Jan Mattys used to try to pick fights. Only he tended to pick them with bishops.

I remember one time, he was sitting in the corner of this run-down joint in Amsterdam, red-eyed as he stared at his last glass of bourbon and wondered when he'd get to bake a pastry again. Then this kid comes through the door, saying how there's a gang of bishops on the other side of town, pushing incense and trying to round up vulgate bibles to burn.

That was the sort of thing that got Jan Mattys going. He knew the bishops had more men and more pikes than anyone else. He knew that town hall couldn't do a thing about them. No one could. But that wouldn't stop him from trying.

So we walked across town, through the mean streets of Amsterdam, wagons with uneven shaped wheels rattling past us over the cobblestones. Jan Mattys had the air of a man who was going to lay the bet he had to lay, no matter how unfair the hand dealt him.

When we got there, you couldn't tell which smell was stronger: the burning incense or the burning paper. Both smells were the kind that set Jan Mattys on edge. He started hollering and yelling at the bishops as they inhaled their incense and threw more books on the fire.

And you know what? They laughed at him. Of all the things to do to a man like Jan Mattys, they had to laugh at him, calling him a drunk and a failure. It's bad enough to know that the bishops always win in the end, but that day Jan Mattys realised that they knew it too ...