The Silver Sword (8 page)

But there would be time for that later. Hus shook off his mantle of memories and vigorously rubbed his face, reminding himself of the tasks ahead. He had two sick parishioners, a dispute to settle among three laymen, and a lecture to prepare for his university students.

“Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,” he quipped, smiling at his own joke as he moved toward his house.

E
rnan O'Connor's words proved to be prophetic—the price of rebellion was high. Three days later Anika and her father were hard at work in the shop when Petrov appeared again, his white hair disheveled and his eyes blazing.

“They have captured those who led the rebellion,” he announced, panting as he came through the door. “Three students were arrested this morning and taken to the town hall. The magistrates sided with the pope's men and have already sentenced the young men to death.”

“Surely not!” Anika's father rose from his seat as if propelled by an explosive force. “The magistrates should not act alone. The king must be consulted.”

“The king is away.” Petrov's expression was tight with strain. “Runners went at once to Master Hus, of course, and I expect he will appeal the council's decision. But rumors are flying as thick as flies through the streets, and if they are not stanched—”

“We will see a bloodbath,” Ernan finished in a flat voice. In one swift gesture he threw a light piece of linen over his parchments, then moved toward the door.

“Father.” Anika placed the lid on her ink horn with a light tap. “Surely you don't expect me to stay here? I could help you.”

“The streets are no place for a young woman if trouble is afoot.”

“But Master Hus needs help. And you often tell me that a man who will not go to the aid of a friend is no man at all.”

“You forget, wee bird, that you are not a man.”

Anika sighed, thinking she had lost her bid for freedom, but then her father looked at Petrov. “Things are quiet now?”

The older man nodded. “Master Hus has begged his people to remain calm. For now, at least, the streets are at peace.”

The copyist turned to his daughter. “Hurry then, lass, and don your cloak. Master Hus will need cool heads and supportive voices around him now.”

A mob of university masters and students had clogged the street outside the town hall by the time Anika, her father, and Petrov arrived. The guards allowed them into the building solely because Petrov insisted that Ernan O'Connor was Master Hus's personal scribe. With Petrov behind her, Anika followed her father through a crowded chamber that smelled as if the air inside had been breathed too many times. As the three of them slid into a tiny space at a far corner of the room, they heard Jan Hus giving an impassioned defense of the three young men who had led the rebellion against the sale of indulgences.

“I do not approve of their course of action,” Hus was saying as Anika stood on tiptoe to watch the proceedings, “but their actions are the outgrowth of my teachings, so I alone must bear the blame. Do not hold the rashness and boldness of youth against them, magistrates, but free them under my authority. I will meet with you later, and we will discuss what must be done to repair any damage. But do not carry out this sentence of execution, I beg you. By all that is holy and true, look to the light of God in your heart and reconsider your sentence.”

A guard at the door shouldered his way to the front of the room, then whispered in the chief magistrate's ear. After a moment, the magistrate's face reddened, then his mouth spread into a thin-lipped, anxious smile. “I hear there are more than two thousand of your people outside,” he told Hus, his dark eyes widening in accusation. “You cannot expect us to make an unbiased and sound judgment in such a situation. If we do not rescind our verdict according to your wishes, the mob outside could tear this place apart.”

“My esteemed friends,” Hus answered, tenting his slender hands beneath his chin, “I am opposed to violence. The peaceful people outside are concerned for truth and goodness, so you have no reason to fear them. I ask only for your word that you will forestall the execution until a committee can reconsider this action and consult King Wenceslas when he returns.”

A silence fell upon the gathering. Then the quartet of magistrates murmured to one another. Anika felt a trickle of sweat run down her forehead; the heat of the crowded room was stifling.

“We agree, Master Hus,” the chief magistrate finally said. “We will postpone our judgment. Go outside, tell your people to disperse. They must depart to their homes at once.”

Sunshine broke across the preacher's face. Smiling his thanks, Hus lifted his hands to heaven for a moment, then turned and nodded toward familiar faces in the crowd. Anika saw him smile at her father and Petrov, then the striking preacher's gaze caught hers.

What compassion filled Jan Hus's eyes! No wonder he had been able to charm the magistrates out of a death sentence! With her heart overflowing in awe and wonder, Anika followed her father out of the town hall and joined the others in praise and thanksgiving. A tragedy had been averted.

The distant sounds of wailing broke the gray stillness of the next morning. Dropping her quill pen, Anika rushed to open the door, then beheld a gruesome parade: a dozen women holding bloodstained aprons and scarves to their weeping eyes, several men carrying broken bodies upon makeshift litters, others bearing woven baskets covered with crimson-stained cloths.

“What has happened?” The cry echoed up and down the street from late risers and merchants opening for business. “Who has died?”

“The three students,” came the reply from a score of voices. “Beheaded!”

One woman, seeing Anika's startled gaze, stopped to tell the tale. “At sunset, scarcely an hour after the magistrates' promise to Master
Hus, they killed them. The council mocks us and would have concealed their crime, but the washerwomen found the bodies in the courtyard.”

Anika felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back to see her father standing behind her, his hat on his head, ready to join the procession. Without speaking, she gathered her scarf from a basket by the door and slipped it over her hair, then followed her father.

Plodding forward in the spontaneous procession, Anika tied the scarf under her chin, her vision still colored with the memory of Jan Hus's victorious smile and the concern in his eyes. He had believed the magistrates, the church's pawns, and they had utterly betrayed him.

Behind her, someone began to chant the mass for the martyrs, and Anika lifted her voice, joining in. At one fine house a noblewoman with a basket of expensive linen rushed out to shroud the bodies; other women along the way dipped their handkerchiefs into the bloody baskets, creating a holy relic of blood and linen.

Anika watched silently, knowing she needed no relic to remind her of this dark day. The heaviness in her chest felt like a millstone she would carry with her always. Her shoulders drooped, her pace slowed. For a bewildering moment she felt that she was mourning her own death, for something in her, some fragile element of trust and faith, was gasping in a dying breath, and she could do nothing to save it.

The magistrates had lied and murdered. They had flagrantly deceived Jan Hus. If they would lie to a man of God, what prevented them from lying to the common people?

The women's keening wails rose and fell, cycling through cries of sorrow into screams of horrified anguish. And through the roaring din, Anika held her hand over her heart and wondered what sort of evil would next visit her city.

All of Prague waited to see what Jan Hus would do to retaliate. “He will take his case before the king,” Petrov predicted, while Anika's father thought Hus might finally urge his followers to armed
action. But the preacher did nothing. Overcome with grief for the three young men, he retreated into his small house for several days, then appeared to preach a funeral sermon in the students' memory.

On the Sunday following the martyrdom, Hus preached as usual in Bethlehem Chapel but did not mention the tragic events of the past week. Hus's enemies, Petrov whispered during a lull in the service, were saying that he had been frightened into silence.

But Anika had copied thousands of the preacher's words, and she knew him better than either Petrov or her father did. She suspected Master Hus entertained neither fear nor anger, but he realized hundreds of soldiers now patrolled the streets of Prague, alert to any sign of trouble. If Hus uttered one word of vengeance or even hinted that retaliation might be a proper course of action, more innocent blood would stain the stones of the city streets.

And so he said nothing but led the service as usual.

“Do you think the king will continue to side with Jan Hus, or will he be forced to support his magistrates?” Petrov asked as the three walked home from church.

Anika turned to study her father's reaction. She had wondered the same thing. “There is no way we can know,” Ernan answered, clasping his hands behind his back in a thoughtful pose. “The king loves Jan Hus, but Wenceslas is a temperamental man, subject to moments of fury. And Master Hus has never been afraid to make enemies of those who stand against Christ. Do you remember his friend Palec? I heard he and Hus recently held a debate over the sale of indulgences. Palec thought the sales ought to be allowed under the pope's authority, but Hus stands firmly against them. At the end of their confrontation, Palec left the hall, his face set in anger, and Hus said, ‘Palec is my friend, truth is my friend: Of the two it is only right to honor truth most.'”