“Lord John, halt!”
John pulled back on his reins, recognizing the advancing rider’s blue and gold standard as his own. This would be Sir Manville or Gregor, both of whom had been scouting the countryside ahead for a possible ambush.
The knight came closer and slowed his horse, then lifted his visor. Through the opening, John recognized Manville’s ruddy face. “Ho, Sir Manville, and how is the way ahead?”
“Clear as a mountain stream, my lord,” Manville answered, shooting John a lopsided grin. “There’s an inn about an hour’s ride from this place, and there I met other scouts on patrol.”
“Oh?” John folded his hands across the pommel of his saddle. “And as you lifted a tankard to my health, did you hear any interesting gossip?”
Manville grinned. “Aye, Lord John. It seems that Lord Laco of Lidice and his knights are venturing out to Constance, too. They are ahead of us, though, by two days, so we should not encounter them on the road.”
“Laco, eh?” John asked, trying to appear nonchalant. An oddly primitive warning had sounded in his brain at the mention of that nobleman’s name, but he had to sheath his inner feelings. After all, Laco had done nothing wrong. He was known to be ambitious, conniving, and ruthless, but though he was a frequent associate of Cardinal D’Ailly and several other prelates, he had made no public condemnations of Master Hus.
But his son had threatened Anika.
John gripped his reins and glanced behind him. Anika rode next to Lev near the end of the procession. Surely she was safe, for no one looking at her in armor would suppose her to be a woman … but John could not ride in peace knowing she might be exposed. Only two months before, he had heard that Laco’s men were still searching for the elusive red-haired maiden, even offering a reward for anyone who found her.
“Very good, Manville,” he said, nodding his thanks to the knight. “And will you do me the service of riding behind Kafka and Lev? Those two young ones talk too much on the journey. I fear they might wander off in the woods and lose us.”
If Manville thought the request odd, he gave no indication of it. “Aye, my lord,” he said, inclining his head. As Manville turned his horse and moved toward the back of the line, John slapped his reins and urged his own mount forward.
The procession moved on into the countryside, and as the swollen sun hung low in the west, Anika spied their destination: the castle belonging to the Earl of Tesar, an old friend of Lord John’s. The deforested pasture surrounding the castle gleamed like copper in the fading light, and the sun’s bright beams gilded the castle’s massive stone walls. On a pair of imposing twin towers flags emblazoned with the earl’s family crest fluttered in the slight breeze. Anika thought of the knights who lived in those towers and shifted uneasily in the saddle, wondering if she would have any trouble in the night. She had never encountered difficulty in the garrison at Chlum with her comrades; each man instinctively left his fellows alone in the dark, affording each other a modicum of privacy. But tonight after supper she would have to find a place to sleep in the straw, for Tesar’s knights surely would not give up their bunks to a band of competitive visitors.
The earl had obviously been alerted to their approach. The gates yawned in welcome and the knights of Tesar lined the drawbridge and the indented ramparts. Several men on horseback were now approaching, their pennants streaming in the wind. Anika thought she could smell the mouth-watering aroma of roasting beef, and her stomach clenched in anticipation of a hearty meal. They had not eaten since leaving Chlum, and she was as hungry as a nun on the last day of Lent.
With the others, she spurred her horse into an easy canter, and watched the castle rise up before her.
The knights of Chlum were greeted with much slapping on the back and roughhousing, and Anika quietly thanked God that her slight form forestalled the inevitable challenges the knights tossed at one another. No one wanted to challenge a scarecrow, Novak told her, so she’d be safe enough.
After supper there would be jousting and wrestling and fencing in the field, dangerous enough exercises in the light of day and hardly appropriate activities for torchlight. But the knights of Chlum were eager to expend pent-up energy, and the knights of Tesar were anxious to prove their valor. Manville and Novak, due to their size and reputations, were challenged immediately, and Anika stepped back into the shadows of the stable, unwilling to attract attention. The long day of riding in heavy armor had done nothing but weary her, and after supper she planned on staking out a quiet spot in the barn and losing herself in sleep.
The flare of torchlight from an upper balcony caught her eye, and she stepped forward, hoping the light meant that supper would soon be served. In the orange red glow Anika saw Lord John, Jan Hus, and the shadowy forms of a man and woman. The unknown man stepped forward. The Earl of Tesar—for surely this was he—had a wide-shouldered, square body and black hair that flowed from his face like a crest.
“Welcome, knights of Chlum!” he called, his confident voice ringing over the courtyard. “You grace us with your presence and your bravery, and our prayers will go with you on the morrow as you carry one of Bohemia’s most precious sons to do God’s bidding!”
Cheers rose in great waves from the assembled knights, bringing a blush to Master Hus’s face. He stood silently, his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes focused on his host’s face.
“I am the Earl of Tesar,” the man continued, playing his role with great relish, “and this fair beauty you know, my lovely daughter Zelenka.”
Anika blinked in dismay and surprise as the earl took the woman’s hand and led her from the shadows into the torchlight. Lady Zelenka! Anika had not seen that lady in over a year, and some part of her hoped that the bloom had faded from the rose. But there Zelenka stood, still lovely, still eager to smile at Lord John.
Zelenka lifted her hand to the knights in a graceful salute, then allowed her eyes to roam over the crowd like an eagle searching for prey.
“I wish I could bring you all in to sup with me and your master,” the earl was saying, but Anika could not look at him. Her eyes were fastened instead upon Zelenka, who stood with her bare shoulder brushing Lord John’s arm, a few strands of her golden hair clinging to his cloak as if drawn by some magnetic force.
“Father.” Zelenka’s voice, though quiet, carried throughout the courtyard. At the sound of her silvery tones even the background sounds of activity ceased. Every man present leaned forward in anticipation of her next words. A smile nudged itself into a corner of the lady’s mouth. “Father, I see an old friend, a knight I met at Chlum. Will you allow me to invite him in to dine with us?”
Surprised out of his graciousness, the earl turned and gaped at her. “One of the knights?” he stammered, obviously reluctant. “At our supper?”
“Yes.” The girl threw the crowd a triumphant smile that set the knights to cheering. Anika felt her heart contract in pity for whatever unfortunate the girl had singled out. The other knights, with the sole exception of Novak, leaned forward, hoping for the summons from on high. Zelenka’s pale arm lifted, the delicate finger pointed—in Anika’s direction.
“The wee one,” Zelenka called, her voice brimming with false sweetness. “The little knight there, in the hooded hauberk. I believe his name is Sir Kafka.”
Anika’s heart turned to stone within her chest, weighing down her legs so she could not move. She saw—no, felt—every head in the courtyard turn and strain to see her, and suddenly she wished the sand under her feet would part so the earth could swallow her whole.
“I don’t suppose one wee knight will disturb our fellowship. Have the man come up.” The earl raised his daughter’s hand in an elegant gesture and turned to leave the balcony. Anika lifted her eyes in time to see Lord John look toward her with an inscrutable expression on his face, while Master Hus sent her a smile of bemused pity. You have made your bed, his smile seemed to say. Now lie in it.
And while the other knights slapped her on the back and made in
sincere jokes about how lucky Kafka was to have caught the lady’s eye, Anika clenched her hand until her nails entered her palm. Lord John had told her that Zelenka had seen through Anika’s disguise. The earl’s daughter was fully aware that she had just invited another woman to her father’s table.
What sort of torture was this? It is nothing. It means nothing. Zelenka only means to toy with me; this has nothing to do with Lord John.
Desperate to prove to herself that she was immune to anything that might happen in her master’s presence, Anika straightened her shoulders, brushed the dust from her surcoat, then strode toward the doorway that led to the earl’s banquet hall.
Though she was starving, Anika could eat little, for her stomach churned with anxiety and frustration. She remained silent throughout the meal, content to be ignored so she could listen to her master’s voice, but her attention to the conversation was distracted by Zelenka’s actions and attitudes. The earl’s comely daughter sat across from Anika but next to Lord John, and her face proved to be a study in contrasts. One moment she pouted, her rosebud lips pointed down in a gesture clearly designed to indicate her displeasure, but the next moment her hand was on John’s arm and her blue eyes bright with admiration as she gazed up at him. Though many months had passed since she had visited Chlum, Zelenka looked more beautiful and irresistible than ever, and Anika found herself comparing her callous and ink-stained hands to Zelenka’s dainty palms.
Why would John prefer the company of a girl whose face was streaked with dirt when he could have one who had painted her cheeks as prettily as a rose? Why would he cultivate friendship with a scrawny girl with chopped coppery hair when he could have lustrous golden braids streaming through his fingers? Zelenka displayed her smooth bosom and arms to her advantage, while Anika wore dusty layers: a linen shift, a mail hauberk, plates of iron, a shapeless surcoat.
Why would Lord John even think of Anika as a woman when he had Zelenka to fill his dreams? ’Twas a wonder he did not forget who and what Anika was, so well had she hidden whatever charms she might have had … once.
Swallowing the despair in her throat, she looked down at her trencher and uselessly moved her uneaten food with her spoon. Zelenka’s laughter cut through the silence, a soothing sound like music on a quiet night. Anika lifted her head. Through tear-filled eyes she saw Zelenka smiling, her hand on John’s shoulder, her eyes glowing with—love?
The earl stood and pushed back his chair, and instantly Master Hus and Lord John followed suit. Anika nearly sat still until she remembered that as a man she, too, must rise, so she sprang immediately to her feet.
“This knight of yours has said little tonight,” the earl told his daughter, a faintly reproachful note in his voice. “I think he might have preferred to eat with his comrades in the yard below.”
“No,” Zelenka answered, her eyes crossing to meet Anika’s. “We will have a private word now, my friends, as you go your way. Good night, Father, Master Hus.” She looked up at Anika’s master with dreamy eyes. “Good night, my lord.”
Amid much shuffling and the exchanging of pleasantries, the men left the room. Anika bowed stiffly and tried to follow, but a stern command from Zelenka stopped her.
“I know your little game,” the lady said, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair. She tented her dainty hands and stared at Anika over the tips of her manicured fingernails. “I know you are a woman. And if you think you can win Lord John’s heart through this little pretense of yours—”
“My lady, I can assure you nothing lies further from my mind,” Anika interrupted, keeping her voice low. “Lord John is my master, and I have sworn fealty to him. That is all I ever wanted to do.”
“Oh?” A sudden icy contempt flashed in the other woman’s eyes. “If all you ever wanted to do was become a knight, why do you remain at Chlum Castle? You have proved yourself; you are no longer a lowly squire. Are you so unnatural that you do not long for the love of a good man? Do you not wish to raise sons and daughters? To feel a man’s arms around you in the night?”
Anika closed her eyes against the unexpected emotions that rose in her breast. “No,” she whispered, her voice strangled by anger and jealousy. “I only wish to serve him—and to fulfill a vow I made. And that vow has nothing to do with Lord John.”
“Then you are the most unnatural of women,” Zelenka answered. She gazed at Anika with chilling intentness for a long moment, then pursed her lips in a suspicious expression. “And yet, something tells me you are not.”
“How do you know anything about me?” Anika countered, irritated by Zelenka’s mocking tone. “You do not know me at all. We have nothing in common.”
“But we do,” Zelenka answered, lightly bringing her fingertips to her lips. Her mouth pursed up in a tiny rosette, then unpuckered enough to continue. “We are women, and women understand each other. I can see from the look in your eyes that you love your master, even as you see that I am clearly out to claim the prize you cannot have.”
Shock flew through Anika. She stood by the side of the table, blank, amazed, and very shaken, until her tongue loosened enough to reply. “I am surprised,” she finally managed to say, “that you have waited so long for Lord John. Surely there are other unmarried lords with vast estates.”
“None so vast as Chlum,” Zelenka answered. She leaned back in her chair and contentedly sipped from her glass. “And there are no lords so handsome as Lord John. I will wait forever, if need be, or at least until this matter with the preacher is settled. Master Hus occupies Lord John’s mind now, but soon that matter will be finished. And when it is, I shall be ready to return to Chlum … as its mistress.”
A flurry of protestations rose to Anika’s lips, but she bit them back with a discipline forged on Novak’s relentless training field. “If you have no further need of me,” she said, turning to face Zelenka in a deliberately casual movement, “I would like to join my comrades.”
“Go.” Zelenka leaned toward her, her eyes cold. “I hope I never see you again.”
“If God is good to us, my lady,” Anika answered, each word a splinter of ice, “you will not.”
She could not love Lord John. It was impossible. As the procession of mounted knights, clerics, and nobles moved southwestward through the Bohemian Forest, Anika reminded herself that her master had courted daughters of nobles, many of whom would bring dowries that would further enrich his estate. Many of them, like Zelenka, were beautiful and witty, others sweet and holy. When he could have his choice from any of them, why would he even consider her? He thought her strange, and though he respected her work, he probably thought her more fit for perdition than matrimony. He only allowed her to remain at Chlum because she was skilled with a pen and languages; he had no patience for her dreams and no understanding of her motivation.
Why, then, did her heart ache every time he walked by? And how had Zelenka known this? Had Anika somehow revealed her emotions on her face?
She was secretly pleased when Lord John decided to ride today in the carriage with Jan Hus, Jerome, and Lord Venceslas of Duba. Their days were filled with plotting and strategies, Anika suspected, and Lord John would have no time for romance or longings for Zelenka. If she concentrated on her work, perhaps her attention would be distracted as well.
Anika sighed. Passing a single hour without thinking of Lord John seemed about as impossible as counting the stars in the night sky.
Twenty-Five
Baldasarre Cossa, more commonly known as Pope John XXIII, leaned forward in his gilded carriage, annoyed that a herdsman with an unstable flock of sheep had blocked the road. “Driver,” he called, rapping on the roof of his conveyance with his walking stick, “run them over, do you hear? The man obviously has no idea who rides in this carriage. Run over the filthy beasts, and let the man count himself blessed that God’s representative has noticed him today.”
The crack of the whip rang out, the carriage jolted forward, and Baldasarre cursed softly under his breath as he was t
hrown off balance. What a lot of foolishness this council was. He hadn’t wanted to leave Rome. He had only agreed to this council because not agreeing would most certainly lead to his condemnation from afar. And though he didn’t know how they would evict him from his Roman palace, he feared that someone might try to do it by subtle means. After all, he had assumed the pope’s crown after feeding his weakling predecessor, Alexander V, a healthy dose of poison.
Uncertainty gnawed at his confidence. One could never be too sure which way the winds of fate might blow. In his lifetime, Baldasarre had been many things—soldier, scholar, pirate—and through all his journeys he had come to see that only one thing mattered: power. With power came money, renown, and women, all the pleasures that lightened a man’s soul, but without power a man was little more than the dust of the earth, as useless and worthless as peasants who worked the soil outside a nobleman’s estate.
And so he had cultivated power. Among the retinue of cardinals and bishops that followed him now in ornate carriages he had few friends; Baldasarre preferred to anchor his future to strongholds outside the church. He had paused in Tyrol to confirm his alliance with Duke Frederick of Austria, a genteel nobleman with no money and a great love for creative melodrama.
“Your Holiness!” A brightly uniformed servant rode up on horseback, bringing a choking cloud of dust into the carriage. Baldasarre bit back an oath and stared at the man.
“Constance is just ahead, Your Holiness. I thought you might like to know.”
There went that instinct again, seizing him by the guts and yanking for his attention. Fear blew down the back of Baldasarre’s neck, but he shook it off and hunched forward, gesturing for the servant to fling open the door of the carriage.
“Let me out!” he screamed, not waiting for the red carpets which were usually spread before he would descend. The princely procession had halted atop a hill, and below, in the valley, Baldasarre could see the city of Constance glittering like a jewel by the shore of the lake.
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