The Silver Sword Read Online Free Page A

up?”
    â€œCome 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.”
    â€œNo, 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? AsGod 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.
    â€œGo 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!”

    â€œAnika! 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.
    â€œPapa?” The word was hoarse, forced through her constricted throat.
    â€œAnika, 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.
    â€œAre 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.
    â€œThank you, Papa,” she whispered, slipping her arms around his neck. Relaxing in his embrace, she closed her eyes, but the vagueshadows 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.

    A beautiful figure wins love with very little effort, especially when the lover who is sought is simple, for a simple lover thinks that there is nothing to look for in one’s beloved besides a beautiful figure and face and a body well cared for. I do not particularly blame the love of such people, but neither do I have much approval for it, because love—
    â€œAnika!”
    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.
    â€œQuickly, 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