Prelude to the Counterattack

Nowy Sącz, a city on Austria's northeastern border.

Nearly a thousand citizens had gathered in the square before the cathedral in the city center, gazing reverently at Archbishop Marlow standing upon the church's stone steps—Mr. Mesmer.

"A new Crusader Holy War has begun!" Bathed in a holy radiance, Mesmer raised a hand. **"All Christians must answer His Holiness the Pope's call and head east, to that sacred battlefield!

"Evil heretics will be judged there, and you will cleanse yourselves of all your sins through this!"**

Though the onlookers were not as fanatical as the Poles, they nonetheless made the sign of the cross and shouted along with him:

"Judge the heretics!"

"Answer the Holy War!"

Bishop Borowski of the Nowy Sącz diocese, standing slightly behind "Archbishop Marlow," had gone pale. The papal envoy had previously said only that he would convey the Pope's instructions. He had never expected something so incendiary.

He wanted to step forward and stop him, but under the eyes of the crowd, he had no idea how to put an end to it.

Mesmer continued, **"If the Russian heretics defeat Poland, they will surely cross the Carpathian Mountains and claim this place as their own!

"You will be forced to pray with that ridiculous three-fingered gesture. Your children will be thrown into water vats for baptism. You may even lose any chance of escaping the torments of purgatory!

"Are you willing to accept that?"**

As a professional con man, he naturally knew the importance of exaggeration.

The Eastern Orthodox prayer gesture was not mandatory. Baptism merely involved immersing a child in holy water, not throwing them into any sort of vat. As for purgatory, Eastern Orthodoxy did not even have such a thing, nor did it require atonement to escape suffering there.

But the crowd in