The Silver Sword (28 page)

“Do not laugh, my young friend,” Novak answered roughly, dropping her arm. It clanked against the brass plates that covered her chest and abdomen. “I almost think it is better to wear only a suit of mail than all these armored plates. I have heard of many a wounded man who had to be carried into the garrison and carved out of his harness before being put to bed.”

“Then why am I wearing all this?” she asked, stiffly turning to face him. “Why am I trussed up like a banquet-table turkey?”

“Because even in a practice exercise when the blunted arms of courtesy are used,” Novak said, lifting her heavy, open-faced helmet, or basinet, “a knight can be killed. A headless spear can pierce a suit of mail; a blunted sword can break a bone. You will wear this armor, Kafka, and be grateful for it.”

Anika stifled her protests and accepted the helmet, knowing it was no use to argue with a man as set in his ways as Novak. In many respects he had been a blessing to her. Like Petrov, Novak clung to the old ideals. Bravery, loyalty, and faithfulness to God meant far more to him than financial rewards and political power.

But his rigidity and traditionalism could prove to be her undoing. She had already stopped and corrected herself a thousand times in his presence, adjusting her speech, her mannerisms, the way she talked and moved and sighed. Certainly he would have no patience or understanding for a woman who had dared to cross the threshold of the knights' garrison. Though he seemed to respect her as a student, she feared he would feel nothing but contempt for her as a woman.

But today her secret lay closer to the surface than ever. She'd begun the cycle of her monthly bleeding and had been having cramps since morning. She had stoically denied the pain and discomfort, turning away so he would not read the worry and annoyance in her eyes. At least once an hour she excused herself to go to the lavatory, where she covered fresh straw in a long strip of cloth. A narrow band of leather around her waist held the straw and cloth in place, yet she worried that Novak might yet guess her secret. Once bound up in her armor she could barely move, much less attend to her feminine needs. And his presence, as he hovered near to attach her armor, was nerve-racking.

“We shall not practice the actual joust today,” Novak said, eyeing her critically as he stepped back to survey his work. The armor he had put on her was the smallest to be found in the castle, and still she felt like a child parading in her father's clothes. “But I want you to get used to the armor's weight.” He moved toward the door and pushed it open, letting a stream of crystal cold air into the chamber. “Come, let's go outside and attempt a bit of swordplay. You must learn to move in the armor as the grasshopper moves in his hard shell, to accept it as your second skin.”

“No grasshopper ever carried a shell this heavy,” Anika grumbled, slowly clanking her way out of the garrison. The helmet under her arm weighed ten pounds alone, and the breastplate was at least that heavy. Added to the vambraces for her arms, the gauntlets on her hands, the fauld and culet which covered her abdomen and hindquarters, and the heavy mail shirt underneath it all, and Anika had easily doubled her weight.

How was she supposed to fight encumbered like this? She could barely move. Only one thought gave her the courage to keep moving. In her fencing trials with her fellow squires, she had learned that her chief advantage lay in a rapid and aggressive advance. She had not won every contest, but she had always scored the first point. The other squires now knew her approach, but none of the other knights would expect so small an opponent to come at them without warning.

“Are you ready, then?” Wearing his armor as comfortably as an old slipper, Novak picked up his blunted sword and moved to stand across from her.

“One moment.” Anika unceremoniously dropped her sword to the dusty ground, then lifted the heavy helmet and lowered it onto her head.

She felt as if the world had suddenly gone silent and dark. The conical helmet completely enclosed the sides of her face and neck, leaving only a T-shaped opening. Her eyes peered through the horizontal bar of the “T”, while the two-inch vertical opening ran from the bottom of her eyes to her chin, allowing her to breathe … and pray.

Holy God, if you would see me through this …

She lowered her bulky arms and turned to face Novak.

“Your sword,” he said, flicking his own blade toward her impatiently. “You cannot fight without a weapon, Kafka.”

She bent forward, careful not to let gravity pull her off balance, until her heavily meshed hands finally found the hilt of her sword. She had chosen to fight with her own lightweight weapon instead of a blunted blade, and Novak had voiced no objection. He was probably certain she would not do him any harm.

She gripped the silver sword in her right hand and placed her left hand up behind her, bending her knees until she found her center of gravity. In her heavy hauberk and armor, she felt ponderous and lifeless, barely able to move.

Anika bounced on her legs, testing their strength under this additional weight. Though she had been practicing in her coat of mail for weeks, she had never worn full armor until today. The unexpected lunge forward was her best move, and Novak knew it, but she was not sure she could manage a lunge in this clattering collection of metal.

Novak peered at her down the length of his blade and began circling slowly. “Ready,” he said, his eyes snapping with challenge. As confident as a terrier, he wore no helmet at all, only his hauberk, a breastplate, and gauntlets, the least a knight could wear and still feel properly protected.

She lifted her sword and drew the handle in close to her breast, matching Novak's movements around the circle, knowing he would not make the first move. This practice session was intended to ready her for her final test, the coming day when she would prove to all of Chlum Castle and the unseen heavenly host that she was capable of fighting for God, that she could strike a blow against those who had killed her parents and Petrov, those who would take God's truth and subvert it, turning it into a lie.

Lord John's two mastiffs ran by, woofing at some imagined danger, and Novak's eyes flicked toward the dogs. Seizing the moment, Anika lunged forward, straining with all her might, aiming her blade toward the spot where his breastplate should have joined the gardbrace, the vulnerable spot over his heart.

With one sure stroke, Novak parried the blow and stepped away. With another blow his weapon caught her sword and sent it whirling end over end, out of reach. And then, like the trained warrior he was, he reflexively stuck out his foot and tripped her, sending her sprawling in the dirt.

Facedown in the courtyard, Anika tasted defeat and dust in the same moment. She felt like a turtle kicked over a cliff—sore, jostled, and very, very heavy. She tried to push herself up, but a rivet on the gauntlet of her right hand had tangled itself in her hauberk, effectively hobbling her.

“Get up, you imbecile!” Novak's voice hardened ruthlessly. “Do you think you are fit for the test? For knighthood? I will shame you into readiness; rise up and come at me again!”

“I can't,” she whispered, her voice breaking miserably.

“Never say ‘can't'!” Novak continued to roar, his voice turning every head within earshot. Anika gritted her teeth, understanding his intention. He wanted to rouse her fighting spirit, to prod her into rising, to whip her into a determined frenzy so she could prove to
herself
that she had learned her lessons.

He couldn't know that her motivations ran far deeper than a need to prove herself. But at the moment she had no fight in her soul, nothing but a vast heaviness and a dull, persistent ache in her
belly. The shock of defeat held her immobile, and though she knew this one fall was nothing to be ashamed of, a sensation of sickness and desolation swept over her.

What was wrong with her? Why was she suddenly exhausted, drained of all will and thought?

Novak came to her rescue before she could humiliate herself with weeping.

“Get up when I command you,” he whispered in a gruff voice, lifting her by the shoulders as if she weighed no more than a sack of feathers. He pulled her up and spun her around until she gazed into his eyes. In his expression she saw anger, but also hurt, disappointment, and something that looked like bewilderment.

Wrenching out of his grasp, Anika staggered forward on heavy feet and ran toward the shadowed safety of the stable, freeing her hands from the confining gauntlets, then shedding other scraps of armor along the way. She ran past the startled grooms, then fell into a hay bed in an empty stall. The sweetly mingled scents of horses, manure, oats, and hay comforted her as her eyes welled with hurt and her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the buckles and clasps that linked the remaining pieces of her armor together.

She would have to take it all off and leave it with Novak. Then she'd have to leave the garrison and throw herself upon Lord John's mercy.

Why had she ever been so foolish? Serving in Lord Laco's house couldn't be this humiliating or painful.

“God save you, boy, why didn't you tell me you were hurt?”

Anika looked up, startled, and saw Novak standing over her, his dark eyes brimming with compassion. “There's no shame in being cut, even if by a piece of your own armor. Did one of the edges slip and pierce your hauberk?”

Her mind spun with bewilderment. “What?”

“You are hurt.” The knight crouched before her in the straw, his eyes bemused. “Everyone is cut sooner or later, boy, but a knight gets up and keeps going. So show me your wound and I'll dress it.”

“My wound?” She fought to control her swirling emotions.

Though her body was numb with weariness, she had felt no cut. The tiny hairs at the back of her neck rose with premonition.

“I saw the blood on the ground where you fell, boy, and I see it now on the straw where you sit. And a man does not bleed unless he is—”

“A woman,” she responded sharply, abandoning all pretense. Her charade was over. Some things even a woman's wit and cleverness could not conceal.

N
ovak halted, shocked. Surely his ears had deceived him. The boy could not have surprised him more if he had claimed to be emperor of the world.

“I am a woman,” Kafka repeated, her tear-filled eyes shifting like stars above. A tremor passed over her face, and a sudden spasm of grief knit her brows. “And I am sorry, Sir Novak.”

Novak fell back into the hay, too startled for words. Surely such a thing was impossible. He, Novak, could not be wrong, and he knew the lad for a slight but sturdy boy of sixteen, one who was about to be sworn into service for Lord John and Chlum Castle.

“I am Anika, the daughter of Ernan O'Connor,” Kafka was saying, an aura of melancholy radiating from the pale and delicate features like some dark nebula. “After my father was killed by Lord Laco's knights, Sir Petrov took me into his care. He had told me stories of knighthood since my childhood days, and so we thought it best that I go into hiding here.” The squire gulped hard, hot tears slipping down his—
her
—cheeks. “Lord Laco was intent on having me for his son, you see, and I had no defender save Sir Petrov. And I have always wanted to know how to fight, for someday, somehow, I will take vengeance upon the evil churchman who killed my mother.”

Still speechless, Novak leaned back upon the wooden wall. He closed his eyes, rubbed them, and opened them again, expecting to find a different squire before him, one somewhat altered from the
boy he had trained. But Kafka sat there, unchanged, with the same delicate features, the same sad smile.

A girl. A female. A young woman.

Novak shook his head, slowly weighing the structure of events that had brought him and his squire together. Had he missed some clue along the way? Some bold suggestion, some hint, some giveaway word or deed? He could not recall anything. Either the girl was an extremely careful deceiver, or Novak had completely lost touch with his senses.

“You are a liar, then.” He glared at the girl with burning, reproachful eyes. “You have lied to the master, to me, and to every man in the garrison. We ought to turn you out of the castle gate clad only in a chemise, for you have disgraced your own sex and the calling of knighthood.”

“No.” Somehow the sound of tears in her voice stunned him. “I never lied. Sir Petrov and I were careful not to speak any untruth. Never did he introduce me as a boy. He only said I was the
child
of a friend, not the son.”

“Kafka is a man's name.”

“The word means ‘little bird.' It was my father's pet name for me.”

A hot tear rolled down her cheek, and Novak looked away. Tears were the gelding weapons of women. She wanted him to pity her—and what else?

“The other knights will be furious.” He crossed and then uncrossed his legs. “You have heard things not fit for a woman's ears.”