The Forlorn Hope

I

“Rejoice, ye who abide within the camp of the saints!”

The Reverend Hájek lifted his crosier above his head like a corpulent Moses striving to summon motion from a sea of wan, sunken faces. He searched them for a vestige of acknowledgement. The mouthing of a hosanna. But the congregation did nothing save behold him with taut anticipation. It occurred to him that if his crosier turned into a serpent, his parishioners would only prostrate themselves in their attempts to eat it.

He strove to mask his disgust from the unwashed peasants thronging the courtyard. Their stench comingled with the drifting tang of black powder, creating a reek no incense could exorcise. They were an unworthy flock, especially for one who had served the Elector of Mainz.

This accursed siege.

He thought of the heretic babblers that now made their beds in his rectory in Prague while he, a man of letters, rotted in this dung heap of a fortress. He thought of them spewing perfidy to mesmerised crowds while he cast his theological pearls to swine.

This thrice-damned revolt.

The reverend swallowed his anger, manifold chins bulging.

“We are beleaguered on all sides by Lucifer’s host. We are wracked sore with hunger and divers afflictions. But friends, we reside safe within the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Wherefore should we be downcast? We cleave unto the unmovable rock no cannonade or evil doctrine can prevail against. Though our walls of stone may crumble, we may yet gird our hearts with impenetrable joy, assured in the knowledge that we are covered by the sacraments.”

White tongues raked across flaking lips.

“Our foes cleave to the ravings of Huss, Calvin and Luther! They would do as well to cleave unto Gog and Magog! They believe they have woven a pretty snare about us, but they confound themselves. Oh my friends, consider well how glorious it shall be on that day, and it may be any day now. That great day when our emperor’s armies arrive to scatter our enemies headlong into hell!”

As if in angered retort, arquebus fire crackled beyond the wall. Their percussion was brought to a climax by a falconet blast which, after a great sigh of riven air, shattered part of the turret atop the gate.

The reverend hastily stammered the trinitarian formula. The congregation rushed forth slavering, their eyes fixed on the box containing the sacramental bread. The first to arrive took the knee and received the flesh of Christ flaccidly. But it was not long before the site of the fast-diminishing wafers became too much. A young man dove for the box, sending the reverend flying into the mud. This would-be thief was soon enveloped by the skeletal throng, who thrashed and pummelled furiously. When at last the soldiers managed to disperse the mob with their billhooks, they revealed an eyeless corpse cratered with bitemarks.

II

Sister Zedina knelt before the altar in her cell and prayed. The candle cast a flickering light upon her bloody habit. Just as she had done for the past thirty days, she exhorted the almighty to protect the soldiers she had tended to on the battlements. She strove to set her mind on the Blessed Virgin, and not their grasping hands and open wounds. They would be waiting for her tomorrow.

As the pangs of hunger pressed her, Zedina thanked the Lord that man did not live on bread alone. She crossed herself and wet her fingers to extinguish the candle. Before she could do so, a hand emerged from the shadows to cover her mouth.

“Do not be dismayed, good sister. I mean no harm.”

Zedina immediately recognised the intruder. It was Jakub, a young arquebusier. Earlier that day, he had held down a German while she had cauterised a wound in the man’s flank. Though his eyes were sharp and lively, the past thirty days had aged him thirty years.

“It grieves me to steal into thy chamber, but there is something I would tell you lest my conscience scourge me. Scream not, I pray thee.”

He released his hand and Zedina fell back trembling.

“What injury have I done you?” she hissed. “If we are discovered, we shall both burn.”

Jakub fished a pamphlet from his pocket.

“We have been misled, sister. The enemy who surrounds us are not blood drinkers. They only believe that a man should have the right to read the scriptures himself and commune with his maker without an intercessor. The pope is a whoremonger. He and his bishops grow fat and wallow in splendour while those who seek God in earnest perish for lack of wisdom. All is contained within.”

Jakub passed the pamphlet to Zedina and closed her hand upon it.

“This was sent me by my brother, who is a captain among the Palatinate besiegers. I go to join him tonight. Come with me, sister. Thy healing arts are spent in error in this sty.”

Zedina beheld the outstretched hand. As she made to clasp it, the remembrance of her vows gushed forth like an icy tide against the heat of temptation. She smote Jakub’s cheek.

“Leave now, sir. May God forgive your blasphemy.”

He fixed her with a sorrowful smile before making for the window.

“As you wish. Should God bring you to repentance, hang a garment from thy window so that I shall know to come. Consider, Rahab was a whore, and you are as pure as a lily. How much more will God reward thee?”

III

The naked man stumbled across the open ground toward the besiegers, mouth agape in a silent howl.

“He is bewitched,” said Zedina, peering down from the parapet.

“Nay, sister. He is mad,” said the marksman, tapping his powder flask into the pan. “Assuredly, I’d be mad if I came home to find my wife had cooked my young lad in a stew.”

He pushed the snout of his matchlock through the arrowslit and cured the man with a pealing burst of lead. As the whining faded from Zedina’s ears, she could hear the reverend summoning her.

IV

“Remember, you are to deny the margrave nothing.”

The reverend and the nun walked briskly through the fortress’ keep, their footsteps echoing on the stones. Zedina rubbed her shoulder. The reverend had ordered that she exchange her habit for a bodice with a low neckline, and the lacework chafed terribly.

“Zounds, child!” barked Hájek. “Must you look so dour? The margrave has chosen you to be his cup bearer. The girl you replace has been disfigured by buboes. Do not disfigure thyself with a gloomy countenance. If the margrave is displeased in you, he is displeased in me.”

They came to a latched door manned by a halberdier.

“Your grace. Madam,” he said, revealing a graveyard of rotten teeth. “This way, if you please.”

The halberdier swung open the door and Zedina stifled a gasp.

Beyond lay a walled garden, exquisitely manicured and hedged with rosebushes. Youths in silk doublets lobbed lawn bowls. Several reclined on the grass, sipping wine and feeding confits to their tittering maids. Somewhere, a minstrel was caressing a largo from a harpsichord.

At the centre of this cloistered Eden, a pear tree blossomed. Its limbs, heavy with ripe fruit, stretched high into the smoke-marred sky. The margrave posed beneath it in his suit of armour, fixing his painter with a weary scowl.

“Your Lordship,” the halberdier boomed, “May I present…”

“Yes, yes,” the margrave snarled irritably, dismissing the man before turning to Hájek and issuing a groan.

“Behold how I suffer, reverend. He’s had me standing this way for hours.”

The painter glanced out from behind the canvas, his bearded face squinched with pleading.

“Be still, sir. I beseech ye.”

“See?” the margrave grunted. “Still, far be it from me to question a master’s methods. He’s Flemish, you know. The best. He is depicting me as King Xerxes beholding the plane tree, though I confess I feel more like a potted lobster.”

Hájek laughed exaggeratedly, pushing Zedina forward. She bowed meekly.

“As requested, Your Lordship. I hope she is to your liking.”

The margrave looked her up and down grimly before snapping his fingers. A serving boy emerged from an alcove to feed him grapes.

“She’ll suffice,” he said through a mouthful of pulp. “These are trying times.”

V

The moon glared down upon the torch-lit garden through a cataract of smog.

The minstrel had traded his harpsichord for a lute. He strummed it merrily, clucking a tavern ditty he had learnt in Magdeburg. The young men garbled the verses off tempo, shoving one another and guffawing.

Sergeant Rychnovský strode through the debauchery, helmet in the crook of his arm. He found his lord reclining beneath a pear tree on a velvet couch.

“Ah! The gallant knight approaches!” slurred the margrave. “What news from the walls?”

“Your Lordship,” Rychnovský said slowly. “The foe may be upon us any day. Our men have not the constitution to fight. They starve…”

“Surely not,” the margrave scoffed. “The reverend tells me there’s stores enough to last another fortnight. Have faith, sir!”

“Your Lordship,” Rychnovský sunk to one knee. “If we do not quit the fortress now, we shall be torn to pieces. Let us depart. Our scouts report the passage beneath Campanus’ farm is yet clear.”

“Get up, man. Drink deep and calm thyself.”

The margrave raised a gloved hand. A bruised, startled young woman tottered forth bearing libations. Something about her reminded Rychnovský of one of the nuns he had seen on the battlements, tending to wounds and plying the rosary. He denied the offering.

“Consider my position,” the margrave said, attempting to affect a sober air. “I have it on good authority that the Count of Tilly is marching to our aid with five-thousand Spaniards. If I quit this enclave with his host so near, it will be to my everlasting shame.”

“Food, then. These pears may sustain us yet awhile,” rasped Rychnovský, his pink eyes scouring the tree. He pictured the margrave’s bloated corpse hanging from a bough. He let the thought linger.

“I’m afraid that is quite impossible. At least for the time being. You see?”

The margrave pointed to the canvas that bore his likeness.

“The painter’s Flemish, you know. The best. He’s not quite done with the tree, as you can observe. If there is a pear out of place, he will be furious. He does insist on a true likeness.”

VI

“Sister Zedina!”

Jakub made his way through the looting Palatinate hoards. Through labyrinths of barrels, palisades and upturned carts.

“Sister Zedina!”

He blessed her beneficence in one breath and cursed her stubbornness in the next.

The night before, he had seen the garment hanging from her tower.

He had entered once more in secret, found her beaten and defiled.

She had told him of the passageway beneath the farm. The passageway that had given the army of the Risen Christ possession of the fortress – walls intact. She had admitted every word of the pamphlet true, yet she would not go with him. She clung to the small cross in her room as if to let go was to fall into an abyss.

At the end of the labyrinth, he found her. One Hussite bound her hands to the pyre while another tested the kindling beneath her feet.

“Release her!” screamed Jakub. “She is the cause of our success!”

“Captain’s orders,” said the man at the kindling. “She may be a Rahab, but she’s still a papist whore.”

“Hell is too good for such as her,” said the other Hussite, leaning close to Zedina's ear. “Probably has a snare set for us in this fortress yet. You know not how our men starved, Jakub. How we starved waiting to take hold of this place.”

The Hussite bit deeply into a pear and spat the pulp into the Zedina’s face. She tasted its sweetness and fixed her eyes skyward.