The Heretic by David Pilling

Author:David Pilling [Pilling, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B01FECRGAK
Published: 2016-05-07T23:00:00+00:00

I thought he had gone mad. Our only hope of victory was to stay behind the wagons and soak up pressure. Granted, it was a slender hope. Sigismund held all the advantages.

Men ran towards the enclosure at the rear of our position. The dray horses were kept here, inside a fence of chains and stakes. These beasts were more precious than our limited number of cavalry horses. Without them the wagons were stranded. Zizka had placed them at the rear, as far as possible from enemy gunfire.

A Hussite archer beckoned at me. “Come, Englis,” he shouted, “don't stand there gaping like a scarecrow. Make yourself useful.”

I went after him, and together we joined the crowd of bodies surging towards the enclosure. Some of the horses had already been dragged out. Their usually placid temper was shattered by the din and stench of battle. One of the huge beasts kicked out and broke a man’s thigh. Others plunged and fought wildly against the men struggling to bring them under control.

We laboured to get the horses yoked to their wagons. I was worse than useless, repeatedly barged over, kicked several times, almost had my fingers bitten off. At last I gave up and limped away to nurse my bruised hand. This was work for peasants, not gentlemen. As our men laboured to get the beasts harnessed, officers moved among them with lanterns, rasping out a single order:

“Umlčet!” (Silence!)

Fortunately the royalists were complacent. The troops in Sigismund’s camp gambled, drank and sang, while their comrades inside Kutna Hora practised all the usual evils on defenceless citizens. Their cruelty lived long in the memory of Bohemia, fuelling a hatred that shall, I suspect, never quite die away.

As we struggled with the horses, the wagons were unchained and shifted into line of march. The smaller baggage wagons were put in the centre and the war-wagons in wide columns on the flanks.

I lent my shoulder to the task of pushing the wagons into column. This was also no fit work for a gentleman, shoving farm carts about in the snow, but I couldn't stand idle for long. Too many of the Hussites still regarded me with suspicion.

Eventually the job was done. Not a soul was left behind. The wounded were carried into the baggage wagons at the rear, while even the dead were loaded aboard, to be given proper Christian burial once the army was safe. Our cavalry were drawn up behind the wagons, commanded by Lord Cenek. I retrieved my horse and joined them.

Zizka’s strategy was obvious. Rather than attack Sigismund, he meant to roll his wagons forward in a single compact body and smash through the royalist lines. Victory at Kutna Hora was impossible, given our position and the numbers ranged against us, yet the army could still escape and fight another day.

Lord Cenek spotted me among the ranks of his cavalry. “Sir John,” he drawled, lifting his visor (he was one of the few Hussites to use my proper name), “I'll wager my second best destrier you wish you were back in England.

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