The Silver Sword (61 page)

The information regarding Pope John XXIII, also known as Baldasarre Cossa, is historical and was found in Dr. W. N. Schwarze's book
John Hus, the Martyr of Bohemia.
Cossa, now regarded as an antipope, was “given to every form of vice,” and the historian Gibbon called him “the most profligate of mankind.” According to Dr. Schwarze, Cossa is charged “with good reason, of having poisoned his predecessor to make room for himself. In his own person he typified the evils and disease of the times.”

The historical portrayal of Baldasarre Cossa is in no way intended to reflect upon contemporary Catholics. Baldasarre Cossa's papacy was later invalidated by the Catholic Church, and on October 28, 1958, Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli took the name the antipope Baldasarre had used: John XXIII.

No work stands alone, and I must thank the following authors for their fine books. The wealth of information in each volume made it possible for me to delve deeply and authentically into the worlds of chivalry and fifteenth-century Bohemia.

Bartak, Joseph Paul.
John Hus at Constance.
Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1935.

Andreas Capellanus.
The Art of Courtly Love.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. (John Jay Parry's translation of the work originally written between 1182 and 1186).

Edge, David and John Miles Paddock.
Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight.
New York: Crescent Books, 1988.

Gies, Joseph and Frances.
Life in a Medieval Castle.
New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

Gies, Joseph and Frances.
Life in a Medieval City.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1969.

Riley-Smith, Jonathan.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Schwarze, W. N.
John Hus, the Martyr of Bohemia.
New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1915.

Spinka, Matthew.
John Hus at the Council of Constance.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1965.

Spinka, Matthew.
John Hus, A Biography.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1968.

T
HE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM:

The Golden Cross

A
VAILABLE IN
S
TORES
N
OW

T
he phone rang again, the fourth time, and I skidded on the slippery tile as I rounded the corner, then nearly tripped over my mastiff, Barkly, who had decided to carpet the cool kitchen floor with his two-hundred-pound carcass. Reaching over Barkly for the phone, I accidentally knocked over the chipped mug that held my collection of kitchen implements.

Amid a clattering of spatulas and wooden spoons, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Miss O'Connor?”

Grimacing, I hopped over Barkly and bent to pick up a wooden spoon before he decided to chew it. Only telephone solicitors call me “Miss O'Connor,” so I'd just destroyed my kitchen and nearly broken my neck for the chance to subscribe to
Southern Fly-Fishing
or some such thing.

“Yes?” I frowned into the phone. “Listen, I'm really very busy—”

“I won't take much of your time, Miss O'Connor.” The man
sounded slightly apologetic. “But I've just finished reading your work, and I must say it surpasses anything I ever expected.”

My breath caught in my lungs as I recognized the voice. “Professor Howard? You read
The Silver Sword?”

“But of course, my dear.” I could hear a smile in his voice. “And I was most impressed by your scholarship and attention to detail. Your work seemed very precise, quite well-documented.”

I clutched the telephone cord and leaned back against the counter, momentarily forgetting about Barkly, about the book I'd been reading, about everything. Professor Henry Howard liked my work!

“Thank you, sir,” I stammered.

“I had no idea similar women had descended from Cahira O'Connor,” he went on. “How on earth did you find them?”

“I just typed the words ‘O'Connor' and ‘piebaldism' into an Internet search engine,” I muttered, stating the obvious. “And there they were, all four—Cahira, Anika, Aidan, and Flanna. Suddenly Cahira's deathbed prayer made sense. She had begged heaven that her descendants might break out of the courses to which they were bound and restore right in a murderous world of men.”

“Incredible,” he murmured, surprise and respect apparent in his voice. “I was very impressed. If you had been my student, I would have given you the highest possible mark.”

“Well,” I shifted my weight, “my English professor was a little daunted by the length of my paper. She was expecting one hundred pages; I gave her four hundred. But I did pass her class.”

“You mentioned in your letter that you plan to continue your research. Might we meet for lunch one day this month to discuss what else you've discovered? You also mentioned my assistant, Mr. Taylor Morgan,” the professor went on, a teasing note in his voice now. “He has read your work as well and would be happy to join us.”

A blush burned my cheek at the mention of Taylor Morgan, and I was glad the professor couldn't see me at that moment. Flush with the joy of completing a gigantic task, I'd felt a little bold when I
wrote the note I left with the manuscript of
The Silver Sword
—and I had strongly hinted that Mr. Taylor Morgan was exactly my type … of research assistant.

“Um, sure,” I answered, wrapping the phone cord around my wrist. “I'm working part-time at the Tattered Leaves bookstore down on Sixth Street this summer. There's a little coffee shop nearby.”

“I know the place. Shall we say Friday, at 1:00? I'd like to avoid the crowds if at all possible. And Mr. Morgan teaches until 12:30.”

“Friday.” I felt a foolish smile spread over my face. “Fine. And in case you've forgotten what I look like, I'll be the redhead—”

“Miss O'Connor,”—I could hear the professor's grin in his voice—“I could never forget what you look like. Your red hair led me to you in the first place.”

They were waiting for me when I panted my way through the coffee shop doorway at five minutes after one. The professor rose and pulled out a chair for me, and Taylor Morgan stood, too, his blue eyes smiling at me from behind a pair of chic wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a cotton shirt and khakis, looking completely cool and elegant even in the city heat, and as I slid into my chair, my mind stuttered and almost went completely blank. The sight of Taylor Morgan at close range could do that to any girl, I suspected, but he wasn't about to be impressed by my scholarship if I sat there and stammered like a star-struck schoolgirl.

So I looked at the professor instead. Middle-aged, soft, and infinitely respectable. He certainly didn't give me the tingles—except for the fact that he liked my work.

We exchanged polite hellos; then the professor asked again how I'd found the other descendants of Cahira O'Connor. “The Internet search engine I used picked up four references to ‘O'Connor' and ‘piebaldism,'” I said, scanning the menu. I decided on my usual tuna sandwich, then dropped it back on the table. “And each woman followed her predecessor by two hundred years, give or take. Cahira lived in the thirteenth century, Anika in the fifteenth, Aidan in the
seventeenth, and Flanna in the nineteenth. All of them were O'Connors, and all had red hair and a white streak above the left temple.”

The professor's gaze darted toward the streak of white hair that marked my own temple. I sipped from my water glass, waiting for some kind of response.

“Do you plan to investigate these other two women?” Taylor asked, his voice husky and golden and as warm as the sun outside. “Will that work fit into your current studies?”

“I've already done most of my research on Aidan O'Connor,” I answered, shrugging, “and I'm an English major, so I'll find a way to use everything I've learned. Or maybe I can talk to my adviser about setting up some sort of independent study.”

“It would be a shame,” Taylor answered, capturing my gaze with his, “to let such scholarship and hard work go unrewarded. And I'm eager to hear about the other women.”

“What I want to know, Miss O'Connor,” the professor said, lowering his menu and folding his arms on the table, “is what you intend to do about your own involvement in the lineage. You are an O'Connor: You have the same physical characteristic that marked the others—”

“I have to admit that I've wondered about that,” I answered, a sense of unease creeping into my mood like a wisp of smoke. “I think I am supposed to be the chronicler, nothing more. If God did answer Cahira's prayer and her descendants are linked to me, then I am the only one with the resources to tell their story. I have access to the Internet, I have a computer, and such technology was completely unimaginable until this century …”

“For your sake, I hope you're right,” Professor Howard answered, his hazel eyes registering concern. “Because if you're not—well, didn't they all fight in a war? I'd hate to think that armed conflict lies around the corner of the millennium—”

I held up my hand, cutting him off. “That's not quite right, Professor. Cahira didn't say that her descendants would fight in wars, only that they would fight for right in a man's world. Aidan
O'Connor, for instance, didn't go to war. In 1642 she was living in Batavia, a Dutch colony on the island of Java in Indonesia, and the islands were at peace.”

“How in the world did the descendant of an Irish princess end up in Indonesia?” Taylor's blue eyes flashed with curiosity.

I took a deep breath as my gaze moved into his. At that moment Mel Gibson could have walked into the coffee shop and I wouldn't have even glanced his way. “It's a long story. If you have to rush off to another appointment, I probably shouldn't even begin it.”

Taylor leaned forward on the table and clasped his hands. “I cleared my calendar for you,” he said, looking at me with a smile in his eyes.

From somewhere on the other side of the table I heard Professor Howard say something about having a 3:00 dentist appointment, but his words barely registered. If Taylor Morgan was willing to sit and listen, I'd talk all day and into the night … if he wanted me to. Such a sacrifice. Still, the man wanted to know …

“Okay.” I smiled at him. “But first I'd like a Coke and a tuna sandwich. Let's order now, 'cause I don't take kindly to interruptions.”

Taylor lifted his hand, signaling the waitress, and I pulled my notebook from my purse. While he and the professor ordered sandwiches and soft drinks, I studied my outline.

“Okay, Miss O'Connor,” Taylor said, an easy smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “We're ready. Tell us how an O'Connor descendant ended up in the middle of the Pacific.”

“Aidan O'Connor wasn't born in Indonesia,” I answered, setting my notebook on the table. “Her parents, Cory and Lili O'Connor, were as Irish as shamrocks, but they were living in England when Aidan was born. In 1632, when Aidan turned fourteen, her parents risked everything to escape the plague. Over twelve thousand Londoners died that summer.”

“The O'Connors emigrated?” Professor Howard asked.

I nodded. “Yes, to Batavia, capital of the Dutch colony in the Spice Islands. Many Englishmen fled London for the Caribbean,
New England, and Virginia, but Aidan's father longed for something different.”

“Wise move on his part,” Taylor answered, shifting in his chair.

“Not really,” I answered, lifting my brow. “He died on the voyage. Upon their arrival in Batavia, Aidan and Lili found themselves destitute. They had no patron, no resources, and no social welfare system in a colony that prided itself on industry and social order. Lili had to turn to the world's oldest profession just to survive.”

“Prostitution?” the professor whispered, his face twisting in dismay.

“She guarded her daughter,” I whispered back. “But Lili became what the Dutch called a
procuress
—she procured whatever, ah, entertainment a visiting sailor might need in the port city.”

“Hold that thought,” Taylor said, pausing as the waitress placed a sweating soft drink in front of him. “You just said the Dutch were known for industry and social order. I can't imagine them tolerating such a practice.”

“Batavia was like most other large cities; two very different worlds existed within it,” I answered, nodding my thanks at the waitress. “There was the civilized world where respectable folk lived and worked, and a darker world they largely ignored. Oh, every once in a while they'd send the sheriff's constabulary to round up the beggars, cutpurses, and drunks, but for the most part they enjoyed pretending that the notorious flophouses, musicos, and taverns did not exist.”

“So our Aidan lived in the underworld?” Professor Howard's forehead crinkled in concern.

“Yes, and she might have remained there unnoticed,” I answered, “but everything changed one afternoon when Schuyler Van Dyck and his family went for a carriage ride along the waterfront.”