banner. Janosh would be with him, and the boy. And Žižka? It was strange, she thought, the pain in her stomach, the turmoil in her chest. This was by far not the first battle she took part in, and heavens, not the first one were part of their group was still in the enemy's hands, if they were lucky, that was, and hadn't it been just the same fool the very last time? But today felt different. Perhaps because she was so secluded from everyone else, without any means to hear from them when it all went down. Perhaps because he wasn't here. She shook her head and dipped her hands back into the trough.

Mirtl looked up to the white banner with its black cross, and cursed God and all his angels. This wasn't fair, she noted. Hadn't she risked enough already? Hadn't she been through all this before? But it was different this time. Because this time, the man she risked her neck for, was actually worth it. This time she did not act to save her own skin, but instead risked it all because she owed it to him for saving her. An absurdity. But wasn't that the whole meaning of life? She slid her hand underneath her dress, and felt for the dagger that she kept close to her heart. How many lives could one life outweigh? A moral question to which she could only give a selfish answer. Countless ones.

The banner of Saint George high above their heads. A soldier sentenced to death for refusing to recant his faith. The martyr and the dragon. He wondered whose role which of the two of them had to take in this scenario, and realised that it did not matter. In the end, they had both ended up dead, Saint George and the Dragon. He lowered his eyes from the standard to the man holding it, and found him a little bit further to the front. Dressed in plate armour, with a lance in his hand, that longsword that he clung onto with dear life hanging from his side. The crossbowman next to him carried a shield with a cornflower on his back, but that would not fool him. He had been on their tail the whole time. He had watched and waited. A snake lying motionless on the hot stone until the right moment came. So the Dragon then. Erik lowered his visor and grabbed the sword just a little bit tighter. It did not matter. They both died in the end.

#kingdom come deliverance #kcd #kcd2 #kcd2 spoilers #kcd fanfic #my writing #KCDsedproditionem #oh my god guys. i know this is fucking long but i cannot even begin to describe how much fun it was to write it and i just hope #that part of that shines through to you on the receiving end (that sounds wrong) because oh boy. oh boy. (more coherent thoughts on ao3)#only downside: this is not the first kcd fic on ao3 tagged with jagiello. who are you fellow freak and what evil has bewitched you?

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