Henrik toppled into me as the mass of spectators pushed forward.
The bald man beside us screamed, “He saved Lady Nováková! Let him go!”
“Silence!” My father rolled up the parchment. He smiled from behind his bushy white beard. “Lies, lies, lies, blacksmith. If you are so innocent, then why did we find these on your mare last night?”
A guard handed my father a worn gray sack. I recognized the bag—Jiri had given us the sack when we escaped.
My father dumped the contents of the sack on a polished silver tray. A clutter of random junk tumbled out—a metal cup, rope, a few articles of clothing—and two gleaming jewels that Jiri had wanted Marc to give to their father for the rebellion. A fiery garnet, half the size of my finger, and an emerald of roughly the same shape glittered from the platform. The sheer size of the jewels was proof enough that the gems were part of the king’s crown jewels. There was no other explanation.
Gasps rolled through the audience. My heart sank. I edged forward, but Henrik grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
My father grinned. “Did these jewels magically appear with your belongings?”
Marc stared at my father. “Why are you wasting everyone’s time? We all know what you mean to do to me. Go ahead.”
Shouts filled the air. The crowd had grown in size. Not only had people filled the town square, but now they occupied the alleys and streets that poured into the square. Men and women peered through windows and stood on the roofs of the surrounding buildings. Hundreds of people watched the injustice—and they were getting angrier by the minute.
“As you wish.” My father pushed the tray away. “Marc Sýkora and Urek Havlet, I find you both guilty of each of the aforementioned crimes. Your punishment shall be twenty lashes and death by hanging at a yet-to-be-determined date. The lashes shall be distributed today.” He turned to Stephan. “Get the post and whip.”
Chapter Eighteen
My knees buckled.
Henrik caught me before I fell. Men and women screamed. Henrik and I were shoved forward as the crowd pulsated like a living, breathing animal.
The door behind my father opened and fifteen guards marched in a line out of the building and down the platform steps. The king’s men spread evenly around the open circle and stood in front of the crowd. The last guard in the line moved to the prisoners. He held a thick, coiled whip. The man stood in front of Marc, but Marc didn’t acknowledge him.
Marc only had eyes for my father. The muscles in his neck tensed. I imagined him shoving through the guards and jumping onto the platform to strangle the life out of my father.
Urek and Marc were led to the center of the square. From an alley beside the platform, two guards emerged carrying a heavy wooden contraption. The wooden post was in the shape of a giant cross, except that the horizontal and vertical beams were of equal length. Two manacles were embedded on the horizontal beam on both sides of the cross, allowing for two prisoners to be tortured simultaneously.
Marc and Urek were led to either side of the contraption. Their shirts were removed and they were fastened to the shackles. They faced each other, hands bound to the wood, with the cross between them.
That’s when it hit me.
It finally made sense. This vengeance against Marc wasn’t about our relationship or my defiance of my father’s wishes that I marry Radek. My disobedience added fuel to the flames, but I was foolish to be so self-centered.
The cross had pointed out the obvious. How had I missed it? This rash of lies and hate directed toward the blacksmith’s son was about who he was—Marc Sýkora was a leader of this community. That was clear by glancing around and seeing the crowd’s anger.
Marc was a Protestant.
A Protestant with deep ties in Prague. To the Crown he was a suspected rebel. One who owned an unlimited supply of weapons. A man who knew how to use a sword. In my father’s and Radek’s eyes, Marc was a threat. Not only for taking me away from the duke, but a threat to the Catholic Church, to the castle, to the House of Habsburg, to everything they knew and loved.
Marc’s arrest and the charges against him were a statement. The castle could and would do whatever necessary to quash this Protestant movement. Was Marc right all along? Was this life under the Catholic Church’s rule? Would life be better if a Protestant sat on the throne?
The guard holding the rope slowly uncoiled it, revealing two separate whips. He handed one to Stephan, who seemed reluctant to take on the task. He nervously tugged his short ponytail before accepting the whip. Stephan was hesitant, but he was still willing to take orders, because he walked around the cross and took his position behind Urek. Hadn’t Stephan laughed with Marc in Vladislav Hall? How could he stand there and watch Marc take a lashing?
Marc stood shirtless with his arms spread and his wrists chained to the iron shackles. His eyes were lowered to the dirt. He breathed in deeply and his muscles relaxed.
My father signaled with a bob of his head. The guard reared his arm back and flicked it forward. The tip of the whip whistled through the air and snapped against Marc’s naked back.
I screamed. Marc’s body arched in pain as the whip ripped his skin and left a bloody gash down the length of his spine.
“One.” The guard stepped back.
Stephan had whipped Urek at the same time, but I didn’t care what happened to Urek. My eyes were locked on Marc. Despite the pain from the lash, Marc stood erect.
Defiant.
Screams filled the square. The crowd pushed forward in anger, but the row of guards turned to face the peasants. All fifteen guards simultaneously unsheathed their swords—swords that presumably Henrik and Marc had crafted for them. They pointed their sharp blades at the people, daring the peasants to interfere with the execution of judgment.
The whip snapped down on Marc’s back again. “Two.”
The lash crisscrossed over the first wound and slashed diagonally across his back. The crack of the whip immediately sounded again. Marc’s head bobbed forward with the third and fourth blows. I had to do something. I had to stop this.
I dove forward, but Henrik yanked me back. “No!”
“Let me go!” I screamed. “Please! I have to stop them!”
A fifth lash.
“You can’t!” Henrik turned me around, ripping my eyes from the ghastly sight. His fingers dug into my shoulders. The pain on Henrik’s face cut me in half. “You can’t stop it, Mila.”
Sixth lash.
Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I have to try,” I whispered. “Please, I can’t stand here and watch this. I have to try. The guards won’t harm me.”
Henrik glanced behind me. A deep crease formed between his eyebrows. He grunted. “Fine, go, but be careful.”
I shrugged off my cloak and tossed it to him. “Put this over your head. Don’t let them find you. I’ll save him,” I promised.
The whip snapped again, crackling in the air. “Seven.”
Blood ran down Marc’s back from the open flesh wounds.
Henrik stepped back and allowed the angry crowd to swallow him. I watched the top of his covered head as he backed away from the scene. I sucked in a steadying breath and raced into the circle. “Stop!”
Two guards converged on me, but I lifted my face before they could skewer me with their swords. One of the guards skidded to a halt. The other snatched me by the arm and twisted me toward the platform. My name rolled off the tongues of hundreds of peasants.
“Marc!” I charged toward him, but the guards yanked me back. “Marc!”
Marc’s limp head twisted to the side. His mouth was open, gasping for air. His eyes were glazed over. Multiple lashes crisscrossed his broad bloody back.
A sob escaped. “Marc!”
“Mila,” he whispered.
I thrashed against the guards. “Let him go!” I turned to my father. “Let him go! I was the one kidnapped! Why don’t you ask me what happened? Why don’t you ask me who took me! Marc is innocent!”
My father stood as still as a statue. “Proceed.”
I wrestled with the guards, but I couldn’t break free. The whip snapped again. How many had it been? Ten? Eleven? I’d lost count. The guard announced the number after every strike, but his voice was lost in the roar of the crowd.
Marc’s body went limp.
The guard cracked his whip again. The blow shuddered through his body, but he was already unconscious. His head flopped to the side.
Just as the helplessness of my situation started to seep in, I realized what I had around me. The weapon I had within reach—hundreds of angry people. I turned to the crowd and focused on the gigantic bald man who had stood beside us. “Marc’s innocent! The castle is punishing him because he’s a Protestant!”
The bald man’s eyes flashed with renewed anger. The crowd roared with rage.
“We have to stop them!” I pleaded with the crowd.
If this was the Crown’s and the Catholic Church’s way, then Marc was right; they had to be stopped. I had to push aside all nostalgic notions of what I’d been taught over the years. This injustice—the murders, the starving peasants, the torture of innocent people—couldn’t continue.
My father motioned to the guards. They pulled me backward and dragged me away from the center of the square, toward the platform.
The whip snapped again.
“They’re murdering Protestants!” I screamed into the chaos. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes! We have to stop them before they kill us all!”
A young man raced into the circle and darted toward my father. Guards rushed him. Sunlight reflected off the steel of their swords.
“Marc is innocent!” I projected my voice over the roar of the crowd. “We have to stop them! The Crown is afraid of your numbers! They’re scared of what you can do together! We have to fight back!”
A bottle crashed against the platform, shattering glass at my father’s feet. He jumped back and the guards surrounded him in a protective circle.
“Silence!” My father shouted. “Get her to the castle. Now!”
Marc’s limp body hung from the cross. The guard quickly snapped the whip again, sensing the anarchy rising within the crowd.
The young man who had run into the square was sprawled out on the ground. His shirt was covered in dark patches, but he scrambled to his feet and smiled at the guards with bloody teeth.
Fists pumped into the air. The crowd cheered on his efforts. Another group of five peasants attacked a guard on the other side of the square. The soldier fell to the ground as the peasants pummeled him with kicks and punches.
“Get the prisoners back to the castle!” My father screamed. “Bring my daughter to me!”
The guards dragged me to the platform, though I dug my heels into the dirt, trying to resist. Urek and Marc were unfastened from their shackles. Both men slumped to the ground before the guards hauled their unconscious bodies back to the wagon.
As they pulled me into the building, I searched for Henrik in the rioting crowd. He had retreated to an adjoining street, but I easily found his covered head because of his height. His eyes were wild, but they were different from before. He no longer looked dejected or sad or ready to accept Marc’s punishment.
His face was alive with . . . hope.
“Hide,” I mouthed to him.
He nodded and disappeared into the alley.
But I felt it, too. Deep in my heart—the tiniest flicker of hope. My outburst had stopped the whipping. Had ignited the crowd into a frenzy. We could make a difference. We could fight back.
We could bring about the revolution.
Chapter Nineteen
The bottle sailed through the front window as the guard slammed the door shut. The window cracked upon impact, fissuring the glass, but not shattering it. Roars from the crowd swelled to a deafening single cry. Would they storm the building?
“Out the back!” my father shouted.
“Let me go!” I struggled against the guards.
My father brought his face inches from mine. The vein in the middle of his forehead pulsated. “Do you know what you’ve done, Ludmila?”
“I hate you.”
“You will pay for this,” my father yelled. “Take her directly to my study. I’ll deal with her later. We have to get out of here. We’re outnumbered.”
“What are you going to do with Marc?”
“He’s going to Daliborka Tower.”
My voice caught in my throat. Daliborka was the worst of the three prison towers on the castle grounds. Only the cruelest and most dangerous criminals were sent to Daliborka Tower. To my knowledge, no one had been sent there since Don Giulio, the king’s son and only heir, was imprisoned for murdering and dismembering a peasant woman. He’d mysteriously died a few months later. I tried to strike my father, but the guard seized my wrist before I could make contact. The rumble of the crowd grew louder. Fists pounded against the door. Another bottle hit the window and shattered the cracked glass.
“Let me go!” I stomped on the guard’s foot as hard as I could. My heel smashed against the top of his foot with a surprising bone-breaking crunch. He screamed and released his hold on me.
“Contain her!” my father screamed.
A third guard marched over to me. He balled his hand into a fist to strike me.
“No!” my father screamed. “Not her face! What would the duke say?”
The guard shrugged in response. He lifted his sword and brought the hilt down on top of my head with a sickening crack.
Everything went black.
My hands were bound, but I was oddly comfortable. Whatever I was sitting on was soft and plush. My eyes fluttered open. I was seated on an overstuffed lounge chair in the corner of my father’s study with my hands bound in front of me. My father rifled through papers at his desk.
We were alone.
The quiet was strange after the roar of the mob. He must have sensed my awakening, because he leaned over the massive desk and tugged the servant’s bell. Almost immediately, four guards stormed into the room. They positioned themselves against my father’s bookshelves—a guard for each wall.
“Are you that afraid of me, Father?” A flash of white-hot pain exploded behind my eyes. The top of my head was tender from the blow and a wave of nausea rolled over me when I moved.
“That was quite a scene you pulled out there, Ludmila.” My father leaned back in his chair and rested his arm on the desk. “I hope you know that you—and your actions alone—got several peasants killed.”
I sucked in air between my teeth.
“Don’t worry.” My father picked up a letter opener and twisted it end over end in his bony hand. “The blacksmith’s son isn’t dead. Yet. But some of those poor peasants you riled into a frenzy are dead. They died because of you.”
It felt like someone had kicked me in the gut. The guards’ bloody swords. The peasant writhing on the ground in pain. Was the man’s bloody smile at the guards his final act of defiance?
My father watched my reaction. “That’s what happens when you ignite a crowd. That’s what happens when you stick your nose into things you cannot and do not understand.”
“No,” I said. “The peasants didn’t die because of me. They died at the hands of your guards on your request, and I know they’re not the only ones who have suffered that same fate.”
“What are you implying? I should’ve allowed the mob to attack me?” my father asked.
“They wouldn’t have wanted to attack you if you weren’t punishing an innocent man.” I swung my feet off the lounge chair and placed them unsteadily on the floor. A raging headache thumped over the left side of my head, but I couldn’t let the pain distract me. I stood and gripped the edge of the lounge chair for balance. “In fact, I know those poor peasants weren’t the first blood on your hands.”
The guards shifted from the walls when I stood, but my father raised his hand to stop them. His face softened. “What happened to you, Ludmila? Why have you turned against me?
Your family? Your home?”
“Why are you doing this to Marc? You know he’s innocent!”
“Look at the evidence, Mila. You don’t know this boy. He used you to orchestrate the theft of Rudolf’s jewels. Why can’t you see that? You’re smarter than this.” My father’s eyes moved behind me. “Good, you’re here.”
I whirled around as Radek entered the study. His eyes were bloodshot and his clothes were disheveled, at least by the duke’s rigorous standards. He acknowledged my father with a quick dip of the head. “Václav.”
“Maybe you can talk some sense into her.” My father squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Because I certainly can’t. She’s riled up the whole damned town. All of Prague is boiling over because of one stupid girl. Over one insignificant blacksmith. These two idiots almost single-handedly started the revolution!”
“I heard,” Radek said quietly. He stood in front of the fireplace. The muscles in his jaws bulged like he was grinding his back teeth. “Ludmila, dear, if I remember correctly, I thought I told you to stay away from the blacksmith’s son?”
“Marc rescued me from the kidnappers! This is how you repay the man who saved me? By publicly whipping him? By trying to kill him?”
Radek turned to the guard beside him. “Can we untie my fiancée? She’s not a common thief or a barnyard animal. There are six armed men in this room and she is a girl! Must I see her treated this way?”
My father mumbled his assent.
“Marc wasn’t involved,” I said. “I was just telling my father that—”
“Nonsense.” Radek waved his hand at me. He poured a glass of wine.
The guard cautiously approached like I was a wounded animal. I must’ve caused quite the stir outside the gates if he was this nervous to be near me. I lifted my hands and waited for him to cut the rope. My wrists weren’t tied tightly, but it was annoying to be hindered, especially in my own home.
Radek pulled a velvet sack from his pocket and dumped the contents onto my father’s desk. Diamonds skidded across the wood—it was my broken engagement necklace and it should’ve been hidden in my trunk under a pile of twenty dresses.