The Silver Sword (38 page)

Anika felt a shudder of embarrassment and was grateful the boys had turned their eyes elsewhere. “I loved my father,” she said, searching for words with which she could tell the truth and yet not reveal her heart. “I loved my mother, and I loved Sir Petrov. In a chaste and respectful way I love Master Hus.”

“And so you must love Lord John, too,” Svec observed, his young face brightening at the suggestion.

Anika felt her flesh color. “All the knights of Chlum love your father, for they are sworn to serve him,” she answered quickly, determined to change the subject. “And why are you so formal? He is your father; you should refer to him as such. My father was as dear to me as my own life, and I never would have called him ‘Ernan O'Connor.'”

“Lord John wants us to be like everyone else,” Lev answered, rhythmically swinging his leg from the fence. “He doesn't want us to have special attention or special favors.”

“You ought to at least have his special love,” Anika answered, disappointment and frustration bringing a hard frown to her face. Why did her master keep people at arm's length? She could understand the social gap that kept him distanced from his knights and servants, but these two precious boys were his
sons.
They had no mother, and as long as Lord John continued to remain aloof, they did not have a father, either.

“I'll get that book for you later,” she promised Lev as she slipped from the fence. “As soon as I've returned from speaking with your father.”

She found Lord John in the kennel, his arms crossed and an expression of extreme satisfaction on his face as he looked at a bloodhound nursing her new litter in a sturdy crate. The mastiffs, Bilko and Bela, crouched by his side as usual, their alert faces tilted toward the mewling puppies as if they couldn't quite understand the reason for these new additions.

Anika cast the puppies a perfunctory glance, then braced herself for the confrontation. Lord John would not want to hear this from her, from anyone, but someone had to tell him he was hurting his sons. Apparently none of the other men cared enough, or maybe they didn't feel a responsibility toward Lev and Svec. But Anika understood how the boys felt; she sensed the hurt behind Lev's dark eyes and Svec's quiet whimpers in the dark. These boys were
lonely,
and they needed their father's affection.

“My lord.”

He looked up, his eyes glowing with enjoyment. “Look at them, Kafka. Finer hounds are not to be found in Bohemia. These pups will be like their father, able to finish any stag the greyhounds chase.”

She would not let herself be distracted. “My lord, I would speak to you of another father—my own. Because my mother died when I was young, he was closer to me than any other kin. He taught me, he fed me, he listened to me.”

He offered her a distracted smile. “You have mentioned him several times.”

“Yes, my lord. And now it seems to me that you ought to do the same for your sons.” She took a deep breath and plunged carelessly on. “I used to think you were wise to put your sons with the men, but I have spent many hours with Lev and Svec, my lord, and they are unhappy. They love you as their master, but I fear they do not know you as their father—”

He whirled to stare at her, quick anger rising in his eyes. “Why do you speak of my children? They are nothing to you.”

She felt suddenly weak and vulnerable in the face of his anger, but she could not back down. “In truth, my lord, they mean much
to me. Lev has been a friend since my squire days, and Svec is still but a child, and he needs a father.”

“They have a father.” His dark eyes blazed amber fire. “They have me. They have more than the other squires. Most of the men in my garrison were raised to knighthood from their youths, and none of them were spoiled by a father's hand. If my sons are to be strong, if they are to be heirs of this estate, they must not be pampered and coddled.”

“Pampered and coddled?” Anger singed her control. “Is that what you think I was? Pampered? Spoiled? Loving a child is no more pampering him than—” Sputtering for words, her mind went blank. “There!” she said finally, grasping for something he could understand. She pointed toward the newborn puppies. “Would you take these infants and toss them out into the courtyard with a pack of curs? Of course not! They need their mama! Likewise, your sons need you! There comes a time when you should not act the lord, but the father!”

He stood there, tall and angry, his eyes black and dazzling with fury. “Who are
you,”
he said finally, an undertone of cold contempt in his voice, “to tell me what I should be? Look at you. You are neither woman, nor daughter, nor wife. What gives you the right to reproach me?”

She took a half-step back as his words pierced her heart. Who was she, indeed? She had felt certain that this confrontation was right, that he respected her enough to heed her advice. They had spent so many hours working together—he knew her secrets, and she thought he understood the deepest motivations of her heart. Her head swam as she reversed the situation and considered his point of view. He would think she had glibly gone to him to point out the speck in his eye, forgetting that she bore a beam in her own.

“You know who I am,” she whispered, stunned by the sudden declaration of war between them. “You, more than anyone. But I'm beginning to think I don't know you at all!”

She turned to run away, but his right hand caught her elbow. He pulled her roughly toward him, his hand now locking against her
spine, drawing her into his arms. “You know me,” he whispered into her hair, a possessive desperation in his voice. “But you should not.”

Spellbound with new and compelling sensations, Anika could not answer. A trembling thrill raced through her as he lifted his palm to her cheek, and she wondered if he could feel in it the pounding of her pulse. The touch of his hand was suddenly almost unbearable in its tenderness, but none of this made sense, none of this should be happening.

As if he had read her thoughts in her eyes, he abruptly released her. Backing away, he stared at the ground for a moment, then whistled for the mastiffs and strode out of the kennel.

What had he been thinking?

John walked past Demetr with an uplifted hand, not willing to take time to hear the steward's list of complaints. Anika had come to him out of concern, and he had attacked her feelings and her respect for him, and then he had reached out to touch her—

Foolishness. Complete and utter foolishness. He had already broken one woman's heart; he would not toy with another's.

“Lord John—” Demetr padded after him, waving a parchment.

John turned abruptly and thrust his hand into his belt. “Later, Demetr. I need some time alone. Grant me a few moments privacy, at least. If you have questions, take them to Sir Novak or Peter or—”

“Sir Kafka, my lord?”

John glanced up in suspicion, but Demetr's face was seamless and bland. The question was most likely an innocent one, since Kafka had been helping with so many of the estate's records. “Yes. Take your questions elsewhere. But pray leave me alone.”

Demetr nodded and hurried away. John let himself into his empty bedchamber, then sank into a chair. Bela and Bilko collapsed gratefully at his side, probably as confused as he about the events of the morning.

Lowering his head onto his hand, John grasped at the strings of reality and held them tightly. He was the lord of a vast manor; he had
responsibilities to his villagers, to his king, to his friend Jan Hus, to God Almighty. He fulfilled his responsibility to his sons by taking care of the estate which would one day be Lev's and by training Svec for knighthood. Surely that ought to be enough.

His mind burned with the memory of Kafka's accusing eyes. No. It wasn't enough. He worked his hand through his hair, resisting the truth. Kafka's words, spoken in honest concern, had laid bare the mere tip of a long seam of guilt that snaked its way back through the years.

He never should have married Frantiska, his sons' mother, but the marriage doubled the size of Chlum estate. His widowed mother, eager to secure a place for her son, had arranged everything from the size of the dowry to the blushing bride's wedding gown. And in those early days, John had appreciated Frantiska's gentle and overwhelming beauty. She was an exquisite moonbeam too delicate for daylight and too ethereal for the vagaries of political life. Born with a desolate, shallow soul, she often wilted like a flower in the cold winds of a disagreement. She had no values or dedications beyond her own walls, and as the years passed she remained pathetically girlish in behavior.

Yet John believed Frantiska was all a wife should be. And his feelings for her—which varied from the pride one feels for a lovely possession to indifference—were all he knew of love. As time passed and the boys were born, Frantiska remained majestic and beautifully aloof, yet somehow seemed shadowed, even with an aura of sunlight around her. She withdrew into herself, shunning John's company and her sons' affections. And one morning while the boys studied with Vasek and John hunted with his knights, she hanged herself from a beam in the stable.

Later Vasek assured John that the girl's temperament was flawed. John should not blame himself for Frantiska's tragic end, the chaplain said, for 'twas obvious that the humors of cold and dryness made hers a negative, obsessive, depressive, and brooding temperament. The theory was proved by the fact that she chose to end her life in autumn, in the period between noon and six P.M., the time when the
melancholic temperament was strongest and life waned out of the earth.

Despite Vasek's logical explanations, guilt still plagued John. In honest moments alone John admitted that he had given her less time and attention than he routinely gave his dogs. He had intended to cherish and respect her, and to every public eye he had seemed a model husband, but his heart could never rise to the level of his own expectation. He had cared for her, protected her, fathered two sons with her. But he had never loved her.

And Kafka had just told him that he did not know how to love his sons.

He shuddered inwardly at the thought that he might compound his error, but he had set his course and could not turn back. The boys were safe in the garrison, for over forty pairs of eyes watched over them. They knew their station, they knew he was near, they knew he would listen to their concerns as readily as he listened to any man in the garrison with a complaint.

But love was not for him. God had filled his life with other responsibilities.

T
hroughout the next several weeks, Anika felt a wretchedness of mind she'd never known before. Lord John sensed it, she was certain, for he did not send for her unless there were others present in the room—as if he could not trust her not to rail at him again.

She watched him with sorrow in her eyes, wishing she could tell him that her anger had faded to concern and compassion. Obviously some secret pain kept him from enjoying his sons' company—did he miss his wife so much that the mere sight of the boys distressed him? The woman had been dead for nearly five years, but Anika knew her father had mourned his wife at least that long.