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charlie-rulerofhell · 4 days ago

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Sed Proditionem || chapter 3

An Nescis, Mi Fili, Quantilla Prudentia Mundus Regatur?

Kubyenka and Janosh fight the ghosts of their past, some knowingly, some not. Henry fights his longing for a different future. Hans and Samuel fight a man with an egg-shaped head.

{read it below or here on AO3}

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But I love him, Henry thought, and he raised his eyes heaven-ward, praying that at least the Lord would listen and understand. My love may be the only thing I'm certain of. Why then, oh why, had his heart ached so longingly at the first offer Žižka had made, to run like the river and never return?

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We all know how it goes, the more it hurts, the less it shows. But I still feel like they all know, and that's why I can never go back home.

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a massive shoutout this time to @shmuel-ben-sarah-kcd2 for the lengthy brothel talk and for telling me about the best proverb I have heard in my life! also to @jmenem-jana-ptacka-z-lipe for cicking my arse about the Dubá vs. Dubá issue before it was too late hehe

The Zlenice castle was massive, and empty as a riverbed during the summer. Isolated up on a mountain, away from any other form of civilisation, its keep guarded by a drawbridge, a gate tower, another drawbridge that led to the inner bailey and yet a third one that blocked the way to the keep's courtyard. No wonder the boy was the way he was when he was trapped in a fucking cloister! The castle itself was impressive for sure, white plastered walls of thirty or forty feet, completed by an additional timber-framed storey and massive roof trusses on top. Above the entrance, coats of arms were painted, the King's lions next to white arrows and hearts on a blood red field. Kubyenka eyed them sceptically. “What was the family's name again?”

“Dubá,” the boy explained. “Sir Ondřej of Dubá is the lord here. I am sure you have heard of him! He was the highest judge of Bohemia for a long while, and wrote the Interpretation of Czech provincial law. He is still writing on it, in fact, it is an enormous undertaking, you know?”

And then he went into great detail about why exactly this book of his guardian was so enormous and undertakingly, and Kubyenka decided to busy his mind with other things. Just as he had done during the boy's continuous talking on their way from the gorge up to Zlenice. Kubyenka could have blamed his lack of interest on the headache, but that would have been a lie. How could so much blabbering come out of a single boy, and so much knowledge too? Names, laws and edicts, religious and political states. Half the time Kubyenka didn't even have the faintest idea what he was on about. “Talk like Adder,” Janosh had breathed out when they had followed the boy up the mountain to the castle, both panting heavily while the lad had jumped ahead as light-footed as a young goat. “Mouth run like waterfall. But Janosh don't understand good as Adder.” At least then Kubyenka wasn't alone in this.

The boy led them into a hall that seemed to be used for dining, judging by the large table and the heavy smell of roasted meat and sauerkraut lingering in the air, and told them to wait there. He also ordered the two guards that were standing watch at the entrance to stay outside, though Kubyenka was certain they would both creep up to the door to hearken as soon as the lad had left. From the looks they had regarded Kubyenka and Janosh with it was evident that Zlenice didn't receive unannounced visitors particularly often, even less so someone that looked like a Hungarian and another that reeked of a tavern, ale, puke and all.

The blood was still pounding in his ears like a hammer, the cold forest air hadn't helped a bit, and the smell of burned wood, old cloth and cooked food made his head spin as if he was trapped in a circle dance at some wedding. Ah, a wedding. How he longed for one now, for the ease, the distraction, the carelessness. It had been quite a while since he had last attended a wedding, seven years to be exact, but what a celebration that had been! The Devil had sung for them, and how well he had sung, that fucker! Kubyenka had kept that memory safe for the past seven years, and he could only pray to keep it for seven more, because those times were gone and they would never return. “I shouldn't have accepted that bloody drink.”

“What drink?”

“The one that the bald fella gave me.”

Janosh gave him a smile from where he was standing in front of a giant carpet, depicting a surprisingly lewd scene of a few naked women by a lake. Probably some old myth, or even a story from the Bible perhaps. Their little noble bird would know, he liked all sorts of tales. Hell, Zizka and Henry and Godwin would know too, even Katherine and Janosh much likely, all their noble and educated arses. Only Kubyenka the fool saw nothing in it but a way too detailed depiction of round breasts glowing in the moonlight. “Ah,” Janosh made, “but how should know it was trick?”

“That doesn't matter. We were on a mission, we had a role to play there. And I just take the first offer from a stranger to get royally fucked up.”

“Could have been friend.” Janosh shrugged his shoulders before he turned back around to the carpet, although he seemed to be more interested in the quality of the fabric than anything else. He trailed the path of the threads lightly, before he raised his hand to tuck a strand of black hair behind his ear, right where the little braid was. Kubyenka couldn't remember ever seeing Janosh without that fucking braid for the past seven years. “Nothing against drinking with friend.”

“Everything against drinking with a friend!” Kubyenka leaned down on the table, slamming his hands onto the wood so hard, he could feel the impact up to his shoulders. Always the same shit! And he had fallen deeper and deeper, laughing off his descent, and now it had fucked them over for good! “Everything against drinking. I knew why we were there, and I knew what it could do to me, poisoned or not, and I still accepted.”

Janosh stayed silent, his face turned to the impressive backside of some fair-headed wench, but Kubyenka doubted that he paid it any mind.

“What? You're silent now?”

“What you want me say?”

“The truth.”

Janosh took a deep breath. He still wouldn't look at Kubyenka. “Truth is Zizka out with nobles, fighting other nobles in south, hey? And then up to Poland, to Germans, like traitor. Truth is Mikesh and Kozliek out plunder villages like pantry. Truth is Janosh slice open more belly of bandit than belly of fish.”

“Then at least you did something useful in all these years.”

“You think I does this so I do useful?” Now he turned, and Kubyenka wished he hadn't. There was anger flaming in his dark eyes, but more than that a sadness resurfaced that had silently been lingering for a while now, buried behind jokes and smiles and laughter. “No. Janosh only kill men to kill time.”

And to forget, Kubyenka thought. To keep your mind busy with something else. “Yes. I know that feeling. Or at least some of it.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Out in the courtyard, a horse was neighing, and the wood above their heads creaked from footsteps passing by. Janosh took another deep breath, and then the flames were gone, and his eyes sparkled as they usually did, with a smile tugging at his lips. “We all has guilty pleasures, no?”

Kubyenka couldn't help but chuckle. “You could still keep me off that devilish brew next time, you bastard.”

More footsteps, but closer this time, and voices outside the door. “Let's pray there is next time.” Janosh raised his brows nervously. “And not hanging for murdering priest and starting war with church.”

Lord Ondřej of Dubá seemed to take up half the space of the room when he entered, both with his stench of sweat and with his heavy breathing. The skin was hanging from his cheeks like the slack lips of a mastiff, and when Štěpán and another lad who had carried the old lord inside had finally heaved him onto his chair, Ondřej of Dubá started coughing as if he wanted to vomit out his own soul. Fuck me, Kubyenka thought, if that is what a man becomes when he gets old as a tree, I might just drink myself to death rather sooner than late. But there was vigilance in the lord's eyes, and a similar cleverness as in those of the lad, related by blood or not.

“Sir Ondřej the fourth of Dubá,” Štěpán spoke with a firmness that didn't seem to come naturally to him, “highest judge of Bohemia under our King Sigismund and lord of the castle of Zlenice.”

Janosh took a low bow, and Kubyenka followed suit. A courtesy he wasn't used to really, but one that probably was expected from them here. “My Lord.”

The other boy, a soldier judging by his attire, bowed as well, before he hurried to leave the room and close the door behind him. Silence followed, in which nothing but the rattling wheeze of Ondřej of Dubá could be heard, then the lord closed his eyes and wetted his throat by swallowing down, his face twisted in pain. When he looked up again, he seemed much stronger than before. Combative almost. “So, you are the infamous pair that led Father Thomas and his companions right into a deathtrap?” He nodded slowly, as if he wanted to answer his own question that hadn't needed an answer anyway. “Give me one good reason why I should not have you broken on the wheel? Or better yet, send you over to Prague as a gift, so they can do the very same, but much slower.”

“I can give you a reason,” Kubyenka tried to keep his voice as confident as he could, hiding the shivers that the lord's words had sent down his spine, “but sadly only this one, and you need to decide whether it's good enough for you or not. We didn't do it.”

Ondřej of Dubá laughed. He laughed louder than he had coughed before, so loud that Kubyenka exchanged a confused look with Janosh, and that Janosh chuckled along in irritation. Then the laughing stopped at once, and the lord's face was back to his prior sternness. “The mercenary who came here after he barely escaped the ambush was able to describe you well, he even knew your name.”

Kubyenka just shrugged his shoulders at the nod the lord gave him. “So? Everyone who has been told about us could also describe us. You were told about us by him, so you could probably describe us just as well, but that doesn't mean that we tried to kill you last night.”

“He claimed that he talked to you in a tavern.”

“In Uzhitz, yes, we heard about that. But it's a lie, we never talked to him, nor to this priest. We only watched them, in secret. Then this fella came and distracted us with a round of dice and a few beers.”

“Not beer,” Janosh added from the curtain at the other side of the room, “poison.”

What difference does it make? he wanted to ask, but he kept that to himself, because it might make a big difference to Ondřej of Dubá. “Aye. And when we finally got back to our senses, they were already gone.”

“Was Father Thomas murdered or not?”

“He was, Sir.” The boy had his hands folded in his lap, and his fingers were twirling around each other like flies. “I found his corpse in the gorge, just where the mercenary said the attack had taken place. Together with the corpses of the other two mercenaries and eleven more men.”

“So there was an ambush.”

“Of course there was,” Janosh responded, “but we had nothing to do with it.”

“So why were you shadowing the priest then?”

Kubyenka had never been put on trial, not on a fair one at least, but this was just how he imagined it to be. He looked back to Janosh again, in the hopes that he could give him an answer to a question he couldn't say out loud. Ondřej of Dubá was a high noble and some former important judge of the land. He probably knew a lot of people, and on every two he admired must have followed someone he loathed. Best to leave out Žižka's name then. “To play a trick on him.”

“A trick? What trick?”

“We had three more men on the road there.” Kubyenka swallowed, and hoped that his nervousness wouldn't betray him. Damn it, he had always been a horrible liar! “One who was keeping watch from the bushes, two who were dressed up as priests. They were supposed to talk to this Thomas and convince him of Hus's ideas, by …” He stopped himself, searched for a way to best describe Žižka's mad plan, “by using some, well, alchemic explosion.”

Janosh raised both his hands as if he wanted to sprinkle the air with holy water. “Poof.”

“That wasn't what killed the priest, though,” the boy explained quickly, his fingers twirling so fast now Kubyenka could feel his dizziness grow just from looking at it. “He was shot. With a crossbow, I believe.”

“What can you tell me about these other men of yours?”

“Well, none of them is anyone of importance.” Behind the lord's back, Štěpán widened his eyes in surprise. They had told him of Žižka this morning when they had met in the gorge, so he knew Kubyenka was lying. Now all they could hope for was that he'd keep this information to himself. “One was actually a priest once, but he has left that life behind a while ago. The other one is a blacksmith, and a very skilled one, I can tell you that! He could make you a better sword that any you have ever held.” He left out Hans, didn't know enough about local politics to judge how good the relationship between lord Ondřej's and their little bird's houses might be. “Well, and the third one is …”, Kubyenka paused again, reconsidered, “a Jew.” That had to suffice. He knew from his own experience how the attitude towards Samuel's people could fester like a disease and explode in ugly hatred, and he didn't want to get the lad and his family into any unnecessary danger by mentioning more than he had to.

Sir Ondřej of Dubá didn't seem to mind the lack of information. Instead he looked as if he was about to burst into another fit of laughter any moment, but this time it only revealed itself in the form of a broad grin on his wrinkled face. “A Jew, a blacksmith, a former priest, a Hungarian and a drunkard,” Kubyenka could feel the stab into his pride at this, “all come together under the preachings of a heretic from Prague.”

“Well,” Janosh chuckled, “Hus be quite convincing, hey?”

“And just in the very moment they plan to execute their little trickery, they get ambushed. What a ridiculous tale.”

“Ridiculous maybe,” the boy interrupted again, “but not nonsensical, Sir.” An hour long walk shared, and the boy defended them as if he owed them his life! But it makes sense, Kubyenka mused. If I had to live in such isolation where the only ones to talk to are a dying old man and a dying old horse, I might, too, fall in love with the first stranger I met. “I found the bodies. That of Father Thomas and of the mercenaries, but also of their attackers. The mercenaries and Father Thomas must have died rather quickly, so who killed these men that were all hiding in the bushes? Someone else must have been there.”

“Like those three friends of yours?”

Kubyenka nodded. “Exactly.”

“And where are they now?”

“If we knew the answer to that, we wouldn't have agreed to coming here.”

“Hm.” Sir Ondřej of Dubá clenched the armrest of his chair, coughed, clenched it a little tighter. “It's still a lot of coincidences.”

“Or no coincidences at all, Sir,” the boy said, “but a trap.”

“Well, surely it was a trap.”

“Not for the priest, Sir. For them.”

Ondřej of Dubá let his watery eyes wander from Kubyenka to Janosh, and back to Kubyenka again. “Do you have any suspects in mind?”

“We worked together with a noble called Robert Schwarzfeld. He was the one who met up with the priest to gain his trust, so everything would align with the plan.”

Kubyenka noticed how Ondřej of Dubá leaned to his left, bringing his head a little closer to the boy.

“Just some minor German lord,” Štěpán explained, “no one who's tied into larger political events. It seems irrational to me that a man like him would cause such carnage over some local quarrels, Sir. But perhaps he was hired by someone else?”

“Would you know of anyone who could be holding a strong grudge against you?”

Not against us, Kubyenka thought. Against Žižka, however? Oh, there must be a whole army waiting to wring his neck! “Well, we all lived a long and exciting life. There are a few that would come to mind.”

“I dare say,” Ondřej of Dubá dared to say. “I might even believe it. This ridiculous tale that you told me, and the harrowing discoveries that you made, dear boy. But that can't change the fact that there is still a dead priest on my land who I need to take care of. His body needs to be delivered to his church in Prague, the archbishop needs to be informed about the incident, but what should I have him told, when you cannot even give me any proof?”

“There might be proof.” The lad again, as eager to give them a helping hand as a common whore would be, only that they didn't even have to pay him for it. “Or at least we might be able to prove that this mercenary Lukas is lying to us.” He raised his hazel eyes to Kubyenka. “You said that you never talked to Father Thomas and his men, is that correct?”

“Aye, that is correct.”

“And you were following them secretly, without them noticing?”

Janosh chuckled. “We try give best.”

“So Lukas,” he stroked his chin like an old scholar would stroke his beard, only that his skin was as bare as a babe's arse, “he might not have seen you in Uzhitz at all. Which would mean that he couldn't recognise you. And if he doesn't, it would show that he got his information about you from someone else, and that what he claimed last night was false.”

Sir Ondřej of Dubá nodded in agreement. “And that would at least make it easier for me to attest to your account.”

“All we need to do then is find Lukas and see if he remembers. It hasn't even been a whole day since he left that tavern where he claims to have talked to you.”

It's risky, Kubyenka thought, at least if that Lukas fella had been given the right instructions. It hadn't seemed as if any of the three men that had accompanied the priest had paid any attention to Janosh and him the day before, and definitely not enough to recognise their faces now. But what about the few hours after that, when the two of them had got knocked out by that beer the bald head had brought them? At least Kubyenka had crashed down face first onto the table plate, if he recalled correctly, so that might prove an advantage. Should this fucker, however, know what he looked like, it would leave them with nothing. Even worse, it would make them seem like liars, and then the noose around their necks would tighten once more. It was risky, yes. And still it was the only chance they had.

“So then we try!” Janosh exclaimed, before Kubyenka could even think about an answer, and he pushed out his chest confidently as he strutted over to the door.

The boy raised his hand, stopping him right away. “Not you. It would be best, I believe, if only Kubyenka was coming. Lukas knows of a drunkard and a Hungarian. If you were approaching him together, he might smell the ruse.” Clever he was, this lad. A clever, cunning little shit, and Kubyenka couldn't help but smile in appreciation.

They found the mercenary out in the castle's inner bailey, and he wasn't alone. A man in full armour was with him, a tall, broad chap with golden hair, white armour, and a saddled horse which he held by the reins. Both men broke off whatever conversation they had led, and looked up as soon as they heard the dragged feet of Ondřej of Dubá approaching. No surprise, no recognition, at least not yet, and Kubyenka found himself taking a breath of relief. Only to let it go in a worried puff right after. What little reaction the mercenary's face was showing when he noticed Kubyenka, the armoured one made up for. He clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes as if he had just seen the Devil himself. And those eyes made Kuybenka's skin crawl. Petr of Haugwitz, the boy had called him. A lie. Kubyenka knew that, even if he couldn't tell why.

Štěpán walked up to them as happy as a pig in shit. “Good morning to you, Lukas!”

“Good morning, Sir.” The mercenary's eyes wandered over to Ondřej of Dubá and he bowed down. “And to you, my lord.” Then he raised his head back up, and his gaze found Kubyenka. “Sir …?”

“Oh, no Sir,” Kubyenka retorted with a smile. “Just Kubyenka, that's plenty enough.”

It took the man a while to realise. Then it seemed to hit him with the force of a battle axe. He moved too fast for anyone around him to react. One moment his mouth opened in shock and his face turned the colour of ash. Then he had already ripped the reins out of Haugwitz's hands and mounted the horse in the same swift motion.

“Halt!” Štěpán shouted, running for the stables where he had left his own nag. Haugwitz, whose horse had just been stolen right under his nose, didn't lift a finger, didn't even turn for the gate where the mercenary was already dashing out without anyone able to stop him. Haugwitz only stared at Kubyenka. His expression was twisted from disgust and hatred.

“Leave it be, my boy.” Sir Ondřej of Dubá raised his hand in a placating gesture. “We already got what we needed.”

“But, my lord …”

“You need to leave for Prague as soon as you can. Report everything to the archbishop, and ask him to send someone to carry Father Thomas's body home, so his soul can find the peace it deserves.” The trembling hand moved higher, left the sign of the cross on his face and chest.

“What am I supposed to say, Sir?”

“Anything that does not involve Jan Hus or this,” he nodded in Kubyenka's direction, “deception that they had planned. We do not want the inquisition on our lands. You're an astute lad, you will come up with something.”

“Let me go with him, Sir.” Petr of Haugwitz had finally managed to tear his stare away from Kubyenka, and dam it all, because it weren't only these pale, frozen eyes but also that grunting voice of his that made Kubyenka shiver with fright, because he knew it, he knew it all too well, only where from he couldn't tell. “The roads are anything but safe, and I would hate for something happening to Sir Štěpán. I will keep an eye on him.”

Kubyenka noticed how the boy pressed his curved lips together in an expression that could only be described as fear.

Ondřej of Dubá did not see it. Perhaps he simply didn't care, or it was the re-emerging coughing that distracted him too much to notice anything but the pain in his throat and lungs. “Of course. Thank you for the kind offer, Sir.”

“Janosh and I would volunteer to go with them as well.” Haugwitz's gaze darted back to him, and the hint of uncertainty in it gave Kubyenka the mildest feeling of satisfaction. “Three swords are better than one,” he passed Štěpán a smile, “no offence, lad. And since this whole mess is inevitably tied to us, it might be best if we could give our advise about what to tell the archbishop.”

Sir Ondřej of Dubá wiped his mouth free of spittle, and regarded the boy with a concerned look. It was clear that he didn't trust Kubyenka and Janosh nearly enough to give his consent in this matter, but he trusted Štěpán. “What do you say, my boy?”

Štěpán of Tetín only smiled, then he took a bow in Kubyenka's direction. “I would be honoured.”

* * *

They hadn't allowed Henry into the Vysehrad castle, and that was fine by him. He was only a messenger of Jan Žižka's, or at least that was what he had introduced himself as. They would send for the burgrave then, the two guards had replied, he may wait in the courtyard of the church, but it could take a while, since the burgrave was currently busy entertaining important political allies Henry obviously wouldn't want to disturb with his presence. They might have talked differently, might even have invited him in without hesitation, had they known that the burgrave in question was Henry's own father, but they wouldn't know. He was not keen on telling strangers about Radzig Kobyla's past indiscretions, and was rather comfortable being considered a dispensable messenger rather than a nobleman's envoy or a burgrave's bastard. Besides, the quiet and loneliness of waiting gave him some precious time to think. And there was much to think about.

Henry had wondered how he had noticed it in the first place, because how could one notice the mere absence of a thing? He had pondered it during their whole way back from the gorge to Kuttenberg, had rode in silence while the others reflected and considered and cursed, had scarcely managed to say a word of comfort about his brother's broken wrist. It had only struck him when they had just passed Grund where Hans had brought his horse closer to Henry's with a pout. “What about my cuts and bruises? Don't you think my wounds deserve a lick as well?” And Henry had responded wearily without even looking at him: “Well of course, my lord.” A taunt that didn't sound like one, a jest that fell flat. It had been then that realisation had hit him like a cannon shot straight at his chest. This was how one noticed absence. When the thing missing had become a habit, a duty, had become a chore. So then why had it changed now? Why had he suddenly stopped caring?

Down below, the Vltava glittered in the evening sun like a carpet woven from rubies and ambers. Boats were breaking the carpet's path as if rogue sparks had burned holes into it, long-boats and skiffs and trading ships. The river smelled of fish and mud and tar, but the scent of the plants that surrounded him was stronger. Crocuses and primroses, celandine and periwinkle, a blossoming apple tree right by his side. The scent of life born anew, from a cemetery's garden. Oh, what a deception!

Henry closed his eyes and cherished the warm caress of the sunlight on his face, the breeze in his hair. It wasn't true of course, he still cared, the Holy Mother knew how much! Only that somewhen in the last seven years, caring had become his sole purpose in life. Caring for Hans's happiness and his well-being, caring for his children's upbringing, caring for Rattay's politics as an advisor in court. The only place he could flee to to ease his mind of the Leipa family's struggles was his forge, and even there Hans and the children, and even Jitka or Hanush had paid him visits more often than he had asked for. It was always a joy, sure, when Hedwig watched with youthful fascination as his hammer set a solid steel sword ablaze. It made him laugh when Hans brought a book or a whole writing desk to his forge to watch Henry work, most of the time paying more attention to Henry's work than to his own reading or writing. But hadn't the joy, hadn't the laughter died bit by bit over the years, hadn't he started to merely accept his family's presence at his forge as a necessity, something that had always been this way, something that was good because it gave them satisfaction?

He leaned forward onto the waist-high wall, looked down upon bushes and cliffs and the river cutting its steady way into this land. Running and running, always in motion, off into the accumulation of houses and smoke and noise that formed the city of Prague, and past the castle that was only a silhouette on the far horizon, and further off yet, to unknown fields, valleys and mountain ranges, to cities where the people would sing songs Henry had never heard of. The wind carried broken words to him from a group of men on a fishing boat, a language he could not understand, Polish perhaps, perhaps something else entirely. But I love him, Henry thought, and he raised his eyes heaven-ward, praying that at least the Lord would listen and understand. My love may be the only thing I'm certain of. Why then, oh why, had his heart ached so longingly at the first offer Žižka had made, to run like the river and never return?

Henry turned when he heard footsteps approaching. The firm walk of a warrior more than the light striding of a noble. It couldn't have been longer than a year since Henry saw him last, but Radzig Kobyla had changed. A pourpoint in black and gold, but not a single piece of armour on his body, or if there was any it might just have been hidden under the heavy coat of embroidered black cloth and white pelt he was wearing. The coat was held in place by a large metal chain across his chest from which golden badges dangled like leaves from a tree's branch. The crest of Kobyla alongside the Bohemian King's lions and eagles. The coat was pushed back on the left by a sword sheathed in one of the most beautiful scabbards Henry had ever seen, adorned with gold plates all over that seemed to depict a number of rulers he didn't recognise. There were letters engraved into it too, displaying an inscription from top to bottom that might as well be read as a threatening warning in the light of recent events. CHRISTVS REGNAT, it said. CHRISTVS IMPERAT. Christ reigns, Christ commands.

Radzig Kobyla stopped a few feet away, regarding him silently. It wasn't only his attire that had changed. His beard had grown longer in the custom of the time, hiding the slimness of his cheeks. Age had started weaving silver threads into his dark hair, and had carved deeper lines into the skin next to his eyes, but those eyes at least were still the same, piercing and demanding and warm. How much Henry craved for those eyes to smile. For a strong embrace to be pulled into, or just for that gloved hand to be raised and put down firmly onto his shoulder.

He shoved these childish thoughts aside and took a low bow instead. “My lord,” he said, and when he straightened himself again and his father still remained silent, he just shook his head in regret. “We fucked up. Badly.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Word travels faster than your horse apparently. Which seems to be slower than other people's horses too. Or you simply took your sweet time getting here.”

Henry watched him turn away to walk over to the parapet, and cursed himself for not having thought about it before. The mercenary most likely. He must have had a horse hidden somewhere, the whole ambush had been planned anyway. Or the priest and all the other dead men had simply long been found by some poor wanderer or merchant. The stories that would make! “We didn't kill the priest.”

“And I didn't assume you had.”

“What were you assuming then?”

His father chuckled softly, shook his head. “I have been given a few incoherent details that were, in turn, given to the archbishop by a certain messenger. Some of these details were rather peculiar. Especially the things he hinted on under Zbyněk's persistent questioning.”

Henry could feel his father's words tighten around his throat like a strangling hand. “Someone was tortured because of us?”

“Oh no, Christ, no. They wouldn't have dared to, that boy is a noble after all, albeit a rather unimportant one. But he stands under the protection of Sir Ondřej of Dubá, and thus under the protection of Bohemian common law.”

Ondřej of Dubá. Katherine had mentioned that name this very morning. A former member of the League of Lords. So they had attracted the attention of some more influential enemies than they would have thought or hoped.

“Besides, when the boy stopped telling them anything useful, our dear archbishop turned to the knight that had accompanied him. Only that someone intervened before he could put the screws on that man. Wilhelm von Wartenberg. A relative of Heinrich of Rosenberg.” Radzig Kobyla turned his head, the light of the setting sun illuminated his profile like the halo of a saint. He waited. Henry couldn't tell what for.

“The name doesn't mean anything to me.”

“Hm.” His father nodded, as if he had expected that. “But it does mean something to Žižka. And it means something to me, which is why, I assume, he sent you here.”

“He sent me to report to you what happened last night, and to warn you. He thinks similar deceits could be planned against you or Jan Sokol of Lamberg or Wok of Waldstein. I have letters for them.”

“Ha.” He almost sounded amused. As if this whole situation didn't feel as if the brushwood for their stakes was already being piled up. “You won't need that letter for Waldstein, he is right here in the castle. As a matter of fact, I just talked to him myself. As for Jan Sokol, well, you might have come a little late. Jan left. North, to Poland, I'd assume, but it's not like he gave a farewell note.”

“Poland?” Cuddling up with the enemy in our Polish's neighbour's lands, Kubyenka had said about Žižka just a few days ago. There was a war coming, that much Henry knew. But on which side would their allies stand in it? And which side would they take themselves? The horse neighing, rearing up, the priest gurgling, blood running out his mouth like wine from a broken tankard. Henry had looked up to see Sam getting beaten down, Hans surrounded by a dozen men. Sakra! We have been played! The only thought on his mind, as someone held a blade to Hans's throat. The plan is fucked. “But Wok of Waldstein is here?”

“Of course he is! He is one of my closest allies at Wenceslas's court. And one of the only people I can fully trust in these are complicated times.”

“I see. Good god, my head is already spinning from all these names and alliances.”

“And it won't get easier, Henry. But you didn't come to exchange lists of friends, now did you? You were asked to report to me. So fulfil your duty, soldier.” There was a glint in his eyes that painted the title a joke, but also something else buried underneath, something probing, taunting.

“Will that be necessary? I have the feeling you're already in the know about most of it.”

“That may be, but my knowledge could be lacking, and I would like to hear it from your own mouth. From someone who was there.” Radzig Kobyla raised his brows inquiringly. “You were there, weren't you?”

“I was.”

“Dressed up as a priest?”

Henry could feel a rush of cold sweat making his body tremble at these words. “How do you …?”

“Aren't you a little too old for a mummer's play, son?” His father laughed, but it sounded more like disbelief than actual amusement. “I reckon Žižka was with you?”

“No. Žižka and Katherine stayed in Kuttenberg, together with the man who helped us set this all up. And who very likely betrayed us in the end. Schwarzfeld.” Henry squinted his eyes as he tried to remember the name of the man, but his mind had trouble focusing. The song of a fisherman, the pounding of a woodpecker, a scream, but only a memory, Sam pushed to the ground. “Robert Schwarzfeld.”

“Hm. Never heard of him.”

“He is a small lord of little importance. But as far as I know he had his own quarrels with the church and was on rather good terms with the priest that got killed. The priest was said to be one of the more moderate members of the synod, so Schwarzfeld had tried for a while to gain his trust, so he could convince him of supporting the side of Jan Hus.”

“I understand.”

“But it seems that money always matters more in the end.”

“You think he got bribed? Hm.” His father looked down on the Vltava, flaming sunlight dancing on his lined skin, a breeze throwing his hair around with ease. It had become so much thinner. “Plausible, but not irrefutable. He might just as well have been pressured, or threatened. Continue.”

“Žižka had planned that we would meet this priest on a secluded part of the road from Jezonice to Prague, and that we would pretend to be new disciples of Hus.” Gravel crunched beneath his soles as he stepped up to the parapet to join his father. “We had prepared a magic trick to convince the priest that the ideas we shared with him were truly blessed by God. Nothing but simple alchemy. But it could have worked, had we not got ambushed. A dozen armed soldiers.” Sam getting pushed to the ground, Hans shouting something, his voice shaking with fear. A plan gone wrong. The absence. The absence of worry, the absence of duty. He hadn't deserved the embrace, when Hans had later come running down to him, burying his face in Henry's shoulder, breathing out his name, and when Henry had briefly kissed his neck it had tasted all empty, and he hadn't deserved that either. A woodpecker. The smell of tar and fish. A setting sun on his face, April warmth. “We managed to get rid of most of them, but one of the mercenaries who came with the priest was able to run for it before we could stop him. It must have all been planned. They used the priest as bait. To taint Hus and his ideas.”

“No.” His father's voice was sharp, and the conviction in his tone helped to fully discard any haunting memories. “It would be one thing to tolerate the slaughter of a clergyman to demonstrate, what exactly, the cruelness of Hus and his supporters? To evoke pity with the church? That would already be an atrocity. But whoever was behind this didn't only tolerate it. They orchestrated it. No, not even our dear archbishop Zbyněk would be this cruel.” His lip twitched as he tapped is gloved fingers rhythmically on the rough stone of the parapet. “That doesn't mean he wouldn't profit from it, of course. He has already called in other representatives of the church, demanding their support for the burning of reformist books. And he might as well convince even the King to do so, could he actually prove that Thomas's murder had anything to do with the reformists.”

“Oh, he has plenty of proof for that.” And we gave him this proof ourselves, Henry thought bitterly. So utterly convinced of themselves that the only outcomes they had thought of had been success or death. “We talked about Jan Hus openly, that mercenary heard it all.”

“He may have. But I told you already, the one who talked to the archbishop about this whole matter wasn't a mercenary, but a young noble who serves Ondřej of Dubá, and some knight in Dubá's service. And the two of them were either not let in on the whole truth, or they purposefully tried to hide it. Whatever it is, it serves you well.”

So the archbishop didn't know! Dubá must have been informed by someone other than the mercenary, or perhaps they misunderstood what the fucker told them, or had they been wrong the whole time, had that mercenary never actually stood on their enemy's side? What did it matter now. Henry wanted to laugh to the golden, blessed sky in relief. Blessed be thy name, oh Lord, he doesn't know!

“So? Who was there with you? The boy mentioned two other priests.”

“How could he tell? When he didn't even waste any words on our reformist talk?”

“I feel like he stayed close to the truth with his account. Only that he claimed the two parish priests had been travelling with Thomas for a while. To make use of his hired men's protection. But then they were ambushed by bandits. The situation escalated, Thomas was shot, the bandits started fighting each other, some were upset about the murder of a clergyman. The mercenary and the two priests managed to seize the moment of upheaval for their escape.”

Henry shook his head, disbelief and confusion winning over the prior relief. This wasn't only a lack of information or a misunderstanding. “That's a blatant lie.”

“Precisely. And a deliberately and very carefully crafted one, if you ask me. We wouldn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth now, but someone here is definitely trying to save your hide, and I wonder who that could be.”

Kubyenka and Janosh, Henry thought immediately, only to abolish the idea as naïve wishful thinking right after. They would have had no reason to help them after risking their whole plan in the first place. And what business did they have with some mysterious noble boy and his knight anyway?

“So? Who can we rule out? Who else was in on the plan?”

“Well, Godwin was there with me, in disguise as the other priest.”

“Ha, Godwin! Of course!”

“Samuel was there too, and Kubyenka and Janosh.” He didn't mention Hans. Didn't need to listen to his father's scolding for dragging the Lord of Leipa into such a foolish affair.

Instead Radzig Kobyla laughed. A bittersweet happiness. “So Žižka really got the old band back together, I see. That was to be expected. After our recent one fell apart.”

“With the execution of Matěj Vůdce, you mean?” Henry remembered both his father and Žižka telling him about it a few years ago. A similar pack of bastards, but made up of nobles as well as bandits, including his father. Then Matěj the Leader, had been caught. Tortured to reveal many of their crimes and his friends' names. Before they hanged him. The fate of an outlaw. Henry's eyes wandered down to the river again where a group of geese flew low above the water, their reflection broken on the surface. The cost of freedom. Is that what you really want, son? “Žižka did seem rather lost. As if he was desperately searching for something meaningful to do.”

“He could have found meaning at Wenceslas's court, but he refused that.”

“Perhaps he didn't feel like it was the right task for him. Kubyenka mentioned that Žižka had gone north too. To offer his services to the Teutonic Order, but they declined him.”

The geese cackled. Gleefully returning back home after having journeyed elsewhere for the winter. Perhaps it could feel like this for him too? If he were to journey with Žižka, just for a few months, join him for one more adventure, he may be able to return back to Rattay with joy. Start caring for his family again, worry like he was supposed to at a blade pressed to his loved one's neck.

“That bastard.” There was appreciation in his father's eyes, and a hint of disappointment in his voice. “Always looking for an opportunity to sharpen his steel, hm? Well, I cannot blame him. Once you tasted the sweetness of adventure, it's hard to go back and leave it all behind.” He turned now, and his look pierced right through Henry and into his heart, in a way that was so unfamiliar, it almost scared him. “You understand that too, don't you?”

“What?”

“You did not introduce yourself as my son, nor as a messenger of the House of Leipa.”

“Your guards do not need to know.”

“No, they do not. But it seems like you also did not want them to know.” Radzig Kobyla's eyes were narrowed as he waited for an answer that Henry could not give. “You're a member of the Leipa court. That is something to be proud of!”

“Unofficially, I am.”

“Yes, because you have been refusing knighthood for almost seven years now. Just imagine the privileges that would gain you. The status, the wealth, the property!”

“Privileges that I do not need.”

“Ah, you prefer honest work. Your father's trade, a hammer and an anvil.” He was playing him now, and Henry hated this game. Felt as if he was sliced open bit by bit, having his guts and heart ripped out to lay them bare for everyone to see, for Henry himself to see especially. He did not dare to look. “But then again, you did not introduce yourself as Leipa's personal blacksmith either.”

“How would that have served me?”

“The same as being considered Žižka's errand boy does, I reckon.”

“At least they should know his name.”

“Just as they should know the name of the House of Leipa. Or mine.”

Henry turned back to the Vltava and took a deep breath. The geese had disappeared in the distance, their screams had been carried away with the wind. Hans's face in pain, not last night but a few weeks ago, tears shimmering like broken glass in the light of the fire. Talk to me, Henry. Just talk to me! “You're right. I might understand how Žižka feels. Or at least I believe I have a hunch.”

“I once promised you that, remember?” His father raised his gaze to the sky now too. East wind, thick with the river's smell and drenched in the evening's cold, and Radzig Kobyla shivered despite his heavy fur coat. “Sooner or later, adventure would catch up with you again.”

“But it's a childish dream. I have my work at the forge. My place at court. Hans's children to raise and train. It's a good life. A life like you always must have wanted for me.”

“Like I wanted?” Henry turned to him fully at the way his father's voice sounded hurt, almost offended by these words. “Oh, I never wanted anything from you.”

Never legitimised, never introduced at court properly. Henry couldn't hold back a mocking hiss. “Yes, I believe that.”

“What? You think it would have been easier for you had you grown up in the castle as my bastard son? Would that have made you happier? Offered you more freedom?” His father shook his head. It was a topic they had both only ever danced around whenever they had met, truths that they had both been too scared of to admit, to the other one and to themselves. “I wanted the choice to be yours.”

“A wonderful choice that was!” Henry looked past his father, followed the way of his words as they were carried by the wind, over to the church, and further to the castle. Well, let his father's guards and servants hear how it truly was! That was what Radzig Kobyla wanted after all. You could have introduced yourself as my son. Are you not proud of that? “You think Martin would have ever allowed me to be anything but a blacksmith like him?”

“And you think his allowance would have mattered? Because I for one always had the feeling that even he could not stifle your stubbornness. Didn't you learn how to use a sword without his consent? What was that man's name? Ranyek?”

“Vanyek,” Henry replied quietly as he began to understand.

“Ah yes, Vanyek. He seemed a little underwhelmed with your skills, but he still believed you had talent in your heart.”

Always hovering above him like a cloud's shadow. Watching, guiding. Proudly telling his court about him, Hanush and Divish, hell, even Istvan, but never Henry. Sending a travelling swordsman out to have a drink with the blacksmith's boy, offer him training. Henry knew he should feel something. Betrayed maybe. Or honoured perhaps. He didn't. None of it mattered now anyway.

His father got closer, and when he spoke again, his voice was calmer, warm, assuring. Almost like the voice of a father should sound. “I wanted you to have every opportunity you could have. You really believe I could have forced you to be one thing or the other, or that Martin could have? When you are my son and he was the one who raised you?”

“But it's not fair,” Henry breathed out and his voice broke, because how could his father even suggest such a thing? “I have my place in Rattay, at Hans's side. He needs me.”

“But do you need him?”

The air was cold and empty. No bird's song, no fishermen singing on the river below, no sweet smell of the blossoming tree or the spring flowers, only the stench of the fish.

His father's stare was pitiful, and Henry had to lower his eyes as he answered. “I do.”

“Hm.” It sounded like he believed him, more than Henry believed himself. “I understand the pain. The burden of having to choose between what your mind and what your heart demands. But one day you will have to make this decision.”

“I am happy with Hans.” He swallowed, shook his head. “In Rattay, I mean, with the position he gave me. But at the same time I see the world moving on around me, I see people like Žižka and Jan Hus fighting the battles that I should be fighting. I want to take part in it, I want to make a difference!”

“The cogs of fate will keep on turning with or without you, son.”

“Yes, but I want to contribute to the direction in which they turn!” He brought his right hand down on the stone wall. It was rough, even under the calloused skin of his palm. “I don't need my name to be remembered, but I want to be able to look back on my life at the end of it and see the weight it had.”

“A nameless blacksmith forging his own mark into the tools of the world?”

“Yes, but a mark that changes something.” He clenched his fist and the stone scraped the skin of his fingers, tearing it open. “There is enough suffering as it is, I've seen that up close countless times. I've caused this suffering myself, lives taken by my hand are still haunting me at night, they might just haunt me for the rest of my life. But the reformations that are taking place here in Bohemia and in England and in so many places on this earth right now, they could have meaning. They could end the suffering, or at least ease the pain.”

“Your pain? By clearing your conscience?”

“Everyone's pain! The pain that the church is causing, the three estates, the God-given order of the world.”

Henry had raised his voice a little too much for the heretical things he was speaking, he knew as soon as his father didn't respond right away, only with a soft, saddened smile. So let them all know it then! The thought felt foolishly comforting. If they heard it, if the archbishop would listen to his words, would send out his henchmen to hunt him down, at least it would take the burden of choice off his shoulders.

“You're quite the dreamer,” his father said finally. “You don't have that from me. From your mother perhaps, or it might be Capon's influence.”

“It's not only dreams. I know that I could be useful. I want to be.”

“Well then, there you have your answer! Go on, join Žižka's new band of outlaws, save the world!”

Henry pressed his lips together and pouted. He must have looked like a little child, but he couldn't care less. “You're mocking me.”

“Because I know that if it were as easy as you try to make it sound, you would have asked Žižka a long time ago.”

Henry nodded and turned. To the church this time. An impressive structure in front of the flaming sky, one side set ablaze, the other in darkness. It was taller and longer than most castles Henry had seen in his life. A man-made construction for a man-made idea of a God. “I have something good back home in Rattay. Something I don't want to, I can't give up.”

“And maybe you do not have to. It might not be the fulfilment of all your dreams, but I tried is as best as I could too, to combine family and duty. Well, with love, of course, that is something else. But I could imagine that when Žižka brought the pack back together, he has, against all better judgment, also invited the Lord of Leipa to come, now, hasn't he?”

His father seemed way too proud with himself when Henry looked over to him. No secrets to be hidden from a noble who had his sources. Although the sources in this case might just be a long-held affiliation and a deep understanding for a brother in arms. “He has. It was foolish to accept of course, but Hans has his own mind.”

“As he always will, no matter what you choose. So who can tell what fate may have in store for both of you.”

It was something in the way his father's mouth was pulled up and his eyes sparkled like stars on the darkest night sky, that made Henry realise he knew. Henry's breathing quickened, the clenched fist on the stone began to tremble, he had to place it on the hilt of Martin's sword to hide the fear. He could always run, Henry thought, run and never return. Like the water of the river.

His father turned, the chain around his chest rattled. The smile on his face broadened, and then the moment of tension was gone, left Henry shakily gasping for air that he hadn't noticed he had been needing. “You think I would have ever believed that I would end up here one day?” He raised his hand to wave at the church and at the castle and at the cemetery and the apple tree. “A lesser lord, now the burgrave of one of the most vital strongholds of the land! Had someone told me that as a child, I would have laughed in their face! Neither would I have thought to one day be responsible for preventing the burning of books or fighting the archbishop himself, ha! And now here I am …”

“So what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I cannot tell you which road may lead you to happiness in the end, perhaps you won't be able to tell that either, and it might just be that none of them leads to true satisfaction.” He put his hands on his own sword now, the same way as Henry did, the distorted reflection on a glass pane. “But whatever path calls out for you, I want you to know that there will be at least someone else walking it with you. I owe you that much.”

The words felt as good as a touch would have, perhaps even almost as good as an embrace, and Henry hated that he had to ruin it by asking. Better now than later. Guide the knife straight into his heart willingly, instead of having it come for his back. “Even if I,” he swallowed heavily, and it burned in his throat, “if I choose love?”

“Even then.”

“You'd just accept it?”

“I could not stop you if I tried. Just as Martin couldn't stop you from picking up the sword. And besides, who am I to throw the first stone? Having had my fair share with unlawful love myself.” He leaned over to Henry now, so that only the two of them could hear it, and perhaps the sparrows in the bushes. “At least you won't end up accidentally fathering a bastard, hm?”

They both laughed. How relieving it felt. The melting of the frost in spring, rain after a long summer's draught. The assurance that better times were to come. We will find Janosh and Kubyenka. We will figure out a way to righten the wrongs we caused. And I won't lose what I love if I don't want to. Because I'm not Martin, and I'm not my father either. A distorted reflection, yes, but only a reflection.

“Can I stay here with you for a while longer? Žižka and the others wanted to come to Prague too, and I'd like it if I could wait for them here.”

“Of course you can!” His father sounded as happy as a young boy. “You will always have a bed under my roof, Henry. Though I'm afraid, I may not have much time for you tonight. You might have got lucky with the word that spread so far, but a rumour is a fragile foundation. Whether intended or not, we should use the message of that boy for our advantage. Political opponents sending out bandits to attack and slaughter synod members who take a rather moderate line in reformist questions?” He winked. “Now that might be a rumour to build on. A rumour that could spark some serious outrage. Nonetheless, Žižka has a point. We should be weary and take precautions. Even if our assumptions are correct and it is indeed Rosenberg against whom we're going into battle here, I doubt he would go to war alone. We might have made ourselves some very powerful enemies. A single heedless word, and they might send out mobs for us to tear us apart.” He laughed as he turned to leave.

“Where will you be going now?”

“I will talk to Waldstein, so you won't have to worry about that. And you should get some rest. You look like you haven't slept in days.” It was true, and Henry hadn't even noticed it until now. The exhaustion dragging down his eyelids, the stiffness in his every limb. “I will have a hot bath and a room prepared for you.”

“Thank you, father.”

Radzig Kobyla smiled and nodded. The golden scabbard of his sword caught the sunlight as he turned and walked towards the castle, illuminating the rulers that Henry didn't recognise and the writing he couldn't see from the distance, but that he knew was there. A silent promise. Christus regnat, Christus imperat. “And when all this is over,” Radzig Kobyla shouted back over his shoulder with a laugh, “we should all meet up. You and me, Žižka and the rest of his pack. Empty a few barrels of wine together, exchange some stories. Your Capon can come too, of course.”

Henry rolled his eyes at nothing but the gaze of men from church windows and the gaze of God from high above. He had the growing notion that he might come to regret revealing this secret to his father rather soon.

* * *

Samuel had no idea what on earth had moved him to accept Žižka's order. To walk right into a place of resha such as this one. And with Hans Capon by his side, of all people.

Hans didn't mind, of course, on the contrary. He strutted into the brothel as if he lived there, only that his eyes were a little too wide and his mouth a little too open for anyone to believe that he had seen such pleasures quite often. As far as Samuel knew, there was no such establishment in Rattay, and even in Kuttenberg and Kolín this form of service was restricted to bathhouses where the owners could wave it off as a means of hygiene and health.

This place here disguised itself as something else. A tavern. Quite unsuspicious from the outside, a half-timbered house in a row of others, the wooden sign of a beer tankard above the door, only that this one was messily painted in the brightest colours, green and yellow and red. The windows were shuttered, which was unusual of course for a place that would reek of smoke, food, drinks and sweat, but that was about the only thing Samuel noticed that would have set this place apart from any other. The air that surrounded them when they entered was accordingly heavy and damp, and the mixture of all sorts of boiled grains, roasted meat, strong schnapps and bodily odours burned in his eyes. Hans didn't seem to notice or care. He was running around all giddily like a small child that a kind market woman had just rewarded with his favourite pastry, and his mouth was probably watering in a similar way.

Samuel couldn't see anything that would justify his excitement. Nový Venátky was a tavern like any other. Packed with tables that, especially at this night time, were riddled with way too many drunken men. Faded paintings on the wall depicting the most serene landscapes of wide, open fields, low hills, a river by which a flock of sheep was grazing. Brazen chandeliers illuminated the room with dripping candles. There was song in the air, and laughter, insults and swearing.

The first thing that did catch Samuel's attention was the unusual pair standing next to a door on the far end of the common room. An older woman who had her full, ginger hair fall open on her shoulders, her eyes like those of a hawk fixed on the few women that were wandering around the tavern. And a man with a furrowed face, broad shoulders and veined arms standing right next to her, who had his gaze resting on the male customers instead and his hand rested on the hilt of a hunting knife at his hip that reminded Samuel of the ones he had seen only on knackers.

“Not nearly as bad as I expected it to be,” Hans mumbled, while his eyes followed the swaying hips of a woman walking past them as lightly as if she was floating.

“You did? Because ever since Žižka gave us the task to go here, you have been grinning like a nar.”

“So what?” Hans shrugged and smiled cheekily. At least that beard he had been growing gave him a certain hint of maturity, otherwise Samuel would have been convinced that somewhere between fighting enemies, questioning nobles and riding out to Prague without any sleep, Hans had just lost a few precious years that he had so tediously gained. “Am I not allowed to get some fun out of all this shit Žižka throws us into?”

“So you are planning to enjoy yourself, while my brother is gone to meet his father?”

“Look.” Hans's face became serious for the briefest moment. “I love your brother with my whole heart, I care for him more than I care for myself, and that's supposed to mean a lot.” A lie of staged narcissism. Samuel kept that thought to himself. “But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun every once in a while. So can he!”

“And does he?”

Hans opened his mouth like a fish, then he closed it again, averted his gaze. “Henry … Henry is often too occupied with other things.”

“Like risking his neck for us. Or getting tortured.” Two men at a table in the left back corner started a fight. Curses were spoken, fists were raised. A girl with a pretty, round face jumped away from the scene before the situation could escalate. The knacker shouted. One single, bellowing sound, and the fight died as quickly as it had started.

Samuel put his hand on his right wrist and pressed it lightly, until it hurt just enough. Katherine had helped him bandage and splint the broken bone, but it would still take an eternity to heal properly, or at least improperly because that was all he could hope for. What did it matter? A single broken wrist, a few scratches and bruises. While his brother had been ripped apart with knives and tongs. Weeks before they had even met, yes. And since then many more years had come and gone. Since Henry had proven him his trust, since they had started calling each other brother. Why then had he never told Samuel about it? Why had he not considered him to be worthy of confiding in? Because he had failed him, Samuel thought, failed him like he had failed everyone else. Like he had failed to protect his people in Kuttenberg and was now failing to built a safe home for them in Kolín. Like he had failed Liechtenstein. Like he had failed Hannah.

He could feel a hand on his shoulder, and when he looked up, he saw Hans fondly smiling at him. Hans, at least, had confided in him last night. Whatever that meant. “You are right, we are here for a purpose, and we will talk to this Egghead as soon as he appears. But so far I cannot see him anywhere, so why shouldn't we enjoy ourselves while we're waiting? Let's sit down, have a drink,” his eyes started wandering off again, over to a particularly round girl that stood bent forward onto a table, her skirt tight on her backside “savour the presence of all these comely wenches.” He noticed something else on the opposite end of the room, and when Samuel followed his stare, he saw a young boy with short, golden hair sitting dreamily at a table, a little shy, a little suggestive. “Or of some pretty lad.”

“I would rather decline.”

“The drink? Or the presence of beautiful people?”

Samuel rolled his eyes, but he couldn't deny that Hans's persistence managed to distract him at least. “Both.”

“A pity. I suppose we need to go our separate ways then.” He walked over to the man who seemed to be the innkeeper in this place, ordered a mug of ale from him and sat down on the last empty table, the smallest one but also the most isolated. At least they would be able to watch the whole room from there. So they could recognise Egghead as soon as he walked in, get the information they needed and disappear without a trace. And then pray that this place wouldn't leave any traces on them.

He went over to the table Hans had chosen, leaned against the wall with crossed arms. The two men in the corner had started arguing again, but they tried to keep it calm this time. The hawk-eyed woman at the door met his gaze, before she shifted her attention to the girls and the few boys in the room again. There was one that she almost completely ignored, perhaps because she didn't look like she needed the hawk's protection. She leaned against the windowsill on the opposite side, alone, without anyone bothering her like they did the other girls. Small and lean, with beautiful dark curls that framed her face like a veil. There were wrinkles around her eyes, she seemed to be older than most of the other girls, perhaps even a little older than Samuel, but there was a fierceness in her look, a breath of danger. “What if he doesn't show up?”

Hans waved at the lad who was bringing his ale. “Then we will have to come back tomorrow, I'm afraid. Thank you, my lovely.”

“And waste another day? While Kubyenka and Janosh are still missing, while rumours are spreading like flames?” Because they were already, they had overheard it plenty times when they had made their way through Prague to leave the rest of the pack at the university where Godwin had offered them a stay for a few days. A priest found dead somewhere between Prague and Kuttenberg. Down by the Sasau, someone claimed to know, his blood had mingled with the water of the river, folks in Tynec had seen the river be all read like poppies. “The river is flowing the other way, you ox,” another man had scolded him. This man also knew it way better because a friend's cousin had seen it himself on his way to the fields. Not only a dead priest but at least thirty more mutilated bodies, it had been a battle, a group of Sigismund's hired Hungarians that were still roaming the land headlessly, against the King's men most likely. A group of women on a market road in the east of town had been convinced that the attack was only meant for the priest alone. It was a robbery by a wild man with a wild bear that he held like a dog, one said. It was a Hus-inspired heretic, another replied, and he would next move to Prague for sure to slaughter one priest after another there. It was some Jewish scum, the third one was convinced. Because who else could it have been?

Hans sighed, but it turned into a moan of pleasure as he nipped on his ale. “Schwarzfeld told us that this Egghead comes here quite often, right? So why shouldn't he show up today?” He wiped foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can tell you, if I had a place like this around our castle, I wouldn't mind going there every single night either.”

Samuel shook his head before he observed the men in the tavern again. There where two with a bald head, but one had a beard so full that it ruled him out of being considered an egg, and the other's head rather resembled the shape of a crate. A young, cheerful man on the opposite side turned to the woman with the curls and the dangerous shadow on her face. A friend of his stopped him before he could exchange any words with her, and he sank down again with his head between his shoulders. This one did have hair. A waste to pay any attention to him. “Where do you think the … the service is given?”

“What?” Hans needed a moment until he understood. “Oh. I reckon they take you to a room somewhere behind those two.” He nodded at the hawk and the knacker, then he winked. “So if you want to have some fun, you first need to get past them.”

“And why would I want that?”

“Because it would do you good to relax a little from time to time, you know?” He raised his mug again and didn't put it down until he had emptied at least half of it.

Cold, honey-sweet, strong. Ah, kurva. It would be foolish to drink now. To get distracted. Not in a place like this.

When he was finally done, Hans licked his lips, lowered his eyes. “You heard Žižka.”

Samuel hissed and felt his lust for a drink wane with the growing of new-found annoyance. “Loud and clear.”

They had just arrived at Emperor Charles's university when Žižka had already sent them off again. Hans had moaned of course, had complained that after all this he finally needed some sleep, while for Samuel the exhaustion had long become more efficient than the strongest wine in keeping him alert. Žižka had pulled Hans aside, his voice lowered, but well aware that Godwin, Katherine and even Samuel could all still hear him. “You can rest for days if you wish so once you're back, but right now I need this to be dealt with. I need answers, regarding our two prodigal sons and those pulling the strings behind Schwarzfeld and this informant he mentioned. And I need you there especially. Because you were the one who got this knowledge from Schwarzfeld, and because I cannot send the hothead alone. You need to keep an eye on him. And if he gets too much in the way of this mission, just get rid of him.”

Hans raised the mug to his mouth once more, but there was not a single drop left in it, and so he could do nothing but stare into the emptiness with disappointment. “It wouldn't be the worst idea, I suppose.”

“What? To get rid of me?”

“No.” He looked almost offended that Samuel even considered him to follow Žižka's command, and that helped ease the anger boiling in him a little. “To ask out one of the girls. Or the boys, if that's what you prefer.”

“I would prefer to just do our duty and then leave as soon as possible.”

“But they might know a thing or two. About Egghead, I mean. Some men have the tendency to talk while they do it. A lot.” It seemed as if he was speaking from experience, and Samuel was certain he didn't care to know the story behind it.

“I could also let my knife do the interrogation. Most men have the tendency to talk while a blade is pressed to their shvantz.” He clenched his jaw while his eyes drifted back over to the door. “A lot.”

Hans exhaled a long and heartfelt sigh. “You're really capable of sucking the fun out of everything, eh?”

A breeze of cold, fresh air in the thickness of the room. A man in the door frame, small and stout, reddened eyes that darted hastily around the room, a tongue shooting forward like that of a snake, licking his lips nervously. His bald head reflected the candlelight like the moon. A misshaped moon, that was. Round and wide at his chin, a pointed crown.

“That's him,” Hans breathed out, “It has to be him.”

It was. So that khazer Schwarzfeld had spoken the truth, at least in that regard. Time to find out whether he had also been truthful in others.

He managed to put one foot forward, before Hans stopped him right away. “No. We don't want to make him suspicious and scare him off. He needs to come to us on his own somehow.”

Or I could chase him out into some alleyway, give him a good khamalyah, and make him sing like a bird. Only that this time, other than with Schwarzfeld, they really needed the truth, not just a frightened song. And who would a man like this rather tell the truth than a drinking companion? Even more so when said companion had saved him from harm. “I'll take care of that.”

“What are you …”

He could feel Hans watching him nervously, as he made his way through the room. Most of the tables were taken and occupied up to the last chair. Only three empty seats were left in the whole tavern, the one opposite of Hans and two on the table of the group next to the curly-haired prostitute. Of course the latter was what the man headed for. If he truly was whom Schwarzfeld had claimed, he couldn't afford to draw the attention of some lonely stranger by sitting down and drinking with him.

Samuel quickened his steps, followed Egghead closely on his way. So close in fact that the other one had to notice him, and when Egghead looked back over his shoulder, Samuel was staring at him with such a cold and piercing gaze that it made him flinch. The hawk and the knacker were both watching him like wolves. Let them watch then. Nothing forbidden in strolling around a little.

Egghead made for one of the empty chairs, but when he turned again, Samuel was already standing right next to him, facing the talking group, but with his eyes run straight into Egghead like nails. He licked his lips again, let go off the chair and scurried away while casting nervous glances back over his shoulder at every step. This time Samuel didn't follow him. He watched yes, for a short while, and then he turned to the group indifferently as if he had been standing and conversing there the whole time.

He didn't dare to turn around again, but he could hear a chair being pulled back, and then Hans greeted somebody with loud and slurred words, that were either supposed to sound foolish or drunk. Both would be acceptable for a man like Egghead to think himself safe.

Hans called out for another ale, then he lowered his voice as he started talking. There was too much chatter, song and bellowing laughter at the other tables to understand a single word, and Samuel didn't dare to get closer now, not yet, didn't want to scare Egghead right off again.

One of the arguing men caught a fist to his face. This time, knacker didn't shout, he just stormed forward, crossed the room in a handful of long, firm steps, and grabbed the two brawlers by their lapels. Someone knocked over a mug of wine and the liquid filled the air with its strong odour, ran across the wooden floor like blood. A girl squeaked as a man put his hands between her legs, and she moved away with a feigned laugh, told him he had to pay if he wanted to feel it. On the windowsill next to him, the dark-eyed woman set herself into motion, walking forward gracefully, but quiet and fast, as if she was nothing more than a shadow that could have just as well been an illusion. There was something about her that seemed to make the men in the room keep their distance. Samuel wondered whether it was because of that danger in her eyes or because of the haze of sadness on her face or because of something else entirely.

“What?” One of the group had spoken up, a broad fella with a long scar across his left cheek and the glassy shimmer of drunkenness in his stare. “Don't you want to return to your master? Or are you jealous he found a new pup to play with?”

Samuel shot him a glare and turned. Don't say a word, don't start a fight, not in his exhausted state, not when this mattered so much. Not when his bruder was out there trying to set things right for them. Not when he had failed him once already.

But Hans was still talking, and Egghead still did nothing more than listen and drink, and Samuel felt his patience grow thinner. It was foolish to start a fight now, yes. But applying a little more pressure onto the screws sure wouldn't do too much harm.

Egghead raised his head when he heard Samuel approaching, and his skin took a greyish shade, giving him even more the perfect likeness of an egg. He wanted to stand up, but then Samuel had reached him already, and he fell down on his seat again, wrapping trembling fingers around his mug.

“Don't worry.” The slurred tone had vanished from Hans's voice. Perhaps he, too, had realised that this was getting nowhere. If only Hawk wasn't observing them still, he could have just dealt with Egghead the same way he had dealt with Schwarzfeld, not to hurt, only to scare him a little, he seemed like a guy easy to scare. “He's a friend of mine.”

“What do you want from me?” Egghead's voice was shaky and broken like the shadow of a willow's branches.

“I already told you. We just want to talk.”

“Is this about the girl?” The tongue darted out, wetted his chapped lips. “I swear, I didn't want to do it, but eh, have you seen her, I mean, every man would have done the same!”

“This isn't about the girl.”

“What girl?” Samuel figured it might just be about the girl now, because what Egghead hinted at there sounded like something that made him want to forget Hawk's and Knacker's presence completely.

Hans didn't seem to share the same sentiment, or if he did, he decided to ignore it. “We are here on behalf of two other people that you might have met. Friends of ours. Kubyenka and Janosh. Recognise their names?”

“I … I don't know.” Egghead raised the mug to his lips but his hands were trembling so much that he spilled beer and foam all over his chin. “The folk I meet with usually don't tell me names, and I'm certainly not asking.”

“They may have wanted to talk to you about leaving a certain band. No?”

“Many people do. It's always the same shit, get rid of someone, get out of somewhere, how should I remember …”

Samuel leaned forward and let the fingers of his left hand dance across the handle of his dagger. “Perhaps my messer can help you remember, hm? What do you think?”

“Sam!” A shout as heavy as Žižka's mace on his chest. “Don't.”

“But this is senseless.”

“Look,” Hans turned to Egghead again and reached forward in a reassuring gesture, taking Egghead's hand that glistened from beer and sweat. “We're not here to do more than talk. If you cooperate, none of us will do you any harm.”

“But perhaps that girl would like us to,” Samuel pressed out between his teeth.

The look Hans regarded him with was filled with annoyance and fury, and something else. Disappointment. You need to keep an eye on him, Žižka had said. And then he saw Henry's round eyes all squinted tight in anger. So I can trust you to follow orders? Damn it all.

Hans put his hand on his belt, untied his coin purse, threw it at Samuel. “Go and fuck a whore, alright?”

It took Samuel all his remaining strength, but then he groaned and nodded. It was true, exhaustion and frustration has got the better of him, he was irritated and Hans would manage on his own. And who knew what else the girls here were able to tell him.

He spoke a silent prayer of forgiveness for what he was about to do. Physical intimacy or not, paying for a woman as if she was merely some ware traded on the market felt not only like a betrayal of God but one of his people.

Knacker had returned to Hawk, and he clearly wasn't happy with Samuel approaching them. He tried to ignore it, looked only at Hawk instead, who seemed to manage the business around here anyway. “I would like to acquire the services of one of your women.”

Knacker pulled his top lift up in a wolfish growl. Hawk took a closer look at the purse Samuel presented to her, then she called Knacker off with a wave of her hand and a smile. “And which one of my doves would you like to … acquire?”

Samuel turned, examined the room. The girl with the swaying hips which Hans had admired before was sitting not too far away from him on the edge of a table, surrounded by men but her eyes locked with his expectantly. Behind her at the hearth, a woman with short, chestnut hair was bent over to fetch herself some food, the heat making her skin sweat, painting every curve of her body onto the dress she wore. At the end of the room stood the shadow. Samuel raised his hand. “Her.”

Hawk grabbed the purse from his hand as quickly as if she was afraid he could change his mind every next moment. “Well, good luck then, son.” She poured the coins into her palm, way more than this was worth probably, but Samuel didn't object. Then she handed the rest back to him and whistled.

For the blink of an eye, all motion and talk seemed to stop. The prostitutes raised their heads in anticipation, the men did too, in fear that their current playing toys could be taken from them. Hawk nodded to the other side of the tavern, and the shadow set herself into motion. Her expression changed as she walked over to Samuel like a white sheet of parchment now soaked in an ounce of black ink. Somewhat less sad, somewhat more dangerous. “Follow me,” she said, and her voice sounded just like she looked, like dark velvet, like a shadow, like danger.

She led him through the door that Hawk and Knacker had guarded, and into the corridor to an adjacent building. The same polished wood and dim candlelight, only that here the stench of smoke, roasted meat, sweat and wine couldn't reach, and Samuel allowed himself to savour the moment of freedom that his throat could feel, despite the lump that was beginning to form there. It wasn't only the immorality of what he was doing. It was that something about her that made him thankful he had his dagger in reach.

The stairs were run down by thousands of feet that must have walked them already. Somewhere above them a woman moaned quietly, while a man grunted in the same rhythm, and it sounded just like the woman was fighting with a wild boar. The candles crackled, the steps creaked. The shadow didn't speak a word. Now that Samuel couldn't see her face, she was really not much more than that. A flowing, red wine coloured dress, that looked almost pitch black in the faint light of the flames. Long, dark curls that seemed to vibrate like heavy air over dry fields on a midsummer's day, or maybe it was just his exhaustion playing tricks on his eyes.

Two floors they climbed up in complete silence, and she could have just as well led him to the gallows. Only that the hanging she offered, would leave her victim with some last sweet drops of pleasure. Or Samuel hoped so.

She opened a door and asked him to enter with a sweeping gesture of her hand and the softest, broken smile in her dark eyes. Samuel took a deep breath and prepared for the worst. It wasn't nearly enough.

On the first glance, the room was tidy and warm. It wasn't especially big, nor was it decorated with more than a fur rug in front of a large bed and a polished brass mirror in the corner. There was something else on the wall opposite the bed that Samuel first took for some kind of garland until he realised that it was chains. Chains of iron and silver and gold, shackles for wrists and ankles and necks.

He turned around to her with widened eyes, just as she sank down on the bed elegantly and with an expression that seemed almost smug. She had expected this. Had known that he wasn't aware of what she held hidden here, and she relished every moment of his surprise. Then she turned to light another candle on the table next to the bed. There were lots of candles on it, in all different shapes and sizes, and Samuel could only guess what they were good for other than burning a man alive. “So?” the shadow said, and it sounded more like cold marble now than warm velvet, “what would you like to begin with?”

He walked over to a simple wooden chair next to another tall, but narrow table, the only other two pieces of furniture in the room. The table was covered in devices that were neatly placed next to each other, a rope and a knife, a horse whip, a fire iron. He let his bandaged hand trail across the tools, without actually daring to touch anything. Then he turned, took a deep breath, sat down. The first surprise was gone, curiosity gained control in his mind. This might make things easier, he thought. Paid pleasure was an act he wouldn't, no, couldn't let anywhere near him. Pain, torture and death, now that were things he knew, things he had experienced.

The shadow laughed. “Alright. You want to talk a little first. That's fine too.”

“Is this,” he nodded at the bed, “your only profession?”

“My only …” She shook her head, hadn't expected that question. “Oh, I see, you're thinking of that baker girl down by the Vltava! Yes, I have heard it countless times, how similar we look, do not take it to heart, we get confused a lot.” She was joking. A trait of her character or a means to hide that he had managed to catch her by surprise as well?

“It's just that, seeing all this here, it looks more like you could be confused with an executioner.”

“An executioner? Oh no, love, when I use these, it's far from an execution. To some people it might even feel like a rebirth.”

“And who is it that gets,” he tried to put as much taunt into his words as he could, wanted to show her that he didn't mind playing her little game, “reborn by you?”

“Only men who deserve it.”

Samuel squinted his eyes. “So you are an executioner.”

“If that really were my role, men would hardly come here to seek me out on their own free will.”

“Do many men seek out your services?”

She waited with an answer, and Samuel held his breath. Too blunt, he thought, she noticed, she must have. “Well, every men is different in his tastes, as you muck likely know.” Her words came slower now, more careful, as if she was thinking every single piece of information over before she handed it to him. “Some get aroused by looking at a woman's bare feet. Others like to be called all sorts of insults and defamations. And some prefer,” she looked down at the table that stood between them, the tip of the knife pointed at Samuel's chest, “an execution.”

“Why are you doing this?” Not a question that would lead him anywhere perhaps, but it might help to ease the tension again, and it could not do any harm to understand her better first, to find out how she thought and felt.

“You mean, why I rather use this sort of service than showing men my bare feet?”

“I can see the reason for that. No, I meant why are you even working here? You are comely and smart,” not only flattery to manipulate her, but an honest observation. It didn't even get a smile out of her. “One would believe that a woman like you would have other options.”

“Like what?” Was she getting angry now? It was hard to tell. Her eyes were still covered by the shadow's veil, the marble in her voice was still cold as ice, but she spoke a little louder now, as if she got tired of a conversation she had had a dozen times before. “Like Nový Jeruzalem, Milíč's convent? That's not a life for me.”

“And this here is a better place for you than one where you would be safe?”

“Safe? Is the seclusion of the church safe? The dependence I would have to succumb to? Here, I have my freedom.” She pressed her small lips together, something flickered in her dark eyes, the reflection of the candles. The veil was showing its first rifts.

“And you think that you have freedom here? That here you can be independent? I did not pay you for your service, I paid the woman at the door. And now I am here in your room, and you have to listen to me talk, whether you want to or not. And if I were a different man, you might even have to be afraid of the knife on my belt.”

She shook her head, like a mother chiding a little boy. “I'm a woman. It doesn't matter whether I'm here or out on the street, I always have to be afraid of a man's knife.” The girl, Samuel thought, the one Egghead had mentioned. He clenched his left hand into a fist, the fingertips of his right one twitched. “Here at least,” her eyes wandered across the knife, the rope, the chains on the wall, “I have my means to defend myself. To scare them off.” She pursed her lips, raised a full brow. “Does it scare you off?”

He didn't reply with an answer but with a question himself, a precarious one. “Does it scare Egghead off?”

The veil ripped. Good, necessary, but dangerous. Her left hand was threateningly close to the candles, the table with the knife stood just in the middle of where they both were sitting. “Egghead?”

“He is bald. His head is rather egg-shaped. It is a telling name. He comes to this place a lot.”

“Why do you ask about him?”

It would have been easy, would have been smart to lie. Samuel didn't. Perhaps because he felt like he had already burdened her enough by choosing her, perhaps because the expression that was showing on her face under the broken veil of the shadow was that of fear. “Two friends of mine have gone missing. They might be in danger. Someone told us that this Egghead could know more about where they are and what happened to them, but I have the feeling we won't be getting much out of him.”

“I see.” She nodded. Understanding, sincere. “And I am sorry for you. But I cannot help you. I cannot simply talk about my buyers' secrets.”

“And I do not need to know them all, but we really have to find them. Their lives may depend on it.”

“Perhaps, but they're not alone in that.” Another rift, another corner of the veil lifted. Her eyes lowered to the ground, the fingers that were sprawled on the cushion of her bed clawed into the fabric.

“Is he a dangerous man?”

“Egghead?” She chuckled bitterly. “Well, who isn't?”

“But he is not the one you're afraid of. It is the one behind him, the one who pays him, gives him his orders.” Her lips were pressed together so tightly they almost disappeared completely. “Rosenberg?”

Her eyes shot up. Surprise and panic. “How do you …?”

“So it is true.” Žižka had told them of his suspicion on their way to Prague. Said that his past life might have finally caught up with him to bite him in the arse. Or shoot him in the back more likely. Heinrich of Rosenberg was no man to fuck with. A reputable lord, a gifted strategist, a cunning snake. Lurking in the high grass and waiting for the right moment to strike.

His eyes met with hers. Big, round pieces of coal, glimmering from the fire of fear. “Do not worry,” he told her. “We already assumed it before. There was much reason for it. No one will know that you were the one to confirm it. I will make sure that nobody finds out. I will not be putting you into any more danger.” That much he owed her.

She seemed relieved, as much as one could be in her position. The candles flickered, their light danced on the knife, on the fire iron, on the dangling shackles. Outside the curtained window, hooves were clopping, wheels rattled, a drunken voice sang in a language he didn't know, Hungarian perhaps. Janosh, Samuel thought, and scolded himself for his naivete.

She shifted her weight on the bed, waiting. There wasn't anything else she could tell him, and he wouldn't ask her. He could have stood up now. Could have left. Walked away from this house of pain and hopelessness. He didn't move.

“I am stealing your time, am I not? You could be,” he reached out his hand, gave the table a light push, “executing now.”

She smiled. The velvet was back, and something softer even, like down feathers. Samuel really needed sleep. “You paid for me. It's up to you how you'd like to pass that time.”

“Zikher.” He let his finger trail across the arm rest, feeling the cracks on it, the dents and cuts. “And if I just want to talk?”

She smiled. It seemed honest. “Then that's fine too.”

Metal reflecting the candlelight. The smell of leather and molten wax. Outside, the singing was disappearing somewhere in the distance.

“What is your name?”

“Mirtl.”

“Hm. My name is Samuel. If you should care about that.”

“I might.”

A monotonous hammering below them, as the girl finally finished her battle with the boar. Yet further down below in the tavern, another argument seemed to have started.

“What about your husband?”

“My husband?”

“You seem old enough to be married.”

“Should I take that as a compliment or an insult?”

Samuel shrugged his shoulders. “Just an observation. I could see a man disagreeing with his wife taking up a profession like this.”

“My husband can rot in Hell for all I care. And I can only pray that he already is.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, wanted to ask, but didn't. She had told him more than enough. A piece of shit. But at least a dead one. “I hope he was like a chandelier then.”

“I'm sorry?”

Hanging by day, burning by night. He left the explanation open. Replied instead with another question, the worst thing he could have asked, and he regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth, but the shackles blinded him with candlelight, and the chains of exhaustion had tied him down, and Janosh's singing had gone silent now, and so he said: “Are you a Christian?”

“What?”

Clay splintered. Someone cursed, someone shouted. Knacker's voice bellowed down in the tavern, so loud it seemed he couldn't be further away than the next room. Then a scream followed, the high-pitched scream of pain.

Mirtl jumped up, startled. So this wasn't the usual brawl then. And Hans had been alone the whole time, asking questions that might have been even more uncomfortable than his. Kurva.

Samuel ran for the door without another thought, heard Mirtl follow him closely, and just hoped that she would stay behind him so she would be safe. He didn't want to risk Egghead getting suspicious about their time spent up here alone, even more so when it was truly him causing that fight downstairs.

It took him just a moment to rush down the stairs, another one to push open the door to the tavern and register the chaos. He had been right, he noticed, and oh so wrong at the same time. Egghead had indeed started a fight with Hans, that was evident from the way both of them had their swords drawn and raised at each other. But they weren't the only ones. About half the men in the room had their weapons at the ready, some of them were going at each other's throats for some reason, most of them, however, were turned against Hans. Tables had been toppled over, beer and wine and thick blood turned the wooden floor into a river. Knacker was somewhere in the middle of it all, but he seemed to have long lost control of the situation.

Samuel stormed forward and slammed his shoulder into Egghead's back. It sent him stumbling forward, and he fell over a knocked down chair, hit his head on the wall. The tip of the egg broke open, leaking with brick-coloured egg yolk.

The grin Hans gave him was way too bright in the light of the situation. “Took you long enough!”

“And it didn't take you nearly as long as it should have,” Samuel hissed back. “Not even one day, and we are already in the midst of the next trouble.” He drew his dagger, looked around, but there were too many of them, and everyone was shouting something, and Knacker was throwing a man down on a table with a colourful curse, and the way to the door was fucking blocked.

“If the odds aren't against us like this, where is the fun?”

Samuel could not see any fun in this, and neither should Hans. Not when they were still bruised and broken from their last fight and hadn't slept in days.

“Samuel!”

He turned and evaded a clay tankard thrown for his head by just a hand's breadth. Mirtl was standing somewhere behind the hearth, waving wildly for him to come to her. Fine then. If she wanted to play Rahab, he wouldn't want to stop her.

He pulled Hans with him, as they jumped over shards and table legs. Mirtl held a broom in her hands tightly, and as soon as they made it into the kitchen, she pushed over the large cooking pot, made it fall to the ground and spill its boiling contents everywhere. “Through the window!” she shouted.

“Come with us!”

“I will hold them off.”

Hans climbed out first, so he could give Samuel support for the broken right hand. They almost tumbled over on the other side, but caught their balance in time, looked around. A backyard, windows and doors to the tavern and to the brothel and to other buildings. One door was bigger than the others, big enough to fit a carriage. “There!” Samuel ordered. “Out to the street!”

Prague was still crowded with people despite the time, or perhaps just because of it, out here in the quarter of whores and wine. It was easy to blend in, to walk eastwards for a while, until the air got fresher and the noise and stench finally ebbed down. Only then did they allow themselves rest. To pause for a while, to catch their breath.

Or to laugh, in Hans's case. Loud and snorting. “That,” he let out, a hand pressed to his side, “was quite the escape!” Then he took another deep breath, sighed, turned to Samuel and shook his head in utter disbelief, a wide grin still gracing his face. “I send you off to enjoy yourself for once, just once in your life. And you return with that devil of a wench!”

#self reblog #because it‘s saturday again but there won‘t be a new chapter today only next weekend #need to get a little bit of a headstart for once #also this way you have even more time to read this one and catch up yay!#so read it.#now.#you would regret it if you don‘t 👿

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