Authors: Angela Elwell Hunt
The Silver Sword (2 page)
All my previous plans faded like a bad radio signal. Could Professor Howard's story be true? Could there really be a link between these O'Connor women and the unusual physical characteristic we all shared? What were the odds that three womenâfour, counting Cahira herselfâwould share the same physical characteristic and risk their lives pretending to be men.
The idea was extremely far-fetched, and yet there was a certain symmetry to it. What had the professor told me? A dying woman had begged God to allow bright stars to break forth from the courses to which they were bound and restore right in the murderous world of menâ
My thoughts halted as abruptly as if they'd hit a brick wall. Of course! The bright stars were the women! Cahira had barricaded herself in that chamber with the women of the castle. And, knowing that the men had gone to defend the fortress, she had stepped out of her roles as mother and daughter and princess in order to pick up a sword and fight. In that hour of weakness and fear, she may have regretted her feebleness and femininity.
My imagination caught the image. I could almost see this woman, drenched in sweat, her limbs still trembling from the exertions of labor and childbirth, her husband's heavy sword in her hand. Her maidservants were doubtless around her, some crying, some cowering, a few helping the nurse and infant escape through a tunnel
or window. And Cahira, knowing that her situation was hopeless, begging God to allow her descendants to live and grow strong in order to restore right in a savage world.
And they had! Or had they?
The back of my neck burned with excitement, and a curious, tingling shock numbed both my brain and my fingertips on the keyboard. Professor Howard had slipped his little story into my imagination, and now I was delirious with discovery, having validated his so-called myth.
But it was too easy, far too simple. Had I really stumbled onto something the professor did not knowâor had I been set up?
I cleared the computer screen and reran the search through a different search engine, this time reversing the order. “Search for O'Connor and piebaldism,” I muttered, typing. I hit the enter key and clicked my nails on the desk in a flood of anticipatory adrenaline.
There was no way Professor Howard could know that I would actually run a computer search to test his little story. And if I had searched only for O'Connors, I would have pulled up thousands of references, too many to fully investigate. Maybe the link of piebaldism had never occurred to anyone else. I did have a special interest in the subject, after all.
Searchingâ¦
The computer beeped as the screen filled with the same four references I had seen earlier. Cahira of the thirteenth century, Anika of the fifteenth, Aidan of the seventeenth, Flanna of the nineteenth. All warrior women descended from the O'Connors, and all similar in appearance.
The possibility of a link between them seemed crazy, absolutely fantastic, but what if my hypothesis were true? These four women had each lived two hundred years apart, in different countries, under vastly different conditions. None of them would have known the
others existed. And yet they were all O'Connors. They had all fought as men, for at least a brief span of time. And all of them had red hair marked by a streak of whiteâ
Just like me.
My mouth flew open in numb astonishment. I was about to enter the twenty-first century, two hundred years after Cahira's last warrior descendant. Could I be ⦠the next one?
The thought was too incredible to comprehend. My fingers began to tremble as fearful images took root in my imagination. Were the histories of these women somehow tied into my own future? I was a student, not a soldier, but did some global tragedy or struggle lie beyond tomorrow's sunset? The idea seemed ridiculous, totally implausible. Yet I would still be in my twenties at the turn of the century, young enough to bear the blessingâor curseâof Cahira O'Connor, if such a thing really existed.
My logic kicked in.
It has to be a coincidence,
I told myself.
You've read too many books, seen too many far-out movies. You asked the computer for entries with two terms in common. Out of thousands, no, millions of web pages on the Internet, you shouldn't be surprised that something surfaced. Professor Howard's odd devotion to that myth spooked you, that's all. And it's late. You're tired. And you're facing a deadlineâ¦
I put my hand on the mouse and cleared the screen, but thoughts of Cahira and her descendants persisted. How could the strange timingâevery two hundred yearsâbe explained by mere chance? And how could four women have the piebald patch in exactly the same place? And I hadn't searched for links about women who lived as men; that fact had simply come out of nowhere.
I whipped open my spiral notebook and turned to a clean page. If I couldn't let it go, I could investigate. I'd change my topic for my semester project, and instead of researching piebaldism, I'd explore the histories of Anika of Prague, Aidan of the O'Connors, and Flanna the Velvet Shadow. And maybe, if I had time and my professor approved, I'd do a background check on Cahira herself.
And if by chance I discovered that Professor Howard was a lonely man pulling some sort of academic scam, I'd publish my findings in
the college newspaper and expose the creep. But if he had told the truth, he might have just changed my life.
The first red-headed wonder was Anika of Prague, the woman who fought as a knightâin an actual suit of armor?âin Bohemia.
Bohemia? In my adolescent days, my mother had often accused me of being bohemian, but I don't think she meant it as a compliment.
I entered “Bohemia” into the computer's reference book program and pressed the enter key.
Thirty seconds later, there it was:
Bohemia (Bo-HEE-mee-ah), a historic region of 20,368 square miles bordered by Austria (SE), Germany (W, NW), Poland (N, NE), and Moravia (E). The traditional capital is Prague. With the dissolution of Czechoslovakia (1993), the region became part of the Czech Republic. In the 15th century Bohemia was the scene of the Hussite religious movementâ¦.
Bingo.
According to the other search, my girl Anika followed a man called Hus. I hit the “print” button and skimmed the entry again. I could look up “Hus” and do a bit of checking on this Hussite movement. And maybe there'd be something under “Czechoslovakia” about this Anika of Prague.
Was all of this a quirk of fate or a divine appointment? I wasn't sure. In that moment I only knew I had to find all I could about Anika⦠because in learning about her past, I just might learn something about my own future.
I typed her name into another search program and snapped the enter key.
Searchingâ¦
M
ama?” Anika was six again, small and helpless, alone in the upstairs room of an inn outside Prague. Father had gone out to the stable to meet with a man who had promised to find them a horse. Anika moved through the musty chamber. It felt like pushing aside curtains of black velvet, perfumed with the odors of unwashed bodies and the scent of sour hay. In the silence of the darkened chamber she felt her mouth go dry as fear rushed in. “Mama?”
“Hush, love, I'm here.” The straw mattress rustled in the dark, then Mother's warm hand found its way to Anika's elbow and pulled her down onto the mattress beside her. Anika curled against her mother and hugged her knees, blinking as her night eyes adjusted to the dim light. Two other women slept on the far side of the room, the heavy sounds of their breathing blending with the snores of the innkeeper's dogs. The two huge mastiffs slept near the door, alert to any newcomer.
Mother's own breathing deepened and slowed; she had fallen asleep again. But Anika was not tired; she had slept in her mother's arms on the long walk and awakened in this room. She was never tired these days; there was too much to see. Father was moving the family from a farm out in the mountains to Prague.
“The University is in Prague,” he had told Anika, “and people from all over the world go there to learn. They will need books, and they will bring books, and we will be prosperous in our little house. Wait and see, me wee bird, wait and see.”
Anika sat up and crinkled her nose at the odors in the room. The strong scent of hay that covered the floor and filled the mattresses. The warm, comforting smell of the dogs. Anika liked that smell. One of the mastiffs sensed her gaze and lifted his head, rewarding her with a calm, droopy smile. Anika raised her chubby hands and clapped them to keep the dog's attention, but the huge animal simply lowered its head back to its paws and sighed loudly.
Anika clapped again, then giggled when the animal abruptly lifted its head. But it did not look at her this time. The dog stared at the window, where the black sky had brightened to the color of sunrise.
Anika clapped once more, willing the dog to look at her. But instead it nudged its mate, who woke instantly and whimpered. Restless, the mastiffs stood and paced between the window and the doorway, then began to growl.
“What's wrong?” Anika swung her legs from the prickly mattress. “What's wrong, dogs?”
The biggest dog, the male, darted toward the staircase. The female whined for an instant, then gently took the hem of Anika's garment between her teeth and pulled her toward the dark hallway.
Anika laughed. What sort of game was this? She followed the dog, allowing the shuffling giant to gently lead her down the stairs.
In the big room below, wisps of gray smoke drifted over tables and chairs. A few red-eyed men slouched over a table in the corner while the innkeeper sat at his stool, his head propped on his hand, his eyes closed. As the whining dogs scratched at the door, Anika sat on the bottom step, content to wait on her father.
One of the men at the table suddenly lifted his head, like a cat scenting the breeze. “Is that smoke?” He stared out the window, then elbowed his companion. “Fire! There's fire outside! The barn!”
Anika shrank back against the wall, watching in confusion as the men leaped up from their tables. The innkeeper awoke and fumbled for a leather pouch inside his desk. Two of the men who had been sitting at the table ran toward the door, crashing into one another in
an effort to reach it. The third man rushed for the stairs, nearly tripping over Anika in his headlong dash.
“Fire!” The cry echoed now from the courtyard outside, and the air vibrated with shouts, cries, and the sound of screaming horses. Some big personâAnika could not see clearly in the confusionâjerked her from her place, slung her over a shoulder, and carried her outside.
The barn and the inn were a mass of flame, their thatched roofs blazing like hay in a parched field. The sodden men who had been sitting inside now stumbled over themselves to fetch water and buckets, and through the noise Anika heard her father's voice: “Let me pass, you eejits; me wife and child are inside!”
“Papa!” Anika turned, throwing herself into her father's arms, but his eager embrace was entirely too brief. “Where's your mother, lass?” He bent down to look her in the eye, his hands tight on her arms. “Came your mama downstairs with you?”
Anika put her finger in her mouth and shook her head. “The doggie brought me,” she said simply, pointing toward the mastiff that stood howling outside the flaming barn.
Her father rushed toward the building, but a line of men threw up their arms and held him back. “Too late, man,” one of them said. “You can't go in there now. 'Tis a tinderbox.”
And then, like a sound from heaven, Anika heard Mother's voice and looked up. With the two other women, Anika's mother leaned out the window toward safety and the rescuers below.
“Help them!” Ernan O'Connor shouted, pointing to the women. He ran up to the burly innkeeper and clapped his hand on the man's shoulder, whirling him around. “By all the saints, lend a hand, man! Have you a ladder?”