The Silver Sword (47 page)

Y
ou needn't push me, young man,” Baldasarre snapped, turning to the chubby-faced guard who held his right arm. “Though it may give you pleasure to push one of your superiors up these stairs—”

“Don't mind him,” the other guard replied, sharing a smile with the clumsy youth. “He still thinks he's the blessed pope.”

“I may no longer wear the Crown of Christ,” Baldasarre answered, his voice brimming with distaste, “yet still I am your superior. I am, and I will always be. So mind your words and your actions lest they come back to haunt you.”

The guards eased their grip on him then, though their smirking faces lost none of their insolence. Baldasarre lifted his robe and climbed steadily up the winding staircase, holding his chin as high as his fractured pride would allow.

Duke Frederick had proved to be a fickle friend. Though he had been true enough to help Baldasarre escape from Constance, Frederick's eagerness to ingratiate himself with Sigismund had been Baldasarre's undoing. The price of Frederick's friendship with the emperor was one ex-pope, bound and delivered. Two mornings ago Baldasarre had awakened in his plush bed at the Duke's castle to find himself surrounded by half a dozen imperial guards.

In a hastily arranged trial by the council, the former Pope John was convicted of fifty-four charges and declared to be “the mirror of infamy, an idolater of the flesh, and according to all who knew him a devil incarnate.” The audacious council—several of whom owed
their cardinals' robes to
him
—sentenced Baldasarre to imprisonment. In a fit of spiteful glee, Sigismund commanded that Baldasarre be brought to the Castle Gottlieben, only four miles from the brouhaha he had escaped at Constance.

Baldasarre stopped and inhaled deeply when he and his guards reached the landing at the top of the tower. By a stream of light through a small window, Baldasarre could see a wooden cage with two compartments, one of which was occupied by a stooped, shadowed shape. The stench of rotting food, human waste, and infected air filled the atmosphere like a palpable fog, clogging his nostrils. He could not survive in this place, and he would not bear it.

“Am I to be thrust in here like an animal?” He threw back his head and thumped his manacled hands against his chest. “I am no beast, not like this criminal. Tell your royal master that I protest. I have done nothing to warrant this kind of barbaric treatment.”

His reaction seemed only to amuse the guards. A small rustling sound shattered the stillness in the cage; the shadowed man stirred. Did he dare to laugh, too?

“In you go,” the older guard said, unlocking the wooden door on the first cell. Baldasarre resisted, but felt the insistent prick of a sword through his robe. Slowly and reluctantly, he moved into the cramped space.

“Hear me!” he cried, even as the guard slammed and locked the door. Lifting his chained hands to the bars, Baldasarre fixed the younger guard in the stare that used to make subordinates cringe. “I am not an animal, that you can lock me in a cage! I am a man of God! I hold the power of life and death in my hands! Almighty God himself will punish you for this injustice!”

Laughing, the two guards disappeared down the stairs, their light steps tripping over the stones like rhythmic applause.

Baldasarre leaned his back against the wall and slowly sank downward, dimly aware that he was ruining what had been a very costly robe. Sigismund, the jealous fool, was doing this to teach him a lesson. The emperor was flaunting his power, but he had forgotten that Baldasarre always won in the end. Sigismund would free him as
soon as he needed a favor. Or maybe the new pope, whomever the council elected, would need advice. In either case, Baldasarre would be freed. He might never again be pope, but he would return to the glorious life of a cardinal. He could accept no less.

He glanced up, some sixth sense having brought him back to reality. As nightfall approached, the light was fading fast, color bleeding out of the air. The dark figure in the other chamber, even more shadowed and indistinct than a moment before, sat hunched in the corner, one limp arm hanging from the wall, the other resting on a bent knee. The bearded stranger sorely needed a haircut. The fingers of his hands seemed devilishly long and gaunt, but bright eyes burned from the center of that skeletal face.

The head moved in a barely discernible nod as the apparition spoke: “Grace and peace to you, Baldasarre Cossa.” The words hung in the miasma between them.

Baldasarre winced slightly, as if his flesh had been nipped. What sort of criminal was this, and how could he know Baldasarre's name? “Who are you?” A sudden whisper of terror ran through him. “How do you know me?”

“I am Jan Hus,” the man replied, his voice soft and eminently reasonable. “The man you persecuted.”

Baldasarre waited, knowing the man would gloat, curse, or rail against him … but darkness fell, and the Bohemian preacher spoke only once more: “May the Lord bless you and bring you peace.”

Half-blind with unreasoning terror, Baldasarre leapt to his feet and pounded on the door, screaming that he would go mad unless his captors released him.

Vasek stood as tense and quivering as a bowstring, but managed to bow before the assembled council. A letter from Lord John lay on the table before the prelate in charge. “Your master begs us to release Hus from custody that he might recover his health for a public examination,” the cardinal read, summarizing the letter for those assembled. “And he offers to provide sureties to guarantee Hus will not attempt to leave Constance before his case is judged.”

“That is correct, Your Eminence,” Vasek said, inclining his head. He took a deep breath to quell the leaping pulse beneath his ribs. “There are several noble lords in league with Lord John of Chlum, and they have all promised to lend their men and their resources to abet my master.”

“The request is absolutely refused.” The prelate laid the paper on the table and folded his hands over it. “We will not release Jan Hus under any circumstances, and we are not inclined to grant him a public hearing. The key to containing apostasy is to prevent its spread; how then can we willingly allow the public to receive seeds of heresy from this apostate's lips?”

“I agree with you that heresy should not be spread,” Vasek said, opening his hands to the council. “But I am employed to convey my master's wishes. And—are we certain that Master Hus is a heretic? The council has not yet decided.”

“The council will decide soon enough.” Cardinal D'Ailly leaned forward, his eyes dark and powerful. “But where do your sympathies lie? There are some, Chaplain Vasek, who fear you were close to that deposed pope.”

“I have always supported the Holy Mother Church.” Vasek had been forcing a smile, but now he felt it fade as he looked into D'Ailly's hypocritical eyes. Hadn't
he
been in league with Pope John? But that no longer mattered. The tide had turned, and D'Ailly now rode at the pinnacle of power. “I have always stood against heresy,” Vasek continued, his blood pounding thickly in his ears. “Even when Master Hus visited Lord John at Castle Chlum, I was faithful to point out the fallacies of his teaching.”

“Then why do you still serve this Bohemian lord?” Another cardinal shot the question from across the chamber.

“I had thought,” Vasek dropped his gaze before a dozen pairs of steady eyes, “that I might prove useful to the Church in my present position.”

Vasek paused, weighing the impact of his words. When the pontiff fled only to be arrested and convicted, Vasek had lived for days
in a state of terror, afraid he would be charged with some crime as well. But apparently only D'Ailly and a few other cardinals knew of Vasek's papal connections, and they were not eager to advertise their own visits to that miscreant.

By God's merciful grace Vasek had escaped his lord's notice the night Lord John stormed into the pope's chamber. He had been spared not once, but twice. Perhaps it was a sign. Perhaps there might still be a place of power and influence for him, even with the former pontiff in chains. If he could only manage to balance himself between his ecclesiastical superiors and his master.

“My brother the chaplain is a noble priest,” D'Ailly said, his gaze darting toward his fellow cardinals. “A weapon against Lucifer stands before you, so why do we not use him?” When he turned back to Vasek, his faint smile held a touch of sadness. “Go back to your master, Chaplain Vasek, and continue to serve him with the best of your ability. But know that we are opposed to a public hearing for Hus just as we are opposed to Hus's release. His heresy is like the plague: It moves swiftly and fatally, and we would not infect Constance with it.” His dark eyes narrowed. “Do you understand?”

For no reason he could name, D'Ailly's voice raised the hairs on the back of the chaplain's neck. Slowly he nodded. “I understand completely, Your Eminence.”

The days fell like autumn leaves from an oak tree, one after the other, indistinguishable. While the Bohemian nobles continued their efforts to obtain a hearing or release for Jan Hus, their knights chafed in uselessness. Spring greened into summer; the days ticked by with tedious monotony, but Anika knew the impasse would not last forever. Her father had always predicted that war would come, but now it appeared that the conflict would extend far beyond Bohemia's borders. Both the forces of freedom and the warriors of Holy Mother Church were readying for battle, and the resulting clash would be heard round the world.

One morning in late May, Anika sat at Lord John's table with
Novak, Vasek, and Peter Mladenovic. A letter from Sigismund had just arrived, promising that the emperor would do his utmost to guarantee that Hus would receive his promised public hearing.

“This is a victory,” Lord John said, waving the parchment. “They thought they could let him languish away in prison, but Hus will be heard. For this he has prayed; for this we have all worked. May God grant that the day will speedily arrive.”

“Why would they fear a public hearing?” Anika asked, idly trying to capture a slippery piece of beef on her trencher. “Though the people of Bohemia would rise up to defend him, the people here don't know him.”

“They fear his voice,” Vasek inserted.

“They fear his
wisdom,”
Lord John amended. “They realize the power of his eloquence, and they fear its effect. In the past few days many of them have felt the blows of Hus's logic, and they cannot argue with his intellect. He stands for truth, and it is time truth is heard.”

“But is this action really wise, my lord?” Vasek asked, his gray eyes as flat and unreadable as stone. “Surely it will not benefit your cause if the populace is roused to revolt.”

“Why wouldn't a little revolt be useful?” Novak looked directly at the timid chaplain. “We are knights, sworn to fight for truth. Why shouldn't we try to raise forces who will fight with us? If Master Hus convinces the people of Constance that he speaks truly, we ought to be able to raise an army from the folk here. We could then rescue him from Gottlieben and escort him back to Bohemia.”