The Heretic

by David Pilling

  Trumpets blared as I stumbled away, blood seeping through my fingers as I clapped a hand to my mouth. I crashed into a body, fell over, scraped my knees on bare stone. Through the wordless singing in my ears, I faintly heard the wet crunch of steel chopping into bone. A man screamed, very near. The scream died as he plunged into the abyss mere inches to my right.

  “Fall back! Retreat!”

  These orders, bellowed in a hoarse yell, rose above the muddled din of close-quarter fighting. We were overrun. The enemy had the wall.

  I got up and blundered towards the nearest stair. Shadows of fighting men rose and fell before me, the glint of weapons, the spray of hot blood. A sword flashed before my eyes. I ducked under it, reached the steps, half-fell, half-rolled down to the street.

  For a moment I lay on my front, wondering where the hell I was. A strong hand gripped the back of my neck and dragged me up.

  “Move, Englis!” Krusina's bull-horn of a voice tore through my head, “move, or you're done for!”

  I tried to get up and run. My legs gave way, so he scooped me up and carried me over his brawny shoulder. The sound of fighting ebbed a little as he fled down a street. Other men ran alongside us, a handful of survivors.

  At last we stopped. Krusina laid me carefully against the side of an abandoned wheelbarrow, tilted my head up and forced some watered ale down my throat. After a few seconds my vision started to clear.

  “Better, Englis?” he asked, bending over me with a look of genuine concern in his little eyes. I nodded and climbed groggily to my feet, leaning on the barrow for support. (‘Jan Englis' or John the Englishman, I should say, was the nickname my Bohemian comrades bestowed on me.)

  Looking around, I saw just eight of us had survived the last German assault. Eight, of the company of fifty despatched from Rabi to join the garrison at Zatec.

  “We can't let the Germans get inside the town,” I mumbled, spitting blood and ale, “must go back. Stop them.”

  I am no kind of hero – heroes don't survive as long as I have – but our late captain was quite right. Once the enemy got a foothold inside the town, Zatec was lost. We could retreat to the castle, but the Margrave had brought enough guns with him to batter it into submission within a day or two. His aim was to secure a quick victory, storm Zatec, pick it clean and march on before the Hussite army at Slane had a chance to react.

  “I won't go back,” gasped Menhard, another of the survivors, “I'm finished. I've had enough. Let them have the town, and welcome.”

  Menhard was no coward, but every man has his limits. He could barely hold himself upright, and there was an ominous black stain under his armpit. His blood splattered the cobbles.

  “Zizka will come,” said Krusina, clasping his hands, “Zizka will come and save us.”

  The brute's childlike faith in Zizka was almost touching. I didn't have the heart to tell him his hero was finished, slowly expiring in Prague under the knives of his surgeons. Probably dead already. Certainly blinded. Even if he lived, what salvation could we expect from a crippled old man?

  I looked around the other faces, pale and haggard and hollow-eyed, almost unrecognisable under masks of filth. All the fight was knocked out of them. I tried to find some inspiring words, pull these wretches up by their chin-straps and lead them back to the slaughter.

  A company of Hussites stampeded into view. Our long-awaited reinforcements, led by a Bohemian knight with a golden eagle on his surcoat and a priest wielding a ceremonial axe. In his left hand he carried a banner displaying the symbol of the Hussites, a red chalice against a black field.

  We stood back to let them pass. “Follow, brothers!” howled the priest as he sped by, his robe hitched up to his knees, sandalled feet flapping over the cobbles, “trust in Christ!”

  They charged on towards the post we had abandoned. A strange calm descended after they had gone, one of those unnatural lulls that sometimes occur in the middle of a battle. My head had cleared somewhat, though the clamour of distant bells still reverberated inside the depths of my skull. I winced, and spat out the rank, coppery taste of blood.

  I had lost my sword, probably when I tumbled down the steps. “Give me a weapon,” I said, glancing around at my comrades, “we have to go back.”

  Menhard offered me his mace. It was a popular weapon among the Hussites, a glorified club, needing only a strong arm to wield.

  “Take it,” he said, “I'll stay here awhile and rest.”

  We all knew what he meant. I took the mace, while he gently slumped against the wall. One man unclasped his cloak and draped it over the dying man's shoulders. Another gave Menhard his flask.

  “Rest easy,” said Krusina. Menhard nodded, rested his head against the stonework and shut his eyes.

  Seven of us remained. We trudged back towards the sound of fighting. Something about the raw, visceral noise lit fresh fires inside me. I forgot the pain of my overstretched muscles, the throbbing bruise on my head.

  I started to jog. My comrades followed in silence. We turned a corner to see the fight laid about before us: a struggling crowd of bodies at the foot of the wall, Hussites and Germans all mixed up together, swords and axes and sawn-off lances stabbing and hacking, the plain russet coats and smocks of our men contrasting starkly with the bright jupons and gleaming steel of German knights. The din of weapons and voices was echoed by the distant thump of enemy rams smashing against the gates.

  “Hus!”

  The war-cry came from the priest. He was halfway up the steps, holding aloft his holy banner, red beard jutting like a spade as he laid about him. The tendons of his slender white arm shuddered with the effort of swinging his axe.

  A broadsword clove the top of his head. Watery brains splattered the men below as he fell, limbs flailing, Hus' name frozen on his lips. Enraged by his death, the Hussites pressed forward. The knight of the golden eagle snatched up the fallen banner and hacked down two German halberdiers, his sword gleaming in the half-light.

  I ran to the wall and clubbed a German from behind just as he lifted his axe to stove in a fallen Hussite's skull. Another whirled to face me, a man-at-arms in light mail, yellow teeth bared in a snarl, sword and dagger slick with blood. I swung the mace at him with all my strength. Teeth, bone and cartilage snapped under the impact of the spiked iron head. He flopped to the ground, unconscious and horribly mutilated.

  Krusina plunged past me, roaring like a mad bull. He also wielded a mace, and brought it down with sickening force onto a German bascinet. The left side of his victim's helm crumpled with a force that must have broken the skull inside.

  “Drive them!” shouted a harsh Bohemian voice, “drive the Godless pigs back over the wall! No mercy! Kill those who surrender!”

  The Germans gave ground, a fighting retreat back up the steps to the walkway. The bravest of them formed a wedge at the top of the stair, holding us off while their comrades escaped.

  Our soldiers, drunk on blood, howled in frustrated anger. They clawed and slashed at the German rearguard like animals, dragging each man down in turn and tearing him to pieces. Some unwisely dropped their weapons and tried to surrender.

  “Quarter!” I shouted hoarsely, “give them quarter!”

  None heeded me. I could only watch, appalled, until the butchery was done. The heads and privy members of the dead men were severed and held aloft, impaled on the end of pikes. Our soldiers, drunk on blood, brandished the ghastly trophies and crowed in triumph.

  That was the fourth German assault. Everywhere their storming parties were thrown back, at a terrible cost in lives on both sides. Unlike us, they had plenty of fresh meat to toss into the fray.

  Two more of my decimated company were killed in the fight at the wall. A third was struck on the knee by a warhammer. He moaned pitifully as I helped to carry him to the cluster of medical tents just outside the castle gates. Two exhausted surgeon's mates, their aprons rank with blood, strapped him down on a filthy board and poked at the broken limb.

  “
It will have to come off,” one said. I nodded wearily, and left them to their grim work.

  The stench of the medical tent was typically foul, a stomach-churning mix of sweat and blood, excrement and terror. Men screamed as the sawbones stitched and hacked at their ruined bodies. Severed limbs were dumped in buckets and carried out by assistants, to be dumped in a ditch. Priests muttered the last rites over those with no hope of recovery. I saw one man singing drunkenly through the side of his mouth, the rest of which was stitched up like a football. A sword had pared off half his face, taking one eye and exposing the network of muscle and bone underneath.

  I hurried out and found a quiet nook of the deserted castle guardroom. Krusina followed, carrying two bulging wineskins. He tossed one at me, ripped out the cork from the other and gulped down the contents.

  “We should go back,” he said, wiping the spillage from his beard, “the German swine won't let us rest for long.”

  I leaned my head against the wall. There was something comforting about the touch of cold stone. Occasionally the entire castle trembled, like a living body, under the impact of the German guns. They crashed and boomed relentlessly, the prelude to yet another assault.

  “You go,” I said, “I'll rest here awhile.”

  “The marshals would call that desertion,” he warned, “if they find you here, they'll kill you.”

  I smiled indifferently. “My head is forfeit anyway. So is yours. What difference does it make? A Bohemian blade is just as good as a German one.”

  He shrugged his massive shoulders and left, closing the door behind him. I settled down in my window seat and closed my eyes. Sleep seemed impossible, thanks to the noise of the doomed wretches in the medical tents and the crash of cannon. Still, I was determined to try.

  Waves of fatigue battered me, just as sea-waves battered against the shores of Sussex. I drifted back through memory into a world of grey waves, gentle green hills and fields full of golden wheat, steadily ripening under bright sunshine. The old manor house at Kingshook drowsed in the summer heat. Peasants, their weathered faces burned brown by the sun, laboured in our fields. I ran in the woods and orchards, free as the wind. My mother, cross as usual, stood in the doorway of the house, shouting my name...

  “Englis! Englis, help me!”

  I was jerked awake by the scream. Krusina's voice. He sounded in terrible pain. I reluctantly uncoiled and staggered outside.

  It had taken four men to carry his vast bulk. There were no spare boards, so they laid him on the grass just inside the nearest tent. An axe had cut into his side, breaking several ribs and doing untold damage to his innards. His padded jack was soaked in blood. More flowed from two broken spears lodged in his midriff.

  “The Germans tried again on the eastern wall,” panted one of the men who had carried him, “we threw them back, largely thanks to this monster.”

  “You should have seen him fight!” enthused another, “he killed three of the whoresons with his bare hands. Even with the spears in him, he kept on fighting. He stayed on his feet until the Germans turned and ran.”

  “Then he fell,” I said quietly. Krusina's breath came in shallow gasps, his face drained of colour. I saw the familiar shadow of death creep across his brow. Wise men say the shadow is just a fable, a figment of weak minds, but I have seen that loathsome wraith crawl across the faces of too many dying friends to doubt its existence.

  The giant didn't relinquish his grip on life easily. All night he fought against death, his huge body shuddering with the tension of that silent battle.

  “Zizka will come,” he whispered constantly, “Zizka will come.”

  I sat beside him and held his hand. Meanwhile the guns roared and the casualties continued to trickle in. The German commanders were stubborn. Even after five failed attempts to storm Zatec, they tried again for a sixth and last time. Perhaps they hoped the sheer weight of flesh and iron would break our overstretched defenders.

  This time the fight raged until after midnight. Incredibly, we held them off, though I cannot claim any share in our garrison's heroic, last-ditch resistance. While the fight raged, I sat by a dying man's side, swilled wine and tried to comfort him with snatches of English country ballads dredged up from my youth.

  “Zizka will come...he will come...”

  Krusina died in the early hours of the morning, still muttering the name of his hero. I had long since finished the wine. Slow tears dripped down my cheeks as his hand slackened in mine, and the enormous body ceased to breathe.

  Some time afterwards I heard a single bell ring through the streets of Zatec. It was followed by the wild beating of a drum, and men shouting in cracked, almost hysterical voices:

  “Zizka! Zizka! Zizka!”

  My dead comrade's faith was vindicated. Zizka had come after all.

  11.

  God bless the ineptitude of King Sigismund. If he had judged his invasion properly, the Hussites would have been crushed between two forces, like a nut in a vice. Instead he dawdled, collecting more troops from his Austrian allies (as if his army wasn't large enough) even as the Germans rumbled into Bohemia from the west, smashed aside our flimsy outposts and laid siege to Zatec.

  Hardly able to believe their good fortune, the Hussites encamped at Slane hurried to relieve the town. They were inspired by Zizka, who had risen, Lazarus-like, from his deathbed in Prague. Blind and enfeebled, he still insisted on riding at the head of his troops. Our army arrived just before dawn, while the exhausted and dispirited Germans were recovering from their latest failed assault.

  Zizka knew how to play on his fearsome reputation. For once he doffed his plain workaday armour and donned a suit of gleaming silver plate, the best the Prague armouries could provide. He rode a magnificent dappled grey charger, and went bareheaded, his eyes covered by a red sash, broadsword in one hand, mace in the other. His charger was led by an esquire on foot, while two knights followed discreetly behind.

  The effect on the Germans was devastating. The news of Zizka's demise had quickly spread to their country, and yet here he was at the head of his army, having apparently conquered death itself.

  I made my way to the rampart over the eastern gate. From here I witnessed the swift collapse of the German host. Seized by panic at the mere sight of Zizka, the infantry took to their heels and streamed away to the west. They abandoned everything: tents, equipment, horses, supplies.

  Many of the German nobles followed, the Margrave himself and the archbishops showing the way. I laughed to watch them gallop away, all their dignity and self-importance left behind with the baggage, the churchmen still in their nightshirts. They were closely followed by a rabble of servants and priests and soldiers, even the bravest overcome with terror, the sudden unreasoning panic that can overcome the greatest of armies.

  Only a handful of crusaders, the cream of their fighting men, were too proud to run. These were the Iron Knights of Strakonic, a famous knightly order, so-called because of the strength and thickness of their heavy plate armour. While their comrades fled in disgraceful rout, they gathered together in a square, having first dismounted and driven away their horses. Lances levelled, they dared the Hussites to come on, taunting them with the cry “Ha! Ha! Hus, Hus – Ketzer! Ketzer!” - Heretic! Heretic!

  They had forgotten the garrison. The gates were flung open and our horsemen charged out, followed by a horde of infantry. Our cavalry were few, but enough to disrupt the rear ranks of the crusaders, which broke up into a disordered mass of fighting men and whinnying horses.

  Moments later our infantry ploughed into the melee, priests and citizens and peasants roaring hymns as they dragged down the outnumbered knights. Some were held down and clubbed to death, their helms beaten to pulp, others knifed through their visors. No quarter was given. The merciless atrocities committed by the crusaders during their invasion had roused furious hatred among the Hussites. Now the enemy were made to pay.

  A witness, watching the battle from a safe distance, might have observe
d a lone soldier ambling in the wake of his comrades. This man was in no hurry to join in the bloodshed. Instead he made his way to the largest of the empty German pavilions and helped himself to the rich pickings inside.

  It was like stumbling into a dragon's hoard. For an hour or so I rummaged merrily through piles of rich vestments embroidered with precious stones; chests stuffed to overflowing with gleaming jewels, gold coin, crucifixes, pyxes, gold-enamelled books of hours; robes of Byzantine silk, all manner of costly garments, ruinously expensive suits of plate armour forged of Spanish and Italian steel; swords with blades like polished glass and silver or gold-plated hilts inscribed with personal mottos.

  Once the last embers of German resistance were stamped out, the Hussites also fell to plundering. Zizka and his generals made no effort to stop us – indeed, they sent their own esquires to take a share of the spoils. This was God's bounty, after all, liberated from the hands of His enemies. It was done in a fair and disciplined fashion, with officers dividing the loot among their men. A few of the rougher spirits ran wild, of course. It was high comedy to witness these raw-faced country loons staggering about under the weight of great heaps of glittering trinkets, like crazed magpies, totally ignorant of the value of the things they stole.

  I contented myself with a pair of white doeskin gloves, a fine sabre and dagger, and some pieces of superb Italian armour to replace the old battered stuff I had worn since Baugé. I also picked out a dark blue cloak trimmed with rabbit fur, which I liked to think had once graced the holy form of an archbishop, as well as some other carefully chosen valuables. These included a thick leather purse, pilfered from the tent of a German baron. I needed it to carry all the gold and silver coin I took from his money-box.

  Fatal defeat was averted at Zatec, largely thanks to the heroism of Jan Zizka, and Bohemia granted space to breathe again. It also ended well for me, if not for so many my comrades. I was not only alive and whole, but rich, which is all a soldier can ask for.