The Silver Sword

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  What pitiful possessions. With a moan of distress, she turned away from the sight of so many bits and pieces of her old life. If she married, all these things would have to suffice for a dowry; she had nothing else. And if she were taken by Lord Laco, he would undoubtedly seize the bookshop, filling his role as her “guardian.”

  A suffocating sensation tightened her throat. She would not allow his vile hands to touch a single precious parchment her father had inscribed. No matter where she went, she would be sure to protect her father’s beloved books.

  Of all her belongings, the books were the most valuable, but how could she take them with her? She supposed she could leave them with a merchant for rental, but few merchants took a woman seriously, and once the books left her hands they would probably be lost to her forever. She had no time to arrange a private sale, no time to call for the books currently rented to students, no time to organize her father’s house or his affairs.

  What a sudden thing death was! In one moment she and her father had been no more concerned for their earthly possessions than for what they might eat for lunch; scarcely four days later she was assessing her future in light of the value of a few books, tools, and scribbled parchments. The house would be snatched up by someone else with money enough to pay the rent, and whatever Anika couldn’t carry with her would be confiscated or stolen while the landlord wasn’t looking.

  Outside the window, bolts of lightning chased each other across the sky, white and jagged like running skeletons. The subsequent blast of thunder rattled the shutters and Anika’s bones. She pressed her hand over her face in a convulsion of sorrow, her throat aching with regret.

  If only she hadn’t run when the knight attacked. Her father died defending her, a helpless girl.

  If only she hadn’t been born female.

  If only she were a man.

  Things would be different.

  “Sir Petrov!”

  The old knight felt his body stiffen in shock as Anika flew through the doorway, her hair dripping with rain, a strange light of excitement in her eyes. By all the saints, he had never thought to see her face alight like that again!

  “I know, Sir Petrov, what I must do! I know where to find a position!”

  Despite his sorrow, a surge of relief flowed through him. If she had found work in Prague they would not have to escape the city. Though he would have gone to Hades and back in order to help his friend’s beloved daughter, he had been hoping to avoid a trek across mountain miles and a series of table-scrap meals.

  He turned in his chair and leaned toward her in a gentle, inquiring fashion. “Whom have you talked to?”

  “No one, Sir Petrov, and that is the beauty of it!” She sank onto the bench by his table, and the urgent vibrancy of her voice caught him off guard.

  His nerves immediately tensed. “The beauty of what?”

  “My idea.” She gazed at him in satisfaction. “Or perhaps it is your idea. I never would have considered it if not for your stories.”

  Petrov held up a trembling hand. “Slow down, Anika. What stories? What are you talking about?”

  “The stories about your days as a squire. You were just a young boy of twelve when you became a squire at Lord Honza’s manor. You learned to serve, you learned to read, and the knights taught you how to fight.”

  Petrov hesitated, blinking with bafflement. “’Tis what every squire learns. What of it?”

  Clasping her hands together, Anika leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “I will be a squire. No one will think to look for me among the men and boys in a garrison. You will cut off my hair and dress me as a boy, and then you will take me to Chlum Castle. And while I am there, safely hidden away, you will safeguard my father’s books and advertise them for rent. Thus you will have a shop, I will have a safe place, and I will learn how to defend myself from people like Lord Laco’s son.”

  “No, no, and no,” Petrov answered, barely able to keep the laughter from his voice. What had happened to the levelheaded young woman he knew yesterday? Surely Ernan’s death had made her take leave of her senses, for not a word of her speech made sense.

  “What do you mean ‘no’?” She leaned back, a nervous and slightly puzzled look on her pretty face. “My plan makes perfect sense, Sir Petrov. You need money, and I haven’t forgotten that the council fined you for coming to my father’s aid. Now you can pay your fine and earn a decent wage, too. If you do not help me manage Father’s books, his works will fall into others’ hands. They might even be burned if the wrong people take possession of them. And in five days I will face Lord Laco unless I find suitable employment. So why shouldn’t I be a squire, Sir Petrov? Do you not remember teaching me how to hold a sword?”

  He shook his head, dazed. “You were just a child.”

  “But I learned well! Parry and slash, parry and stab, feint and lunge, I remember it all!”

  “Anika.” Petrov lowered his head onto his hand, sensing the onslaught of a murderous headache. She would never know how deeply she had just honored him, but the idea was foolish. If they attempted such a ruse and were discovered, the knights of Chlum would say that Petrov had dishonored the ideals of chivalry, the virtues of truth, loyalty, and honor. But who better personified those ideals than Anika?

  “You said Lord John of Chlum was a kind and gentle master,” she continued, scarcely giving Petrov time to think. “Why wouldn’t I be safe among his men?”

  “Knights are trained to fight, Anika, and men are not kind in war,” Petrov murmured, rubbing his temples. “Nor are knights gentle when they are alone. God put women in the world to keep us tolerable.”

  “Why do you speak of war?” Anika pushed her lower lip forward in a pout. “There is no war. Bohemia has not known war since before I was born. You were always telling my father that war would not come here again, for Christians should not fight each other.”

  “Anika,” he said, feeling suddenly limp with weariness, “I am a man, not God; I could be wrong. Who can say whether or not war will come? I will not gamble with your life. Besides …” he flung his hand out, hoping to distract her, “I cannot believe God would bless such an endeavor if you deny your womanhood. It is a precious and God-given gift.”

  “Deborah did not deny her womanhood, yet she led the Israelites to war,” Anika countered. “And God used Mary to bring the greatest warrior of all into the world. Do not argue with me, Sir Petrov. I shall deny nothing of myself, but if it is necessary to hide what I am, then so be it. As a squire I will be in the service of a good man, I will be safe and well fed, provided for, taught, clothed, put to good use—”

  “Hold, Anika.” Petrov held up a hand. “Let us consider this idea of yours on the morrow. Perhaps it will make more sense in the clear light of morning.”

  And perhaps, he thought, rising to bolt the door and shutter the window, you will realize what a truly foolish notion it is.

  In the morning, Petrov was chagrined to realize that Anika’s determination had only increased during the night. Apparently she hadn’t slept at all but had lain awake plotting and planning how such a deception might be accomplished. She had a boyish figure, she reminded him more than once, she was reasonably tall and as slender as a reed. She was quick and agile and spoke with an educated accent, as a nobleman’s son would. She read and wrote with a fine hand, as a learned man’s son should, and she had no relatives to interfere with her plans.

  “But, Anika! If you were to go to Chlum as a maid I could agree—”

  She silenced him by tossing her hair across her shoulders in a gesture of defiance. “My father did not teach me to read and write so I could empty chamber pots,” she reminded him. “Besides, Laco’s spies could find me at Chlum if I remain a maid. But I will be safe in disguise. Of all the nobles in Bohemia, Lord John of Chlum is reputed to be one of the most honorable. If you were to present me as a squire to be trained at Chlum, what could Lord John do but accept me?”

  Strangely enough, Petrov did not now find the idea
as abhorrent as he had the night before. Though he hated to admit it, Anika’s plan did bring him a trace of hope. If she were hidden away at Chlum for a few months, Lord Laco might grow weary and stop searching for her. And in the meantime, as her father’s friend, he would oversee Ernan’s bookshop, thereby ending his worries about how he would manage to keep meat on his bones and wood on the fire.

  “With the income from the bookshop you could present me to Lord John with a small tribute,” Anika was saying now, her eyes artless and serene. “And you could say that I am your ward, which is not a lie at all. I am your ward now, and you are my guardian.”

  Petrov held up a finger and paused a moment, letting the silence stretch between them. “I must be very clear on one point—I will not lie to my master’s son. A knight is sworn to be true to his master above all else,” he told Anika, his voice firm and final. “I will not lie to Lord John, not even for you, little bird.”

  “You can’t be calling me ‘little bird’ if we are to do this,” Anika reminded him, her green eyes bright and bemused. “You shall have to think of another name.”

  “What would we call you?”

  “Kafka,” she said suddenly.

  And before her appealing smile, his defenses melted away. Kafka meant “bird,” and she knew he could use that name without feeling guilty of deception. “My little Kafka,” he said, rewarding her with a larger smile of his own. “I have much to teach you, and you have only a few days in which to learn. If Lord Laco comes looking for you before the day you are to join his household—”

  “You shall tell him quite truthfully that you have found me an appointment in the country,” Anika answered, rising lightly to her feet. “And he may search for me all he likes, but he shall never find me.”

  Petrov watched her go and began to wonder just how long they could maintain this façade. Anika was sixteen, and soon she would tire of these foolish games. Until then, at least, she would be safe from Lord Laco. As soon as that danger had passed, Petrov would return to Chlum and bring his ward back to Prague.

  It was a good idea, as long as the charade was only temporary.

  With money Anika found in Ernan’s moneybag, Petrov ventured into a sword smith’s shop and eyed the array of gleaming weapons upon the wall. Anika would need a light, flexible sword, something more for show and practice than for actual use, but he would not let her go defenseless into a knights’ garrison. He loved the girl too dearly to risk either her virtue or her life.

  “Goin’ into battle, are you, eh, knight?” the sword smith asked, squinting up at Petrov with shifting eyes. “Why does such an old man need a new sword?”

  “For the same reason he needs a bed and bread,” Petrov answered smoothly, shifting the silver coins in his fist. “A man must eat and sleep and defend himself if he is to survive.”

  The smith grunted. “The heavier, two-handed swords are more popular now,” he said, pointing Petrov toward a gleaming sword which would probably cost twice as much as the shorter single-edged sword Petrov had been examining.

  “Look at me,” Petrov said, stepping backward and lifting his hands. “I am sixty and five years old, how am I to lift such a heavy blade? Let the young ones carry those iron weights. I will stick to something light and quick.”

  A flash of humor crossed the man’s dour face. “All right. Let me see your silver, and I’ll let you know what I have to suit you.”

  Petrov dropped the two silver coins on the man’s table, then tensed when the sword smith threw back his head and roared with laughter. “You’re jesting, right? Is this a joke? Did the magistrates send you down to test my prices?”

  “No.” Petrov’s embarrassment turned quickly to annoyance. “That is good silver, enough to buy a sword.”

  “Enough to buy a sword twenty years ago maybe.” The man’s features twisted into a maddening leer. “Now add more silver to those coins there, or be on your way and stop cluttering up my shop with your clattering bones. I haven’t time to spend with the likes of you, old man.”

  Something inside Petrov shriveled a little at the man’s harsh expression, but he pointed instead to a collection of daggers in a wooden case. “How much for those?” he asked, aware that his hand trembled like the last leaf of autumn.

  The man’s eyes narrowed as he eyed the silver coins again. “You might have enough for a blade. A little one, small enough to fit inside a boot.”

  “Fine,” Petrov answered, lifting his chin. “Make it very, very sharp.”

  Anika could not sleep the night before her appointed day of departure. Petrov had spent five hectic days preparing her for life in a garrison, and some part of her still reeled in wonder that she was pursuing such an unconventional course. Her father, God rest him, would not approve, nor would Master Hus. But her father had left her alone, and the preacher had wanted to send her off as a wife or seamstress. Anika would not have felt comfortable filling those roles even before her father’s death.

  She couldn’t imagine life without a pen in her hand. She loved the feel of a slender quill and the process of making words flow and blossom to life on parchment. As she moved her hand over the blank pages, watching words and pictures and borders combine in a work of art, she rejoiced, knowing that the words represented concepts and emotions that would touch hearts and stir souls. She would have been content to live each day of her life at her writing desk, copying the words of Master Hus and other great professors.

  A month ago she would have been happy to live her life in the company of her books, her father, and her father’s friends. Strange how she had always spent her time in the company of men. She actually knew very few women; she had only passing acquaintances with women at the market and the landlady who came to collect the rent once a month. She did not dislike others of her own sex, but she had not been taught the code that unlocked female simpers and sighs, and she could not fathom the rationale behind the affected speech and behaviors of noblewomen who wandered into the bookshop. The Art of Courtly Love and other books like it had raised far more questions than they had answered.

  Her father and Petrov had always treated her with kindness, consideration, and honesty. She had never been given reason to believe she was less than a man because she had been created female, and the men in her life made her feel cherished, revered. Her father had always called her his “secret weapon,” for her skill with languages and her deft hand had enabled him to produce beautifully copied books in half the time of his competitors. When most other fathers set their daughters to work in the kitchen, Ernan O’Connor had propped Anika up beside a writing table and placed a quill in her hand. While other girls pounded bread, Anika smoothed parchment with a pumice stone; while other young ladies sewed and embroidered, Anika mixed inks and drew word pictures. By the age of twelve she became an equal partner in her father’s business, and she had never believed that she might not be able to accomplish anything she set her mind to do.

  Outside Petrov’s house, the moon sailed across a sky of deepest sapphire, casting bars of silver across the floor of the chamber. From the other side of the room, the old knight snored loudly, his back to her.

  Dear Petrov. What would she do without him? Her hand crept to her forehead, where a neat row of bangs lay just above her eyebrows. Just before sunset, while there remained enough daylight to see, Petrov had taken the small dagger he bought for Anika and shorn her waist-length hair. He cut her hair in the short-cropped style preferred by all noblemen, but when he came to the small plait of white hair, he paused and lifted his brows in a quizzical expression.

  “What about this?” he asked, frowning as though he had never noticed the white braid before.

  “Cut the white streak out,” she said firmly, gripping her chair with both hands. “Down to the scalp, Sir Petrov. No one must see it.”

  Her head felt curiously light without the weight of her coppery locks, but one glance in her small mirror convinced her that she made a strikingly plain boy.

  By the time
blue-veiled twilight crept into the house, Petrov had burned the remnants of her hair in the fireplace. As the stench of burning hair filled her nostrils, Anika gathered up her chemises, gowns, sleeves, and collars, then locked them into a chest. Petrov pointed toward a pile of garments on the table. From a widow whose son had just died from fever, he had purchased a pair of soft leather boots with deep cuffs, a pair of thick hose, a short tunic, and an open-sided tabard of rich brocade.

  “They will think I am a nobleman’s son for certain when they see me in this,” Anika exclaimed as Petrov modestly turned his back so she could slip into the outfit. “What if Lord John asks who my father is?”

  “If he does, tell him the truth about your father’s Irish roots,” Petrov answered, chuckling. “Tell him you are descended from the great kings. The O’Connors were a powerful clan in Ireland, and I’m not certain they still aren’t.”

  And so, lying in the dark, Anika had composed her story. She was the child (she couldn’t in good faith declare herself a son) of an Irishman, O’Connor by clan, and honorable by birth. Her father had been killed in battle (hadn’t he?), and Sir Petrov was her father’s dearest friend and her guardian. She wished for asylum and instruction in the chivalric arts of knighthood; she wanted to serve an honorable lord and defend God’s enemies from injustice and falseness. The charade would work. She would pass as a boy and be safe until the danger was over.

  “If I learn my lessons well,” she whispered, watching the play of moonlit shadows outside, “I will be prepared if Lord Laco or his son should ever come after me again. And when the time is right, I shall have my vengeance against Cardinal D’Ailly.”