The Silver Sword (3 page)

“Look yonder.” The innkeeper pointed to the far end of the house. And there, in the devilish glow of the fire, Anika saw two black-robed men steadying a ladder for a plump, balding man in red who moved slowly and carefully downward, as if he had all the time in the world.

Ernan O'Connor rushed forward, and Anika ran to keep up.

“Let me use this ladder.” Anika's father grabbed one of the black-robed men and tugged on his sleeve. “There are women still in the building, at the south end.”

“Would you take the ladder while the cardinal is still upon it?” The man's eyes went wide with surprise. “Patience, fellow. He is nearly down, thank God.”

The man in the red robe landed heavily on the ground, and the two men in black sighed in relief. Anika's father grabbed the ladder, but the man in red shook his head and pointed up toward the window he had just vacated. “My vestments,” he said simply, staring at one of the black-robed ones. “You must get my vestments and the satchel with the parchments.”

“But, Your Eminence—” one of the men protested.

“What sort of amadons and eejits are you?” Anika heard her father roar. With the strength of two men he laid hold of the ladder and pulled it from the window, but the black-robed ones stopped him.

“I'll go.” After tossing a single guilty glance toward Anika's father, the tallest man sprinted up the ladder. As black smoke billowed overhead, he crawled through the window, then a moment later a pair of bundles flew out the opening and landed at Anika's feet.

The man in red nodded soberly and turned away, not even waiting to see if his servant would return. Other men had gathered about now. Pushing Anika back, they pounded on the ladder, urging the man upstairs to hurry down while at the far end of the building the women wept and screamed and tore their hair.

“Papa!” Anika stood on tiptoe, but she could no longer see her father. She slipped away from the crowd and found him beneath the window where the women waited. Dense clouds of black smoke rolled out the window above the women's heads, and Anika could hear a whispering, crackling noise, as though the fire contained a horde of gremlins who laughed and cackled to themselves.

“Jump, me darling, and I'll catch you.” Father's voice broke with terrible sadness as he lifted his arms to Mother. “Don't wait a minute more; just jump!”

Anika watched her mother move out onto the edge of the window ledge, ready to leap into Father's arms. A cloud of smoke rolled out the window and hugged Mother like an old friend. Anika felt the heat slap her face; it was like the rare days when her father had money enough for two logs in the fireplace and set them to burning at once.

“Jump, love!” Mother nodded and leaned forward, but in the instant before she could slip off her perch, the roof roared like the sea and rushed downward. Amid a flood of flames and cinders and sparks the other waiting women flung themselves toward the open window.

For a moment Anika thought it had begun to rain bodies, timber, and ashes. Father was knocked off his feet as a falling beam hit him on the head. He lay sprawled on the ground, his hands extended in front of him, his eyes closed as if he slept.

As Anika whimpered softly, the innkeeper and his friends began to untangle the other bodies. Of the three women, the first was scarcely hurt at all, and the second suffered only a broken leg and some singed hair.

But Mother lay quiet and still, her head bent to the side as if she were laughing. She wasn't burnt at all; she lay asleep on the ground. “Mama, wake up,” Anika urged. She squatted low to whisper in her mother's ear and could smell smoke on her mother's skin. She reached out and shook Mother's arm; the skin was still warm and soft as a rose petal. “Mama! Why won't you wake up?”

“Come away, child.” The innkeeper's wife, a matronly woman with an ample bosom and lap, pulled Anika up and moved her away from the heat of the burning building. “Your mama has gone to heaven.”

Anika shook her head. “My mama is asleep.”

“No, child, her neck's broke.” The woman dashed a tear from her soot-streaked cheek, then knelt and clasped Anika's hands in her own. Her eyes darkened and shone with an unpleasant light as her sweaty hands squeezed Anika's knuckles. “Your mama's dead, child, and it's all that cardinal's fault. Don't you ever forget it, you hear? As
God is my witness, the Roman church and her meddling priests will be the death of us all.”

Anika did not understand, but she nodded obediently until the woman released her hands. Not knowing what else to do, she stood silent as the woman rose to watch her home burn to the ground. From somewhere in the distance Anika heard the hoarse cry of her father's weeping.

And when the man in the red robe gathered his bundles and turned from the ghastly scene, Anika clamped her eyes shut, afraid to look upon the man who would not give her mother the ladder.

“Go away,” she murmured, afraid to open her eyes lest he still be there, mocking her with his smug little smile. “Go away, please.” The words hurt her throat, as though she'd swallowed some sharp and jagged object. “Go away, go away,
go away!”

“Anika! Open your eyes, wake up!”

Her eyes flew open even as her heart congealed into a small lump of terror. But the face staring at her was not the cardinal's. Her father sat on the edge of her bed; his hands gripping her arms and the corners of his mouth tight with distress.

“Papa?” The word was hoarse, forced through her constricted throat.

“Anika, you're having a nightmare.” His eyes searched her face. “Are you all right?”

She took a quick, wincing breath. She was home, safe in bed. Not six anymore, but sixteen.

“Are you all right then, or shall I be having to leave a light burning for such a big lass as you?” Her father smiled at her now, but she saw the dark memories at the back of his eyes, under the mocking humor. He knew what she'd dreamed—she'd had these dreams off and on for years. He probably dreamed of the fire, too, but he wouldn't want her to worry about him. He was an unselfish man, Ernan O'Connor.

“Thank you, Papa,” she whispered, slipping her arms around his neck. Relaxing in his embrace, she closed her eyes, but the vague
shadows of her dream still drifted across her eyelids. She snapped her eyes open again and stared over his shoulder at the flickering candle's light as her father rocked her slowly and crooned an Irish lullaby.

“Anika!”

More surprised than frightened, Anika looked up from the book she kept hidden under her parchments. Her father stood in front of the door, his face pressed to the tiny shuttered opening.

“Quickly, me girl! Hide Hus's tablet and the parchments! The archbishop comes.”

The worried tone in her father's voice sparked Anika's fear. She slammed her book shut and, with the ease that comes from long practice, dropped Master Hus's wax tablet to her lap and shuffled the uppermost sheet of parchment beneath the others on her writing board. Archbishop Albik was not her favorite clergyman—if truth be told, Anika liked him little. But as the archbishop of Prague, in Bohemia his influential voice was second only to that of King Wenceslas.

Her father opened the door, and the archbishop's coolly impersonal tone broke the stillness of the copyist's shop: “Grace and peace to all who dwell herein.” Anika took one quick look downward to be certain Master Hus's tablet
and
her book were safely hidden, then pasted on an innocent smile as her father stepped aside and bid the archbishop enter.

Anika fought inward revulsion every time she saw the stiff and starched Archbishop Albik in her father's bookshop. Some high personage in Rome had appointed him to serve the city of Prague, and, like his predecessor, Albik seemed more intent upon solidifying his position and power than serving God's people. Lately, in fact, he had
proved himself a devout enemy of all who loved and sought the truth of the gospel.

“Good day to you, my children,” Albik said, regally inclining his tonsured head as he entered the room. He extended his bulky gold ring for her father's kiss, and Anika glanced down at her desk so she wouldn't have to watch her father kneel and genuflect. Why wouldn't the archbishop leave them alone? Weren't there other copyists in the city for him to harass? But none of the others were close to Jan Hus.

The archbishop glanced about the small work space as her father stood and politely clasped his hands before him. “To what happy occasion do we owe this honor, Your Grace?”

“What use would I be if I did not see to the welfare of the souls in my care?” the archbishop answered, his countenance completely immobile. His eyes flashed over the room, taking note of the rolled parchments, the bottles of ink, the precious books safely stored in chests at the back of the small shop. “I see you are busy.” The holy hand lifted in a limp gesture and indicated the collection of wax tablets in a basket near Anika's writing table. “I did not know our fair city housed so many writers. Of all the copyists on this street, your shop is by far the busiest.”

“Well, naturally, the students and teachers at the university keep us occupied, thank God,” her father answered, bowing his head in respect. “And me daughter is skilled with a pen and ink. By the grace of God and with her help, we are quick, and we are pleased to present our customers with fine work. They bring us their books and lessons, don't you see, and we are also able to rent out several of the books we keep in our library—”

“What are you inscribing here, Ernan O'Connor?” The archbishop walked over to the writing board where Anika's father had been working. His quill lay on the desk, the ink-filled ox horn remained uncovered. A large parchment lay flat on the board, a pumice stone holding it in place.

“Ah, I was readying this parchment for writing,” her father explained,
a gleam of relief in his eye. “I had not yet begun to copy anything.”

“But you were ready to begin.” Archbishop Albik gestured toward the wax tablet near the edge of her father's writing table. “What will you copy today? More scribblings from students at the university? Or perhaps one of the masters' lessons.” He casually stroked his chin. “None of these tablets would contain a sermon from the preacher at Bethlehem Chapel, would they? Or the words of the heretic Wyclif?”

“I would not allow heresy over the threshold of me house.” Anika's father straightened his shoulders. “I am ever mindful of me daughter, Your Grace, and would not endanger her immortal soul by allowing heresy to enter her thoughts. We are a God-fearing household; haven't I said so?”

Albik gave him a brief nod. “See that you remain so, Ernan O'Connor.” When the archbishop lifted his hand, Anika lowered her head, more to duck the blessing than to humbly receive it. She felt no love and little tolerance for Prague's newest prelate. She and her father had dutifully attended several services at his church and left spiritually dissatisfied. The archbishop led the service in a manner so dull and dry the words seemed to be coming from him after a lengthy journey through a barren wilderness. His words, moreover, were Latin, and though Anika understood the tongue, not many of her fellow Bohemians did.

Fortunately, the archbishop seemed more intent today upon spying out the bookshop than in gauging the depth of reverence in her glance. Albik looked around the shop one final time, then turned on his heel and moved with stiff dignity through the doorway. One by one, the archbishop's attendants—an odd assortment of priests, scribes, and other clerics—momentarily peered into the bookshop as if checking to see if their master had left some ray of holiness behind, then whirled and hurried after His Grace.