The Silver Sword Read Online Free PDF Page A

little tolerance for Prague’s newest prelate. She and her father had dutifully attended several services at his church and left spiritually dissatisfied. The archbishop led the service in a manner so dull and dry the words seemed to be coming from him after a lengthy journey through a barren wilderness. His words, moreover, were Latin, and though Anika understood the tongue, not many of her fellow Bohemians did.
    Fortunately, the archbishop seemed more intent today upon spying out the bookshop than in gauging the depth of reverence in her glance. Albik looked around the shop one final time, then turned on his heel and moved with stiff dignity through the doorway. One by one, the archbishop’s attendants—an odd assortment of priests, scribes, and other clerics—momentarily peered into the bookshop as if checking to see if their master had left some ray of holiness behind, then whirled and hurried after His Grace.
    Without speaking, her father sank into his chair. When she was certain the archbishop and his cronies had gone, Anika retrieved thewax tablet she had dropped into her lap. “He would never suspect that you would allow me to copy such important work, Father,” she murmured in a low voice, her eyes intent upon the doorway lest some spying monk suddenly materialize. “He would never believe I am copying Master Hus’s sermons.”
    â€œHe fears more than the copying, me wee dove,” her father answered, spreading his ink-stained hands over the blank parchment on the board before him. “He fears the words that you copy. Certain men, armed with naught but a pen, have successfully stormed bulwarks others could not take with either sword or excommunication.” He sat very still, his eyes narrowing. “Truth to tell, I think Albik and those like him fear for the Church itself. Their positions, their power, perhaps even their immortal souls are at stake. For if Jan Hus is true, and everything I read in Holy Scripture tells me he is, then the priests and bishops will be wanting to be rid of him … and anyone who has aught to do with him.”
    Fear clamped down on Anika’s throat. She had heard rumors in the street, rumors of war that would surely come, a holy crusade to wipe out words like those she penned every day.
    Her father’s eyes met hers then, and he smiled, chasing her apprehensions away. “But now, Daughter, I’m perishing with the hunger of a dozen men. Why don’t you see if there’s any bread and cheese in the larder?”
    â€œYes, Father,” she whispered. As she slid out of her chair,
The Art of Courtly Love
slipped from beneath her apron and fell to the floor with a thud. With a surge of guilt Anika gathered it up, ashamed at having taken advantage of her father’s trusting nature and more than a little embarrassed by the book itself.
    But her father had turned his attention to marking the blank parchment before him. Anika held the book to her pounding heart, ready to explain that she was only dreaming, that she wasn’t ready to fall in love and marry just yet, but her father seemed blissfully unaware of what had happened behind him.
    Anika paused a moment, then found it impossible not to grin ather father’s broad back. He knew what she was reading; he knew everything that went on in their tiny house.
    She slid
The Art of Courtly Love
back into the wooden chest from which she’d taken it, then climbed the stairs, humming as she went.

    â€œAye, Ernan, I’ll expect you’ll be showing the likes of me to the street, after such august company as you’ve had this morning.”
    Anika felt a rush of pleasure as she recognized the voice. She hurried down the stairs with her tray and turned the corner in time to see Sir Petrov, her father’s best friend and their closest neighbor, momentarily dwarf the doorway with his massive height. Though he had undoubtedly seen more than sixty summers, age had