The square exploded.
"Long live King Ulrich!!"
A shout loud enough to deafen became one enormous wave and swallowed the square.
The whole of Prague was covered over by a single name.
Slowly lowering the sword I had raised high, I looked down at the thousands in the crowd stretching their hands toward me and weeping.
János and the soldiers standing beside me were overwhelmed by the sight, but I myself was chillingly cold in the middle of all this frenzy.
'This is populism.'
Presenting a despairing populace with a single enemy to explain their suffering. And putting oneself forward as the sole savior.
In modern politics it would be the method of agitation most guarded against and most criticized, but here in the square of fifteenth-century Prague it was a weapon more powerful than any frontal approach.
I had never had any intention of going to the cunning nobles and pedantic theologians of the city council and persuading them on their own terms.
Why should I have to dance on a board they had laid out?
Instead I came straight to the square. And I set out a clear enemy for that ignorant but guileless populace.
The corrupt Pope, the greedy emperor, the degenerate priests.
That because of them you go hungry, because of them your sons died, because of them the glory of Bohemia has been soiled.
How difficult it is in practice to be rid of them does not matter in this moment.
'What matters is the fact that the citizens have accepted me as their savior in this very moment.'
Turning my back on the square where the shouting was bursting out, I looked toward the direction of the city council building.
A building of red brick, imposing yet somehow looking of an older age.
'Now those cunning old men have no room to choose.'
I had not come to beg for a crown.
I had come to create a situation in which failing to offer up the crown meant making an enemy of all Prague, a situation in which their own lives and property would be in peril.
"Whoaaaaaah!!"
And just now, by turning the entire citizenry of Prague into fanatical supporters, I had achieved that aim perfectly.
That was when it happened.
BANG!
The heavy door of the town hall was flung open, and men splendidly decked out in costly furs and silks came scrambling out.
The moderate nobles of Prague, the city councilors, the wealthy guild masters.
The true rulers of this city.
They stood there blankly, as though they could not believe the scene unfolding before their eyes.
The citizens of Prague, whom they were supposed to control and lead, were in a frenzy, crying "king" at a young noble from the frontier whom they had never seen or heard of.
János spoke in a voice full of satisfaction.
"My liege, the old foxes have come out. Look at their faces. They look like they have chewed on dung."
"They would. I have just taken from them their most powerful weapon."
The weapon of the people's will, that is.
The gazes of the Hussite leaders turned toward Ulrich.
In their eyes were open hostility, bewilderment, and a confusion they could not quite hide.
Their heads must be complicated to the point of bursting. By rights they ought to declare me a traitor and arrest me on the spot, but if they did, it was obvious they would be torn apart alive by that enraged crowd.
"My liege, what will you do now? They hardly look ready to offer up a crown meekly."
"Do not worry. They have no options."
That was right. They could no longer oppose me.
To oppose me was the same as making an enemy of all Prague, which filled this square. And that was perfect suicide, politically and physically alike.
I tugged lightly at the reins and turned my horse's head toward the town hall.
The crowd opened a path like the miracle of Moses.
People stretched out their hands as if to touch even the hem of my clothes, and there were some who kissed the road where I had passed.
János and the soldiers gripped their hilts and tensed against any possible threat, but what came from the crowd was nothing but pure adoration and frenzy.
The Hussite leaders looked at me with hardened faces. Among them was a familiar face.
One of the commanders who had attacked Šternberk before.
"Well met. I am Ulrich von Šternberk."
"...I am Hynek Krušina of Lichtenburg."
I inclined my head and looked over the other nobles standing behind him.
"Sir Krušina. And noble gentlemen of the Prague council. Have you heard the citizens' voices well enough?"
After a long silence, Krušina forced up the corners of his mouth.
He produced a smile that was no smile, and his voice trembled minutely with suppressed rage.
"We welcome... the noble lord of Šternberk. Our council too has been deeply impressed by this 'ardent' welcome from the citizens of Prague."
He put a force into the word 'ardent' as though he were spitting poison with it.
"Please come inside... and let us discuss together your 'rightful' claim. The city council is always open for the future of Bohemia."
"Discuss. Very well."
Still looking down at them from horseback, I answered.
"But it seems you must first observe the proper courtesies. There is no custom of ordering a man who is to be King of Bohemia to dismount first."
At those words Krušina's face flushed scarlet. The other nobles around him likewise murmured with expressions full of affront.
"What did you just say...!"
"Did you not hear the citizens' voices? They are calling me king. Or is it that you mean to defy the will of the citizens of Prague?"
My gaze turned to the crowd behind Krušina, still shouting. Turning his head to follow that gaze, Krušina bit his lip.
Provoking that frenzied crowd would be pouring oil on a fire.
"Kh...!"
A long and humiliating silence.
Krušina exchanged brief glances with the other nobles, then reluctantly went down on one knee. At that the other nobles followed him, grinding their teeth.
"Whoaaaah!!"
Seeing the sight, a frenzied cheer burst out of the crowd once again. The nobles had knelt to their king.
Only then did I dismount. Handing the reins to János, I looked arrogantly down at the crowns of the kneeling nobles' heads.
"Good. Now I shall gladly hear about your future."
***
Once the heavy oak door closed, the shouting of the crowd that had shaken the square of Prague receded as though it had all been a lie.
Inside and outside were entirely different worlds. If outside was full of the heat of boiling rage, inside the air was frozen with suspicion and intrigue.
On the tapestries hung in a long row down the corridor, the glory of the House of Luxembourg and the achievements of Charles IV were embroidered in gold thread, but what filled this space now was only a silence heavy and cold as stone.
A broad and splendid council chamber. The candles of an enormous chandelier lit the figures surrounding the great round table at the center of the room.
I examined the faces of the people seated around the round table one by one.
Every person in this room was a Hussite leader who moved Prague and Bohemia.
They all wore stiff expressions as though masked, but the hostility beyond those masks could not be hidden.
One noble approached me and began the introductions.
"My lord, this is Master Jan Rokycana, professor of the University of Prague and preacher of the Týn Church. He is the spiritual pillar of our Hussites."
Rokycana had the clean face of a scholar and eyes sharp enough to see straight through a man.
But my gaze soon went elsewhere.
In a corner of the chamber an old general sat leaning back slightly against his chair, erasing his own presence like a shadow.
Worn and tattered leather armor, a face covered in scars, one eye hidden by a black patch.
A single eye, cold and touched with madness, that seemed to see straight through me.
'So that is Jan Žižka.'
The living legend who had made Sigismund's crusaders tremble.
The undefeated war hero. The Yi Sun-sin of the Czech lands.
'...Look at those eyes. He could eat a man alive.'
I even had the illusion that dried blood and the smell of iron were drifting all the way over here. The force he gave off was that far from ordinary.
I could guarantee that had I met that gaze on a battlefield rather than in a council chamber, I would have sunk to the ground on the spot.
"Be seated, my lord."
Just then Rokycana offered a welcome invitation.
I was about to sit down promptly when I saw the arrangement of the seats in the chamber and frowned for a moment.
'Look at this.'
There were only two empty seats. The head of the table and the foot. It was a blatant trap meant to test an opponent and probe his intentions.
I looked at the empty seats for a moment, then let out a derisive smile. Then I dragged the chair at the foot of the table, nearest the door, over with a scrape and dropped into it.
But with the empty head of the table set opposite me, strangely, the seat I had taken came to look like the head presiding over the meeting.
At the unexpected move Rokycana's brow furrowed minutely, and bewilderment spread across the other nobles' faces.
"Why do you all stare so? Let us begin. We cannot keep the citizens outside waiting too long, can we?"
At my words Rokycana steadied the mood with a dry cough.
His voice was as calm as a professor teaching students in a lecture hall, but sharp thorns lay hidden in it.
"My lord. That sermon in the square... most impressive. Your talent for gripping the hearts of the masses is truly outstanding. But this is not a marketplace. In a place where the fate of Bohemia is discussed, what is needed is not such hot-blooded agitation but cold reason and theological justification."
Rokycana pushed across the table the letter I had sent and the sheaf of parchments proving my bloodline.
"The claim that my lord carries the blood of the great Charles IV proved to be true. But one cannot become king by bloodline alone. The cause for which we have raised the chalice is heavier than any worldly crown."
I listened in silence for the moment with my arms folded.
"We offered the position of regent in order to test your cause. Yet you ignored the council's proposal and ran straight to the square to beguile the people. This is an insult and a challenge to us all!"
Rokycana's voice grew steadily sharper.
"So answer, my lord. What is it you are trying to do? What is your faith, and on what is the justice you speak of founded? If this is merely a childish disturbance because you covet a crown, Prague will never permit you."
The gazes of the chamber converged on me at the foot of the table.
They were waiting to see how I would excuse myself, how I would unfold my legitimacy in theological terms.
But I decided to shatter their expectations once again.
"Master Rokycana, you are seeing this situation entirely wrongly."
"What did you say?"
"I have not insulted you. If anything, I have shown you what you have been missing."
I rose from my seat and began to walk slowly around the round table.
"Theological justification? Cold reason? Master, outside these walls Sigismund is scraping together the empire's army beyond the border. And are you saying we must sit in this room holding a lofty theological debate?"
Enraged, Krušina sprang up from his seat.
"Insolence! Šternberk whelp! Do you know where you are! We have staked our lives protecting this cause these past years! And what are you, appearing out of nowhere...!"
At Krušina's rebuttal I spoke firmly.
"And so what have you protected?"
"What?"
"While you were fighting with your lives at stake, the kingdom was laid waste by civil war. Merchants are going bankrupt with the trade routes blocked, and peasants starve with their harvests taken from them. Is this the result of the cause you have protected?"
"Y-you, you...!"
Krušina could not continue and only quivered his lips.
"Agitation? Beguilement? No. I merely shouted the citizens' voices on their behalf. The suffering and rage of the people, which you have worked hard to look away from. You raise the chalice and speak of God's will, yet you close your eyes to God's own children going hungry."
I looked over the figures in the chamber in turn.
"The Pope calls the Hussites heretics, and Sigismund will come again leading a crusade at any time. You are fighting isolated against all of Europe. What do you suppose becomes of you at this rate?"
I stopped walking in front of Jan Žižka.
The one-eyed general faced him without stirring.
"What you lack is neither faith nor courage. It is a center of gravity. A rightful cause to bind Bohemia into one, and a sure strategy to carry this war to victory."
I turned back toward Rokycana.
"Master, you told me to prove my worth. But my worth has already been proven. When I burned the wagenburg that was your pride and killed your commander."
BANG!
Jan Želivský, the radical priest, brought his fist down on the round table. His expression was flushed red with rage.
"A corrupt Catholic noble dares! Do you know whose presence this is, to spout such raving...!"
"I beat you even when I was your enemy. And now I say I will be your king; where is there a clearer proof of worth than this?"
Želivský lost his words. It was the moment his theological logic became powerless before the naked logic of force.
"I am no theologian. Nor am I a scholar. I am a man who knows how to win. I know how to smash Sigismund, flatten the Pope's nose, and make Bohemia the richest and strongest country in Europe."
The chamber was seized by silence. Their faces were full of disbelief and suspicion.
"Bloodline is only an aid. The reason I would be king is not that I am of Charles IV's blood but that only I can end this war. You are not raising me up as king. You must choose me for the sake of your own survival."
Then Jan Žižka, who had kept his mouth firmly shut until then, at last opened it. His voice was low and rough, like the roar of an old lion.
"You speak fairly well, greenhorn lord."
Žižka's one eye fixed on me as though piercing me through.
"So then. What is it you can do? Can you send Sigismund's army back with that fine tongue of yours? I am asking whether you have anything surer than that game with fire you used last time."
Every gaze in the chamber concentrated on me once again.
In their eyes were suspicion and wariness, and a very slight anticipation.
A method? Of course I had one. But I had no intention of explaining it here and now.
'Even if I explained the principle of black powder, the refining method for turning pig iron from a blast furnace into steel, and the basic principle of the steam engine, would they believe it? No, could they even understand it in the first place?'
Never mind understanding; I would be fortunate not to be treated as a lunatic. One cannot explain calculus to students who have not finished the four arithmetic operations.
In the end what mattered was results. Until I showed them with their own eyes, any explanation was nothing but hollow nonsense.
Rather than avoiding Žižka's eye, I shrugged at my ease.
"General. Is there a commander who shows all his cards in advance on a battlefield?"
"Hmm?"
"If I blabbed all my plans here and now, is there any guarantee it would not reach Sigismund's ears through the mouth of someone in this room? Or does the general believe I can trust every person in this room as I trust my own life?"
At those words several of the nobles in the chamber reddened and glanced at one another.
That those gathered here were not all of one mind and one purpose was an open secret.
"You asked me to tell you the method? Very well. I will tell you. But before that there is something I must ask you first."
I looked slowly around at everyone seated at the round table.
Every man whose eyes met mine could not hide his discomfort.
"Are you prepared to recognize me as king? I am asking whether you are prepared to obey not the counsel of some frontier lord but the commands of the King of Bohemia."
"You wretch! Are you threatening us now!"
Krušina sprang up from his seat. His face was flushed red with affront.
"If we do not give you the crown you will tell us nothing? Is that a thing for a claimant to the throne to say! In the end you are saying your personal greed matters more to you than the future of Bohemia!"
"It is not greed but authority, Sir Krušina."
I did not give ground in the slightest. Now was precisely the time to nail it down for certain.
"However fine a strategy I may possess, what use is it if you do not follow? From the half-measure seat of regent, my orders would be chewed over and distorted dozens of times before they even got outside the gates of Prague. I need absolute authority to carry out my plans. That is exactly the power a crown gives."
"Impudent greenhorn! What are you, that you would dare give us orders!"
"Because I can produce better results than you can."
I declared it firmly, as though delivering a prophecy.
"I have not come to debate with you. I have come to demand a crown. Hold a formal coronation at St. Vitus Cathedral, before the watching citizens of Prague. Recognize me as King of Bohemia and delegate all authority to me. And I will bring you victory."
Žižka still said nothing. He only fingered his jaw and studied me.
"Hmm...."
That was no longer the look of a man seeing me as a greenhorn.
A mad gambler, or a dangerous man of ambition.
Perhaps both.
"Hah...."
The one who broke the heavy silence with a sigh was Rokycana.
Pressing his throbbing temple, he let out a deep sigh.
"...Very well. Let us discuss... the coronation once."