Now all courtyards and passageways, all halls and rooms in the castle were filled with German helmets, storm hoods, spears and swords. Where formerly only the foremost men and noblest lords in Bohemia were allowed to set foot, where even the king himself trod lightly, today the least of men who had come out for the crown had more right to be. In the king's private chambers Nurembergers laid their pikes against the brightly painted walls or hung their axes on hooks on richly gilded wainscoting. There was still a drawbridge that had not been lowered, still a gate barred with nine locks. This was the drawbridge that led to the Church of the Cross. These were the nine locks that guarded the crown of a Holy Roman Emperor. This drawbridge was lowered and these locks were opened for no-one else normally apart from the king and the guardians of the crown. Men in armour with drawn swords kept watch here day and night. But who today had a greater right to be admitted to this treasure, King Sigismund or us? At a signal from the electoral prince all our banners were lowered and the raised drawbridge, which was still barring our way, now came down. Then the nine locks on the gate were heard to clatter open and we entered the sacred space in deep silence. From the ceiling and the walls and pillars a red, green and blue fire shone towards us. The place shone everywhere with the adornment of the most precious stones and now only a high, artful golden grille still separated us from the Holy of Holies. Then I felt a heavy hand upon my shoulder. It was the armoured hand and arm of my friend who had come up behind me. We had supported each other whenever one of us had stumbled on the way. We had covered each other with our shields and the weapon of one had a hundred times turned away death from the other, but what more can I say of myself and Michael Groland other than that we were in the imperial army's procession to Karlstein? Both of us were merely two drops in the stream and all that we were able to experience on the way the whole army likewise learned with pain or with pleasure, in glory or in ignominy. Suddenly here on the turret of Charles the Fourth's castle, in the church of the Holy Cross, before the shrine in which the imperial crown jewels were kept, we got our own lives back. My friend and brother, Michael Groland, bent his mouth to my ear and spoke softly: "Pray for my happiness. Here in this place, after so much effort on our part to attain it, here before the inner sanctum of the German people, pray for me that I might win a crowning glory for myself one day!" A lightning flash did not come out of the golden niche from the lance of Saint Maurice or from the sword of Charlemagne to strike my wild friend for his strange and daring words. But a deep down shudder, a cold feeling and a fiery flame went through my legs.