For an hour after Petrov left, Anika wandered through the courtyard, her gunnysack in her hand, her head lowered, her step quick. She figured no one would suspect she had no idea what to do as long as she appeared to know where she was going.
“You! Squire! Over here!”
Anika turned toward the sound of the voice and saw her new master, Sir Novak, lounging in the doorway of a large stone chamber built into one of the inner defensive walls.
“Are you coming in at all? Or are you going to circle the courtyard until midnight?”
His sarcastic tone made her flush with humiliation, but she lifted her chin and walked quickly in his direction, swinging her sack up and over her shoulder. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to bed down in the garrison or the stable,” she mumbled as she approached.
“In here, boy,” Novak answered, pressing his broad hand to the back of his neck. “This is the garrison, and all the lord’s men sleep in here. Come in, put your stuff away, and let me have a look at you.”
Taking a deep, unsteady breath, she followed him into the room. Ignoring a knot of knights playing cards in a corner, Novak sat down at a table cluttered with several half-empty tankards and the remains of dinner. Her boots crunched over layers of dried bread crumbs and chicken bones littering the floor. Not knowing what else to do, she lowered her gunnysack to the ground in front of her, then paused by the table and turned to face her new master.
His gray eyes narrowed and hardened as he studied her. Emboldened by his scrutiny, Anika studied him in return. Her father would have said that Novak was a man’s man, a model of masculinity. His neck was so thick that his head appeared to rest directly on his massive shoulders, and even sprawled in a chair he looked taller than any man in the room. Bulging muscles outlined the hauberk, or coat of mail, that he wore, and even though his face had the craggy look of an unfinished sculpture, an air of command flowed from him. She would have known that Novak was the captain of the knights even if Lord John had not told her.
“How may I serve you, sir?” she asked, dipping her head slightly in a sign of respect.
“Who said I wanted you to serve me?” he snapped, venom in his voice. “Heaven knows I need a brat at my ankles like I need a hole in my boot. But since Lord John has commanded it …” he thrust his fingers through the fringe of graying hair above his ears, “I suppose I will have to tolerate you. But I will have you know—”
He lowered his eyes, dark and hard as cannon balls, upon her.
“What, sir?” Anika lifted her chin, determined not to let him cow her into submission. If she cringed before her master today, she’d be cringing for weeks to come. She’d never be successful as a squire.
He gave her a black look, irritation evident on his face. “First, boy, you will never interrupt me again. Second, you will not become a knight in a week. Too many cocky youths think they can move into a garrison one day and ride with our knights on the morrow. You have much to learn before you’ll even set foot in a stirrup.”
“I am ready to learn,” Anika answered, waving aside his doubts.
“A squire must learn to serve before he learns to fight,” Novak answered, gazing at her speculatively. “You are not here to serve Lord John. From this day forward you will be my personal servant. You will clean and care for my armor, my weapons, my possessions, and my horse. If we are called away, you will accompany me as a camp servant. And you will not—” his lips thinned with anger, “speak to me about women. Keep your books and your thoughts about that cursed race to yourself.”
Anika forced her lips to part in a rigid smile. “I am ready to serve, sir.”
“Good.” Novak paused and took a long swig from a tankard, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked at her again. “After you know how to serve, then you will learn how to be a knight. Until then you will hunt with me, and we will test your courage as we hone your riding and weapons skills. You will practice with the sword; you will strengthen your body to carry the weight of armor. At dinner you will attend me at the lord’s table, you will listen and not speak, you will learn how a knight conducts himself. You will learn how to wrestle—”
“To wrestle?” For a moment Anika lost custody of her tongue. She had not imagined herself stripped down to her chemise, circling in the blazing sun, grappling with men more powerful than she—she could not do it! Her secret would be revealed.
“Have you a problem with wrestling?” The corner of Novak’s mouth twisted with exasperation. “Honestly, boy, are you already a coward? How do you expect to fight an enemy if you will not grapple with your comrades?”
She lifted her chin. “I am not afraid, sir.” Pride kept her from arguing. She would find a way to prove herself, and she’d face whatever challenges lay ahead as they surfaced. If Novak forced her to wrestle, she’d just find a way to make certain her opponent never laid a hand on her.
“I will do whatever needs to be done,” she continued, stiffening at the challenge in his eyes. “And I can offer my skills to help you. I am a good scribe and reader—”
“A knight must learn to fight, not write,” Novak groused, fingering his graying beard in a gesture that signaled his irritation. “He is not fit for battle who has never seen his own blood flow, who has not heard his teeth crunch under the blow of an opponent or felt the full weight of his adversary upon him. If you are to train with me, young man, you must do all these things and whatever else I ask of you. If I am pleased, I shall present you to Lord John. If he accepts you, you shall take the vows of knighthood before God and all this company.”
He lifted his hand in a gesture which encompassed the entire garrison, and for a moment Anika felt her resolve falter. Perhaps she had been too optimistic in thinking she could hide here. She had thought herself agile and quick, and maybe she was, but the men loitering in this chamber were giants who had undoubtedly survived tournaments and armed conflicts and jousting. The knights of Chlum had faced encounters in which they either defended themselves or accepted disgrace, and none of the men around her looked as if they accepted disgrace easily.
She closed her eyes and clenched her hands, aware that Novak watched her with a speculative expression. She could not let him see her doubts. She must not give in to fear, or she would find herself at Lord Laco’s manor, a slave to his treacherous son—
“I am not afraid,” she repeated, opening her eyes. She leaned her head back and met his gaze, then folded her arms as tight as a gate.
“Aren’t you?” Before she had time to answer, Novak’s arm jerked in a sudden movement, and Anika was dimly aware that he had pulled something shiny from his sleeve. Something sharp and swift whirled past her head, then struck the wall behind her with a faintly metallic clink.
She turned and saw a blade vibrating in the mortar of the stone wall. His dagger had missed her head by inches. And, thanks be to God, she had been too surprised to even flinch.
Novak’s left eyebrow rose a fraction. “Very good,” he said, his voice cool. “Very good indeed, Kafka. Perhaps you shall make a knight after all.”
Anika struggled to maintain her fragile control. Courage had not kept her still; she had merely been too startled to react. But even this could work in her favor. “I certainly hope,” she managed to say, her stomach clenching in a delayed reaction to the danger she had just faced, “that you will teach me to throw like that, Sir Novak.”
His face split into a wide grin. “I will, lad, if you please me.”
Anika shifted her weight. “What would you like me to do first, sir?”
Novak jerked his head toward a darkened chamber beyond another doorway. “You’ll find my bunk in the farthest corner. There’s hay in the storeroom, so make yourself a place to sleep under my bed. That will be your place from this night until the day you become a knight, Squire Kafka.”
The corners of his mouth twisted upward as he lifted his tankard in her direction. “Welcome to Chlum Castle.”
An hour later, Novak reclined on his burlap mattress and folded his hands beneath his head, watching the lad who was now his charge. His temper had flared when Lord John proposed the arrangement, for Novak had already trained his share of squires, and he looked forward to a time of relative ease. But this lad seemed bright and willing, and he hadn’t retreated under Novak’s lashing tongue or wet himself when tested by Novak’s blade.
Thus far, the lad had represented himself well. He had the makings, too, of becoming a favorite at court, for the ladies would like this handsome youth. His fair skin magnified the inky shadows in his green eyes, though the set of his chin suggested a stubborn streak. His features were so perfect, so symmetrical, that any more delicacy would have made him too beautiful for a boy, but that obstinate chin saved the face from perfection.
Novak grinned. God help the woman who had a chin like that. And God help the man who married her.
The knight turned slightly on his mattress, pretending to sleep but not quite ready to quit the day. The boy was fumbling now with the discarded pieces of Novak’s armor, trying to hang them properly while still treating them with due respect. The heavy hauberk lay on the floor like a molten pool of fabric; the greaves that had covered Novak’s legs and the vambraces for his arms were scattered like discarded limbs. Novak had shed his armor with a simple command, “See to it,” and ’twas obvious that the boy had little or no experience with dismantling and storing a valuable suit of armor. But he would learn, and he had already proved himself adaptable. His hands, though small, were stained with work, and that was good. He possessed an unflappable temperament; the exercise with the dagger had proved that point. And though his tongue was sharp, it might prove to be as valuable as a sword in days to come.
The boy bent to lift the heavy breastplate, then managed to fumble and send it clanging to the floor.
“Mount the breastplate on the pole yonder, and hang the other pieces from it,” Novak offered in a sleepy voice, closing his eyes. “One piece hangs upon another.”
“Thank you, sir.” The boy’s whisper was as light as a woman’s, and Novak nodded, grateful that his sleeping companions would not be disturbed.
All in all, Novak supposed, this judgment of Lord John’s was not so harsh. The boy was not as fragile as he appeared, and it might be nice to have someone to polish his armor and tend to his horse. For a while, at least, it might not be too arduous a task.