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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:39:14 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:39:14 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12191-0.txt b/12191-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b14997 --- /dev/null +++ b/12191-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12627 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12191 *** + + THE RED AXE + + By S.R. Crockett + + 1900 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE + II. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME + III. THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + IV. THE PRINCESS HELENE + V. THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ARE FED + VI. DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR + VII. I BECOME A TRAITOR + VIII. AT THE BAR OF THE WHITE WOLF + IX. A HERO CARRIES WATER IN THE SUN + X. THE LUBBER FIEND + XI. THE VISION IN THE CRYSTAL + XII. EYES OF EMERALD + XIII. CHRISTIAN'S ELSA + XIV. SIR AMOROUS IS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF + XV. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS + XVI. TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN + XVII. THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE + XVIII. THE PRIME OF THE MORNING + XIX. WENDISH WIT + XX. THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND + XXI. I STAND SENTRY + XXII. HELENE HATES ME + XXIII. HUGO OF THE BROADAXE + XXIV. THE SORTIE + XXV. MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE + XXVI. PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON + XXVII. ANOTHER MAN'S COAT + XXVIII. THE PRINCE'S COMPACT + XXIX. LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT + XXX. INSULT AND CHALLENGE + XXXI. I FIND A SECOND + XXXII. THE WOLVES OF THE MARK + XXXIII. THE FLIGHT OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE + XXXIV. THE GOLDEN NECKLACE + XXXV. THE DECENT SERVITOR + XXXVI. YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL + XXXVII. CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON +XXXVIII. THE BLACK RIDERS + XXXIX. THE FLAG ON THE RED TOWER + XL. THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH + XLI. THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER + XLII. PRINCESS PLAYMATE + XLIII. THE TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT + XLIV. SENTENCE OF DEATH + XLV. THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE + XLVI. A WOMAN SCORNED + XLVII. THE RED AXE DIES STANDING UP + XLVIII. HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + XLIX. THE SERPENT'S STRIFE + L. THE DUNGEON OF THE WOLFSBERG + LI. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN + LII. THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT + LIII. THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN + LIV. THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO + LV. THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL + LVI. HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG + + + + +THE RED AXE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE + + +Well do I, Hugo Gottfried, remember the night of snow and moonlight when +first they brought the Little Playmate home. I had been sleeping--a +sturdy, well-grown fellow I, ten years or so as to my age--in a stomacher +of blanket and a bed-gown my mother had made me before she died at the +beginning of the cold weather. Suddenly something awoke me out of my +sleep. So, all in the sharp chill of the night, I got out of my bed, +sitting on the edge with my legs dangling, and looked curiously at the +bright streams of moonlight which crossed the wooden floor of my garret. +I thought if only I could swim straight up one of them, as the motes did +in the sunshine, I should be sure to come in time to the place where my +mother was--the place where all the pretty white things came from--the +sunshine, the moonshine, the starshine, and the snow. + +And there would be children to play with up there--hundreds of children +like myself, and all close at hand. I should not any longer have to sit +up aloft in the Red Tower with none to speak to me--all alone on the top +of a wall--just because I had a crimson patch sewn on my blue-corded +blouse, on my little white shirt, embroidered in red wool on each of my +warm winter wristlets, and staring out from the front of both my +stockings. It was a pretty enough pattern, too. Yet whenever one of the +children I so much longed to play with down on the paved roadway beneath +our tower caught sight of it he rose instantly out of the dust and hurled +oaths and ill-words at me--aye, and oftentimes other missiles that hurt +even worse--at a little lonely boy who was breaking his heart with loving +him up there on the tower. + +"Come down and be killed, foul brood of the Red Axe!" the children cried. +And with that they ran as near as they dared, and spat on the wall of our +house, or at least on the little wooden panel which opened inward in the +great trebly spiked iron door of the Duke's court-yard. + +But this night of the first home-coming of the Little Playmate I awoke +crying and fearful in the dead vast of the night, when all the other +children who would not speak to me were asleep. Then pulling on my +comfortable shoes of woollen list (for my father gave me all things to +make me warm, thinking me delicate of body), and drawing the many-patched +coverlet of the bed about me, I clambered up the stone stairway to the +very top of the tower in which I slept. The moon was broad, like one of +the shields in the great hall, whither I went often when the great Duke +was not at home, and when old Hanne would be busy cleaning the pavement +and scrubbing viciously at the armor of the iron knights who stood on +pedestals round about. + +"One day I shall be a man-at-arms, too," I said once to Hanne, "and ride +a-foraying with Duke Ironteeth." + +But old Hanne only shook her head and answered: + +"Ill foraying shalt thou make, little shrimp. Such work as thine is not +done on horseback--keep wide from me, _toadchen_, touch me not!" + +For even old Hanne flouted me and would not let me approach her too +closely, all because once I had asked her what my father did to witches, +and if she were a witch that she crossed herself and trembled whenever +she passed him in the court-yard. + +Now, having little else to do, I loved to look down from the top of the +tower at all times. But never more so than when there was snow on the +ground, for then the City of Thorn lay apparent beneath me, all spread +out like a painted picture, with its white and red roofs and white houses +bright in the moonlight--so near that it seemed as though I could pat +every child lying asleep in its little bed, and scrape away the snow with +my fingers from every red tile off which the house-fires had not already +melted it. + +The town of Thorn was the chief place of arms, and high capital city of +all the Wolfmark. It was a thriving place, too, humming with burghers and +trades and guilds, when our great Duke Casimir would let them alone; +perilous, often also, with pikes and discontents when he swooped from the +tall over-frowning Castle of the Wolfsberg upon their booths and +guilderies--"to scotch the pride of rascaldom," as he told them when they +complained. In these days my father was little at home, his business +keeping him abroad all the day about the castle-yard, at secret +examinations in the Hall of Judgment, or in mysterious vaults in the +deepest parts of the castle, where the walls are eighteen feet thick, and +from which not a groan can penetrate to the outside while the Duke +Casimir's judgment was being done upon the poor bodies and souls of men +and women his prisoners. + +In the court-yard, too, the dogs, fierce russet-tan blood-hounds, +ravined for their fearsome food. And in these days there was plenty of +it, too, so that they were yelling and clamoring all day, and most of +the night, for that which it made me sweat to think of. And beneath the +rebellious city cowered and muttered, while the burghers and their +wives shivered in their beds as the howling of Duke Casimir's +blood-hounds came fitfully down the wind, and Duke Casimir's guards +clashed arms under their windows. + +So this night I looked down contentedly enough from my perched eyrie on +the top of the Red Tower. It had been snowing a little earlier in the +evening, and the brief blast had swept the sky clean, so that even the +brightest stars seemed sunken and waterlogged in the white floods of +moonlight. Under my hand lay the city. Even the feet of the watch made no +clatter on the pavements. The fresh-fallen snow masked the sound. The +kennels of the blood-hounds were silent, for their dreadful tenants were +abroad that night on the Duke's work. + +Yet, sitting up there on the Wolfsberg, it seemed to me that I could +distinguish a muttering as of voices full of hate, like men talking low +on their beds the secret things of evil and treason. I discerned +discontent and rebellion rumbling and brooding over the city that clear, +keen night of early winter. + +Then, when after a while I turned from the crowded roofs and looked down +upon the gray, far-spreading plain of the Wolfmark, to the east I saw +that which appeared like winking sparks of light moving among the black +clumps of copse and woodland which fringed the river. These wimpled and +scattered, and presently grew brighter. A long howl, like that of a +lonely wolf on the waste when he calls to his kindred to tell him their +where-abouts, came faintly up to my ears. + +A hound gave tongue responsively among the heaped mews and doggeries +beneath the ramparts. Lights shone in windows athwart the city. Red +nightcaps were thrust out of hastily opened casements. The Duke's +standing guard clamored with their spear-butts on the uneven pavements, +crying up and down the streets: "To your kennels, devil's brats, Duke +Casimir comes riding home!" + +Then I tell you my small heart beat furiously. For I knew that if I +only kept quiet I should see that which I had never yet seen--the +home-coming of our famous foraying Duke. I had, indeed, seen Duke +Casimir often enough in the castle, or striding across the court-yard +to speak to my father, for whom he had ever a remarkable affection. He +was a tall, swart, black-a-vised man, with a huge hairy mole on his +cheek, and long dog-teeth which showed at the sides of his mouth when +he smiled, almost as pleasantly as those of a she-wolf looking out of +her den at the hunters. + +But I had never seen the Duke of all the Wolfmark come riding home ere +daybreak, laden with the plunder of captured castles and the rout of +deforced cities. For at such times my father would carefully lock the +door on me, and confine me to my little sleeping-chamber--from whence I +could see nothing but the square of smooth pavement on which the +children chalked their games, and from which they cried naughtily up at +me, the poor hermit of the Red Tower. But this night my father would be +with the Duke, and I should see all. For high or low there was none in +the empty Red Tower to hinder or forbid. + +As I waited, thrilling with expectation, I heard beneath me the +quickening pulse-beat of the town. The watch hurried here and there, +hectoring, threatening, and commanding. But, in spite of all, men +gathered as soon as their backs were turned in the alleys and street +openings. Clusters of heads showed black for a moment in some darksome +entry, cried "U-g-g-hh!" with a hateful sound, and vanished ere the +steel-clad veterans of the Duke's guard could come upon them. It was like +the hide-and-seek which I used to play with Boldo, my blood-hound puppy, +among the dusty waste of the lumber-room over the Hall of Judgment, +before my father took him back to the kennels for biting Christian's +Elsa, a child who lived in the lower Guard opposite to the Red Tower. + +But this was a stranger hide-and-seek than mine and Boldo's had been. For +I saw one of the men who cried hatefully to the guard stumble on the +slippery ice; and lo! or ever he had time to cry out or gather himself +up, the men-at-arms were upon him. I saw the glitter of stabbing steel +and heard the sickening sound of blows stricken silently in anger. Then +the soldiers took the man up by head and heels carelessly, jesting as +they went. And I shuddered, for I knew that they were bringing him to the +horrible long sheds by the Red Tower through which the wind whistled. But +in the moonlight the patch which was left on the snow was black, not red. + +After this the crooked alleys were kept clearer, and I could see down the +long High Street of Thorn right to the Weiss Thor and the snow-whitened +pinnacles of the Palace, out of which Duke Casimir had for the time being +frightened Bishop Peter. Black stood the Gate Port against the moonlight +and the snow when I first looked at it. A moment after it had opened, and +a hundred lights came crowding through, like sheep through an entry on +their way to the shambles--which doubtless is their Hall of Judgment, +where there waits for them the Red Axe of a lowlier degree. + +The lights, I say, came thronging through the gate. For though it was +moonlight, the Duke Casimir loved to come home amid the red flame of +torches, the trail of bituminous reek, and with a dashing train of riders +clattering up to the Wolfsberg behind him, through the streets of Thorn, +lying black and cowed under the shadows of its thousand gables. + +So the procession undulated towards me, turbid and tumultuous. First a +reckless pour of riders urging wearied horses, their sides white-flecked +above with blown foam, and dark beneath with rowelled blood. Many of the +horsemen carried marks upon them which showed that all had not been +plunder and pleasuring upon their foray. For there were white napkins, +and napkins that had once been white, tied across many brows. Helmets +swung clanking like iron pipkins from saddle-bows, and men rode wearily +with their arms in slings, drooping haggard faces upon their chests. But +all passed rapidly enough up the steep street, and tumbled with noise and +shouting, helter-skelter into the great court-yard beneath me as I +watched, secure as God in heaven, from my perch on the Red Tower. + +Then came the captives, some riding horses bare-backed, or held in place +before black-bearded riders--women mostly these last, with faces +white-set and strange of eye, or all beblubbered with weeping. Then came +a man or two also on horseback, old and reverend. After them a draggled +rabble of lads and half-grown girls, bound together with ropes and kept +at a dog's trot by the pricking spears of the men-at-arms behind, who +thought it a jest to sink a spear point-deep in the flesh of a man's +back--"drawing the claret wine" they called it. For these riders of Duke +Casimir were every one jolly companions, and must have their merry jest. + +After the captives had gone past--and sorry I was for them--the +body-guard of Duke Casimir came riding steadily and gallantly, all +gentlemen of the Mark, with their sons and squires, landed men, towered +men, free Junkers, serving the Duke for loyalty and not servitude, though +ever "living by the saddle"--as, indeed, most of the Ritterdom and gentry +of the Mark had done for generations. + +Then behind them came Duke Casimir himself. The Eastland blood he had +acquired from his Polish mother showed as he rode gloomily apart, +thoughtful, solitary, behind the squared shoulders of his knights. After +him another squadron of riders in ghastly armor of black-and-white, with +torches in their hand and grinning skulls upon their shields, closed in +the array. The great gate of the Wolfsberg was open now, and, leaving +behind him the hushed and darkened town, the master rode into his castle. +The Wolf was in his lair. But in the streets many a burgher's wife +trembled on her bed, while her goodman peered cautiously over the leads +by the side of a gargoyle, and fancied that already he heard the clamor +of the partisans thundering at his door with the Duke's invitation to +meet him in the Hall of Judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME + + +But there was to be no Session in the Hall of Judgment that night. The +great court-yard, roofed with the vault of stars and lit by the moon, was +to see all done that remained to be done. The torches were planted in the +iron hold-fasts round about. The plunder of the captured towns and +castles was piled for distribution on the morrow, and no man dared keep +back so much as a Brandenburg broad-piece or a handful of Bohemian +gulden. For the fear of the Duke and the Duke's dog-kennels was upon +every stout fighting-kerl. They minded the fate of Hans Pulitz, who had +kept back a belt of gold, and had gotten himself flung by the heels with +no more than the stolen belt upon him, into the kennels where the Duke's +blood-hounds howled and clambered with their fore-feet on the +black-spattered barriers. And they say that the belt of gold was all that +was ever seen again of the poor rascal. Hans Pulitz--who had hoped for so +many riotous evenings among the Fat Pigs of Thorn and so many draughts of +the slippery wine of the Rheingan careering down the poor thirsty throat +of him. But, alas for Hans Pulitz! the end of all imagining was no more +than five minutes of snapping, snarling, horrible Pandemonium in the +kennels of the Wolfsberg, and the scored gold chain on the ground was all +that remained to tell his tale. Verily, there were few Achans in Duke +Casimir's camp. + +And it is small wonder after this, that scant and sparse were the jests +played on the grim master of the Wolfsberg, or that the bay of a +blood-hound tracking on the downs frightened the most stout-hearted rider +in all that retinue of dare-devils. + +Going to the side of the Red Tower, which looked towards the court-yard, +I saw the whole array come in. I watched the prisoners unceremoniously +dismounted and huddled together against the coming of the Duke. There was +but one man among them who stood erect. The torch-light played on his +face, which was sometimes bent down to a little child in his arms, so +that I saw him well. He looked not at all upon the rude men-at-arms who +pushed and bullied about him, but continued tenderly to hush his charge, +as if he had been a nurse in a babe-chamber under the leads, with silence +in all the house below. + +It pleased me to see the man, for all my life I had loved children. And +yet at ten years of age I had never so much as touched one--no, nor +spoken even, only looked down on those that hated me and spat on the very +tower wherein I dwelt. But nevertheless I loved them and yearned to tell +them so, even when they mocked me. So I watched this little one in the +man's arms. + +Then came the Duke along the line, and behind him, like the Shadow of +Death, paced my father Gottfried Gottfried, habited all in red from neck +to heel, and carrying for his badge of office as Hereditary Justicer to +the Dukes of the Wolfmark that famous red-handled, red-bladed axe, the +gleaming white of whose deadly edge had never been wet save with the +blood of men and women. + +The guard pushed the captives rudely into line as the Duke Casimir strode +along the front. The women he passed without a sign or so much as a look. +They were kept for another day. But the men were judged sharp and sudden, +as the Duke in his black armor passed along, and that scarlet Shadow of +Death with the broad axe over his shoulder paced noiselessly behind him. + +For as each man looked into the eyes of Casimir of the Wolfsberg he read +his doom. The Duke turned his wrist sharply down, whereupon the attendant +sprites of the Red Shadow seized the man and rent his garment down from +his neck--or the hand pointed up, and then the man set his hand to his +heart and threw his head back in a long sigh of relief. + +It came the turn of the man who carried the babe. + +Duke Casimir paused before him, scowling gloomily at him. + +"Ha, Lord Prince of so great a province, you will not set yourself up any +more haughtily. You will quibble no longer concerning tithes and tolls +with Casimir of the Wolfmark." + +And the Duke lifted his hand and smote the man on the cheek with his +open hand. + +Yet the captive only hushed the child that wailed aloud to see her +guardian smitten. + +He looked Duke Casimir steadfastly in the eyes and spoke no word. + +"Great God, man, have you nothing to say to me ere you die?" cried Duke +Casimir, choked with hot, sudden anger to be so crossed. + +The elder man gazed steadily at his captor. + +"God will judge betwixt me, a man about to die, and you, Casimir of the +Wolfmark," he said at last, very slowly--"by the eyes of this little maid +He will judge!" + +"Like enough," cried Casimir, sneeringly. "Bishop Peter hath told me as +much. But then God's payments are long deferred, and, so far as I can +see, I can take Him into my own hand. And your little maid--pah! since +one day you took from me the mother, I, in my turn, will take the +daughter and make her a titbit for the teeth of my blood-hounds." + +The man answered not again, but only hushed and fondled the little one. + +Duke Casimir turned quickly to my father, showing his long teeth like a +snarling dog: + +"Take the child," he said, "and cast her into the kennels before the +man's eyes, that he may learn before he dies to dread more than God's +Judgment Seat the vengeance of Duke Casimir!" + +Then all the men-at-arms turned away, heart-sick at the horror. But the +man with the child never blanched. + +High perched on the top tower, I also heard the words and loved the maid. +And they tell me (though I do not remember it) that I cried down from the +leads of the Red Tower: "My father, save the little maid and give her to +me--or else I, Hugo Gottfried, will cast myself down on the stones at +your feet!" + +At which all the men looked up and saw me in white, a small, lonely +figure, with my legs hanging over the top of the wall. + +"Go back!" my father shouted. "Go back, Hugo! 'Tis my only son--my +successor--the fifteenth of our line, my lord!" he said to the Duke +in excuse. + +But I cried all the more: "Save the maid's life, or I will fling myself +headlong. By Jesu-Mary, I swear it!" + +For I thought that was the name of one great saint. + +Then my father, who ever doted on me, bent his knee before his master: +"A boon!" he cried, "my first and last, Duke Casimir--this maid's life +for my son!" + +But the Duke hung on the request a long, doubtful moment. + +"Gottfried Gottfried," he said, even reproachfully, "this is not well +done of you, to make me go back on my word." + +"Take the man's life," said my father--"take the man's life for the +child's and the fulfilling of your word, and by the sword of St. Peter I +will smite my best!" + +"Aye," said the man with the babe, "even so do, as the Red Axe says. +Save the young child, but bid him smite hard at this abased neck. Ye have +taken all, Duke Casimir, take my life. But save the young child alive!" + +So, without further word or question, they did so, and the man who had +carried the child kissed her once and separated gently the baby hands +that clung about his neck. Then he handed her to my father. + +"Be gracious to Helene," he said; "she was ever a sweet babe." + +Now by this time I was down hammering on the door of the Red Tower, which +had been locked on the outside. + +Presently some one turned the key, and so soon as I got among the men I +darted between their legs. + +"Give me the babe!" I cried; "the babe is mine; the Duke himself +hath said it." And my father gave her to me, crying as if her heart +would break. + +Nevertheless she clung to me, perhaps because I was nearer her own age. + +Then the dismal procession of the condemned passed us, followed by my +father, who strode in front with his axe over his shoulder, and the +laughing and jesting men-at-arms bringing up the rear. + +As I stood a little aside for them to pass, the hand of the man fell on +my head and rested there a moment. + +"God's blessing on you, little lad!" he said. "Cherish the babe you have +saved, and, as sure as that I am now about to die, one day you shall be +repaid." And he stooped and kissed the little maid before he went on with +the others to the place of slaughter. + +Then I hurried within, so that I might not hear the dull thud of the Red +Axe, on the block nor the inhuman howlings of the dogs in the kennels +afterwards. + +When my father came home an hour later, before even he took off his +costume of red, he came up to our chamber and looked long at the little +maid as she lay asleep. Then he gazed at me, who watched him from under +my lids and from behind the shadows of the bedclothes. + +But his quick eye caught the gleam of light in mine. + +"You are awake, boy!" he said, somewhat sternly. + +I nodded up to him without speaking. + +"What would you with the little maid?" he said. "Do you know that you and +she together came very near losing me my favor with the Duke, and it +might be my life also, both at one time to-night?" + +I put my hand on the maiden's head where it lay on the pillow by me. + +"She is my little wife!" I said. "The Duke gave her to me out in the +court-yard there!" + +And this is the whole tale of how the Little Playmate came to dwell with +us in the Red Tower. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + + +Just as clearly do I remember the next morning. The Little Playmate lay +by me on my bed, wrapped in one of my childish night-gowns--which old +Hanne had sought out for her the night before. It was a brisk, chill, +nippy daybreak, and I had piled most of the bedclothes upon her. I lay at +the nether side clipped tight in my single brown blanket. It was +perishing cold. Out of the heaped coverings I saw presently a pair of +eyes, great and dark, regarding me. + +Then a little voice spoke, sweetly and clearly, but yet strangely +sounding to me who had never before heard a babe speak. + +"I want my father--tell him to send Grete, my maid, to attend on me, and +then to come himself to sit by the bed and amuse me!" + +Alas! her father--well I knew what had come to him--that which in the +mercy of the Duke Casimir and in the crowning mercy of the Red Axe, I had +seen come to so many. The dogs did not howl at all that morning. They, +too, were tired with the hunting and sated with the quarry. + +All the same, I tried to answer my companion. + +"Little Maid!" said I, "let me be your maid and your father. I will +gladly get you all you want. But your good father has gone on a weary +journey, and it will be long ere he can hope to return." + +"Well," she said, "send lazy Grete, then. I will scold her soundly for +not bringing the sop of hot milk-and-bread, which, indeed, is not food +for a lady of my age. But my father insists upon it. He is dreadfully +obstinate." + +Now there was no one but our old deaf Hanne in the kitchen of the Red +Tower. She stayed only for cooking and keeping the house clean. My father +never paid her wages, and she never asked any. She did her work and took +that which she needed out of the household purse without check or +question. It was long before I guessed that Hanne also owed her life to +my father's care. I had noticed, indeed, when he had upon him the red +headman's dress, which fitted him like a flame climbing up a tall back +log on the winter's fire, that old Hanne trembled from head to foot and +shrank away into her den under the stairs. Many a time have I seen her +peeping round the corner of the kitchen-door and tottering back when she +heard him come down the stair from the garret. And I guessed so well the +reason of her fear that I used to cry to her: + +"Come out, good Hanne; the Red Axe is gone." + +Then would she run, pattering like a scared rabbit over the uneven floor, +to the window, and watch my father stalking, grim and tall, across the +open spaces of the yard towards the Judgment Hall of Duke Casimir, the +men-at-arms avoiding him with deft reverence. For though they hated him +almost as much as did the fat burghers, they feared him, too. And that +because Gottfried Gottfried was deep in the confidence of the Duke; and, +besides, was no man to stand in the ill-graces of when one lived within +the walls of the Wolfsberg. + +So this morning it was to the ancient Hanne that I ran down and told her +how, as quickly as she might, she must bring milk and bread to the +little one. + +"But," said she, "there is none save that which is to be sodden for your +father's breakfast and your own." + +"Do as you are bid, bad Hanne!" cried I, being, like all solitary +children, quickly made angry, "or I will tell my father to drive you +before him when next he goes forth clad in red to the Hall of Justice." + +At which the poor old woman gave vent to a sharp, screechy cry and caught +at her skinny throat with twitching, bony fingers. + +"Oh, but you know not what you say, cruel boy!" she gasped. "For the love +of God, speak not such words in the house of the Red Axe!" + +But, like an ill-governed child, I was cruel because I knew my power, and +so made sure that Hanne would do what I asked. + +"Well, then, bring the sop quickly," said I, "or by Peter-and-Paul I will +speak to my father. He and I can well be doing with beaten cakes made +crisp on the iron girdle. In these you have great skill." + +This last I said to cheer her, for she loved compliments on her cooking. +Though, strange to tell, I never saw her eat anything herself all the +years she remained in our house. + +When I was gone up-stairs again I looked about for the Little Playmate. +She was not to be seen anywhere. There was only a tiny cosey-hole down +among the blankets, which was yet warm when I thrust my hand within it. +But it was empty and the top a little fallen in, as if the occupant had +set her knee on it when she crawled out. A baby stocking lay outside it +on the floor. + +"Little maid!" I cried, "where are you?" + +But I heard nothing except a hissing up on the roof, and then a great +slithering rumble down below, which boomed like the distant cannons the +Margraf sent to besiege us. I listened and shuddered; but it was only the +snow from the tall roof of the Red Tower which had slipped off and fallen +to the ground. Then I had a vision of a slender little figure clambering +on the leads and the treacherous snow striking her out into the air, and +then--the cruel stones of the pavement. + +"Little maid, little maid!" I cried out again, beginning to weep myself +for pity at my thought, "where are you? Speak to me. You are my +playmate." + +Then I ran to the roof, and, though the stones chilled me to the bone and +the frost-bitten iron hasps of the fastenings burned me like fire, I +opened the trap-door and looked out. There above me was the crow-stepped +gable of the Red Tower, with the axe set on the pinnacle rustily bright +in the coming light of the morning--all swept clean of snow. But no +little maid. + +I ran to the verge and peered down. I saw a great heap of frozen snow +fallen on its edge and partly canted over, half covering a deep red stain +which was turning black and horrid in the daylight. But no little maid. + +Then I ran all over the house calling to her, but could not find her +anywhere. I was just beginning to bethink me that she might be a fairy +child, one that came at night and vanished like the dream gold which is +forever turning to withered leaves in the morning. At last I bethought me +of my father's room, where even I, his son, had never been at night, and +indeed but seldom in the day. For it was the Hereditary Justicer's fancy +to lodge himself in the high garret which ran right across the top of the +Red Tower, and was entered only by a little ladder from the first turning +of the same staircase by which I had run out upon the leads. + +I went to the bottom of the garret turnpike. The little barred door stood +open, and I heard--I was sure that I heard--light, irregularly pattering +footsteps moving about above. + +It gave me strange shakings of my heart only to listen. For, though I was +noways afraid of my father myself, yet since I had never seen any man, +woman, or child (save the Duke only) who did not quail at his approach, +it was a curious feeling to think of the lonely little child skipping +about up there, where abode the axe and the block--the axe which had +done, I knew so well what, to her father only the night before. + +So I mustered all my courage--not from any fear of Gottfried Gottfried, +but rather from the uncertainty of what I should see, and quickly mounted +the stair. + +I shall never forget what I saw as I stood with my feet on the rickety +hand-rail of the ladder. The long dim garret was already half-lighted by +the coming day. Red cloaks swung and flapped like vast, deadly, winged +bats from the rafters, and reached almost to the ground. There was no +glass in any of the windows of the garret, for my father minded neither +heat nor cold. He was a man of iron. Summer's heat nor winter's cold +neither vexed nor pleasured him. So it was no marvel that at the +chamber's upper end, and quite near to my father's bed, lay a wreath of +snow, with a fine, clean-cut, untrampled edge, just as it had blown in at +the gable window when the storm burst from the east. + +My father lay stretched out on his bed, his head thrown back, his neck +bare--almost as if he had done justice on himself, or at least as if he +waited the stroke of another Red Axe through the eastern skylight which +the morning was already crimsoning. His scarlet sheathings of garmentry +lay upon a black oaken stool, trailing across the floor lank and hideous, +one of the cuffs which had been but recently dyed a darker hue making a +wet sop upon the boards. + +All this I had seen many a time before. But that which made me tremble +from head to foot with more and worse than cold, was the little white +figure that danced about his bed--for all the world like a crisped leaf +in late autumn which whirls and turns, skipping this way and spinning +that in the wanton breezes. It was the Little Playmate. But I could not +form a word wherewith to call her. My tongue seemed dried to the roots. + +She had taken the red eye-mask which came across my father's face when he +did his greater duties and tied it about her head. Her great, innocent, +childish eyes looked elfishly through the black socket holes, sparkling +with a fairy merriment, and her tangled floss of sunny hair escaped from +the string at the back and fell tumultuously upon her shoulders. + +And even as I looked, standing silent and trembling, with a little +balancing step she danced up to the Red Axe itself where it stood angled +against the block, and seizing it by the handle high up near the head she +staggered towards the bed with it. + +Then came my words back to my mouth with a rush. + +"For the Holy Virgin's sake, little maid, put the Red Axe down!" I cried, +whisperingly. "You know not what you do!" + +Then even as I spoke I saw that my father had drawn himself up in bed, +and that he too was staring at the strange, elfish figure. Gottfried +Gottfried, as I remember him in these days, was a tall, dark, heavily +browed man, with a shock of bushy blue-black hair, of late silvering at +the temples--grave, sombre, quiet in all his actions. + +But what was my surprise as the little maid came nearer to the bed +with her pretty dancing movement, carrying the axe much as if it had +been an over-heavy babe, to see the Duke's Justicer suddenly skip over +the far side of the bedstead and stand with his red cloak about him, +watching her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PRINCESS HELENE + + +"What devil's work is this?" he said, frowning at her severely. + +And I confess that I trembled, but not so the little maid. + +"Do not be afraid, mannie," she said, laying down the axe on the stock of +the couch, against which its broad red blade and glass-clear cutting edge +made an irregular patch of light. "Come and sit down beside me on your +bed. I shall not hurt you indeed, mannie, and I want to talk to you. +There is nothing but a little boy down-stairs. And I like best to talk +with men." + +"I declare it is the dead man's brat I saved last night for Hugo's sake!" +I heard my father mutter, "the maid with the girdle of golden letters." + +Presently a smile of amusement struggled about his mouth at her bairnly +imperiousness, but he came obediently enough and sat down. Nevertheless +he took away the heavy axe from her and said, "Put this down, then, or +give it to me. It is not a pretty plaything for little girls!" + +The small figure in white put up a tiny fat hand, and solemnly withdrew +the red patch of mask from before the wide-open baby eyes. + +"I am not a little _girl_, remember, mannie," she said, "I am a Princess +and a great lady." + +My father bowed without rising. + +"I shall not forget," he said. + +"You should stand up and bow when I tell you that," said she. "I declare +you have no more manners than the little boy in the brown blanket +down-stairs." + +"Princess," said my father, gravely, "during my life I have met a great +many distinguished people of your rank; and, do you know, not one of them +has ever complained of my manners before." + +"Ah," cried the little maid, "then you have never met my father, the +Prince. He is terribly particular. You must go _so_" (she imitated the +mincing walk of a court chamberlain), "you must hold your tails thus" +(wagging her white nightrail and twisting about her head to watch the +effect), "and you must retire--so!" With that she came bowing backward +towards the well of the staircase, so far that I was almost afraid she +would fall plump into my arms. But she checked herself in time, and +without looking round or seeing me she tripped back to my father's +bedside and sat down quite confidingly beside him. + +"Now you see," cried she, "what you would have had to put up with if you +had met my father. Be thankful then that it is only the little Princess +Helene that is sitting here." + +"I think I had the honor to meet your father," said Gottfried Gottfried, +gravely, again removing the restless baby fingers from the Red Axe and +laying it on the far side of the couch beyond him. + +"Then, if you met him, did he not make you bow and bend and walk +backward?" asked the Playmate, looking up very sharply. + +"Well, you see, Princess," explained my father, "it was for such a very +short time that I had the honor of converse with him." + +"Ah, that does not matter," cried the maid; "often he would be most +difficult when you came running in just for a moment. Why, he would +straighten you up and make you do your bows if you were only racing +after a kitten, or, what was worse, he would call the Court Chamberlain +to show you how to do it. But when I am grown up--ah, then!--I mean to +make the Chamberlain bow and walk backward; for you know he is only +taking care of my princedom for me. Oh, and I shall have you well taught +by that time, long man. It is cold--cold. Let me get into your bed and I +will give you your first lesson now." + +So with that she skipped into my father's place and drew the great red +cloak about her. + +"Now then, first position," she commanded, clapping her hands like a +Sultana, "your feet together. Draw back your left--so. Very well! Bend +the knee--stupid, not that one. Now your head. If I have to come to you, +sir--there, that is better. Well done! Oh, I shall have a peck of trouble +with you, I can see that. But you will do me credit before I have done +with you." + +In a little while she tired of the lesson. + +"Come and sit down now"--she waved her hand graciously--"here on the bed +by me. Though I am a Princess really, I am not proud, and, as I said, I +may make something of you yet." + +My father came forward gravely, wrapped himself in another of his red +cloaks, and sat down. I shivered in my blanket on the stair-head, but I +could not bear to move nor yet reveal myself. This was better than any +play I had ever watched from the sparred gallery of the palace, to which +Gottfried Gottfried took me sometimes when the mummers came from +Brandenburg to divert Duke Casimir. + +"My father, the great Prince, took me for a long ride last night. There +was much noise and many bonfires behind us as we rode away, and some of +the men spoke roughly, for which my father will rate them soundly to-day. +Oh, they will be sick and sorry this morning when the Prince takes them +to task. I hope you will never make him angry," she said, laying her hand +warningly on my father's; "but if ever you do, come to me and I will +speak to the Prince for you. You need not be bashful, for I do not mind a +bit speaking to him, or indeed to any one. You will remember and not be +bashful when you have something to ask?" + +"I will assuredly not be bashful," said my father, very solemnly. "I will +come and tell you at once, little lady, if I ever have the misfortune to +offend the most noble Prince." + +Then he bent his head and raised her hand to his lips. She bowed in +return with exquisite reserve and hauteur; and, as it seemed to me, more +with her long eyelashes than with anything else. + +"Do you know, Black Man," she said--"for, you know, you are black, though +you wear red clothes--I am glad you are not afraid of me. At home every +one was afraid of me. Why, the little children stood with their mouths +open and their eyes like this whenever they saw me." + +And she illustrated the extremely vacant surprise into which her +appearance paralyzed the infantry of her native city. + +"I am glad my father left me here till he should come back. Do you know, +I like your house. There are so many interesting things about it. That +funny axe over there is nice. It looks as if it could cut things. Has it +ever cut anything? It is so nicely polished. How do you keep it so, and +can I help you?" + +"I had just finished polishing and oiling it before I fell asleep," +answered Gottfried Gottfried. "You see, little Princess, I had very many +things to cut with it last night." + +"What a pity the Prince had not time to wait and see you! He is so very +fond of going out into the forest with the woodman. Once he took me to +see the tallest tree in all our woods cut down with just such an axe as +that--only it was not red. Have you ever seen a high tree cut down?" + +"I have cut down some pretty tall ones myself!" said the Duke's Justicer, +smiling quietly at her. + +"Ah, but not as tall as my father! It is beautiful to see him strip +his doublet and lay to. They say there is not a woodman like him in +all our land." + +Helene looked at my father, whose arms were folded in his great cloak. + +"But you have fine strong arms too," she said. "You look as if you could +cut things. Did my father ever see you cut down tall trees?" + +"Yes," said Gottfried Gottfried, slowly, "once!" + +"And did he say that you cut well?" the little maid went on, with a +strange, wilful persistence in her idea. + +"He neither said that I did well nor yet that I did ill," replied +Gottfried Gottfried. + +"Ah!" said Helene, "that was just like the Prince. He was afraid of +flattering you and making you unfit for your work. But if he said +nothing, depend upon it he was pleased." + +"Thank you, Princess," said my father. "I think he was well enough +pleased." + +Just then there came a noise that I knew--a sound which chilled every +bone in my body. + +It was the clear ring of a steady footstep upon the pavement without. It +came heavily and slowly across the yard. The outer hasp of our door +clicked. The door opened, and the footstep began to ascend the stair. + +There was but one man in the world who dared make so free with the +Red Tower and its occupant. Our visitor was without doubt the Duke +Casimir himself. + +For the first time I saw my father manifestly disconcerted. The little +maid's life might be worth no more than a torn ballad if Duke Casimir +happened to be in evil humor or had repented him of his mercy of the +past night. I saw the Red Axe look aimlessly about for a hiding-place. +There was a niche round which certain cloaks and coverlets were hung. + +"Come in here," he said, abruptly. + +"Why should I hide, whoever comes?" asked the Little Playmate, +indignantly. + +"It is the Duke Casimir," whispered my father, hurriedly, stirred as I +had never seen him. "Come hither quickly!" + +But the little maid struck an attitude, and tapped the floor with her +foot. + +"I will not," she said. "What is the Duke Casimir to me that am a +Princess? If he is good, I will give him my hand to kiss!" + +But at this point I rushed from the ladder-head, and, taking her in my +arms, I sped up the turret stairs with her out upon the leads, my hand +over her mouth all the time. + +And as I ran I could hear the Duke trampling upward not twenty steps in +the rear. I opened the trap-door and went out into the clear morning +sunshine. And only the turn of the stair prevented Casimir from seeing me +go up the narrow turret corkscrew with my little white burden. + +Then I heard voices beneath, and I knew, as if I had seen it, that my +father stood up straight at the salute. Presently the voices lowered, and +I knew also that the Duke Casimir was unbending as he did to none else in +his realm save to the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark. + +But I had my hands full with the little Princess. I dared not go down +the stairs. I dared not for a moment take my palm off her mouth. For as +like as not she would call out for the Duke Casimir to come and deliver +her from my cruelty. So I stuck to my post, even though I knew that I +angered her. + +The morning was warm for a winter's day in Thorn, and I pulled open my +brown blanket and wrapped her coseyly within it, chilling myself to the +bone as I did so. + +It seemed ages before the Duke strode down the stair again, and took his +way across the yard, with my father, in black, after him. For so he was +used to dress when he went to the Hall of Judgment, to be present and +assist at the discovery of crime by means of the Minor and Extreme +Questions. + +Then, so soon as they were fairly gone, I took my hand from the mouth of +the Little Playmate, and carried her down-stairs; which as soon as I had +done, she slapped my face soundly. + +"I will never, never speak to you any more so long as I live, rude +boy--common street brat!" she said, biting her under-lip in ineffectual, +petulant anger. "Listen, never as long as I live! So do not think it! +Upstart, so to treat a lady and a Princess!" + +And with that she burst into tears. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ARE FED + + +But the Princess-Playmate spoke to me again. I was even permitted to call +her Helene. Me she addressed uniformly as "Hugo Gottfried." But neither +her name nor mine interfered with our plays, which were wholly happy and +undisturbed by quarrelling--at least, so long as I did exactly what she +wished me to do. + +On these terms life was made easy for me from that day forth. No longer +did I wistfully watch the children of the street from the lonely window +of the Red Tower. They might spit all day on the harled masonry at the +foot of the wall for aught I cared. I no longer desired their society. +Had I not that of a real Princess, and if my companion was inclined to be +a little wayward and domineering--why, was not that the very birthright +of all Princesses? + +Helene and I had great choice of plays within the walls of the solemn +castle. So long as we kept to the outer yard and did not intrude upon the +Duke's side of the enclosure, we were free to come and go at our +pleasure. For even Casimir himself was soon well accustomed to see us run +about like puppies, slapping and tumbling, and minded us no more than the +sparrows that pecked in the litter of the stable-yard. Indeed, I think he +had forgotten all about the strange home-coming of the Little Playmate. + +The kennels of the blood-hounds especially were full of fascination for +us. That fatal deep-mouthed clamoring at morn and even drew us like a +magnet. Helene, in particular, never tired of gazing between the chinks +of the fence of cloven pine-wood at the great russet-colored beasts with +their flashing white teeth, over which the heavy dewlaps fell. And when +my father, with his red livery upon him and a loaded whip in his hand, +once a day opened the tall, narrow door and went within, we thought him +brave as a god. Then the way the fierce beasts shrank cowering from him, +the fashion in which they crouched on their bellies and heaved their +shoulders up without taking their hind quarters off the ground, equally +delighted and surprised us. + +"Your father is almost as great a man as _my_ father," said the Princess +Helene, who, however, was rapidly forgetting her dignity. Indeed, +already it had become little more than a fairy-tale to her. And that was +perhaps as well. + +One day, when I was about thirteen, or a little older, my father came out +with a new short mantle in his hand, red like his own. + +"Come hither, Hugo Gottfried!" he said, for he had learned the trick of +the name from Helene. + +I went to him tardy-foot, greatly wondering. + +"Here, chick," he said, in his kindly fashion, "it is time you were +beginning to learn your duties. Come with me to-day into the kennels of +the blood-hounds." + +But I hung back, shifting the new mantle uneasily on my shoulders, yet +not daring to throw it off. + +"I do not want to go, father," said I, edging away in the direction of +the Playmate. + +"What, lad!" he cried, slapping me on the shoulder; "they will not hurt +thee with that cloak on. They know their masters better--as their fathers +and mothers knew our fathers. Have we, the Gottfrieds, been the +Hereditary Justicers of the Wolfmark for six hundred years to be afraid +now of the blood-hounds that are kept to hunt the Duke's enemies and to +feed on the Duke's carrion?" + +"It is not that I am afraid of the dogs, father," I made answer to him. +"I would quickly enough go among them, if only you would let me go +without this scarlet cloak." + +My father laughed heartily and loudly--that is, for him. A quick ear +might have heard him quite three feet away. + +"Silly one!" he exclaimed, "do you not know that even the Duke Casimir +dares not set foot in the kennels--no, nor I myself, save in the garb +they know and fear--as indeed do all men in this state." + +Still I hung my head down and scraped the gravel with my foot. + +"Haste thee," said my father, roughly. "Once it is permitted to a man to +be afraid; to fear twice, and fear the same thing, is to be a coward. And +no Gottfried ever yet was a coward. Let not my Hugo be the first." + +Then I took courage and spoke to him. + +"I do not wish to be executioner," I said; "I would rather ride +a-soldiering far away, and be in the drive of battle and the front of +danger. Let me be a soldier and a man-at-arms, my father. I am sure I +could become a war-captain and a great man!" + +Gottfried Gottfried stared blankly at me, and his blue-black hair rose in +a crest--not with anger, of which he never showed any to me, but in sheer +astonishment. He continued to rub it with his hand, as if in this manner +he might possibly reach an explanation of the mystery. + +"Not wish to be Hereditary Executioner? Why, are you not a Gottfried, the +only son of a Gottfried, the only son of his father, who also was a +Gottfried and Hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark? Why, lad, before there +was a Duke at all in the Wolfsberg, before he and his folk came out of +the land of the Poles to fight with the Ritterdom of the North, we, the +Gottfrieds of Thorn, wore the sign of the Red Axe and dwelt apart from +all the men of the Mark. For fourteen generations have we worn it!" + +"But," said I, sadly, "the very children on the street hate me and spit +on me as I pass; the maids will not so much as speak to me. They scyrry +in-doors and slam the wicket in my face. Think you that is pleasant? And +when as a lad of older years I set out to woo, whither shall I betake me? +For what door is open to a Gottfried, to him who carries the sign of +the Red Axe?" + +"Ah, lad," said my father, patiently, "life comes and life goes. It is +nigh on to forty years since even thus my father held out the curt mantle +for me. And even so said I. Time eats up all things but the hearts of +men. And they abide ever the same--yearning for that which they cannot +have, but nevertheless accepting with a sharp relish the things which are +decreed to them; even as do the Duke's carrion-eaters yonder, which, +by-the-way, are waiting most impatiently for their meal while we thus +stand arguing." + +He was about to move away when his eye fell on Helene. At sight of her he +seemed to remember my last words, about going a-wooing. + +He considered a moment and then said: "You are young yet to think of +courting, Hugo, but have no fear either for the love-making or the +wedding. Sweet maids a many shall surely come hither. Why, there is one +growing up yonder that will prove as fair as any. I tell you the +Gottfrieds have married great ladies in their time--dames and dainty +damsels. They have had princesses to be their sweethearts ere now. Come, +then, lad--no more words, but follow me." + +And for that time I went after him obediently enough, but all the same my +heart was rebellious within me. And I determined that if I had to ran to +the ends of the earth, I should never be Hereditary Executioner nor yet +handle the broadaxe on the bared necks of my fellow-men. + +We went in among the dogs--great, lank, cowering, tooth-slavering brutes. +I followed my father till we came to the feeding-troughs. Then he bade me +to stand where I was till he should set their meat in order. So he +vanished behind, the barriers. Then, when he had prepared the beasts' +horrid victual, though I saw not what, he opened the narrow gate, and the +howling, clambering throng broke helter-skelter for the troughs, cracking +and crunching the thigh-bones, tearing at the flesh, and growling at one +another till the air rang with the ear-piercing din. + +And outside the little Helene flung herself frantically at the split +pines of the enclosure, crying, bitterly, "Take off that hateful mantle, +Hugo Gottfried! I hate it--I hate it! Take it off!" + +My father stood behind the dogs, whose arched and bristling backs I could +just manage to see over the fence of wooden spars, and dealt the whip +judicially among them--at once as a warning to encroachers and a +punishment for greed. + +Then all unharmed we went out, and as soon as my father had gone up to +his garret-room in the tower, I tore the red cloak off and trampled it in +the dirt of the yard. Then I went and hid it in a little blind window of +the tower opposite the foot of the ladder which led to my father's room. +For, because of my father's anger, I dared not destroy the badge of shame +altogether, as both Helene and I wished to do. + +Day by day the Little Playmate (for so I was now allowed to call her--the +Princesshood being mostly forgotten) grew great and tall, her fair, +almost lint-white hair darkening swiftly to coppery gold with the glint +of ripe wheat upon it. + +Old Hanne followed her about with eyes at once wistful and doubtful. +Sometimes she shook her head sadly. And I wondered if ever the poor old +stumbling crone, wizened like a two-year-old winter apple, had been as +light and gay a thing as our dainty rose-leaf girl. + +One day I was laboring at the art of learning to write, along with Friar +Laurence--a scrawny, ill-favored monk, who, for good deeds or misdeeds, I +know not which, was warded in a cell opening out of the lower or garden +court of the Wolfsberg, when I heard Helene dance down the stairs to the +kitchen of the Red Tower. + +"Hannchen!" she cried, merrily, "come and teach me that trick of the +broidering needle. I never can do it but I prick myself. Nevertheless, +I can fashion the Red Axe almost as clearly as the pattern, and far +finer to see." + +Friar Laurence raised his great, softly solid face, blue about the jowls +and padded beneath the eyes with craft. + +"That little maid is over much with old Hanne," he said, as if he +meditated to himself; "she will teach her other prickings than the +needle-play. The witch-pricking at the images of wax was what brought her +here. Aye, and had it not been for your father wanting a house-keeper, +the Holy Office would have burned the hag, and sent her to hell, flaming +like a torch of pine knots." + +Now this was the first I had heard with exactness of the matter of old +Hanne's having been a witch. And now that I knew it for certain I began +to imagine all sorts of unholy things about the poor wretch, and grew +greatly jealous of Helene being so often in the kitchen. Whereas before I +had thought nothing at all about the matter, save that Hannchen was a +dull, pleasant, muttering, shuffling-footed old woman, who could make +rare good cream-cakes when you got her in the humor. + +And that was not often. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR + + +I mind it was some tale of years later that I got my first glimpse below +the surface of things in the town of Thorn, and especially in the castle +of the Wolfsberg. + +Duke Casimir continued to move, as of yore, in cavalcade through +his subject city. The burghers bowed as obsequiously as ever when +they could not avoid meeting him. There were the old lordly +perquisitions--thunderings at iron-studded doors, battering-rams set +between posts, and the clouds of dust flying from the driven lintels, the +screams of maids, the crying of women, a stray corpse or two flung on to +the street, and then the procession as before, arms and legs, with a +mercenary soldier between each pair, fore and aft. All this was repeated +and repeated, till the dull monotony of tyranny began to wear through the +long Teutonic patience to the under-quick of Wendish madness. + +It chanced that one night I could not sleep. It was no matter of maids +that kept me awake, though by this time I was sixteen or seventeen and +greatly grown--running, it is true, mostly to knees and elbows, but +nevertheless long of limb and stark of bone, needing only the muscle laid +on in lumps to be as strong as any. + +I had begun to steal out at nights too--not on any ill errand, but that I +might have the company of those about my own age--'prentice lads and the +wilder sons of burghers, who had no objection to my parentage, and +thought it rather a fine thing to be hand-in-glove with the son of the +Red Axe of Thorn. And there we played single-stick, smite-jacket, +skittles, bowls--aye, and drank deep of the city ale--the very thinnest +brew that was ever passed by a bribed and muzzy ale-taster. All this was +mightily pleasant to me. For so soon as they knew that I had determined +to be a soldier, and not the Red Axe of the Wolfmark, they complimented +me greatly on my spirit. + +Well, as I lay awake and waited for the chance to slip down a rope from +my bedroom window, whose foot should I hear on the turret stairs but that +of my Lord Duke Casimir! My very heart quailed within me. For the fear of +him sat heavy on every man and woman in the land. And as for the +children--why, as far as the Baltic shore and the land of the last +Ritters, mothers frightened their bairns with the Black Duke of the +Wolfsberg and his Red Axe. + +So now the Duke and the Red Axe were to be in conference--as indeed had +happened nearly every day and night since I could remember. So that +people called my father the Duke's Private Devil, his Familiar Spirit, +his Evil Genius. But I knew other of it--and this night, of all nights in +the year, I was to know better still. + +It was a summer midnight--not like the one I told of when the story +began, white with snow and glittering with the keen polish of frost. But +a soft, still night, drowsy yet sleepless, with an itch of thunder +tingling in the air--and, indeed, already the pulsing, uncertain glow of +sheet-lightning coming and going at long intervals along the south. + +I crouched and nestled in the hole in the wall where I had long ago +hidden the hated red cloak, pulling my knees up uncomfortably to my chin. +And great lumps of bone they were, knotted as if a smith had made them in +the rough with a welding hammer and had forgotten to reduce them with the +file afterwards. At that time I was thoroughly ashamed of my knees. + +But no matter for them now. Duke Casimir passed in and shut the door. + +"Gottfried," I heard him say, "I am a dead man!" + +These words from the great Duke Casimir startled me, and though I knew +well enough that Michael Texel, the Burgomeister's son, was waiting for +me by the corner of the Jew's Port, I decided that, as I might never hear +Duke Casimir declare his secretest soul again, I should even bide where I +was; and that was in the crevice of the wall among the old clothes, which +gave off such a faint, musty, sleepy smell I could scarcely keep awake. + +But the Duke's next words effectually roused me. + +"A dead man!" repeated Casimir. "I have not a friend in all the realm of +the Mark besides yourself. And there is none of all that take my bounty +or eat my bread that is sorry for me. See here," he said, querulously, +"twice have I been stricken at to-day--once a tile fell from a roof and +dinted the crown of my helmet, and the second time a young man struck at +my breast with a dagger." + +"Did he wound you, Duke Casimir?" asked my father, speaking for the first +time, but in a strangely easy and equal voice, not with the distance and +deference which he showed to his lord in public. + +"Nay, Gottfried," replied Duke Casimir; "but he bruised my shirt of mail +into my breast." + +And I heard plainly enough the clinking of the rings of chain-armor as +the Duke showed his hurt to my father. Presently I heard his voice again. + +"And the Bishop has touched me in a new place," he said. "He declares +that he will lay his interdict upon me and my people--ill enough to hold +in hand as they are even now. When that is done they will rise in +rebellion. My very men-at-arms and knights I cannot depend upon--only +upon you and the Black Riders." + +"In the matter of the Bishop's interdict, or in other matters, do you +mean that you can trust my counsel, Duke Casimir?" asked my father. + +"'Tis in the burial of the dead that the shoe will pinch first with these +burghers of Thorn and among our soldiers at the Wolfsberg. For mass, +indeed, they care not a dove's dropping--but that the corpse should be +carried to a dog's grave, that they cannot away with. Red Axe, I tell you +we shall have the State of the Mark about our ears in the slipping of a +hound's leash--and as for me, I know not what I shall do." + +"Listen, and I will counsel you, Duke Casimir! Care you not though the +east wind brought Bishop Peters whirling over the Mark, as many as the +January snowflakes that come to us from Muscovy. I, Gottfried Gottfried, +tell you what to do. In every parish of the Mark there is a parson. Every +clerk of them hath a Presbytery, in which he dwells with those that are +abiding with him. Bid you the soldiers that are obedient to you to carry +all the corpses of the dead to the Presbytery, and leave them there under +guard. Then let us see whether or no the parsons will give them burial. +What think you of the counsel, Duke Casimir?" + +I could hear the Duke rise and pace across the floor to where my +father sat on his bed. And by the silence I knew that the two men were +shaking hands. + +"Red Axe," said the Duke, much moved, "of a truth you are a great +man--none like you in the Dukedom. These beard-wagging, chain-jingling +gentry I have small notion of. And would you but accept it, I would give +you to-morrow the collar of gold which befits the Chancellor of the Mark. +None deserves to wear it so well as thou." + +My father laughed a low scornful laugh. + +"Because I bid you teach the parsons their own religion, am I to be made +Chancellor of the Mark? A great gray wolf out of the forest were as +suitable a Chancellor of the Mark as Gottfried Gottfried, the fourteenth +hereditary Red Axe of Thorn!" + +Then I heard him reach over his bed for something. I stole out of the +hole in the wall and crouched down till my eyes rested at the great +latchet hole through which the tang of leather to lift the bolt +ordinarily goes. I could see my father sitting on his bed and the Red +Axe lying across his knees. He took it in hand, dangling it like an +infant. He caressed it as he spoke, and ran his thumb lovingly along the +shining edge. + +"Ah," he said, "my beauty, 'tis you and not your master they should make +High Chancellor of this realm. 'Tis you that have held the power of life +and death, and laid the spirit of rebellion any time these twenty years. +And well indeed wouldst thou look with a red robe about thee" (here he +reached for a cloak that swung from the rafters contiguous to his hand); +"a noble presence wouldst thou be in a tun-bellied robe and a collar of +shining gold! Bravely, great State's Chancellor of the Wolfmark, wouldst +thou then lead the processions and preside at the diets of justice--as +indeed thou dost mostly as it is." + +And he made the Red Axe bow like a puppet in his hands as he swept the +cloak of red out behind the handle. + +I could see Duke Casimir now. He had drawn up a stool and sat opposite my +father, with his elbows on his knees. One hand was stroking the side of +his head, and his haughtiness had all fallen from him like a forgotten +overmantle. He looked another man from the cruel, relentless Prince who +had ridden so sternly at the head of his men-at-arms and looked so +callously on at the death of men and the yet more bitter agony of women. + +He stared at the floor, absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, while my +father regarded him with his eyes as though he had been a lad in his +'prenticing who needed encouragement to persevere. + +"Duke," he said, steadily, "you have borne the rule many years, and I +have stood behind you. Have I ever advised you wrong? Make peace with the +young man, your nephew; he is now only the Count von Reuss, but one day +he will be Duke Otho. And if he be rightly guided he may be a brave ruler +yet. But if not, and he gather in his hand the various seditions and +confused turbulences in the Dukedom, why, a worse thing may befall." + +"You advise me," said the Duke, lifting his head and looking at his +Justicer, "to recall my nephew and risk all that threatened us ere he +fled to the Prince of Plassenburg--Karl, the Miller's Son." + +Gottfried Gottfried continued to run his thumb to and fro along the edge +of the Red Axe. + +"Even so," he replied, without raising his head; "give him the command of +the Black Riders of the Guard, who, as it is, adore him. Let him try his +'prentice hand on Bamberg and Reichenan. And if he offend, why, then it +will be time to apply for further advice to this chancellor in the Red +Robe, whose face so shines with wisdom." + +The Duke rose. + +"Well, on your head be it!" he said. + +"Nay," said my father, "I but advise, it is for you to decide, my Lord. +If Duke Casimir sees a better way of it, why, then the words of his +servant are but as the tunes that the east wind whistles through the +key-hole." + +And at the mention of key-holes I imagined that I saw my father's eyes +rest on the latchet crevice. So I bethought me that it was time for me to +be retiring to bed. To my room, therefore, I went straightway, tiptoeing +on the points of my hose. And with ears cocked I heard my father attend +the Duke to the door, and on across the yard, lest any night-wandering +traitor should take a fancy to make a hole in the back of Duke Casimir of +the Wolfmark. + +Presently came my father in again, and I heard his foot climb steadily +up to my room. The door opened, and never was I in so deep a sleep. He +turned down the coverlet to see that I was undressed--but that I had seen +to. Whereat he departed fully satisfied. + +Nevertheless this interview left me with a great feeling of insecurity. +If the Duke Casimir were thus full of fears, doubts, misgivings, whence +came the fierce and cruel courage with which he dominated his liege +burghers and harassed the country round about for a hundred leagues? The +cunning of a weak man? Say, rather, the contrivance of a strong servant +to hide the frailty of a weak master. + +Then first it was that I saw that my father Gottfried Gottfried was the +true ruler of the Wolfmark, and that the man who had carried me on his +shoulders and played with the little Helene was--at least, so long as +Duke Casimir lived--the greatest man in all the Dukedom and first +Councillor of State, whether the matter were one of peasant or Kaiser. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +I BECOME A TRAITOR + + +Much was I flattered, and very naturally so, when Michael Texel made so +manifest a work about pleasing me and having me for his comrade. For +though I was now nineteen, he was five years my senior, and his father, +being both Burgomeister and Chief Brewer, was of the first consideration +in the town of Thorn. + +"Hugo," said Michael Texel, "there be many lads in the city that are +well, and well enough, but none of them please me like you. It may be +that your keeping so greatly to yourself has made you passing thoughtful +for your age. And whereas these street-corner scraps of rascaldom care +for nothing but the pleasing of pothouse Gretchens, we that are men think +of the concerns of the State, and make us ready for the great things that +shall one day come to pass in Thorn and the Wolfmark." + +I nodded my head as if I knew all about it. But, indeed, in my heart, I +too preferred the way of the other lads--as the favor of maids, and other +lighter matters. But since one so great and distinguished as Michael +Texel declared that such things were but useless gauds, unworthy of +thought, I considered that I had better keep my tongue tight-reined as to +my own desires. + +I shall now tell the manner of my introduction to the famous society of +the White Wolf. + +From the very first time that ever I saw him, Michael Texel had much to +say about a certain wondrous league of the young men of Thorn and the +Wolfmark. He told me how that every man with a heart in him was +enrolled among them: the sons of the rich and great, like himself; the +sons of the folk of no account (like myself, doubtless); the soldiers of +the Duke--nay, it was whispered very low in my ear, that even the young +Count Otho von Reuss, the Duke's nephew and heir, had taken high rank in +the society. + +I asked Michael what were the declared objects of the association. + +"See," he cried, grandly, with a wave of his hand, "this city of Thorn. +It lies there under the Wolfsberg. With a few cannon like Paul Grete, the +Margrave's treasure, Duke Casimir could lay our houses in ruins. +Therefore, in the meantime, let us not break out against Duke Casimir. +But one day there will come an end to the tyrant Duke. Tiles will not +always break harmless on helmets, nor the point of steel always be turned +aside by links of chain-armor. As I say, an hour will come for Casimir as +for other malefactors. And then--why, there is the young Otho. And he has +sworn the vows of the White Wolf to make of Thorn a free city with a +Stadtholder--one with power and justice, chosen freely by the people, as +in other Baltic cities. Is there a man of us that has not been +plundered?--a maid that does not go in fear of her honor while Casimir +reigns? Shall this thing be? Not surely forever. The White Wolf shall see +to it. She has many children, and they are all dear to her. Let the Duke +Casimir take his count with that!" + +So, as was natural, I became after that more than ever eager to join this +most notable league of the White Wolf. + +One night I had sat late talking to the Little Playmate, who was now +growing a great maid and a beautiful--none like her, so far as I could +see, in all the city of Thorn--a circumstance which made me more ready to +be of Michael Texel's opinion with regard to any flighty and +irresponsible courting of the maids of the town. For had I not the +fairest and the best of them all at home close by me? On this night of +which I speak it was almost bedtime when I heard a knocking at the outer +port, and went to open the wicket. + +And lo! there was Michael Texel come all the way to the Red Tower for me, +though it was by his own trysting that we had agreed to meet at the inn +of the White Swan. Nevertheless there he was. So there was nothing for it +but to bring him in. I presented him in form to the Little Playmate, who +had quite forgotten her Princess-ship by this time in the sweetness of +being our house-angel of the Red Tower. + +I saw in a moment that Michael Texel was astonished at Helene's beauty, +as indeed well he might be. But she, on her part, hardly so much as +glanced at him, though he was a tall and well-grown youth enough, with +nothing remarkable about him save pale hair of much the same color as his +complexion, and a cut on one side of his upper lip which in certain +lights gave him a sneering expression. + +But to Helene he spoke very carefully and courteously, asking her whether +she ever went to any of the Guild entertainments for which Thorn was +famous. And upon her saying no--that my father did not think it fitting, +Michael said, "I was sure of it; none could forget if once they had seen. +For never in the history of Thorn has so fair a face graced Burgher dance +or Guild festival, nor yet has a foot so light been shaken on the green +in any of our summer outgoings." + +Now this was well enough said in its way, but only what I myself had +often thought. Not that the Playmate took any notice of his words or was +in any degree elated, but kept her head bent demurely on her work all the +time Michael Texel was with us. + +Presently there entered to us, thus sitting, Gottfried Gottfried, who +had come striding gloomily across the yard in his black suit from the +Hall of Judgment, and at his entrance Michael instantly became awkward, +nervous, and constrained. + +"I must be going," he said; "the Burgomeister bade me be early within +doors to-night." + +"Is the noble Burgomeister lodging at the White Swan?" asked my father, +with his usual simple directness, as he went hither and thither ordering +his utensils without heeding the visitor. + +"No," said Michael, startled out of his equanimity; "he bides in his own +house by the Rath-house--the sign is that of the Three Golden Tuns." + +The Red Axe nodded. + +"I had forgotten," he said, indifferently, and stood by the great +polished platter-frame over the sideboard, dropping oil on the screws of +a certain cunning instrument which he was wont to use in the elucidation +of the Greater Question. + +I could see Michael turning yellow and green, but whether with anger or +fear I could not tell. Helene, who loved not the tools of my father, had, +upon his entrance, promptly gathered up her white cobwebs and lace, and +had betaken herself to her own room. + +"I must be bidding you a fortunate evening and wishing you an untroubled +sleep," said Michael, with studious politeness, rising to his feet. Yet +he did not immediately move away, but stood awkwardly fingering his hat, +as if he wished to ask a question and dared not. + +"It is indeed a fine place for a sound sleep," said my father, nodding +his head grimly, "this same upper courtyard of the Wolfsberg. There are +few that have once slept here, my noble young sir, who have ever again +complained of wakefulness." + +At this moment the hounds in the kennels raised their fierce clamor. And, +without waiting for another word, Michael Texel took himself off down +the stairs of the Red Tower. Nor did he regain his composure till I had +opened the wicket and ushered him out upon the street. + +Then, as the postern clicked and the familiar noises of the city fell on +his ear--the slapping flat-footed lasses crying "Fried Fish," the sellers +of "Hot Oyster Soup," the yelling venders of crout and salad--Michael +gradually picked up his courage, and we proceeded down the High Street of +Thorn to the retired hostel of the White Swan. + +"Frederika," he cried, as he entered, "are the lads here yet?" + +"Aye, sir, aye--a full muster," answered the old mild-faced hostess, who +was busily employed knitting a stocking of pale blue in the porch, +looking for all the world like the sainted mother of a family of saints. + +Michael Texel walked straight through a passage and down a narrow +alley, the beautiful apple-cheeked old woman following us with her eyes +as we went. + +Our feet rang suddenly on hollow pavement as we stooped to enter a low +door in the side wall, almost concealed from observation by an +overgrowth of ivy. + +"Halt!" cried a voice from the dusk ahead of us, and instantly there was +a naked sword at each of our breasts. We heard also the click of swords +meeting behind us. I turned my head, and lo! there at my very shoulder I +saw the gleam of crossed steel. My heart beat a little faster; but, after +all, I had been brought up with sights and sounds more terrible than +these, and, more than that, I had within the hour seen Michael Texel, the +high-priest of these mysteries, turn all manner of rainbow colors at the +howling of our blood-hounds and a simple question from my father. So I +judged that these mighty terrifications could portend no great ill to one +who was the son of the formidable Red Axe of the Wolfsberg. + +Sometimes it is a mighty comfortable thing to have a father like mine. + +I did not hear the question which was asked of my guide, but I heard +the answer. + +"First in charge," said Michael Texel, "and with him one of the +Wolf's litter." + +So we were allowed to proceed. But in the bare room which received us I +was soon left alone, for, with another question as briefly asked and +answered, the click of swords crossed and uncrossed before and behind +him, and the screechy grind of bolts, Michael passed out of sight within. +While as for me, I was left to twirl my thumbs, and wish that I had +stayed at home to watch the nimble fingers of the Playmate busy at her +sewing, and the rounded slenderness of her sweet body set against the +light of evening, which would at that hour be shining through the windows +of the Red Tower. + +Nevertheless, it was no use repining or repenting. Here was I, Hugo +Gottfried, the son of the Red Axe, at the inner port of a treasonable +society. It was certainly a curious position; but even thus early I had +begun to consider myself a sort of amateur of strange situations, and I +admit that I found a certain stimulus in the thought that in an hour I +might have ceased to be heir to the office of Hereditary Justicer of the +ducal province of the Wolfmark. + +Presently through the door there came one clothed in the long white +garments of a Brother of Pity, the eye-holes dark and cavernous, and the +eyes shining through the mask with a look as if the wearer were much more +frightened than those who looked upon him. + +"Child of the White Wolf," he said, in a shaking voice, "would you dare +all and become one of the companions of the mysteries?" + +But the accent of his voice struck me, the son of Gottfried Gottfried, +the dweller in the enclosure of the Red Tower, as painfully hollow and +pretentious. I had looked upon real terror, even plumbed some of the +grimmer mysteries of existence, and I had no fears. On the contrary, my +spirits rose, and I declared my readiness to follow this paltering, +knock-kneed Brother of Pity. + +We stopped and went through another narrow passage, in the midst of which +we were stayed by thin bars, which were shot before and behind us, and by +a cold point of iron laid lightly against my brow. In this constrained +position my eyes were bandaged by unseen fingers. + +The starveling Brother of the Wolf took me by the hand and led me on. +Then in another moment came the sense of lights and wider spaces, the +rustle of many people settling down to attention; and I knew that I was +in the presence of the famous secret tribunal of the White Wolf, which +had been set up in defiance of the authority of the Duke and against the +laws of the Mark. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AT THE BAR OF THE WHITE WOLF + + +"Who waits at the bar with you, brother?" said a voice which, though +disguised, carried with it a suggestion of Michael Texel. + +The announcement was made by the officer who brought me in. + +"'Tis one Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, hereditary +executioner to the tyrant." + +I could hear the thrill of interest which pervaded the assembly at the +announcement. And for the first time I thought almost well of the +honorable office to which I had been born. + +"And what do you here, son of the Red Axe, in the place of the Sacred +Fehme of the White Wolf?" + +The question was the first addressed directly to me. + +"I came," said I, as straightforwardly and simply as I could, "with +Michael Texel, because he asked me to come. And also because I heard that +there was good ale to be had for the drinking at the White Swan of Thorn, +where we are now met." + +A low moan of horror went about the assembly at the frivolity of my +answer, which plainly was not what had been expected. + +"Daring mocker!" cried a stern voice, "you speak as one unacquainted with +the dread power of the White Wolf, which has within her grasp the keys of +life and death--and has suckled great empires at her dugs. Beware, tempt +not the All-powerful to exercise her right of axe and cord!" + +"I do not tempt any," answered I, boldly enough--yet with no credit to +myself, for I could have laughed aloud at all this hollow pretence, +having been brought up within the range of that which was no mockery. "I +am willing to become a loyal member of the Society of the White Wolf for +the furtherance of any honest purpose. All things, I admit, are not well +within the body politic. Let us, in the city of Thorn, strive after the +same rights as are possessed by the Free Cities of the North. If that be +your object, the son of the Red Axe is with you--with you to the death, +if need be. But for God's sake let us take off these masks and set +ourselves down to the tankard and the good brown bread with less +mummery--a sham of which others have the reality." + +"Peace, vain, ignorant fly!" cried the same speaker, one with a young +voice, which he was trying, as I thought, to make grave and old; "terror +must first strike your heart, or you cannot sit down with the Society of +the White Wolf. You stand convicted of blasphemy against this our ancient +and honorable institution--blasphemy which must be suddenly and terribly +punished. Hugo Gottfried, I command you--make your head ready for the +striker. Bare the neck and bow the knee!" + +But I stood as erect as I could, though I felt hands laid upon my +shoulders and the breathing of many close about me. + +"Knights and gentlemen," said I, "I am not afraid to die, if need be. But +ere you do your will upon me, I would fain tell you a tale and give you a +warning. Here I am one among many. I am also of your opinion, if your +opinion be against tyranny. But for God's sake seek it as wise men and +not as posturing knaves. As for Michael Texel--" + +"Name not the mortal names of men in this place of the White Wolf!" said +the same grave voice. + +At which I laughed a little. + +"If you will tell me what to say instead in the language of the +immortals, I will call my friend by that name. Till then Michael +Texel, I say--" + +I was pulled by force down upon my knees. + +"Your pleasure, gentlemen," said I, as coolly as I might; "you may do +with me as you will, but give me at least leave to speak. Your meetings +here at the White Swan are known to the Red Axe, my father, and therefore +to the Duke Casimir." + +A low groan filled the wide hall. I could feel that my words touched them +on the raw. + +"Also this very night I saw one of your noblest members tremble with +alarm--for the Society, not for himself, I warrant--when Gottfried +Gottfried spake lightly of your meetings here as of a thing well known. +I am not afraid of my life. In the sight of my father I went forth from +the Red Tower in the company of Michael Texel. He knew of your place of +meeting. And well I wot that if I am not within the precincts of the +Red Tower by midnight, the officers of Duke Casimir and his Judgment +Hall will come knocking at these doors of yours. I ask you, are you +ready to open?" + +"Rash mortal!" said the voice again to me, "you mistake the White Wolf if +you think that she or her children are afraid of any tyrant or of his +officers. You yourself shall die, as has been appointed. For none may +speak lightly of the White Wolf and live to tell the tale!" + +"So be it," I replied, calmly; "but first let me recount to you the story +of Hans Pulitz. Not for the hiding of a belt of gold, as men say, was he +condemned. But because he had plotted against the life of the Duke and of +his minister of justice, the Red Axe. Would you know what happened? I +will tell you briefly: + +"Ten men, accounted strong, held Hans Pulitz. Ten men could scarce lead +him through the court-yard to the chair on which sat Duke Casimir. I saw +him judged. Was he not of the White Wolf? Did the White Wolf save him? +Have her teeth ravened for those that condemned him? Or have you that are +of that noble society kept close in your halls and played out your puppet +shows, while poor Hans, who was faithful to you to the end, +went--whither?" + +A sough of angry whispering filled the room, rising presently into a roar +of indignation. + +"Traitor! Murderer! Spy!" they cried. + +"Nay," said I, "'fore God, Hugo Gottfried was more sorry for the poor +deceived slave than any here. For, in the presence of the Duke, I cried +out against the horror. But being no more than a boy, I was stricken to +silence by the hand of a man-at-arms. Then I saw Hans Pulitz cast loose. +I saw him seized by one man--even by the Red Axe--raised high in the air, +and flung over the barriers among the ravening and leaping blood-hounds. +I heard the hideous noises that followed--the yells of a man fighting for +his life in a place of fiends. I shut my ears with my hands, yet could I +not shut out that clangor of hell. I shut my eyes, closer than you have +shut them for me now. I fled, I knew not where, terror pursuing me. And +yet I saw, and do now see, the Duke sitting with crossed hands as if at +prayers, and the Red Axe standing motionless before the men-at-arms, +pointing with one hand to the Duke's vengeance! Shall I tell you now why +I am not afraid?" + +After hearing these words it was small wonder that they cried yet more +against me. + +"Death to the traitor--bloody death--like that which he has rejoiced in!" + +"Nay, my friends," said I, "it was because of the death of Hans Pulitz +and that of others that I would strengthen the hands of liberty and make +an end of tyranny. But not, an' it please you, with child's plays and the +cast-off garmentry of tyrants. What can you do to me in the Inn of the +Swan that can equal the end of poor Hans Pulitz--of whom they found +neither bone nor hair, took up no fragment of skin or nail, save the +golden chain only, tooth-scarred and beslavered, which he wore about his +waist. And the belt you may see for yourselves any day if you give me +your company within the Red Tower." + +Now, as may well be understood, if the Society of the White Wolf was +angry before, it was both angry and frightened now, which is a thing +infinitely more dangerous. + +"Let him die straightway! Let the taunting blasphemer die!" they cried. +And again, for the third time, the hollow voice pronounced my doom. + +"It is well," I shouted amid the din. "It is thrice well. But look ye to +it. By the morrow's morn there shall not be one of you in your +beds--aye, and those whose heads are rolled in the dust shall count +yourselves the fortunate ones. For they at least will escape the fate of +poor Hans Pulitz." + +Now sorely do I wonder, at this distance of time, that they did not slay +me in good earnest. But I have learned from that night in the Inn of the +Swan that when defiance has to be made, it is ever best to deal in no +half-measures. And, besides, coming from the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg, +their precious Society of the White Wolf, with its mummery and flummery, +filled me with a hot contempt. + +"Kneel down!" cried the judge; "lay your head on the block! It has often +been wet with the blood of traitors, never with that of a blacker traitor +than Hugo Gottfried!" + +So with that those about me thrust me forward and forced my head down. I +was obliged to clasp the block with both my hands. As I did so I felt it +well all over. Then I laughed aloud, with a laugh that must have appeared +strange and mad to them. + +For this their mock tribunal could not deceive one who had been brought +up within the hum of judges of life and death, and with a father who as +his daily business propounded the Greater and Lesser Questions. And their +precious block, as smooth as sawn and polished timber, with never a notch +from side to side, could not take in Hugo Gottfried, who had made a +playmate and a printed book of the worn blocks of a hundred +executions--to whom each separate chip made by the Red Axe had been a +text for Gottfried Gottfried to expatiate upon concerning his own prowess +and that of his fathers. + +Nevertheless, it certainly gave me a strange turn when ice-cold steel was +laid across my neck-bone. It burned like fire, turning my very marrow to +water, and for the first time I wished myself well out of it. But only +for a moment. + +For there came a loud rattling of arms without, a thunderous and +insistent knocking at the door, which disturbed the assembly. + +"Open, in the name of the Duke!" cried, clamorously, many fierce voices +without. I heard the rush and scuffle of a multitude of feet. The hands +that had held me abruptly loosened their grip, and I was free. I raised +my bound wrists to my brow and tried to push the bandage back. But it was +firmly tied, and it was but dimly that I saw the hall of the White Wolf +filled with the armed men of the Duke's body-guard, boisterously +laughing, with their hands on their sides, or kicking over the mock +throne covered with white cloth, the coils of rope, the axes of painted +wood, and the other properties of this very faint-hearted Fehmgericht. + +"But what have we here?" they cried, when they came upon me, bound and +helpless, with the bandage only half pushed off my eyes. + +"Heave him up on his pins, and let us look at him," quoth a burly +guardsman. "I trust he is no one of any account. I want not to see +another such job done on a poor scheming knave like that last, when the +Duke Casimir settled accounts with Hans Pulitz!" + +"Ha! ha!" laughed his companion; "a rare jest, i' faith; 'tis the son of +our own Red Axe--a prisoner of the White Wolf and ready for the edge. We +came not a moment too soon, youngster. What do you here?" + +"Why," said I, "it chanced that I spoke slightingly of their precious +nonsense of a White Wolf. But they dared not do me harm. They were all +more frightened than a giggling maiden is of the dark, when no man is +with her." + +Then I saw my father at the end of the hall. He came towards me, clad in +his black Tribunal costume. + +"Well," he said, quaintly, like one that has a jest with himself +which he will not tell, "have you had enough of marching +hand-in-glove with treason? I wot this mummery of the White Wolf will +serve you for some time." + +I was proceeding to tell him all that had passed, but he patted me on +the shoulder. + +"I heard it all, lad, and you did well enough--save for your windiness +about liberty and the Free Cities--which, as I see it, are by far the +worst tyrannies. But, after all, you spoke as became a Gottfried, and one +day, I doubt not, you shall worthily learn the secrets, bear the burden, +and enlarge the honors of the fourteen Red Axes of the Wolfmark." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A HERO CARRIES WATER IN THE SUN + + +With all which adventuring and bepraisement back and forth, as those who +know nineteen will readily be assured, I went home no little elated. For +had I not come without dishonor through a new and remarkable experience, +and even defied the Mystery of the White Wolf, at perhaps more risk to +myself than at the time I had imagined. For, as I found afterwards, there +were those among the company at the Swan that night of sterner mould and +more serious make than Michael Texel. + +But, at all events, home to the Red Tower I strode, whistling, and in a +very cocksure humor. + +The little Helene was going about her house duties silently and distantly +when I came down from my turret room on the forenoon of the morrow. She +did not come forward to be kissed, as had been her wont every morning +ever since I carried her, a little forlorn maid, up to mine own bed that +chill winter's night. + +"A good-morrow, Little Playmate!" I bade her, gayly. For my heart was +singing a good tune, well pleased with itself and willing to be at amity +with every one else--counting indeed, as is the wont of brisk hearts, a +gloomy face little less than a personal insult. + +But the maid did not answer, neither indeed did she seem to have heard +me. + +"I bade you fair good-morning, Helene," said I, again, stopping in my +walk across to my breakfast platter. + +But still she was silent, casting sand upon the tiled floor and sweeping +it up with great vigor, all her fair body swaying and yielding to the +grace, of movement at every stroke. Strange, it seemed she was now just +about the age when I developed those nodosities of knee and elbow which +troubled me so sore, but yet there was nothing of the kind about her, +only delicate slimness and featly rounded grace. + +I went over to her, and would have set my palm affectionately on her +shoulder. But she escaped, just as a bird does when you try to put your +hand upon it. It does not seem to fly off. It simply is not there when +your hand reaches the place. + +"Let be," she said, looking upon me haughtily. "By what right do you seek +to touch me, sir?" + +"Sweetheart," said I, following her, and much astonished, "because I have +always done it and you never objected before." + +"When I was a child, and when you loved me as a child, it was well. But +now, when I am neither a child nor yet do you love me, I would have you +cease to treat me as you have done." + +"You are indeed no longer a child, but the fairest of sweet maids," I +made answer. "I will do nothing you do not wish me to do. For, hearken to +me, Helene, my heart is bound up in you, as indeed you know. But as to +the second word of accusation--that I do not love you anymore--" + +"You do not--you cannot!" she interrupted, "or you would not go out with +Michael Texel all night to drinking-places, and worse, keeping your +father and those that _do_ love awake, hurting their hearts here" (she +put her hand on her side), "and all for what--that you may drink and +revel and run into danger with your true friends?" + +"Sweetheart," I began--penitently. + +The Little Playmate made a gesture of infinite impatience. + +"Do not call me that," she said; "you have no right. I am not your +sweetheart. You have no heart at all to love any one with, or you would +not behave as you have done lately. You are naught but a silly, selfish +boy, that cares for nothing but his own applause and thinks that he has +nothing to do but to come home when his high mightiness is ready and find +us all on our knees before him, saying: 'Put your foot, great sir, on our +necks--so shall we be happy and honored.'" + +Now this was so perilously near the truth that I was mightily incensed, +and I felt that I did well to be angry. + +"Girl," I said, grandly, "you do not know what you say. I have been +abroad all night on the service of the State, and I have discovered a +most dangerous conspiracy at the peril of my life!" + +For I thought it was as well to put the best face on the matter; and, +besides, I have never been able, all the days of me, to hide my light +under a bushel, as the clerks prate about. + +But I was not yet done with my adventuring of this eventful day. And in +spite of my father setting me, like a misbehaving bairn, to the drudgery +of the water-carrying, there was more in life for me that day than merely +hauling upon a handle. For that is a thing which galls an aspiring youth +worse than any other labor, being so terribly monotonous. + +As for me, I did not take kindly to it at all--not even though I could +see mine own image deep in the pails of water as they came up brimming +and cool out of the fern-grown dripping darkness of the well. Aye, and +though the image given back to me was (I say it only of that time) a +likely enough picture of a lad with short, crisped locks that curled +whenever they were wet, cheeks like apples, and skin that hath always +been a trouble to me. For I thought it unmanly and like a girl's. And +that same skin of mine is, perhaps, the reason why all my days I never +could abide your buttermilk-and-roses girls, having a supply about me +enough to serve a dozen, and therefore thinking but little of their +stock-in-trade. + +Now in the Wolfmark this is the common kind of beauty--not that beauty of +any kind is over-common. For our maids--especially those of the +country--look too much as if they had been made out of wooden pillows +such as laborers use to lay their heads on of nights--one large bolster +set on the top of two other little ones, and all three well wadded with +ticking and feathers. But I hope no one will go back to the Wolfmark and +tell the maids that Hugo Gottfried said this of them, or of a surety my +left ear will tingle with the running of their tongues if there be any +truth in the old saw. + +It was three of the clock and the sun was very fierce on the dusty, +unslaked yard of the Wolfsberg, glaring down upon us like the mouth of a +wide smelter's oven. Fat Fritz, the porter, in his arm-chair of a cell, +had well-nigh dissolved into lard and running out at his own door. The +Playmate's window was open, and I caught the waft of a fan to and fro. I +judged therefore that my lady knew well that I was working out there in +the heat, and was glad of it--being a spiteful pretty minx. + +Then I began to wonder who had given her that fan, for it was not like my +father to do it, and she knew no other. "Ah!" I said to myself, as a +thought struck me, "could it possibly be Michael Texel? He is rich, and +Helene may have known him before. The cunning, dark-eyed little +vagabond--to take my introduction yester-even as if she had never set +eyes on the fellow before, while here it is as clear as daylight that he +had all the time been giving her presents--fans and such like." + +So I raved within me, half because I believed it, and half because she +seemed so comfortable up there, with her feet on a stool and a cool jug +of curds at her elbow, while I sweated and labored in the sun. + +Very decidedly it must be Texel; devil fly up with him and scratch him +among the gargoyles of the minster! + +The fan wagged on. It looked distractingly cool within. But then my +father--filial obedience was very distinctly a duty, and, also, Gottfried +Gottfried, though kind, was a man not to be disobeyed--even at nineteen, +and after defying the White Wolf. + +It was, as I have said, about three by the sundial on the wall, the arch +of which cast a shadow like jet on the scale, that my father came out +through the narrow door from the Judgment Hall, opening it with his own +key. For he had the right of entrance and outgoing of every door in the +palace, not even excepting the bedchamber of Duke Casimir. + +"Hugo," he said, "come hither, lad. I did not mean to keep you so long at +work in the sun. You must have filled all the cisterns in the place by +this time!" + +I thanked him sincerely, but did not pursue the subject. For, indeed, I +had not worked quite so hard as in his haste my father had supposed from +my appearance. + +"Go within," he said; "don quickly your saint's-day dress, and betake +yourself down to the house of Master Gerard von Sturm, the city +chamberlain, and tell him all that he asks of you--readily and truly." + +"But, father," said I, "suppose he asks of me that which might condemn +one who has trusted me, what am I to say?" + +"Tut, boy," said my father, impatiently, "you mean young Michael Texel. +Fear not for him. He was the first to inform. He was at Master von +Sturm's by eight this morning, elbowing half a dozen others, all burning +and shining lights of the famous Society of the White Wolf. You are the +hero of the day down there, it seems." + +"And lo! here I am flouted by a stripling girl, and set to carry water +by the hour in the broiling sun!" I said within myself. I possessed, +however, though without doubt a manifest hero, far too much of the +unheroic quality of discretion to say this aloud to my father. + +"I thank you, sir," I said, respectfully. "I will go at once and put on +my finest coat and my shoes of silk." + +My father smiled. + +"You need not be particular as to the silk shoes. 'Tis to see Master von +Sturm, not to court pretty Mistress Ysolinde, that I asked you to visit +the lawyer's house by the Weiss Thor." + +But I was not sorry to be able to proclaim my destination as loud as I +dared without causing suspicion. + +"Hanne," I cried down the turret stairs, "I pray you bring me the silken +shoes with the ribbon bows of silk. I am going down to Master von Sturm's +house; also my gold chain and bonnet of blue velvet with the golden +feather in it which I won at the last arrow-shooting." + +I saw the fluttering of the fan falter and stop. A light foot went +pattering up the stairway and a door slammed in the tower. + +Then I laughed, like the vain, silly boy I was. + +"Mistress Helene," I said to myself, "you will find that poor Hugo, whom +you flouted and despised, can yet pay his debts!" + +So I put on the fine clothes which I wore on festal days and sallied +forth. Now, though the lower orders still hated my father and all that +came out of the Red Tower, or indeed, for the matter of that, out of the +Wolfsberg, with hardly concealed malice--yet there were many in the city, +specially among those of the upper classes, who began to think well of my +determination to try another way of life than that to which I had been +born. For I made no secret of the matter to Michael Texel and such of his +comrades as joined us in our gatherings. + +Indeed, now, when I come to think of it, it seems to me that my father +was the only person of my acquaintance who did not suspect that I was +resolved never to wear either the black robe of Inquisition or the +crimson of Final Judgment. + +Yet it wore round to within two years, and indeed rather less, of the +time for my initiation into the mysteries of the Red Axe, and still I +remained at home, an idle boy, playing at single-stick and fence with +the men-at-arms, drinking beer in the evening with my bosom cronies, and +in the well-grounded opinion of all honest people, likely enough to come +to no good. + +But I, Hugo Gottfried, had my eyes and my books open, and knew that I was +but biding my time. + +So it came about that I carried no taint of the dread associations of the +Wolfsberg about me as I went down the bustling street to the Weiss Thor +to call on that learned and well-reputed lawyer, Master Gerard von Sturm. +So great was the fame of Master Gerard that he was often called in to +settle the mercantile quarrels of the burghers among themselves, and was +even chosen as arbiter between those of other towns. For, though +accounted severe, he had universally the name of a just and wise man, who +would not rob the litigants of all their valuables and then decide in +favor of neither, as was too often the way with the "justice" of the +great nobles. + +As for Duke Casimir of the Wolfmark, no man or woman went near him on any +plea whatsoever, save that of asking mercy or favor. And unless my father +chanced to be at hand, mostly they asked in vain. For, as I now knew, he +had to keep up the common bruit of himself throughout the country as a +cruel, fearless, and implacable tyrant. Besides, his fears were so +constant and so great, perhaps also so well-founded, that often he dared +not be merciful. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LUBBER FIEND + + +At five of the clock I lifted the great wolf's-head knocker of shining +brass which frowned above the door of Master Gerard von Sturm in the port +of the Weiss Thor. Hardly had I let it fall again when a small wicket, +apparently about two feet above my head, opened, and a huge round head +with enormous ears at either side peeped out. So vast was the head and so +small the aperture that one of the lateral wings of the chubby face +caught on the sill, and the owner brought it away successfully with a +jerk and a perfectly good-humored and audible "flip." + +"Who are you, and what do you want?" said a wide-gashed mouth, which, +with a squat, flattened-out nose and two merry little twinkling eyes, +completed this wonderful apparition. + +The words were in themselves somewhat rude. On paper I observe that they +have an appearance almost truculent. But spoken as the thing framed in +the window-sill said them, they were equal to a song of Brudershaft and +an episcopal benediction rolled in one. + +"I am Hugo Gottfried of the Red Tower, come to see Master Gerard," I +replied. "Who may you be that asks so boldly?" + +"I'll give you a stalk of rhubarb to suck if you can guess," was the +unexpected answer. + +As I had never in my life seen anything in the least like the prodigy, it +was clearly impossible for me to earn the tart succulence of the summer +vegetable on such easy terms. + +"I should say," I replied, "if the guess savor not of insolence, that one +might be forgiven for mistaking you for the Fool of the Family!" + +The grin expanded till it wellnigh circumnavigated the vast head. It +seemed first of all to make straight for the ears on either side. Then, +quite suddenly, finding these obstacles insurmountable, it dodged +underneath them, and the scared observer could almost imagine its two +ends meeting with a click somewhere in the wilderness at the back of that +unseen hemisphere of hairy thatch. + +"Pinked in the white, first time--no trial shot!" cried the object in the +doorway, cheerily. "I am the Fool of the Family. But not the only one!" + +At this moment something happened behind--what, I could not make out +for some time. The head abruptly disappeared. There was a noise as of +floor-rugs being vigorously beaten, the door opened, and the most +extraordinary figure was shot out into the street. The head which I had +seen certainly came first, but so lengthy a body followed that it seemed +a vain thing to expect legs in addition. Yet, finally, two appeared, each +of which would have made a decent body of itself, and went whirling +across the street till the whole monstrosity came violently into +collision with the walls of the house opposite, which seemed to rock to +its very foundations under the assault. + +A decent serving-man, in a semi-doctorial livery of black cloth, with a +large white collar laid far over his shoulders, and cuffs of the same +upon his wrists, stood in the open doorway and smiled apologetically at +the visitor. He was rather red in the face and panted with his exertions. + +"I ask your pardon, young sir," he said. "That fool, Jan Lubber Fiend, +will ever be at his tricks. 'Tis my young mistress that encourages him, +more is the pity! For poor serving-men are held responsible for his +knavish on-goings. Why, I had just set him cross-legged in the yard with +a basket of pease to shell, seeing how he grows as much as a foot in the +night--or near by. But so soon as my back is turned he will be forever +answering the door and peeping out into the street to gather the mongrel +boys about him. 'Tis a most foul Lubber Fiend to keep about an honest +house, plaguing decent folks withal!" + +By this time the great oaf had come back to the door of the house, and +now stood alternately rubbing his elbow and rear, with an expression +ludicrously penitent, at once puzzled and kindly. + +"Ah, come in with you, will you?" said the man. "Certes, were it not for +Mistress Ysolinde, I would set on the little imps of the street to nip +you to pieces and eat you raw." + +The angry serving-man held the door as wide as possible and stood aside, +whereat the Lubber Fiend tucked his head so far down that it seemed to +disappear into the cavity of his chest, and scurried along the passage +bent almost double. As he passed the door he drew all the latter part of +his body together, exactly like a dog that fears a kick in the by-going. +The respectable man-servant stirred not a muscle, but the gesture told a +tale of the discipline of the house by the White Gate at times when +visitors were not being admitted by the main door, and when Mistress +Ysolinde, favorer of the Fool Lubber Fiend, was not so closely at hand. + +It was a grand house, too, the finest I had ever seen, with hangings of +arras everywhere, many and parti-colored--red hunters who hunted, green +foresters who shot, puff-cheeked boys blowing on hunting-horns; a house +with mysterious vistas, glimpses into dim-lit rooms, wafts of perfume, +lamps that were not extinguished even in the daytime, burning far +within. All in mighty striking contrast to the bare stark strength of our +Red Tower on the Wolfsberg with its walls fourteen feet thick. + +As I followed the serving-man through the halls and stairways my feet +fell without noise on carpets never woven in our bare-floored Germany, +nor yet in England, where they still strew rushes, even (so they say) in +the very dining-rooms of the great--surely a most barbarous and +unwholesome country. Nevertheless, carpets of wondrous hue were here in +the house of Master Gerard, scarlet and blue, and so thick of ply that +the foot sank into them as if reluctant ever to rise again. + +As I came to the landing place at the head of the stairway, one passed +hastily before me and above me, with a sough and a rustle like the wind +among tall poplar trees on the canal edges. + +I looked up, and lo! a girl, not beautiful, but, as it were, rather +strange and fascinating. She was lithe like a serpent and undulated in +her walk. Her dress was sea-green silk of a rare loom, and clung closely +about her. It had scales upon it of dull gold, which gave back a +lustrous under-gleam of coppery red as she moved. She had a pale, eager +face, lined with precision enough, but filled more with passion than +womanly charm. Her eyes were emerald and beautiful, as the sea is when +you look down upon it from a height and the white sand shines up through +the clear depths. + +Such was Ysolinde, daughter of Gerard von Sturm, favorer of Lubber Fiends +and creator of this strange paradise through which she glided like a +spangled Orient serpent. + +As I made my way humbly enough across to Master Gerard's room his +daughter did not speak to me, only followed me boldly, and yet, as it +seemed to me, somewhat wistfully too, with her sea-green eyes. And as the +door was closing upon me I saw her beckon the serving-man. + +But I, on the inner side of the door, and with Master Gerard von Sturm +before me, had enough to do to tell my tale and answer his questions +without troubling my head about green-eyed girls. + +Master Gerard was as remarkable looking to the full as his daughter, with +the same luminously green eyes. But the orbs which in the maid shone as +steadily clear as the depths of the sea, in the father glittered +opalescent where he sat in the dusk, like the eyes of Grimalkin cornered +by dogs in some gloomy angle of the Wolfsberg wall. + +As soon as I had set eyes on him I knew that I had to do with a man--not +with a walking show like my Lord Duke Casimir. It struck me that for good +or evil Master Gerard could carry through his intent to the bitter end, +and that in council he would smile when he saw my father change his black +vesture of trial for the red of beheading. + +The Doctor Gerard was little seen in the streets of Thorn. Many citizens +had never so much as set eyes on him. Nevertheless his hand was in +everything. Some said he was a Jew, chiefly because none knew rightly +what he was or whence he had come. Thirty years had gone by since he had +suddenly appeared one day in the noble old house by the Weiss Thor, from +which Grätz the wizard and his wife had been burned out by the fury of +the populace. Twenty years of artistic labor had made this place what it +now was. And the little impish maid who used to break unexpectedly upon +the workmen of Thorn from behind doors, or who clapped hands upon their +shoulders in dusky recesses, scaring them out of their wits with +suggestions of witch-masters long dead and damned, had grown into this +maid of the sea-green eyes and silken draperies. + +"A good-day to you, Hugo Gottfried!" said Master Gerard, quietly, looking +at me keenly across the table. He wore a skull-cap on his closely cropped +head. One or two betraying locks of gray appeared under it in front, but +did not conceal a flat forehead, which ran back at such an angle that, +with the luminous eyes beneath it, it gave him the look of a serpent +rearing his yellow head a little back in act to strike. This was a look +his daughter had also. But in her the gesture was tempered by the +free-playing curves of a beautiful throat and the forward thrust of a +rounded chin--advantages not possessed by the angular anatomy and bony +jaw of the famous doctor of law. + +Master Gerard, clad in a long robe of black velvet from head to heel, sat +bending his fingers gracefully together and looking at me. His head was +thrown back, I have said, and the lights of the colored windows striking +on his gray hair and black skull-cap, caused him to look much more like +some lean ascetic ecclesiastic and prince of the church than the chief +lawyer of the ancient capital of the Wolfmark. + +"You were present at this child's play yester-eve in the hostel of the +White Swan?" he asked, boring into me with his uncomfortable, +triangular eyes. + +"Aye, truly," said I, "and much they made of me!" + +For since my father said that I was accounted a hero in this house, I had +determined not to hide away my deeds in my leathern scrip. I had had +enough practice in playing at modesty in the Tower of the Red Axe. + +Master Gerard shook his shoulders as though he would have made me believe +that he laughed. + +"You were over many for thorn, I hear great silly fellows--children +playing with fire yet afraid to burn themselves. Why, since ten this +morning I have had them all here--stout burgomeister's sons, slim scions +of the Burghershaft, moist-eyed corporation children, each more anxious +than another to prove that he had nothing to do with any treason. He had +but called in at the White Swan for a draught of Frederika's famous stone +ale, and so--well, he found himself somehow in the rear, and, all +against his will, was dragged into the Lair of the White Wolf!" + +He looked at me quietly, without speaking, for a while. + +"And you, Master Hugo, did you go thither to distinguish yourself by +breaking up their child's folly, or, like the others, to taste the +stone ale?" + +It was a question I had not expected. But it was best to be very plain +with Master Gerard. + +"I went," I replied, "along with Michael Texel, because he asked me. I +knew not in the least what I was to see, but I was ready for anything." + +"And you acquitted yourself on the whole extremely well," he nodded; "so +at least they are all very ready to say, hoping, I doubt not, for your +good offices with the Duke when it comes to their turn. You flouted them +right manfully and defied their mystery, they told me." + +At this moment I became conscious that a door opposite me was open and +the curtain drawn a little way back. There, in the half-light, I saw +Mistress Ysolinde listening. She leaned her head aside as though it had +been heavy with its weight of locks of burned gold. She pillowed her +cheek against the door-post, and let her dreamy sea-green eyes rest upon +me. And the look that was in them gave me a sense of pleasure strange and +acute, as well as a restless uneasiness and vague desire to escape out +under the blue sky, and mingle with the throng of every-day men on the +streets of the city. + +*** + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE VISION IS THE CRYSTAL + + +Master Gerard, however, did not seem to be aware of her presence, for he +continued his catechism steadily. + +"You mocked at their terrors, did you not, and told them that you, who +had seen the teeth of the Duke's hounds, had nothing to fear from the +bare gums of the White Wolf?" + +"I knew that they but played," I answered, "and that I had little to +fear." + +For with Ysolinde von Sturm watching me with her eyes I could not for +very shame's sake make myself great. + +"You told them more than that," the girl cried, suddenly flashing on me a +look keen as the light on a sword when it comes home from the cutler. +"You told them that you too desired a freer commonwealth!" + +"I did," said I, flushing quickly, for I had thought to keep my +thumb on that. + +Nevertheless I was not going back on my spoken word, even in the presence +of Duke Casimir's inquisitor. Besides which I judged that my father had +influence enough to bring me out scathless. + +"That is well and bravely said!" he replied, smiling with thin lips which +in all their constant writhings showed no vestige of teeth within; "but +the sentiment itself is somewhat strange in the son of the Red Axe and +the future Executioner of Justice in the Wolfmark." + +Then for the first time I permitted my eyes to rest on the lithe figure +of the girl in the doorway. Methought she inclined her head a little +forward to catch my answer as if it had been a matter of interest to her. + +"I am indeed son of the Red Axe," said I, "but my own head would underlie +it rather than that I should ever be Hereditary Justicer of the Mark." + +A smile that was meant for me passed over the girl's face and momently +sweetened her lips. She straightened her body and set a hand more easily +to her waist. A certain kindness dwelt in her emerald eyes. + +"Never be Duke's Justicer!" cried Master Gerard, looking up with his hand +on a skull. "This is unheard of! Are not you the only son of Gottfried +Gottfried, right hand of Duke Casimir, highest in favor with his Grace? +And within two years, according to the law of the headsman, must you not +also don the Red and the Black and stand at the Duke's left hand, as your +father at his right, when he sits in judgment?" + +I bowed my head for answer. + +"Even so," said I; "but long before that time I shall be either in a far +country waging the wars of another lord, or in a country yet +farther--that to which the men of my race have directed so many +untimeously." + +"Have you at all thought of the land or the lord to whom you would +transfer your allegiance?" said Gerard von Sturm, carelessly rapping with +his fingers on the bare white of the skull before him. + +"I have not," I replied as easily. + +He looked down a moment, and drew his black robe thoughtfully over his +knee as if turning the matter over in his mind. "What think you of +Plassenburg and the service of Prince Karl?" he said at last. + +"The place is too near and the man a usurper," I replied, brusquely. + +"I am not so sure," Master Gerard mused, slowly, "that it might not be +advantageous to bide near home. Duke Casimir is mortal, after all--long +and prosperously may he live!" (Here he inclined his head piously, while +naming his master.) "But who knows how long he may be spared to reign +over a loving people. And after that, why, there may be more usurpers. +For by the name 'usurper' the ignorant mostly mean men of the strong +heart and sure brain, who can hold that which they have with one hand and +reach out for more with the other." + +While he spoke thus he looked at me with his green eyes half closed. + +"But," said I, calmly enough, though my heart beat fast, "I am but a lad +untried. I may never rise beyond a private soldier. I may be killed at +the first assault of my virgin campaign." + +Master Gerard looked up quickly. He beckoned to his daughter. For though +by no faintest gesture had he betrayed his knowledge of her presence, he +had yet clearly known it all the time. + +"Ysolinde," he said, "bring hither thy crystal!" + +The maid disappeared and presently returned with a ball in her hand of +some substance which looked like misty glass. + +"I have been looking in it already," she said, "ever since Hugo Gottfried +came out of the Red Tower." + +Her voice was soft and even, with the same sough in it as of the wind +among poplar-trees which I had heard in the rustle of her silken dress as +she came up the stair. + +"And what," asked her father, "have you seen in the crystal, child of +my heart?" + +He looked up at me with some little shamefacedness, or so I imagined. + +"I am a dry old man of the law," he went on, "dusty of heart as these +black books up yonder--books not of magic but of fact, of crime and pain +and penalty. But this my daughter Ysolinde, wise from a child, solaces +herself with the white, innocent magic, such as helps man and brings him +nearer that which is unseen." + +The maid knelt by her father's knee, and held the crystal ball in the +hollow of her hands against the sable of his velvet robe. She passed one +hand swiftly twice or thrice over her brow, as though to clear away some +cobwebs, gossamer thin, that had folded themselves across her vision. +Then, in the same wistful, wind-soft voice, she began to speak. And as +she spoke all that I had loved and known began to pass from before me. I +forgot my father. I forgot the Red Tower. I forgot (God forgive me, yet +help it I could not!) the little Princess Playmate and her sweetest eyes. +I forgot all else save this lithe, serpentine maiden with the massive +crown of burned and tawny gold upon her head. + +"I see," she began, "a long street and many men struggling on it--the +Wolf of the Wolfmark, the Eagle of Plassenburg are face to face. I see +Red Karl the Prince. The young Wolf has the better of it. He bites his +lip and drives hard. The Prince is down. He is wounded. He is like to +die. The Wolf will drive all to destruction. + +"But see--" she sighed, and paused the while as if that which she saw +next touched her--"from the swelter in the rear comes a young soldier. He +has lost his helmet. I see his head. It is a fair head with crisp curls. +He has a sword in his hand and he lays well about him. He cuts a way to +the Prince--he bestrides his body. + +"Give way there, scullions, that I may see more!" she cried, impetuously, +and waved her hand before her eyes, which were fixed expressionless on +the crystal. "I see him again. Well done, young soldier! Valiantly laid +on. It is great sword-play. Bravo! The Wolf is down. The Eagle of +Plassenburg is up--I can see no more!" + +And suddenly she dropped the ball, which would have rolled off her +father's knee had he not caught it as it fell. + +Ysolinde kept her head on Master Gerard's lap for a long minute, as if, +after the vision of the crystal, she could not bear the common light nor +speak of meaner things. Then, without once looking at me, she rose, +gathered her skirts in her hand, and glided out of the doorway in which +she had stood. + +When she was quite gone her father reached a bony hand across to me. + +"That is a great fate which she has read for you--never have I seen her +so moved, nor yet her vision so clear and unmistakable. Surely the sooner +you seek the service of the Prince of Plassenburg the better." + +"But," said I, "how do I know that he will accept me? He may not wish to +retain in his service the son of the Red Axe of the Wolf mark." + +Master von Sturm smiled subtly at me. + +"I cannot tell," he said, "why it is that I have an interest in you. But +I desire to see you other than that which you are. I have, strange as it +may seem in one of such humble degree here in the city of Thorn, whom all +may consult without fee or reward, a certain influence and place in the +councils of the reigning Prince of Plassenburg. If, therefore, you will +take service with him, I can give you such an introduction as will +guarantee you a place, not as man-at-arms, but as officer, so that your +way may lie before you clear from the first. Also in this promotion you +shall have a good sufficient reason to give those who may accuse you of +changing your service." + +I could not answer him for gladness. The hope seemed so unbelievable--the +fortune too grateful to be true. I was overcome, and, as I guess, showed +it in my face. For twice I essayed to speak and could not. + +So that Master Gerard rose and glided over to me, patting me kindly +enough on the shoulders and bidding me take courage, saying that he loved +to see modesty in this untoward generation, in which there was little +virtue and no gratitude at all. + +So I grasped him by the hand and kissed his thin, bony fingers. + +"Bide ye, bide ye," he said; "one day I may kiss yours an you be active. +The wide spaces of Destiny lie before you, though I shall not live to see +it. But you must bestir you, for I am an old man, and have not far to +travel now to the place from which one leaps off into the dark." + +He conducted me to the door of his chamber and gave me his hand again +with the same inscrutable smile on his thin face, and his skull-cap +pushed farther back than ever over the flat, ophidian brow. + +"When you have all things ready," he said, "come to me for the letter of +introduction, and also for that which may obtain you a worthy outfit for +your journeying to Plassenburg. Or, if you are already Sir Proud-Heart, +you can repay me one day, with usury if you will. I care not to stand on +observances with you, nor desire that you should feel any obligation to a +feeble old man." + +"I am not proud," I said, "and my sense of obligation is already greater +than ever I can hope to discharge." + +"I thank you, my lad," he said. "Often have I wished for a +son of the flesh like you as you passed the window with your +companions--but go, go!" + +And with his hand he pushed me out upon the stair-head and shut the door. + +For a space I knew not where I stood. For what with the turmoil of my +thoughts and the myriad of impressions, hopes, fears, visions, regrets to +leave the Red Tower, the city of Thorn, the hope of seeing again that +high-poised head of burned gold of the Lady Ysolinde, I paused +stock-still, moidered and dazed, till a light hand touched me on the +shoulder and the soft, even voice spoke in my ear. + +"Master Hugo," said the Lady Ysolinde, bending kindly to me, "I am glad, +very glad--aye, though you have made my head ache" (here she nodded +blamefully and laid her hand upon her heart as if that ached too)--"it is +the best of fortunes, and sure to come true. Because have I seen it at +six o'clock of a Thursday in the time of full moon." + +"Come hither," she said, beckoning me; "we shall try another way of it +yet, in spite of the headache. It may be that there is more that concerns +you for me to see in the ink-pool." + +With this she took my hand and almost pulled me down the stairs by force. +As we went I saw the wild head and staring eyeballs of Jan the Lubber +Fiend peering at us. He was lying on the back staircase, prone on his +stomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it, +and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down the +stair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red ears +actually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight of +the Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end of +that smile. + +"Lubber Jan," said she, "go and sit in the yard. The servants will be +complaining of thee again, that they cannot come up the staircase, even +as they did before." + +"Then, if I do," mumbled the monster, "will you look out of window at +least once in each hour, between every stroke of the clock. Else will Jan +not stop in the yard, but come within to feast his eyes on thee." + +"Yes, Jan," she said, smiling with a gentle complaisance which made me +like her somewhat better than before, "I will look out at least once in +the hour." + +And turning a little she smiled again at me, still holding me by the +hand. The Lubber Fiend pulled his forelock, and reaching downward his +head, as if he had the power of stretching out his neck like an arm, he +kissed the cold pavement where her foot had rested a moment before. Then +he rather retracted himself, serpentwise, then betook him in Christian +fashion down the stair, and we heard him move out amid a babel of +servatorial recriminations into the outer yard. + +"A poor innocent," said the Lady Ysolinde; "one that worships me, as you +see. He is so great of stature and so uncouth that the children persecute +him, and some day he may do one of them an injury. Years ago I rescued +him from an evil pack of them and brought him hither. So that is the +reason why he cleaves to me." + +"An excellent reason, my lady," said I, "for any to cleave to you." + +"Ah," she said, wistfully, "only fools think of Ysolinde in the city of +Thorn. Some are afraid and pass by, and the rest are as the dogs that +lick the garbage in the streets. Here I have no friends, save my father +only, and here or elsewhere I have never had any that truly loved me." + +"But you are young--you are fair," I answered. "Many must come seeking +your favor." Thus did I begin lumpishly enough to comfort her. But at +my first words she snatched her fingers away angrily, and then in a +moment relented. + +"You mean well," she said, giving her hand back to me again, "but it is +not pity Ysolinde needs nor yet desires. But that is no matter. Come in +hither and see what may abide for you in the depths of the black pool." + +At the curtained doorway she turned and looked me in the eyes. + +"If you were as other young men it would be easy for you to misjudge +me. This is mine own work-chamber, and I bid you come into it, having +seen you but an hour ago. Yet never a man save my father only hath set +his foot in it before. Inquire carefully of your companions in the city +of Thorn, and if any make pretension to acquaintance with the Lady +Ysolinde of the White Gate strike him in the face and call him liar, +for the sake of the favor I have shown you and the vision I saw +concerning you in the crystal." + +I stooped and kissed her hand, which was burning hot--a thin little hand, +with long, supple fingers which bent in one's grasp. + +"The man who would pretend to such a thing is dead even as he speaks," +said I; and I meant it fully. + +"I thank you--it is well," she answered, leading me in. "I only desired +that you should not misjudge me." + +"That could I never do if I would," I made her answer. "Here my every +thought is reverence as in the oratory of a saint." + +She smiled a strange smile. + +"Mayhap that is rather more than I desire," she said. "Say rather in the +maiden bower of a woman who knows well whom she may trust." + +Again I kissed her hand for the correction. And, as I remembered +afterwards, it was at that hour that the little Princess Playmate was +used to look within my chamber to see that all was ready for me. + +And, had I known it, even that night she stooped over and kissed the +pillow where my head was to lie. + +"Dear love!" she was used to say. + +Alas that I heard it not then! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +EYES OF EMERALD + + +It was a strange little room into which the Lady Ysolinde brought me, +full of quaint, changeful scents, and all ablaze with colors the like of +which I had never seen. For not only were rugs and mats of outlandish +Eastern design scattered over the floor, but there was vividly colored +glass in the small, deeply set windows. Yet that which affected me most +powerfully was a curious, clinging, evanescent odor, which came and went +like a breeze through an open window. I liked it at first, but after a +little it went to my head like a perfumed wine of Greece, such as the men +of Venice sometimes send to our northern lands with their embassies of +merchandise. + +Altogether, it was a strange enough apartment for the daughter of a +lawyer in the city of Thorn, within a mile of the bare feudal strengths +of the Red Tower and the Wolfsberg. + +All this while Ysolinde had kept my hand, a thing which at once thrilled +and shamed me. For though I had never been what is called "in love" with +the Little Playmate, nor till that day had spoken a word to her my father +might not have heard, yet hitherto she had always been first and sole in +my heart whenever I thought on the things which were to be. + +The Lady Ysolinde having brought me to her chamber, bade me sit upon +an oaken folding-stool beside a table on which lay weapons of curious +design--crooked knives and poisoned arrows. Then she went to an +ivory cupboard of the Orient (or, as they are called in Holy Writ, +"an ivory palace"), and opening the beautifully fitting door, she +took from it a small square bottle of red glass which she held +between her and the light. + +"It is well," she said, looking long and carefully at it; "it will flow." + +And coming to the table and pouring some of a shining black liquid into +the palm of her left hand, she sat down beside me on the stool and gazed +steadily into the little pool of ink. + +It was strange to me to sit thus motionless beside a beautiful woman +(for such I then thought her)--so near that I could feel the warmth of +her body strike like sunshine through the silken fineness of her +sea-green gown. I glanced up at her eyes. They were fixed, and, as it +seemed, glazed also. But the emerald in them, usually dark as the +sea-depths, had opal lights in it, and her lips moved like those of a +devotee kneeling in church. + +Presently she began to speak. + +"Hugo--Hugo Gottfried, son of the Red Axe," she said, in the same hushed +voice as before, most like running water heard murmuring in a deep runnel +underground, "you will live to be a man fortunate, well-beloved. You will +know love--yes, more than one shall love you. But you will love one only. +I see the woman on whom your fate depends, yet not clearly--it may be, +because my desire is so great to see her face. But she is tall and moves +like a queen. She goes clad in white like a bride and her arms are held +out to you. + +"But another shall love you, and between them two there is darkness and +hate, from which come bursting clouds of fire, bringing forth lightnings +and angers and deadly jealousies! + +"Again I see you, great, honored, and sitting on a high seat. The +woman whose face I cannot distinguish is beside you, clothed in a +robe of purple. And, yes, she wears a crown on her head like the +coronet of a queen." + +Ysolinde withdrew her eyes gradually from the ink-pool, as if it were a +pain to look yet a greater to look away. Then with a quick jerk she threw +up her head, and tears were standing in her eyes ready to overflow. But +the wetness made them beautiful, like a pebble of bright colors with the +dew upon it and shone on by the sunshine of the morning. + +"You hurt me," she murmured reproachfully, looking at me more like a +child than ever I had seen her. She was very near to me. + +"_I_ make you suffer!" cried I, greatly astonished. "How can Hugo +Gottfried have done this thing?" + +For it seemed impossible that a poor lad, and one alien by his birth from +the hearts of ordinary folk, should yet have the power to make a great +lady suffer. For a great lady I knew Ysolinde to be even then, when her +father seemed to be no more in the city of Thorn than Master Gerard, the +fount and treasure-house of law and composer-general of quarrels. + +But I might have known that he was no true lawyer to be so eager about +that last. For upon the continuance and fostering of differences the +law-men of all nations thrive and eat their bread with honey thereto. + +As my father often said, "Better the stroke of the Red Axe than that of +the scrivener's goose-quill. My solution is kindlier, sooner over, hurts +less, and is all the same in the end!" + +Ysolinde thought a little before she answered me. + +"No man ever made me suffer thus before," she said, "though I have seen +and known many men. I am older than you, Hugo, and have travelled in many +countries, the lands from which these things came. But true love, the +pain and the pleasure of it, have I never known." + +She leaned her head on her hand and her elbow on the table, turning thus +to look long and intently at me. I felt oafish and awkward, as Jan Lubber +Fiend might have done before the King. Many things I might have wished to +say and do with that slender figure and lissome waist so near me. But I +knew not how to begin. Yet I think the desire came not so much from love +or passion, but rather from a natural longing to explore those mysteries +concerning which I had read so much after Friar Laurence had done me the +service of teaching me French. But it was well that stupidity was my +friend. For rebounding like a vain, upstart young monkey from my mood of +self-depreciation, I must needs hold it for certain that all was within +my grasp, and that the Lady Ysolinde expected as much of me, which thing +would have wrought my downfall. + +"Yon ride soon to Plassenburg, I hear," she said, after she had looked at +me a long time steadily with the emerald eyes shining upon me. Then it +was that I saw clearly that they were not the right emerald in hue so +much as of the shade of the stone aqua-marine, which is one not so rare, +but a better color when it comes to the matter of maiden's eyes. + +"It is indeed true, my lady," I replied, disappointed at her words, and +yet somehow infinitely relieved, "that I ride soon to Plassenburg by the +favoring of your father, who has been gracious enough to promise me his +interest with the Prince." + +I saw her lip curl a little with scorn--the least tilt of a rose leaf to +which the sun has been unkind. + +She seemed about to speak, but presently thinking better of it, +smiled instead. + +"It is like my father," she said, after a little; "but since I also go +thither, you shall be of my escort. A sufficient guard accompanies me all +the way to the city, and I dare say the arrangement may serve your +convenience as well as add to the pleasure and safety of my journeying." + +"But how will your father do without your company, Lady Ysolinde?" I +asked. For it seemed strange that father and daughter should thus part +without reason in these disturbed times. + +She laughed more heartily than I had heard her. + +"My father has been used to missing me for months at a time, and, +moreover, is well resigned also. But you do not say that you are rejoiced +to be of a lady's escort in so long a travel." + +"Indeed, I am much honored and glad to have so great a favor done to me. +I am but a mannerless, landward youth, to have been bred in the outer +courts of a palace. But that which I do not know you will teach me, and +my faults I shall be eager to amend." + +"Pshaw!--psutt!" said Ysolinde, making a little face, "be not so +mock-modest. You do very well. But tell me if you have any sweetheart in +the city to leave behind you." + +Now this bold question at once reddened my face and heightened my +confusion. + +"Nay, lady," I stammered, conscious that I was blushing furiously, "I am +over-young to have thought much of the things of love. I know no woman in +the city save our old house-keeper Hanne, and the Little Playmate." + +The Lady Ysolinde looked up quickly. + +"Ah, the Little Playmate!" she said, in a low voice, curiously distinct +from that which she used when she had interpreted her visions to me. "The +Little Playmate! That sounds as though it might be interesting. Who is +the Little Playmate?" + +"She is a maid whose folks were slain long ago by the Duke in a foray, +and the little one being left, my father begged her life. And she has +been brought up with me in the Red Tower." + +"How old is she now?" The Lady Ysolinde's next question leaped out like +the flash of a dagger from its sheath. + +"That," answered I, meditatively, "I know not exactly, because none could +tell how old she was when she came to us." + +"Tut," she said, impatiently tossing her head, "do not twist your answers +to me--only wise men and courtiers have the skill to do that and hide it. +As yet you are neither. Is she ten, or is she twenty, or is she mid-way +betwixt the two?" + +"I think she may be a matter of seventeen years of age." + +"Is she pretty?" was the next question. + +"No," said I, not knowing well what to say. + +Her face cleared as she heard that, and then, in a little, her eyes being +still bent steadily on me, reading my very heart, it clouded over again. + +"You think her not merely pretty, then, but beautiful?" she asked. + +I nodded. + +"More beautiful than I?" + +'Fore God I denied not my love, though I own I have many a time been less +tempted, and yet have lied back and forth like a Frankfort Jew. + +"Yes," said I, "I think so." + +"You love her, then?" said the Lady Ysolinde, rising quickly to her feet; +"and you told me that you loved none in this city." + +"I love her, indeed," I said. "She is my little sister. As you mean love, +I do not love her. But I love her notwithstanding. All my life I have +never thought of doing anything else. And that she is beautiful, all who +have eyes in their head may see." + +This appeased her somewhat. I think it must have been looking for my +fortune in the crystal and the ink-pool that made her so eager to know +all that concerned me--which none had ever been so importunate to find +out before. + +"I must come and see this Little Playmate of yours," she said. "It is an +ill-done thing that so fair a maid should be shut up in the tower of such +a pagan castle--the Wolfsberg; it is indeed well named. Word has reached +me to-day that the Princess of Plassenburg has need of a bower maiden. +Now the Princess can make her choice from many noble families. But if the +Little Playmate be as beautiful as you say, 'tis high time that she +should not be left immured in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg. True, the +Duke, like a careful man, neither makes nor mells with womankind. 'Tis +his only virtue. But any questing Ritterling or roaring free companion +might bear her off." + +"I think not," said I, smiling, "so long as the Red Axe of the Mark has a +polished edge and Gottfried Gottfried can send it sheer through an ox's +neck as he stands chewing the cud." + +I hardly think that I ever boasted of my father's prowess before. +And, indeed, I had some skill in the axe-play myself, but only in the +way of sport. + +"All one," said Ysolinde. "Your father, like great Caesar and Duke +Casimir, is but mortal, and may stumble across the wooden stump some day +himself and find his neck-bone in twain! None so wise that he can tell +when the Silent Rider shall meet him in the wood, leading by the bridle +the pale horse whose name is Death, and beckoning him to mount and ride." + +The Lady Ysolinde paused a while, touching her lips thoughtfully with +her fingers. + +"Let your Playmate come," she said. "There is room, I warrant, for her +and you both at Plassenburg. You shall keep each other company when +you have the homesickness, and on the journey she can ride with us +side by side." + +Then going to the curtain she summoned the servitor who had first opened +the door for me. He bowed before the girl with infinite respect. She bade +him conduct me upon my way. I will not deny that I had hoped for a +tenderer leave-taking. But all at once she seemed to have slipped back +into the great lady again, and to be desirous of setting me in my own +sphere and station ere I went, lest perchance I should presume overmuch +upon her favors. + +Yet not altogether so. For, relenting a little as I turned to leave her, +she stood holding the curtain aside for me to pass, and, as it had been +by accident, in dropping it her fingers rested a moment against my +cheek. Then the heavy curtain of blue fell into its place, and I found +myself following the eminently respectable domestic of Master Gerard +down the stairs. + +At the outer door, but before he opened it, the man put a sealed packet +in my hand. + +"From Doctor Gerard von Sturm," he said, bowing respectfully, yet with a +certain sense of being a party in a favor conferred. + +I thrust the letter into my inner pocket and went out into the street. +The sun was still shining, yet somehow I felt that it must be another +day, another world. The houses seemed hard and dry, the details of the +architecture insufferably mean and insultingly familiar. I longed with +all my heart to get away from Thorn into the new world which had opened +to me--a world of perfumes and flowers and flower-like scents and +Oriental marvels, of low voices, too, and the touching of soft hands +upon cheeks. + +In all the world of young men there was no greener or more simple Simon +than I, Hugo Gottfried, as, playing a tune on the pipe of my own conceit, +I marched up the High Street of Thorn to the entrance gate of the +Wolfsberg. + +The Little Playmate was standing at the door as I approached, sweet as a +June rose. When she saw me she went into the sitting-room to show that +she had not yet forgiven me. Though I think by this time, as was often +the way with Helene, she had forgotten almost what was the original +matter of my offending. + +But I pretended to be careless and heart-free. And so--God forgive +me!--I went whistling up the steps of the Red Tower to my room without +so much as looking within the chamber where my Little Playmate had +withdrawn herself. + +Which thing I suffered grievously for or all was done. And an excellent +dispensation of Providence it had been if I had lost my right hand, all +for making that little heart sore, or so much as one tear drop from those +deep gray eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHRISTIAN'S ELSA + + +It was about this time, and after we had made our quarrel up, that Helene +began to call me "Great Brother." After all, there is manifest virtue in +a name, and the Little Playmate seemed to find great comfort in thus +addressing me. + +And after that I had called her "Little Sister" once or twice she was +greatly assured and treated me quite differently, having ascertained that +between young men and women there is the utmost safety in such a +relationship. + +And as all ways were alike to me, I was willing enough. For indeed I +loved her and none other, and so did all the days of my life. Though I +know that my actions and conceits were not always conformable to the true +love that was in my heart, neither wholly worthy of my dear maid. + +But, then, what would you? Nineteen and the follies of one's youth! The +mercy of God rather than any virtue in me kept these from being not only +infinitely more numerous, but infinitely worse. Yet I had better confess +them, such as they are, in this place. For it was some such nothings as +those which follow that first brought Helene and me into one way of +thinking, though by paths very devious indeed. + +To begin with the earliest. There was a maid who dwelt in the Tower of +the Wolfsberg opposite, called the Tower of the Captain of the Guard. And +the maid's name was Elsa, or, as she was ordinarily called, "Christian's +Elsa." She was a comely maid enough, and greatly taken notice of. And +when I went to my window to con over my task for Friar Laurence, there at +the opposite window would be--strange that it should always he +so--Christian's Elsa. She was a little girl, short and plump, but with +merry eyes and so bright a stain upon either cheek that it seemed as if +she had been eating raspberry conserve, and had wiped her fingers upon +the smiling plumpness there. + +At any rate, as sure as ever I betook me to the window, there would be +Christian's Elsa, busy with her needles. + +And to tell truth I misliked it not greatly. Why, indeed, should I? For +there is surely no harm in looking across twenty yards of space at a +maid, and as little in the maid looking at you--that is, if neither of +you come any nearer. Besides, it is much pleasanter to look at a pretty +lass than at a vacant wall and twenty yards of uneven cobble-stones. + +Now the girl was harmless enough--a red and white maid, plump as a +partridge in the end of harvest. She was forever humming at songs, +singing little choruses, and inventing of new melodies, all tunefully and +prettily enough. And she would bring her dulcimer to the window and play +them over, nodding her head to the instrument as she sang. + +It was pleasant to watch her. For sometimes when the music refused to run +aright, she would frown at the dulcimer, as if the discord had been +entirely its fault and it was old enough to know better. Then sometimes +she would look across abstractedly to the Red Tower, trying to recall a +strain she had forgotten, with her finger all the while making the most +bewitching dimple on her plump cheek. It was most sweet and innocent to +see. And withal so entirely unconscious that any one could possibly be +observing her. + +I confess that I sat often and conned my book by the window, long after +I knew my portion by heart, in order to watch her deft fingers upon the +dulcimer sticks and the play of her dimples. But on my part also this was +in all innocence and wholly thoughtless of guile. + +Then would I be taken with a spasm of desire to play upon the recorders +or the Bavarian single flute, and would pester my father to let me learn. + +Now I never had any more ear for music than a deal board that has +knot-holes in it. I had ears indeed. But the clatter of the mill-wheel +and the lapper of water on the stones of the shore were ever better music +to me than singing or playing upon instruments. Nevertheless, at this +time, for some reason or other, I was in a great fret to learn. + +And, curiously enough, my desire made the Little Playmate call me "Great +Brother" more assiduously than ever. Though again I knew not why. + +But Christian's Elsa she could not abide either sight or mention of. +Which was passing strange in so sweet and charitable a maid as our +Helene. Also the girl at the guard-house was a good daughter, besides +being particular of her company, and in that garrison place untouched by +any breath of scandal. + +But no; Helene would have none of her. + +"_Feech_!" she would say, making a little grimace of disgust which she +had brought with her from her northern home; "that noisy, mewling cat, +purring and stroking her face, in the window, I cannot abide her. I know +not what some folks can see in her. There are surely more kinds of +blindness than of those that wait about kirk doors with a board hung +round their necks, saying, 'Good people, for the love of God, put a +copper in this wooden platter.'" + +"Why, Little Playmate, what ails thee at the maid? She is a good maid +enough, and, I am sure, a pretty one." + +So would I say to try her. Whereat the lass, being slender herself, and +with a head that sat easily on her shoulders, would walk off like the +haughty little Princess she was, and thrust her chin so far forward that +even the pretty round of it bespoke a pointed scorn. And the poutlets +would come and go on her red lips so quickly that I would come from the +window, leaving my book and Christian's Elsa, and a thousand Elsas, just +to watch them. + +"So, Great Brother," Helene would say, "you think she is pretty, do you? +'Tis interesting, for sure. As for me, I see not anything pretty about +her. Now, there is Katrin Texel, she is pretty, if you like. What say +you to her?" + +And this was because the minx knew well that I never could abide Katrin +Texel, a girl all running to seed like a shot stalk of rhubarb, who would +end up in the neighborhood of six foot in height, and just that "fine +figure of a woman" which I never could abide. + +"_Feech_!" I would say, copying her Wendish expression. "I would as soon +set my feather bolster on end, paint it black and white, and make love to +it as to Katrin Texel." + +"You do worse every day of your life," retorted Helene, with pretty +spite, tapping the floor with the point of one delicate foot. + +"And, pray, what do I that is worse?" I said, knowing full well what. + +The Little Playmate was silent a minute, only continuing to tap the flags +with a kind of naughtiness that became her. + +"Katrin Texel would not look at you, charming as you think yourself," she +said, at last. + +"Did she tell you so, Little Sister?" said I, drawing a bow at a +great venture. + +The arrow struck, and I was content. + +"Well," she answered, somewhat breathlessly, "what if she did? Surely +even your vanity can take nothing out of a girl saying that she cannot +abide you." + +But I answered nothing to this, only stroked the mustache which was +beginning to thrive admirably on my upper lip. + +"Of all the--" began Helene, looking at me fixedly. Then she stopped. + +"Well," said I, pausing in the caressing of my chin, "what do I worse +every day than make love to Katrin Texel?" + +Her eyes fairly sparkled fire at me. They were "sweetest eyes" no more, +but rarely worth looking into all the same. + +"You go ogling and staring at that little she-cat in the window over +there, that screeches and becks and pats herself, all for showing off! +And you, Hugo Gottfried, like a great oaf, thinking all the time how +innocent and sweet and--oh, I have no patience with you!--to neglect and +think nothing of--of Katrin Texel, and--and then to go gazing and gaping +after a thing like that!" + +And I declare there were tears in the Little Playmate's eyes. + +"Dear Little Sister, why are you so mindful about Katrin Texel?" said I. +"Faith, my lass, wait till she comes again, and I will court her to your +heart's content. There--there--I will be a very Valentine's true lover to +your Katrin." + +For all that she was not greatly cheered, but edged away, still strangely +disconsolate when I came near and tried to pet her. Mysterious and hidden +are the ways of women! For once, when I would have put my hand about her +pretty slender waist, she promptly took me by the wrist, and holding it +at arm's-length, she dropped it from her with a disgustful curl of her +lip, as if it had been an intruding spider she had perforce to put forth +out of her chamber into the garden. + +Yet formerly, upon occasion when, as it might be, she was reading or +looking out of the window, if I but came behind her and called her +"Little Sister," I might even put my hand upon her shoulder, and so stand +for five minutes at a time and she never seem to notice it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SIR AMOROUS IS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF + + +For, as I say, women have curious ways, and there are a good many of them +recorded in this book. And yet more I have observed which I cannot find +room for in a chronicle of so many sad and bad and warlike happenings. +But none of them all is more notable than this--that women, or at least +(for it is no use saying "women," every one being different in temper, +though like as pease in some things) many women, will permit that which +it suits them to be oblivious of, when if you ask them for permission or +make a favor of the matter, they will promptly flame sky-high with +indignation. So my advice to the young man who honestly goes a-courting +is to keep talking earnestly, to occupy his mistress's attention withal, +and progress in her favors during the abstractions of high discourse. + +Of course in this, as in all other similar enterprises, Sir Amorous +must have a certain trading-stock of favor to start with. But if he +have this much, 'tis not difficult to increase it by honest endeavor, +and, as it were, the sweat of his brain. So at least I am told by +those who have proved it. Nevertheless, for myself, I have used no +such nice refinements, but rather taken with thankfulness such things +as came in my way. + +And now when I look back over my paper--lord! what a pother of writing +about it and about! But my excuse is that many young lads and gay +bachelors will read this tale, so I desire to import what of instruction +I can into it. And not having the learning of the clerks, I must e'en +put in what wisdom I have gotten for myself in my passage through the +world. For I never could plough with another man's heifer--least of all +with that of a college-bred Mess John. Not but what Mess John knoweth +somewhat of the lear of love also among the well-favored dames of the +city. Or else, by my faith, Mess John is sorely belied. + +But where was I in my tale? And if this present errant discourse be +forgiven, surely I will not transgress again, but drive my team straight +to the furrow's end and then back again, like an honest ploughman that +has his eye ever upon the guide-poles on the windy ridge. + +Well, the Little Playmate lifted a toad from her waist--I mean my +hand--and dropped it as far from her as her arm would reach. + +And then after that she ran up-stairs, slammed the door of her own +chamber, and came not down to our nooning, so that old Hanne had to call +her three times. + +And once, when I had occasion to cross the court-yard to the guard-house, +I saw her standing pensively by the window. But so soon as she saw me she +vanished within and was seen no more. + +Yet, indeed and indeed, as all may see, there was no cause for all this +fret. For I cared no more about Christian's Elsa than about Christian +himself--less, indeed, for Christian was a good soldier and +master-at-arms, and taught me how to handle the match-lock, the pistolet, +and the other new weapons that had begun to come in from France. And +often upon Saturdays and wet days he would let me spend long mornings in +the armory with him, oiling and cleaning the ordnance. Which it certainly +was a great pleasure to do. + +And what if the little dumpling Elsa, with her red cheeks and her babyish +eyes, did run in and out. Her father was ever with us, and even had I +been willing there was no opportunity for more than a word or a touch of +her fingers--well, save once, when her father went himself to seek the +bottle of oil she had been sent to fetch, and was some time in finding +it. But even that was a mere nothing, and might have happened to any one. + +But when I came home again that night, you would have thought that the +whole happening had been printed legibly on my face. The Little Playmate +would not let me come within a hundred miles of her. And it was "Keep +your distance, sirrah!" Not perhaps said in words, but expressed as +clearly by the warlike angle of an arm, the contumelious hitch of a +shoulder, or the scornful sweep of an adverse skirt. + +And all about nothing! Mighty Hector! I never saw such things as women. + +And yet in her good moments she would call me "Great Brother," and tell +me that she thought only of my future welfare, desiring that I should not +compromise myself in any entanglement with such as were not worthy of me. +Oh, a most wise and prudent counsellor was the Playmate in these days. + +And I used ever to say: "Helene, when I am truly in love I will e'en +bring her here to you, and, by my faith, if you approve not--why, there +is an end of the matter. Back she goes to her mother like a parcel of +returned goods--aye, if she were the Kaiser's daughter herself!" + +Whereat she pouted and was not ill-pleased. + +"Ah, my man," she would reply, "after a girl hath said you nay a time or +two, it will bring you down from these high notions, and be much for your +soul's final good!" + +But yet, when I could keep her in good-humor, it was exceedingly sweet to +bide quietly in the house with the Little Playmate--far better than to +gad about with Texels and meandering fools, which indeed I did +oftentimes just because it made my little lass so full of moods and +tenses--like one of Friar Laurence's irregular verbs in his cursed +Humanities. For there is nothing so variously delightful as a woman when +she is half in love and half out of it--more interesting (say some) +though less delightful than when she is all and whole in love. +Nevertheless, there are exceptions, and one woman at least I know more +various, and more delicious also, since love's ocean hath gone over her +head, than ever she was when, like a timid bather, she shivered on the +brink or made little fearful plunges, as it were knee-deep, and so ran +out again. + +But I am not come to that in the story yet. + +Well, on the afternoon of the next day, who should come to the house in +the Red Tower but our Helene's gossip, for this week at least her bosom +friend, Katrin Texel. She was even more impressive in manner than ever, +and also a little pleasanter to behold. For her angles were clothing +themselves into curves, and she was learning, perhaps from the Little +Playmate, to leave off bouncing into a room like a cow at the trot, and +to walk in sedately instead. By-and-by I knew she would come sailing down +the street like a towered galleon from the isles of Ind. For all that, +she looked not ill--an academic study for Juno, one might say. But to +make love to--why, as Helene was wont to remark, _Feech!_ + +And the curious thing about Katrin Texel was that though her corporeal +part might be a direct inheritance from her Burgomeister father and his +substantial brewery, her spirit had been designed for an artful fairy of +half her size, in order that it might go pirouetting into airy realms of +the imagination. For she was gay enough and lightsome enough in her +demeanor. She came in with a skip which would have been entrancing in +some elfish mignonne who could dance light-foot on spring flowers without +crushing them. But when this our solid Burgomagisterial Katrin tripped +in, it nearly drove me wild with mirth. For it was as if some bland +maternal cow out of the pasture had skipped with a hop and a circle of +flying skirts into a ballroom or a butterfly of two hundred pounds' +weight had taken to flitting from flower to flower. + +And this Katrin talked in a quick, light voice, with ups and downs and +skips and quivers in it, as spring-heeled as a chamois goat on the +mountains of the south. + +"Ah, Tiny-chen," she would cry, as she came undulating and cooing in to +our Helene, "is it you, dearest? 'Tis as sweet to see you as for birds to +kiss on bough! I have danced all day in the sunshine just to think that I +should come to see you! And tell me why you have not been to visit me. +Ah, bad one--cruelest--as cruel as she is pretty" (appealing to me), "is +she not? And there, our Michael, great oaf, sits at home desolated that +he does not hear her foot on the stairs. The foolish fellow tells me that +he listens for four little pit-a-pats every time that I come up from the +court-yard, and is disappointed when there come back only my poor two." + +And Katrin becked and nodded and set her head to the side--like to the +divine Io-Cow playing at being little Jenny Wren. + +And as for me, I kept my gravity--or, rather, how could I lose it, +hearing such nonsense about that great stupid beer-vat, Michael Texel. + +Michael Texel, indeed! I should admire to hear of Michael Texel so much +as raising his eyes to the Little Playmate. Why, I would stave him on +the open street like a puncheon of eight, and think nothing of the +doing of it. + +Michael Texel, indeed! + +But I am forgetting. My business at this time was to make love to Katrin, +so that I might banish the ill impression which Helene had formed +concerning that pleasant, harmless little Christian's Elsa over there. I +never heard anything so foolish in my life. But, then, what women will +think and say passes the imagination of man. + +Michael Texel indeed! + +The thought of that young man of beef and beer recurred so persistently +and forcibly to me that for a time I could scarce command myself to speak +civilly to his sister. Though, of course, she was quite different, being +a woman, and informed with such a quick and dainty spirit that at times +it seemed as it had been imprisoned in her too massive frame and held "in +subjection to the flesh," as the clerics say. God wot, I never knew I had +so much religion and morality about me till I came to write. If I do not +have a care this tale of mine will turn out almost as painful as a book +of devotion which they set children to read on saints' days to keep them +from being over-happy. + +But I subdued my feelings and drew up somewhat nearer to Katrin. + +"My Little Sister--" so I began, cunningly, as I thought--"my sister +Helene is, indeed, fortunate to have so fair a friend, and one so +devoted--" + +"As my brother Michael, yes," she twittered, with her most ponderous, +cage-bird manner; "yes, indeed, he _is_ devoted to her." + +"No," said I, hastily (confound the great hulking camel!), "I mean such a +faithful friend as yourself. I, alas, have no friend. I am cut off from +all society of my kind. Often and often have I felt the weight of +loneliness press heavy upon me in this darksome tower." + +I saw Helene rise, go to the window, and glance across with such a +peculiar smile that I knew as well as if I had seen her that Christian's +Elsa was at her window with her music, looking across for me between each +bar. I cannot describe the smile which hovered on the face of the Little +Playmate. But perhaps all the male beings who read my book may have seen +something like it. All that I can say is, that the smile conveyed an +almost superhuman understanding of men and their little ways, and, +curiously enough, something of contempt too. + +But I was not going to be discouraged by any smile, acid or sweet. +Besides, I had something still to pay back. + +Michael Texel, indeed!--faith, by St. Blaise, I will Texel him tightly an +he comes sneaking to our gate! + +So again I drew yet nearer to his sister. Katrin dimpled and showed her +teeth, with a smile like the sun going about the world, till I had almost +put my hand behind her shoulders to catch the ends of it when it got +round. This illumination almost finished me, for it was not the kind of +smile I had been accustomed to from--well, that was not the business I +was on at present. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS + + +But I admit that the smile discouraged me. Nevertheless I proceeded +gallantly. + +"Ah, Jungfrau Texel," said I, "you cannot know how your presence +brightens our lives here in the Red Tower. Wherefore will you not come +oftener to our grim abode?" + +I thought that, on the whole, pretty well; but, looking up at Helene, I +saw that her smile (so different from that of the Io-Cow Katrin) had +become a whole volume of scathing satire. God wot, it is not easy to make +love to a lass when your "Little Sister" is listening--especially to a +woman-mountain set on watch-springs like Katrin Texel. + +But, after all, Katrin was no ways averse to love-making of any kind, +which, after all, is the main thing. And as for the Little Playmate, I +did not mind her a bonnet-tag. She had brought it upon herself. + +Michael Texel indeed! + +So I went on. It was excellent sport--such a jest as may not be played +every day. I would show Mistress Helene (so I said to myself) whether she +would like it any better if I made love to Katrin than if I went over on +an occasional wet day to clean pistolets and oil French musketoons in +Christian's guard-house. + +So I began to tell Katrin how that woman was the sacredest influence on +the life of men, with other things as I could recollect them out of a +book of chivalry which I had been reading, the fine sentiments of which +it was a pity to waste. For our Helene would have stamped her foot and +boxed my ears for coming nigh her with such nonsense (that is, at this +time she would, doubtless--not, however, always). And as for the lass +over the way--Christian's Elsa--she knew no more of letters than her +father knew of the mathematics. Plain kissing was more in her way--as I +have been told. + +So I aired my book of chivalry to Katrin Texel. + +"Fair maid," said I, "have you heard the refrain of the song that I love +so well? It is like sweet music to me to hear it. I love sweet music. +This is the latest catch: + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.' + +"How goes it, Helene?" I asked, turning to her as she stood smiling +bitterly by the window. For I knew that it would annoy her to be referred +to. "Goes it not something like this?" + +And I hummed fairly enough: + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'" +*** +"And if it goes like that," said she, quickly, "it goeth like a tomcat +mollrowing on the tiles in the middle of the night." + +Now this being manifestly only spiteful, I took no notice of her work. +"Helene does not love good music," said I; "'tis her only fault. But I +trust that you, dear Katrin, have a greater taste for angelic song?" + +"And I trust you love to scratch upon the twangling zither as cats +sharpen their claws upon the bark of trees? You love such music, _dear_ +Katrin, do you not?" cried Helene over her shoulder from the window. + +But Katrin, the divine cow, knew not what to make of us. I think she was +of the opinion that Helene and I, with much study upon books, had +suddenly gone mad. + +"I do indeed love music," she said at last, uncertainly, "but, Master +Hugo, not the kind of which my gossip, Helene, speaks. I love best of all +a ballad of love, sung sweetly and with a melting expression, as from a +lover by the wall to his mistress aloft in the balcony, like that of him +of Italy, who sings: + +"'O words that fall like summer dew on me.' + +"How goes it? + +"'O breath more sweet than is the growing--the growing--'" + +She paused, and waved her hand as if to summon the words from the +empty air. + +"'_The growing garlic,'_ if it be a lover of Italy," cried Helene, still +more spitefully. "This is enough and to spare of chivalry, besides which +Hugo hath his lessons to learn for Friar Laurence, or else he will repent +it on the morrow. Come, sweetheart, let us be going. I will e'en convoy +thee home." + +So she spoke, making great ostentation of her own superiority and +emancipation from learning, treating me as a lad that must learn his +horn-book at school. + +But I was even with her for all that. + +"And so farewell, then, dear Mistress Katrin," said I. "The delicate +pleasure of your presence shall be followed by the still more tender +remembrance which, when you are gone, my heart shall continue to +cherish of you." + +That was indeed well-minded. A whole sentence out of my romance-book +without a single slip. Katrin bowed, with the airy grace of the Grand +Duke's monument out in the square. But the little Helene swept +majestically off, muttering to herself, but so that I could hear her: "'O +wondrous, most wondrous,' quoth our cat Mall, when she saw her Tom +betwixt her and the moon." + +The application of which wise saw is indeed to seek. + +So the two maids went away, and I betook me to the window to see if I +could catch a glimpse of Christian's Elsa. + +But I only saw Katrin and Helene going gossiping down the street with +their heads very close together. + +At first I smiled, well pleased to think how excellently I had played my +cards and how daintily I had worked in those gallant speeches out of the +book of chivalry. But by-and-by it struck me that the Little Playmate was +absent a most unconscionable time. Could it be--Michael Texel? No, that +at least was plainly impossible. + +I got up and walked about. Then for a change I paused by the window. + +I had stood a good while thus moodily looking out at the casement, when I +became aware of two that walked slowly up the street and halted together +before the great iron-studded door which led to the Red Tower. + +By the thirty thousand virgins--Helene and Michael Texel! + +And then, indeed, what a coil was I in; how blackly deceitful I called +her! How keenly I watched for any token of understanding and kindness +more than ordinary that might chance to pass between them. But I could +see none, for though the great soft lout of a ruddy beer-vat tried often +to look under the brim of her hat, yet she kept her eyes down--only once, +that I could observe, raising them, and that was more towards the Red +Tower than in the direction of Michael Texel. + +I think she wished to see whether I was watching. And when she had noted +me it I wot well that she became much more animated, and laughed and +spoke quickly, with color in her cheeks and a flash of defiance on her +countenance, which were manifestly wasted on such a boastful, callow +blubber-tun as Michael Texel. + +Then it was: "Adieu to you, Master Texel!" "Farewell to you, fair maid!" + +And Helene dipped a courtesy to him, dainty and sweet enough to conquer +an angel, while the great jelly-bag shook himself almost to pieces in +his eagerness to achieve a masterly bow. All this made me angry, not +that I cared though Helene had coquetted with a dozen lads, an it had +liked her. It was only the poverty of taste shown in being seen in the +open High Street of Thorn along with such an oaf as Michael Texel. He +had first been my friend, it is true, but then at that time I had not +found him out. + +By-and-by Helene came up the stairs, tripping light as a feather that the +wind blows. Perhaps, though, she had turned in the doorway, where I could +not see her, to throw the lout a kiss--so I thought within me, jealously. + +"You have convoyed your gossip Katrin home in safety, I trust," said I, +sweetly, as she came in. + +"Yes," said she; "but I fear she has left her heart behind her. So +wondrously rapid a courtship never did I see!" + +"Save on the street," answered I; "and with a pale, soft jack-pudding +like Michael Texel! That was a sight, indeed." + +At which Helene laughed a merry little laugh--well-pleased, too, the +minx, as I could see. + +"What are courtships on the street to you, Sir Hugo," she returned, +"with your 'Twinkle-Twankle' singing-women over the way, and--Lord, +how went it? + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.' + +"Ha! ha! Sir Gallant, what need you with more? Would you have as many +loves as the Grand Turk, and invent new love-makings for each of them? +Shall we maidens petition Duke Casimir to banish the other lads of the +town and leave only Hugo Gottfried for all of us?" + +And then she went on to other such silly talk that I think it not worth +reporting. + +Whereupon I was about to leave the room in a transport of just +indignation, and that without speaking, when Helene called to me. + +"Hugo!" she said, very softly, as she alone could speak, and that only +when it liked her to make friends. + +I turned me about with some dignity, but knowing in my heart that it was +all over with me. + +"Well, what may be your will, madam?" said I. + +Helene came towards me with uplifted, petitionary eyes. + +"You are not going to be angry with me, Hugo!" she said. And she lifted +her eyes again upon me--irresistible, compelling, solvent of dignities, +and able to break down all pride. + +O all ye men who have never seen my Helene look up thus at you--but only +common other eyes, go and hang yourselves on high trees for very envy. +Well, as I say, Helene looked up at me. She kept on looking up at me. + +And I--well, I hung a moment on my pride, and then--clasped her in my +arms. + +"Dear minx, thrice wicked one!" I exclaimed, "wherefore do you torment +me--break my heart?" + +"Because," said she, escaping as soon as she had gained her pretty, +rascal way, "you think yourself so clever, Hugo, such an irresistible +person, that you must be forever returning to this window and getting +this book of chivalry by heart. Now you are going to be cross again. Oh, +shame, and with your little sister-- + +"'That never did you any harm, + But killed the mice in your father's barn.'" + +With such babyish words she talked the frowns off my face, or, when they +would not go fast enough, hastened them by reaching up and smoothing them +away with her finger. + +"Now," she said, setting her head to the side, "what a nice sweet Great +Brother! Let him sit down here on the great chair." + +So I sat down, well pleased enough, not knowing what mischief the +pranksome maid had now in her head, but judging that the matter might +turn out well for me. + +Then Helene stole round to the back of the chair, and, taking me by the +ears, she gave first one and then the other of them a pull. + +"That," she said, pulling the right, "is for listening to the little cat +over the way that squalls on the tiles! And _that_" (giving the other a +sound tug) "is for being a dandiprat when my gossip Katrin was here!" + +She paused a moment as if to summon courage, and then she stooped quickly +and kissed me on the neck. + +"And _that_ for Michael Texel!" she cried, and ran out of the room before +I could get clear of the wide arms of the chair, and so run after and +catch her. + +She turned in the doorway and wafted me a kiss from her finger-tips, +airily and a little mockingly. + +"That for Hugo Gottfried!" she said, and was off to her own chamber with +the _frou-frou_ of a light skirt, the slam of a door, and the shooting +of a bolt. + +And after all this, it was heart's pity that ever anything should have +come between us again, even for a moment. + +Though, indeed, it was but for a moment. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN + + +It was the forenoon of a Sunday, a dull, sleepy time in all countries, +and one difficult to get overpast. I was as usual busy with my +accoutrement, recently bought with the loan of Master Gerard. The Little +Playmate was just returned from the cathedral, and had indeed scarcely +laid her finery aside, when there came a loud knocking at the outer gate +of the Red Tower. Then one of the guard tramped stolidly from the wicket +to the door of our dwelling. + +"A lady waits you at the postern," said he, and so tramped his way +unceremoniously back to his post. + +I knew without any need of telling that it was the Lady Ysolinde. So I +rose, and hastily setting my fingers through my hair, went to the gate. +There, attended by the respectable servitor, was, as I had expected, the +Lady Ysolinde. + +"Good-morrow," she said very courteously to me, and I duly returned her +greeting with a low obeisance of respect and welcome. + +She wore a large garment, fashioned like a man's cloak, over her festal +attire--which, with a hood for the head, wholly enveloped her figure and +descended to her feet. + +"I have come, as I promised, to see the Little Playmate." These were her +first words as we paced together across the wide upper court under the +wondering eyes of the men of the Duke's body-guard. + +"Pray remember, Lady Ysolinde," said I, with much eagerness, "that I +have as yet said nothing of the matter to Helene, and that my father only +knows that I am to ride to Plassenburg in order to exercise myself in the +practice of arms, before becoming his assistant here in the Red Tower and +in the Hall of Judgment across the way." + +My visitor nodded a little impatiently. She who knew so many things, of a +surety might be trusted to understand so much without being told. + +In the inner doorway Helene met us. And never had it been my fortune to +see the meeting of two such women. The Little Playmate had in her hands +the broidered handkerchiefs, the long Flemish gloves, and the little +illuminated Book of the Hours which I had given her. She had been about +to lay them away together, as is the fashion of women. And when she met +the Lady Ysolinde I declare that she looked almost as tall. Helene was +perhaps an inch or two less in stature than her visitor, but what she +lacked in height she more than made up in the supple erectness of her +carriage and the vivid and extraordinary alertness of all her movements. + +"Lady Ysolinde," said I, as they met with the mutually level eyeshot of +women who measure one another, "this is Helene--whom, for love and +kindliness, we of the Wolfsberg call the 'Little Playmate.'" + +The daughter of Master Gerard impetuously threw back the gray monk's hood +which shrouded the masses of her tawny hair. She put out both hands to +Helene, held her a moment at arm's-length to look into her eyes, even as +she had done with me, but in a different way. Then, drawing her nearer, +she leaned forward and kissed her on the brow and on both cheeks. + +Now I am not ordinarily a close observer, and many things, specially +things that pertain to the acts of women, pass by me unnoticed. But I saw +in a moment that there was not, and never could be, more than the +semblance of cordial amity between these two women. + +I noted the Little Playmate instinctively quiver like a taken bird +when she was thus embraced. It was, I think, the undying antipathy of +Eve for Lilith, a hatred which is mostly on the side of Eve, the +Mother-Woman--its place being taken by sharper and more dangerous envy +in the breast of Lilith-without-the wall. + +There, face to face, stood the two women who were to make my life, ruling +it between them, as it were, striking it out between the impact of their +natures, as underneath the blows of two smiths upon the ringing anvil the +iron, hissing hot, becomes a sword or a ploughshare. + +It was impossible to avoid contrasting them. + +Helene, of a bodily beauty infinitely more full of temptation, bloomful +with radiant health, the blush of youth and conscious loveliness upon her +lips and looking out under the crisp entanglement of her hair, all simple +purity and straightness of soul in the fearless innocency of her eyes; +the Lady Ysolinde, deeper taught in the mysteries of existence, more +conscious of power, not so beautiful, but oftentimes giving the +impression of beauty more strongly than her fairer rival, compact of +swift delicate graces, half feline, half feminine (if these two be not +the same). All these passed like clouds over the unquiet sea of her +nature, reflecting the changing skies of circumstance, and were fitted to +produce a fascination ever on the verge of repulsion even when it was +strongest. Ysolinde was the more ready of speech, but her words were +touched constantly with dainty malice and clawed with subtlest spite. She +catspawed with men and things, often setting the hidden spur under the +velvet foot deeply into the very cheek which she seemed to caress. Such +as I read them then, and largely as even now I understand them, were the +two women who moulded between them my life's history. + +I suppose it is because I am of this Baltic North that I must need think +things round and round, and prose of reasons and explanations--even when +I write concerning beautiful maids--forever dreaming and dividing, +instead of going straight, sword in hand, for their hearts, as is the way +of the folk from the English land over-seas, or, more simply still, lying +about their favors, which, I hear, is mostly the Frenchman's way. + +But enough of intolerable theory. + +Instinctively the Lady Ysolinde spoke to our maid of the Red Tower in a +manner and tone very different from that which I had ever before heard +her employ, at once more equal and more guarded. + +"I was told by Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made at +my father's house on the day after his foolish boy's prank of the White +Swan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age, +like myself a maid solitary among men. So to-day I have come to solicit +her acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind to me, who have ever been in +this city and country as a stranger in a strange land." + +It was prettily enough said, and our Helene, easily touched, and perhaps +a little ashamed of her first stiffness, put out a hand which the other +quickly and securely clasped. Then those two sat down together. Ysolinde +von Sturm kept her eyes fixed on the Playmate, but our shy and slender +Helene looked steadily past her out over the tumbled red roofs and peaked +gables of the city of Thorn to the gray Wolfmark plains which lay spread +beneath our windows like a picture in a book. + +At intervals, as it came near the hour of their mid-day meal, the +blood-hounds howled in the kennels, and by their tone I knew that my +father had left the Hall of Judgment where he had been detained all the +morning. Also I knew very well that the Lady Ysolinde wished me to find +an errand elsewhere, in order that she might talk alone with her +companion. But I saw also the appeal in the eyes of the Playmate, and I +was resolved not to give her the chance. + +"Are you never weary in this dull tower?" asked the lawyer's daughter, +still holding the Playmate's hand. + +"It is not dull," replied Helene. "I have my work. There are two men as +shiftless and helpless as babes to attend to, and none to help me but +old Hanne." + +"Let men attend to themselves," cried Ysolinde; "that is ever my motto. +They ought to be our servants, not we theirs." + +It was said smilingly, yet there was bitterness under the words as well. + +"But," said Helene, smiling back at her with a fresh directness all her +own, "one of the men saved my life and brought me up as his own daughter, +and the other is--is Hugo, here." + +And as she spoke of my father and of me I saw the eyes of the Lady +Ysolinde fixed upon her, as it had been to read her inner soul. + +"And, by-the-way," she said, at last, after a long pause, "you have heard +how this same Master Hugo proposes to himself to escape from the +prison-house of this city, for a season to exercise himself in arms, and +so in roving adventure fulfil that which is not granted to a maid, his +'wandering years.' He goes (so my father tells me) to the Court of the +Prince of Plassenburg, with the promise of a company to command. And I am +glad, for I shall ride thither under his escort. Indeed, and in truth, my +home is far more there than here in Thorn. But I would fain have a +companion of my own sex. So I have come to beg of you, Mistress Helene, +that you will accompany me. The Princess, I know, has great need of a +maid of honor near her person, and will gladly welcome a friend of mine +for the post." + +The Little Playmate looked up astonished, as well she might, at this +direct assault, which was moreover spoken with a pretty shamefacedness +and the air of asking almost too great a favor. And, indeed, if there was +any patronage in the thing offered, it was at least carefully kept out of +the manner of asking. + +"Lady Ysolinde, I cannot accept your too overpowering favor," said +Helene, after a pause, "but your kindness in thinking at all of me will +always warm my heart." + +At this critical moment came my father in, looking more than grave and +severe, so that I judged at once that he had been talking to the Duke +Casimir and had found his post of chief adviser both thankless and +difficult. I knew it could be no matter of his office which worried him, +for that day he wore his holiday attire of white Friesland cloth, and the +broad bonnet in which I loved best to see him. There was no mark of his +calling about him anywhere, save a little Red Axe sewed upon his left +breast like a war veteran's decoration. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE + + +Gottfried Gottfried bowed to the guest of his house with the noble manner +which comes to every serious-minded man who deals habitually in the high +matters of life and death. I made his introductions to the Lady Ysolinde, +and as readily and gracefully he returned his acknowledgments. For the +rest I allowed Master Gerard's daughter to develop her own projects to +him, which, indeed, she was no long time in doing. + +As she proceeded I saw my father change color and become as to his face +almost as white as the Friesland cloth in which he was dressed. +Presently, however, as if struck with the sound of a well-known name, he +looked up quickly. + +"Plassenburg, said you, my lady?" he inquired. + +The Lady Ysolinde nodded. + +"Yes, to Plassenburg, where the Princess has great need of a maid +of honor." + +"Her Highness is often upon her travels, I hear it reported," said my +father, "while the Prince keeps himself much at home." + +"He esteems his armies more than all the marvels of strange countries," +replied Ysolinde, "and thus he holds the land and folk in great quiet." + +"And your father, Master Gerard, would have my son engage with this +Prince Karl for a space. Well, I think it may be good for the lad. For I +know well that the shadow of the Red Tower stalks after him through this +city of Thorn, and there is no need that he should lie down under it too +soon. But this of my little maid is a matter apart, and means a longer +and a sorer parting." + +"Fear not, my father," cried the Playmate, eagerly, "I would not leave +you alone, even to be the Princess of Plassenburg herself." + +My father took another strange look from one to the other of the two +women, the import of which I understood not then. + +"I know not," said he; "I think this thing also might be for the best. As +I see it, there are strange times coming upon us in Thorn. And the town +of Plassenburg under Karl the Prince is a defenced city, set in a strong +province, content and united. It might be wisest that you also should go, +little one." + +"I cannot go," said Helene, "and leave you alone." + +Gottfried Gottfried smiled a sad smile, wistfully pleasant. + +"Already I am wellnigh an old man, and it is the nature of my profession +that I should be alone. I work among the issues of life and death. Every +man must be lonely when he dies, and I, who have lived most with dying +men, am perforce already lonely while I live. It is well--a clearer air +for the young bird! But yet it will be lonesome to miss you when I come +in--the empty pot wanting the flower; the case without the jewel; silence +above and below; your voice and Hugo's, that have changed the sombre Red +Tower with your young folks' pleasantries, heard no more. Ah, God wot, I +had thought--I had dreamed far other things." + +He stopped and looked from one to the other of us, and I saw that +Ysolinde of the White Gate read his thought. Whereat right suddenly the +Little Playmate blushed, and as for me I kept watching the dull gold +flash on the spangles of our guest's waist-belt, which was in form like +a live serpent, with changeful scales and eyes of ruby red. + +My father went over to where Helene sat. She rose to meet him and cast +her arms about his neck. He laid his right hand on her head--that +terrible hand that was yet not dreadful to us-who loved him. + +"Little flower," he said, in his simple way, "God be good to you in the +transplanting! It is not fair to your young life that my red stain should +lie upon your lot. I have given you a quiet hermitage while you needed +it. But now it is right that my house should again be left unto me +desolate. It is already late summer with Gottfried Gottfried, and high +time that the young brood should fly away." + +He turned to me. + +"With you, Hugo, it is a thing different; you were born to that to which +you are born. And to that, as I read your horoscope, you must one day +return. But in the mean time care well for the maid. I lend her to you. I +give her into your hand. Cherish her as your chiefest treasure. Let her +enemies be yours, and if harm come to her through your neglect, slay +yourself ere you come again before me. For, by the Lord God of all +Righteous Judgment, I will have no mercy!" + +I saw the eyes of the Lady Ysolinde glitter like those of the snake in +her belt as thus my father delivered Helene over to me. + +But my father had yet more to say. + +"And if any," he went on, in a deep, still voice, keeping his hand upon +the downcast head of the Little Playmate--"if any, great or small, +prince or pauper, harm so much as a hair of this fair head, by the great +God who wields His Axe over the universe and sits in the highest Halls of +Judgment, whose servant I am--I, Gottfried Gottfried, swear that he shall +taste the vengeance of the Red Axe and drink to the dregs the cup of +agony in his own blood!" + +So saying, he kissed Helene and stalked out without turning his head or +making any further obeisance or farewell. + +We sat mazed and confounded after his departure. + +The Lady Ysolinde it was who first recovered herself. She put out a +kindly hand to Helene, who stood wet-eyed and drooping by the window, +looking out upon the roofs of Thorn, though well I wot she saw nothing of +spire, roof, or pinnacle. + +"God do so to me and more also," she said, in a low, solemn voice, "if I +too keep not this charge." + +And I think for the moment she meant it. The trouble was that the Lady +Ysolinde could not mean one thing for very long at a time. As, indeed, +shall afterwards appear. + +So it was arranged that within the week Helene and I should say our +farewells to the Red Tower which had sheltered us so long, as well as to +Gottfried Gottfried, who had ever been my kind father, and to the little +Helene more than any father. + +But in spite of all we wearied day by day to be gone. For, indeed, +Gottfried Gottfried said right. The shadow of the Red Tower, the stain of +the Red Axe, was over us both so long as we abode on the Wolfsberg. Yet +what it cost us to depart--at least till we were out of the gates of the +city--I cannot write down, for to both of us the first waygoing seemed +bitter as death. + +I remember it well. My father had been busy all the morning with his grim +work on the day when we were to ride away. A gang of malefactors who had +wasted a whole country-side with their cruelty had been brought in. And, +as it was suspected that other more important villains were yet to be +caught, there had been the repeated pain of the Extreme Question, and now +there remained but the falling of the Red Axe to settle all accounts. So +that when he came to bid us farewell he had but brief time to spare. And +of necessity he wore the fearful crimson, which fitted his tall, spare +figure like a glove. + +"Fare thee well, little one!" he said, first to Helene. "Not thus, had +the choice lain with me, would I have bidden thee farewell. But when it +shall be that I meet you again I will surely wear the white of the festa +day. I commit you to Him whose mistakes are better than our good deeds, +whose judgments are kinder than our tenderest mercies." + +So he kissed her, and reached a hand over her shoulder to me. + +"Son Hugo," he said, "go in peace. You must return to succeed me. I see +it like a picture--on the day when I lie dead you shall stand with the +Red Axe in your hand waiting to do judgment. It is well. Keep this maid +more sacred than your life--and, meantime, fare you well!" + +So saying he left us abruptly. + +Our horses were saddled in the court-yard, and as I rode last through the +rarely opened gateway, I saw Duke Casimir looking out from his window +upon the lower enclosure, as was his pleasure upon the days of execution. +I heard the dull thud, which was the meeting of the Red Axe and the +redder block as that which had been between fell apart. And for the last +time I heard the blood-hounds leap and the pattering of their eager feet +upon the barriers as they leaped up scenting the Duke's carrion. + +Thus the latest I heard of the place of my nativity was fitting and +dreadful. I was mortally glad to ride away into the clear air and the +invigorating silence. But on my heart there still lay heavy the +twice-repeated prediction of my father and of the Lady Ysolinde, that I +should yet return and hold the Red Axe in his place. + +But I resolved rather to die in the honest front of battle. +Nevertheless, had I known the future, I would have seen that they and not +I were right. + +I was indeed fated to return and stand ready to execute doom, with the +Red Axe in my hand and my father lying dead near by. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE PRIME OF THE MORNING + + +Now so strange a thing is woman that, so soon as we were started down the +High Street of the city of Thorn, the Little Playmate dried her eyes, +turned towards me in her saddle, and straightway began to take me to task +as though I had been to blame. + +"I have left," said she, "the only home I ever knew, and the only man +that ever truly loved me, to accompany a young man that cares not for +me, and a woman whom I have seen but once, to a far land and an +unkindly folk." + +"It is not fair," I said, "to say that I love you not. For, as God sees +me, I have ever loved you--loved you best and loved you only, little +Helenchen! And though you are angered with me now, I know not why--still +till now you have never doubted it." + +"I doubt it sorely enough now, I know," she said, bitterly; "yet, indeed, +I care not whether you or any love me at all." + +And this saying I was greatly sorry for. It seemed a sad wayfaring from +our old Red Tower and out of my native city of Thorn. + +"Helene, little one," said I, "believe me, I love none in the whole world +but my father and you. Trust me, for I am to keep you safe with my life +in the far land to which we go. Do not let us quarrel, littlest. There +are only the two of us here that remember the old man my father and the +little room to which you came as a babe, all in white." + +So presently she was somewhat pacified, and reached me a hand from the +back of her beast, on pretence of leaning over to avoid a swinging sign +in one of the narrow streets near by the White Gate, where we were to +meet the Lady Ysolinde. + +"And yet more, Little Playmate," said I, keeping her hand when I had it; +"do not begin by distrusting the noble lady with whom we are to travel. +For she means well to us both, and in the strange country to which we go +we may be wholly in her power." + +"You are sure that you do not love that woman, then?" said Helene, +without looking at me. For, indeed, in many things she was but a child, +and ever spoke more freely than other maids--perhaps with being brought +up in the Red Tower in the company of my father, who on all occasions +spoke his mind just as it came to him. + +"Nay," said I, "believe me, little love, I do not love her at all." + +And now on horseback Helene looked all charming, and what with the +exercise, the unknown adventure, and my reassurance, she had a glow of +rose color in her cheeks. She had never before been so far away from the +precincts of the Wolfsberg. I had even taught her to ride in the +court-yard of a summer evening, on a horse borrowed from one of the +Duke's squires. + +We found the Lady Ysolinde waiting for us at her house, Master Gerard +talking to her in the doorway, earnestly and apart. Both of them had a +look of much solemnity, as though the matter of their discourse were some +very weighty one. + +Presently her father kissed her and she came down the steps. I leaped +from my horse to help her to the saddle, but the respectable serving-man +was before me. So that instead I went about and looked to the buckles and +girths, which were all in order, and patted the arching neck of the +beautiful milk-white palfrey whereon she rode. Then Master Gerard waved a +hand and went within. + +And as we fared forth out of the Weiss Thor into the keener air of the +country, I thought what a charge I had--to squire two ladies so +surpassingly fair, each in her own several graces, as our Helene and the +Lady Ysolinde. + +No sooner, however, were we past the outer barriers, at which the +soldiers of the Duke Casimir kept guard, than a vast, ungainly wight +started up from the road-side. + +"Jan Lubber Fiend!" cried the Lady Ysolinde; "what do you here?" + +The oaf grinned his awful, writhed smile and wriggled his great body +after the manner of a puppy desirous of the milk-platter. + +"Think you, my lady," said he, cunningly, "that your poor Jan would abide +within the precincts of the city house with that funeral ape bidding me +do this and do that, sit here and sit there, come in and go out at his +pleasure? A thing of dough that I could twist into knots as easily as I +can crack my joints." + +And of this latter accomplishment he proceeded to give us certain +examples which sounded like cannon-shots delivered at close quarters. + +"Get home with you!" cried Ysolinde; "I cannot have thee following +us. There are two men presently to meet us, to guard us to +Plassenburg, and we do not need you, Jan Lubber Fiend. Get back and +take care of my father." + +"Oh, as for him," said the monster, sitting down squat upon the plain +road in the dust, "he is a tough old cock, and will come to no harm. We +can e'en leave him with a good cook, a prime cellar, and an easy mind. +But this young man is not to trust to with so many pretty maids. Jan will +come and look after him." + +And with that he nodded his hay-stack of a head three times at me, and +going to the hedge-root he laid hold of the top of a young poplar and +turned him about, keeping the stem of it over his shoulder. Then he set +himself to pull like a horse that starts a load, and presently, without +apparently distressing himself in the least, he walked away with the +young tree, roots and all. + +Having shaken off the earth roughly, he pulled out a sheath-knife and +trimmed the branches till he had made him a kind of club, with which he +threatened me, saying, "If I catch that young man at any tricks, with +this club will Jan Lubber Fiend break every bone in his skin, like the +shells of so many broken eggs." + +Then laughing a little, and seeing that nothing could be made of the +fellow, the Lady Ysolinde rode on and we followed her. We thought that +surely there would be no difficulty in shaking him off long ere we +reached our lodging-place of the evening, and that he would find his way +back to the city of Thorn. + +But even though we set our horses to their speed, it seemed to make no +difference to the unwieldy giant. He merely stretched his legs a little +farther, and caused his great gaskined feet to pass each other as fast as +if they had been shod with seven-league boots. So he not only kept up +with us easily, but oftentimes made a détour through the fields and over +the wild country on either side, as a questing dog does, ever returning +to us with some quaint vagrant fancy or quip of childish simplicity. + +But what pleased me better than the appearance of the Lubber Fiend was +that ere we had gone quite two miles out of the city we found two +well-armed and stanch-looking soldiers waiting for us at a kind of +cross-road. They were armed with the curious powder-guns which were +coming into fashion from France. These went off with a noble report, and +killed sometimes at as much as fifteen or twenty paces when the aim was +good. The fellows had swords also, and little polished shields on their +left arms--altogether worthy and notable body-guards. + +"These two are soldiers of the Guard from Plassenburg," said the Lady +Ysolinde, "though now they are travelling as members of a Free Company +desiring to enter upon new engagements. But they will make the way easier +and pleasanter for us, as well as infinitely safer, being veterans well +accustomed to the work of quartering and foraging." + +As indeed we were to find ere the day ended. + +So we rode on in the brilliant light, and the long, long day seemed all +too brief to us who were young, and scarce delivered from the +prison-house of Thorn. And to my shame I admit that my heart rose with +every mile that I put between me and the Red Tower. + +Indeed, I hardly had a thought to spend on my father. The hot quadrangle +of the Wolfsberg, ever smelling of horses and the swelter of shed blood, +the howling, fox-colored demons in the kennels, the black Duke Casimir +--right gladly I forgot them all. Aye, I forgot even my father, and +everything save that I was riding with two fair women through a world +where all was love and spring, and where it was ever the prime of a +young morning. + +The Lady Ysolinde could not make enough of our Little Playmate. She +laughed back at her over her shoulder when she let her horse out for a +canter. She marvelled loudly at Helene's good riding, and at the +unbound beauty of the crisp ringlets which clustered round her head +like a boy's. And our Helene smiled, well pleased, and ceased to watch +my eyes or to grow silent if I checked my horse too long by the side of +the Lady Ysolinde. + +Mostly we three rode abreast over the pleasant country. So long as we +were crossing the plain of the Wolfmark we saw few tilled fields, and +the farm-houses were fewer still. But wherever these were to be seen +they were fortified and defended like castles, and had gates, great and +high, with iron plates upon them and knobs like the points of spears +beaten blunt. + +The Lady Ysolinde, who had often ridden that way, told us that these were +all in the Duke Casimir's country, and were mostly possessed by the kin +of his chief captains--feudal tenants, who for the right of possession +were compelled to furnish so many riders to the Duke's Companies. + +"But wait," she said, "till you come to the dominions of the Prince of +Plassenburg. You will find that he is indeed a ruler that can make the +broom-bush keep the cow." + +So we rode on, and passed pleasant and exciting things, more than I had +ever seen in all my life before. + +Once we saw half a dozen men driving cattle across our path, and it was +curious to mark how readily they drew their swords and couched their +lances at us, turning themselves about this way and that like a quintain +till we were quite gone by, which made us laugh. For it seemed a strange +thing that men so well armed should fear a company of no more than their +own numbers, and two of them maids upon palfreys. + +But Ysolinde said: "It is not, after all, so strange, for over yonder +blue hills dwells Joan of the Swordhand, who can lead a foray as well as +any man, and once worsted Duke Casimir himself when he beset her castle." + +So the day went past swiftly, with good company and the converse of folk +well liking one another. And ever I wondered how we were to spend the +night, and what sort of cheer we should find at our inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +WENDISH WIT + + +The gray plain of the Wolfmark, which we had been traversing ever since +we descended out of the steep Weiss Thor of the city of Thorn, had now +begun to break into ridges and mounded hills of stiff red clay. And I, +who had often kept my watch on the highest pinnacle of the Red Tower, +looked with astonishment back upon the city I had left behind. Seen from +the plain, Thorn had an aspect almost imperial. + +It rose above the colorless flat of gray suddenly, unexpectedly, almost +insolently. The city, with its numberless gables, spires of churches, +turreted gate-houses, occupied a ridge of gradually swelling ground which +rose like a huge whale-back from the misty plain. Its walls were grim, +high, and far-stretching. But as we travelled farther into the Wolfmark +the city seemed to sink deeper into the plain and the dark castle of Duke +Casimir to shoot ever higher into the skies. So that presently, as we +looked back, we could only see the Wolfsberg itself, the abode of cruelty +and wrong, standing black against the white sky of noon. + +Its flanking towers stood up above the battlemented wall, their turrets +climbing higher and higher towards heaven, till the topmost Red +Tower--that in which my father's garrot was, and in which I had spent my +entire life until this day--soared straight upward above them all, like a +threatening index-finger pointing, not into the clear sky of a summer's +noon, but into clouds and thick darkness. + +I was glad when at last we lost sight of it. Then, indeed, I felt that I +had left my old life behind me. And, in spite of the Lady Ysolinde's +ink-pool prophecy and my love for my father (such as it was), I did not +mean ever to trust myself within that baleful circle of gray and weary +plain upon which the Red Tower looked down. + +Seeing that the maids were inclined to talk the one with the other, or +rather that the Lady Ysolinde spoke confidentially with Helene, and that +Helene now answered her without embarrassment and with frank, equal +glances, I dropped gradually behind and rode with the two stout +men-at-arms. These I found to be honest lads enough, but of a strangely +reserved and taciturn nature, each ever waiting for the other to +answer--being, like most Wendish men, much averse to questioning and +still more stiff as to replying. + +"You are men of Plassenburg?" I said to the nearest, simply and +innocently enough, for the purpose of improving the cordiality of our +relations. + +Whereupon he turned his head slowly about to his neighbor, as it were to +consult him. The glance said as clearly as monk's script: "What shall we +answer to this troublesome, inquisitive fellow?" + +At first I thought that perhaps they spoke not the common dialect, and +that as we were travelling towards regions roughly Wendish and but lately +heathen, they might have some uncouth speech of their own. So, as is ever +the custom with folk that are not accustomed to the speaking of foreign +tongues, I repeated the question in mine own language in a louder tone, +supposing that that would do as well. + +"You are men of the country of Plassenburg?" cried I, as loud as I +could bawl. + +"We are not deaf--we have all our faculties, praise the saints!" said the +more distant of the two, looking not at me but at his companion. He, on +his part, nodded back at his comrade's reply, as if it had been +delicately calculated at once to answer my question and at the same time +not to commit them to any dangerous opinions. + +I tried again. + +"Your prince, I hear, is a true man, brave, and well-versed in war?" + +The shorter and stouter man, who rode beside me, glanced once at my face, +and slowly screwed round his head to his companion in a long, questioning +gaze. Then as slowly he turned his head back again. + +"Umph!" he said, judicially, with a movement of his head, which seemed a +successful compromise between a nod and a shake, just as his remark +might very well have resulted from an attempt to say "Yes" and "No" at +the same time. + +This was not encouraging to one who, like myself, was in high spirits and +much inclined for conversation. But I was not to be so easily beaten off. + +"The Prince of Plassenburg has a Princess," I said, "who is often upon +her travels?" + +It was an innocent remark, and, so far as I could see, not one in itself +highly humorous. But it broke up the gravity of these red-haired northern +bears as if it had been the latest gay sally of the court-fool. + +"Ha! ha!" laughed the more distant, lanky man, rocking himself in his +saddle till the pennon on his lance shook and the point dipped towards +his horse's ear. + +"Ho! ho!" chorused his companion, slapping his thigh jovially. "Jorian, +did you hear that? 'The Prince of Plassenburg hath a Princess, and she is +often upon her travels.' Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho!" + +"He hath said it! Ho! ho! He hath said it! He is a wise fellow, after +all, this beardless Jack-pudding of Thorn!" cried the other, tee-heeing +with laughter till he nearly wept upon his own saddle-bow. + +I began to get very angry. For we men of Thorn were not accustomed to be +so flouted by any strangers, keeping mostly our own customs, and reining +in the few strangers who ventured to visit Duke Casimir's dominions +pretty tightly. Least of all could I brook insolence from these Wendish +boors from the outskirts of half-pagan Borrussia. + +"The Prince of Plassenburg hath churls among his retinue," said I, hotly, +"if they be all like you two Jacks, that cannot answer a simple question +without singing out like donkeys upon a common where there are no +thistles to keep them quiet." + +Sir Thicksides, the fat jolter-head nearest me set his thumb out to +stick it into the side armor of Longlegs, his companion, who rode cheek +by jowl with him. + +"Oo-oo-ahoo!" cried he, crowing with mirth, as if I had said a yet more +facetious thing. "'Tis a simple question--'Hath the Prince of Plassenburg +a Princess, and is she not oft--ahoo!' Boris, prod me with thy +lance-shaft hard, to keep me from doing myself an ill turn with this +fellow's innocence." + +"Hold up, Jorian !" answered the long man, promptly pounding him on the +back with the butt of his spear. "Hold up, fat Jorian! Let not thy love +of mirth do thee any injury. For thou art a good comrade, and fools were +ever apt to divert thee too much. I have seen thee at this before--that +time we went to Wilna, and the fellow in motley gave thee griping spasms +with his tomfoolery." + +Then was I mainly angry, as indeed I had sufficient occasion. + +"You are but churls," I said, "and the next thing to knaves. And I will +e'en inform the Prince when we arrive what like are the men whom he sets +to escort ladies to his castle." + +But though they were silenter after this, it was not from any alarm at my +words, but simply because they had laughed themselves out of ply. For as +I rode on in high dudgeon, half-way between the women and the +men-at-arms, I could see them with the corner of an eye still nudging +each other with their thumbs and throwing back their heads, and the +breeze blew me scraps of their limited conversation. + +"Ho! ho! Good, was it not? 'The Prince hath a Princess, and she--' Ho! +ho! Good!" + +The ridges of clay of which I have already spoken continued and increased +in size as we went on. It was a dried-up, speckled, unwholesome-looking +land. And people upon it there were none that we could see. The large +fortified farms had ceased altogether. A certain frightful monotony +reigned everywhere. Ravines, like cracks which the sun makes in mud, but +a thousand times greater, began to split the hills perpendicularly to +their very roots. The path wound perilously this way and that among them. +And presently Jorian and Boris rode past me to take the lead, for +Ysolinde and Helene were inclined to mistake the way as often as they +came to the crossing and interweaving of the intricate paths. + +And as these two jolly jackasses rode past at my right side I could see +the thumb of long Boris curving towards the ribs of his companion, and +the shoulders of both shaking as they chuckled. + +"A rare simpleton's question, i' faith, yes. Ho! ho! Good!" they +chorussed. "'The Prince hath a Princess'--the cock hath a hen, and she-- +Ha! ha! Good!" + +At that moment I could with pleasure have slain Jorian and Boris for +open-mouthed, unshaven, slab-sided Wendish pigs, as indeed they were. + +Yet, had I done so, we had fared but ill without them. For had they been +a thousand times jackasses and rotten pudding-heads (as they were), at +least they knew the way and something of the unchristian people among +whom we were going. + +And so in a little while, as we wound our way along the face of these +perilons rifts in the baked clay, with the mottled, inefficient river +feeling its way gingerly at the bottom of the buff--colored ravine, what +was my astonishment to see Jorian and Boris turn sharply at right angles +and ride single file up one of the dry lateral cracks which opened, as it +were, directly into the hill-side! + +They did this without ever looking at the landmarks, like men who are +anyways uncertain of their road. But, on the contrary, they wheeled +confidently and rode jauntily on, and we three meekly followed, having +by this time lost the Lubber Fiend, the devil doubtless knew where. +For we must have followed Boris and Jorian unquestioningly had they +led us into the bowels of the earth, as indeed, at first sight, they +seemed to be doing. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND + + +Then presently we came to a strange place, the like of which I have never +seen, save here on the borders of the Mark and the northern Wendish +lands. An amalgam of lime, or binding stuff of some sort, had glued the +clay of the ravines together, and set it stiff and fast like dried +plaster. So, as we went up the narrow, perilous path, our horses had to +tread very warily lest, going too near the edge, they should chip off +enough of the foothold to send themselves and their riders whirling +neck-over-toes to the bottom. + +All at once the Little Playmate, who was riding immediately before me, +screamed out sharp and shrill, and I hastened up to her, thinking she had +fallen upon a misfortune. I found her palfrey with ears pricked and +distended nostril, gazing at a head in a red nightcap which was set out +of a hole in the red clay. + +"The country of gnomes! Of a surety, yes! And hitherto I had thought it +had been but the nonsense of folk-tales!" said I to myself. + +Which is what we shall say one day of more things than +red-nightcapped heads. + +But the Little Playmate uttered scream after scream, for the head +continued coolly to stare at her, as if fixed alive over the gateway by +the craft of some cave-dwelling imp of the Red Axe. + +I noticed, however, that the head chewed a straw and spat, which I +deemed a gnome would not do--though wherefore straws and spitting are +not free to gnomes I do not know and could not have told. Yet, at all +events, such was my belief. And a serviceable one enough it was, since +it took the fear out of me and gave me back my speech. And when a man +can speak he can fight. Contrariwise, it is when a woman will not fight +that she can talk best, as one may see in any congress of two angry +vixens. So long as they rail there is but threatening and safe +recriminations, but when one waxes silent, then 'ware nails and teeth! +And I am _not_ in my dotage to use such illustrations--as not +unnaturally sayeth the first to read my history. + +"Good man," cried I, to Sir Red Cap in the wall, "I know not why you +stick your ugly head out of the mud, but retract it, I pray you! For do +you not see that it alarms the lady and affrights her beast?" + +The man nodded intelligently, but went on coolly chewing his straw. + +Then I went up to him, and, as civilly as I could, took him by the chin +and thrust his head back into the hole. And as I did so I saw for the +first time that the wall of the clay cliff, tough and gritty with its +alloy of lime, had been cut and hewn into houses and huts having doors of +wood of exactly the same color, and in some cases even windows with +bars--very marvellous to see, and such as I have never witnessed +elsewhere. Presently, at the trampling of the feet of so many horses, +people began to throng to their doors, and children peered out at windows +and cried to each other shrilly: "See the Christians!" + +For so, being but lately pagans themselves, if not partly so to this +day, these outlandish men of the border No Man's Land denominated us of +the south. + +Presently we came to an open space sloping away from the sheer cliff, +where was a wall and a door greater than the others. + +Jorian rode directly up to the gate, which was of the same dull +brick-red as the rest of the curious town. He took the butt of his lance +and thumped and banged lustily upon it. For a time there was no reply, +but the number of heads thrust out at neighboring windows and the swarms +of townsfolk on the pathways before and behind us enormously increased. + +Jorian thundered again, kicking with his foot and swearing explosively in +mingled Wendish and German. Then he took the point of his spear, and, +setting it to a hole in the wall above his head, he hooked out an entire +wooden window-frame, as one is taught to pull out a shrimp with a pin on +the shore of the Baltic Sea. + +Whereupon a sudden outcry arose within the house, and a head popped +angrily out of the aperture so suddenly created. But as instantly it +returned within. For Jorian tossed the lattice to the ground by the door +and thrust his spear-head into the cravat of red which the man had about +his throat, shouting to him all the while in the name of the Prince, of +the Duke, of the Emperor, of the Archbishop, of all potentates, lay and +secular, to come down and open the gates. The man in the red cravat was +threatened with the strappado, with the water-torture, with the +brodequins, and finally with the devil's cannon--which, according to our +man-at-arms, was to be planted on the opposite bank of the ravine, and +which would infallibly bring the whole of their wretched town tumbling +down into the gulf like swallows' nests from under the eaves. + +And this last threat seemed to have more weight than all the rest, +probably because the Prince of Plassenburg had already done something of +the kind to some other similar town, and the earth-burrowers of Erdborg +had good reason to fear the thunder of his artillery. + +At all events, the great door opened, and a man of the same brick-red as +all the other inhabitants of the town appeared at the portal. He bowed +profoundly, and Jorian addressed him in some outlandishly compounded +speech, of which I could only understand certain oft-recurring words, as +"lodging," "victualling," and "order of the Prince." + +So, presently, after a long, and on the side of our escort a stormy, +conference, we were permitted to enter. Our horses were secured at the +great mangers, which extended all along one side; while, opposite to the +horses, but similar to their accommodation in every respect, were stalls +wherein various families seemed to be encamped for the night. + +With all the air of a special favor conferred, we were informed that we +must take up our quarters in the middle of the room and make the best of +the hardened floor there. This information, conveyed with a polite wave +of the hand and a shrug of the shoulders by our landlord, seemed not +unnaturally to put Jorian and Boris into a furious passion, for they drew +their swords, and with a unanimous sweep of the hand cleared the capes of +their leathern jacks for fighting. So, not to be outdone, I drew my +weapon also, and stood by to protect Helene and the Lady Ysolinde. + +These two stood close together behind us, but continued to talk +indifferently, chiefly of dress and jewels--which surprised me, both in +the strange circumstances, and because I knew that Helene had seen no +more of them than the valueless trinkets that had belonged to my mother, +and which abode in a green-lined box in the Red Tower. Yet to speak of +such things seems to come naturally to all women. + +As if they had mutually arranged it "from all eternity," as the clerks +say, Jorian and Boris took, without hesitation, each a door on the +opposite wall, and, setting their shoulders to them, they pushed them +open, and went within sword in hand, leaving me alone to protect the +ladies and to provide for the safety of the horses. + +Presently out from the doors by which our conductors had entered there +came tumbling a crowd of men and women, some carrying straw bolsters and +wisps of hay, others bearing cooking utensils, and all in various +_dishabille._ Then ensued a great buzzing and stirring, much angry +growling on the part of the disturbed men, and shrill calling of women +for their errant children. + +Our little Helene looked sufficiently pitiful and disturbed as these +preparations were being made. But the Lady Ysolinde scarcely noticed +them, taking apparently all the riot and delay as so much testimony to +the important quality of such great ones of the earth as could afford to +travel under the escort of two valiant men-at-arms. + +Presently came Jorian and Boris out at a third door, having met somewhere +in the back parts of the warren. + +They came up to the Lady Ysolinde and bowed humbly. + +"Will your ladyship deign to choose her chamber? They are all empty. +Thereafter we shall see that proper furniture, such as the place affords, +is provided for your Highness." + +I could not but wonder at so much dignity expended upon the daughter of +Master Gerard, the lawyer of Thorn. But Ysolinde took their reverence as +a matter of course. She did not even speak, but only lifted her right +hand with a little casual flirt of the fingers, which said, "Lead on!" + +Then Jorian marshalled us within, Boris standing at the door to let us +pass, and bringing his sword-blade with a little click of salute to the +perpendicular as each of us passed. But I chanced to meet his eye as I +went within, whereat the rogue deliberately winked, and I could plainly +see his shoulders heave. I knew that he was still chewing the cud of his +stale and ancient jest: "The Prince hath a Princess, and she--" + +I could have disembowelled the villain. But, after all, he was +certainly doing us some service, though in a most provocative and +high-handed manner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +I STAND SENTRY + + +There are (say some) but two things worth the trouble of making in the +world--war and love. So once upon a time I believed. But since--being +laid up during the unkindly monotony of our Baltic spring by an ancient +wound--I fell to the writing of this history, I would add to these two +worthy adventures--the making of books. Which, till I tried my hand at +the task myself, I would in no wise have allowed. But now, when the days +are easterly of wind and the lashing water beats on the leaded lozenges +of our window lattice, I am fain to stretch myself, take up a new pen, +and be at it again all day. + +But I must e'en think of them that are to read me, and of their pain if I +overstretch my privilege. Besides, if I prove over-long in the wind they +may not read me at all, which, I own it, would somewhat mar my purpose. + +I was speaking, therefore, of being in the watch and ward of two women, +each of whom (in my self-conceit I thus imagined it) certainly regarded +me without dislike. God forgive me for thinking so much when they had +never plainly told me! Nevertheless I took the thing for granted, as it +were. And, as I said before, it has been my experience that, if it be +done with a careful and delicate hand, more is gained with women by +taking things for granted than by the smoothest tongue and longest +Jacob-and-Rachael service. The man who succeeds with good women is the +man who takes things for granted. Only he must know exactly what things, +otherwise I am mortally sorry for him--he will have a rough road to +travel. But to my tale. + +Jorian ushered Ysolinde and Helene into the rooms from which he had so +unceremoniously ousted the former tenants. How these chambers were +lighted in the daytime I could not at first make out, but by going to the +end of the long earth-hewn passage and leaning out of a window the +mystery was made plain. The ravine took an abrupt turn at this point, so +that we were in a house built round an angle, and so had the benefit of +light from both sides. + +"And where are our rooms to be?" I asked of the stout soldier when +he returned. + +Jorian pointed to the plain, hard earth of the passage. + +"That is poor lodging for tired bones!" I said; "have they no other rooms +to let anywhere in this hostelry?" + +He laughed again; indeed, he seemed to be able to do little else whenever +he spoke to me. + +"Tired bones will lie the stiller!" said he, at last, sententiously. +"There is some wheaten straw out there which you can bring in for a +bolster, if you will. But I think it likely that we shall get no more +sleep than the mouse in the cat's dining-room this night. These border +rascals are apt to be restless in the dark hours, and their knives prick +most consumedly sharp!" + +With that he went out, leaving the doors into the passages all open, and +presently I could hear him raging and rummaging athwart the house, +ordering this one to find him "Graubunden fleisch," the next to get him +some good bread, and not to attempt to palm off "cow-cake" upon honest +soldiers on pain of getting his stomach cut open--together with other +amenities which occur easily to a seasoned man-at-arms foraging in an +unfriendly country. + +Then, having returned successful from this quest, what was my admiration +to see Jorian (whom I had so lately called, and I began to be sorry for +it, a Wendish pig) strip his fine soldier's coat and hang it upon a peg +by the door, roll up his sleeves, and set to at the cooking in the great +open fireplace with swinging black crooks against the front wall, while +Boris stood on guard with a long pistolet ready in the hollow of his arm, +and his slow-match alight, by the doorway of the ladies' apartment. + +I went and stood by the long man for company. And after a little he +became much more friendly. + +"Why do you stand with your match alight?" I asked of him after we had +been a while silent. + +"Why, to keep a border knife out of Jorian's back, of course, while he is +turning the fry in the pan," said he, as simply as if he had said that +'twas a fine night without, or that the moon was full. + +"I wish I could help," I sighed, a little wistfully, for I wished him to +think well of me. + +"What!" he exclaimed--"with the frying-pan? Well, there is the basting +ladle!" he retorted, and laughed in his old manner. + +I own that, being yet little more than a lad, the tears stood in my eyes +to be so flouted and made nothing of. + +"I will show you perhaps sooner than you think that I am neither a coward +nor a babe!" I said, in high dudgeon. + +And so went and stood by myself over against the farther door of the +three, which led from the outer hall to the apartments in which I could +hear the murmur of women's voices. And it was lucky that I did so. For +even as I reached the door a sharp cry of terror came from within, and +there at the inner portal I caught sight of a narrow, foxy, peering +visage, and a lean, writhing figure, prone like a worm on its belly. The +rascal had been crawling towards Helene's room, for what purpose I know +not. Nor did I stop to inquire, for, being stung by the taunt of the +man-at-arms, I was on Foxface in a moment, stamping upon him with my +iron-shod feet, and then lifting him unceremoniously up by the slackness +of his back covertures, I turned him over and over like a wheel, tumbling +him out of the doorway into the outer hall with an astonishing clatter, +shedding knives and daggers as he went. + +It was certainly a pity for the fellow that Boris had taunted me so +lately. But the abusing of him gave me great comfort. And as he whirled +past the group at the fire, Jorian caught him handily in the round of his +back with a convenient spit, also without asking any questions, whereat +the fellow went out at the wide front door by which we had first entered, +revolving in a cloud of dust. And where he went after that I have no +idea. To the devil, for all I care! + +But Boris, standing quietly by his own door, was evidently somewhat +impressed by my good luck. For soon after this he came over to me. I +thought he might be about to apologize for his rudeness. And so perhaps +he did, but it was in his own way. + +"Did you spoil your dagger on him?" he said, anxiously, for the first +time speaking to me as a man speaks to his equal. + +"No," said I, "but I stubbed my toe most confoundedly, jarring it upon +the rascal's backbone as he went through the door." + +"Ah!" he replied, thoughtfully, nodding his head, "that was more fitting +for such as he. But you may get a chance at him with the dagger yet or +the night be over." + +And with that he went back to his door, blowing up his slow-match +as he went. + +Presently the supper was pronounced cooked, and, after washing his hands, +Jorian resumed his coat, amid the universal attention of the motley crew +in the great hall, and began to dish up the fragrant stew. Ho had been +collecting for it all day upon the march, now knocking over a rabbit with +a bolt from his gun, now picking some leaves of lettuce and watercress +when he chanced upon a running stream or a neglected garden--of which +last (thanks to Duke Casimir and his raiders) there were numbers along +the route we had traversed. + +Then, when he had made all ready, our sturdy cook dished the stew into a +great wooden platter--rabbits, partridges, scraps of dried flesh, bits of +bacon for flavoring, fresh eggs, vegetables in handfuls, all covered with +a dainty-smelling sauce, deftly compounded of milk, gravy, and red wine. + +Then Jorian and Boris, one taking the heap of wooden platters and the +other the smoking bowl of stew, marched solemnly within. But before he +went, Boris handed me his pistolet without a word, and the slow-match +with it. Which, as I admit, made me feel monstrously unsafe. However, I +took the engine across my arm and stood at attention as I had seen him +do, with the match thrust through my waistband. + +Then I felt as if I had suddenly grown at least a foot taller, and my joy +was changed to ecstasy when the Lady Ysolinde, coming out quickly, I knew +not at first for what purpose, found me thus standing sentinel and +blowing importantly upon my slow-match. + +"Hugo," she said, kindly, looking at me with the aqua-marine eyes that +had the opal glints in them, "come thy ways in and sit with us." + +I made her a salute with my piece and thanked her for her good thought. + +"But," said I, "Lady Ysolinde, pray remember that this is a place of +danger, and that it is more fitting that we who have the honor to be your +guards should dine together without your chamber doors." + +"Nay," she said, impetuously, "I insist. It is not right that you, who +are to be an officer, should mess with the common soldiers." + +"My lady," said I, "I thank you deeply. And it shall be so, I promise +you, when we are in safety. But let me have my way here and now." + +She smiled upon me--liking me, as I think, none the worse for my +stiffness. And so went away, and I was right glad to see her go. For I +would not have lost what I had gained in the good opinion of these two +men-at-arms--no, not for twenty maidens' favors. + +But in that respect also I changed as the years went on. For of all +things a boy loves not to be flouted and babyfied when he thinks himself +already grown up and the equal of his elders in love and war. + +So in a little while came out Jorian and Boris, and, having carried in +the bread and wine, we three sat down to the remains of the stew. +Indeed, I saw but little difference as to quantity from the time that +Jorian had taken it in. For maids' appetites when they are anyways in +love are precarious, but, after they are assured of their love's return, +then the back hunger comes upon them and the larder is made to pay for +all arrears. + +Not that I mean to assert that either of these ladies was in love +with me--far otherwise indeed. For this it would argue the conceit +of a jack-a-dandy to imagine, much more to write such a thing. +But, nevertheless, certain is it that this night they were both of +small appetite. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HELENE HATES ME + + +However, when the provision came to the outer port, we three sat down +about it, and then, by my troth, there was little to marvel at in the +tardiness of our eating. For the rabbits seemed to come alive and +positively leaped down our throats, the partridges almost flew at us out +of the pot, the pigeons fairly rejoiced to be eaten. The broth and the +gravy ebbed lower and lower in the pan and left all dry. But as soon as +we had picked the bones roughly, for there was no time for fine work lest +the others should get all the best, we threw the bones out to the hungry +crew that watched us sitting round the stalls, their very jowls pendulous +with envy. + +So after a while we came to the end, and then I went to the entrance of +the chamber where were bestowed the Little Playmate and the Lady +Ysolinde. For I began to be anxious how Helene would be able to comport +herself in the company of one so dainty and full of devices and +convenances as the lady of the Weiss Thor. + +But, by my faith, I need not have troubled about our little lass. For if +there were any embarrassed, that one was certainly not Helene. And if any +of us lacked reposefulness of manners, that one was certainly a staring +jackanapes, who did not know which foot to stand upon, nor yet how to sit +down on the oaken settle when a seat was offered him, nor, last of all, +when nor how to take his departure when he had once sat down. And as to +the identity of that jackass, there needs no further particularity. + +Nevertheless, I talked pleasantly enough with both of them, and I might +have been an acquaintance of the day for all the notice that the Little +Playmate took of me, oven when the Lady Ysolinde told her, evidently not +for the first time, of my standing sentry by the door and blowing upon +the match at my girdle. + +From without we heard presently the clapping of hands and loud deray of +merrymaking, so I went to find out what it might be that was causing such +an uproar. + +There I found Jorian and Boris giving a kind of exhibition of their skill +in military exercises. It might be, also, that they desired to teach a +lesson for the benefit of the wild robber border folk and the yet more +ruffianly kempers who foregathered in this strange inn of Erdberg on the +borders of the Mark. + +I summoned the maids that they might look on. For I wot the scene was a +curious and pleasing one, and I could see that the eyes of the Lady +Ysolinde glittered. But our little maid, being used to all these things +from her youth, cared nothing for it, though the thing was indeed +marvellous in itself. + +When I went out our two men-at-arms had each of them in hand his straight +Wendish Tolleknife, made heavy at the end of the Swedish blade, but light +as to the handle, and hafted with cork from Spain. + +Ten yards apart, shoulder to shoulder they stood, and, first of all, each +of them poising the knife in the hollow of his hand with a peculiar +dancing movement, set it writhing across the room at a marked circle on a +board. The two knives sped simultaneously with a vicious whir, and stood +quivering, with their blades touching each other, in the centre of the +white. At the next trial, so exactly had they been aimed that the point +of the one hit upon the haft of the other and stripped the cork almost +to the blade. But Jorian, to whom the knife belonged, mended it with a +piece of string, telling the company philosophically that it was no bad +thing to have a string hanging loose to a Tolleknife, for when it went +into any one the string would always hang down from the wound in order to +pull it out by. + +Then they got their knives again and played a more dangerous game. Jorian +stood on guard with his knife, waving the blade slowly before him in the +shape of a long-bodied letter S. Boris poised his weapon in the hollow of +his hand, and sent it whirring straight at Jorian's heart. As it came +buzzing like an angry bee, almost too quick for the eye to follow, Jorian +flicked it deftly up into the air at exactly the right moment, and, +without even taking his eye off it, he caught the knife by the handle as +it fell. Thereafter he bowed and gave it back to the thrower +ceremoniously. Then Boris guarded, and Jorian in his turn threw, with a +like result, though, perhaps, a little less featly done on Boris's part. + +All the while there was a clamant and manifold astonishment in the +kitchen of the inn, together with prodigal and much-whispering wonder. + +Then ensued other plays. Boris stood with his elbow crooked and his left +hand on his hip, with his back also turned to Jorian. _Buzz!_ went the +knife! It flashed like level lightning under the arch of Jorian's armpit, +and lo! it was caught in his right hand, which dropped upon it like a +hawk upon a rabbit, as it sped through his elbow port. + +Then came shooting with the cross-bow, and I regretted much that I had +only learned the six-foot yew, and that there was not one in the company, +nor indeed room to display it if there had been. For I longed to do +something to show that I also was no milksop. + +Now it chanced that there was in one corner a yearling calf that had +been killed that day, and hung up with a bar between its thighs. I saw an +axe leaning in the corner--an axe with a broad, cutting edge--and I +bethought me that perhaps, after all, I knew something which even Jorian +and Boris were ignorant of. So, mindful of my father's teaching, I took +the axe, and, before any one was aware of my intent, I swept the +long-handled axe round my head, and, getting the poise and distance for +the slow drawing cut which does not stop for bone nor muscle, I divided +the neck through at one blow so that the head dropped on the ground. + +Then there was much applause and wonder. Men ran to lift the calf's head, +and the owner of the axe came up to examine the edge of his weapon. I +looked about. The eyes of the Lady Ysolinde were aflame with pleasure, +but, on the other hand, the Little Playmate was crimson with shame. Tears +stood in her beautiful eyes. + +She marched straight up to meet me, and, clinching her hands, she said; +"Oh, I hate you !" + +And so went within to her chamber, and I saw her no more that night. Now +I take all to witness what strange things are the mind and temper of even +the best of women. And why Helene thus spoke to me I know not--nay, even +to this day I can hazard no right guess. But as I have often said, God +never made anything straight that He made beautiful, except only the line +where the sea meets the sky. + +And of all the pretty, crooked, tangled things that He has made, women +are the prettiest, the crookedest--and the most distractingly tangled. + +Which is perhaps why they are so everlastingly interesting, and why we +blundering, ram-stam, homely favored men love them so. + +But the best entertainment must at long and last come to an end. And the +one in the inn of Erdberg lasted not so long as the telling of it--for +the matter, being more comfortable than that which came after, I have, +perhaps, not hurried so much as I might. + +When at last both supper and entertainment were finished, and the +earthenware platters huddled away into the hall without, there arose a +mighty clamor, so that Jorian went to the door and cried out to the +landlord to know what was the matter. The old brick-dusty knave came +hulking forward, and, with greatly increased respect, he addressed the +men-at-arms. + +"What is your will, noble sirs?" + +"I asked," said Jorian, "what was the reason of this so ill-favored +noise. If your guests cannot be quiet, I will come among them with +something that will settle the quarrels of certain of them in +perpetuity." + +So with sulky recurrent murmurs the fray finally settled itself, and for +that time at least there was no more trouble. I went to the door of the +Lady Ysolinde and the Little Playmate and cried in to them a courteous +good-night. For I had been sorry to have Helene's "I hate you!" for her +last word. And the Lady Ysolinde came to the door in a light robe of silk +and gave me her hand to kiss. But though I said: "A sweet sleep and a +pleasant, Helene!" no voice replied. Which I took very ill, seeing that I +had done naught amiss that I knew of. + +Then Jorian, Boris, and I made us comfortable for the night, and, being +instructed by Boris, I set my straw, with the foot of my bundle to the +door, which opened inward upon us. Then, putting my sword by my side and +my other weapons convenient to my hand, I laid me down and braced my feet +firmly against the door, thus locking it safely. + +Jorian and Boris did the same at the other entrances, and before the +former went to sleep he arranged a tall candle that had been placed +unlighted before a little shrine of the Virgin (for, in name at least, +the folk were not wholly pagan) and lighted it, so that it shed a faint +illumination down the long passage in which we were bestowed, and on the +inner door of the ladies' apartment. + +And though I was far from being in love, yet the thought of the wandering +damsels, both so fair and so far from home, moved me deeply. And I was in +act to waft a kiss towards the door when Jorian caught me. + +"What now?" he said; "art at thy prayers, lad ?" + +"Aye, that am I," said I, "towards the shrine of the Saints' Rest." + +Now this was irreverent, and mayhap afterwards we were all soundly +punished for it. But at least it was on the level of their soldiers' +wit--though I own, at the most, no great matter to cackle of. + +"Ho! ho! Good!" chuckled Boris, under his breath. "One of them is +doubtless a saint. But as to the other--well, let us ask the Prince. 'He +hath a Princess, and she is oft upon her travels?' Ho! ho! ho!" + +And the lout shook among his straw to such an extent that I bade him for +God's dear sake to bide still, otherwise we might as lief lie in a barn +among questing rattons. + +"And the saints of your Saints' Rest defend us from lying among any +worse!" said he, and betook him to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +HUGO OF THE BROADAXE + + +But as for me, sleep I could not. And indeed that is small wonder. For it +was the first night I had ever slept out of the Red Tower in my life. I +seemed to lack some necessary accompaniment to the act of going to sleep. + +It was a long while before I could find out what it could be that was +disturbing me. At last I discovered that it was the howling of the +kennelled blood-hounds which I missed. For at night they even raged, and +leaped on the barriers with their forefeet, hearing mayhap the moving to +and fro of men come sleeplessly up from the streets of the city beneath. + +But here, within a long day's march of Thorn, I had come at once into a +new world. Slowly the night dragged on. The candle guttered. A draught of +air blew fitfully through the corridor in which we lay. It carried the +flame of the candle in the opposite direction. I wondered whence it could +come, for the air had been still and thick before. Yet I was glad of the +stir, for it cooled my temples, and I think that but for one thing I +might have slept. And had I fallen on sleep then no one of us might have +waked so easily. What I heard was no more than this--once or twice the +flame of the candle gave a smart little "spit," as if a moth or a fat +blue-bottle had forwandered into it and fallen spinning to the ground +with burned wings. Yet there were no moths in the chambers, or we should +have seen them circling about the lights at the time of supper. +Nevertheless, ere long I heard again the quick, light "_plap_!" And +presently I saw a pellet fall to the ground, rolling away from the wall +almost to the edge of the straw on which I lay. + +I reached out a hand for it, and in a trice had it in my fingers. It was +soft, like mason's putty. "Plop!" came another. I was sure now. Some one +was shooting at the flame of the candle with intent to leave us in the +dark. Jorian and Boris snored loudly, sleeping like true men-at-arms. I +need say no more. + +I lay with my head in the shadow, but by moving little by little, with +sleepy grunts of dissatisfaction, I brought my face far enough round to +see through the straw the window at the far end of the passage, which, as +I had discovered upon our first coming, opened out upon a ravine running +at right angles to the street by which we had come. + +Presently I could see the lattice move noiselessly, and a white face +appeared with a boy's blow-gun of pierced bore-tree at its lips. + +"Alas!" said I to myself, "that I had had these soldiers' skill of the +knife throwing. I would have marked that gentleman." But I had not even a +bow--only my sword and dagger. I resolved to begin to learn the practice +of pistol and cross-bow on the morrow. + +"_Plap! Scat!_" The aim was good this time. We were in darkness. I +listened the barest fragment of a moment. Some one was stealthily +entering at the window end. + +"Rise, Jorian and Boris!" I cried. "An enemy!" + +And leaping up I ran to relight the candle. By good luck the wick was a +sound, honest, thick one, a good housewife's wick--not such as are made +to sell and put in ordinary candles of offertory. + +The wick was still red, and smoked as I put my hands behind it and blew. +"_Twang! Twang! Zist! Zist!_" went the arrows and bolts thickly about me, +bringing down the clay dust in handfuls thickly from the walls. + +"Down on your stomachs--they are shooting crosswise along the passage !" +cried Jorian, who had instantly awakened. I longed to follow the advice, +for I felt something sharp catch the back of my undersuit of soft +leather, in which, for comfort, I had laid me down to sleep. But I _must_ +get the candle alight. Hurrah! the flame flickered and caught at last. +"_Twang! Twang!"_ went the bows, harder at it than ever. Something +hurtled hotly through my hair--the iron bolt of an arbalest, as I knew by +the song of the steel bow in a man's hand at the end of the passage. + +"Get into a doorway, man!" cried Boris, as the light revealed me. + +And like a startled rabbit I ran for the nearest--that within which +Helene and the Lady Ysolinde were lying asleep. The candle, as I have +said, was set deep in a niche, which proved a great mercy for us. For our +foes, who had thought to come on us by fraud, could not now shoot it out. +Also, in relighting it, in my eagerness to save myself from the hissing +arrows behind me, I had pushed it to the very back of the shrine. I had +no weapon now but my dagger, for, in rising to relight the candle, I had +carelessly and blamefully left my sword in the straw. And I felt very +useless and foolish as I stood there to bide the assault with only a bit +of guardless knife in my hand. + +Suddenly, however, there came a diversion. + +"Crash !" went a gun in my very ear. Flame, smoke--much of both--and the +stifling smell of sulphur. Jorian had fired at the face of the pop-gun +knave. That putty-white countenance had a crimson plash on it ere it +vanished. Then came back to us a scream of dreadful agony and the sound +of a heavy fall outside. + +"End of act the first! The Wicked Angels--hum, hum--go to hell! All in +the day's work!" cried Jorian, cheerily, recharging his pistolet and +driving home the wadding as he spoke. + +It may well be imagined that during our encounter with the assailants of +the candle, whose transverse fire had so nearly finished me, the company +out in the great kitchen had not been content to lie snoring on their +backs. We could hear them creeping and whispering out there beyond the +doors; but till after the shot from the soldier's pistolet they had not +dared to show us any overt act of hostility. + +Suddenly Jorian, once more facing the door, now that the passage was +clear, perceived by the rustling of the straw that it began to open +gradually. He waited till in another moment it would have been wide +enough to let in a man. + +"Back there, dog, or I fire!" he bellowed. And the door was +promptly shut to. + +After that there came another period of waiting very difficult to get +over. I wished with all my heart for a cross-bow or any shooting weapon. +Much did I reproach myself that I had not learned the art before, as I +might easily have done from the men-at-arms about the Wolfsberg, who, for +my father's sake (or Helene's), would gladly have taught me. + +The women folk in the room behind my back were now up and dressed. +Indeed, the Lady Ysolinde would have come out and watched with us, but I +besought her to abide where she was. Presently, however, Helene put her +head without, and seeing me stand by the door with my sword, she asked if +I wanted anything. She appeared to have forgotten her unkind good-night, +and I was not the man to remind her of it. + +"Only another weapon, Sweetheart, besides this prick-point small-sword!" +said I, looking at the thing in my hand I doubt not a trifle scornfully. + +Helene shut to the door, and for a space I heard no more. Presently, +however, she opened it again, and thrust an axe with a long handle +through to me. It was the very fellow of the weapon I had used on the +pendent calf in the kitchen. I understood at once that it was her apology +and her justification as well. For the Little Playmate was ever a +straight lass. She ever did so much more than she promised, and ever said +less than her heart meant. Which perhaps is less common than the other +way about--especially among women. + +"I found it on my incoming and hid it under the bed!" she said. + +Then judge ye if I sheathed not my small-sword right swiftly, and made +the broadaxe blade, to the skill of which I had been born, whistle +through the air. For a mightily strange thing it is that, though I had +ever a rooted horror at the thought of my father's office itself, and +from my childhood never for a moment intended to exercise it, +nevertheless I had always the most notable facility in cutting things. +Never to this day have I a stick in hand, when I walk abroad among the +ragweed waving yellow on the grassy pastures below the Wolfsberg, but I +must need make wagers with myself to cut to an inch at the heads of the +tallest and never miss. And this I can do the day by the length, and +never grow weary. Then again, for pleasaunce, my father used to put me +to the cutting of light wood with an axe, not always laying it upon a +block or hag-clog, but sometimes setting the billet upright and making +me cut the top off with a horizontal swing of the axe. And in this I +became exceedingly expert. And how difficult it is no one knows till he +has tried. + +So it is small wonder that as soon as I gripped the noble broadaxe which +Helene passed me I felt my own man again. + +Then we were silent and listened--and ever again listened and held our +breaths. Now I tell you when an enemy is whispering unseen without, +rustling like rats in straw, and you wonder at what point they will break +in next, thinking all the while of the woman you love (or do not yet +love, but may) in the chamber behind--I tell you a castle is something +less difficult to hold at such a time than just one's own breath. + +Suddenly I heard a sound in the outer chamber which I knew the meaning +of. It was the shifting of horses' feet as they turn in narrow space to +leave their stalls. Our good friends were making free with our steeds. +And, if we were not quick about it, we should soon see the last of them, +and be compelled to traverse the rest of the road to Plassenburg upon our +own proper feet. + +"Jorian," cried I, "do you hear? They are slipping our horses out of the +stalls! Shall you and I make a sortie against them, while Boris with that +pistol of his keeps the passage from the wicks of the middle door?" + +"Good!" answered Jorian. "Give the word when you are ready." + +With axe in my right hand, the handle of the door in my left, I gave +the signal. + +"When I say 'Three!' Jorian!" + +"Good!" said Jorian. + +Clatter went the horses' hoofs as they were being led towards the door. + +"One! Two! Three!" I counted, softly but clearly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SORTIE + + +The door was open, and the next I mind was my axe whirling about my head +and Jorian rushing out of the other door a step ahead of me, with his +broadsword in his hand. I cannot tell much about the fight. I never could +all my days. And I wot well that those who can relate such long +particulars of tales of fighting are the folk who stood at a distance and +labored manfully at the looking on--not of them that were close in and +felt the hot breaths and saw the death-gleam in fierce, desperate eyes, +near to their own as the eyes of lovers when they embrace. Ah, Brothers +of the Sword, these things cannot be told! Yet, of a surety, there is a +heady delight in the fray itself. And so I found. For I struck and warded +not, that being scarce necessary. Because an axe is an uncanny weapon to +wield, but still harder to stand against when well used. And I drove the +rabble before me--the men of them, I mean. I felt my terrible weapon +stopped now and then--now softly, now suddenly, according to that which I +struck against. And all the while the kitchen of the inn resounded with +yells and threatenings, with oaths and cursings. + +But Jorian and I drove them steadily back, though they came at us again +and again, with spits, iron hooks, and all manner of curious weapons. +Also from out of the corners we saw the gleaming, watchful eyes of a dark +huddle of women and children. Presently the clamorous rabble turned tail +suddenly and poured through the door out upon the pathway, quicker than +water through a tide-race in the fulness of the ebb. + +And lo! in a moment the room was sucked empty, save only for the huddled +women in the corners, who cried and suckled their children to keep them +still. And some of the wounded with the axe and the sword crawled to them +to have their ghastly wounds bound. For an axe makes ugly work at the +best of times, and still worse on the edges of such a pagan fight as we +three had just fought. + +So we went back victorious to our inner doors. + +Then Jorian looked at me and nodded across at Boris. + +"Good!" was all that he said. But the single word made me happier than +many encomiums. + +In spite of all, however, we were no nearer than before to getting away +that I could see. For there was still all that long, desperate traverse +of the defile before we could guide our horses to firm ground again. But +while I was thinking bitterly of my first night's sleep (save the mark!) +away from the Red Tower, I heard something I knew not the meaning of--the +beginning of a new attack, as I judged. + +It sounded like a scraping and a crumbling somewhere above. + +"God help us now, Jorian!" I cried, in a sudden, quick panic; "they are +coming upon us everyway. I can hear them stripping off the roof-tile +overhead--if such rabbit-warrens as this have Christian roofs!" + +Boris sat down calmly with his back against the earthen wall and +trained his pistol upward, ready to shoot whatever should appear. +Presently fragments of earth and hardened clay began to drop on the +pounded floor of the corridor. I heard the soft hiss of the man-at-arms +blowing up his match, and I waited for the crash and the little heap of +flame from the touch. + +Suddenly a foot, larger than that of mortal, plumped through our ceiling +of brick-dust and a huge scatterment of earth tumbled down. A great bare +leg, with attachment of tattered hose hanging here and there, followed. + +Before the pistol could go off, Boris meanwhile waiting shrewdly for the +appearance of a more vital part, a voice cried, "Stop!" + +I looked about me, and there was the Lady Ysolinde come out of her +chamber, with a dagger in her hand. She was looking upward at the hole in +the ceiling. + +"For God's sake, do not fire!" she cried; "tis only my poor Lubber Fiend. +Shame on me, that I had quite forgotten him all this time!" + +At which, without turning away the muzzle, Boris put it a little aside, +and waited for the disturber of brick-dust ceilings to reveal himself. +Which, when presently he did, a huge, grinning face appeared, pushing +forward at first slowly and with difficulty, then, as soon as the ears +had crossed the narrows of the pass, the whole head to the neck was +glaring down and grinning to us. + +"Lubber Jan," said Ysolinde, "what do you up there?" + +The head only grinned and waggled pleasantly, as it had been through a +horse-collar at Dantzig fair. + +"Speak!" said she, and stamped her little foot; "I will shake thee with +terrors else, monster!" + +"Poor Jan came down from above. It is quite easy!" he said. "But not for +horses. Oh no! but now I will go and bring the Burgomeister. Do you keep +the castle while I go. He bides below the town in a great house of stone, +and entertains our Prince Miller's Son's archers. I will bring all that +are sober of them." + +"God help us then!" quoth Jorian; "it is past eleven o' the clock, and +as I know them man by man, there will not be so much as one left able to +prop up another by this time!" + +"Aha!" cried the head above; "you say that because you know the archers. +But I say I shall bring full twenty of them--because I know the strength +of the Burgomeister's ale. Hold the place for half an hour and twenty +right sober men shall ye have." + +And with that the Lubber Fiend disappeared in a final avalanche of +brick-dust and clay clods. + +He was gone, and half an hour was a long time to wait. Yet in such a +case there was nothing for it but to stand it out. So I besought the +maids to retire again to their inner chamber, into which, at least, +neither bullets nor arrows could penetrate. This, after some little +persuasion, they did. + +We waited. I have since that night fought many easier battles, and +bloody battles, too. Now and then a face would look in momentarily from +the great outer door and vanish before any one could put a shot into it. +Next, ere one was aware, an arrow would whistle with a "_Hisst_!" past +one's breast-bone and stand quivering, head-covered in the clay. Vicious +things they were, too, steel-pointed and shafted with iron for half +their length. + +But all waitings come to an end, even that of him who waits on a fair +woman's arraying of herself. Erdberg evidently did not know of the little +party down at the Burgomeister's below the pass of the ravine, or, +knowing, did not care. For, just as our half-hour was crawling to an +end, with a unanimous yell a crowd of wild men with weapons in their +hands poured in through the great door and ran shouting at our position. +At the same time the window at the end of the passage opened and a man +leaped through. Him I sharply attended to with the axe, and stood waiting +for the next. He also came, but not through the window. He ran at me, +head first, through the door, and, being stricken down, completely +blocked it up. Good service! And a usefully bulky man he was. But how he +bled!--Saint Christopher! that is the worst of bulky men, they can do +nothing featly--not even die! + +One man won past me, indeed, darting under the stroke of my axe, but he +was little advantaged thereby. For I fetched a blow at the back of his +head with the handle which brought him to his knees. He stumbled and fell +at the threshold of the maids' chamber. And, by my sooth, the Lady +Ysolinde stooped and poignarded him as featly as though it had been a +work of broidering with a bodkin. Too late, Helene wept and besought her +to hold her hand. He was, she said, some one's son or lover. It was +deucedly unpractical. But, 'twas my Little Playmate. And after all, I +suppose, the crack he got from me in the way of business would have done +the job neatly enough without my lady's dagger. + +I tell you, the work was hot enough about those three doors during the +next few moments. I never again want to see warmer on this side of +Peter's gates--especially not since I got this wound in my thigh, with +its trick of reopening at the most inconvenient seasons. But the broadaxe +was a blessed thought of the little Helene's, and helped to keep the +castle right valiantly. + +Yet I can testify that I was glad with more than mere joy when I heard +the "Trot, trot!" of the Prince's archers coming at the wolf's lope, all +in each other's footsteps, along the narrow ledge of the village street. + +"Hurrah, lads!" I shouted; "quick and help us!" + +And then at the sound of them the turmoil emptied itself as quickly as it +had come. The rabble of ill-doers melted through the wide outer door, +where the archers received and attended to them there. Some precipitated +themselves over the cliff. Others were straightway knocked down, stunned, +and bound. Some died suddenly. And a few were saved to stretch the +judicial ropes of the Bailiwick. For it was always thought a good thing +by such as were in authority to have a good show on the "Thieves' +Architrave," or general gallows of the vicinity, as a thing at once +creditable to the zeal of the worthy dispensers of local justice, and +pleasing to the Kaiser's officer if he chanced to come spying that way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE + + +Hearty were the greetings when the soldiers found us all safe and sound. +They shook us again and again by the hand. They clapped us on the back. +They examined professionally the dead who lay strewn about. + +"A good stroke! Well smitten!" they cried, as they turned them over, like +spectators who applaud at a game they can all understand. Specially did +they compliment me on my axe-work. Never had anything like it been seen +in Plassenburg. The head of the yearling calf was duly exhibited, when +the neatness of the blow and the exactness of the aim at the weakest +jointing were prodigiously admired. + +The good fellows, mellow with the Burgomeister's sinall-ale, were growing +friendly beyond all telling, when, in the light of the offertory taper, +now growing beguttered and burning low, there appeared the Lady Ysolinde. + +You never saw so quick a change in any men. The heartiest reveller +forthwith became silent and slunk behind his neighbor. Knees shook +beneath stalwart frames, and there seemed a very general tendency to get +down upon marrow-bones. + +The Lady Ysolinde stood before them, strangely different from the +slim, willowy maiden I had seen her. She looked almost imperial in +her demeanor. + +"You shall be rewarded for your ready obedience," she said; "the Prince +will not forget your service. Take away that offal!" + +She pointed to the dead rascals on the floor. + +And the men, muttering something that sounded to me like "Yes, your +Highness !" hastened to obey. + +"Did you say 'Yes, your Highness' ?" I asked one of them, who seemed, by +his air of command, to be the superior among the archers. + +"Aye," answered he, dryly, "it is a term usually applied to the Lady +Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg." + +I was never more smitten dazed and dumb in my life. Ysolinde, the +daughter of Master Gerard, the maid who had read my fate in the ink-pool, +whom I had "made suffer," according to her own telling--she the Princess +of Plassenburg '. + +Ah, I had it now. Here at last was the explanation of the threadbare and +inexplicable jest of Jorian and Boris, "The Prince hath a Princess, and +she is oft upon her travels !" + +But, after all, what a Wendish barking about so small an egg. I have +heard an emperor proclaimed with less cackle. + +Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg--yes, that made a difference. And I +had taken her hand--I, the son of the Red Axe--I, the Hereditary +Justicer of the Wolfmark. Well, after all, she had sought me, not I +her. And then, the little Helene--what would she make of it? I longed +greatly to find an opportunity to tell her. It might teach her in what +manner to cut her cloth. + +The archers of the Prince camped with us the rest of the night in the +place of the outcast crew. They behaved well (though their forbearance +was perhaps as much owing to the near presence of the Princess as to any +inherent virtue in the good men of the bow) to the women and children who +remained huddled in the corners. + +Then came the dawn, swift-foot from the east. A fair dawn it was, the +sun rising, not through barred clouds, with the lightest at the +horizon (which is the foul-weather dawn), but through streamers and +bannerets that fluttered upward and fired to ever fleecier crimson and +gold as he rose. + +We rode among a subdued people, and ere we went the Princess called for +the Burgomeister and bade him send to Plassenburg the landlord, so soon +as he should be found, and also the heads of the half-dozen houses on +either side of the inn. + +Then, indeed, there was a turmoil and a wailing to speak about. Women +folk crowded out of the huts and kissed the white feet of the palfrey +that bore the Lady Ysolinde. + +"Have mercy!" they wailed; "show kindness, great Princess! Here are our +men, unwounded and unhurt, that have lain by our sides all the night. +They are innocent of all intent of evil--of every dark deed. Ah, lady, +send them not to your prisons. We shall never see them more, and they +are all we have or our children. 'Tis they bring in the bread to this +drear spot!" + +"Produce me your husbands, then!" said the Lady Ysolinde. + +Whereat the women ran and brought a number of frowsy and bleared men, all +unwounded, save one that had a broken head. + +Then Ysolinde called to the Burgomeister. "Come hither, chief of a +thievish municipality, tell me if these be indeed these women's +husbands." + +The Burgomeister, a pallid, pouch-mouthed man, tremulous, and +brick-dusty, like everything else in the village of Erdberg, came forward +and peeringly examined the men. + +"Every man to his woman!" he ordered, brusquely, and the women went and +stood each by her own property--the men shamefaced and hand-dog, the +women anxious and pale. Some of the last threw a, protecting arm about +their husbands, which they for the most part appeared to resent. In +every case the woman looked the more capable and intelligent, the men +being apparently mere boors. + +"They are all their true husbands, at least so far as one can know!" +answered the Burgomeister, cautiously. + +"Then," said the lady, "bid them catch the innkeeper and send him to +Plassenburg, and these others can abide where they are. But if they find +him not, they must all come instead of him." + +The men started at her words, their faces brightening wonderfully, and +they were out of the door before one could count ten. We mounted our +horses, and under the very humble guidance of the Burgomeister, who led +the Princess's palfrey, we were soon again upon the high table-land. Here +we enjoyed to the full the breezes which swept with morning freshness +across the scrubby undergrowths of oak and broom, and above all the sight +of misty wisps of cloud scudding and whisking about the distant +peaks-behind which lay the city of Plassenburg. + +We had not properly won clear of the ravines when we heard a great +shouting and turmoil behind us--so that I hastened to look to my weapons. +For I saw the archers instinctively draw their quarrels and bolt-pouches +off their backs, to be in readiness upon their left hips. + +But it was only the rabble of men and women who had been threatened, the +dwellers in those twelve houses next the inn, who came dragging our +brick-faced knave of a host, with that hard-polished countenance of his +slack and clammy--slate-gray in color too, all the red tan clean gone +out of it. + +"Mercy--mercy, great lady!" he cried; "I pray you, do execution on me +here and now. Carry me not to the extreme tortures. Death clears all. +And I own that for my crimes I well deserve to die. But save me from +the strappado, from the torment of the rack. I am an old man and could +not endure." + +The Lady Ysolinde looked at him, and her emerald eyes held a steely +glitter in their depths. + +"I am neither judge nor"--I think she was going to say "executioner," but +she remembered in time and for my sake was silent, which I thought was +both gracious and charming of her. She resumed in a softer tone: "What +sentence, then, would you desire, thus confessing your guilt?" + +"That I might end myself over the cliff there!" said the innkeeper, +pointing to the wall of rock along the edge of which we were riding. + +"See, then, that he is well ended!" said the Princess, briefly, to +Jorian. + +"Good!" said Jorian, saluting. + +And very coolly betook himself to the edge of the cliff, where he primed +his piece anew, and blew up his match. + +"Loose the man and stand back!" cried the Princess. + +A moment the innkeeper stood nerving himself. A moment he hung on the +thin edge of his resolve. The slack gray face worked convulsively, the +white lips moved, the hands were gripped close to his sides as though +to run a race. His whole body seemed suddenly to shrink and fall in +upon itself. + +"The torture! The terrible torture!" he shrieked aloud, and ran swiftly +from the clutches of the men who had held him. Between the path and the +verge of the cliff from which he was suffered to cast himself there +stretched some thirty or forty yards of fine green turf. The old man ran +as though at a village fair for some wager of slippery pig's tail, but +all the time the face of him was like Death and Hell following after. + +At the cliff's edge he leaped high into the air, and went headlong down, +to our watching eyes as slowly as if he had sunk through water. None of +us who were on the path saw more of him. But Jorian craned over, +regarding the man's end calmly and even critically. And when he had +satisfied himself that that which was done was properly done, as coolly +as before he stowed away his match in his cover-fire, mounted his horse, +and rode towards us. + +He nodded to the Princess. "Good, my Lady!" quoth he, for all comment. + +"I saved a charge that time!" said he to his companion. + +"Good!" quoth Boris, in his turn. + +We had now a safe and noble escort, and the way to Plassenburg was easy. +The face of the country gradually changed. No more was it the gray, +wistful plain of the Wolfmark, upon which our Red Tower looked down. No +more did we ride through the marly, dusty, parched lands, in which were +the ravines with their uncanny cavern villages, of which this Erdberg was +the chief. But green, well-watered valleys and mountains wooded to the +top lay all about us--a pleasant land, a fertile province, and, as the +Princess had said, a land in which the strong hand of Karl the Prince had +long made "the broom-bush keep the cow." + +I had all along been possessed with great desire to meet the Prince of so +noble and well-cared-for a land, and perhaps also to see what manner of +man could be the husband of so extraordinary a Princess. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON + + +Yet now, when she was in her own country, and as good as any queen +thereof, I found the Lady Ysolinde in no wise different from, what she +had been in the city of Thorn and in her father's house. She called me +often to ride beside her, Helene being on my other side, while the Lubber +Fiend, who had saved all our lives, gambolled about and came to her to be +petted like a lapdog of some monstrous sort. He licked his lips and +twisted his eyes upward at her in ludicrous ecstasy till only the whites +were visible whenever the Princess laid her hand on his head. So that it +was as much as the archers of the guard could do to hide their laughter +in their beards. But hide it they did, having a wholesome awe of the +emerald eyes of their mistress, or perhaps of the steely light which +sometimes came into them. + +It was growing twilight upon the third day (for there were no adventures +worth dwelling upon after that among the cavern dwellings of Erdberg) +when for the first time we saw the towers of Plassenburg crowning a hill, +with its clear brown river winding slow beneath. We were yet a good many +miles from it when down the dusty road towards us came a horseman, and +fifty yards or so behind him another. + +"The Prince--none rides like our Karl!" said Jorian, familiarly, under +his breath, but proudly withal. + +"He comes alone!" said I, wonderingly. For indeed Duke Casimir of the +Wolfsberg never went ten lances' length from his castle without a small +army at his tail. + +"Even so!" replied Jorian; "it is ever his custom. The officer who +follows behind him has his work cut out--and basted. Not for nothing is +our Karl called Prince Jehu Miller's Son, for indeed he rides most +furiously." + +Before there was time for more words between us a tall, grim-faced, +pleasant-eyed man of fifty rode up at a furious gallop. The first thing I +noticed about him was that his hair was exactly the same color as his +horse--an iron-gray, rusty a little, as if it had been rubbed with iron +that has been years in the wet. + +He took off his hat courteously to the Princess. + +"I bid you welcome, my noble lady," said he, smiling; "the cages are +ready for the new importations." + +The Lady Ysolinde reached a hand for her husband to kiss, which he did +with singular gentleness. But, so far as I could see, she neither looked +at him even once nor yet so much as spoke a word to him. Presently he +questioned her directly: "And who may this fair young damsel be, who has +done me the honor to journey to my country?" + +"She is Helene, called Helene Gottfried of Thorn, and has come with me to +be one of my maids of honor," answered the Lady Ysolinde, looking +straight before her into the gathering mist, which began to collect in +white ponds and streaks here and there athwart the valley. + +The Prince gave the Little Playmate a kindly ironic look out of his +gray eyes, which, as I interpreted it, had for meaning, "Then, if that +be so, God help thee, little one--'tis well thou knowest not what is +before thee!" + +"And this young man?" said the Prince, nodding across to me. + +But I answered for myself. + +"I am the son of the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark," said I. "I +had no stomach for such work. Therefore, as I was shortly to be made my +father's assistant, I have brought letters of introduction to your +Highness, in the hopes that you will permit me the exercise of arms in +your army in another and more honorable fashion." + +"I have promised him a regiment," said the Princess, speaking quickly. + +"What--of leaden soldiers?" answered the Prince, looking at her +mighty soberly. + +"Your Highness is pleased to be brutal," answered the Lady Ysolinde, +coldly. "It is your ordinary idea of humor!" + +A kind of quaint humility sat on the face of the Prince. + +"I but thought that your Highness could have nothing else in her +mind--seeing that our rough Plassenburg regiments will only accept men of +some years and experience to lead them. But the little soldiers of metal +are not so queasy of stomach." + +"May it please your Highness," said I, earnestly, "I will be content to +begin with carrying a pike, so that I be permitted in any fashion to +fight against your enemies." + +Jorian and Boris came up and saluted at this point, like twin mechanisms. +Then they stood silent and waiting. + +The Prince nodded in token that they had permission to speak. + +"With the sword the lad fights well," said Boris. "Is it not so, Jorian?" + +"Good!" said Jorian. + +"But with the broadaxe he slashes about him like an angel from +heaven--not so, Boris?" said Jorian. + +"Good!" said Boris. + +"Can you ride?" said the Prince, turning abruptly from them. + +"Aye, sire!" said I. For indeed I could, and had no shame to say it. + +"That horse of his is blown; give him your fresh one!" said he to the +officer who had accompanied him. "And do you show these good folk to +their quarters." + +Hardly was I mounted before the Prince set spurs to his beast, and, +with no more than a casual wave of his hand to the Princess and her +train, he was off. + +"Ride!" he cried to me. And was presently almost out of sight, stretching +his horse's gray belly to the earth, like a coursing dog after a hare. + +Well was it for me that I had learned to ride in a hard school--that is, +upon the unbroken colts which were brought in for the mounting of the +Duke Casimir's soldiery. For the horse that I had been given took the +bit between his teeth and pursued so fiercely after his stable companion +that I could scarce restrain him from passing the Prince. But our way +lay homeward, so that, though I was in no way able to guide nor yet +control my charger, nevertheless presently the Prince and I were +clattering through the town of Plassenburg like two fiends riding +headlong to the pit. + +Within the town the lamps were being lit in the booths, the folks busy +marketing, and the watchmen already perambulating the city and crying the +hours at the street corners. + +But as the Prince and I drove furiously through, like pursuer and +pursued, the busy streets cleared themselves in a twinkling; and we rode +through lanes of faces yellow in the lamplight, or in the darker places +like blurs of scrabbled whiteness. So I leaned forward and let the beast +take his chance of uneven causeway and open sewer. I expected nothing +less than a broken neck, and for at least half a mile, as we flew upward +to the castle, I think that the certainty of naught worse than a broken +arm would positively have pleasured me. At least, I would very willingly +have compounded my chances for that. + +Presently, without ever drawing rein, we flew beneath the dark outer port +of the castle, clattered through a court paved with slippery blocks of +stone, thundered over a noble drawbridge, plunged into a long and gloomy +archway, and finally came out in a bright inner palace court with lamps +lit all about it. + +I was at the Prince's bridle ere he could dismount. + +"You can ride, Captain Hugo Gottfried!" he said. "I think I will make you +my orderly officer." + +And so he went within, without a word more of praise or welcome. + +There came past just at that moment an ancient councillor clad in a long +robe of black velvet, with broad facings and rosettes of scarlet. He was +carrying a roll of papers in his hand. + +"What said the Prince to yon, young sir, if I may ask without offence?" +said he, looking at me with a curiously sly, upward glance out of the +corner of his eye, as if he suspected me of a fixed intention to tell him +a lie in any case. + +"If it be any satisfaction to you to know," answered I, rather piqued at +his tone, "the Prince informed me that I could ride, and that he intended +to make me his orderly officer. And he called me not 'young sir,' but +Captain Hugo Gottfried." + +"How long has he known you?" said the Chief Councillor of State. For so +by his habit I knew him to be. + +"Half an hour, or thereby," answered I. + +"God help this kingdom!" cried the old man, tripping off, flirting his +hand hopelessly in the air--"if he had known you only ten minutes you +would have been either Prime-Minister or Commander-in-Chief of the army." + +It was in this strange fashion that I entered the army of the Prince of +Plassenburg, a service which I shall ever look back upon with gratitude, +and count as having brought me all the honors and most of the pleasures +of my life. + +Half an hour or so afterwards the blowing of trumpets and the thunder of +the new leathern cannon announced that the Princess and her train were +entering the palace. The Prince came down to greet them on the threshold +in a new and magnificent dress. + +"The Prince's officer-in-waiting to attend upon his Highness!" cried a +herald in fine raiment of blue and yellow. + +I looked about for the man who was to be my superior in my new +office--that is, if Prince Karl should prove to have spoken in earnest. + +"The Prince's orderly to attend upon him!" again proclaimed the herald, +more impatiently.' + +I saw every eye turn upon me, and I began to feel a gentle heat come over +me. Presently I was blushing furiously. For I was still in my +riding-clothes, and even they had not been changed after the adventure of +the Brick-dust Town. So that they were in no wise fitting to attend upon +a mighty dignitary. + +The Prince of Plassenburg looked round. + +"Ha!" he said; "this is not well--I had forgotten. My orderly ought to +have been duly arrayed by this time." + +"Pardon, my Prince," said I, "but all the apparel I have is upon my +sumpter horse, which comes in the train of the Princess." + +My master looked right and left in his quickly imperious and yet +humorous manner. + +"Here, Count von Reuss," he said to a tall, handsome, heavily jowled +young man, "I pray you strip off thy fine coat for an hour, and lend it +to my new officer-in-waiting. The ladies will admire thee more than +ever in thy fine flowered waistcoat, with silk sleeves and frilled +purfles of lace!" + +The young man, Von Reuss, looked as if he desired much to tell the Prince +to go and be hanged. But there was something in the bearing of Karl of +Plassenburg, usurper as they called him, the like of which for command I +have never seen in the countenance and manner of any lawfully begotten +prince in the world. + +So, beckoning me into an antechamber, and swearing evilly under his +breath all the time, the young man stripped off his fine coat, and +offered it to me with one hand, without so much as looking at me. He gave +it indeed churlishly, as one might give a dole to a loathsome beggar to +be rid of his importunity. + +"I thank you, sir," said I, "but more for your obedience to the Prince +than for the fashion of your courtesy to me." + +Yet for all that he answered me never a syllable, but turned his head and +played with his mustache till his man-servant brought him another coat. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ANOTHER MAN'S COAT + + +I followed the Prince without another word, and when he received the +Princess I had the happiness of taking the Little Playmate by the hand +and conducting her as gallantly as I could into the palace. And I was +glad, for it helped to allay a kind of reproachful feeling in my heart, +which would keep tugging and gnawing there whenever I was not thinking of +anything else. I feared lest, in the throng and press of new experiences, +I might a little have neglected or been in danger of forgetting the love +of the many years and all the sweetness of our solitary companionship. + +Nevertheless, I knew well that I loved those sweetest eyes of hers more +than all the words of men and women and priests. + +And even as I helped her to dismount, I went over and told her so. + +It was just when I held her in my arms for a moment as she dismounted. +She clung to me, and methought I heard a little sob. + +"Do not ever be unkind, Hugo," she said. "I am very lonely. I wish, with +all my heart, I were back again in the old Red Tower." + +"Unkind--never while I live, little one," I whispered in her ear. "Cheer +your heart, and to-morrow your sorrows will wear off, and you and I both +shall find friendship in the strange land." + +"I hate the Princess! And I shall never like her as long as I live!" she +said, with that certain concentrated dislike which only good women feel +towards those a degree less innocent, specially when the latter are well +to look upon. + +There was no time to reply immediately as I conducted her up the steps. +For I had to keep my eyes open to observe how the Prince conducted +himself, and in the easy ceremonial of Plassenburg it chanced that I +happened upon nothing extravagant. + +"But, Helene, you said a while ago that you hated _me_!" I said, after a +little pause, smiling down at her. + +"Did I?" she answered. "Surely nay!" + +"Ah, but 'tis true as your eyes," I persisted. "Do you not remember when +I had cut the calf's head off with the axe? You did not love the thought +of the Red Tower so much then!" + +"Oh, _that_!" she said, as if the discrepancy had been fully explained by +the inflexion of her voice upon the word. + +But she pressed my hand, so I cared not a jot for logic. + +"You do not love her, you are sure?" she said, looking up at me when we +came to the darker turn of the stairs, for the corkscrews were narrower +in the ancient castle than in the new palace below. + +"Not a bit!" said I, heartily, without any more pretence that I did not +understand what she meant. + +She pressed my hand again, momentarily slipping her own down off my +arm to do it. + +"It is not that I love you, Hugo, or that I want you to love me," she +said, like one who explains that which is plain already, "except, of +course, as your Little Playmate. But I could not bear that you should +care about that--that woman." + +It was evident that there were to be stirring times in the Castle of +Plassenburg, and that I, Hugo Gottfried, was to have my share of them. + +As soon as we had arrived at the banqueting-hall, the Prince beckoned me +and presented me formally to the Lady Ysolinde. + +"Your Highness, this is Captain Hugo Gottfried, my new +officer-in-waiting." + +The Princess bowed gravely and held out her hand. Her aqua-marine eyes +were bent upon me, suffused with a certain quick and evident pleasure +which became them well. + +"Your Highness has chosen excellently. I can bear witness that the +Captain Gottfried is a brave--a very brave man," she said. + +And at that moment I was most grateful to her for the testimony. For +behind us stood the young Von Reuss, pulling at his mustache and looking +very superciliously over at me. + +Then the Lady Ysolinde withdrew to her own apartments, and that day I got +no more words with her nor yet with Helene. + +The Prince also went to his room, and I remained where I was, deeming +that for the present my duty was done. + +The servant of the man whose coat I wore stood with another servitor +close at hand--indeed, many of all ranks stood about. + +"That is the fellow," I heard one say, tauntingly, meaning me to +hear--"peacocking it there in my master's coat!" + +His companion laughed contumeliously, at which the passion within me +suddenly stirred. I gave one of them the palm of my hand, and as the +other fell hastily back my foot took him. + +"What ho, there! No quarrelling among the lackeys!" cried Von Reuss, +insolently, from the other side of the room. + +"Were you, by any chance, speaking to me?" said I, politely, looking +over at him. + +"Why, yes, fellow!" he said. "If you squabble with the waiting-men +concerning cast-off clothes, you had better do it in the stables, where, +as you say, your own wardrobe is kept." + +"Sir," said I, "the coat I wear, I wear by the command of your Prince. It +shall be immediately returned to you when the Prince permits me to go off +duty. In the mean time, pray take notice that I am Captain Hugo +Gottfried, officer-in-waiting to the Prince Karl of Plassenburg, and that +my sword is wholly at your service." + +"You are," retorted Von Reuss, "the son of my uncle Casimir's +Hereditary Executioner, and one day you may be mine. Let that be +sufficient honor for you." + +"That I may be yours is the only part of my father's hereditary office I +covet!" said I, pointedly. + +And certainly I had him there, for immediately he turned on his heel and +would have walked away. + +But this I could not permit. So I strode sharply after him, and seizing +him by his embroidered shoulder-strap, I wheeled him about. + +"But, sir," said I, "you have insulted an officer of the Prince. Will you +answer for that with your sword, or must I strike you on the face each +time I meet you to quicken your sense of honor?" + +Before he had time to answer the Prince came in. + +"What, quarrelling already, young Spitfire!" he cried. "I made you my +orderly--not my disorderly." + +Von Reuss and I stood blankly enough, looking away from one another. + +"What was the quarrel?" asked the Prince, when he had seated +himself at table. + +I looked to Von Reuss to explain. For indeed I was somewhat awed to think +that thus early in my new career I had embroiled myself with the nephew +of Duke Casimir, even though, like myself, he was in exile and dependent +upon, the liberality of Prince Karl. + +But, since he did not speak, I made bold to say: "Sire, the Count von +Reuss taunted me with wearing a borrowed coat, and called me a servitor, +because by birth I am the son of the Hereditary Executioner of the +Wolfmark. So I told him I was an officer of your household, and that my +sword was much at his service." + +"So you are," cried the Prince--"so you are--a servitor! So is he--young +fools both! And as for being son of the Hereditary Executioner, it is +throughout all our German land an honorable office. Once I was assistant +executioner myself, and wished with all my heart that I had been +principal, and so pocketed the guilders. No more of this folly, Von +Reuss. I am ashamed of you, and to a new-comer! Hear ye, sir, I will not +have it! I will e'en resume my old trade and do a little justicing on my +own account. Shake hands this instant, you young bantams!" + +And the Prince sat back in his chair and looked grimly at us. I went a +step forward. But Von Reuss held aloof. + +"Provost Marshal!" cried the Prince, in a voice which made every one in +the room jump and all the glasses ring on the table--"bring a guard!" + +The Provost Marshal advanced, bowed, and was departing, when Von Reuss +came forward and held his hand out, at first sulkily, but afterwards +readily enough. + +Then we shook hands solemnly and stiffly, of course loving each other not +one whit better. + +"Ah," said the Prince, "I thought you would! For if you had not, your +uncle, Duke Casimir, might have been a Duke without either an heir to his +Dukedom or a successor to his Hereditary Justicer." + +"Now sit down, lads, sit down and agree!" he said, after a pause. "The +ladies come not to table to-night. So now begin and tell me all the +affair of the Earthhouses. I must ride and see the place. I declare I +grow rotten and thewless in this dull Plassenburg, where they dare not +stick so much as a knife in one another, all for fear of Karl Miller's +Son! Since I cannot adventure forth on my own account, I am become a man +that wearies for news. Tell me every part of the affair, concealing +nothing. But if you can, relate even your own share in it as faithfully +as becomes a modest youth." + +So I told him at length all that hath already been told, giving as far as +I could the credit to Jorian and Boris, as indeed was only their desert. + +Whereupon the tale being finished, the Prince said: "Have the two +archers up!" + +And while the pursuivant had gone for them, the old Councillor leaned +across the table and whispered: "Enter Field-Marshal Jorian and +General Boris!" + +But when the archers came in and stood like a pair of kitchen pokers, the +Prince ordered them to tell the story. + +Jorian turned his head to Boris, and Boris turned his head to Jorian. +They both made a little impatient gesture, which said: "Tell it you!" + +But neither appeared to be able to speak first. + +"Wind them up with a cup of wine apiece!" cried the hearty Prince; +"surely that will set one of them off." + +Two great flagons of wine were handed to Jorian and Boris, and they drank +as if one machine had been propelling their internal workings, throwing +off the liquor with beautiful unanimity and then bringing their cups to +the position of salute as if they had been musketoons at the new French +drill. After which each of them, having finished, gave the little cough +of content and appreciation, which among the archers means manners. + +But nevertheless the Prince's information with regard to the affair of +Erdberg was not increased. + +"Go on!" he cried, impatiently, looking at Jorian and Boris sternly. + +They were still silent. + +"This officer, Captain Hugo Gottfried," said the Prince, looking at me, +"tells me that the credit of the preservation of the Princess among the +cave folk is due to you two brave men." + +"He lies!" said Wendish Jorian, with a face like a blank wall. + +"Good!" muttered Boris, approvingly. + +"He did it himself!" said Boris, adding, after a pause--"with an axe!" + +"Good!" quoth Jorian. + +"He cut a calf's head off!" said Jorian, as a complete explanation of how +the preserving of the Princess was effected. + +Whereat all laughed, and the Prince more than any. For ever since he +drank his first draught of wine, he had begun to mellow. + +"Well, hearty fellows, what reward would you have for your great +bravery?" + +They turned their heads simultaneously inward without moving any other +part of their bodies. They nodded to one another. + +"Well," cried the Prince, "what reward do you desire?" + +"Now for the Field-Marshal's wand!" said the Councillor near to me, under +his breath. + +"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Jorian. + +The Prince looked at Boris. + +"And you?" he said. + +"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Boris, without moving a muscle. + +"God Bacchus!" cried the Prince, "you will empty my cellars between +you, and I shall not have a sober archer for a month. But you shall +have it. Go!" + +Jorian and Boris saluted with a wink to each other as they wheeled, which +said, as plain as monk's script or plainer, "Good!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE PRINCE'S COMPACT + + +In spite of all drawbacks and difficulties (and I had my share of them) I +loved Plassenburg. And especially I loved the Prince. The son, so they +said, of a miller in the valley of the Almer, he had entered the guard of +the last Prince of Plassenburg, much as I had now entered his own +service. Prince Dietrich had taken a fancy to him, and advanced him so +rapidly that, after the disastrous war with Duke Casimir of the Mark and +the death of the last legitimate Prince, Karl, the miller's son, having +set himself to reorganize the army, succeeded so well that it was not +long before he found himself the source of all authority in Plassenburg. + +Thereafter he gave to the decimated and heartless land adequate defences +and complete safety against foreign foes, together with security for life +and property, under equal laws, within its own borders. So, in time, no +man saying him nay, Karl Miller's Son became the Prince of Plassenburg, +and his seat was more secure upon his throne than that of any legitimate +prince for a thousand miles all round about. + +After the quarrel with Von Reuss, the Prince, for reasons of his own, +favored me with a great deal of his society. He was often graciously +pleased to talk concerning his early difficulties. + +"When I was an understrapper," he was wont to say, "the land was +overswarmed and eaten up by officialdom. I could not see the good meat +wasted upon crawlers. 'Get to work,' said I, 'or ye shall neither eat +nor crawl!' + +"'We must eat--to beg we are not ashamed, to steal is the right of our +noble Ritterdom,' the crawlers replied. + +"'So,' said I, '_bitte_--as to that we shall see!' + +"Then I made me a fine gallows, builded like that outside Paris, which I +had seen once when on an embassy for Prince Dietrich. It was like a +castle, with walls twelve feet thick, and on the beams of it room for a +hundred or more to swing, each with his six feet of clearance, all +comfortable, and no complaints. + +"Then came the crawlers and asked me what this fine thing was for. + +"'For the sacred Ritterdom of Plassenburg!' answered I, 'if it will not +cease to burn houses and to ravish and carry off honest men's wives and +daughters.' + +"'But you must catch us!' quoth Crawlerdom. 'Walls fourteen feet thick!' +said they. + +"'Content,' cried I; 'there is the more fun in catching you. Only the end +is the same--that is to say, my new, well-ventilated castle out there on +the heath, fine girdles and neck-pieces and anklets of iron, and six feet +of clearance for each of you to swing in.' + +"So they went back to their castles, and robbed and ravished and rieved, +even as did their fathers for a thousand years, thinking no evil. But I +took my soldiers, whom in seven years' service I had taught to obey +orders-two foot of clearance did well enough for the disobedient among +them, not being either ritters or men of mark. And I, Karl the Miller's +brat, as at that time they called me in contempt, borrowed cannon-- +great lumbering things--from my friend the Margrave George, down there to +the south. A great work we had dragging them up to Plassenburg by rope +and chain and laboring plough oxen. We shot them off before the +fourteen-feet walls. Then arose various clouds of dust, shriekings, +surrenderings, crying of 'Forgive us, great Prince, we never meant to do +it,' followed, as I had said, by the six-feet clearances. But these in +time I had to reduce to four--so great became the competition for places +in my new Schloss Müllerssohn. + +"But 'Once done, well done--done forever!' is my motto. So since that +time the winds have mostly blown through my Schloss untainted, and the +sons of Ritterdom, magnanimous captains and honest bailies of quiet +bailiwicks, are my very good friends and faithful officers." + +Prince Karl the Miller's Son was silent a moment. + +"But I am still looking out for another man with a head-piece to come +after me. I have no son, and if I had, the chances are ten to one that he +would be either a milksop or a flittermouse painted blue. Milksops I +hate, and send to the monkeries. I can endure flittermice painted blue, +but they must wear petticoats--and pretty petticoats too. Have you +observed those of the Princess?" said he, abruptly changing the subject. + +"The Princess's flittermice?" I faltered, not well knowing what I said, +for he had turned roughly and suddenly upon me. + +"Aye, marry, you may say it! But I meant the Princess's wilicoats!" + +"No," said I, as curtly as I could, for the subject had its obvious +limitations. + +"Ah, they are pretty ones," said Karl, "I assure you. She has at least an +undeniable taste in lace and cambric. They say in other lands--not in +this--though I would not hinder them if they did--that she wears the +under-garments of men and rules the state. But I think not so. The +Princess is a better Queen than wife, a better woman than either." + +On this subject also I had nothing to say which I dared venture to the +husband of the Lady Ysolinde. + +"She read my horoscope," said I, weakly, searching for something in the +corners of my brain to change the subject. + +"How so?" said the Prince, quickly. + +"First in a crystal and then in a pool of ink," I replied. + +"It was a good horoscope and of a fortunate ending?" + +"On the whole--yes!" said I; "though there was much in it that I could +not understand." + +"Like enow!" laughed the Prince; "I warrant she could not understand it +herself! It is ever the way of the ink-pool folk." + +Then ensued a silence between us. + +Prince Karl remained long with his head resting on his hand. He looked +critically at the twisted stem of his wineglass, twirling it between his +thick fingers. + +"The Princess loves you!" he said, at last, looking shrewdly at me from +beneath his gray brows. + +It was spoken half as a question and half as information. + +"Loves me?" stammered I, the blood sucking back to my heart and leaving +my head light and tingling. + +The Prince nodded calmly. + +"So they say!" said he. + +"My Lord, it is a thing impossible!" cried I, earnestly. "I am but a poor +lad--and she has been kind to me. But of love no word has been spoken. +Besides--" + +And I stopped. + +"Out with it, man!" said the Prince, more like, as it seemed to me, a +comrade inviting a confidence than a great Prince speaking to a newly +made officer. + +"Well, I--I love the Little Playmate." + +It came out with a rush at last. + +"Oh!" said he; "that is bad. I hope that is not a matter arranged, a +thing serious. For if the Princess knows as much, the young woman will +not have her troubles to seek in the Palace of Plassenburg." + +I hung my head and said naught, save that Helene declared she loved me +not, but that I thought she was mistaken. + +"Ah, then," cried the Prince, like one exceedingly relieved, "it is but +some boy and girl affair. That is better. She may change her mind, as you +will certainly change yours--and that several times--among the ladies of +the court. I was in hopes--" + +And the Prince stopped in his turn, not from bashfulness, but rather like +a man who desires more carefully to choose his words. + +"I was in hopes," he went on, speaking slowly, "that if the Princess +loved your boy's face and liked my conversation (which I may say without +pride that I think she does) you and I together might have kept her at +home. So over-much wandering is not good for the state. Also it gets her +a name beyond all manner of ill-doing within-doors." + +Once more I knew not well what to answer to this speech of the Prince's, +so I remained discreetly silent. + +"I have seen the Princess's flittermice about her before, often enough (I +thank thee for the word, Sir Captain.), but this is the first time she +has performed the ink-pool and crystal foolery with any man. There is no +great harm in the Princess. In the things of love she is as inflammable +as the ink, and as soft as the crystal. Fear not, Joseph, Potiphera may +be depended upon not to proceed to extremities. But I was in some hopes +that you and I could have arranged matters between us, being both +men--aye, and honorable men." + +I saw that Karl Miller's Son looked sad and troubled. + +"Prince, you love the Princess!" said I, thrusting out my hand to him +before I thought. He did not take it, but instead he thrust a flagon of +wine into it, as if I had asked for that--yet the thing was not done by +way of a rebuff. I saw that plainly. + +"Pshaw! What does a grizzle-pate with love?" said he, gruffly. +"Nevertheless, I was in hopes." + +"Prince Karl," said I, "I give you word of honor, 'tis not as you say or +they say. The Princess has indeed done me the honor to be friendly--" + +"To hold your hand!" he murmured, softly, like a chorus. + +"Well, to be friendly, and--" + +"To caress your cheek?" put in the Prince, gently as before. + +"Done me the honor to be friendly--" + +"To play with your curls, lad?" + +"The Princess--" I began, all in a tremor. For anything more awkward +than this conversation I had never experienced. It bathed me in a drip +of cold sweat. + +"To kiss you, perhaps, at the waygoing?" he insinuated. + +"No!" thundered I, at last. "Prince, you do your Princess great wrong." + +He lifted his hand in a gentle, deprecating way, most unlike the rider +who had ridden so fast and so hotly that night of our coming. + +"You mistake me, sir," he said. "On the contrary, I have the greatest +respect for the Princess Ysolinde. I would not wrong her for the world. +But I know her track of old. You are a brave lad, and, after all, I fear +there is something in that calf-love of yours--devil take it!" + +I thought I could now dimly discern whither the Prince's plans +were tending. + +"Your Highness," said I, "I am a young man and of little experience. I +cannot tell why you have chosen to speak so freely to me. But I am your +servant, and, in all that hurts not the essence and matter of my love for +the Little Playmate, I will do even as you say." + +Prince Karl grasped my hand. + +"Ah, well said!" he cried. "You are running your head into a peck of +troubles, though. And you are likely to have some experience of womenkind +shortly--a thing which does no brisk young fellow any harm, unless he +lets them come between him and his career. Women are harmless enough, so +that you keep them well down to leeward. I am Baltic-bred, and have ever +held to this--that you may sail unscathed through fleets of farthingales, +so being that you keep the wind well on your quarter, and see the +fair-way clear before you." + +I did not at the time understand half he said, but I knew we had made +some sort of a bargain. And I thought, with an aching, unsatisfied heart, +that though it might be well enough for an iron-gray and cynical old +Prince, the thing would hardly commend itself to Helene, my Little +Playmate, to whom I had so recently spoken loving words, sweeter than +ever before. + +"Devil take all Princes and Princesses!" I said, as I thought, to myself. +But I must have spoken aloud, for the Prince laughed. + +"Do not waste good prayers needlessly," he said; "he will!" + +And so, with a careless and humorsome wave of his hand to one side, he +went down the staircase, and so out into the quadrangle of the Palace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT + + +Now how this plan of my Lord Prince's worked in the Palace of Plassenburg +I find it difficult to tell without writing myself down a "painted +flittermouse," as the Prince expressed it. I was in high favor with my +master; well liked also by most of the hard-driving, rough-riding young +soldiers whom the miller's son had made out of the sons of dead and +damned Ritterdom. I got my share of honor and good service, too, in going +to different courts and bringing back all that Prince Karl needed. To +exercise myself in the art of war, I hunted the border thieves and gave +them short enough shrift. In a year I had made such an assault as that of +the inn at Erdberg an impossibility all along the marches of our +provinces. + +The crusty old councillor, Leopold Dessauer, who had held office under +the last Prince of the legitimate line, was ever ready to assist me with +the kindest of deeds and the bitterest and saltest of words. + +"What did I tell you about being Field-Marshal?" said he one day--"in +Karl's kingdom the shorter the service, the higher the distinction. +If you and the Prince live long enough, I shall see you carry a +musketoon yet, and not one of the latest pattern, either. You will be +promoted down, like a booby who has been raised by chance to the top +of the class!" + +"Well," said I, humbly, for I always reverenced age, "then I hope, +High-Chancellor Dessauer, that I shall carry my musketoon as becomes a +brave man!" + +"I do not doubt it!" said he. "And that is the most hopeful thing I have +seen about you yet. It is just possible, on the other hand, that you may +yet rule and the Prince carry the piece." + +"God forbid!" said I, heartily. For next to my own father, of all men I +loved the Prince. + +"The Princess hath a pretty hand," remarked Dessauer casually, as if he +had said, "It will rain to-morrow!" + +"I' faith, yes!" said I; "what have you been at to find out that?" + +"Weak--weak!" he said, shaking his head. "I fear you will wreck on that +rock. It is your blind peril!" + +"My blind peril!" cried I. "What may that be, High Councillor?" + +"Ah, lad," he said, smiling with that wise, all-patient smile which the +aged affect when they mean to be impressive, yet know how useless is +their wisdom, "it was never intended by the Almighty that any man should +have eyes all round his head. That is why He fixed two in front, and made +them look straight forward. That is also why He made us a little lower +(generally a good deal lower) than the angels!" + +I heard him as if I heard him not. + +"You do me the honor to follow me?" he said, looking at me. He was, I +think, conscious that my eyes wandered to the door, for indeed I was +expecting the Little Playmate to come down every minute. + +"Ah! yes, you follow indeed," he said, bitterly, "but it is the trip of +feet, the flirt of farthingales down the turret steps. No matter! As I +was saying, every man has his blind peril. He can see the thousand. He +provides laboriously against them. He blocks every avenue of risk, he +locks every dangerous door, and lo! there is the thousand-and-first right +before him, yawning wide open, which he does not see--his Blind Peril!" + +"And what, High-Councillor Dessauer, is my blind peril?" + +"I will tell you, Hugo," he said; "not that you will believe or alter a +hair. A man may do many things in this world, but one thing he cannot do. +He cannot kiss the fingers of a Princess--dainty fingers, too, separating +finger from finger--and kiss also the Princess's maid of honor on the +mouth. The combination is certainly entertaining, but like the Friar's +powder it is somewhat explosive." + +"And how," asked I, "may you know all that ?" + +The old man nodded his head sagely. + +"Neither by ink-pool nor yet by scrying! All the same, I know. Moreover, +your peril is not a blind peril only, but a blind man's peril. Ye must +choose, and that quickly, little son--fingers or lips." + +I heard the rustle of a skirt down the stair. It was the light, springing +tread of the one I loved first and best, last and only. + +"By the twelve gods, lips!" cried I, and made for the door. + +And I heard the chuckling laughter of High-Chancellor Dessauer behind me +as I followed Helene down the stairs. It sounded like the decanting of +mellow wine, long hidden in darksome cellars, and now, in the flower of +its age, bringing to the light the smiling of ancient vineyards and the +shining of forgotten suns. + +I found Helene arrived before me in the rose-garden. She did not turn +round as I came, though she heard me well enough. Instead she walked on, +plucking at a marguerite. + +"Loves me--loves me _not_!" she said, bearing upon the last word with +triumphant accent, as she continued to dismantle the poor flower. + +And flashing round upon me with the solitary petal in her hand, she +presented it with a low bow, in elfish mockery of the manner of the court +exquisite. + +"Ah, true flower!" she said, apostrophizing the bare stalk, "a flower +cannot lie. It has not a glozing tongue. It cannot change back and forth. +The sun shines. It turns towards the sun. The sun leaves the skies. It +shuts itself up and waits his return. Ah,-true flower, dear flower, how +unlike a man you are!" + +"Helene," said I, "you have learned conceits from the catch-books. You +quarrel by rote. Were I as eager to answer me, I might say: 'Ah, false +flower, you grow out of the foulness underneath. You give your fragrance +to all without discretion--a common lover, prodigal of favors, fit only +to be torn to shreds by pretty, spiteful fingers, and to die at last with +a lie in your mouth. Again I say--false flower!'" + +"You can turn the corners, Sir Juggler, with the cup and ball of words," +answered Helene. "So much they have already taught you in a court. But +there is one thing that your fine-feathered tutors have not taught +you--to make love to two women in one house and hide it from both of +them. Hot and cold may not come too near each other. They will mix and +make lukewarm of both." + +A wise observation, and one that I wished I had made myself. + +"May the devil take all princes and princesses!" I began, as I had done +to the Prince himself. + +Helene shook her head. + +"Hugo," she said, "I was but a simpleton when I came hither, and knew +nothing. Now I am wise, and I know!" + +She touched her forehead with her finger, just where the curls were +softest and prettiest. + +"Oh, you have learned to be thrice more beautiful than ever you were!" I +said, impetuously. + +"So I am often told," answered she, calmly. + +"Who dared tell you ?" cried I, quick as fire, laying my hand on my +sword. + +"The false common flowers by the wayside tell me!" said Helene, pertly. + +"Let them beware, or I will take their heads off for rank weeds!" +I answered. + +For at that time, in the Court of Plassenburg, we talked in figures and +romance words. We had indeed become so familiar with the mode that we +could use no other, even in times of earnestness. So that a man would go +to be hanged or married with a quipsome conceit on his lips. + +"I think, Sir Janus Double-tongue," she said, "that you would not be the +worse of a little medicine of your own concocting." + +And with that she swept her skirts daintily about and tripped down in to +the pleasaunce of flowers, to make which the Prince Karl had brought a +skilled gardener all the way from France. + +I prowled about the higher terrace, moodily watching the sky and thinking +on the morrow's weather. And by-and-by I saw one come forth from among +the cropped Dutch hedges, and stride across to where Helene walked with +something white in her hand. I could see her again picking a flower to +pieces, and methought I could hear the words. My jealous fancy conjured +up the ending, "Loves me not--loves me! Loves me not!" + +She turned even as she had done to me. The newcomer was that sneering +Court fop, the Count von Reuss, Duke Casimir's nephew--still in hiding +from the wrath of his uncle. For at that time hardly any court in Germany +was without one or two of these hangers-on, and a bad, reckless, +ill-contriving breed they were at Plassenburg, as doubtless elsewhere. + +Then grew my heart hard and bitter, and yet, in a moment afterwards, was +again only wistful and sad. + +"She had been safer," thought I, "in the old Red Tower than playing +flower fancies with such a man!" + +For I had seen the very devil look out of his eye--which indeed it did +as often as he cast it on a fair woman. In especial, I longed to +throttle him each time he turned to watch Helene as she went by. And +here she was walking with him, and talking pleasantly too, in the rose +garden of the palace. + +"Ah, devil take all princes and princesses!" said I. This one, it is +true, was only a count, and disinherited. But I felt that the thing was +the Prince's doing, and that it was for the sake of the covenant he had +made with me that I was compelled to put up with such a toad as Von Reuss +crawling and besliming the fair garden of my love. + +It was an evening without clouds--everything shining clear after rain, +the scent of the flowers rising like incense so full and sweet that you +could almost see it. The unnumbered birds were every one awake, +responsive and emulous. The deep silence of midsummer was broken up. It +was like another spring. + +The Princess Ysolinde came out to take the air. She was wrapped in her +gown of sea-green silk, with sparkles of dull copper upon it. The dress +fitted her like a snake's skin, and glittered like it too as she swayed +her lithe body in walking. + +"Ha, Hugo," she said, "I thought I should find you here!" + +I did not say that if another had been kinder she might have found me +elsewhere and otherwise employed. I had at least the discretion to leave +things as they were. For the time to speak plainly was not yet. + +She took my arm, and we paced up and down. + +"Princess--" I began. + +"Ysolinde!" corrected she, softly. + +It was an old and unsettled contention between us. + +"Well then, Ysolinde, to-morrow must I ride to fight the men of mine own +country of the Wolfmark. I like not the duty. But since it must be, for +the sake of the brave Prince, it shall be well done." + +"You do not say 'For your sake, Ysolinde'?" she answered, pensively. + +"No," I said, bluntly, "'for the Prince's sake.'" + +"You would do all things for the Prince's sake--nothing for mine!" said +the Princess, withdrawing her hand. + +"On the contrary, Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "I do all things for +your sake. Save for the sake of your good-will, I should now be +elsewhere." + +Which was true enough. I should have been in the garden pleasaunce +beneath, and probably with my sword out, arguing the case with Von Reuss. + +But she pressed my arm, for she understood that I had delayed a day from +my duty for her sake. So touched at heart was Ysolinde that she slipped +her hand down from my arm and took my hand instead, flirting a corner of +her shawl cleverly over both, to hide the fact from the men-at-arms--as +Helene could not have done to save her life. But every maid of honor who +passed noted and knew, lifting eyebrows at one another, I doubt not, as +soon as we passed, which thing made me feel like a fool and blush hotly. +For I knew that ere they were couched that night every maid of them would +tell Helene, and with pleasure in the telling too. + +"Devil take--" I began and stopped. + +"What did you say?" asked Ysolinde, almost tenderly. + +"That if I come not back again from the Wolfmark it will be the better +for all of us!" I made answer, which was indeed the sense if not the +exact text of my remark. + +"Nay," she said, shuddering, "not better for me that am companionless!" + +"Why so?" said I, boldly. "You do not love me. Deep at the bottom of +your heart you love your husband, Karl the Prince. You know there is no +man like him. Me you do not love at all." + +"You will not let me," she said, softly, almost like a shy country +maiden. + +"Ah, if I had, you would have slain me long ere this," said I, "for I +read you like a child's horn-book that he plays battledore with. 'Have +not--_love_! Have--_hate_.' There you are, all in brief, my Lady +Ysolinde." + +"It is false," laughed she; "but nevertheless I love greatly to hear you +call me Ysolinde." + +She netted her fingers in mine beneath the shawl. Well might the High +Councillor say that she had a beautiful hand. Though, God wot, much he +knew about it. For Ysolinde of Plassenburg could speak with her hand, +love with it, be angry with it, hate with it--and kill with it. + +"I am an experiment," said I; "one indeed that has lasted you a little +longer than the others, my Lady Ysolinde, only because you have not come +to the end of me so soon." + +"Pshaw!" she said, pushing me from her, for we were at the turning of a +path, "you love another. That is the amulet against infection that you +carry. Yet sometimes I think that that other is only your hateful, +plain-favored, vainly conceited self!" + +I saw the Prince sit alone, according to his custom, in an arbor behind +us at that very moment--and judge if I blushed or no. But the Princess +saw him not, being eager upon her flouting of me. + +"I tell you," she cried, scornfully and disdainfully, "there is nothing +interesting about you but the blueness of your eyes, and that any monk +can make upon parchment, aye, and deeper and bluer, with his +lapis-lazuli. An experiment!--Why should I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, +experiment with you, the son of the Red Axe of the Wolfsberg ?" + +"Nay, that I know not," I answered; "but yet I am indeed no more than +your arrow-butts, your target of practice, your whipping-boy, to be slung +at and arrow-drilled and bullet-pitted at your pleasure!" + +"I dare say," she said, bitterly; "and all the time you go scathless--no +more heart-stricken than if summer flies lighted on thee. Away with such +a man; he is the ghost of a man--a simulacrum--no true lover!" + +"At your will, Princess. I shall indeed go away. I will to-morrow seek +the spears. But, after all, you will not send me forth in anger?" I said, +with a strong conviction that I knew the answer. + +"And why not?" said she. + +"Because," I replied, looking at her, "I am, after all, the one man who +believes thoroughly in your heart's deep inward goodness. I believe in +you even when you do not believe in yourself. I can affirm, for I know +better than you know yourself. You cover the beauty of your heart from +others. You flout and jeer. Above all, you experiment dangerously with +words and actions. But, after all, I am necessary to you. You will not +send me away in anger. For you need some one to believe in the soundness +of your heart. And I, Hugo Gottfried, am that man!" + +"Hence, flatterer!" cried the lady, smiling, but well pleased. "It is +known to all that I am the Old Serpent--the deceiver--the ill fruit of +the Knowledge of Evil. And now you say of Good also! And what is more and +worse, you expect me to believe you. Wherein you also experiment! I pray +you, do not so. That is to you the forbidden fruit. Good-night. Go, now, +and pray for a more truthful tongue!" + +And with that she went in, the copper spangles glancing at her waist red +as the light on ripe wheat, and all her tall figure lissome as the +bending corn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +INSULT AND CHALLENGE + + +Now, because there is still so much to tell, and so little time and space +to tell it in, I must go forward rapidly. In these dull times of grouting +peace, when men become like penned pigs, waking up only at feeding-time, +they have no knowledge of how swiftly life went when every day brought a +new living friend or a new dead enemy, when love and hate awakened fresh +and fresh with each morrow's sun--and when I was young. + +Perhaps that last is the true reason. But when the Baltic norther snorts +without, and mine ancient thigh-wound twinges down where my hand rests, +naturally I have no better resource than to fall to the goose-quill. And +lo! long ere I am done with the first page, and have the ink no more than +half-way to the roots of my hair, I am again in the midst of the ringing +hoofs of the foray. I hear the merry dinting of steel on steel; the +sullen _chug-chug_ of the wheels of Foul Peg, the Margrave's great +cannon, which more than once he lent our Prince; the oaths of the +men-at-arms shouldering her up, apostrophizing most indecently her fat +haunches, and the next moment getting tossed aside like ninepins by her +unexpected lurches. Ah, the times that were when I was young! + +I see these gallants about our later courts--Lord help them, sons of mine +own, too, some of them--year in and year out, crossing their legs and +staring at the gilded points of their shoon. All are grown so tame--none +now to ride a-questing in the Baltic forest for border brigands +--indeed, there be no brigands to quest for. + +But I forget. Time was when I looked love, and I too had shoon, aye, with +golden tips to match the armor of honor which the Prince gave me after I +had led my first regiment to victory--even as the Lady Ysolinde had said. +And noble shoes of price they were. + +And I could make love, too, when I had the chance. But, nevertheless, not +more than one day in six--spending the rest in the new training of my +men, the perfecting of their equipment, the choosing of their horses, and +the providing for their stores. + +God wot--it was a good time. I mind me the year when the Prince fell out +with Duke Casimir, and we played over again the old tricks with him. + +Never was I gladder of any quest than that to ride within sight of the +Red Tower, and wave the blue and yellow of my master under the very +ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and almost within hearing of the inhuman +howling of its blood-hounds. + +"Singe his beard!" said my master. And with a hundred riders I did it +too. For though the burghers clattered to their gates, I rode to the very +walls of the Wolfsberg, which for bravado I summoned to surrender. And +the best of it was that no man knew me. For I had grown soldierlike and +strong, and was most unlike the lad who had ridden away so meekly and +almost in tears out of the gate of that very Wolfsberg. + +Of my father, thank God, I saw nothing--though I doubt not he observed my +troop. For doubtless he would be with his master--aged now, soured, and +prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned +bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of +the assassin's bullet in every wind. + +And, save when an honest burgher was slain by the Black Riders, the +beasts of the kennels were fed on diet more ordinary than of old. + +So we rode back with our prisoners, and as much plunder as we could screw +out of old Burgomeister Texel and his citizens by threats of sacking the +city--a deed which I was main sorry for afterwards, in the light of that +which happened at a later day. But I knew not the future then, and it was +as well. For the guilders paid nobly for the new-fashioned ordnance which +stood us in such good stead that autumn, when we had sterner work in hand +than singeing the gray beard of Duke Casimir. + +Within Schloss Plassenburg things went on much as usual. Perhaps I was +lax in my wooing--I cannot tell; I loved sincerely enough, of a +certainty. Nor, after this, was I backward in telling Helene of it, and +sometimes she would love me well enough, and then again she would not. So +that I could not tell what she would be at. + +Looking back upon everything now, I see clearly how that the rankling +secret thorn was the accursed understanding with the Prince, that for his +peace's sake I was to abide friendly with the Princess and let her try +her fool experiments on me. Which she did, God wot, innocently +enough--that is, for all the harm they did me. But, nevertheless, without +knowing it, I kept the Little Playmate with a sore and aching heart for +many and many a day. + +But I made nothing of it--thinking, like a careless, ill-deserving +soldier-lover, eager for success and dazzled with ambition, chiefly of my +profession, of how to win battles and take fortresses against the +surrounding princelings, our Karl's enemies, till one day I found Helene +with her cheeks wet and her pretty lips bitten till the blood had come. + +"What is't, little one? Tell me!" said I, going to her and putting my +arm about her, as indeed I had some right to do, if no more than the +right of having carried her up into the Red Tower in her white gown +so long ago. + +But she wrested herself determinedly out of my hold, saying: "Do not +touch me, sir. 'Tis all your fault!" + +"What is my fault, dear lass?" said I. "Tell me, and I will instantly +amend it." + +"Oh!" she cried, casting her hands out from her in bitter complaint, +"there is nothing so meanly selfish as a man! He will say tender +things--aye, and do them, too, when it liketh him. He can be, oh, so +devoted and so full of his eternal affections. He is dying all for love! +And then, soon as he passes out of the door he ties his sword-knot and +points his mustache to his liking, and lo! there is no more of him. He +goes and straightway forgets till it shall please his High Mightiness to +call again. Oh! and we--we women, poor things, must stand about with our +mouths open, like mossy carp in a pond, and struggle and push for such +crumbs of comfort as he will deign to throw us from the full larder of +his self-satisfaction!" + +This was a most mighty speech for the Little Playmate, and took me +entirely by surprise. For mostly she was still enough and quiet enough in +her ways and speakings. + +"'Tis true, sweetheart, that some men are like that," I replied, gently, +"but not Hugo Gottfried, surely. When did you ever find me unkind, +unthankful, unfaithful? When went I ever away and left you alone?" + +"Oh, you did--you did," she cried, the tears starting from her lovely +eyes, "or I should never have been insulted--treated lightly, spoken to +as a staled thing of courts and camps!" + +And Helene sank down beside the garden wall in an abandonment of +sorrow--so that my heart grew hot and angry at the cause of her grief, to +me then unknown. + +I knelt down beside her and touched her lightly on one rounded, +heaving shoulder. + +"Dearest," said I, "I knew nothing of this. Tell me who has insulted you. +As God is in His heaven, I will have my sword in his heart or nightfall, +were it the Prince himself! Tell me, and by the Lord of the Innocents, I +will make him eat cold steel and drink his own blood therewith!" + +"Oh, it was my own fault--I know I should not have met him--let him speak +to me in the garden. But you were so cold to me, Hugo. And then I +thought--I thought that the Woman was taking you away from me. Also she +sent me out to be--to be in his path!" + +"In whose path, I bid you tell me, and what woman?" + +Though the latter I knew well enough. + +"The Princess," she answered, "and the Count von Reuss. To-day he spoke +to me of love, and spoke it hatefully, shamefully, when the Princess had +bidden me go and carry her message to him. But it was with me that he +desired to meet. And I--at first many days ago--I walked by his side and +listened, for then he spoke courteously and like a gentleman. For you +were on the high terrace, and I wished you to see. I thought--I hoped--" + +And the little one broke off with tears. + +"I know, I know!" cried I, contritely; "I am a blind, doting fool. In +this Prince's court I thought no more of such dangers than when I had +you safe and innocent, my Playmate of the Red Tower. But what did or +said Von Reuss?" + +"Truly he did naught, but only spoke--things for which I would have +smitten him to death had I possessed a dagger. I bade him begone. And he +swore he would execute his purpose yet in spite of every town's +Executioner in the Empire." + +"Ah, will he?" said I, a calm chill of hatred settling about my heart. +"I, Hugo Gottfried, will execute him, if I have to send for my father's +Red Axe to do it with--singed and scented monkey that he is." + +"Nay," said Helene, "then I wish I had not told you. Perhaps he will not +meddle with me again, and if you cross him he may slay thee. Remember, I +have no friend here but you, Hugo!" + +"Count von Reuss slay me! I could eat him up without salt or savory--a +weak reed, a kerl without backbone save of buckram; why, I will shake him +this day like a rat between my hands!" + +So I spoke in my anger, hot with myself that I had let the Little +Playmate suffer these things, and resolved that neither Prince nor +Princess would stand between me and my love a moment longer. + +But in all lands it takes more than Say-so to budge the stubborn wheels +of circumstance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +I FIND A SECOND + + +I meant to go directly to the Prince in his chamber and tell him that +from this time forth Helene and I had resolved to battle out our lives +together. But it chanced that I passed through the higher terrace on my +way to the lower--a bosky place of woods, where the Prince loved to +linger in of a summer afternoon, drowsing there to the singing of birds +and the falling of waters. For our Karl had tastes quite beyond sour +black Casimir, with his church-yard glooms and raw-bone terrors. + +On the upper terrace I found Von Reuss, lolling against the parapet with +other blue flittermice, his peers--he himself no flittermouse, indeed, +but of the true Casimir vampire breed, horrid of tooth, nocturnal, +desirous of lusts and blood. + +At sight of him I went straight at mine enemy, as if I had been +leading a charge. + +"Sir," said I, "you are a base rascal. You have insulted the Lady Helene, +maid of honor to the Princess, the adopted child of my father. Her wrongs +are mine. You will do me the honor of crossing weapons with me!" + +"I have not learned the art of the axe," said he, turning about, +listlessly. "You expect too much, Sir Executioner!" + +I wasted no more words upon him, for I had not sought him to barter +insults, but to force him to meet me where I could have my anger out upon +him, and avenge the tears in the eyes of my Little Playmate. + +Von Reuss was drawing a glove of yellow dressed kid through his hand +as he spoke. This I plucked from his fingers ere he was aware, and +struck him soundly on either cheek with it before flinging it crumpled +up in his face. + +"Now will you fight, or must I strike you with my open hand?" + +Then I saw the look of his uncle stand hell-clear in his eyes. But he was +not frightened, this one, only darkly and unscrupulously vengeful. + +"Foul toad's spawn, now I will have your blood!" he cried, tugging at +his sword. + +"We cannot fight here," said I, "within sight of the palace windows. But +to-night at sundown, or to-morrow at dawn, I am at your service." + +"Let it be to-night, on the common at the back of the Hirschgasse--one +second, and the fighting only between principals." + +Very readily I agreed to that, or anything, and then, with a wave of my +hat, I went off, cudgelling my brain whom I should ask to be my second. +Jorian, who was now an officer, I should have liked better than any +other. But, being of the people myself, it was necessary that I should +have some one of weight and standing to meet the nephew of the Duke of +the Wolfmark and his friend. + +Moodily pacing down the glade, which led from the second terrace and the +pleasaunce, I almost overran the Prince himself. He was seated under a +tree, a parchment of troubadours' songs lay by him, illuminated (to judge +by the woeful pictures) by no decent monkish or clerkly hand. He had a +bottle of Rhenish at hand, and looked the same hearty, hard-headed, +ironic soldier he ever was, and yet, what is more strange, every inch of +him a Prince. + +"Whither away, young Sir Amorous," he cried, pretending great indignation +at my absent-mindedness, "head among the clouds or intent as ever on the +damosels? Conning madrigals for lovers' lutes, mayhap? And all the while +taking no more heed of God's honest princes than if they existed only for +trampling under your feet." + +I asked his pardon--but indeed I had not come so nigh him as that. + +"I am to fight in a private quarrel," said I, "and, truth to tell, I +sorely want a second, and was pondering whom to ask." + +The Prince sighed. + +"Ah, lad," he said, "once I had wished no better than to stand up at +your side myself. I was not a Prince then though; and again, these +laws--these too strict laws of mine! But what is the matter of your +duel, and with whom?" + +"Well," said I, "I have slapped Count von Reuss's chafts with his own +glove, in the midst of his friends, on the upper terrace." + +'Tis possible I may be mistaken, I suppose, but I did think then, and +still do think, that I saw evident tokens of pleasure on the face of +the Prince. + +"And the cause--" + +I hesitated, blushing temple-high, I dare say, in spite of the growth of +my mustaches. + +"A woman, then!" cried the Prince. Then, more low, he added, "Not the--?" + +He would have said the Princess, for he paused, in his turn, with a +graver look on his face. + +So I hastened with my explanation. + +"He insulted the young Lady Helene, maid of honor to the Princess, who is +to me as a sister, having been brought up with me in one house. Her honor +is my honor, both by this tie, and because, as you know, we have long +loved each other. Therefore will I fight Count von Reuss to the death, +and a good cause enough." + +The Prince whistled--an unprincely habit, but then all millers' lads +whistle at their work. So Prince Karl whistled as he meditated. + +"I see further into this matter than that--if indeed you love this maid. +There be other things to be thought upon than vengeance upon Von Reuss! +Does the Princess know of this?" + +"Suspect she may," said I; "know she cannot. It was only half an hour ago +that I knew myself." + +"Ha," said he, musingly, with his beard in his hand, "it hath gone no +further than that. Were it not, if possible, better to conceal the cause +yet a while that our compact may go on? It were surely easy enough to +invent an excuse for the quarrel." + +"Prince," answered I, earnestly, "this bargain of ours hath gone on over +long already, in that it hath brought a true maid's honor and happiness +in question. And a maid also whom I am bound to love. I will ask you +this, have I been a good soldier and servant to you or not?" + +"Aye to that!" quoth the Prince, heartily. + +"Have I ever asked fee or reward for aught I have tried to do?" + +"Nay," he said; "but you have gotten some of both without asking." + +"Will you grant me the first boon I have asked of you since you became +Prince and Master to Hugo Gottfried?" + +"I will grant it, if it be not to separate us as friend and friend," said +my master at once. + +It was like the noble Prince thus to speak of our relation. I took his +hand in mine to kiss it, but this he would not permit. + +"Shake hands like a man," he said, "or else kiss me upon the cheek. My +hand is for young, blue-painted flittermice to kiss, for whose souls' +good it is to put their lips to the hand that has shifted the meal-bags." + +And with that Prince Karl embraced me heartily, and kissed me on +both cheeks. + +"Now for this request of yours!" said he, looking expectantly at me. + +"It is this," I answered him directly: "Give me a district to govern, a +tower to dwell in, and Helene to be my wife." + +"Nay, but these are three things, and you stipulated but for one. Choose +one!" he said. + +"Then give me Helene to wife!" I cried, instantly. + +"Spoken like a lover," said the good Prince. "You shall have her if I +have the giving of her, which I beg leave to doubt. Something tells me +that much water will run under the bridges ere that wedding comes to +pass. But so far as it concerns me the thing is done. Yet remember, I +have never been one wisely to marry, nor yet to give in marriage." + +He smiled a dry, humorsome smile--the smile of a shrewd miller casting +up his thirlage upon the mill door when he sees the fields of his parish +ripe to the harvest. + +"I wonder why, with her crystals and her ink-pools, the Princess hath not +foreseen this. By the blue robe of Mary, there will be proceedings when +she does know. I think I shall straightway go a-hunting in the mountains +with my friend the Margrave!" + +He considered a moment longer, and took a deep draught of Rhenish. + +"Then the matter of a second," continued the Prince; "he is to fight, +of course?" + +"No," said I; "principals only." + +"I wonder," said the Prince, meditatively, "if there be anything in that. +It is not our Plassenburg custom between two young men, well surrounded +with brisk lads. Three seconds, and three to meet them point to point, +was more our ancient way." + +"It was specially arranged at the request of the Count you Reuss," I +told the Prince. + +"If there is to be no fighting of seconds, what do you say to old +Dessauer? He was a pretty blade in my time, and has all the etiquette and +chivalry of the business at his finger-ends. Also he likes you." + +"At any rate, he is ever railing upon me with that sharp tongue of +his!" said I. + +"But did you ever hear him rail upon any of these young men that lean +on rails and roll their eyes under ladies' windows?" said the Prince. +"Old Leopold Dessauer is even now no weakling. I warrant he could draw +a good sword yet upon occasion. Anything more lovely than his riposte I +never saw." + +The Prince got upon his feet with the difficulty of a man naturally heavy +of body, who takes all his exercise upon horseback. + +"Page!" he cried. "My compliments to High State's Councillor +Dessauer, and ask him to come to me here. You will find him, I think, +in the library." + +So to the palace sped the boy; and presently, walking stiffly, but with +great dignity, came the old man down to us. + +"How about the ancestors, the noble men my predecessors?" cried the +Prince, when he saw him; "have you found aught to link the miller of +Chemnitz with the Princes of Plassenburg?" + +The Councillor smiled, and shook his head gravely. + +"Nothing beyond that bit of metal which hangs by your side, Prince Karl," +said Dessauer, pointing to his Highness's sword. + +The Prince looked down at the strong, unadorned hilt thoughtfully +and sighed. + +"I would I had another to transmit this sword to, as well as the power to +wield it, when I take my place as usurper in the histories of the Princes +of Plassenburg." + +"I trust your Highness may long be spared to us," replied Dessauer, +gravely; "but, Prince Karl, in default of an heir to your body (of which +there is yet no reason to despair), wherefore may not your Highness +devise the realm back to the ancient line?" + +"The line of Dietrich is extinct," said the Prince, booking up sharply. + +"So says Duke Casimir, hoping to succeed to your shoes, when he could +not to your helmet and your sword. But I have my suspicions and my +beliefs. There is more in the parchments of yonder library than has yet +seen the light." + +Suddenly the Prince recollected me, standing patiently by. + +"But we waste time, Dessauer; we can speak of ancestors and successors +anon. I and Hugo Gottfried want you to take up your ancient role. Do you +mind how you snicked Axelstein, and clipped Duke Casimir of his little +finger at the back of the barn, when we were all lads at the Kaiser's +first diet at Augsburg?" + +Old Dessauer smiled, well pleased enough at the excellence of the +Prince's memory. + +"I have seen worse cuts," he said; "Casimir has never rightly liked me +since. And had the Black Riders caught me, over to his dogs I should have +gone without so much as a belt upon me. He would have kept them without +food for a week on purpose to make a clean job of my poor scarecrow +pickings." + +"And now this young spark," said the Prince, "for the sake of a lady's +eyes, desires to do your Augsburg deed over again with Duke Casimir's +nephew. So we must give him a man with quarterings on his shield to go +along with him." + +"I am too old and stiff," said Dessauer, shaking his head mournfully, yet +with obvious desire in the itching fingers of his sword-hand; "let him +seek out one of the brisk young kerls that are drumming at the +blade-play all the time down there in the square by the guard-rooms." + +"Nay, it is to be principals only; there is to be no fighting of seconds. +The Count has specially desired that there shall be none," said the +Prince; "therefore, go with the lad, Dessauer." + +"No fighting of seconds!" cried the Councillor, in astonishment, holding +up his hands. And I think the old swordsman seemed a little disappointed. +"Well, I will go and see the lad well through, and warrant that he gets +fair-play among these wolves of the Mark." + +"Faith, when it comes to that, he is as rough-pelted a wolf of the Mark +as any of them!" laughed the Prince. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE WOLVES OF THE MARK + + +The Hirschgasse is a little inn across the river, well known to the +wilder blades of Plassenburg. There they go to be outside the authority +of the city magistrates, to make rendezvous with maids more complaisant +than maidenly, to fight their duels, and generally to do those things +without remark which otherwise bring them under the eye of the Miller's +Son, as they one and all call (behind his back) the reigning Prince of +Plassenburg. + +It was on the stroke of seven, and as fine an evening as ever failed to +touch the soul of sinful man with a sense of its beauty, that I set out +to fight the nephew of Duke Casimir. I had indeed ridden far and fast, +and withal kept my head since I left the Red Tower a poor homeless +wanderer, otherwise I had scarce found myself going out with High +Councillor Leopold von Dessauer as my second to fight my late master's +heir, the proximate Duke of the Wolfmark. + +What was my surprise to find the old man attired in the appropriate +costume for such an occasion, a close-fitting suit of dark gray, of +ancient cut indeed, and without the fashionable slashes and scallops, but +both correct and practicable, either for the sword-play or the proper +ordering of it in others. + +Von Dessauer laughed a little dry laugh when I congratulated him on the +youthfulness of his appearance. Indeed, he seemed little grateful for my +felicitations. And if it had not been for the rheumatism which he had +inherited from his father's campaigns on the tented field, and the +weakness which came from his own in other fields, he would yet have +proved as fit for the play of fence as any youngster of them all. So, at +least, he averred. And to-night the wind was southerly, and his old hurts +irked him not. Faith he was almost minded to try a ruffle with the cocks +of the Mark on his own account. + +"Mind you," he said, "guard low. The attack of the Mark ever comes from +the right leg, half-way to the knee. But I forgot--what use is it to +tell you, that are born of the Mark, and have learned sword-cunning in +their schools?" + +As we left the castle I looked about and secretly kissed a hand to that +high window, where was the chamber of my Little Playmate, whose cause I +was going out so gladly to champion. + +Dessauer and I went quickly down through the lanes which led to the river +edge where the ferry was, and more than once with the comer of my eye I +seemed to see a man in a cloak and sword stealing after us. But as the +sight of a man so attired going secretly in the direction of the +Hirschgasse was no uncommon one, I did not pay any particular attention. + +We crossed over in the large flat-boat which plied constantly between the +banks before our fine new bridge was built. We found our enemies on the +ground before us, and they seemed more than a little surprised when they +perceived who my second was. For as we came up the bank I saw them go +close and whisper together like men who hastily alter their plans at the +last moment. + +I presented my second in form. + +"The High Councillor Leopold von Dessauer, Knight of the Empire!" said I, +proudly enough. + +Then the Count presented his, as the custom then was among us of +the North: + +"His Excellency Friedrich, Count of Cannstadt, Hereditary Cup-bearer of +the Wolfmark." + +Count Cannstadt was an impecunious old-young man, who, chiefly owing to +accumulated gaming-debts and a disagreement with Duke Casimir concerning +the payment of certain rents and duties, had sought the shelter of the +Castle of Plassenburg--a refuge which the generous Prince Karl extended +to all exiles who were not proven criminals. + +The seconds bowed first to each other, and then to their opposing +principals. In those days, duels were mostly fought with the combatants' +own swords. And now Von Dessauer took my blade, and, going forward +courteously, handed the hilt to Count Cannstadt, receiving that of Von +Reuss in return. The seconds then compared the lengths, and found almost +half an inch in favor of my opponent. Which being declared, and I +offering no objection, the discrepancy was allowed and the swords +returned us to fall to. + +And this without further parley we did. + +I was no ways afraid of my opponent. For though a pretty enough, tricky +fighter, he had little practical experience. Also he had quite failed to +strengthen himself by daily custom, and especially by practice at +outrauce, with an enemy keen to run you through in front of you, and the +necessity of keeping a wary eye on half a dozen other conflicts on either +hand, as has constantly to be done in war. + +The place where we fought was on a level green platform a little way +above the roofs of the inn of the Hirschgasse, where many a similar +conflict has been fought, and on which many a good fellow has lain, +panting like a grassed trout, with the gasps growing slower and deadlier, +while his opponent wiped his blade on the trampled herbage, and the +seconds looked on with folded arms. There were many bushes and rocks +about, and the place was very secluded to be so near a great city. + +At first I did not trouble myself much, nor attempt to force the +fighting. I was content to hold Von Reuss in play, and defend myself till +the hunger edge of his attack was dulled. For I saw on his face a look of +vicious confidence that surprised me, considering his inexperience, and +he lunged with a venom and resolution which, to my mind, betokened a +determination to kill at all hazards. + +I knew, however, that presently he must overreach himself, so of set +purpose I kept my blade short, and let him approach nearer. Immediately +he began to press, thinking that he had me at his mercy. We had fought +our way round to a spot on the upper side of the plateau, where for a +moment Von Reuss had a momentary benefit from the nature of the ground. +Here I felt that he gathered himself together, and, presently, as I had +supposed he would, he centred his energy in a determined thrust at my +left breast. This was well enough timed, for my guard had been short and +a little high on purpose to lead him on, and now it took me all my time +to turn his point aside. I saw the steel shoot past, grazing my left arm. +Then with so long a recovery, and the loss of balance from lunging +downhill, he was at my mercy. + +As I did not wish to kill him I chose my spot almost at my leisure, and +pinked him two inches below the spring of the neck and close to the +collar-bone, which was running the thing as fine as I could allow myself. + +What was my surprise to see my sword-blade arch itself as if it had +stricken a stone wall, and to hear the unmistakable ring of steel +meeting steel. + +"Treachery!" cried Von Dessauer and I together; "you are villains both. +He is wearing a shirt of mail!" + +And the old man rushed forward with his sword bare in his hand and all +a-tremble with indignation. + +I heard the shrill "purl" of a silver call, and, turning me about, there +was the gambler Cannstadt with a whistle at his lips. I dared not turn my +head, for I had still to guard myself against the traitor Von Reuss's +attack, but with the tail of my eye I could see two or three men rise +from behind bushes and rocks, and come running as fast as they could +towards us. Then I knew that Dessauer and I were doomed men unless +something turned up that we wotted not of. For with an old man, and one +so stiff as the High Councillor, for my only ally, it was impossible for +me to hold my own against more than double our numbers. + +Nevertheless, Von Dessauer attacked Cannstadt with surprising fury and +determination, anger glittering in his eye, and resolution to punish +treachery lending vigor to his thrust. I had not time to observe his +method save unconsciously, for I had to change my position momentarily +that I might take the points of the two men who came down the hill at +speed, sword in hand. + +But all this foul play among high-born folk gave me a kind of mortal +sickness. To die in battle is one thing, but over against the very roofs +of your home to find yourself brought to death's door by murderous +treachery is quite another. + +At this moment there came news of a diversion. From below was heard the +crying of a stormy voice. + +"Halt! I command you! Halt!" + +And wheeling sufficiently to see, I observed through the twilight the +figure of a stout man, who came leaping heavily up the hill towards us, +waving a sword as he came. Well, thought I, the more there are of them +the quicker it will be over, and the more credit for us in keeping up our +end so long. Better die in a good fight than live with a bad conscience. + +With which admirable reflection I sent my sword through Von Reuss's +sword-arm, in the fleshy part, severing the muscle and causing him to +drop his blade. I had him then at my mercy, and experienced a great +desire to push my blade down his throat, for a treacherous cowardly +hound as he had proved himself to me. But instead of this I had to turn +towards the other two who came at the charge down the hill and were now +close upon us. + +I had just time to leap aside from the first and let him overrun himself +when he shot almost upon the sword of the thick-set man, who came up the +hill shouting to us to stop. The second man I engaged, and a stanch blade +I found him, though fighting for as dirty a cause as ever man crossed +swords in. + +"Halt!" came the voice of command again--the voice I knew so well--"in +the name of the State I bid you cease!" + +It was the voice of Karl, Prince of Plassenburg. + +"We must take the rough with the smooth now. We must kill them, every +one, like stanch men of the Mark!" cried Von Reuss. "There is no safety +for any of us else." And in a moment we were at it, the Prince furiously +assaulting the second of the bravoes who came down the hill. More coolly +than I had given him credit for, Von Reuss stuffed a silken kerchief into +the hole in his shoulder, and repossessed himself of his weapon in his +other hand. + +It was the briskest kind of a bicker that ensued for a little while there +on the bosky, broomy hill-side in the evening light. Ah, Dessauer was +down at last and Cannstadt at his throat! I went about with a whirl, +leaving my own man for the moment, and rushed upon the Count's false +second. He turned to receive me, but not quite quick enough, for I got +him two inches below where I had pinked his principal's ring-mail, and +that made all the difference. Cannstadt did not immediately drop his +sword. But his limbs weakened, and he fell forward without a sound. + +Then as I looked about, there was the Prince manfully crossing swords +with two, and the cowardly Von Reuss creeping up with his sword shortened +in his left hand with intent to slay him from behind. + +Whereat I gave a furious cry of anguish, that I should have been the +means of bringing my noble master into such peril. The Prince Karl had at +the same moment some intuition of the treacherous foe behind him, for he +leaped aside with more agility than I had ever seen him display before on +foot, and Von Reuss was too sorely wounded to follow. + +Presently I was at my first bravo again, and the Prince being left with +but one, Von Reuss took the opportunity to slip away over the hill. + +The rest of the conflict was not long a-settling. There were loud voices +from the stream beneath. The combat had been observed, and half a score +of the Prince's guard were already swimming, wading, and leaping into +small boats in their haste to be first to our assistance. + +But we did not need their aid. I passed my blade through and through my +assailant, almost at the same moment that the Prince spiked his man so +directly in the throat, so that the red point stood out in the hollow of +his neck behind. + +Both went down simultaneously, and there was Von Reuss on horseback, just +disappearing over the ridge. Prince Karl wiped his brow. + +"What devil's traitors!" he cried. "Poor Dessauer, I wonder what he has +gotten? Let us go to him." + +We went across the plateau together, and knelt by the side of the old +man. At first I could not find the wound, though there was blood enough +upon his face and fencing-habit. But presently I discovered that his +scalp had been cut from above the eye backwards to the crown of his +head--a shallow, ploughing scratch, no more, though it had effectually +stunned the old man. + +Even as I held him in my arms, he came to and looked about him. + +"Are they all dead?" he said, feeling about for his sword. + +"You were nearly dead, dearest of friends," said my master. "But be +content. You have done very well for so young a fighter. An you behave +yourself, and keep from such brawling in the future, I declare I will +give you a company!" + +Dessauer smiled. + +"All dead?" he asked, trying still to look about him. + +"Your man is dead, or the next thing to it, two other rascals grievously +wounded, and the scoundrel Von Reuss fled, as well he might. But my +archers are already on his track." + +Up the hill came Jorian and Boris leading the rout. + +"Is the Prince safe?" cried Jorian. + +"The Prince is safe," said Karl, answering for himself. + +"Good!" chorussed Jorian, Boris, and all the archers together. + +"Catch me that man on horseback there!" cried the Prince. "Take him or +kill him, but if you can help it do not let him escape. He is the Count +von Reuss, and a double traitor." + +"Good!" cried the pair, and set off after him, all dripping as they were +from their abrupt passage of the river. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE FLIGHT OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE + + +We carried Dessauer back to the boat with the utmost tenderness, the +Prince walking by his side, and oft-times taking his hand. I followed +behind them, more than a little sad to think that my troubles should have +caused so good and true a man so dangerous a wound. For though in a young +man the scalp-wound would have healed in a week, in a man of the High +Councillor's age and delicacy of constitution it might have the most +serious effects. + +But Dessauer himself made light of it. + +"I needed a leech to bleed me," he said. "I was coward enough to put off +the kindly surgery, and here our young friend has provided me one +without cost. His last operation, too, and so no fee to pay. I am a +fortunate man." + +We came to the gate of the Palace of Plassenburg. + +My Lady Princess met us, pale and obviously anxious, with lips compressed +and a strange cold glitter in her emerald eyes. + +"So strange a thing has happened!" she began. + +"No stranger than hath happened to us," cried the Prince. + +"Why, what hath happened to you?" she demanded, quickly. + +"Your fine Von Reuss has proved himself a traitor. He fought a duel with +Hugo here all tricked in chain-armor, and when found out he whistled his +rascals from the covert to slay us. But we bested him, and he is over the +hill, with Jorian and Boris hot after his heel." + +"And he hath not gone alone!" said the Princess, and her eyes were +brilliant with excitement. + +"Not gone alone?" said the Prince. "What do you know about this +black work?" + +"Because Helene, my maid of honor, hath fled to join him," she +said, looking anxiously at us, like one who perils much upon a +throw of the dice. + +I laughed aloud. So certain was I of the utter impossibility of the +thing, that I laughed a laugh of scorn. And I saw the sound of my voice +jar the Lady Ysolinde like a blow on the face. + +"You do not believe!" she said, standing straight before me. + +"I do not believe--I know!" answered I, curtly enough. + +"Nevertheless the thing is true," she said, with a curious, pleading +expression, as if she had been charged with wrong-doing and were clearing +herself, though none had accused her by word or look. + +"It is most true," the Princess went on. "She fled from the palace an +hour before sundown. She was seen mounting a horse belonging to Von +Reuss at the Wolfmark gate, with two of his men in attendance upon her. +She is known to have received a note by the hand of an unknown messenger +an hour before." + +I did not wait for the permission of the Princess, but tore up the +women's staircase to Helene's room, where I found nothing out of +place--not so much as a fold of lace. After a hurried look round I was +about to leave the room when a crumpled scrap of paper, half hidden by a +curtain, caught my eye. + +I stooped and picked it up. It was written in an unknown and probably +disguised hand--a hand cumbersome and unclerkly: + +"Come to me. Meet me at the Red Tower. I need you." + +There was no more; the signature was torn away, and if the letter were +genuine it was more than enough. But no thought of its truth nor of the +falseness of Helene so much as crossed my mind. + +To tell the truth, it struck me from the first that the Lady Ysolinde +might have placed the letter there herself. So I said nothing about it +when I descended. + +The Prince met me half-way up the stairs. + +"Well?" he questioned, bending his thick brows upon me. + +"She is gone, certainly," said I; "where or how I do not yet know. But +with your permission I will pursue and find out." + +"Or, I presume, without my permission?" said the Prince. + +I nodded, for it was vain to pretend otherwise--foolish, too, with +such a master. + +"Go, then, and God be with you!" he said. "It is a fine thing to +believe in love." + +And in ten minutes I was riding towards the Wolfsberg. + +As I went past the great four-square gibbet which had made an end of +Ritterdom in Plassenburg, I noted that there was a gathering of the +hooded folk--the carrion crows. And lo! there before me, already +comfortably a-swing, were our late foes, the two bravoes, and in the +middle the dead Cannstadt tucked up beside them, for all his five hundred +years of ancestry--stamped traitor and coward by the Miller's Son, who +minded none of these things, but understood a true man when he met him. + +I pounded along my way, and for the first ten miles did well, but there +my horse stumbled and broke a leg in a wretched mole-run widened by the +winter rains. In mercy I had to kill the poor beast, and there I was left +without other means of conveyance than my own feet. + +It was a long night as I pushed onward through the mire. For presently +it had come on to rain--a thick, dank rain, which wetted through all +covering, yet fell soft as caressing on the skin. + +I took shelter at last in a farm-house with honest folk, who right +willingly sat up all night about the fire, snoring on chairs and hard +settles that I might have their single sleeping-chamber, where, under +strings of onions and odorous dried herbs, I rested well enough. For I +was dead tired with the excitement and anxiety of the day--and at such +times one often sleeps best. + +On the morrow I got another horse, but the brute, heavy-footed from the +plough, was so slow that, save for the look of the thing, I might just as +well have been afoot. + +Nevertheless I pushed towards the town of Thorn, hearing and seeing +naught of my dear Playmate, though, as you may well imagine, I asked at +every wayside place. + +It was at the entering in of the strange country of the brick-dust that I +met Jorian and Boris. They were riding excellent horses, unblown, and in +good condition--the which, when I asked how they came by such noble +steeds, they said that a man gave them to them. + +"Jorian," said I, sharply, "where have you been?" + +"To the city of Thorn," said he, more briskly than was his wont, so that +I knew he had tidings to communicate. + +"Saw you the Lady Helene?" I asked, eagerly, of them. + +He shook his head, yet pleasantly. + +"Nay," said he, "I saw her not. The Red Tower is not a healthy place for +men of Plassenburg, nor yet the White Gate and the house of Master Gerard +von Sturm. But Mistress Helene is in safety, so much Boris and I are +assured of." + +"Not with Von Reuss?" cried I, fear thrilling sudden in my voice that he +had stolen her and now held her in captivity. + +Boris held up his hand as a signal that I must not hurry his companion, +who was clearly doing his best. + +"She is with Gottfried Gottfried, the old man, your father, and is +safe." + +"Did she go to them of her own free will, or did my father send for her?" +I went on, for much depended upon that question. + +"Nay," answered Jorian, "that I know not. But certainly she is with him, +and safe. The Count, too, is with his uncle, and they say also +safe--under lock and key." + +"Good!" quoth Boris. + +"Let us all three go back to Plassenburg forthwith!" cried I. + +"Good!" chorussed both of them together, unanimously slapping their +thighs. "Choose one of our horses. He was a good man who gave us them. We +wish we had known. We should have asked him for another when we were +about it." + +Nevertheless, I rode back to Plassenburg on the farmer's beast, sadly +enough, yet somewhat contented. For Helene was with my father, and far +safer, as I judged, than in the palace chambers of Plassenburg, and +within striking distance of the Lady Ysolinde. And in that I judged not +wrong, though the future seemed for a while to belie my confidence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE GOLDEN NECKLACE + + +The Chancellor Leopold von Dessauer, High Councillor of the Prince, with +his head still bound up, was pacing the sparred gallery outside the +private apartments of his master. It was in the heats of the late summer, +before the ripening of the orchard fruits had had time to culminate, or +the russet to come out slowly upon the apples, like a blush upon a +woman's soft, dusky cheek. + +The High Councillor was in a bad humor. For he had been kept waiting, and +that by a man of no account. At last a forester in a uniform of dark +green, with the Prince's bugle and sparrow-hawk in silver everywhere +about him, made his appearance at the foot of the gallery, and stood +waiting Dessauer's summons with his plumed hat of soft cloth in his hand. + +"Hither, man!" cried the High Councillor, sharply. "What has kept you? +Why were you not here half an hour ago? If this be the way you keep the +Prince's forests, no wonder there are many deer taken by reiving rascals +and the forest laws daily broken." + +"High Mightiness," said the man, humbly, looking down, "it was my +daughter--she would not give up the necklace. She hath had it for her own +since she was a child, and she would not deliver it, though I threatened +her with your well-born anger." + +"And have you got it with you? Surely you and she have not dared to keep +it!" began the Chancellor, with gathering fury on his eyebrow. + +"Yea, truly, truly, an you will have patience, my Lord, I have it +here,"-said the man, drawing a necklace of golden bars curiously arranged +from his leathern wallet; and, kneeling on his knee, he presented it to +the Chancellor. + +"How did you prevail with the maid?" he asked, as soon as he had it in +hand--"you used no constraint or force, I hope?" + +"Nay, sir," said the man, "for my wife being dead and my daughter +marriageable, she keeps house for me; and having a sweetheart betrothed a +year ago she hath been laying aside plenishing gear and women's dainty +gewgaws. So these I took one by one, beginning with a mirror of polished +brass, and made as if I would dash them in pieces if she discovered not +where the chain of gold was hid." + +"And she revealed it?" said Dessauer. + +"Aye," said the man, "but none so willingly, as you might suppose. I had +Saint Peter's own trouble to get it from her. Indeed, I prayed to the +Holy Apostle to aid me." + +"What had Saint Peter to do with it?" said the Councillor, pausing and +looking humorsomely at the man, like an ascetic sparrow with his head +at one side. + +"Because our Holy Saint Peter is the only saint who understands the +trouble men have with the contrariness of women." + +"Why so?" cried the Chancellor, rubbing his hand with a curious pleasure +at the colloquy. + +"Because he only among the Apostles was a married man and had experience +of a mother-in-law." + +"Art a wise forester. Where got you that wisdom?" + +"Why," said the man, modestly, "partly by nature, partly because I also +have been married, and so have graduated in the wars." + +"It is the same thing," said the Chancellor, "according to your +own telling." + +"Aye, sir," quoth the man, "but yet the young fellows will take no +warning. 'It is better to marry than to burn,' said the other Apostle. +But methinks he knew nothing about it, being no better than a +bachelor, or he would have amended it, 'It is better to burn than to +marry _and_ burn.'" + +"Ha! art also a theologe, Sir Woodman?" cried Dessauer. "But enough; this +touches on the Inquisition and the Holy Office. Let us despatch." + +All this time the High Councillor had been gazing by fits and starts at +the links of the necklace, turning it about and viewing it from +every-angle. It was composed of short bars of gold laid horizontally +three and three together, and bound together with short chains of gold. +And on each of the bars there was engraven a crest. Letters also were on +the bars, cut in plain deep script. + +"Now tell your tale and tell it briefly--that is, if brevity be in you, +which I doubt," said Dessauer. + +"As I said before," quoth the forester, "I was in the wars; I mean not +only in the wars with womenkind, but also with mankind. And among other +things I remember the night of the Duke Casimir's famous ride, when he +took Plassenburg, because there was scarce a sober man within the walls." + +"And his Highness the Prince Karl away on Baltic side with his men, else +had Casimir never set foot within the city!" cried the High Chancellor. + +"Ah, like enow," said the woodman, "I ken naught of that. But this I do +know, Plassenburg was taken with much slaughter and grievous loss of +goodly gear. They captivated many noble prisoners also, and, because I +slept in the stables, they took me to help lead the horses. Yet I was not +ill-treated, save that I had to keep pace with the horsemen upon my feet. +But I saw the Prince--" + +"Which Prince? Speak plainly," said the High Councillor, gruffly. + +"Why, the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg of Plassenburg," said the man. +"He, as your well-born Wisdom remembers, was then the only Prince in +these parts--a good man, and born of the noblest, though not of the +capacity of his present Highness the Prince Karl." + +"Proceed somewhat faster. Yon move as slowly as one of your own +forest oxen at the wood-hauling," cried the well-born Councillor in a +testy tone. + +"We were long in riding over to Thorn--two days and nights upon the way. +It was a terrible time, and all the while those condemned beasts of the +Wolfmark, Casimir's Black Riders, driving us with their spears like +prick-goads, till our backs were all bleeding, gentle and simple alike. +So at midnight of the third day we came to the city of Thorn, and up +through the streets to the Wolfsberg. There was no gladness in the town, +such as there would have been in our city had there been news of a +victory, or even of some hundreds of the enemy's horses well driven. For +then as now the town hated its Duke. And so they were all silent. + +"Then in the darkness we came to the castle, and the word was: 'Dismount, +and to the shambles!' Me and my like they meddled not with, but only the +great ones. And it was then, as I told you, that I saw Prince Dietrich +with the little maid in his arms. I had carried her part of the way for +him, and faithfully delivered her up again, feeding her with the choicest +meats I could obtain when she could eat. But she was tired, mostly, and +would not look at food. So for this he gave me her necklace from about +her pretty neck. But the rest of her noble golden gear, the belt and the +clasps, were upon the maid when the headsman of Thorn delivered her to +one that stood near by. So, being almost asleep with weariness and +exhausted with terror, they carried her away, and I saw the maid no more. + +"But the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg was beheaded within the hour, +and, as is their hellish custom, his body was thrown to the Duke's +blood-hounds that were clamoring all the time behind their fence. + +"God help us--such a disaster that night was for Plassenburg! Will the +Prince never set about wiping away the disgrace?" + +"Aye, that he will!" cried the High Chancellor, suddenly bursting into a +fury, strangely unlike him. "He will wash it away in the blood of Duke +Casimir and all his evil brood--the Wolves of the Mark truly are they +named. And the Wolfsberg shall go up in flaming fire to heaven, so that +the ashes of it shall be cast abroad to make the Mark yet grayer and more +desolate--like the fell of the beasts that dwelt within it." + +"Amen! Let it come quick, say I--that I may see it before I die!" cried +the forester, bowing low before the Chancellor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE DECENT SERVITOR + + +"This grows past all bearing," cried the Prince one morning, when he had +summoned into his hall the Chancellor Dessauer and myself. For, though +the Prince was still wont to command in person in any important action, +and in the general policy of his realm took counsel with none, yet it had +somehow come about that we, the old man and the young, had been +constituted an informal council of two which was liable to be summoned at +any moment, whenever the Prince was weary or troubled. + +He struck one clinched hand into the palm of the other before he +spoke again. + +"Duke Casimir is either in his dotage, or his riders have gotten out of +hand since Hugo and you drove the young wolf over to help the old. Both +are likely enough, with a people praying for deliverance and yearning for +their Duke's death. A bare board and an empty treasury may render a new +course of plunder necessary abroad, in order to keep his Dukedom from +toppling about his ears at home. After all, 'tis natural enough. But I +had thought that he would have had enough of sense to let the borders of +Plassenburg alone so long as its Prince lived." + +"And what, my lord, has befallen?" asked the High Councillor. + +"Why," cried the Prince, "the Black Riders of the Wolfmark are out again, +and have left their ancient trail behind them in slain men and frantic +women--and on our borders, too, among our kindly husbandmen, our honest, +sunburnt peasants. Bitterly shall Casimir Ironteeth rue the day that he +meddled with Karl Miller's Son." + +"Your Highness," I said, "this is indeed madness. We have but to collect +our forces, choose a time, and, lo! we are within the town of Thorn! Once +there, we would be welcomed by man, woman, and child. We could then +besiege the Wolfsberg, and in three days make an end." + +"Aye, that is it," said the Prince, grimly; "you have hit it, Hugo. We +_will_ make an end." + +"Also, my Prince," I went on, boldly, "so ye give me leave and approve of +my design, I will go alone to the town of Thorn, and bring you back word +of their power and dispositions. Save the Count von Reuss, there is none +who could now recognize me within the city walls." + +"What think ye, Dessauer?" said the Prince, looking over at the High +Chancellor. + +"I think well," said he, a little doubtfully; "but would it not be +better that two should go than that one should adventure alone into the +wolf's den ?" + +"Surely it were better to keep the matter between our three selves," the +Prince made answer; "not even the Princess must know of our attempt. Keep +a candle flame within the hollow of your palm, and though the wind blow +the sparks will not fly far." + +"I will go with the lad, Prince Karl," said the Chancellor, firmly. "In +my youth I had some practice as a leech. I am acquainted with the art of +healing. I could travel either as a doctor of healing, as a travelling +philosopher seeking disputation with the scholars of each country, or, +perhaps best of all, in mine own quality of a doctor of law. And in any +case this young man might with all safety be my pupil or servant, +whichever best liketh him." + +"Servant, then," said I, "for the art of disputation I have hitherto +chiefly undertaken with my fists and side-irons. And as to surgery, I am +more practised in the giving of wounds than in the healing of them." + +The Prince leaned his head upon his hand. He thought carefully over our +proposal, taking up point after point, resolving difficulty after +difficulty in his mind, as was his wont. + +"How long would you be away?" he asked, looking up at us. + +"Ten days, Prince," said I. "Give us but ten days and we will return." + +"I will give you eight, and if ye are not home again on the eve of the +last, as sure as I am Karl Miller's Son, the army of Plassenburg will be +thundering on the walls of Thorn seeking for a wandering Chancellor and a +lost Hugo Gottfried!" + +And so it was arranged. We of the Prince's staff were indeed in great +need of such a mission, for we had heard nothing from Thorn or the +Wolfmark during many months; no tidings, at all events, that could be +relied upon. For the cutting up of our frontiers by new raids, and the +severance of all relations between us and the dwellers in the Wolfmark, +through fear of reprisals, caused us to hear little news but such as was +manifest lies. + +As thus: Duke Casimir was collecting a great army, magnificent with +cannon and munitions of war. He was shut up tight in the Wolfsberg, not +daring to show his face to his own citizens. He would appear some fine +day before the Palace of Plassenburg and slay every man of us. He was in +a madman's cell, and Otho von Reuss was Duke of the Mark in his place. + +These were only a few of the stories which were brought to regale us +daily. And since there was no certainty anywhere, we were all in the dark +concerning the military matters which it behooved us greatly to be +acquainted with. Therefore I was honestly eager for my master's sake to +undertake the perilous journey. But to tell the whole truth, the fact +that I had not had a word from the Little Playmate, not so much as a line +of script nor a verbal message since her disappearance, made me more +eager to go than the high politics of a dozen provinces. + +Since the duel, and the final declaring of my love for Helene, I had seen +but little of the Princess. Indeed, I kept out of her way, so far at +least as I could. And the Lady Ysolinde remained mostly in her own +domains--to which, of late, I had been less and less invited. +Nevertheless, when we met, she was more than kind to me--gentle, +forbearing, pathetic almost in bearing and demeanor, like as a woman +wronged, slighted, misconstrued. + +Also there was sent to my quarters a new banner for my following, +broidered and blazoned in yellow and blue, a saddle-cloth of silk for my +horse, fine as a woman's robe, with a crowned Y faint and small in the +corner, lettered in straw-colored gold. No man could help being touched +by such kindly thought, which, after all, is more than mere liberality. + +Yet I saw a sight upon her stairs one night which awoke me with a sudden +start to the fact that we had one to reckon with in our journeying to the +city of Thorn whom we had not as yet taken into consideration. + +For it chanced that I was passing up to the Prince's apartments by the +quicker way, through corridors and by stairs to which he had given me +private access. And there, upon the steps leading to the Lady Ysolinde's +rooms, I saw the decent servitor of Master Gerard stand waiting. He +stared as hard at me as I did at him. But whereas his smooth, silent, +secret face remained with me, and I knew him at a glance, it was, I +judged, clean impossible that he could know the beardless stripling in +the mustached leader of soldiers, walking well-accustomed and unafraid +through palaces. + +The man had a letter in his hand, and I saw him deliver it to a maid who +came to the dividing curtain to take it. + +So there was later news from the city of Thorn within the Palace of +Plassenburg than we of the Prince's council of three possessed. Should I +tell our Karl of this encounter? I thought it might be safer not. Because +the Prince was the last man to attempt to obtain aught from his wife by +compulsion, and any question, direct or indirect, might only put her upon +her guard. + +If I let him into the secret, the Prince would be most likely to stride +straight into the Princess's rooms with the brusque words: "Gottfried has +seen a letter come to you from your father--what were its contents?" + +And that would not suit us at all. + +So, rightly or wrongly, I kept the matter from my master, speaking of it +only to Dessauer. And if aught befel from my reticence, it was at least I +myself who bore the burden, and, in the final event, paid the penalty. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL + + +The next morning early, as I went about making my dispositions, and +putting men of trust in positions fit for them--for the Prince has given +me the command of all the soldiers within the city--the Lady Ysolinde +came to me upon the terrace. + +"Walk with me a while," she said, "in the lower garden. It is a quiet +place, and I would speak with you." + +It was a command that I dared not refuse to obey, yet my greatest enemy +would not accuse me that I went lightly or willingly to such a tryst. + +The Lady Ysolinde passed on daintily and proudly before me, and I +followed, more like a condemned criminal lamping heavily to the scaffold +than a lad of mettle accompanying a fair lady to a rendezvous of her own +asking under the greenwood-tree. + +But I need not have feared. The Princess's mood was mild, and I saw her +in a humor in which I had never seen her before. + +She moved before me over the grass, with her head a little turned up to +the skies, as though appealing out of her innocence to the Beings who sat +behind and sorted out the hearts of men and women. + +At a great weeping-elm, under which was a seat, she turned. It formed a +wide canopy of shade, grateful and cool. For the breezes stirred under +the leaves, and the river moved beneath with a pleasant, meditative +hush of sound. + +"Hugo Gottfried, once you were my friend," she began; "what have I done +that you should be my friend no more? Tell me plainly. I liked you when +as a lad, the son of the Red Axe, you had come to my father's house about +some boyish freak. I have not done ill by you since that day. And now +that you are a leader of men and of rank and honor here in my husband's +country of Plassenburg, I would be your well-wisher still. I am conscious +of no reason for my having forfeited your liking. But that I would know +for certain--and now." + +As she threw back her head and let her clear emerald eyes rest upon me, I +never saw woman born of woman look more innocent. Indeed, in these days +of mistrust, it is innocence under suspicion which usually looks most +guilty, knowing what is expected of it. + +"Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "you try me hard and sore. You put me by +force in the wrong. You do me indeed great honor, as you have ever done +all these years. In reverence and high respect I shall ever hold you for +all that you have done--for your kindness to me and to Helene, the orphan +girl who came from our father's roof with me. I know no reason why there +should be any break in our friendship--nor shall there be, if you will +pardon my folly and--" + +"Tush!" she said, impetuously; "you speak things empty, vain, the +rattling of knuckle-bones in a bladder--not live words at all. Think you +I have never listened to true men? Do not I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, +know the sound of words that have the heart behind them? I have heard you +speak such yourself. Do not insult me then with platitudes, nor try to +divert me with the piping of children in the market-place. I will not +dance to them, nor yet, like a foolish kitchen-wench, smile at the +jingling of your trinketry." + +"Your Highness--" I began again. + +She waved her hand as if putting a light thing away. + +"I was a woman to you before you knew that I was a Princess," she said; +"you need not forget that I am a woman still, cursed with the plate-mail +of rank added to the weariness and inaction of a woman's breaking heart." + +I grew acutely conscious that I was not distinguishing myself in this +interview. So I dashed again at the wall, and this time, for a moment at +least, overbore interruption. + +"Ysolinde, my dear lady," I said to her, "you are the Prince's and my +good master's wife. And if I have stood aloof, it is that I wished that +he should have the companionship which one day I desire to find for +myself--and also that I might always have the right to look straight into +my master's eyes." + +"Now you talk like a silly prating priestling," she said. "You are both +mighty careful of your honesty, your virtue, your companionship--your +precious master and you. But you do not think what it is to starve a +woman's heart, to bid her find her level among broiderers of bannerets +and stitchers in tapestry. Ah! if the particular God who happened to be +at the digging of us out of the happier pit of oblivion had only made me +a man, I, at least, should neither have been a straitlaced Jackanapes nor +yet a prating, callow-bearded wiseacre." + +"And am I either?" said I, weakly enough. + +"You are in danger of becoming both," she said, promptly. "Once I saw +better things in you. I thought I had won me a friend, and that for once +I might put my anchor down. My husband neglects me, so much cannot have +escaped your eagle eye. He is twice my age, and he thinks more of you, +more of Councillor Von Dessauer, more of his horse than of me, Ysolinde +of Plassenburg. And I was made to be loved and to love. How much of +either, think you, have I ever known? The true lot of a woman shut to me, +the sweet love of man and woman wiled from me, even the communion of the +spirit forbidden. I might as lief carry a wizened nut-kernel within my +brain-pan as a thinking soul, for all that any one cares. I am a woman of +another age stranded on the shores of a time made only for men. I am the +woman priests talk against, or perhaps rather the witch-woman Lilith on +the outside of Eden's wall. Or I may be the woman of a time yet to come, +when she who is man's mate shall not be only a gay-decked bird to sit on +his wrist, tethered with a leash and called back to her master with a +silver lure." + +These things I had never listened to before, nor, indeed, thought of. +Nevertheless, though I could not answer her, I felt in my heart that +she was wrong, and that a woman has always power over men, being +stronger than all ideals, philosophies, kingdoms--aye, even our holy +religion itself. + +"After all," I said, piqued a little at her tone, as men are wont to be +at that which they do not understand, "my Lady Ysolinde, wherefore should +you not tell these things to the Prince, your husband, and not to me, +that am neither your husband nor your lover?" + +"And if you had been both?" she interjected, a little breathlessly. + +"Then, my lady," I replied, stirred by her persistence, "you would have +obeyed me and served me just as you say. Or else I should have broken +your spirit as a man is broken on the wheel." + +It was a prideful saying, and one informed with all ignorance and +conceit. Yet the Lady Ysolinde gave a long sigh. + +"Ah, that would have been sweet, too," she said. "You are the one man I +should have delighted to call master, to have done your bidding. That had +been a thing different indeed! But you love me not. You love a chit, a +chitterling--a pretty thing that can but peep and mutter, whose +heart's depths I have sounded with my finger-nail, and whose babyish +vanity I have tickled with a straw." + +This was enough and too much. + +"Madam," said I, "the clear stars are not fouled by throwing filth at +them, nor yet the Lady Helene--whom I do acknowledge that with all my +heart I love--by the speaking of any ill words. You do but wrong +yourself, most noble lady. For your heart tells you other things, both of +the maid I love and of me that am her true servant, and, if I might, your +true friend." + +The Princess reached out her hand, looking, not with anger, but rather +wistfully at me, like a mother at a son who goes to his death with +blasphemy on his lips. + +"Forgive me," she said, gently. "I would not at the last have you go +forth thinking ill of me. Indeed, you think all too well, and make me do +things that are better than mine intent, because I know that you expect +them of me. I have done many ill and cruel things in my poor life, simply +from idleness and the empty, unsatisfied heart. If you had loved me or +taught me or driven me, I might have tried better things. Perhaps in the +end, for great love's sake, I may yet do one worthy deed that shall blot +out all the rest. Farewell!" + +And without another spoken word she moved away, and left me in the green +pleasaunces of the garden, with my heart riven this way and that, scarce +knowing what I did or where I stood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON + + +Black, blank, chill, confining night shut us in as Leopold Dessauer and I +rode out of Plassenburg. Our horses had been made ready for us at the +little water-gate in the lower garden. Fain would I have taken also +Jorian and Boris, but on this occasion the fewer the safer. For to enter +Thorn was to go with lighted matches into a powder-magazine. + +The rushes in the river rustled dry and cold along the brink. The leaves +of the linden-trees chuckled overhead, rubbing their palms together +spitefully. There was mockery of our foolhardy enterprise in the soft +whispering sough of the water, as I heard it lapper beneath the +ferry-boat that lay ready to cross to the other side. Old Hans, the +Prince's ferryman, snored in his boat. Above in the women's chambers a +light went to and fro. I judged that it was in the bower of the Lady +Ysolinde. But not a string of my heart moved. For pity is so weak and +love so strong that all my nature was now on the strain forward towards +Helene and the Wolfsberg, like an eager hound that pulls at the +unslipped leash. + +"My love! my love!" I cried in my heart, "I am coming to you, I am going +out to find you! Though I give my life for it, I shall at least see and +touch you ere I die." + +For during these last days my love had grown greatly upon me, being of +that kind which gathers within a man, banks up, fills out his crevices, +and he know it not. In the Wolfmark there are oft, in the heart of the +limestone, caverns where the water sleeps deep and cool, while above, on +the thin, rocky crust, the sun beats and the very lizards die for lack +of moisture. It was only now that I had broken up the crust of my nature +and found the caverns under, where love was abiding all undreamed of, +deep, and eternal as the sea. It is a great thing and a beautiful to +meet love for the first time face to face, not to nod to only as to an +acquaintance, and to know how great and masterful he is; to say, "Love, +I am yours. Do with me that which seemeth good to you. I was strong--now +in your hands am I become weak. I was proud--now am I glad to be humble +and kneel, waiting your word. You have made life and death the same +thing to me, for the sake of the Beloved. I am ready to take either from +your hands!" + +But enough! We were riding out of the dark pleasaunces of the palace, the +leaves were rustling and the sedges blowing. That was what began it, +carrying away my thoughts. + +Dessauer rode behind me, letting his horse follow mine, nose to tail. +For, being used to the visitation of the city outposts, I knew the ground +thoroughly. + +At every hundred yards we were halted, and I answered. For I had posted +the men myself, making sure that Plassenburg should not again be taken by +surprise. On the other hand, I had determined that the spoiler should now +be made despoiled, and that the foul den of the Wolf should be cleansed +as by fire. + +Then, like the breaking up of the Baltic ice in spring, the thought ran +through me--my father and the maid of the Red Tower, what of them? + +Why, at the very first (so I told myself), I should set a guard of the +best troops in Plassenburg about the Red Tower, and carry them +all--Helene, my father, and old Hanne--to a safe place till Prince Karl +and I had made an end. With our stark veterans swarming in Thorn, that +would easily be done. And so the plan abode to be altered, broidered, and +recast in the imagination of my heart. + +We were soon out on the darksome, unguarded road, and after that I +steered chiefly by the lights of the palace behind me, Dessauer saying no +word, but riding like a man-at-arms close behind me. + +We had reached the crown of the green hill over whose slopes the path to +the Wolf markwinds--the path by which, doubtless, Helene had travelled +the night of the duel. + +As I came to the summit, mounting the steepest part slowly, I was aware +of a figure dark against the sky, no more apparent than a blacker patch +of night where all was dark. It was in shape as of a horseman sitting his +steed on the crest of the hill. + +Instantly I drew my pistol, in which I had become expert. + +"Your name and business?" cried I to the shape on the hill-side. For, +indeed, none had any right to be abroad so near the city of Plassenburg, +armed cap-a-pie, at that time of the night. And for a moment the thought +flashed upon me that the tales we had heard might after all be true, and +the armies of the Wolfmark nearer than we dreamed of. + +"Hugo--Von Dessauer!" quoth right jovially to my ear a voice well known +and ever dear to me, the voice of my master, the Prince Karl. + +"The Prince!" cried I. "My lord, what do you here? This is stark +madness--you, who should be within the walls of the palace, with the +guards watching three deep about you. What would come to the State of +Plassenburg if it wanted you?" + +"Oh," said he, lightly, falling in beside us in the most natural +fashion, "you and Von Dessauer in dual control would be a singular +improvement on the present head of the State. You, Hugo, would keep the +soldiers to their work, and Von Dessauer could look nobly after the +treasury." + +"But who would command us and be a gracious and beloved master to us?" +said I. "My Prince, we must instantly return and put you in safety!" + +"Indeed, that will you not. By God's truth, if I am not to come all the +way to the city of Thorn with you, I will at least convoy you to the +edges of the Mark. It is so dull, dragging out month by month at ease +within the castle, and not nearly so much fun as it used to be when I was +a poor captain of a free company under the old Prince. Young rattling +blades like Dessauer and yourself make no allowance for the distractions +of an aged and gouty Prince." + +Within myself I felt some amusement stir. It was almost exactly what the +Princess, his wife, had alleged as a reason for her wanderings. I could +not help marvelling why these two had not long ere this found out their +great affinity to each other. But now I see that this very likeness of +nature was the first cause of their lack of agreement. Like may, indeed, +draw to like, as the saw hath it. But in the things of love like and like +agree not well together. Fair desires dark, stout and stark desire +slender, slow desires quick, severe desires gay (though this often +secretly). And so the world goes on, and in another generation, sprung +from these desirings, once more dark desireth fair and fair dark. + +There I am at it again. Oh, but I, Hugo Gottfried, am the wise man when I +set out on my disquisitions. I could new-make all the saws of the world, +set instances to them, and never breathe myself. + +"Nay," said the Prince, "all is safe set within and without, thanks to my +brave commander and wise Chancellor, and these other matters can e'en +bide till I go back to them. Consider that I am but a captain of horse +going a-wooing and needing to talk gayly for good comradeship by the +road. Call me honest Captain Miller's Son." + +So Captain Miller's Son rode with Herr Doctor Schmidt and his servant +Johann. And a merry time the three of us had till we arrived at the +borders of the Mark. + +Now I have not time nor yet space (though a great deal of inclination) to +tell of the wondrous pranks we played--of the broad-haunched countrywomen +we rallied (or rather whom Captain Miller's Son rallied, and who, truth +to tell, mostly gave as good as they got, or better, to that soldier's +huge delight), the stout yeoman families into whose midst we went, and +their opinion of the Prince. Of the last I have a good tale to tell. "A +good man and a kindly," so the man said; "he has given us safe horse, fat +cow, and a quiet life. But yet the old was good too. The true race to +reign is ever the anointed Prince." + +"But then, did not Dietrich, the anointed Prince, harry you? And worse, +let others plunder you? And that is not the fashion of Prince Karl, +usurper though he be!" said the Prince. + +"Nay," the honest man would reply, "usurper is he not--a God-sent boon to +Plassenburg rather. We love him, would fight for him, all my six sons and +I. Would we not, chickens?" + +And the six sons rolled out a thunderous "Aye, fight--marry, that +we would!" as they sat, plaiting willow-baskets and mending bows +about the fire. + +"But, alas! he is cursed with a mad wife, and, after all said and done, +he is not of the ancient stock," said the ancient man, shaking his head. + +And the Prince answered him as quickly, tapping his brow significantly +with his forefinger, "Are not all wives a little touched? Or are yon +passing fortunate in your part of the country? Faith, we of the city will +all come courting to the Tannenwald if you prove better off." + +"We are even as our neighbors!" cried the yeoman, shrugging his +shoulders. "Maul, my troth, what sayest thou? Here is a brisk lad that +miscalls thy clan." + +The goodwife came forward, smiling, comely, and large of +well-padded bone. + +"Which?" said she, laconically. + +The farmer pointed to the Prince. The matron took a good look at him. + +"Well," she said, "he is the one that should know most about us. He has +been married once or twice, and hath gotten certain things burned into +him. As for this one," she went on, indicating Dessauer, "he may be +doctor of all the wisdoms, as ye say, but he has never compassed the +mystery of a woman. And this limber young spark with the quick eyes, he +is a bachelor also, but ardently desires to be otherwise. I wot he has a +pretty lass waiting for him somewhere." + +"How knew you that of me, goodwife ?" I cried, greatly astonished. + +"Why, by the way you looked up when my daughter came dancing in. You were +in your lost brown-study, and then, seeing a pretty lass that most are +glad to rest their eyes upon, you looked away disappointed or careless." + +"And how knew you that I was of the ancient guild of the bachelors?" +asked Dessauer. + +"Why, by the way that you looked at the pot on the fire, and sniffed +up the stew, and asked how long the dinner would be! The bachelor of +years is ever uneasy about his meals, having little else to be uneasy +about, and no wife, compact of all contrary whimsies, to teach him how +to be patient." + +"And how," cried the Prince, in his turn, "knew you that I had been +wedded once?" + +"Or twice," said the woman, smiling. "Man, ye cackle it like a hen on the +rafters advertising her egg in the manger below. I knew it by the fashion +ye had of hanging up your hat and eke scraping your feet---not after ye +entered, like these other good, careless gentlemen, but with your knife, +outside the door. I see it by your air of one that has been at once under +authority and yet master of a house." + +"Well done, good wife!" cried the Prince. "Were I indeed in authority I +would make you either Prime-Minister or chief of my thief-catchers." + +And so after that we went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE BLACK RIDERS + + +The next day we jogged along, and many were our advices and admonitions +to the Prince to return. For we were now on the borders of his kingdom, +and from indications which met us on the journeying we knew that the +Black Riders were abroad. For in one place we came to a burned cottage +and the tracks of driven cattle; in another upon a dead forest guard, +with his green coat all splashed in splotches of dark crimson, a sight +which made the Prince clinch his hands and swear. And this also kept him +pretty silent for the rest of the day. + +It was about evening of this second day, and we had come to the top of a +little swell of hills, when suddenly beneath us we heard the crackling of +timbers and saw the pale, almost invisible flames beginning to devour a +thriving farm-house at our feet. There were swarms of men in dark armor +about it, running here and there, clapping straw and brushwood to +hay-ricks and byre doors. + +"The Black Riders of Duke Casimir," I cried; "down among the bushes and +let them not see us! We must go back. If they so much as suspected the +Prince they would slay us every one." + +But ere we had time to flee half a dozen of their scouts came near us, +and, observing our horses and excellent accoutrement, they raised a cry. +There was nothing for it but the spurs on the heels of our boots. So +across the smooth, well-turfed country we had it, and in spite of our +beasts' weariness we made good running. And while we fled I considered +how best to serve the Prince. + +"There is a monastery near by," said I, "and the head thereof is a good +friend of ours. Let us, if possible, gain that shelter, and cast +ourselves on the kindness of the good Abbot Tobias." + +"Aye," said the Prince, urging his horse to speed, "but will we ever +get there?" + +Then I called myself all the stupid-heads in the world, because I had not +refused to go a foot with the Prince on such a mad venture, and so put +our future and that of the Princedom of Plassenburg in such peril. + +But there at last were the gray walls and high towers of the Abbey of +Wolgast. Our pursuers were not yet in sight, so we rode in at the gate +and cast our bridles to a lay brother of the order, crying imperiously +for instant audience of the Abbot. + +As soon as my friend Tobias saw us he threw up his hands in a rapture of +welcome. But I soon had him advertised of our great danger. Whereupon he +went directly to the window of his chamber of reception and looked out on +the court-yard. + +"Ring the abbey bell for full service," he commanded; "throw open the +outer gates and great doors, and lead these horses to the secret crypt +beneath the mortuary chapel." + +For the Abbot Tobias was a man of the readiest resource, and in other +circumstances would have made a good soldier. + +He hurried us off to the robing-rooms, and made us put on monastic and +priestly garments over our several apparels. Never, Got wot, had I +expected that I should be transformed into a rope-girt praying clerk. But +so it was. I was given a square black cap and a brown robe, and sent to +join the lay brethren. For my hair grew thick as a mat on top and there +was no time to tonsure it. + +Now, Dessauer being bald and quite practicable as to his topknot, they +endued him with the full dress of a monk. But at that time I saw not what +was done with the Prince. For my conductor, a laughing, frolicsome lad, +came for me and carried me off all in good faith, telling me the while +that he hoped we should lodge together. There were, he whispered, certain +very fair and pleasant-spoken maids just over the wall, that which you +could climb easily enough by the branches of the pear-tree that grew +contiguous at the south corner. + +As we hurried towards the chapel, the monks were streaming out of +their cells in great consternation, grumbling like soldiers at an +unexpected parade. + +"What hath gotten into our old man?" said one. "Hath he overeaten at +mid-day refection, and so is not able to sleep, that he cannot let honest +men enjoy greater peace than himself?" + +"What folly!" cried another; "as if we had not prayers enough, without +cheating the Almighty by knocking him up at uncanonical hours!" + +"And the choir summoned, and full choral service, no less! Not even a +respectable saint's day--no true churchman indeed, but some heretic of +a Greek fellow!" quoth a third. + +Nevertheless, obediently enough they made their way as the bell clanged, +and the throng filed into their places most reverently. It was a pleasant +sight. I came into rank unobtrusively at the back, among the rustling and +nudging lay brethren. In other circumstances it would have amused me to +see the grave faces they turned towards the altar, and to hear all the +while the confused scuffling as they trod on each other's toes, trying +whose skin was the tenderest or whose sandal soles were the thickest. One +or two even tried conclusions with me, but once only. For the first who +adventured got a stamp from my riding-boot which caused him to squeal out +like a stuck pig, and but for the waking thunder of the organ might have +gotten him a month's penance in addition. So after that my toes were left +severely alone among the lay brethren. + +Then came the high procession, at which the monks and all stood up. In +front there were the incense-bearers and acolytes, then officers whose +names, not being convent-bred nor yet greatly given to church-craft, I +did not know. Then after them came two men who walked together, at the +sight of whom the' jaws of all the monks dropped, and they stood so +infinitely astonished that no power was left in them. For, instead of +one, two mitred abbots entered in full canonical attire--golden mitre and +green, golden-headed staff, red embroidered robes lined with green. These +two paced solemnly in abreast, and sat down upon twin thrones. + +"The Abbot of St. Omer!" whispered one of the lay brothers, naming one of +the most famous abbeys in Europe, and the word flew round like lightning. +Whether he had been instructed or not what to say I do not know. But at +all events I saw the tidings run round the circle of the choir, overleap +the boundary stall, and even reach the officiating priests, who inclined +an eager ear to catch it, and passed the word one to another in the +intervals of the chanted sentences. + +Then the news was drowned in the thunder of the anthem, and the organ +dominating all. Everything was strange to me, but most strange the +practice of the lay brothers, who chanted bravely indeed in tune, but who +(for the words set in the chorals) substituted other sentiments of a kind +not usually found in service-books. + +"He looks a stout and be-e-e-fy o-o-old fel-low, this A-a-a-bot of St. +Omer, don't you think? Glory, glo-o-ry. Takes his meals well, likes his +qu-a-a-art of Rhenish or his Burgundy to swell his jolly paunch. +A-a-a-men!" + +Or, as it might be: "Are you coming--are you coming o-o-out to-night? +There will be-ee, good compan-ee-ee. Dancing and deray--lots of pretty +girls; no proud churls. Ten by the clock, when the doors all lock. As it +was in the beginning, is now, ever shall be, world without end, +A-a-a-men!" + +These were, of course, only the lay brothers, and I hope the friars were +better behaved. I decided, however, that for the sake of my respect for +religion, I should ask Dessauer. Because I saw even the Abbot Tobias lean +smilingly over to Abbot Prince Karl, and I marvelled what they spoke +about. Not that I had long to wonder, for through the open door of the +chapel there streamed a dismal host of invaders from the Wolfmark--black +Hussars of Death, in dark armor, with white skeletons painted over them, +all charnel-house ribs and bones in hideous and ridiculous array--which +was one of Duke Casimir's devices to frighten children, and no doubt +these scarecrows frightened many of these. Specially when these villanous +companies were recruited from all the wild bandits of the Mark, and never +punished for any atrocity, but, on the contrary, rather encouraged in +evil-doing in order to spread the terror of their name. + +Yet, when they came rushing in, even the cavaliers of death were daunted +by the sight which met them. And as the solemn service proceeded, amid +the thunder of the great organ pressing, throbbing against the roof and +reverberating along the floor, hands stole to heads, helmets were lifted, +and half-forgotten fear of Holy Church stirred in many a wicked and +outcast heart. Some of the foremost, with their blades half-drawn, +appeared to waver whether or no they should even yet stay the service +with the bloody sword. + +But as the monks calmly chanted, and the solemn responses were given, a +stillness stole over the vociferous babble within the great open doors. + +Higher and higher the voices of the choir mounted, breaking a way to +heaven. Awe sat on every fierce face, and when the Abbot Tobias arose to +pronounce the benediction, the other stood up beside him, and the +Hussars of Death knelt awe-stricken before the two mitred dignitaries of +the Church. + +Without a murmur they arose and slunk away without so much as +searching the abbey, and so departed on their errands, leaving us safe +and unharmed. + +Then, when the three of us were again united in the private rooms of the +Abbot Tobias, that hearty ecclesiastic shook us all by the hand and said, +"Good friends, we are well out of that. Nay, no thanks! My monks are not +a bit the worse of a little additional exercise to keep them humble and +lean. Nor is God the less well pleased that we have sought him in time of +need--as Prince and Abbot, as well as soldier and peasant, require." + +These being the only words of genuine piety I had heard within the walls +of the monastery, I thought more of the Abbot Tobias from that moment +that he was not ashamed to speak them in the presence of Prince and +Councillor of State, as well as before a rough soldier like myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +THE FLAG ON THE BED TOWER + + +It took us all our powers of persuasion with the Prince to induce him +to depart homeward on the morrow, under escort of a dozen sturdy and +well-armed lanzknechte attached to the monastery. But the thing was +done at last. + +"And remember," said our Karl, as he embraced us, "that if ye return not +on the eighth day at eventide, the forces of Plassenburg will e'en be +battering on the gates of Thorn by the hour of dusk. I am not going to +have my farms burned, my peasants disembowelled and cast to the +blood-hounds, my women ravished in their kindly home-steadings. God wot! +the cup of Duke Casimir hath been brimming this many a day, and we will +give him a deep and bitter draught to drink when we set it to his lips." + +Thereupon we bade our dear and brave master a respectful adieu. Karl +Miller's Son he might be, but for all that he was every inch a king--a +right royal man, whom I would rather serve than the Kaiser himself. + +And after he had gone from us a little way he turned again and waved his +hand, crying: "On the eighth day report you without fail, friends of +mine, unless ye wish me to come asking for you at the gates of Thorn, +with some din and the spilling of much blood." + +The worthy Abbot Tobias gave us a paper to the Bishop Peter, now restored +to his bishopric of Thorn, and in some measure dwelling at peace with the +Duke Casimir since that ruler's reconciliation with Holy Church. In this +paper it was set forth that the most learned Doctor of Law, Leonard +Schmidt, with his servant Johann, were on their way to Ratisbon to +dispute concerning the Practice of Law and Reason with another most +learned Doctor of the Empire, and that, desiring to remain a day of two +in Thorn, they were by the Abbot Tobias of Wolgast commended to Bishop +Peter's kind hospitality. + +For indeed the inns of Germany, and especially of the North, were not at +that time such as wise and learned men could readily submit to--neither +abide in, to be herded with dull, landward peasants and all the +tankard-swilling gutter-knaves of the town. + +Of the remainder of our journey I need not speak, seeing that more than +once I have had to tell of that journey from Thorn to Plassenburg. It is +sufficient that by evening the dark, frowning mass of the Wolfsberg lay +imminent before us, each tower black against the sky. For even the new +portions which Casimir had builded were of intention blackened with +soot--mingled with the plaster and mortar, so that they should be of one +piece of grim terror with the rest of the building. + +"After all it is not strange," said I to the Councillor, for when +there was no one in sight or very near us I rode with him instead of +behind him, "that the man who shakes at every breeze among the aspens +should take such pains to create the fiction and shadow of terror +about him, when the substance and reality is dominant all the while in +his own bosom." + +Since we had come within the distressed and depopulated territory of the +Wolfmark we had not spoken to any soul. Indeed, except a few poor, +desolate peasant folk, burned black with the sun, scuttling from den to +den at the sight of mounted men, we had not seen any living creatures. +The cruelty which had marked the reign of the Black Duke seemed to have +afflicted the very face of the country with a visible curse. + +But the day of deliverance was at hand. + +As we came nearer to Thorn, there before us was the Red Tower, at first +dimly apparent, then prominent, then commanding, finally rising higher +than all the buildings of the Wolfsberg. How many days had I not looked +down from those windows! And my father was even now up there in his grim +garret, his heart stirring calm and kindly within him, in spite of all +the atmosphere of blood in which his life had moved, as untouched as +though he had been a gardener working among the flowers of the parterre. +Also the block was there, and against it the Red Axe was leaning. + +Then I called to mind the prophecy of the Lady Ysolinde, that I should +return to take up my father's dreadful trade. And I smiled thereat. +For I thought that now I came in other circumstances--aye, even though +riding in at The tail of the learned Doctor Schmidt with my shaven and +chestnut-stained face, my flowing hair cropped to the roots, as in the +manner of the servant tribe! Yet for all that was I not the virtual +military commander of the Plassenburg and the right hand of the +Prince, whose forces would soon be clamoring against the walls of +Thorn and bringing down to destruction the hateful tyranny of the +Black Duke Casimir? + +"What is that?" said I, pointing to a standard of immense size which +drooped from the Red Tower. It had been hanging limp and straight about +the staff, and till now we had not observed it. But as we went toiling up +to the Weiss Thor, and the last links of road lengthened themselves +indefinitely out before us in their own familiar manner, suddenly a waft +of hot wind from the sun-beaten plain of the Wolfmark blew out an immense +black flag, which spread itself, fluttered feebly, and died down again +flat against the pole. + +"Nay," said the Doctor, "that I cannot tell. Surely you should know the +customs of your own city better than I!" + +For the heat had made the High Chancellor a little snappish, as well +perhaps as the length of the way. + +"Never in my time have I seen such a thing float above the Red Tower," I +made answer. "Can it be a flag of pestilence?" + +It seemed a likely thing enough. Cities were often made desolate in a few +days by the plague--the people running to the hills, a weird devil's +silence all about the gates. These might well betoken the presence of a +foe to which the army of Plassenburg would seem as a friend. + +As we rode under the Arch of the White Gate of Thorn we were summarily +halted to be examined. We gave our names, and the Doctor showed his +letters of authorization from a dozen learned universities. The Black +Hussar who examined our credentials was of a taciturn disposition, and +evidently no scholar, for he studied the parchments intently upsidedown, +and appeared to have an idea that their genuineness was best investigated +by smelling the seals. + +"Where are you bound?" he asked. + +"To the house of the learned and venerable Bishop of Thorn!" said the +Doctor Schmidt. + +So the Hussar, having finally approved of the quality of the +scholastic wax, called a subordinate, and bade him guide us to the +house of Bishop Peter. + +In an instant we were in the familiar streets, narrow, sunken, and +indescribably dirty, as they now appeared to me. For I had been +accustomed to the wider, airier spaces, and to the bickering rivulets +which ran down most of the steeper streets of Plassenburg, and which made +it one of the cleanest towns in the world. So that the ancient and +unreformed filth and wretchedness of Thorn appealed to my senses as they +had never done before. + +There were evidences too of the terror in which the inhabitants had long +lived. The houses of the rich burghers were sadly dilapidated. No man +thought it worth while to spend a pot of paint on a house which might be +knocked about his ears that very night, if the Duke conceived there was +money or gear to be found within the walls of it. + +Here and there the same black banner appeared. + +I asked the reason of it from our guide. + +"Is it that the plague is in the city?" + +"The plague has, indeed, been in the city--yes! But that is not the +reason of the flag." + +"And what then is the meaning of the black flag?" said I. + +"Ye are strangers indeed!" answered the man. "Did you not know that the +great Duke Casimir is dead, and that the black flag flies for him, and +must fly on the Wolfsberg till his successor be crowned." + +"And who is his successor?" said I. + +"Who but young Otho, the worst of the Wolfs litter. But perhaps you are +his friend?" + +He turned with a keen look, like one who has been accustomed to deliver +himself in company where he is sure of sympathy, and who suddenly has to +consider his words in society the tone of which he is not sure of. + +"Nay," said I, "we are travelling strangers and know nothing of your +politics. But this Duke Otho, wherefore has he not been crowned?" + +"Because," said the man, "the Duke Casimir, they say, hath been foully +murdered, and that through the witchcraft of a woman. So by our laws, +till the murderer is punished, the young Duke may not be crowned." + +By this time we were at the entering in of the long, dull mass of +building, which during most of my boyhood had stood unoccupied, owing to +the quarrel between Bishop Peter and the Duke. Our guide led us +unchallenged into the quadrangle, and then abruptly vanished without +pausing to bid us good-day, or even deigning to accept the modest +gratuity which my master, the learned Doctor, had in his front pouch +ready for him. + +As for me, I stood holding the horses and looking about for any of my own +quality who might show me the way to the stables. + +Presently a long, lean, lathy youth slouched out of one of the gloomy +entries. He stood amazed at the sight of me. I went to him to ask where I +might bestow the horses, now standing weary-footed, hanging their heads +after the long journey and the toil of the final ascent from the plain. + +"Will you fight, outlander?" were the first words of my lathy friend from +the entry. He seemed to have been drawn up recently from a period of +detention in some deep draw-well, and to have the mould of the stones +still upon him. + +"Why," said I, "of course I will fight, and that gladly, if you will find +me a man to fight with !" + +"I will fight you myself," he said, swelling himself. "For the end of +this candle I will fight half a dozen such Baltic sausages as you be." + +"Like enough," said I, "all in good time. But in the mean time show me +the stables, that I may put up my master's horses." + +"What know I about you or your master's horses?" cried my Lad of Lath; +"and pray why should I show the way to Bishop Peter's good stables to +every wastrel that comes sneaking in off the street and asks the freedom +of our house. For aught I know you may have come to steal corn. Though, +if that be so, Lord love you, you have come to the wrong place." + +"Come, stable-master," said I, placably, "let me see a corner and a wisp +of straw and I will ease the poor beasts. That will not harm the Bishop +Peter, whom my master has gone to visit. He is a friend of his, a man +learned in ecclesiastical affairs, who comes to hold disputations with +the Bishop--" + +"Disputations--what be those? Anything with money at the end of them? If +so, he will be a welcome guest at this house. There is very little money +at the tail of anything in this town." + +I thought I would try the effect of a broad silver piece upon him, at the +same time giving the lad the information that disputations were kinds of +fights with the tongues of men instead of with their fists. + +The silver sweetened his face like a charm. He seized me by the hand. + +"My name," he cried, "is Peter of the Pigs. I am not stable-master, but +feed the grouting piglings. And yet in a way I am indeed stable-master. +For the Bishop hath had no horses since the Duke took them away to mount +his cavalry for the raids into Plassenburg. So Peter of the Pigs looks +after all about the yard, and precious little there is to look +after--except one's own legs getting longer and leaner every day." + +"And where is the Bishop this afternoon?" I said. + +"Where should he be," cried Peter of the Pigs, "but at the trial of the +witch-woman in the Hall of Justice? It must be a rare sight. They say +she is to be put to the torture, and that they want a new executioner +to do it." + +"Why," said I, struck to the heart by his words, "what is the matter with +the old one?" + +"Oh," said the lad, "he is mortal sick abed. He happened an accident, or +some one stuck a dagger into him--no great matter if he had stuck it +through him, or cloven him to the chine with his own Red Axe!" + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH + + +At this point came my master back, looking exceedingly disconsolate. A +starveling, furtive-eyed monk accompanied him. + +"The Bishop," he said, "is gone forth of his house. He is in attendance +at the trial of a woman for witchcraft, one whom some of the common city +folk hold to be a saint. But the young Duke and others swear that she is +a witch, and hath murdered the Duke Casimir. Haste thee with the horses, +sirrah, and attend me to the Hall of Justice. I have sent a messenger +forward with my credentials to the Bishop Peter." + +So to the corner of the yard I went and rubbed down the horses with a +wisp of straw which Peter of the Pigs brought me, and which smelled of +his charges too. Then, with another piece of money in his hand, I sent +him out to the nearest corn-chandler's to buy some corn for our beasts, +the which I gave them, and stood by them till I saw them eat it too. For +in such a poverty-stricken place, and with a gentleman of the capacity of +Master Peter of the Pigs, one that is in any way fond of his horses +cannot be too careful. + +This done, I announced myself to my master as ready to accompany him. + +Then, through the streets of Thorn, all strangely empty, we took our +way. Women were leaning out of windows; every head turned castleward up +the street. + +They hardly deigned a glance at my master or at myself, but continued to +gaze. And as each passenger came down the street from the direction of +the Wolfsberg they cried questions at him, so that he ran the gantlet of +a dropping fire of shrill queries. + +"What are they doing to the sweet saint up yonder?" + +"Hath she been put to the Question?" + +"Who could be executioner in such a case? A man would be sent to +hell-fire for daring to lay hand on her." + +The popular sympathies ran clearly with the accused, which is not, as our +old Hanne had reason to remember, the rule in trials for witchcraft. + +Soon we were passing the gate of the Red Tower. It was barred and closed. +The windows of my father's house looked barrenly down, like the eye-holes +of skulls. I saw the window from which I used to gaze wistfully down upon +the children, who would not play with me, but spat upon the tower when +they saw me looking at their play and pipings upon the streets. + +There above was the window of my father's garret, with the edge of the +black flag blowing out above it. + +The streetward door of the Judgment Hall was open, and a great crowd of +people stood about, silent, anxious, respectful. Some of them talked in +low tones, and whenever there was a word passed out of the door, within +which men looked ten deep, it scattered all about like a wave which comes +into a sea-cave by a narrow entrance, and then widens out till it breaks +gently in the wide inner hall. + +"She is not to be tortured; only the Hereditary Executioner may do that. +They have threatened the old woman. She has confessed all!" + +So ran the words about the crowd, and ever and anon, one would detach +himself from the press, elbowing his way out, and then speed down the +long street, crying the latest tidings of the trial. + +It was manifestly impossible for us to obtain entrance by this door. So +we looked about for another. + +Then I minded me of the private passage which led from the inner +court-yard which I knew so well. We skirted the crowd, with our attendant +following, till we came to the side door, which led directly into the +Hall of Judgment behind the judges' high seats. + +It was the way by which many a time I had seen my father enter, either in +his dress of black or in that of red. And I was always glad when I saw +him put on the scarlet, because I knew that then the worst was over for +some poor tortured soul. + +But when my master proposed that the attendant of the Bishop should carry +a letter into the hall to his master to inform him that we waited +without, the man trembled in every limb, and the hair of his head shocked +itself up in sheer terror. + +"I cannot--I dare not," he cried; "it is the place of torture--of the +engines--the strappado--the water-drop, the leg-crushers!" + +And at this point the vision of what was contained within the fatal door +became so appalling to him that he picked up his skirts and fled, looking +over his shoulder all the while to make sure that the Red Axe was not +after him full tilt. + +So Dessauer and I were left standing. And if the matter had been less +serious, it would have been comical to see us thus deserted upon mine own +middenstead, as it were. + +"Bishop Peter of Thorn seems a prelate somewhat difficult of +approach," said the Chancellor. "I wonder if we shall ever lay any +salt on his tail?" + +"Let us risk it and go in," said I. "We are putting all our cards on the +table, at any rate. And at least we can see all that is to be sees. If +there is any risk of Von Reuss penetrating our disguises, it is as well +to gulp and get it over at once, rather than suck gingerly at it till +the fear of death chills our marrow." + +"Go on, then," he said, somewhat crossly; "there is indeed naught to be +gained by standing here as a butt for the eyes of evil-doers." + +So I opened the door carefully, and with a trembling heart. The hum of a +great assembly breathed turbidly upon us in a hushed chaos of sound. The +warm, stifling atmosphere, heavy with a thousand respirations, the sound +of a voice speaking loud and clear, the thunder of continuous heels on +the paved floor, the voices of the ushers crying, "Silentium!" at +intervals--these all came suddenly upon us as we shut out the air and +sunshine and went into the Hall of Judgment. + +We could not see the full assembly at first. We stood, as I had supposed, +directly behind the judges' rostrum. Only the corners of the vast crowd +which covered the floor and filled the galleries could be seen--a blur of +white faces all bent towards one point. But at the corner, not far from +us, a tall, spare, gray-headed ecclesiastic was speaking. + +We stood still, in order that we might not interrupt by entering till he +had finished. + +What was our surprise when we heard his words. + +"My Lord Duke," he was saying, "it is fortunate for the elucidation of +this great mystery that I have this moment received word concerning a +most learned and notable jurisconsult, a Doctor of the Law, wise in +controversy and specially skilled in such cases, who has even now arrived +in the city of Thorn, on his way to the Emperor at Ratisbon, before whom +he is to dispute for the honor of truth and our holy religion. + +"His name is the Learned, Venerable, and Reverend Doctor Schmidt, and I +trust that we of the city and faculty of the Wolfmark shall have the +honor of welcoming him as so distinguished a man deserves." + +The pattern of the Bishop's speech is one that does not vary while the +world lasts. + +"Lord, they have made me a Doctor of Theology as well!" whispered the +Chancellor to me. I gave him a little push. + +"Now is your time," said I, "the hour and the Doctor!" + +I lifted the skirt of his long black robe. He took hold of his marvellous +beard, a triumph of the disguiser's art, and we stepped forward. I could +hardly conceal a smile. + +We had come in the very nick of time. + +Then after this I have a vague remembrance of my master bowing this way +and that. I seem to see the wise men of the law, the judges, the priests, +and lictors rising and bowing in acknowledgment. I heard the hush of a +thousand people all craning their necks to look round the heads of their +neighbors, and the hum of whispered comment reach farther and farther +back, till it lapped against the walls and ebbed out into the street from +the great open door of the Hall of Judgment. It was a surprising sight, +this great trial--the gloomy hall, black with age and deeds of darkness, +lit by the rays of sunlight falling through windows of red glass, the +faces of men flecked as with blood where the evening sunlight streamed +luridly upon them. + +In the midst there was a clear four-square space. A lictor, with a bundle +of rods, stood at each corner. I looked, and there, alone in the centre, +attired in white, the cynosure of eyes, I beheld--Helene. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER + + +I felt my temples, my ears, my neck tingling with cold. I seemed to have +fallen into a sea of ice. I think I would have fallen and fainted but +that at that moment my master sat down beside the Bishop, and I was left +free to retire into a darksome corner, where I staggered against a beam, +slimy with black sweat, and hung over it with my hand clasping my brow, +trying to think what had happened. + +I do not know how long I remained in this position, nor yet when I came +to myself. All was a dream to me, a nightmare of horrid whirlings and +infinite oppressions. The faces of the folk that watched, the garmentry +of the Bishop and his priests, the red robes of the young Duke and his +assessors, spun round me in a hideous phantasmagoria. + +At last I was conscious that a trumpet had blown. Whereupon all rose up. +The secretaries stacked their papers unconcernedly with the feathers of +their pens in their mouths. And then in the solemn silence which ensued +the Duke and his judges filed out of the door, while the power of the +Church, represented by Bishop Peter and his priests, went forth by +another. Before I could realize the situation, Helene had vanished, as it +seemed, down a trap-door in the floor. + +My master accompanied Bishop Peter. As for me, I hardly knew what I did. +I did not even stand up, till our conductor, he who had gone forward to +announce us at the first, ran across to me, and, plucking me by the arm +from the beam on which I leaned, whispered, hurriedly: "Art dead or +drunk, man, that thou riskest thine ears and thy neck? Stand up while the +Judges and the new Duke go by!" + +So, dazed and numb, I hent me up, and lo! coming arm in arm towards me +were Otho von Reuss and his newly appointed Chief Justice and +assessor--who but mine old friend Michael Texel! The Duke bent a +searching look on me as I bowed low before him, but he saw only the tan +of my skin and the close bristle of my hair. And so all passed on. + +"Ho, blackamoor, thy master waits thee! Run, if thou wouldst avoid the +whipping-post!" cried another of the rout of servitors, with a small +sniggering laugh. + +So, putting out a hand to stay myself, I staggered weakly after my +master. I found him at the door, in talk with the confessor of the +Bishop. + +"And so," he was saying, "this girl was reared in the executioner's +house. And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secrets +of necromancy, it is not known where. I would see this Duke's Justicer. +Does he dwell near by? What! In that very tower? It is of good omen. Let +us go in thither." + +But the confessor excused himself, being in no wise desirous to visit the +Red Axe, even in his time of sickness. + +"I have business of the soul with Bishop Peter. I will speak with thee +again at refection," he said, twitching his head up at the Red Tower with +suspicious glances, as if he feared unseen ears might be listening, and +that some of its fearful magic might even descend upon a man so notably +holy as a Bishop's confessor. + +Presently Dessauer and I were across the court-yard at the well-known +door. I knocked, and listened, whereupon ensued silence. Again and yet +again I made the quaint death's-head knocker thunder, and then, when the +echoes ceased, there was once more a great silence in the tower. + +I heard the blood-hounds of Duke Casimir howl. The indigo shadow of the +pinnacled Hall of Justice stretched across and touched the Red Tower with +an ominous finger. + +"Let us go in," said I. And, pushing the unresisting door, I began to +climb the stone stairs. Each smoothed hollow and chipped edge was +familiar to me as my name. Indeed, much more so, for I was now passing +under a false one. So I climbed, in a dazed way, up and up. There on my +left was the sitting-room. It had been searched high and low, escritoires +rudely tossed down, aumries rifled, household stuff, grain, white linen, +empty bottles, all cast about and huddled together even as the searchers +had left them. + +Then above was the little room where Helene used to sleep. Here the wrack +was indescribable--every hidingplace rifled, her pretty worked bedquilt +lying across the doorway trampled and soiled, her dainty white clothing, +some she had worn at Plassenburg, and even the tiny dresses of her +childhood, all torn and confused together. And in the midst, what +affected me more than everything else, a tiny puppet of wood my father +had hewn her with his knife, and which she had dressed as a queen with +red ribbons and crown of tinsel--ah, so long ago--and in such happy days. + +"Father!" I called, loudly. "Father!" + +But in this I forgot myself. There might have been enemies lurking +anywhere in the house of pain and disaster. + +My own room came next, and the way out upon the roof; but we tried not +these. There remained only the garret of my father. I climbed up, with +Dessauer behind me, and pushed the door open. + +Then I stood in the entering-in, looking for the first time for years on +the face of my father. + +He lay on his conch, his head bound about with a napkin. The dark wisp of +hair which rose like a cock's comb, sticking through the stained cloth +which swathed his brow, was no longer blue-black, but of an iron-gray, +splashed and brindled with pure white. His eyes were open, and shone, +cavernous and solemn, above his fallen-in cheeks. It was like looking +into the secrets of another world. That which he had so often caused +other eyes to see, the Red Axe of Thorn was now to see for himself. The +hand which lay--mere skin, muscle, and bone--on the counterpane had +guided many to the door of the mysteries. Now at its own entrance it was +to push the arras aside, for the Death-Justicer of the Mark was to go +before the Judge of all the earth. + +My father lay gazing at me with deep, mournful eyes. So sad they seemed +that it was as if nothing in heaven or earth, neither joy nor sorrow, +life nor death, could have power to change their expression of +immeasurable sadness. + +I entered, and my companion followed. + +"You are alone? There is none with you here?" I said to my father, going +to the bedside. + +He started at the voice, and looked up even eagerly. But his eyes dulled +and deadened again as he fell back. + +"I did but dream!" he muttered, sadly. + +"You have no one with you here, Gottfried Gottfried?" said I again, for +in a matter of life and death it was as well to make sure even at risk of +disturbing a dying man. + +He set his hand to his brow as if trying to think. + +"Who should be with me--except all these?" he answered, very solemnly. +And swept his hand about the room as if he saw strange shapes standing in +rows round the walls. "I wish," he went on, almost querulously, "whoever +you may be, you would tell these people to keep their hands down. They +point at me, and thrust their dripping heads forward, holding them like +lanterns in their palms." + +He turned away to the back of the bed, and then, as if he saw something +there worse than all the rest, faced about again quickly, saying, with +some pathetic intonation of his lost childhood, "There is no need for +them to point so at me, is there? I did but my duty." + +"Father!" said I, gently touching his cheek with my hand as I used to do. + +"Ah, what is that?" he said, quickly. "Did some one call me father? Let +me go! I tell you, sirs, let me go! She needs me. They are torturing her. +I must go to her!" + +"Father," I said again, putting him gently back, "it is I--your own son +Hugo--come back to speak with you, to help if it may be--to die for the +Little Playmate if need be." + +"Hugo--Hugo!" he said. "Yes, yes--of course, I know--my little lad, my +pretty boy!" + +He pushed me back to look at me, eagerly, wistfully--and then thrust me +sharply away. + +"Bah!" he said; "you lie! What need to lie to a dying man? My Hugo had +yellow hair and a skin like lilies. Yours is dark--" + +"Father," said I, "I am here disguised. Help is coming, sure and +strong, if we can only wait a little and delay the trial. But tell me +all. Speak to me freely, if you love your daughter Helene--your +daughter and my love." + +He sat up now, and motioned me to come nearer. There was a dark, fierce, +unworldly light in his eyes. I set a pillow to his back, and went and +kneeled by the bed as I used to do at good-night time when I said my +Paternoster. + +Then for the first time he knew me. + +"Say your prayers, child!" he commanded, in his old voice. + +So, though with the stress of wars and other things I had mostly +forgotten, yet I said not only that, but the little Prayer of Childhood +he had taught me. And then I kissed him as I used to do when I bade him +good-night. + +"Yes," he said, softly, "it is true, after all. You are mine own +only son. Hugo--I am glad you have come so far to see your father +before he dies." + +I told him how I had come, and brought Dessauer forward, introducing him +as one great in the kingdom where I was, and to whom I was much +beholden. He shook him by the hand with grave, intent courtesy, and +again looked at me. + +"Now, father," said I, "we have no long time to bide with you, lest the +new Duke come upon us. We must hie us back to our lodging with the Bishop +Peter, lest we be missed." + +My father smiled. + +"Ye will live but sparely there!" said he, with a flicker of his +ancient smile. + +"Tell us how you came to this," said I, "and, if you can, why Helene, our +little Helene, stands so terribly accused." + +My father paused a long time before he began to answer. + +"It is not easy for me to tell you all," he said. "I know and I have the +words, but, somehow, when I try to fit the words to the thing, they run +asunder and will not mix, like water and oil. But see, Hugo, here is an +elixir of rare value. Drop a drop or two on my tongue if ye see me +wander. It will bring me back for a time." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +PRINCESS PLAYMATE + + +Then began my father to tell the story slowly, with many a pause and +interruption, now searching for words, now racked with pain, all of which +I need not imitate, and shall leave out. But the substance of his tale +was to this effect: + +"After you had left us, the Dukedom went from bad to worse--no peace, no +rest, no money. Duke Casimir took less and less of my advice, but, on the +contrary, began again his old horrors--plundering, killing, living by +terror and in terror. He threatened Torgau. He attacked Plassenburg. He +stirred up hornets' nests everywhere. At home he made himself the common +mark for every assassin. + +"Then suddenly came his nephew back, and almost immediately he grew great +in favor with him. Uncle and nephew drank together. They paraded the +terraces arm in arm. I was never more sent for save to do my duty. Otho +von Reuss rode abroad at the head of the Black Horsemen. + +"But, at the same time, to my great joy, arrived the Little Playmate +back to me. She was safer with me, she said. So that, having her, I +needed naught else. She came with good news of you, making the journey +not alone, for two men of the Princess's retinue brought her to the +city gates." + +"The Princess!" I cried; "aye, I thought so. I judged that it was the +Princess who sent her back." + +Dessauer motioned with his hand. He saw that it was dangerous to throw +my father off the track. And, indeed, this was proven at once, for my +unfortunate interruption set my father's mind to wandering, till finally +I had to drop certain drops of the red liquid on his tongue. These, +indeed, had a marvellous effect upon him. He sat up instantly, his eyes +flashing the old light, and began to speak rapidly and to clear purport, +even as he used to do in the old days when Duke Casimir would come +striding across the yard at all hours of the night and day to consult +his Justicer. + +"What was I telling?" he went on. "Yes, I remember, of the home-coming +of Helene under honorable escort. And she was beautiful--but all her +race were beautiful, all the women of them, at any rate. But that is +another matter. + +"So things went well enough with us till, as she went across the yard one +day to meet me at the door of the hall as I came out, who should see her +but the Count Otho von Reuss. And she turned from him like a queen and +took hold of my arm, clasping it strongly. Then he gazed fixedly at us +both, and his look was the evil-doer's look. Oh, I know it. Who knows +that look, if not I? And so we passed within. But my Helene was quivering +and much afraid, nestling to me--aye, to me, old Gottfried Gottfried, +like a frightened dove. + +"After this she went not out into the court-yard or city any more, save +with me by her side, and Otho von Reuss lingered about, watching like a +wolf about the sheepfold. For, as I say, he was in high favor with Duke +Casimir, and had already equal place with him on the bed of justice. + +"Then there came a night, lightning peeping and blazing, alternate blue +and ghastly white--God's face and the devil's time about staring in at +the lattice. I lay alone in my chamber. But I was not asleep. As you +know, I do not often sleep. But I lay awake and thought and thought. The +lightning showed me faces I had not seen for thirty years, and forms I +remembered, black against eternity. But all at once, in a certain +after-clap of silence that followed the roaring thunder, I heard a voice +call to me. + +"'My father--my father" it cried. + +"It was like a soul in danger calling on God. + +"I rose and went, clad as I was in the red of mine office (for that day I +had done the final grace more than once); even so, I ran down the stairs +to the room of my little Helene. + +"The lightning showed me my lamb crouched in the corner, her lips open, +white, squared with horror, her arms extended, as though to push some +monstrous thing away. A black shape, whose, I could not tell, I saw +bending over her. Then came blackness of darkness again. And again my +Helene's voice. Ah, God, I can hear it now, calling pitifully, like a +woman hanging over hell and losing hold: 'Father--my father!' + +"'I am here!' I cried, loudly, even as on the scaffold I cry the doom for +which the malefactors die. + +"And the room lit up with a flame, white as the face of God as He passed +by on Mount Sinai, flash on continuous flash. And there before me, with a +countenance like a demon's, stood Otho von Reuss." + +I uttered a hoarse cry, but Dessauer again checked me. My father went on: + +"Otho von Reuss it was--he saw me in my red apparel, and cried aloud with +mighty fear. If God had given me mine axe in my hand--well, Duke or no +Duke, he had cried no more. But even as he turned and fled from the room +I seized him about the waist, and, opening the window with my other hand, +I cast him forth. And as he went down backward, clutching at nothing, God +looked again out of the skylights of heaven, and showed me the face of +the devil, even as Michael saw it when he hurled him shrieking into the +nether pit. + +"Then I went back and took in my arms my one ewe lamb. + +"Many days (so they brought me word) Otho lay at the point of death, and +Duke Casimir came not near me nor yet sent for me. But by that very +circumstance I knew Otho had not revealed how his accident had befallen. +Yet he but bided his time. And as he grew well, Duke Casimir grew ill. He +waxed more and more like an armored ghost, and one day he came here and +sat on the bed as in old times. + +"'I know my friends now,' he said, 'good Red Axe of mine, friend of many +years. I have had mine eyes blinded, but this morning there has come a +mighty clearness, and from this day forth you and I shall stand face to +face and see eye to eye again, as in the days of old!' + +"Then being athirst, he asked for something to drink. Which, when our +sweet Helene had brought, he patted her cheek. 'A maid too good for a +court--one among a thousand, a fair one !' he said; and passed away down +the stairs, walking with his old steady tread. + +"But even at the steps of the Hall of Justice he stumbled and fell. They +carried him in, and there in the robing chamber he lay unconscious for a +week, and then died without speech. + +"When he was dead, and ere he had been embalmed, there arose a clamor, +first among the followers of Otho von Reuss, and after that among those +of the Wolfsberg who expected that they would be favored by the new Duke. +It was first whispered, and then cried aloud, that the death of Duke +Casimir had been compassed by witchcraft and potions. + +"Cunningly and with subtlety was spread the report how my daughter and I +had worked upon Duke Casimir. How he had gone to our house, drunken a +draught, and then died ere he could come to his own chamber. But as for +me, I went on my way and heeded them not. For just then the plague, which +had stricken the Duke first, stalked athwart the city unchecked, and all +through it this Helene of ours was as the angel of God, coming and going +by night and day among the streets and lanes of the town. And the common +folk almost worshipped her. And so do unto this day. + +"Now perhaps I did not heed this babble as I ought to have done. But +there came one night--how long ago I have forgotten--and with it a clamor +in the court-yard. The Black Riders, the worst of them, fiends incarnate +that Otho had of late gathered about him, thundered upon us without, and +presently burst in the door. + +"I met them with mine axe at the stair-head, and for the better part of +an hour I kept them at a distance. And some died and some were +dismembered. For at that business I am not a man to make mistakes. Then +came Otho limping from his fall and shot me with a bolt from behind his +men. And so over my body as I lay at the stair-head they took my love and +left me here to die. And the new Duke will not kill me, for he desires +that I shall see her agony ere my own life is taken. For that alone the +fiend keeps me in life! + +"And that," said my father, feebly, "is all." + +But just as he seemed to ebb away a wild fear startled him. + +"No," he cried, "there is yet something more. Hugo, Hugo, keep me here a +little! Hold me that my mind may not wander away among the racking-wheels +and the faces mopping and mowing. I have something yet to tell." + +I held him up while Dessauer poured a drop or two of the potent liquid +into his mouth. As before, it instantly revived him. The color came back +to his cheeks. + +"Quick, Hugo, lad!" he cried; "give me that black box which sits behind +the block." I brought it, and from this he extracted a small key, which +he gave me. + +"Unlock the panel you see there in the wall," he said. + +I looked, but could find none. + +"The oaken knob!" he cried, sharply, as to a clumsy servitor. + +I could only see a rough knob in the wood-work, a little worm-eaten, and +in the centre one hole a little larger than the rest. + +"Put in the key!" commanded my father, making as if he would come out of +bed and hasten me himself. + +I thrust in the key, indeed, but with no more faith than if I had been +bidden to put it into a mouse-hole. + +Nevertheless, it turned easy as thinking, and a little door swung open, +cunningly fitted. Here were dresses, books, parchments huddled together. + +"Bring all these to me," he said. + +And I brought them carefully in my arms and laid them on the bed. + +The eye of old Dessauer fell on something among them and was instantly +fascinated. It was a woman's waist-belt of thick bars of gold laid three +and three, with crests and letters all over it. + +The Chancellor put his hand forward for it, and my father allowed him to +take it, following him, however, with a questioning eye. + +Then Dessauer put his hand into his bosom and drew out a chain of +gold--the necklace of the woodman, in-deed--and laid the two side by +side. He uttered a shrill cry as he did so. + +"The belt of the lost Princess!" he cried; "the little Princess of +Plassenburg!" + +And, laying them one above the other, each group of six bars read thus: + +[Illustration: +o o o H o o o H o o o H o o o + | | | +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o The Necklace + | | | +o o o L o o o L o o o L o o o + + +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o + | | | +o o o N o o o N o o o N o o o The Belt + | | | +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o] + + +With delight on his face, like that of a mathematician when his +calculations work out truly, Dessauer reached over his hand for the +papers also, but my father stayed him. + +"Who may you be that has a chain to match mine?" he asked, with his +mighty hand on Dessauer's wrist. + +"I am the State's Chancellor of Plassenburg, and it needed but this to +show me our true Princess." + +"Here, then," said my father, "is more and better." + +And he handed him the papers. + +"It meets! It meets!" cried Dessauer, enthusiastically, as he glanced +them over. "It is complete. It would stand probation in the Dict of +the Emperor." + +"But yet all that will not prevent Helene Gottfried dying at the stake!" +cried my father, sadly, and fell back unconscious on his bed. + + * * * * * + +We spent this heaviest of nights at the palace of Bishop Peter--Dessauer +with the prelate--I, praise to the holy pyx, in the kitchen with the +serving men and maids. Peter of the Pigs was there, but no more eager to +fight. The lay brother who had gone with the letter, and the conductor +who had run away from the dread door of the Hall of Justice, had +returned, and had spread a favorable report of our courage. + +Certainly the house of Peter the Bishop might be a poor one and scantily +provendered, but there was little sign of it that night. For if the +master went fasting and his guests lived on pulse (as they said in +Thorn), certainly not so Bishop Peter's servants. + +For there were pasties of larks, with sauce of butter and herbs, most +excellent and toothsome. There were rabbits from the sand-hills, and +pigeons from the towers of the minster. The clear chill Rhenish vied with +the more generous wine of Burgundy and the red juice of Assmanhauser. For +me, as was natural, I ate little. I spoke not at all. But I looked so +dangerous with my swarthy face and desperate eye, I dare say, also I was +so well armed, that the roysterers left me severely alone. + +But I drank--Lord, what did I not drink that night! I poured down my +gullet all and sundry that was given me. And to render these Bishop's +thralls their dues, there was no lack and no inhospitality. But the +strange thing of it was that, though I am a man more than ordinarily +temperate, that night I poured the Rhenish into me like water down a +cistern-pipe and felt it not. God forgive me, I wanted to make me drunken +and forgetful, and lo! the dog's swill would not bite. + +So I cursed their drink, and asked if they had no Lyons +Water-of-Life, stark and mordant, or social Hollands, or indeed +anything that was not mere compound of whey and dirty water. Whereat +they wondered, and held me thereafter in great respect as a good +companion and approven worthy drinker. + +Then they brought me of the strong spirit of Dantzig, with curious +little flakes of gold dancing in it. It was raw and strong, and at first +I had good hopes of it. But I drank the Dautzig like spring-water, all +there was of it, and though it had a taste singularly displeasing to +me, it took no more effect than so much warm barley-brew for the palates +of babes. Upon this I had great glory. For the card-players and the +dicers actually left their games and gazed open-jawed to see me drink. +And I sat there and expounded the Levitical law and the wheels of the +Prophet Ezekiel, the law of succession to the empire, and also the +apostolic succession--all with surprising clearness and cogency of +reasoning. So that before I had finished they required of me whether it +was I or my master who was sent for to dispute before His Sovereign +mightiness the Emperor. + +Then I told them that the things I knew (that is, which the Hollands had +put into my head) were but the commonest chamber-sweepings of my master's +learning, which I had picked up as I rode at his elbow. And this bred a +mighty wondering what manner of man he might be who was so wise. And I +think, if I had gone on, Dessauer and I might both have found ourselves +in the Bishop's prison, on suspicion of being the devil and one of his +ministrants. + +But suddenly, as with a kind of recoil or back stroke, all that I had +drunken must have come upon me. The clearness of vision went from me like +a candle that is blown out. I know not what happened after, save that I +found myself upon my truckle-bed, with my leathern money-pouch clasped in +my hand with surprising tightness, as if I had been mortally afraid that +some one would mistake my poor satchel for his own pocket. + +So in time the morrow came, and by all rules I ought to have had a +racking headache. For I saw many of those that had been with me the night +before pale of countenance and eating handfuls of baker's salt. So I +judged that their anxiety and the turmoil of their hearts had not burned +their liquor up, as had been the case with me. + +Now it is small wonder that all my soul cried out for oblivion till I +should be able to do something for the Beloved--break her prison, hasten +the troops from Plassenburg, or in some way save my love. + +Hardly had I looked out of the main door that morning, desiring no more +than to pass away the time till the trial should begin again, before I +saw the Lubber Fiend, smirking and becking across the way. He had +squatted himself down on the side of the street opposite, looking over at +the Bishop's palace. + +He pointed at me with his finger. + +"Your complexion runs down," he said. "I know you. But go to the spring +there by the stable, wash your face, and I shall know you better." + +This was fair perdition and nothing less. For one may stay the tongue of +a scoundrel with money, or the expectation of it, until opportunity +arrive to stop it with steel or prison masonry. But who shall curb or +halter the tongue of a fool? + +Then, swift as one that sees his face in a glass, I bethought me +of a plan. + +"See," I said, "do you desire gold, Sir Lubber Fiend?" + +He wagged his great head and shook his cabbage-leaf ears till they made +currents in the heavy air, to signify that he loved the touch of the +yellow metal. + +"See then, Lubber," said I, "you shall have ten of these now, and ten +more afterwards, if you will carry a letter to the Prince at Plassenburg, +or meet him on the way." + +"Not possible," said he, shaking his head sadly; "my little Missie has +come to Thorn." + +"But," said I, "little Missie would desire it; take letter to the Prince, +good Jan, then Missie will be happy." + +"Would she let poor Jan Lubberchen kiss her hand, think you?" he asked, +looking up at me. + +"Aye," said I; "kiss her cheek maybe!" + +He danced excitedly from side to side. + +"Jan will run--Jan will run all the way!" he cried. + +So I pulled out a scrap of parchment and wrote a hasty message to the +Prince, asking him, for the love of God and us, to set every soldier in +Plassenburg on the march for Thorn, and to come on ahead himself with +such a flying column as he could gather. No more I added, because I knew +that my good master would need no more. + +Then I went down with my messenger to the Weiss Thor, and with great fear +and pulsation of the midriff I saw the idiot pass the house of Master +Gerard. Then, at the outer gate, I gave him his ten golden coins, and +watched him trot away briskly on the green winding road to Plassenburg. + +"Mind," he called back to me, "Jan is to kiss her cheek if Jan takes +letter to the Prince!" + +And I promised it him without wincing. For by this time lying had no more +effect upon me than dram-drinking. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT + + +The Bed of Justice was set by eight of the morning. For they were ever +early astir in the city of Thorn, though, like most early risers, they +did little enough afterwards all day. + +With a sadly beating heart, I accompanied Dessauer in the same guise as +on the previous day. The crowd was even greater in and about the Hall of +Judgment. And when the Duke had taken his seat and his tools set +themselves down on either side, they brought in the Little Playmate. + +She was dressed all in white, clean and spotless, in spite of prison +usage. She glanced just once about her, right and left, high and low, as +if seeking for a face she could not see, and from thenceforth she looked +down on the ground. + +The argument as to torture had been concluded on the day before, and it +had been held inadmissible--not because of any kindly thought for the +prisoner, but because, according to the laws of the Wolfmark, in the +absence of the Hereditary Executioner, there was no one legally capable +of inflicting it. + +Then came the evidence. + +The first witness against the Little Playmate was old Hanne. She was +brought in by a cowled monk of dark and sinister appearance--in fact, as +my heart leaped to observe, I saw that she was accompanied by Friar +Laurence--he who had taught me my learning in the old days, and who +even then had watched the Little Playmate with no friendly eyes. + +As she passed the judges I saw the deadly fear mount to agony on the face +of old Hanne. The look in her eyes of physical pain suffered and +overpassed was the same which I had often seen in the wars after the +surgeon has done his horrid work. That same look I saw now on the face of +Hanne. So I knew that somewhere in the dark recesses under the Hall of +Judgment the Extreme Question had been put to her, and to all appearance +answered according to the liking of the persecutors, though they dared +not torture so notable a public prisoner as Helene. + +I saw a look of satisfied vindictiveness pass over the brutal features of +Duke Otho. He changed his position and whispered to his colleagues. + +It was Master Gerard von Sturm who rose to put the questions to the +witness. And as he did so, I heard the steady sough of talk among the +people rise mutteringly in a low growl of anger and contempt. The Duke's +lictors struck right and left among the crowd, as men bent forward with +fierce hate in their voices, lowing like oxen, as if to clear their lungs +of a weight of contempt. + +It was not thus in the old days, when there was no people's arbiter +in all the Wolfmark so famous or so popular as Master Gerard of the +Weiss Thor. + +"What is the reason of that turmoil?" said I to my neighbor. + +"This is the man who was her first accuser. Why, he dares not go outside +his house without a guard of the Duke's riders," said the man, picking at +his finger-nail with his teeth, as if it were a bone and he did not think +much of its savoriness. + +"You have already confessed," said the advocate to old Hanne, when they +had propped up the poor wreck of skin and bone, "and you do now confess +that this maid and yourself have ofttimes had converse with the Enemy +of Souls?" + +A spasm passed across the face of the witness, and a low sound proceeded +from her mouth, which might have been an affirmative answer, but which +sounded to me much more like a moan of pain. + +"And you confess that she consulted you concerning the best means of +killing the Duke Casimir--by means of a draught to be administered to him +when he should, as was his custom, visit his Hereditary Justicer?" + +"There was indeed a draught spoken of between us, noble sir," stammered +the old woman, "but it was not for the Duke Casimir, nor yet for--for any +evil purpose." + +I saw the Friar Laurence incline his head a little forward and whisper in +Hanne's ear from his place behind her. + +At the words she clasped her hands and fell on the floor, grovelling: "I +will say aught that you bid me, kind sir. I cannot bear it again. I +cannot go back to that place. I am too old to be tormented. I will bear +what testimony your excellencies desire." + +"We wish only that you should tell the truth as you have already done of +your own free will in your pre-examination," said Master Gerard, "the +notes of which are before me. Was it not to kill the Duke Casimir that +this draught was compounded?" + +The old woman hesitated. Friar Laurence stooped again. + +"Yes!" she cried; "God forgive me--yes!" + +An evil look of triumph sat on the face of Otho von Reuss. I think he +felt sure of his victim now. + +"That is enough," said Master Gerard. "Take the old woman back to +her cell." + +"Oh no, great Lord!" she cried, "not there! You promised that if I said +it I was to be let go free. Kill me, but do not send me back!" + +The Duke moved his hand, and the old woman was led shrieking below. + +Then came Friar Laurence, who testified that he had often seen old Hanne +instructing the young woman who was now a prisoner in the art of drugs, +in the preparation of images carven in dough--and it might be also in +clay--things well known in the art of witchery. + +Further, he had been with the Duke Casimir at the last, and the Duke had +declared that he had partaken of a draught in the house of Gottfried +Gottfried, and immediately thereafter had been taken ill. + +There was not much else of matter in the Friar's evidence, but the most +deep and vindictive malice against the prisoner was evident in every word +and gesture. + +Then Master Gerard rose to address the judges. His venerable appearance +was enhanced by the sternly severe look on his face. He looked an +accusing angel from the pit, swart of skin and with eyes of flame. He was +tall and bent of figure, with the serpent-browed head set deep between +hunched shoulders like those of a moulting vulture. He grasped his bundle +of papers and rose to make his final speech. + +The judges settled themselves to closer attention. The hush of +listening folk broadened to the utmost limits of the great hall. At a +whisper or a cough a hundred threatening faces were turned in the +direction of the sound, so strained was the attention of the people and +such the fear of the eloquence of this most famous pleader in all +Germany. In these days when learning has reached so great a pitch, and +is so general that in a largish city there may be as many as a thousand +people who can read and write, of course there are many eloquent men. +But in those days it was not so, and Grerard von Sturm was counted the +one Golden Mouth of the Wolfmark. + +And this in brief was the matter of his speech. The manner and the +persuasive grace I cannot attempt to give: + +"It has at all times been a received opinion of the wise that witchcraft +is a thing truly practised--by which such women as the Witch of Endor in +Holy Writ were able to call dead men out of their deep graves grown with +grass; or, as in that famous case of Demarchaus, who, having by the +advice of such a woman tasted the flesh of a sacrificed child, was +immediately turned into a wolf. + +"Further, the testimony-of Scripture is clear: 'Thou shalt not suffer a +witch to live'; and, again, as sayeth the Wise Man, 'Thou hast hated +them, 0 God, because with enchantments they did horrible works.' + +"Now, men may by conspicuous bravery guard their lives against assault by +the sword of the enemy, against the spear of the invader that cometh over +the wall, even against the knife of the assassin. But who shall be able +to keep out witchcraft? It moveth in the motes of the mid-day sun. It +comes stealing into the room on the pale beams of the moon. Witchcraft +rides in the hurtling blast, and shrieks in the gust which shakes the +roof and blows awry the candle in the hall. + +"Enchantment can summon Azazeli, the Lord of Flesh and Blood, called in +another place the Lord of the Desert, by whose spiriting of the elements +even the pure water of the spring or the juice of the purple grape may +become noxious as the brew of the serpent's poison-bag. + +"Of such a sort was the ill-doing of this woman. For her own hellish +purposes she desired and compassed the death of the most noble Duke +Casimir. There may be those who try to discover a motive for such an act. +But in this they do foolishly. For to those who have studied of this +matter, as I have done, it is well known that enchanters and witches ever +attack those who are the greatest, the noblest, and the most envied--not +hoping for any good to result to themselves, but out of pure malice and +envy, being prompted by the devil in order that the great and noble +should be destroyed out of the land. Well was it spoken then, 'Ye shall +not suffer a witch to live!' + +"And if any plead hereafter of this evil-doer's youth, of her beauty, I +call you to witness that the Evil One ever makes his best implement of +the fairest metal. As the aged crone, her teacher and accomplice, hath +confessed, this Helene was for long a plotter of dark deeds. By the trust +of Duke Casimir in her maiden's innocence he was betrayed to death. That +one so fair and evil should be turned loose on the world to begin anew +her enchantments, and, like a pestilence, to creep into good men's +houses, is a thing not to be thought of. Is she to go forth breathing +death upon the faces of the young children, to sit squat, like hideous +toad, sucking the blood of the new-born infant, or distilling +poison-drops to put into the draughts of strong men which shall run like +molten iron through their veins till they go mad? + +"Hear me, judges, I bid you again remember the word: 'Ye shall not suffer +a witch to live.' And in the name of the great unbroken law of the +Wolfmark, which I hold in my hand, I conclude by claiming the pains of +death to pass upon the witch-woman who by her deed sent forth untimely +the spirit of the most noble Duke Casimir, Lord of the city of Thorn and +Duke of the Wolfmark." + +The pleader sat down, calmly as he had risen, and the judges conferred +together as though they were on the point of delivering their verdict. +There had been no sound of applause as Master Gerard had spoken--a hushed +attention only, and then the muffled thunder of the great audience +relaxing its attention and of men turning to whispered discussion among +themselves. + +"Prisoner," said Duke Otho, "have you any to speak for you? Or do +you desire to make any answer to the things which have been urged +against you?" + +Then, thrilling me to my soul, arose the voice of Helene. Clear and sweet +and girlish, without hurry or fear, yet with an innocence which might +have touched the hardest heart, the maiden upon trial for her life said a +simple word or two in her defence. + +"I have no one to speak for me. I have nothing to say, save that which I +have said so often, that before God, who knows all things, I am innocent +of thought, word, or deed against any man, and most of all against Duke +Casimir of the Wolfsberg." + +And as she spoke the multitude was stirred, and voices broke out here +and there: + +"No witch!" "She is innocent!" "The guilty are among the judges!" "Saint +Helena!" "If she die we will avenge her!" + +And though the lictors struck furiously every way, they could not settle +the tumult, and ever the mass of folk swayed more wildly to and fro. Nor +do I know what might have happened at that moment but for a cry that +arose in front of the throng. + +"The Stranger! The Great Doctor! The Wise Man! Hear him! He is going to +speak for her!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +SENTENCE OF DEATH + + +And there, standing by the place of pleading, with his foot on the first +step, I saw Dessauer, in his black doctorial gown, leaning reverently +upon a long staff. + +He made a courteous salutation to Duke Otho upon the high seat. + +"I am a stranger, most noble Duke," he began, "and as such have no +standing in this your High Court of Justice. But there is a certain +courtesy extended to doctors of the law--the right of speech in great +trials--in many of the lands to which I have adventured in the search of +wisdom. I am encouraged by my friend, the most venerable prelate, Bishop +Peter, to ask your forbearance while I say a word on behalf of the +prisoner, in reply to that learned and most celebrated jurisconsult, +Master Gerard von Sturm, who, in support of his cause, has spoken things +so apt and eloquent. This is my desire ere judgment be passed. For in a +multitude of councils there is wisdom." + +He was silent, and looked at the Duke and his tool, Michael Texel. + +They conferred together in whispers, and at first seemed on the point of +refusing. But the folk began to sway so dangerously, and the voice of +their muttering sank till it became a growl, as of a caged wild beast +which has broken all bars save the last, and which only waits an +opportunity to put forth its strength in order to shiver that also. + +"You are heartily welcome, most learned doctor," said Duke Otho, +sullenly. "We would desire to hear you briefly concerning this matter." + +"I shall assuredly be brief, my noble lord--most brief," said Dessauer. +"I am a stranger, and must therefore speak by the great principles of +equity which underlie all law and all evidence, rather than according to +the statutes of the province over which you are the distinguished ruler. + +"The crime of witchcraft is indeed a heinous one, if so be that it can be +proven--not by the compelled confession of crazed and tortured crones, +but by the clear light of reason. Now there is no evidence that I have +heard against this young girl which might not be urged with equal justice +against every cup-bearer in the Castle of the Wolfsberg. + +"The Duke Casimir died indeed after having partaken of the wine. But so +may a man at any time by the visitation of God, by the stroke which, from +the void air, falleth suddenly upon the heart of man. No poison has been +found on or about the girl. No evil has been alleged against her, save +that which has been compelled (as all must have seen) by torture, and the +fear of torture, from the palsied and reluctant lips of a frantic hag." + +"Hear him! Great is the Stranger!" cried the folk in the hall. And the +shouting of the guards commanding silence could scarce be heard for the +roar of the populace. It was some time before the speech of Dessauer was +again audible. + +Ho was beginning to speak again, but Duke Otho, without rising, called +out rudely and angrily: + +"Speak to the reason of the judges and not to the passions of the mob!" + +"I do indeed speak from the reason to the reason," said Dessauer, calmly; +"for in this matter there is no true averment, even of witchcraft, but +only of the administration of poison--which ought to be proven by the +ordinary means of producing some portion of the drug, both in the +possession of the criminal and from the body of the murdered man. This +has not been done. There has been no evidence, save, as I have shown, +such as may be easily compelled or suborned. If this maid be condemned, +there is no one of you with a wife, a daughter, a sweetheart, who may not +have her burned or beheaded on just as little evidence--if she have a +single enemy in all the city seeking for the sake of malice or thwarted +lust to compass her destruction. + +"Moreover, it indeed matters little for the argument that this damsel is +fair to the eye. Save in so far as she is more the object of desire, and +that when the greed of the lustful eye is balked" (here he paused and +looked fixedly between his knees), "disappointment oft in such a heart +turns to deadly poison. And so that which was desired is the more +bitterly hated, and revenge awakes to destroy. + +"But if beauty matters little, character matters greatly. And what, by +common consent, has been known in the city concerning this maid? + +"I ask not you, Duke Otho, who have lived apart in your castle or in far +lands, a stranger to the city like myself. But I ask the people among +whom, during all these; past months of the plague, she has dwelt. Is she +not known among them as Saint Helena?" + +"Aye," cried the people, "Saint Helena, indeed--our savior when there was +none to help! God save Saint Helena!" + +Dessauer waved his hand for silence. + +"Did she not go among you from house to house, carrying, not the +poison-cup, but the healing draught? Was not her hand soft on the brow of +the dying, comfortable about the neck of the bereaved? Day and night, +whose fingers reverently wrapped up the poor dead bodies of your +beloved? Who quieted your babes in her arms, fed thorn, nursed them, +healed them, buried them--wore herself to a shadow for your sakes ?" + +"Saint Helena!" they cried; "Saint Helena, the angel of the Red Tower!" + +"Aye," said Dessauer, in tones like thunder, "hear their voices! There +are a thousand witnesses in this house untortured, unsuborned. I tell +you, the guilt of innocent blood will lie on you, great Duke--on you +counsellors of evil things, if you condemn this maid. Your throne, +Duke Otho, shall totter and fall, and your life's sun shall set in a +sea of blood!" + +He sat down calm and fearless as the Duke raged to Michael Texel, as I +think, desiring that the fearless pleader could be seized on the instant, +and punished for his insolence. But as the folk shouted in the hall, and +the thunder of cheering came in through the open windows from the great +concourse without, Michael Texel calmed his master, urging upon him that +the temper of the people was for the present too dangerous. And also, +doubtless, that they could easily compass their ends by other means. + +I saw Texel despatch a messenger to the lictors who stood on either side +of Helene. The body-guard of the Duke stood closer about her as the Duke +Otho himself stood up to read the sentence. + +I saw that the form of it had been written out upon a paper. Doubtless, +therefore, all had been prearranged, so that neither evidence nor +eloquence could possibly have had any effect upon it. + +"We, the Court of the Wolfmark, find the prisoner, Helene, called +Gottfried, guilty of witchcraft, and especially of compassing and +causing the death of our predecessor, the most noble Duke Casimir, and +we do hereby adjudge that, on the morning of Sunday presently +following, Helene Gottfried shall be executed upon the common scaffold +by the axe of the executioner. Of our clemency is this sentence +delivered, instead of the torture and the burning alive at the stake +which it was within our power to command. This is done in consideration +of the youth of the criminal, and as the first exercise of our ducal +prerogative of high mercy." + +With an angry roar the people closed in. + +"Take her!" they cried; "rescue her out of their hands!" + +And there was a fierce rush, in which the outer barriers were snapped +like straw. But the lictors had pulled down the trap-door on the instant, +and the people surged fiercely over the spot where a moment before Helene +had stood. Before them were the levelled pikes and burning matches of the +Duke's guard. + +"Have at them!" was still the cry. "Kill the wolves! Tear them to +pieces!" + +But the mob was undisciplined, and the steady advance of the soldiers +soon cleared the hall. Nevertheless the streets without continued angry +and throbbing with incipient rebellion. Duke Otho could scarce win +scathless across the court-yard to his own apartments. Tiles from the +nearest roofs were cast upon the heads of his escort. The streets were +impassable with angry men shaking their fists at every courier and +soldier of the Duke. Women hung sobbing out of the windows, and all the +city of Thorn lamented with uncomforted tears because of the cruel +condemnation of their Saint of the plague, Helena, the maiden of the +Red Tower. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE + + +I rushed out into the street, distract and insensate with grief and +madness. I found the city seething with sullen unrest--not yet openly +hostile to the powers that abode in the Castle of the Wolfsberg--too long +cowed and down-trodden for that, but angry with the anger which one day +would of a certainty break out and be pitiless. + +The Black Horsemen of the Duke pricked a way with their lances here and +there through the people, driving them into the narrow lanes, in jets and +spurts of fleeing humanity, only once more to reunite as soon as the +Hussars of Death had passed. Pikemen cried "Make way!" and the regular +guard of the city paraded in strong companies. + +A soldier wantonly thrust me in the back with his spear, and I sprang +towards him fiercely, glad to strike home at something. But as quickly a +man of the crowd pulled me back. + +"Be wise!" he said; "not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of all +these women and children. The Black Riders seek only an excuse to sweep +the city from end to end with the besom of fire and blood." + +Then came my master out of the Hall of Judgment, his head hanging +dejectedly down. As soon as he was observed the people crowded about, +shaking him by the hand, thanking him for that which he had done for +their maid, their holy Saint Helena of the plague. + +"We will not suffer her to be put to death, not even if they of the +Wolfsberg raze our city to the ground!" + +"Make way there!" cried the Black Horsemen--"way, in the name of +Duke Otho!" + +"Who is Duke Otho?" cried a voice. "We do not know Duke Otho." + +"He is not crowned yet! Why should he take so much upon him?" +shouted another. + +"We are free burgesses of Thorn, and no man's bond-slaves!" said a third. +Such were the shouts that hurtled through the streets and were bandied +fiercely from man to man, betraying in tone more than in word the +intensity of the hatred which existed between the ducal towers of the +Wolfsberg and the city which lay beneath them. + +In my boyish days I had laughed at the assemblies of the Swan--the White +Wolves and Free Companies. But, perhaps, those who had thus played at +revolt were wiser than I. For of a surety these associations were +yielding their fruits now in a harvest of hate against the gloomy pile +that had so long dominated the town, choked its liberties, and shut it +off from the new, free, thriving world of the northern seaboard +commonwealths to which of right it belonged. + +So soon as Dessauer and I were alone in my master's room at Bishop +Peter's I tried to stammer some sort of thanks, but I could do no more +than hold out a hand to him. The old man clasped it. + +"It was wholly useless from the first," he said; "they had their purpose +fixed and their course laid out, so that there was no turning of them. +All was a mockery, so clear that even the ignorant men of the streets +were not deceived. Accusation, evidence, pleadings, condemnation, +sentence--all were ready before the maid was taken; aye, and, I think, +before Duke Casimir was dead. + +"Also there is no court in the Wolfmark higher than the mockery we have +seen to-day. The arms of the soldiers of Plassenburg are our only court +of appeal." + +"It is two days before they can come," I answered. "I fear me all will be +over before then." + +"Be not so sure," said Dessauer. "There is at present no Justicer in the +Mark capable of carrying out the sentence, so long as your father lies on +his bed of mortal weakness." + +"Duke Otho will not let that stand in his way--or I am the more +deceived," said I, with a heavy heart. + +At this moment there came an interruption. I heard a loud argument +outside in the court-yard. + +"Tell me what you want with the servant of the most learned Doctor!" +cried a voice. + +"That is his business, and mine--not yours, rusty son of a +stable-sweeper!" was the answer. + +I went out immediately, and there, facing each other in a position of +mutual defiance, I saw Peter of the Pigs and the decent legal domestic of +Master Gerard von Sturm. + +"Get out of my wind, old Muck-to-the-Eyes!" said the servitor, +offensively; "you poison the good, wholesome air that is needed for +men's breath." + +"Go back to your murderer of the saints," responded Peter of the Pigs, +valiantly. "Your master and you will swing in effigy to-night in every +street in Thorn. Some day before long you will both swing in the body--if +a hair of this angel's head be harmed." + +"I must see this learned Doctor's servant!" persisted the man of law, +avoiding the personal question. + +"Here he is," said I; "and now what would you with him?" + +"I am sent to invite you to come to the Weiss Thor immediately, on +business which deeply concerns you." + +"That is not enough for me," said I. "Who sends for me?" + +"Let me come in out of the hearing of this moon-faced idiot," said he, +pointing contumeliously to Peter of the Pigs, "and I will tell you. I am +not bidden to proclaim my business in the market sties and city +cattlepens!" + +"You do well, Parchment Knave," cried Peter; "for it is such black +business that if you proclaimed a syllable of it there you would be +torn to pieces of honest folk. Thank God there are still some such in +the world!" + +"Aye, many," quoth the servitor, "and we all know they are to be found in +the dwellings of priestlings!" + +I walked with the man to the gate, for I did not care to take him to +where Dessauer was sitting. I feared that it might be some ill news from +the Lubber Fiend, who, though I had seen him clear of the gate, might +very well have returned and told my message to Master Gerard. + +"Well," said I, brusquely, for I had no love for the Sir Rusty +Respectable, "out with it--who sends you?" + +"It is not my master," answered the man, "but one other." + +"What other?" said I. + +"The one," he said, cunningly, "with whom on a former occasion you rode +out at the White Gate." + +Then I saw that he knew me. + +"The Princess--" I began. + +"Hush," he said, touching my arm; "that is not a word to be whispered in +the streets of Thorn--the Lady Ysolinde is at her father's house, and +would see you--on a matter of life or death--so she bade me tell you." + +"I will go with you," I said, instantly. + +"Nay," he said, smirking secretly, "not now, but at nine of the clock, +when the city ways shall be dark, you must come--you know the road. +And then you two can confer together safely, and eke, an it please +you, jocosely, when Master Gerard will be safe in his study, with the +lamp lit." + +I went back to Dessauer, who during my absence had kept his head in his +hand, as if deeply absorbed in thought. + +"The Princess is in Thorn!" said I, as a startling piece of news. + +"Ah, the Princess!" he muttered, abstractedly; "truly she is the +Princess, but yet that will not advantage her a whit." + +I saw that he was thinking of our little Helene. + +"Nay," I said, taking him by the arm to secure his attention, as indeed +about this time I had often to do. "I mean the Lady Ysolinde, the wife of +our good Prince." + +"In Thorn?" said Dessauer. "Ah, I am little surprised. Twice when I was +speaking to-day I saw a face I knew well look through a lattice in the +wall at me. But being intent upon my words I did not think of it, nor +indeed recognize it till it had disappeared. Now the picture comes back +to me curiously clear. It was the face of the Princess Ysolinde." + +"I am to see her at nine o'clock to-night in the house of the +Weiss Thor." + +"Do not go, I pray you!" he said; "it is certainly a trap." + +"Go I must, and will," I replied; "for it may be to the good of our +maiden. I will risk all for that!" + +"I dare say," said he; "so should I, if I saw any advantage, such as +indeed I hoped for to-day. But if I be not mistaken, our Princess is deep +in this plot." + +"And why?" said I. "Helene never harmed her." + +"Helene is your betrothed wife, is she not?" he said. He asked as if he +did not know. + +"Surely!" said I. + +"Well!" he replied, sententiously, and so went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +A WOMAN SCORNED + + +At nine I was at the door of the dark, silent house by the Weiss Thor. I +sounded the knocker loudly, and with the end of the reverberations I +heard a foot come through the long passages. The panel behind slid +noiselessly in its grooves, and I was conscious that a pair of eyes +looked out at me. + +"You are the servant of the strange Doctor?" said the voice of the +servitor, Sir Respectable. + +"That I am, as by this time you may have seen!" answered I, for I was +in no mood of mere politeness. I was venturing my life in the house of +mine enemy, and, at least, it would be no harm if I put a bold face on +the matter. + +He opened the door, and again the same curious perfume was wafted down +the passages--something that I had never felt either in the Wolfsberg nor +yet even in the women's chambers of the Palace of Plassenburg. + +At the door of the little room in which she had first received me so long +ago, the Lady Ysolinde was waiting for me. + +She did not shut the door till Sir Respectable had betaken him down again +to his own place. Then quite frankly and undisguisedly she took my hand, +like one who had come to the end of make-believe. + +"I knew you to-day in your disguise," she said; "it is an excellent one, +and might deceive all save a woman who loves. Ah, you start. It might +deceive the woman you love, but not the woman that loves you. I am not +the Princess to-night; I am Ysolinde, the Woman. I have no restraints, no +conventions, no laws, no religions to-night--save the law of a woman's +need and the religion of a woman's passion." + +I stood before her, scarce knowing what to say. + +"Sit down," she said; "it is a long story, and yet I will not weary you, +Hugo--so much I promise you." + +I made answer to her, still standing up. + +"To-night, my lady, after what you know, you will not be surprised that I +can think of only one thing. You know that to-day--" + +"I know," she said, cutting me short, as if she did not wish to +listen to that which I might say next; "I know--I was present in the +Judgment Hall." + +"Then, being Master Gerard's daughter, you knew also the sentence before +it was pronounced!" I said, bitterly, being certain as that I lived that +the paper from which the Duke Otho read had been penned at this very +house of the Weiss Thor in which I now sat. + +Ysolinde reached a slender hand to me, as was often her wont instead +of speech. + +"Be patient to-night," she said; "I am trying hard to do that which is +best--for myself first, as a woman must in a woman's affairs. But, as God +sees me, for others also! You are a man, but I pray you think with +fairness of the fight I, a lonely, unloved woman, have to fight." + +"Will they carry out the terrible sentence?" said I, eagerly. For I +judged that she must be in her father's counsels. + +"Be patient," she said; "we will come to that presently." + +Ysolinde sat silent a while, and when I would have spoken further +she moved her hand a little impatiently aside, in sign that I was +not to interrupt. Yet even this was not done in her old imperious +manner, but rather sadly and with a certain wistful gentleness which +went to my heart. + +When she spoke again it was in the same even voice with which she had +formerly told my fortune in that very room. + +"That which I have to say to you is a thing strange--as it may seem +unwomanly. But then, I did not ask God to make me a woman, and +certainly he did not make me as other women. I have never had a true +mate, never won the love which God owes to every man and woman He +brings into the world. + +"Then I mot you, not by any seeking of mine. Next, equally against my +will, I loved you. Nay, do not start to-night. It is as well to put the +matter plainly." + +"You did not _love_ me," said I; "you were but kind to me, the unworthy +son of the Executioner of Thorn. Out of your good heart you did it." + +I acknowledge that I spoke like a paltering knave, but in truth knew not +what to say. + +"I loved you--yes, and I love you!" she said, serenely, as though my +words had been the twittering of a bird on the roof. "And I am not +ashamed. There was indeed no reason for my folly--no beauty, no +desirableness in you. But--I loved you. Pass! Let it be. We will begin +from there. You loved, or thought you loved, a maid--your Little +Playmate. Pshaw, you loved her not! Or not as I count love. I was proud, +accustomed to command, and, besides, a Prince's wife. The last, +doubtless, should have held me apart. Yet my Princessdom was but as straw +bands cast into the fire to bind the flame. As for you, Hugo Gottfried, +you were in love with your success, your future, and, most of all, with +your confident, insolently dullard self." + +She smiled bitterly, and, because the thing she spoke was partly true, I +had still nothing to answer her. + +"Hugo Gottfried," she said, "try to remember if, when we rode to +Plassenburg in the pleasant weather of that old spring, you loved this +girl whom now you love?" + +"Aye," said I, "loved her then, even as I love her now." + +"You lie," she answered, calmly, not like one in anger, but as one who +makes a necessary correction, "you loved her not. You were ready to love +me--glad, too, that I should love you. And since you knew not then of my +rank, it was not done for the sake of any advancement in Plassenburg." + +I felt again the great disadvantage I was under in speaking to the Lady +Ysolinde. I never had a word to say but she could put three to it. My +best speeches sounded empty, selfish, vain beside hers. And so was it +ever. By deeds alone could I vanquish her, and perhaps by a certain +dogged masculine persistence. + +"Princess," I said to her, "you have asked me to meet you here. It is not +of the past, nor yet of likings, imaginings, recriminations that I must +speak. My love, my sister, my playmate, bound to me by a thousand ancient +tendernesses, lies in prison in this city of Thorn, under sentence of a +cruel death. Will you help me to release her? I think that with your +father, and therefore with you, is the power to open her prison doors!" + +"And what is there then for me?" cried the Lady Ysolinde, instantly, +bending her head forward, her emerald eyes so great and clear that their +shining seemed to cover all her face as a wave covers a rock at +flood-tide. + +"What for me?" she repeated, in the silence which followed. + +"For you," said I, "the gladness to have saved an innocent life." + +"Tush!" she cried, with a gesture of extravagant contempt. "You mistake; +I am no good-deeds monger, to give my bread and butter to the next +beggar-lass. I tell you I am the woman who came first out of the womb of +Mother-earth. I will yield only that which is snatched from me. What is +mine is more mine than another's, because I would suffer, dare, sin, defy +a world of men and women in order to keep it, to possess it, to have it +all alone to myself!" + +"But," I answered, "who am I, that so great a lady should love me? What +am I to you, Princess, more than another?" + +"_That_ I know not!" she answered, swiftly. "Only God knows that. Perhaps +my curse, my punishment. My husband is a far better, truer, nobler man +than you, Hugo. I know it; but what of that, when I love him not? Love +goes not by the rungs in a ladder, stands not with the most noble on the +highest step, is not bestowed, like the rewards in a child's school, to +the most deserving. I love you, Hugo Gottfried, it is true. But I wish a +thousand times that I did not. Nevertheless--I do! Therefore make your +reckoning with that, and put aside puling shams and whimpering +subterfuges." + +This set me all on edge, and I asked a question. + +"What, then, do you propose? Where, shall this comedy end?" + +"End!" she said--"end! Aye, of course, men must ever look to an end. +Women are content with a continuance. That you should love me and keep on +loving me, that is all I want!" + +"But," I began, "I love--" + +"Ah, do not say it!" she cried, pitifully, clasping her hands with a +certain swift appeal in her voice--"do not say it! For God's sake, for +the sake of innocent blood, do not say that you love me not!" + +She paused a moment, and grew more pensive as she looked stilly and +solemnly at me. + +"I will tell you the end that I see; only be patient and answer not +before I have done. I have seen a vision--thrice have I seen it. Karl of +Plassenburg, my husband, shall die. I have seen the Black Cloak thrice +envelop him. It is the sign. No man hath ever escaped that omen--aye, and +if I choose, it shall wrap him about speedily. More, I have seen you sit +on the throne of Plassenburg and of the Mark, with a Princess by your +side. It is _not_ only my fancy. Even as in the old time I read your +present fortune, so, for good or ill, this thing also is coming to you." + +She never took her eyes from my face. + +"Now listen well and be slow to speak. The Princedom and the power shall +both fall to me when my husband dies. There are none other hands capable. +So also is it arranged in his will. Here"--she broke off suddenly, as +with a gesture of infinite surrender she thrust out her white hands +towards me--"here is my kingdom and me. Take us both, for we are +yours--yours--yours!" + +I took her hands gently in mine and kissed them. + +"Lady, Lady Ysolinde," I said, "you honor me, you overwhelm me, I know +not what to say. But think! The Prince is well, full of health and the +hope of years. This thought of yours is but a vision, a delusion--how can +we speak of the thing that is not?" + +"I wait your answer," she said, leaving her hands still in mine, but now, +as it were, on sufferance. Then, indeed, I was torn between the love that +I had in my heart for my dear and the need of pleasing the Lady +Ysolinde--between the truth and my desire to save Helene. Almost it was +in my heart to declare that I loved the Lady Ysolinde, and to promise +that I should do all she asked. But though, when need hath been, I have +lied back and forth in my time, and thought no shame, something stuck in +my throat now; and I felt that if I denied my love, who lay prison-bound +that night, I should never come within the mercy of God, but be forever +alien and outcast from any commonwealth of honorable men. + +"I cannot, Lady Ysolinde," I answered, at last. "The love of the maid +hath so grown into my heart that I cannot root it out at a word. It is +here, and it fills all my life!" + +Again she interrupted me. + +"See," she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, "they tell me this your +Helene is an angel of mercy to the sick. If she is spared she will be +content to give her life to works of good intent among the poor. This +cannot be life and death to her as it is to me. Her love is not as the +love of a woman like Ysolinde. It is not for any one man to possess in +monopoly. Though you may deceive yourself and think that it will be fixed +and centred on you. But she will never love you as I love you. See, I +would knee to you, pray to you on my knees, make myself a suppliant--I, +Ysolinde that am a princess! With you, Hugo, I have no pride, no shame. I +would take your love by violence, as a strong man surpriseth and taketh +the heart of a maid." + +She was now all trembling and distract, her lips red, her eyes bright, +her hands clasped and trembling as they were strained palm to palm. + +"Lady Ysolinde, I would that this were not so," I began. + +A new quick spasm passed over her face. I think it came across her that +my heart was wavering. "God knows that I, Hugo Gottfried, am not worth +all this!" + +"Nay," she said, with a kind of joy in her voice and in her eyes, "that +matters not. Ysolinde of Plassenburg is as a child that must have its toy +or die. Worthiness has no more to do with love than creeds and dogmas. +Love me--Hugo--love me even a little. Put me not away. I will be so true, +so willing. I will run your errands, wait on you, stand behind you in +battle, in council lead you to fame and great glory. For you, Hugo, I +will watch the faces of others, detect your enemies, unite your +well-wishers, mark the failing favor of your friends. What heart so +strong, what eye so keen as mine--for the greater the love the sharper +the eye to mark, prevent, countermine. And this maid, so cold and icy, so +full of good works and the abounding fame of saintliness, let her live +for the healing of the people, for the love of God and man both, and it +liketh her. She shall be abbess of our greatest convent. She shall indeed +be the Saint Helena of the North. Even now I will save her from death and +give her refuge. I promise it. I have the power in my hands. Only do you, +Hugo Gottfried, give me your love, your life, yourself!" + +She was standing before me now, and had her arms about my neck. I felt +them quiver upon my shoulders. Her eyes looked directly up into mine, and +whether they were the eyes of an angel or of a tempting fiend I could not +tell. Very lovely, at any rate, they were, and might have tempted even +Saint Anthony to sin. + +"Ysolinde," I said, at last, "it is small wonder that I am strongly +moved; you have offered me great things to-night. I feel my heart very +humble and unworthy. I deserve not your love. I am but a man, a soldier, +dull and slow. Were it not for one man and one woman it should be as you +say. But Karl of Plassenburg is my good master, my loyal friend. Helene +is my true love. I beseech you put this thought from you, dear lady, and +be once more my true Princess, I your liege subject--faithful, full of +reverence and devotion till life shall end!" + +As I spoke she drew herself away from me. My hand had unconsciously +rested on her hair, for at first she had leaned her head towards me. When +I had finished she took my hand by the wrist and gripped it as if she +would choke a snake ere she dropped it at arm's-length. I knew that our +interview was at an end. + +"Go!" she commanded, pointing to the door. "One day you shall know how +precious is the love you have so lightly cast aside. In a dark, dread +hour, you, Hugo Gottfried, shall sue as a suppliant. And I shall deny +you. There shall come a day when you shall abase yourself--even as you +have seen Ysolinde the Princess abase herself to Hugo, the son of the Red +Axe of the Wolf mark. Go, I tell you! Go--ere I slay you with my knife!" + +And she flashed a keen double-edged blade from some recess of her silken +serpentine dress. + +"My lady, hear me," I pleaded. "Out of the depths of my heart I +protest to you--" + +"Bah!" she cried, with a sudden uprising of tigerish fierceness in her +eyes, quick and chill as the glitter of her steel. "Go, I tell you, ere I +be tempted to strike! _Your heart!_ Why, man, there is nothing in your +heart but empty words out of monks' copy-books and proverbs dry and +rotten as last year's leaves. Ye have seen me abased. By the lords of +hell, I will abase you, Executioner's son! Aye, and you yourself, Hugo +Gottfried, shall work out in flowing blood and bitter tears the doom of +the pale trembling girl for whom you have rejected and despised Ysolinde, +Princess of Plassenburg!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +THE RED AXE DIES STANDING UP + + +How I stumbled down the stairs and found myself outside the house in +the Weiss Thor I do not know. Whether the servitor, Sir Respectable, +showed me out or not has quite passed from me. I only remember that I +came upon myself waiting outside the gate of Bishop Peter's palace +ringing at a bell which sounded ghostly enough, tinkling like a cracked +kettle behind the door. + +The lattice clicked and a face peeped out. + +"Get hence, night-raker!" cried a voice. "Wherefore do you come here so +untimeously, profaning the holy quiet of our minster-close?" + +"There was no very holy calm in the kitchen t'other night, Peter +Swinehead!" said I, my wits coming mechanically back to me at the +familiar sound. + +"Ha, Sir Blackamoor, 'tis you; surely your chafts have grown strangely +white, or else are my eyes serving me foully in the torchlight." + +Instinctively I covered as much of my face as I could with my +cloak's cape, for indeed I had washed it ere I went forth to see the +Lady Ysolinde. + +"'Tis that you have slipped too much of the Rhenish down thy gullet, old +comrade," said I, slapping Peter on the back and getting before him so +that he might remark nothing more. + +At that, being well pleased with my calling him comrade, he lighted me +cordially to my chamber, and there left me to the sleepless meditation of +the night. + +The next day was one of great quietness in the city of Thorn. An uneasy, +sultry pause of silence brooded over the lower town. Men's heads showed a +moment at door and window, looked furtively up and down the street, and +then vanished again within. Plots were being hatched and plans laid in +Thorn; yet, while there was the lowering silence in the city, up aloft +the Wolfsberg hummed gayly like a hive. Once I went up that way to see if +I could win any news of my father. But this day the door into the Red +Tower stood closed, nor would any within open for all my knocking. So +perforce I had to return unsatisfied. Several times I went to the Weiss +Thor to spy the horizon round for the troops of Plassenburg. But only the +gray plain of the Mark stretched itself out so far as the eye could +penetrate--hardly a reeking chimney to be seen, or any token of the +pleasant rustic life of man, such as in my youth I remembered to have +looked down upon from the Red Tower. Beneath me the city of Thorn lay +grimly quiescent, like a beast of prey which has eaten all its neighbors, +and must now die of starvation because there are no more to devour. + +The day passed on feet that crept like those of a tortoise, as the sullen +minutes dragged by, leaden-clogged and tardy. But the evening came at +last. And with it, knocking at the door of the Bishop's quadrangle and +interrupting my long talk with Dessauer, lo! a messenger, hot-foot from +the castle. + +"To the learned Doctor and his servant, Gottfried Gottfried, being in +death's utmost extremities, sends greeting, and desires greatly to have +speech with them." + +Thus ran my father's message in that testing hour where he had seen +so many! Yet I was but little surprised. There was no wonder in the +fact save the wonder that it should all seem so natural. Dessauer +rose quickly. + +"I will go with you," he said; "it will be safer. For at least I can +keep the door while you speak with your father." + +So, without further word, we followed the messenger up the long, narrow, +wooden-gabled street, and heard the folk muttering gloomily in the +darkness within, or talking softly in the dull russet glow of their +hearth-fires. For there were but few lighted candles in Thorn that +night. And I wondered how near or how far from us tho men of Plassenburg +might be encamping, and thrilled to think that at any moment a spy might +ride in to warn Duke Otho of the spy within his city, or the near +approach of his foe. + +But so far all was quiet at the Red Tower. The wicket-gate in the angle +of the wall was open, and we passed in without difficulty. As I mounted +the stairs I heard the key turn behind us. Obviously, therefore, we were +expected. The gate of the Red Tower had been left open for our entrance; +and so soon as the birds were in the snare, it was shut, and the silly +goslings trapped. + +Nevertheless we climbed up and up the dark stairs till we came to +the door of my father's garret. I pushed it open without knocking, +and entered. + +"The most learned the Doctor Schmidt," I announced, lest there should be +some stranger in the room. And indeed my precaution was necessary enough. +For, from my father's bed-head, disengaging himself reluctantly, like a +disturbed vulture napping up from the side of a dying steer, Friar +Laurence rose out of the darkness, and, folding his robe about him, +stalked to the door without a word or nod to either of us. I stood +holding the edge of it till I had watched him well down the stairs. Then +Dessauer relieved me at the stair-head as I went to approach my father. + +I saw a change in him, very startling, indeed, to see. "In the uttermost +extremity" he was, indeed, as he had written. A ghastly pallor overspread +his face; his eyes were wild, his breathing came both quick and hard. +The fire cast nickering lights over his face and on the outlines of his +lank figure under the scarlet mantle which had been cast over him. One +corner of it was cast aside, as if for air or coolness, and I could see a +thing which gave me a cold chill in the marrow of my spine. + +My father still wore the dress which he only donned when some poor soul +was about to die and pay the forfeit. + +At first Gottfried took no notice of me whatever, but lay looking at the +ceiling, his lips muttering something steadily, though what the words +were I could not hear. + +"Father," I said at last, bending over him gently, "I have come to see +you." + +He turned to me, as if suddenly and regretfully summoned back from very +far away. It was a movement I had seen in many dying men. He looked at +me, a strange, luminous comprehension growing up gradually in his eyes. + +"Hugo," he said, "you have come home at last! The Little Playmate has +come home, too. We three will make a merry party in the old Red Tower. We +have not been all together for so long. Lord Christ, but I have been a +man much alone! Hugo, why did you leave me so long? Ah, well, I do not +blame you, my son. You have been pushing your fortunes, doubtless, and +you have--so they tell me--become a great man in Plassenburg. And the +little maid is a lady of honor, and very fair to see. But now you two +have come to the old garret, like birds homing to the nest." + +"Yes, father," I said to him, "we have both come home to you, the Little +Playmate and I. And now you will give us your blessing!" + +"The Little Playmate--say rather the Little Princess," he cried, +cheerfully, as, with the air of one who brings good tidings, he sat up in +bed. Then he pointed to a chair on which a pillow had carelessly been +flung. "Little Maid," he said, looking at the cushion as if it had been +Helene, "I am glad you have come back to be wedded to my boy. That was +like you. I ever wished it, indeed. But I never expected to see my +children thus happy. Yet I always knew you and Hugo were made for each +other. You are at your sewing, little maid. Well, 'tis natural. I mind me +when my own love sat making dainties of just such delicate and wreathed +whiteness." + +He paused, and then, his countenance suddenly changing, he looked +fearfully and fixedly at the chair. + +"But, little maid, my own Helene," he cried, in a loud, gasping, alarmed +tone, "what is this, best beloved? Why, you are sewing at a shroud? +Surely such funeral-trappings become not bridals. A shroud--and there is +blood upon it! Put it down--_put it down,_ I pray you!" + +The red flames on the fire crackled suddenly up about the back log and +cast dancing shadows on his face. + +"Lie down and rest, dear father," I said softly to him, "the Little +Playmate is not here--I, Hugo, your son, am alone beside you." + +"Hugo," he said, instantly appeased, and passing a lean arm about me, "my +good son, my brave boy! You will be kind to the little Princess. She +loves you. There is no man so beloved as you in all the city of Thorn. +Many would have loved her besides Otho. Ah, but I threw him out of the +window there. I threw a Grand Duke out of a window! Ha! ha! it was the +bravest jest!" + +He laughed a little at intervals, as at a tale that will bear infinite +repetition. "I, Gottfried Gottfried, threw a proximate reigning Prince +out of the window! How Casimir laughed! The thing pleased him well. And +the little maid, do you remember her, Hugo? How she would teach me--me, +the Red Axe of Thorn--how to dance that first night, and how totteringly +she carried the Red Axe? The little one took heart that night. She will +have a happy future, I know; so blessed, far away from this dark and +damned place of the Wolfsberg. I am glad she is not here to see me die. +That is a sight for men, not for fair young loving women." + +"Hush, my father," I said, touching his dank brow; "you are not going to +die. You will yet live to be strong and well, a man among men." + +For one tells these things to dying men. And they smile and pass us by, +amused at our childish ignorance, as you and I shall one day smile upon +those others. And even thus did my father. + +"Nay, Hugo, I am sped," he answered. "This night ends all. The door I +have oped for so many is opening from within for me. God's mercy be on a +sinful man! Ere the light of to-morrow's dawn the Duke's Justicer must +face the Tribunal that has no assessor and no court of appeal." + +He threw back the cloak which served him as a mantle, and crying, "Give +me your hand, Hugo!" Gottfried Gottfried staggered to his feet. + +"I will die standing up," he said, bending his brows and gazing about him +uncertainly. He pointed to the walls of the garret. The fire was +flickering low, but still making the place light enough to see easily. +There beside the bed was the Red Axe, with its shining edge undimmed, +leaning against the block. There across it was the crimson mask which was +never more to bind his eyes as he did the office of final dread. + +"Do you see them, son Hugo?" he cried, leaning heavily on my shoulder and +pointing with his finger; "they are gibbering at me, mowing, +processioning by, and pointing mockingly at me. Do you hear them +laughing? That horrid one there with his head under his arm? Laughing as +if there were no God! But I am not afraid. Mercy of Jesu! Hath God +Himself no Justicer, that He should punish me because I have fulfilled my +charge? I have all my life been merciful, ever giving the blow of mercy +first, and the drop of stupefaction before the Extreme Question. Hence, +fiends! Shapes inhuman, torment me not! For in my day I was merciful to +you and never struck twice. I _will_ die standing up. The devil shall not +fright me--no, nor all his angels! + +"God Himself shall not fright me! I appeal to His judgment throne! Get +hence, false accusing spirits! I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat. Give me +the axe, boy--I will cut down the evil, I will spare the good. Here is +the Red Axe, my son. Take it! Strike with it strong and well. Strike, +strike, and spare not!" + +Totteringly he handed me the axe, and, clasping his hands, he stood +looking up. + +"God! God!" he cried in a great voice. "I see my Judge face to face; I am +not afraid! But I will die standing up!" + +And in this manner, even as I tell it, died Gottfried Gottfried, a strong +man, standing up and not afraid. And these arms received him, as, being +dead, he fell headlong. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + + +Then cried Dessauer from the door to me as I stood thus holding my father +in my arms: + +"Haste you, lad; there are men coming across the yard with torches. They +are gathering in groups about the door. Now they are on the stairs--many +soldiers--and with weapons in their hands!" + +And scarcely had he spoken when the sound of the tramping of men in haste +came to us up the turret, and the door of the garret was thrust violently +open. A turmoil of men-at-arms burst in on us. I stood still, holding +Gottfried Gottfried, his head on my shoulder, though I knew that he was +dead. But as one came forward with a paper in his hand I stooped and laid +my father gently on his bed. + +An officer of the Black Hussars, fantastically dressed in their +church-yard array, with skull and cross-bones slashed in silver across +his breast, accosted me. + +"Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, in the name of the Duke Otho +and the State of the Wolfmark, I arrest you! Also you, Leopold von +Dessauer, Chancellor of the Princedom of Plassenburg. You are accused as +spies and enemies of the commonweal. Yield yourselves therefore to me, +without condition." + +"I am indeed Hugo Gottfried," said I, "but you may see for yourselves the +mission on which I have come hither. And for this hour, at least, you +might have spared your brutal entry. Behold!" + +I caught a torch from the nearest soldier, and let its light shine on +the dead face of the fourteenth Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark. + +The men started back. The terrible countenance of the dead affected them +even more than the grim figure of the Red Axe as they had seen him +stalking from the Hall of Justice to the block. + +"Ah," said the officer, not wholly irreverently, "Gottfried Gottfried has +gone now to the dark place to which he hath sent so many. But, after all, +he is dead--and I heard a monkish clerk prate the other day, 'Let the +dead bury their dead.' I have my orders, and the Duke Otho waits. +Therefore I bid you follow me, Hugo Gottfried and Leopold von Dessauer." + +So, leaving the body of my father lying on the bed in his garret, we were +constrained to follow our captors down the stairs. Across the court-yard +we were hurried, and through the Hall of Justice into the private +apartments of the Duke. + +Otho von Reuss, now Duke of the Wolfmark, was standing erect by the great +chair in which, as my father had so often described him to me, Casimir +had sat so many days with his head sunk on his breast. The new Duke stood +up proudly, gazing at us with frowning brows and lowering, narrowed eyes. +This was mighty fine, but I could not help thinking of the poor +appearance he had made on the hill above the Hirschgasse as he slunk off +when he saw an evil cause going desperately against him. + +"So," he said, "gentlemen both, I have caught you spying in my land. You +know what those have to expect who are caught in hostile territory in +disguise." + +I thought it was as well to take the high hand at once, especially since +I saw that humility would avail us nothing at any rate. + +"Before now I have seen Otho von Reuss in hostile territory, and a right +cowed traitor he looked!" said I, boldly. + +The Duke smiled upon me, like a man that has a complete retort on his +tongue but who is content for the present to reserve it. + +"My friend," he said, suavely, "I will reply to you presently. I have a +word to speak to your betters." + +He turned him about to Dessauer. + +"And what, Lord High Chancellor of Plassenburg, think you of this +masquerading? Dignified, is it not? And your wondrous speech in court +that was to have done such great things. Will you be pleased to abide +with us here in the Wolfsberg? Or must you forsake us to pleasure the +Emperor, who, poor man, cannot sleep of nights in his bed at Ratisbon +till the eloquent Doctor is come to cheer him with the full-flowing river +of speech?" + +"Duke Otho," said Dessauer, "my life is indeed in your hands. I hold it +forfeit. A few years less or more are but little to Leopold von Dessauer +now. But there is one who will most bloodily avenge us if a hair of our +heads falls to the ground." + +"Who?" said Otho, sneeringly. "Karl Miller's Son, I suppose. Ah, fool +that you are, I hold your poor Karl in the palm of my hand!" + +"It is like enough," said Dessauer, with a quick look, the look of a keen +fencer when he sees an advantage. "I have often enough seen the palm of +your hand approach Karl Miller's Son's treasury when I kept the moneys." + +I saw the face of Otho twitch angrily. But he had evidently made up his +mind to command his temper, sure of having that up his sleeve which would +sufficiently answer all taunts. + +"You mistake me," he said, with more subtlety than I had expected from +the brute. "I had not meant to prove ungrateful. I am but newly come to +my own here in the Wolfmark. I have learned from your host, Bishop +Peter, how precious a thing forgiveness is. And now I am resolved to +practise it. There is a time to love and a time to hate; a time to war +and a time to be at peace. This is the last news I had from the holy +clerk whose revenues I pay. So lay it to heart, as I have done." + +"Glad am I," said Dessauer, courteously, as if he had been turning a +phrase on the terrace at Plassenburg--"glad am I that in your hour you +are to be mindful of old friends, for they are like old wine, which grows +better and mellower with the years." + +"It is indeed well," said Otho von Reuss, ironically. "I have known the +Chancellor Dessauer many years, and he grows more honorable and more wise +with each decade. + +"But now 'tis with this young man that I would speak," he said, changing +his tone. "He at least is mine own servant, and so I have other words for +him. Hugo Gottfried, you remember that you insulted me, striking me on +the face with a glove, because I offered certain civilities to a maid of +honor to the Princess of Plassenburg. You wounded me in the arm. Your +father, of whose death I have heard but now, cast me forth like a cur-dog +from a chamber window. Between you ye have shamed me, and would shame me +worse--for the sake of the murderess of mine uncle, Duke Casimir." + +"Well do you know that the Lady Helene is innocent of that crime, or any +other," said I; "she is purer than your eyes can look upon or your heart +conceive. Yet, solely because she knows you for the foul thing you are, +Helene lies condemned in your dungeons to-night. I ask you to grant me +but one boon--that I may die with her!" + +"Nay, my friend, gentlest squire of dames, defender of the oppressed, I +have better things in store for you and your maid than that!" + +He paused and looked a long while at me, as it seemed, chewing the cud +of revenge upon that which he had to say to me. + +At last he came a step nearer, that he might look into my eyes. + +"Hugo Gottfried," he said, slowly, "son of Gottfried Gottfried, you are +my servant now. I said that I would forgive you all for the sake of old +times in exile together. And now you and I are both again in our own +land. They that kept us out of our offices are dead, and we standing in +their places. There is a maid down there in the Wolfsberg dungeons who +to-morrow must meet her fate." + +He paused a moment and laid his hand on my shoulder impressively. + +"And you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Justicer of the Dukedom, Red Axe of +the Wolfmark, art the man who must carry out that doom!" + +Again he paused--and the world seemed instantly to dissolve into +whirling vapor at his words. I had never once thought of such a +conclusion. Yet I was indubitably, by my father's death, Hereditary +Executioner of the Wolfmark. Red Axe of Thorn I was, and by a terrible +chance I had returned in time to be installed in mine office, even as +the Lady Ysolinde had foretold. + +But a strong thought swelled triumphant in my heart. + +"Well," said I, looking the sneering tormentor in the face, "if so be +that I am your Hereditary Justicer, it will be long ere a sentence so +monstrous shall be carried out by me. I will not slay the innocent, nor +pour out the blood of a virgin saint, for a million deaths. You can +torture me with all your hellish engines, and you will find that a +Gottfried has learned how to suffer, as well as, how to make others +suffer, in fourteen generations. As God strengthens me, I will never +carry out your sentence--do with me what you will." + +"Nobly said, Justicer of the Mark!" said Otho. "I had thought of that! +But in case you should refuse to do your lawful office, it may be well +for you to remember that I have other instruments that mayhap will please +you less." + +He threw open a door suddenly, and we looked into an underground hall, +where a dozen men were carousing--Duke Casimir's Hussars of Death, +black-browed, evil-faced, slack-jowled villains every man of them, cruel +and sensual. A blast of ribald oaths came sulphurously up, as if the +mouth of hell had been opened. + +"Listen!" said Otho, with his hand on my shoulder. + +And a jest struck to our ears concerning the prisoner, the Little +Playmate--a jest which sticks in my memory to this day. And even yet I +hope to cleave the jester through the brain, meet him when I may. + +The Duke shut the door, and turned to me again. His eyes narrowed to a +thin line which glittered with hate and triumph. + +"If you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Executioner of the Mark, refuse to do +your duty at the time appointed upon the prisoner condemned, I, Duke +Otho, solemnly declare that I will cast your fair and tender lamb into +that den of wolves down there to work their wills upon. Hark to them! +They will have no misgivings--no qualms, no noble renunciations." + +Then he turned to me airily and confidently. + +"Well, my good Justicer, will you carry out the just and merciful +sentence of the law, and baptize your Red Axe with the blood of her for +whose sake you chose to insult and wound a Duke of the Mark?" + +I turned away, sick at heart. + +"Give me time. God's mercy--give me time!" I cried. "At least let me see +Helene. I will give you my answer to-night. But, first of all, let me see +my beloved." + +"I am forgiving and most merciful," he said, smiling till his teeth +showed. "Observe, I do not even cast you into prison to make sure of you. +Go your ways" (he sat down and wrote rapidly); "here is a pass which will +enable you to visit the prisoner. At midnight I shall expect you to tell +me that to-morrow you will fulfil your office." + +He handed me the paper and motioned us away. + +"We are free to go?" said I, wonderingly. + +"Surely," he replied, smiling. "Are you not both my friends, and can Otho +von Reuss be forgetful of old times? Come and go at your pleasure. Be +sure to be here to give me your answer at midnight to-night--or--" + +He pointed with his hand to the door he had again opened, and with the +fingers of his other hand beat time to the blasphemous chorus which came +belching up from below. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +THE SERPENT'S STRIFE + + +Dazed and death-stricken by the horror of the choice which lay before me, +I hastened down the street, hardly waiting for Dessauer, who toiled +vainly after me. I knew not what to do nor where to turn. I could neither +think nor speak. But it chanced that my steps brought me to the house of +the Weiss Thor. Almost without any will of mine own I found myself +raising the knocker of the house of Master Gerard von Sturm. Sir +Respectable instantly appeared. I asked of him if the Lady Ysolinde would +see me--giving my name plainly. For since Duke Otho knew me, there was no +need of concealment any more. + +The Lady Ysolinde would receive me. + +I followed my conductor, but not this time to the room in which I had +seen her on the occasion of my last visit. + +It was in her father's chamber that I met the Princess. The room was as I +had first seen it. Only there was no ascetic old man with keen, deep-set +eyes and receding forehead to rear his head back from the table as though +he would presently strike across it like a serpent from its coil. + +For the moment the room was empty, but, ere I had time to look around, +the curtains moved and the Lady Ysolinde appeared. Without entering, she +set a hand on the door-post, and stood poised against the heavy curtain, +waiting for me to speak. + +Her face was pale, her thin nostrils dilated. Anger and scorn sat white +and deadly on every feature. + +"So," she said, intensely, as I did not speak, "you have come back +already, most noble Hereditary Justicer of the Mark! Even as I told +you--so it is. You come to ask mercy from the woman you despised, from +the woman whose love you refused. You would beg her to spare her enemy. +Ere you go I shall see you on your knees; ah, that will be sweet. I have +been on my knees--can I believe it? Nay, I shall not forget it. I, +Ysolinde of Plassenburg, have pled in vain to you--to you!" + +And the accent of chill hatred and malice turned me to stone. + +"My lady," said I, "well do you know that I would never ask aught for my +own life, though the Red Axe itself were at my neck. But it is for the +maid I love, for the little child I carried home out of the arms of the +man condemned. I ask for her life, who never wronged you or any in all +this world. You have heard that task which the Duke hath laid on me, +because it is my misfortune to be my father's son--I must take away my +love's sweet life, or, if I do not--" I could proceed no further for the +horror which rose in my heart. + +"I know it," she said, calmly; "my father hath told me all." + +"Then," cried I, "if the power lie with you, as you hope for mercy to +your own soul, be merciful! Save the maiden Helene from the death of +shame, and me from becoming her murderer!" + +"Ah," she answered, with delicatest meditative inflection, "this is +indeed sweet. The mighty is fallen indeed. The proud one is suppliant +now. The knee is bent that would not bend. Hearken, you and your puling +babe, to the Princess Ysolinde! Were your lives in that glass, to save or +to destroy--her life and your suffering--to make or to break, I would +fling them to destruction, even as I cast this cup into the darkness!" + +And as she spoke the wreathed beaker of Venice glass sped out of the +window and crashed on the pavement without. + +"Thus would I end your lives," she said, "for the shame that you two put +upon me in the day of my weakness." + +"Lady," I cried, eagerly, "you do yourself a wrong! Your heart is better +than your word. Do this deed of mercy, I beseech you, if so be you can. +And my life is yours forever!" + +"Your life is mine, you say," cried she; "aye, and that means what? +The wind that cries about the house. Your life is _mine_--it is +a lie. Your life and love both are that chit's for whom you have +despised--rejected--ME!" + +And I grant that at that moment she looked noble enough in her anger as +she stood discharging her words at me with hissing directness, like bolts +shot twanging from the steel cross-bow. + +"And, lest you should think that I have not the power to save you, I will +tell you this--when you shall see the neck bared for the blade of the Red +Axe, the fine tresses you love, that your eyes look upon with desire, all +ruthlessly cut away by the shears of your assistants--ah, I know you will +remember then that I, Ysolinde, whom you refused and slighted, had the +power in her hand to deliver you both with a word, according to the +immaculate laws of the Wolfmark. Aye, and more--power to raise you both +to a pinnacle of bliss such as you can hardly conceive. In that hour, +when you see me look down upon your anguish, you will know that I can +speak the word. You will watch my lips till the axe falls, and under your +hand the young life ebbs red. But the lips of Ysolinde will be silent!" + +"Such knowledge is an easy boast, Lady Ysolinde!" I answered, thinking +to taunt her, that she might reveal whether indeed she had the power +she claimed. + +"There," she said, pointing to the great collection of black-bound books +and papers about the walls; "see, the secret is there--the secret for the +lack of which you shall strike your beloved to the death to save her from +the unnamable shame. I know it; my father has revealed it to me. I have +seen the parchment in these hands. But--you shall never hear it, she +never profit by it, and my vengeance shall be sweet--so sweet!" + +And she laughed, with a strange crackling laugh that it was a pain to +hear. + +"God forgive you, Lady Ysolinde," said I, "if this be so. For if there +be a God, you must burn in Great Hell for this deed you are about to +do. Having had no mercy on the innocent, how shall you ask God to have +mercy on you?" + +"I will not ask Him!" she cried. "Instead of puling for mercy I will have +had my revenge. And after that, come earth, heaven, or hell--I shall not +care. All will then be the same to Ysolinde!" + +I thought I would try her yet once more. + +"The Little Playmate," I said, "the maid whom I have ever loved, though I +am not worthy to touch her, is no chance child, no daughter of the Red +Axe of Thorn. Leopold von Dessauer hath found and sent to Karl the Prince +the full proofs that Helene is the daughter of the last and rightful +Prince, and therefore in her own right Princess of Plassenburg." + +"You lie, fool!" she cried--"you lie! You think to frighten me. And even +if it were true--thrice, four times fool to tell me! For shall not I, the +Princess of Plassenburg, the wife of the reigning Prince, stand for my +own name and dignity. I would not help you now though a thousand fair +heads, well-beloved, the desire of men, the envy of women, were to be +rolled in the dust." + +"Then farewell, Princess," I cried; "you are wronging to the death of +deaths two that never did you wrong, who loved each other with the love +of man and woman before ever you crossed their paths, and who since then +have only sought your good. You wrong God also, and you lose your soul, +divorcing it from the mercy of the Saviour of men. For be very sure that +with that measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." + +She did not answer, but stood with her hand still against the door-post, +her head raised, and her lips curling scornfully, looking after me as I +retired with a smiling and malicious pleasure. + +So, without further speech, I went out from the presence of the Lady +Ysolinde. And thus she had the first part of her revenge. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +THE DUNGEON OF THE WOLFSBERG + + +And now I must see the Little Playmate. Judge ye whether or no my heart +was torn in twain as I went up the long High Street of Thorn, back to the +Wolfsberg, alone. For I had compelled Dessauer to return to Bishop +Peter's, in order to avert popular suspicion, since our real names and +errands were not yet known there. + +And when I parted from him the old man was so worn out that I looked +momently for him to drop on the rough causeway stones of the street. + +Many pictures of my youth passed before me as I mounted towards the +castle that night. I remembered the ride of the wild horsemen returning +from the raid such long years agone, the old man who carried the babe, +and the Red Axe himself, who now lay dead in the Tower--my father, +Casimir's Justicer, clad now as then in crimson from head to heel. + +Ere long I arrived at the Wolfsberg, and as I came near the Red Tower I +saw that the gate was open. A little crowd of men with swords and +partisans was issuing tumultuously from it. Then came six carrying a +coffin. I stood aside to let them pass. And not till the last one brushed +me did I ask what was their business abroad with a dead man at such a +time of the night. + +"'Tis one that had wrought much fear in his time," answered the soldier, +for I had lighted on a sententious fellow--"one that made many swift +ends, and now has come to one himself." + +"You mean Gottfried Gottfried, the Duke's Justicer?" said I, speaking +like one in a dream. + +"Aye," he replied. "The Duke Otho is mightily afraid of the plague, and +will not have a dead body over-night in his castle. Since they condemned +the Saint Helena, God wot, the Duke is a fear-stricken man. He sleeps +with half a dozen black riders at the back of his door, as though that +made him any safer if a handful of minted gold were dealt out among the +rascals. But when was a Prince ever wise?" + +"My father's funeral," thought I. "Well, to-night it is, indeed, 'let the +dead bury their dead'; Helene is yet alive!" + +Surely I am not wanting in feeling, yet my heart was strangely chill and +cold. Nevertheless, I turned and followed the procession a little way +towards the walls. But even as I went, lo! the bell of the Wolfsberg +slowly and brazenly clanged ten. I stopped. I had but two hours in which +to visit the Little Playmate and tell her all. + +"Good-bye, father," said I, standing with my hat off; "so you would wish +me to do--you who met your God standing up--you who did an ill business +greatly, because it was yours and you were born to it. Teach me, my +father, to be worthy of you in this strait, to the like of which surely +never was man brought before!" + +The men-at-arms clattered roughly down the street, shifting their +burden as if it had been so much kindling-wood, and quarrelling as to +their turns. I heard their jests coming clear up the narrow street +from far away. + +I stood still as they approached a corner which they must turn. + +I waved my hand to the coffin. + +"Fare you well, true father; to-night and to-morrow may God help me also, +like you, to meet my fate standing up!" + +And the curve of the long street hid the ribald procession. My father +was gone. I had made choice. The dead was burying his dead. + +I went on towards the prison of the Wolfsberg; so it was nominated by a +sort of grim superiority in that place which was all a prison--the castle +which had lorded it so long over the red clustered roofs and stepped +gables of Thorn, solely because it meant prisonment and death to the +rebel or the refuser of the Duke's exactions. + +Often had I seen the straggling procession of prisoners rise, head +following head, up from that weary staircase, my father standing by, as +they came up from the cells, counting his victims silently, like a +shepherd who tells his flock as they pass through a gap in the sheepfold. + +For me, alas! there was but one in that dread fold to-night. And she my +one ewe lamb who ought to have lain in my bosom. + +I clamored long at the gate ere I could make the drowsy jailer hear. As +the minutes slipped away I grew more and more wild with fear and anger. +At midnight I must face the Duke, and it was after ten--how long I knew +not, but I feared every moment that I might hear the brazen clang as the +hammer struck eleven. + +For time seemed to make no impression on me at all that night. + +At last the man came, shuffling, grumbling, and cursing, from his +truckle-bed. + +"What twice-condemned drunken roysterer may you be, that hath mistaken +the prison of Duke Otho for a trull-house? + +"An order from the Duke--to see a prisoner! Come to-morrow then, and, +meanwhile, depart to Gehenna. Must a man be forever at the beck and call +of every sleepless sot? 'Urgent'--is the Duke's mandate. Shove it through +the lattice then, that a lantern may flash upon it." + +I pushed under the door a broad piece of gold, which proved more to the +purpose than much speech. + +The door was opened and I showed my pass. That and the gold together +worked wonders. + +The jailer rattled his keys, donned a hood and woollen wrapper which he +took down from a nail, and went coughing before me down the chill, +draughty passages. I could hear the prisoners leaping from their couches +within as the light of his cresset filtered beneath their doors. What +hopes and fears stirred them! A summons, it might be, for some one in +that dread warren to come up for a last look at the stars, a walk to the +heading-place through the soft, velvet-dark night--then the block, the +lightning flash of bright steel, a drench of something sweet and strong +like wine upon the lips, and--silence, rest, oblivion. + +But we passed the prison doors one by one, and the jailer of the +Wolfsberg went coughing and rasping by to another part of the prison. + +"'Tis an ill place for chills," he grumbled. "I have never been free of +them since first I came to this place, no--nor my wife neither. She has +been dead these ten years, praises to the pyx! Ah, would you?" (The torch +threatened to go out, so he held it downward in his hand till the pitch +melted and caught again, and meanwhile we stood blinded in the smoke and +glare which the strong draught forced in our faces.) + +At last came the door, a low, iron-spiked grating, like any other of the +hundred we had passed. + +"Key-metal is not often weared on this cell," the man chuckled. "Those +stay not long above ground that bide here." + +The door swung back on its creaking hinges. I slipped the fellow another +gold piece. + +"I must come in with you," he said; "you might do the wench an ill turn +which would cheat the Duke of his show and me of my head to-morrow." + +I slipped him another piece of gold, and then three together. + +"Risk it, man," I said. "Have I not the Duke's own pass? I will do +her no harm." + +"Well," he said, "pray remember I am a man with five poor motherless +children. My wife died of falling down a flight of steps ten years +agone--praise the Lord for His mercies. For He is ever mindful of us, the +sinful children of men." + +The sound of his voice died away as the door closed. I turned, and was +alone with the Beloved. The jailer had stuck the cresset in its niche +behind the door, and its glow filled the little cell. + +At first I could not see the Little Playmate--only a rough pallet bed and +something white at the head of it. But as the cresset burned up more +clearly, and my eyes became accustomed to the bleared and streaky light, +I saw Helene, my love, kneeling at her bed's head. + +I stood still and waited. Was she asleep? Was she--was she dead? I +almost hoped that she might be. Then the Duke's vengeance would be +balked indeed. + +"Helene!" I said, softly, as one speaks to the dying--"Helene, dear, +dear Helene!" + +Slowly she looked up. Her face dawned on me as one day the face of the +blessed angel will shine when he calls me out of purgatory. + +"My love--my love!" she said, sweetly, like the first note of a hymn when +the choir breathes the sweet music rather than sings it. + +Ah, Lord of Innocence, that pure loving face, the purple deepness in the +eyes, the flush on the cheek as on that of a little child asleep, the +soft curled hair which crisped in the hollow of the neck--the throat +itself--Eternal God, that I should be alive to think of the horror! + +But time was passing swiftly. The minutes were slipping by like men +running for their lives. + +I raised Helene from her knees, and she nestled her head on my shoulder. + +"You have come to me! I knew you would come. I saw you on the day--the +day when they condemned me to die." + +I broke into an angry, desperate, protesting cry, so that I heard my own +voice ring strangely through that dumb, horrible place. And it was I who +sobbed in her arms with my head on her shoulder. + +"Hush, dear love," she said, clasping her arms caressingly about my head; +"do not fear for me. God will keep your little one. God has told me that +He will bring me bravely through. Hush thee, then; do not so, Hugo, great +playmate! This I cannot bear. Help me to be good. It will not be long nor +painful. Do not weep for your little girl! I think, somehow, it is for +our love that I suffer, and that will make it sweet!" + +But still I sobbed like a child. For how--how could I tell her? + +Presently the power returned slowly to me, seeing her smiling so bravely +up at me, and rising on tiptoe to kiss my wet face. + +Then I told her all--in what words I hardly remember now. + +"Love of mine," I said, "I have but an hour or less to speak with +you--and ah! such terrible things, such inconceivable things, to say; a +horror to reveal such as never lover had to tell his love before." + +She drew one of my hands down and softly patted her breast with it. + +"Fear not," she said; "tell it Helene. If it be true that love conquers +all, your little lass can bear it!" + +"I came," said I, "with purpose to see you, and by treachery (it skills +not to ask whose) I was taken at my dead father's bedside." + +"Our father dead?" she cried, going a step away to look at me, but +coming back again immediately; "then there are but you and me in the +world, Hugo!" + +"Aye," said I, "but how can I tell you the rest? My father died like a +man, and then they took me, still holding the dead in my arms. I was +confronted with a fiend of hell in the likeness of Duke Otho." + +As I mentioned the Duke's name I could feel her shudder on my neck. + +"And--But I cannot tell you what he has bidden me do, under penalties too +fearful to conceive or speak of." + +She put her hands up, and gently, timidly, lovingly stroked my cheek. + +"Dear love, tell me! Tell the Little Playmate!" she said, as simply and +sweetly as if she had been coaxing me to whisper to her some lightest +childish secret of our plays together in the old Red Tower. + +I was silent for a space, and then, spurred by the thought of the swiftly +passing time, the words were wrenched out of me. + +"He says that I, even I, Hugo Gottfried, my father's son, being now +hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark, must strike off the head of the one I +love. And if I will not, then to the vilest of devils for vilest ends he +will deliver her. Ah, God, and he would do it too! I saw the very flame +of hell's fire in his eyes." + +Then I that write saw a strange appearance on the face that looked up in +mine. As on a dark April day, with a lowering sky, you have seen the wind +suddenly stir high in the heavens, and the sun look through on the +dripping green of the young trees and the gay bourgeoning of the flowers, +so, looking on my love's face as she took in my words, there awakened a +kind of springtime joy. Nay, wherefore need I say a kind of joy only. It +was more. It was great, overleaping, sudden-springing gladness. Her eyes +swam in lustrous beauty. She smiled up at me as I had never seen her +smile before. + +"Oh, I am glad, Hugo--so glad! I love you, Hugo! It will be hard for you, +my love. And yet you will be brave and help me. I had far rather die at +your hand than live to be the bride of the greatest man in all the world. +Do that which will save me from, shame; do it gladly, Hugo. I fear it. I +saw it in the eyes of that man Otho von Reuss. But _only_ to die will be +easy, with you near by. For I love you, Hugo. And I could just say a +prayer, and then--well, and then--Do not cry, Hugo--why, then you would +put me to sleep, even as of old you did in the Red Tower! + +"Nay, nay, dear love! You must not do so. This is not like my Hugo. See, +_I_ do not cry. Do you remember when you took me up and laid me on your +bed, and our father came and looked? You said I was your little wife. So +I was, even though I denied it, and now I can trust you, my husband. I +have never been aught else but your little wife, you see--not in my +heart, not in my heart of hearts! + +"I have been proud with you, Hugo--spoken unkind things. For love, you +know, is like that. It hurts that which it would die for. But now you +will know, once for all, that I love you. For death tests all. And you +_will_ help me. You will not cry then, Hugo--not then, when we walk, you +and I, by the shores of the great sea. You will only send me a little +voyage by myself, as you used to make me go to the well in the +court-yard, to teach me not to be frightened! + +"And then you will be with me when I go. You will watch me; soon, soon +you will come after me. Yes, I am glad, Hugo--so glad. For--bend down +your ear, Hugo--I will confess. Your little girl is such a coward. She +is afraid of the dark. But it will not be dark--and it will not be long, +and it will be sure. If my love stand by, I shall not fear. And, after +all, it is but a little thing to do for my love, when I love him so." + +What I said, or what I did, I know not. But when I came a little to +myself, I found my head on my knees, and Helene soothing and petting me, +as if I had been a child that had fallen down and hurt itself. + +"I would have been a good wife to you, Hugo; I had thought it all out. At +first I would have been such an ignorant little house-keeper, and you +would have needed--oh, such great patience with me! But so willing, so +ready, Hugo! And how I should have listened for your foot! Do you know, I +used to know it as it came across the court-yard at Plassenburg. But I +could not run and meet you then. I could only slip behind the +window-lattice and throw you a kiss. But when I was indeed your wife, how +I should have flown to meet you!" + +I think I cried out here for very agony. + +"Hush, Hugo!" she said. "Hush, lad, and listen. There are stairs up +aloft--I saw them in a dream. I saw the angels and the redeemed ascending +and descending as I prayed, even when you came in to call me back. I +shall ask God to let me wait at the stair-head a little while for +you--till it should be time for you to come, my dear, my dear. You would +not be very long, and I could wait. I would listen for your feet upon the +stair, dear love. And when at last you came, I should know your footfall; +yes, I should know it ever so far away. You would not be thinking of me +just then. And when you came to the top of the golden stairs, +there--there, all so suddenly, would be your little lass, with her arms +ready to welcome you!" + +The door of the cell creaked open. + +The jailer appeared. "It is time!" he said, curtly, and stood waiting. We +stood up, and I looked in her eyes. She was smiling, dry-eyed, but +I--the water was running down my face. + +"You will be brave, Hugo, for my sake. Next to life with you--to die by +your dear hand, knowing that you love me, is the best gift they could +have given me. They thought to hurt, but instead they have made me so +happy. Till we meet again, dear love--till we meet soon again!" + +And she accompanied me to the door, and kissed me as I went out, standing +smilingly on tiptoe to do it, even as of old she was wont to do in the +Red Tower. + +And the last thing I saw of her, as the door closed upon the darkness of +the cell, was my love standing smiling up at me, her eyes filled with the +splendors of the love that casteth out fear. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN + + +Even as the dwarf on the ledge of the castle clocktower creaked his wires +and clicked back his hammer to strike the midnight over the city, even as +the first solemn toll of the hour reverberated over the Wolfsberg, I was +at the door of the Duke's room waiting for admission. + +The Chamberlain in attendance looked within, and seeing his master +writing at a table, he was going out again without speech. + +"Has Hugo Gottfried returned?" said the Duke, without looking up. + +"Hugo Gottfried is here!" I replied, stepping unannounced into the room. + +He looked up without smiling, a keen inquiring glance glittering from +between eyelids so close together that only the faintest line of the +pupil showed black under the lashes. + +"Well?" he questioned. + +"I will do the thing you have asked," answered I. + +And said no more. + +The Duke instantly became restless, and getting up, he began to pace +about the floor like a caged beast. + +"You have seen her?" he inquired, stopping in front of me, +wide-nostrilled, like a dog that points the game. + +"I _have_ seen her," I replied, as simply. + +"Well?" he queried again, with a keen, eager note of anxiety in +his voice. + +"I am ready to do that which you have asked." + +He seemed to be on the point of saying something else. But, changing his +mind, he touched a little silver bell. + +The usher appeared. + +"Show the Hereditary Justicer of the Mark to the Red Tower. Give him all +that is necessary to eat and drink. Bid a man-at-arms attend him, and set +a sufficient guard at the door!" + +So I went out from the presence, and the Duke and the Duke's new Justicer +bowed to each other gravely as I stood a moment on the threshold. + +"Till we meet again, Red Axe of the Wolfmark!" said Duke Otho. + +"Till we meet again!" said I, countering him like blade meeting blade. + +In little more than ten minutes after I had entered them, I stood outside +the Duke's apartments, and with my escort I strode across to the empty +Red Tower, the home of so many memories. My head was reeling, and with +the overpress of excitement I could not sleep. So, bribing the soldier, +my companion--who had been charged by the Duke not to lose sight of +me--to accompany me, I went up to my father's garret. + +There I found all things as they had been when my father died. + +I set the windows wide, cast the tumbled bedclothes out upon the +dust-heap beneath, and bared the whole to the clean, large, wholesome +breezes of the night. I saw the fateful Red Axe lean as usual against the +block, and, taking it up, I found it keen as a razor. It was spotless, +and the edge gave back the long low room and our one glimmering candle +like a mirror. It must have been my father's last work in this world to +polish it. + +Then I went down to my own room and cast myself down upon the bed in +which, on that night of the first home-coming of the Playmate, I had laid +my little wife. + +The soldier couched across the door, rolled in his cloak and some chance +wrapping he found about the house. + +God keep me from ever spending such a night again! I thought it would +never come to an end. Out in the square in front of the Wolfsberg I could +hear a knocking--dull, continuous, reverberant. At first I thought it +must be within my own head. So I asked the soldier, after a little, if he +heard it also. I had some faint idea that it might be Prince Karl of +Plassenburg with his army thundering at the gates of Thorn. + +"'Tis but the scaffold going up in the Grand Place without!" said the +soldier, carelessly; "I heard that the Duke had bidden them work all +night by torch-light." + +I tried to sleep, but the knocking continued, aching across my brows +till I thought I must go mad. After a while I rose and went to the +window from which I had so often looked down wistfully upon the play of +the city children. + +Opposite me, in the middle of the open space, loomed a dark mass--a +platform, it seemed, raised a dozen feet above the road--the black +silhouette of a ladder set anglewise against it, and that was all. Lower, +plainer, somehow deadlier than a gibbet with its flamboyant beam, which +one never sees empty without imagining the malefactor aswing upon it; the +heading-block did not frown, it grinned--yes, grinned like the eye-holes +of a skeleton with a candle behind them, while the torches glinted +through the interstices of the framework as it was being nailed together. + +All night the dull _dunt-dunting_ went on without. And I sat awake by the +window and awaited the dawning. + +The city seethed unslaked beneath. When first I looked from my chamber +window the square was free to all who chose to enter it. But as the +knocking went on the news spread through the town of Thorn. + +"They are making the scaffold for our Saint Helena!" So the word ran. + +And within an hour the courts and alleys of Thorn belched forth thousands +of angry men. Pikes were carried like staves, the steel head hidden up +the long white burgess sleeve. Working-men of the trades, 'prentices, +and market porters drew their swords and came forth with the bare blades +in their hands, leaving the scabbards at home to take care of themselves, +as was their custom. + +Wives cried from escalier windows to their men to come in by and lie +decently down, to be ready for their work in the morning. And the men so +addressed paid not the least heed, as the manner of men is. These things +and many others I saw, scarce knowing what I saw. + +And so, with the hum of gathering crowds, the hours passed slowly over. +But the temper of the people in the square grew more and more difficult, +and soon the guard had to be brought down from the castle. The great +gates beneath me were open, and the Wolfsberg vomited the black +men-at-arms to keep the Duke's peace. + +But this brought only the quicker strife. Yells received them as soon as +their steel partisans showed up in the square. + +"Oppressors of the people, ye come to your reward!" cried many voices. + +"We will give you your last breakfast--of cold, tempered steel!" cried +another, from the bowels of the crowd. + +"To the Wolfsberg--ho! Break in the doors! We will have our Saint Helena +forth of their cursed prisons!" + +It was no sooner said than done. Like a wave the people rushed in a black +irregular mass at the front rank of the guard. The soldiers of the Duke +were swept away like chaff; I could see one here and another there +struggling in the vortices of the angry multitude. + +"On to the Wolfsberg!" cried the crowd. + +But when the first of them reached the castle gates, lo! they stood open, +and there behind them stood file on file of matchlock men with their +matches burning in their hands and their pieces trained upon their rests. + +"Give them the fire!" cried a voice, that of Duke Otho, as the crowd +halted a moment irresolute. + +The bright red flame started out here and there from muzzle and +touchhole, and then ran along the line in an irregular volley. + +A terrible cry of fear went up from the folk. For though they had heard +of the new ordnance, and even seen one or two, they had never realized +the effect of a fusillade. And when a man on either side sank down with a +hollow sound like a beast in shamble-thills, and the man in front fell +over on his face without a sound, the multitude turned, broke into +groups, fled, and disappeared in a moment like a whirl of snow which the +wind canters down the street in a veering flurry. + +Then the gates shut to, and the deep lines of matchlock men were hidden +from view. After this the city thrilled and murmured worse than ever, +humming like an angry hive. But the Wolfsberg kept its counsel. Not yet +had deliverance arrived for the captives within its cells. + +And the dread morning was coming fast. + +At last, wearied out with crowding emotions, I went and cast me down on +my bed, and, instantly falling asleep, I slept like a log till one +touched me on the shoulder. Looking up, I saw the Duke Otho. He had come +to make sure of his vengeance--the vengeance which I knew well was not +his, but that of Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT + + +"Rise, Justicer of the Wolfmark!" said Otho, smiling mockingly upon me +like a fiend. + +I started up and gazed about bewildered as the coming terrors of the +morning broke upon me. + +"'Tis scarcely an hour to sunrise," he continued, "and I warrant the +noble Red Axe will desire to feel the edge of his tool and see that his +assistants are in their places." + +The Duke paused as he went out of the door, and looked at me. + +"I can promise you a distinguished company at the first public +performance of your honorable office," he said, with a polite gesture. + +So soon as he was gone I rose to my feet. Across the broad, black +oaken stool, whereon from boyhood it had been my habit to place my +clothes neatly folded up, I found a suit of new red cloth, plain and +rich, with an inscription upon a strip of vellum laid across the +breast, bearing that these were a gift from the most Illustrious Duke +Otho of the Wolfmark. + +Since, after all, my fate was my fate, there was little use in straining +at the gnat. So I set to and did upon me the garmentry of shame. They +were made after the fashion of my father's, cap and hosen and shoon all +of red, with a cloak of red to cover all. + +Then I went to the Playmate's room, and before the niche where her little +Prie-Dieu had stood, I kneeled me down and said such a prayer as at the +moment I could compass. But little was needed. For I think God in heaven +Himself was praying for us both that day. + +When I went forth into the square, few there were who knew or remembered +me, but all knew my attire. Then indeed it did my heart good to hear the +great unanimous roar of execration which went up from the multitude as I +came out. The soldiers had their work cut out to push a way for me to +the scaffold. + +"Butcher him--tear him to pieces--wolf's cub that he is--he that was her +foster-brother to slay our Saint Helena!" + +It made me proud to hear them. And as they rushed furiously against the +escort, intent to kill me, we swayed from side to side. + +"Down with the Red Axe!" they shouted. "Down with the bloody house of +Gottfried and all that belong to it!" + +And I felt inclined to cry "Amen!" + +Then, when I had mounted the few steps which led to the platform on which +stood the black headsman's block, I gazed about me in wonder, holding the +Red Axe in my hand. And to my disordered vision I saw the crowd swell and +whirl about me on earth and in the air, bubbling and tossing like a pot +boiling furiously. Then I bethought me of the work I had to do, and +prayed that I might be given strength to do it swiftly and featly, that +the suffering of my love might not be long. Also I thought of the +lecherous evil demons of the Black Riders, and thereat was somewhat +comforted. At the worst I could give my love a better end than that. + +Then appeared my Lord Duke Otho. An enclosure had been formed for him by +the palace wall, covered with a red hanging, as though my sweetheart's +death were a gala sight. And when he had come to the front and arranged +his folk, lo! there by his side stood Ysolinde, Princess of +Plassenburg, with her father, Master Gerard. They had a place close by +the Duke, and Otho ofttimes bent over to confer graciously with his +councillor. But Ysolinde looked neither to right nor left, nor yet spoke +to any, keeping her eyes fixed, as it seemed, on the shining blade of +the Red Axe in my hand. + +Then, as these fine folk stood waiting and gloating among the festoons +of their balcony, the devil or God (I know which, but I will not say, +lest I be thought a blasphemer) put an intent into my heart. I walked to +the edge of the scaffold, and I looked at the barrier of the enclosure. +They were of the same height, and the distance between them little more +than six feet. + +I examined them again, and yet more intently. I saw the steely smile +on Duke Otho's face. Already he was tasting the double sweetness of +his revenge. + +"Wait," I said, within my heart, as I also smiled a little, "only wait a +little, Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark. Wait till this bright edge be sullied +with my sweet love's blood. And then--then will I leap upon you, and the +Red Axe shall crash deep into the brain that hatched and fostered this +hellish intent. And by the gentle heart of her who is about to die, so +also will I serve Gerard the lawyer, and Ysolinde, his daughter, for +their treachery against the innocent. Then, amid the flash of steel and +the heady whirl of battle, shall Hugo Gottfried be very content to die!" +It would take more than one stroke to dull that which my father had +sharpened. And I lifted up the Red Axe and felt the edge with my thumb. +It was razor keen. + +But the action was observed, and taken as a proof of callousness. And +then what a yell of hate surged up around me! I could have taken those +burghers of Thorn to my heart. And I thought if only our Karl would come. +Alas! it was a full day too soon; for I felt sure that these burghers +would proclaim him at the gates, and that the house of Otho and Casimir, +the brood of the Wolf, would, like the shadow of the raven as it flits by +in the sunshine, pass away. For by that time there would be no Otho. They +would find him low enough, with an axe cleft in his head. + +So soon as the sun's light tipped the eastern clouds with rose, the Black +Hussars came riding forth. The guards and matchlock men lined the way +from the castle gates. They blew up their matches to be ready. Suddenly +in the midst of the armed throng there appeared a radiant figure coming +down the steps of the castle from the Hall of Judgment. + +At the sight the people threw themselves wildly in that direction. The +dark lines of the guard reeled and wavered. There was the sharp click as +the pikes engaged. The shouts of the captains of the matchlock men were +heard. But the trained bands stood fast, and the rush was stayed. Then +came our Helene down towards me, walking delicately, yet proudly erect as +a young tree. She was clad all in white and wore her hair plaited high +upon her head, so that the shape of her neck was clearly seen. + +And I who stood there with the axe in my hand seemed to have a thousand +years to think all these things, and even to mark the lace upon her +dress. I saw her come nearer and nearer to me. Yet feeling was dead +within me. I seemed to sleep and wake and sleep again. And when at last I +awoke, there came a strange feeling to me. It was my wedding-day, and my +bride was coming to me, lily pure, clad in whiteness. + +Then at the foot of the scaffold there came one forth from the ranks, +a captain of the Duke's guard, and with honor and respect offered +Helene his arm. + +She declined it with a proud smile, and all that were near could hear her +clear voice say, "I thank you, sir, but I need no help. I am strong +enough to walk thus far." + +And she mounted the steps of the scaffold as though they had been those +of the grand staircase at Plassenburg. + +But when she saw me, standing in my habit of red from head to heel, she +seemed a little taken aback. Quickly, however, she came forward and +took me by the hand, looking up at me with the love-light making her +eyes glorious. + +"Hugo," she said, "I am glad you are here--glad that I am to die by no +less loving hand. That will be sweeter than to live with any other. And, +indeed, I deserve so much, for I have not known much joy in my life, save +in the old days when I was your Little Playmate." + +Then there came a stern voice from the enclosure: + +_"Executioner of the Mark, do your duty!"_ + +It was the voice of Master Gerard. + +And then I looked over and saw Gerard von Sturm standing a little in +front, with his daughter's wrist held tightly in his hand as though he +would drag her back. With that a loathing came over me, for I said within +me, "Is the woman so anxious for the blood of the innocent whom she has +hounded to death that she would intrude on the scaffold itself?" + +Then I remembered the duty of the Justicers, ere the sentence was carried +out, to recite the crimes of the condemned. + +So I cried aloud, even as I had heard my father do. + +"The crimes of Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, sole daughter of +Dietrich, lately Prince thereof--guilty of no evil, save that she has +been the savior of this people of Thorn and their deliverer in time of +pestilence!" + +The people hushed themselves with astonishment at my words. And then a +cry went up. + +"The Red Axe speaks true--she is innocent--innocent!" + +But the voice of Gerard von Sturm came again, stern as that of the +recording angel: + +"_Executioner of the Wolfmark, do your duty_!" + +Scarce knowing what I did, I went on with my formal accusation. + +"Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, who is about to die, is also guilty of +loving me, Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, and of none other +crime. For this the Duke has decreed that she should die. It is her own +will that she should die by my hand." + +Helene came forward and put her hand in mine in token that I spoke +truly, and there fell a great silence across the people. I saw the Lady +Ysolinde straining at her father's hand, like a dog in a leash when the +quarry rises. + +Then my love kissed me once, just as though she had been saying +good-night in the Red Tower, simply and sweetly, like a child, and laid +her head down on the block as on the white pillow of her own bed. + +"_God do so and more also to them on whose heads is the innocent blood of +my love and my wife_!" + +The words burst from me rather than were uttered. + +I raised the blade. + +But ere the Red Axe could fall there arose a wild scream from the Duke's +enclosure. Some one cried, "Let me go! He has said it! He has said it! I +will not be silent any longer!" It was the Lady Ysolinde, who had broken +away from her father's hand. + +"The girl is his wife," she went on. "He has claimed her--according to +the laws of the Wolfmark, that cannot be broken, he has called her his +wife. It is the Executioner's right. One woman he can claim as his +during his term of office--one only, and for his wife. Duke Otho, I call +upon you to allow it! Chancellor Texel, I call upon you to read the law! +I have it here in my hand. Head! Read! _I will save my soul! I will save +my soul_!" + +And ere any one could stop her, the Lady Ysolinde, sobbing and laughing +both at once, had overleaped the light barrier, and was thrusting a +parchment with a seal into the hands of the Chancellor Michael Texel. + +"She is mad. Let the justice of the realm be done!" cried again the voice +of Master Gerard. + +And I think the Duke would have ordered it to be so. But there arose not +only a roar from the people, but, what Otho minded far more, an ominous +murmur among the nobles and gentlemen and from the ranks of men-at-arms. + +"The law! The law! Read us the law!" + +And even Otho dare not trifle with the will of the free companions of the +Mark. For in all the realm they were now his only supporters. Helene had +risen to her feet, and stood, pale of face but erect, resting, as was her +wont, one hand on my shoulder. + +Then Michael Texel read the scroll aloud. + +"It is the immemorial privilege of the Hereditary Executioner of the +Mark, being of the family of Gottfried, a privilege not to be abrogated +or alienated, that during the term of office of each, he may claim--not +as a boon, but as a right--the life of one man for a bond-servant, or the +life of one woman for a wife. Thus, by order of the States' Council, to +be the privilege of the Gottfrieds forever, it has been proclaimed!" + +As Michael Texel went on, I saw the countenance of the Duke and the +lawyer change. I knew that salvation had come to us like lightning from a +clear sky, and I hastened to demand the right which was mine own. + +So soon as he had finished I shouted with all my power: + +"I CLAIM HELENE TO BE MY WIFE!" + +Then went up such an acclaim from the people as never had been heard in +the ancient city. Even the gentlemen within the enclosure threw their +hats in the air. The soldiers put their helmets on the points of their +spears, and the captains waved their colors as at a victory. The thunder +of the cheering roused the very rooks and jackdaws from the towers of +Thorn and the bastions of the Wolfsberg till they went drifting in a +black cloud clamorously over the city. + +Then Helene put her arms about my neck, and, upon the scaffold of death, +before all the people, we plighted our troth. + +"The Bishop--the Bishop Peter!" cried the people. + +And, leaping upon an officer's horse, a messenger rode post-haste to the +palace, the crowd making way for him. Duke Otho disappeared through a +private door, for the thing was over-strong even for him. He knew his +weakness too well to war with the immemorial privileges of the Wolfmark. + +Rulers stronger than he had been broken in doing battle against ancient +rights and amenities. Besides, the nobility were afraid of their own +perquisites if one of so ancient a charter as that of the Hereditary +Justicer were refused. + +Then from the palace came the Bishop, with due and decorous attendance of +crosier and solemn procession. And there, amid a turmoil of joy and the +ringing of every bell in the city, we, that had gone out to be together +in death, were joined in the bonds of youth and life. + +But the Lady Ysolinde saw not--heard not. For they had carried her out +white and still from the place where she had fallen fainting at the foot +of the scaffold. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN + + +Al these things had overpast so quickly that when Helene and I found +ourselves alone in the Red Tower it seemed to both of us that we dreamed. + +We sat in a kind of buzzing hush, on the low window-seat of the old room, +hand in hand. The shouts of the people came up to us from the square +beneath. We heard the tramp of the soldiers, who cheered us as they +passed to and fro. Being at last alone, we looked into each other's eyes, +and we could not believe in our own happiness. + +"My wife!" I said, but in another fashion than I had said it on +the scaffold. + +"My husband!" answered Helene, looking up at me. + +But I think, for all that we realized of the truth, we might as well have +called each other King and Queen of Sheba. + +We had been conducted with honor to the Red Tower. For since it was in +virtue of my hereditary office that I had obtained the great +deliverance, I dared for the present seek no other dwelling-place. For +Helene's sake, indeed, I should have felt safer elsewhere. Besides, +desperate and full of baffled hatred as I knew Duke Otho to be, I did +not believe that he would dare to molest us--for some time at least. The +rage of the people, their unbounded jubilation at the deliverance of +their Saint Helena from the jaws of death on the very scaffold, were too +recent to be trifled with by a prince sitting so insecure in his ducal +seat as Otho of the Wolfmark. + +So here in the ancient Red Tower, I thought, we might at least be safe +enough till my good fellows of Plassenburg, with the Prince at their +head, should swarm hammering at the gates of Thorn. + +To us, sitting thus hand in hand, there entered the Bishop Peter. + +"Hail!" he said, blandly, and in his grandest manner, as we knelt for his +benediction; "hail, bride and bridegroom! God has been good to you this +day. Bishop Peter, the least of His servants, greets you very well. May +you have long life and prosperity unfailing." + +I thanked him for his gracious words. + +"The folk of the city are full of joy," he said. "I think they would +almost proclaim you Duke to-day." + +"I desire no such perilous honor," I replied, smiling; "it were indeed an +ill-omen to have a Duke habited all in red." + +"It is your marriage-dress, Hugo," said Helene; "I will not have you +speak against it." + +Ever since the strain of the scaffold she had not once broke down--no, +nor wept--but only desired to sit very close beside me, touching me +sometimes, as if to make sure that I was real. Deliverance had been too +great and sudden, and those things which had come so near to us +both--Death and the Beyond--had left a salt and bitter spray on our lips. + +"And what of the Lady Ysolinde?" I asked of the Bishop. + +Now the Bishop Peter was a good man, but, like many of his brethren, a +lover of great, swelling words. + +"The Lady Ysolinde," he said, oratorically, "by the immediate assistance +of the city guard, was placed in a litter and deported, all unconscious +as she was, to her father's house in the Weiss Thor, where she still +remains. But her most seasonable extract from the laws of the Wolfmark, +which so opportunely saved the life of your fair wife, and led to this +present happy consummation, I have here by me, even in my hand." + +And with that the Bishop drew the rolled parchment from his pocket and +handed it to me, with all the original seals depending from it. Now I +have small gift for the deciphering of such ancient documents, being only +skilled in the common script of the day, and not over-well in that. So +that I had to depend upon the offices of Bishop Peter for the +interpretation. + +"I think," said the Bishop, after he had finished reading it over, "that +this document had best remain in my own possession. It may be safer +under the seal and protection of the Church--even as, to speak truth, +you and your wife would also be. I am a plain man," the Bishop +continued, after a pause, "but remember that there is ever a place of +refuge at the palace--and one which even Duke Otho is not likely to +violate, remembering the experiences of his predecessor, Duke Casimir, +when he crossed his sword against the crosier of this unworthy servant +of Holy Church." + +"I thank you," said I. "I would that it were possible to avail myself of +your all too generous offer. But it will be necessary to abide at least +this one night in the Red Tower." + +"Ah," he said, "why this night?" + +"Great things may happen this night, my Lord Bishop!" said I, and glanced +significantly in the direction of Plassenburg. + +"Ah," said the Bishop again, "so then the power of Holy Church may not be +the only restraint upon Duke Otho by to-morrow at this time!" + +And, calling his attendants, the suave and far-seeing prelate made his +way with gravity and reverend ceremony down the streets of Thorn towards +his palace. + +So, bit by bit, the long day passed away, and I thought it would never +end. For Helene and I sat and waited for that which might happen, with +beating and anxious hearts. Ofttimes I ran to the top of the Red Tower, +and sometimes it seemed that I could see a moving cloud of dust, and +sometimes a flurry of startled cattle afar on the horizon. But till dusk +there came to our aching eyes no better evidence that the lads of +Plassenburg were coming to our rescue and to the deliverance of the +down-trodden city of Thorn. + +The soldiers of the garrison were still encamped in the great square. +There was also a constant swarming and mustering of men upon the ramparts +of the Wolfsberg. Duke Otho had certainly enough men to make a creditable +resistance. True, they were Free Companions, and without other loyalty +than that which they owed to their paymaster. + +And beneath this warlike show lay the city, rebellious and turbulent to +the core, the merchants longing for unhampered rights of trade and +security in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labors, the craftsmen +claiming freedom to work in their guilds without a payment of labor-bond +tithes to the Duke, and especially without the fear of being snatched +away at any moment from their benches and looms to join in his forays and +incursions. + +Towards the gloaming I had come down from the roof of the tower, and was +standing, gloomy, and little like a bridegroom, at the little window +whence I had so often looked down upon the playing children of Thorn. +Suddenly a great hand was reached up from the pavement, a folded paper +was thrust in at the lattice, and I saw the face of the Lubber Fiend +looking up at me from the street below. + +"Come up hither, good Jan," I cried to him. "I will run and open +the gate!" + +But the Lubber Fiend only shook his head till his ears flapped like +burdocks in the wind by the wood edges. + +"Jan will come none within that gate to tell where he has been," he said. +"Jan may be a fool, but he knows better than that." + +"And where have you been?" I asked, eagerly. + +Jan the Lubber Fiend stood on his tiptoes and whispered up to me with his +elbows on the sill. + +"You are sure the Duke is not behind you?" + +"There is none here--except my wife," I said, smiling. And I liked +speaking the word. + +"I have seen the great Prince," said Jan, nodding backward, and smiling +mysteriously, "and he is coming, but not by himself. There are such a +peck of mad fellows out there. There will not be much to eat in Thorn +when they all come in. Better make a good dinner to-day, that is my +advice to you. And I was bid to tell you that when all was ready for +their coming a fire is to be lighted on a high place, and then the Prince +will come to the gates." + +I longed much to hear more of his adventures, but neither love nor money +would induce the thrice cautious Jan to set a foot within the precincts +of the Red Tower. + +"I will light a bonfire when it is dark at the White Gate," he said, as +he retracted himself into the dusk. "I know what will make a rare blaze. +And the Prince cannot come too soon." + +So indeed I thought also, as I looked out and saw the swarms of Duke +Otho's men in the court-yard and about the square, and reflected on our +helplessness here in the Red Tower within the defenced precincts of the +Wolfsberg. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO + + +But at long and last the most tardy-footed day comes to an end. And so, +just as fast as on any common day, the sun at last dropped to the edge +of the horizon and slowly sank, leaving a shallowing lake of orange +color behind. + +The red roofs of Thorn grew gray, with purple veins of shadow in the +interstices where the streets ran, or rather burrowed. The nightly hum of +the city began. For, under the cruel rule of the wolves of the castle, +Thorn was ever busiest in the right. Indeed, the cheating of the guard +had become a business well understood of all the citizens, who had a +regular code of signals to warn each other of its approach. + +Lights winked and kindled in the Wolfsberg over against me. I could see +the long array of lighted windows where the Duke would presently be +dining with Michael Texel, High Councillor Gerard von Sturm, and most of +his other intimates. There, beneath, were the stables of the Black +Riders, and before them men were constantly passing and repassing with +buckets and soldier gear. + +I wondered if the Duke had news of the approach of the enemy. + +So soon as I judged it safe I went to the top of the Red Tower and +unfolded the paper which Jan the Lubber Fiend had brought me. It was +without name and address or signature, and read as follows: + +"To-night we shall be all in readiness. When the time is ripe let a fire +be lighted upon some conspicuous tower or high place of the city. Then we +will come." + +Thereafter Helene, being lonely, climbed up and sat down beside me. I +handed her the paper. + +"To-night will be a stormy one in Thorn and the Wolfsberg, little one," +said I. "I fear you and I are not yet out of the wood." + +The Little Playmate read the letter and gave it back to me. I tore it up, +and let the wind carry away the pieces one by one, small, like dust, so +that scarce one letter clave to another. + +Her hand stole into mine. + +"Ah," she sighed, "I am beginning to believe in it now! To-night may be +as dangerous as yesternight. But at least we are together, never to be +separated. And to us two that means all." + +It was a strange marriage night, this of ours--thus to sit on the roof of +the Tower, under the iron beacon which had been placed there in my +grandfather's time, and listen to the hum and murmur of the city, +straining our eyes meanwhile through the darkness to catch the first +spear-glint from the army of the Prince. + +"If they do not come by midnight, or if Jan Lubber Fiend does not light +his fire by the White Gate, we must e'en risk it and kindle this one here +on the Red Tower." + +So the night passed on till it was about eleven, or it might be a quarter +of an hour later. Then all suddenly I saw a little crowd of men disengage +themselves from that private entrance of the Hall of Judgment by which, +on the day of the trial, Dessauer and I had entered. They made straight +towards the Red Tower at a quick run. + +"Dear love," said I to Helene, "see yonder! Be ready to light the +beacon. I fear me much that our time has come to fight for life." + +"Kiss me, then," she said, "and I will be ready for all that may be. At +worst, we can die together, true husband and true wife." + +Presently there came a thundering knock at the door of the Red Tower. I +crouched on the stairs behind and listened intently. I could hear the +breathing of several men. + +"He is surely within," said a voice. "The tower has been watched every +moment of the day." + +Again came the loud knocking. + +"Open--in the name of the Duke!" cried the voice. And the door was +rattled fiercely against its fastenings. + +But I knew well enough that it could hold against any force of unassisted +men. For my father had ever taken a special pride in the bars and +defences of the single low door which led into his much-threatened +residence. + +So I crouched in the dark of the stairs and listened with yet more +quivering intentness. Presently I could hear shoulders set to the +iron-studded surface, and a voice counted, softly, "One--two--three--and +a heave!" But though I discerned the laboring of the men straining +themselves with all their might, they might as well have pushed at the +rough-harled wall of the Wolfsberg. + +"It will not do," I heard one say at last. "We cannot hope to succeed +thus. Bring the powder-bag and prepare the fuse." + +So then I knew indeed that our time was at hand. I mounted the stairs +three at a time till I came to the room where Helene was waiting for me +in the dark. + +"Fire the beacon on the Tower!" I bade her--"our enemies are upon us!" + +"And after that may I come to you, Hugo?" she said. + +"Nay, little one, it is better that you bide on the roof and see that +the beacon burns. You will find plenty of tow and oil in the niche by the +stair-head." + +I could hear Helene give vent to a little sigh. But she obeyed instantly, +and her light feet went pattering up the stairs. + +Then I waited for the explosion, which seemed as if it would never come. +I had my dagger in my belt, but of pure instinct my right hand seized the +Red Axe. For I had more skill of that than any other weapon, and as I had +cast it down when they brought us in from the scaffold that morning, it +lay ready to my hand. + +So I waited at the stair-head, and watched keenly the narrow passage up +which the men must come one by one. I measured my distance with the +axe-handle, and made a trial sweep or two, so that I might be sure of +clearing the stones on either side. I could not see that there would be +much difficulty in holding the place for a while, if only Prince Karl +would haste him and come. For to me the game of breaking heads and +slicing necks would be easy as cracking nuts on an anvil--at least, so +long as they would come up singly. + +Presently I heard the roar of burning fuel above me, and immediately +after a cry from below. Through the narrow stairway lattice I could see +the uncertain flicker of flames lighting up the street. Men ran backward +across the open square, looking up as they ran. So by that I knew that +Helene had done her work, and was now watching the burning beacon, as the +flames flicked upward and clapped their fiery applausive palms. + +But at the same moment, from the foot of the stairs, there came the loud +report of the explosion beneath the door of the Red Tower, the rumble of +stones, and then an eager rush of men to see what had been effected. + +"Now for it!" I thought, as I gripped the Red Axe. + +But it was not to be so soon. The iron bars, which my father had +engineered so that they sank deep into the wall on either side, still +held nobly, and I heard the loud voice crying again for a battering-ram. +The soldiers of the attacking party went scurrying across the yard, and +presently returned, carrying between them a young tree cleared of its +branches, but with the rough bark still upon it. + +Without, in the square, the turmoil increased, and the streets echoed +with shouting. A wild hope came into my heart that Prince Karl had not +awaited the summons of the beacon, and that his troops were already in +the streets of Thorn. But even as the thought passed through my brain I +knew that it was vain. + +On the other hand, it was evident that in the town the general alarm had +been given, for the trumpets blew from the ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and +the call to arms resounded incessantly in the court-yard. I doubted not +also that many a stout burgher was getting him under arms--and but few of +them to fight for the Duke. + +Suddenly the bars of the door jangled on the stones under the swinging +blows of the battering-ram. I heard feet clatter on the stair. They came +with a rush, but long ere they had arrived at the top the pace slackened. +Only one man at a time could come up the stairway, and it is always a +drag upon the enthusiasm of an assault when at least two cannot advance +together. The light flickered and filtered in from the torches in the +streets, and the reflected glow of the bonfire on the roof made the +stair-head clear as a lucid twilight. + +I waited, with the axe swinging loosely in one hand. A head bobbed up, +clad in a steel cap. Bat as the unseen feet propelled it upward the Red +Axe took little reck of the head. Betwixt the steel cap and the rim of +steel of the body armor appeared a gray line of leather jerkin and a +thinner white line of neck. The Red Axe swung. I bethought me that it was +a bad light to cut off calves' heads in. But the Red Axe made no mistake. +I had learned my trade. There was not even a groan--only a dull thud +some way underneath, such as you may hear when the children of the +quarter play football on the streets. + +Then the foremost of the assailants were blocked by the fallen body, and +the feet of the men behind were stayed as the strange round plaything +rebounded among them. + +"Back!" they cried, who were in front. + +"Forward!" replied those who were hindmost and knew nothing. + +"Come, men--on and finish it!" cried the voice which had commanded the +powder-flask and the tree--the voice I now knew to be that of Duke +Otho himself. + +But the kick-ball argument of the Red Axe was mightily discouraging to +those immediately concerned, and as I felt the muscles of my right arm +and waited, I could hear Otho reasoning, threatening, coaxing, all in +vain. Then his tones mounted steadily into hot anger. He reviled his +followers for dogs, cowards, curs who had eaten his bread and now would +not rid him of his enemies. + +"A thousand rix-dollars to the man who kills Hugo Gottfried!" he shouted. +"But, hear ye, save the girl alive!" + +Yet not a man would attempt the first hazard of the stair. + +"Knaves, traitors, curs!" he cried; "would that there were so much as a +single true man among you--but there is not one worth spitting upon!" + +"Cur yourself!" growled a man, somewhere in the dark--"you have most at +stake in this. Try the stair yourself if you are so keen. We will follow +fast enough!" + +"God strike me dead if I do not!" shouted Otho; "if it were only to shame +you cowards." + +He paused to prepare his weapons. + +"Follow me, men!" he shouted again; "all together!" + +Again there was the clatter of iron-shod feet on the stone steps +beneath me. + +My grip on the Red Axe became like iron, but my joints were loose and +swung easily as a flail swings on well-seasoned leathers. + +"Welcome, Otho von Reuss!" I cried; "ye could not be crowned without the +death of Helene my wife! Come up hither and I will crown thee once for +all with the iron crown." + +There, at last, was mine enemy at the turn of the stair, rushing +furiously upon me, sword in hand. + +"Traitor!" he cried, and his sword was almost at my breast, so +fast he came. + +"Murderer!" I shouted. + +And almost ere I was aware the Red Axe flashed as it swept full circle +with scarce a pause, but it took the head of a man with it on its way. + +Otho von Reuss was crowned. Helene, the Little Playmate, was avenged. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + +THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL + + +The Duke's body sank down upon that of the soldier, still further +blocking the passage. And as for his head, I know not where that went to. +But the rush of his followers was utterly checked by the barrier of dead. +With a wild cry, "The Duke is dead! Duke Otho is slain!" they rushed down +and out of the Red Tower, eager at once to escape unharmed, and to carry +to their companions in the Wolfsberg the startling news. + +Nevertheless, I cleared my arm, wiped my axe, and again stood ready. + +"Come!" I cried--"come all of you. You desire to kill me? Well, I am +still waiting!" + +But not a man answered. The stairway was clear, save of the headless +dead. And then, sudden as summer thunder, through the dumb and empty +silence, I heard clear and loud the clanging of the hammers of Prince +Karl upon the gates of Thorn. + +At that I felt that I must roar aloud in my fierce joy. I shouted angrily +for more and more assailants to come up the stair, that I might kill them +all. I yearned to be first at the gate, to see the men whom I had led +break their way in to deliver the city. I, more than any other, had +brought them there. I had trained them for that work. Best of all, across +the stairway beneath me lay dead Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark, beheaded by +the Red Axe of his own Justicer. + +"Husband! Hugo! Are you wounded?" said a voice behind me, a voice +which in a moment recalled me from my bloody imaginings and baresark +fury of fighting. + +"Helene!" I cried. + +She approached, and would have thrown her arms about me. But I held out +my hand to keep her off. + +"Not now, child," I said; "touch me not. I am unwounded, but wet!" + +And so I was, wet with that which had spouted from the neck of Otho von +Reuss, as his trunk stood a moment headless in the stairway ere it fell +prone--a hideous thing to see. + +"Come, Helene," I said, "we must away. There is other work for your +husband to-night. You I will place with the Bishop Peter. But my place is +with the men of Plassenburg and with Karl, my noble Prince." + +And I took her by the hand to lead her out. + +"Not that way!" she cried, shrinking back. + +For the bodies of the two slain men lay there. And the stairs ran red +from step to step in red drips and lappering pools. + +So I bethought me of what we should do, and ran forthwith for my father's +cord, with which he was used to bind the malefactors upon the wheel. + +"Come, Helene," said I, and straightway fastened the rope to the iron bar +from which I had made so many descents to the pavement in the old days of +the White Wolves. + +I let myself down, and there in the angle of the tower wall, I waited to +catch my wife. She delayed somewhat, and I could not think wherefore. + +But at last she came, bringing the Red Axe in her hand. + +"Go not weaponless!" she said, and I reached up and took from her hand +that which had already served me so well. The Red Axe had done its work +now, and she was grateful. + +Then full lightly she descended to my side, and we went down the streets +of Thorn, which were filled with hurrying burgesses, all with weapons in +their hands, rushing to discover the cause of the clamor. I took Helene +hastily to the palace of the Bishop. And when I arrived there I saw Peter +himself with his head out of a window. + +"I come to claim your protection for my wife!" I cried. + +He came down immediately with an attendant. + +"Fear not," I said, "you will never be called in question for this kindly +deed. The Duke Otho is slain, and the army of Prince Karl of Plassenburg +is already at the gates." + +"The Duke is dead!" he gasped. "Who slew him?" + +"Who but the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark should slay a traitor?" +said I, smiling at his astonishment. And I held up the Red Axe, on which +there was now no crystal-clear rim of shining steel. All was crimson from +haft to edge--red as blood. + +"Here, for an hour, Helene, little wife, I must leave you!" I said. +But now she sobbed and clung to me as she had not done before, even in +the dungeon. + +"Stay with me," she said. "I need you, Hugo!" + +I took her by the hand. + +"Little one," I whispered, as tenderly as I could, "I would not be +worthily your husband if I went not to meet those who are fighting to +save us all this night. They have come from far to deliver us. I were +false and recreant if I went not to their assistance." + +"I know--I know," she said. "Go!" + +And with that she gave a hand to the good Bishop and went quietly within, +with no more than a smile over her shoulder, like a watery April +sun-glint. + +Then I betook me with all speed to the Weiss Thor, where I judged the +chief struggle would take place. And as I came I heard the rattle of +shot and the jarring thunder of the forehammers. The soldiers without +shouted, and the men within more feebly replied. + +I came in sight of the gate. There on my left hand was the house of +Master Gerard von Sturm. + +A fire was still flickering upon the tower of it. + +Without I could hear the cheering and clamoring of the besiegers. But the +gates remained obstinately shut. They were stronger than the Prince had +anticipated. + +As _I_ stood, uncertain what to do, I saw a slim white figure, the figure +of a woman, flash across the open space towards the gate. The men who +defended the gate towers were all upon the top of the wall. Before any +could stop her she had thrown herself upon the wheel by which the bars +were unfastened, and with a few turns had drawn them as deftly as evil +Duke Casimir had been wont to remove the teeth of the rich Hebrew folk +when he wanted supplies. + +The White Gate slowly opened upon creaking hinges. The faces of the +soldiers of Plassenburg were seen without, the weapons gleamed in their +hands as they came on shouting fiercely. The guards of the Duke rushed +forward to close the gate. But the woman had clamped the wheel and stood +holding the bar. + +It was the Lady Ysolinde. She saw me as the soldiers of Duke Otho closed +threateningly upon her. She waved her hand to me almost happily. + +"_I have saved my soul, Hugo Gottfried_!" she cried. "_I have saved +my soul_!" + +At that moment a soldier of the Black Riders struck her fiercely with his +lance. I saw the white bosom of her dress redden as he plucked his weapon +to him again. I was in time to catch her in my arms as the soldiers of +Plassenburg, with Prince Karl at their head, came through the White Gate +like a spring-tide, carrying all before them. + +The Prince stayed at his wife's side. + +"Ysolinde!" cried the Prince, aghast, bending over her--not heeding, nor +indeed, as I think, even seeing me. + +"Karl!" she said, looking gently at him, "try and forgive me all the +rest. But be glad that I opened the White Gate for yon. I, Ysolinde, your +wife, did it for your sake." + +I put her into her husband's arms. I saw at a glance that there was no +hope. She could not live many moments with that lance-thrust through +her breast. + +She looked at him again. + +"Karl--say 'Ysolinde, I love you!'" she whispered, almost shyly. + +He looked down, and a rush of unwonted tears came to the eyes of the +Prince of Plassenburg. + +"Ysolinde, I love you!" he made answer, in a broken voice. + +She smiled, and then looked over his shoulder up at me. + +_"Hugo Gottfried, have I not saved my soul?"_ she cried. + +And so passed. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG + + +There was, however, deadly work yet before the men of Plassenburg. We +found, indeed, that the townsfolk were with us almost to a man. Their +guild train-bands gathered and mustered at their halls. The guards at the +city gates fraternally turned their arms to the ground. + +"The Prince will restore your ancient liberties!" I cried. And the people +shouted. "Prince Karl of Plassenburg and our ancient liberties!" + +Then we made our way up the street by different routes to the Wolfsberg. +There was little fighting till we arrived under those vast and gloomy +walls. The Black Riders had disappeared within. Those worst tools of grim +tyranny had early withdrawn themselves, knowing that small mercy would be +shown them by the people if once the Wolfsberg were taken. But the common +soldiers of the fighting rank, sons and brothers of the women of Thorn, +tore off the badge of the bloody Dukes and with loud shouts marched with +us as comrades. + +But when we came before the walls, and with sound of trumpet and loud +shouts summoned the Wolfsberg to surrender, a discharge of musketry from +the walls, and the determined faces of a multitude of defenders showed us +conclusively that all was not yet over. + +It was no use wasting men in attacking the great pile of buildings +with the force at our disposal. We had men in plenty, but for +breeching we needed the cannon left behind by these swift forces, +which, marching day and night, had arrived in the very nick of time +before the walls of Thorn. + +Nevertheless, it was not the fate of the Wolfsberg to be taken by Lazy +Peg and her compeers. + +These ponderous pieces of ordnance were presently being dragged through +the swamps and over the brick-dust barrens of the borderlands, and it +might be three or four days before they could arrive to aid us. There was +nothing, therefore, to do but to sit down and wait, drawing a cincture +that not a mouse could creep through about the cliffs of the Wolfsberg. + +But deep within the heart of the old Red Tower there was one stronger +than Lazy Peg fighting for us. + +"Fire! Fire!" cried the people in the streets. "The Wolfsberg is on +fire!" And so, surely, it was. The flames burst out from the windows +of the Red Tower and were rapidly carried by a dry fanning northerly +wind along the wooden workshops and kennels to the main building, +where the Hall of Judgment was soon blazing like a torch. The +defenders seemed paralyzed by this misadventure. Some ran to the +castle well. Some threw themselves desperately from the walls, others +crowded to the gates, and through the bars besought our Prince's +pledge that mercy would be shown them. + +Then the crowd without were ill to deal with, for they cried aloud, "No +mercy to the murderers! Show us our Saint Helena!" + +Then it was that I leaped once more upon the scaffold, which had seen +such a sight the day before, and cried, "Duke Otho is dead! I, Hugo +Gottfried, slew him with this Red Axe. Prince Karl is come to save you, +and to give you back your ancient liberties. Your Saint Helena is my +wife, and is safe under the protection of Bishop Peter." + +But though they cheered at my words they would not cease from crying, +"Show us Saint Helena, and if she bid us we will have mercy on the wolves +of the Wolfsberg!" + +So it was necessary for Helene to be brought and to show herself to them, +for the sake of the poor souls sore driven and in jeopardy 'twixt the +fire and the knives. + +"Have mercy on the poor folk!" she cried, when they had done shouting +because of her safety. "At worst, they are but misguided, ignorant men!" + +By this time the doors of the Wolfsberg were thrown open from within, and +the men crowded out, casting down their arms in heaps on either side the +gate. They were then marched, under charge of the soldiers of +Plassenburg, to various strongholds which were pointed out by the +Burgomeister and the chiefs of the guilds. The fortified halls of the +trades were filled with them. By daybreak the whole of Thorn was in our +hands, while the gray barrens of the Wolfmark were lit for leagues by the +flaming Wolfsberg, which, on its craggy height, vomited fire and sparks +into the blackness of night. + +And the reek of this great burning hung for days after in the heavens. +Thus was an end made to the iniquities of the house of the Black Duke +Casimir and the Red Duke Otho. And the last Duke mixed his ashes with +that of the fatal Tower. For on the morrow there remained only the +blackened walls and glowing skeleton beams of all that mighty +palace--which, indeed, has never been rebuilt. For the people of Thorn, +under the mild and equitable rule which followed, erected a great +memorial church upon the spot--as may be seen to this day, a landmark +from far to witness if I have lied in the tale which has been told. + +So the Prince Karl gave back to Thorn its liberties, as he had promised. +But the regality of the Dukedom he kept for himself, and he took the +Wolfmark and made it part of his dominions, till, as he had formerly +undertaken, the broom-bush kept the cow throughout the length and breadth +of Plassenburg and the Mark. + +It was a noble home-coming when we returned to Plassenburg--victorious +and famous; but also there was mourning deep and solemn for the Princess +Ysolinde, who by her sacrifice had wrought such great things for the arms +of Plassenburg, and had died in the moment of victory. + +Then, when after the stately funeral of the dead Princess we returned +back to the palace, it was the Prince's pleasure that Helene and myself +should ride on either hand of him through the city. + +And when we were announced in the court, and the councillors of state +stood about, my wife was named by her true name, "Helena, Princess of +Plassenburg!" + +Whereat the courtiers opened their mouths and widened their +eyes--thinking, perhaps, that that ancient wizard, Chancellor Leopold von +Dessauer had suddenly gone mad. + +But when the representatives of the cities of the Princedom, and the +delegates from Thorn and the Mark, had been received with due honor, the +Prince bade his Chancellor recount all he had learned from my father, and +all that he had discovered in the archives of Plassenburg. + +Then, when Dessauer had finished, Karl the Prince arose. + +"I am," he said, "a plain, brusque man. And speech was never my +stronghold. But this I say. When Karl the Miller's Son goes the way of +King's son and beggar's son, it is his will that Helene, legitimate +Princess of Plassenburg, shall reign over you. And also that her husband, +Hugo, who, as you know, won her from dreadful death, shall stand by her +right hand." + +Then the nobles and great lords, fearing the Prince, and perhaps also +envying a little the man who was the Prince's general of his armies, +shouted amain: + +"We swear to obey the Princess Helena!" + +Whereat uprose the Little Playmate, very princess-like and full of sweet +regal dignity. + +"I thank you, noble Prince," she said. "I am glad that I can claim so +honorable a name and lineage; but I had rather be no Princess, nor +anything else than that which my husband hath made me--the wife of the +captain-general of the armies of Karl, the only true and noble Prince of +Plassenburg!" + +Then the Prince rose and clasped her in his arms, kissing her fondly on +both cheeks. + +"Fear not," he said, "dear and loyal lady. If you live to be the +Princess, your goodman shall be the Prince. Never shall the gray mare +flaunt it first, in Plassenburg!" + +And he gave us each a hand, and conducted us to a pair of seats which had +been set level with his on the platform of the Council-chamber of the +Princedom. + +The Prince Karl lived many days after the winning of the Wolfmark and the +ending of the ducal Wolves. But he gave less and less care to the +regalities, leaving them even more completely to me, sitting mostly in +the pleasaunce by the river-side, or in the far-regarding room which had +been the Lady Ysolinde's. + +Also he never looked again on the face of a woman--except as it might +be to bid them good-day--save on that of my wife, Helene, who, as you +who know her may guess, waxed but the sweeter and the fairer as the +years went by. + +And the blessing of children came to us, and in this thing the Prince +Karl was even happier than we. + +One day, however, it chanced that he was seated in full Council, and +right noble he looked. I had just handed him a paper to sign. But he +looked neither at me nor yet at the paper. His eyes were fixed on the +locked doors of the privy bedchamber, through which only those of +princely blood might come. + +He stared so long at it that to recall him I put my hand on his sleeve +and said, "Prince, the Council waits your pleasure!" + +Bat he heard me not, his eyes being fixed on the door. + +"Your pardon, my lords and knights," he said, at last, fighting a little +stiffly with his utterance, "but it seemed that I saw the Princess, my +wife, come through the door, clad in white, and beckon me with her hand. +I must go to her, my lords; I think she waits for me. The Prince Hugo +will take my place at the Council." + +And the old man took a step from the high seat. But at the foot of the +throne he stumbled and fell into my arms. + +He said but one word after that, with his eyes still fixed on the +bolted door. + +"_Ysolinde_!" + +And so the Prince Karl and his wife were united at last. + +Since then we have lived long, the Little Playmate and I; but never have +we been other than comrades and friends--lovers also, which is the best +of all. And so (an the good God please) we shall abide till the end +comes. And in the gloaming we two also shall see the beckoning finger +from beyond the bolted door and turn our feet homeward, passing the +bourne of the new life hand in hand--and undismayed. + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Red Axe, by Samuel Rutherford Crockett + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12191 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..231123f --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12191 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12191) diff --git a/old/12191-8.txt b/old/12191-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6ec648 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12191-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13051 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Red Axe, by Samuel Rutherford Crockett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Red Axe + +Author: Samuel Rutherford Crockett + +Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12191] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED AXE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + THE RED AXE + + By S.R. Crockett + + 1900 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE + II. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME + III. THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + IV. THE PRINCESS HELENE + V. THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ARE FED + VI. DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR + VII. I BECOME A TRAITOR + VIII. AT THE BAR OF THE WHITE WOLF + IX. A HERO CARRIES WATER IN THE SUN + X. THE LUBBER FIEND + XI. THE VISION IN THE CRYSTAL + XII. EYES OF EMERALD + XIII. CHRISTIAN'S ELSA + XIV. SIR AMOROUS IS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF + XV. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS + XVI. TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN + XVII. THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE + XVIII. THE PRIME OF THE MORNING + XIX. WENDISH WIT + XX. THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND + XXI. I STAND SENTRY + XXII. HELENE HATES ME + XXIII. HUGO OF THE BROADAXE + XXIV. THE SORTIE + XXV. MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE + XXVI. PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON + XXVII. ANOTHER MAN'S COAT + XXVIII. THE PRINCE'S COMPACT + XXIX. LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT + XXX. INSULT AND CHALLENGE + XXXI. I FIND A SECOND + XXXII. THE WOLVES OF THE MARK + XXXIII. THE FLIGHT OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE + XXXIV. THE GOLDEN NECKLACE + XXXV. THE DECENT SERVITOR + XXXVI. YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL + XXXVII. CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON +XXXVIII. THE BLACK RIDERS + XXXIX. THE FLAG ON THE RED TOWER + XL. THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH + XLI. THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER + XLII. PRINCESS PLAYMATE + XLIII. THE TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT + XLIV. SENTENCE OF DEATH + XLV. THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE + XLVI. A WOMAN SCORNED + XLVII. THE RED AXE DIES STANDING UP + XLVIII. HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + XLIX. THE SERPENT'S STRIFE + L. THE DUNGEON OF THE WOLFSBERG + LI. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN + LII. THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT + LIII. THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN + LIV. THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO + LV. THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL + LVI. HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG + + + + +THE RED AXE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE + + +Well do I, Hugo Gottfried, remember the night of snow and moonlight when +first they brought the Little Playmate home. I had been sleeping--a +sturdy, well-grown fellow I, ten years or so as to my age--in a stomacher +of blanket and a bed-gown my mother had made me before she died at the +beginning of the cold weather. Suddenly something awoke me out of my +sleep. So, all in the sharp chill of the night, I got out of my bed, +sitting on the edge with my legs dangling, and looked curiously at the +bright streams of moonlight which crossed the wooden floor of my garret. +I thought if only I could swim straight up one of them, as the motes did +in the sunshine, I should be sure to come in time to the place where my +mother was--the place where all the pretty white things came from--the +sunshine, the moonshine, the starshine, and the snow. + +And there would be children to play with up there--hundreds of children +like myself, and all close at hand. I should not any longer have to sit +up aloft in the Red Tower with none to speak to me--all alone on the top +of a wall--just because I had a crimson patch sewn on my blue-corded +blouse, on my little white shirt, embroidered in red wool on each of my +warm winter wristlets, and staring out from the front of both my +stockings. It was a pretty enough pattern, too. Yet whenever one of the +children I so much longed to play with down on the paved roadway beneath +our tower caught sight of it he rose instantly out of the dust and hurled +oaths and ill-words at me--aye, and oftentimes other missiles that hurt +even worse--at a little lonely boy who was breaking his heart with loving +him up there on the tower. + +"Come down and be killed, foul brood of the Red Axe!" the children cried. +And with that they ran as near as they dared, and spat on the wall of our +house, or at least on the little wooden panel which opened inward in the +great trebly spiked iron door of the Duke's court-yard. + +But this night of the first home-coming of the Little Playmate I awoke +crying and fearful in the dead vast of the night, when all the other +children who would not speak to me were asleep. Then pulling on my +comfortable shoes of woollen list (for my father gave me all things to +make me warm, thinking me delicate of body), and drawing the many-patched +coverlet of the bed about me, I clambered up the stone stairway to the +very top of the tower in which I slept. The moon was broad, like one of +the shields in the great hall, whither I went often when the great Duke +was not at home, and when old Hanne would be busy cleaning the pavement +and scrubbing viciously at the armor of the iron knights who stood on +pedestals round about. + +"One day I shall be a man-at-arms, too," I said once to Hanne, "and ride +a-foraying with Duke Ironteeth." + +But old Hanne only shook her head and answered: + +"Ill foraying shalt thou make, little shrimp. Such work as thine is not +done on horseback--keep wide from me, _toadchen_, touch me not!" + +For even old Hanne flouted me and would not let me approach her too +closely, all because once I had asked her what my father did to witches, +and if she were a witch that she crossed herself and trembled whenever +she passed him in the court-yard. + +Now, having little else to do, I loved to look down from the top of the +tower at all times. But never more so than when there was snow on the +ground, for then the City of Thorn lay apparent beneath me, all spread +out like a painted picture, with its white and red roofs and white houses +bright in the moonlight--so near that it seemed as though I could pat +every child lying asleep in its little bed, and scrape away the snow with +my fingers from every red tile off which the house-fires had not already +melted it. + +The town of Thorn was the chief place of arms, and high capital city of +all the Wolfmark. It was a thriving place, too, humming with burghers and +trades and guilds, when our great Duke Casimir would let them alone; +perilous, often also, with pikes and discontents when he swooped from the +tall over-frowning Castle of the Wolfsberg upon their booths and +guilderies--"to scotch the pride of rascaldom," as he told them when they +complained. In these days my father was little at home, his business +keeping him abroad all the day about the castle-yard, at secret +examinations in the Hall of Judgment, or in mysterious vaults in the +deepest parts of the castle, where the walls are eighteen feet thick, and +from which not a groan can penetrate to the outside while the Duke +Casimir's judgment was being done upon the poor bodies and souls of men +and women his prisoners. + +In the court-yard, too, the dogs, fierce russet-tan blood-hounds, +ravined for their fearsome food. And in these days there was plenty of +it, too, so that they were yelling and clamoring all day, and most of +the night, for that which it made me sweat to think of. And beneath the +rebellious city cowered and muttered, while the burghers and their +wives shivered in their beds as the howling of Duke Casimir's +blood-hounds came fitfully down the wind, and Duke Casimir's guards +clashed arms under their windows. + +So this night I looked down contentedly enough from my perched eyrie on +the top of the Red Tower. It had been snowing a little earlier in the +evening, and the brief blast had swept the sky clean, so that even the +brightest stars seemed sunken and waterlogged in the white floods of +moonlight. Under my hand lay the city. Even the feet of the watch made no +clatter on the pavements. The fresh-fallen snow masked the sound. The +kennels of the blood-hounds were silent, for their dreadful tenants were +abroad that night on the Duke's work. + +Yet, sitting up there on the Wolfsberg, it seemed to me that I could +distinguish a muttering as of voices full of hate, like men talking low +on their beds the secret things of evil and treason. I discerned +discontent and rebellion rumbling and brooding over the city that clear, +keen night of early winter. + +Then, when after a while I turned from the crowded roofs and looked down +upon the gray, far-spreading plain of the Wolfmark, to the east I saw +that which appeared like winking sparks of light moving among the black +clumps of copse and woodland which fringed the river. These wimpled and +scattered, and presently grew brighter. A long howl, like that of a +lonely wolf on the waste when he calls to his kindred to tell him their +where-abouts, came faintly up to my ears. + +A hound gave tongue responsively among the heaped mews and doggeries +beneath the ramparts. Lights shone in windows athwart the city. Red +nightcaps were thrust out of hastily opened casements. The Duke's +standing guard clamored with their spear-butts on the uneven pavements, +crying up and down the streets: "To your kennels, devil's brats, Duke +Casimir comes riding home!" + +Then I tell you my small heart beat furiously. For I knew that if I +only kept quiet I should see that which I had never yet seen--the +home-coming of our famous foraying Duke. I had, indeed, seen Duke +Casimir often enough in the castle, or striding across the court-yard +to speak to my father, for whom he had ever a remarkable affection. He +was a tall, swart, black-a-vised man, with a huge hairy mole on his +cheek, and long dog-teeth which showed at the sides of his mouth when +he smiled, almost as pleasantly as those of a she-wolf looking out of +her den at the hunters. + +But I had never seen the Duke of all the Wolfmark come riding home ere +daybreak, laden with the plunder of captured castles and the rout of +deforced cities. For at such times my father would carefully lock the +door on me, and confine me to my little sleeping-chamber--from whence I +could see nothing but the square of smooth pavement on which the +children chalked their games, and from which they cried naughtily up at +me, the poor hermit of the Red Tower. But this night my father would be +with the Duke, and I should see all. For high or low there was none in +the empty Red Tower to hinder or forbid. + +As I waited, thrilling with expectation, I heard beneath me the +quickening pulse-beat of the town. The watch hurried here and there, +hectoring, threatening, and commanding. But, in spite of all, men +gathered as soon as their backs were turned in the alleys and street +openings. Clusters of heads showed black for a moment in some darksome +entry, cried "U-g-g-hh!" with a hateful sound, and vanished ere the +steel-clad veterans of the Duke's guard could come upon them. It was like +the hide-and-seek which I used to play with Boldo, my blood-hound puppy, +among the dusty waste of the lumber-room over the Hall of Judgment, +before my father took him back to the kennels for biting Christian's +Elsa, a child who lived in the lower Guard opposite to the Red Tower. + +But this was a stranger hide-and-seek than mine and Boldo's had been. For +I saw one of the men who cried hatefully to the guard stumble on the +slippery ice; and lo! or ever he had time to cry out or gather himself +up, the men-at-arms were upon him. I saw the glitter of stabbing steel +and heard the sickening sound of blows stricken silently in anger. Then +the soldiers took the man up by head and heels carelessly, jesting as +they went. And I shuddered, for I knew that they were bringing him to the +horrible long sheds by the Red Tower through which the wind whistled. But +in the moonlight the patch which was left on the snow was black, not red. + +After this the crooked alleys were kept clearer, and I could see down the +long High Street of Thorn right to the Weiss Thor and the snow-whitened +pinnacles of the Palace, out of which Duke Casimir had for the time being +frightened Bishop Peter. Black stood the Gate Port against the moonlight +and the snow when I first looked at it. A moment after it had opened, and +a hundred lights came crowding through, like sheep through an entry on +their way to the shambles--which doubtless is their Hall of Judgment, +where there waits for them the Red Axe of a lowlier degree. + +The lights, I say, came thronging through the gate. For though it was +moonlight, the Duke Casimir loved to come home amid the red flame of +torches, the trail of bituminous reek, and with a dashing train of riders +clattering up to the Wolfsberg behind him, through the streets of Thorn, +lying black and cowed under the shadows of its thousand gables. + +So the procession undulated towards me, turbid and tumultuous. First a +reckless pour of riders urging wearied horses, their sides white-flecked +above with blown foam, and dark beneath with rowelled blood. Many of the +horsemen carried marks upon them which showed that all had not been +plunder and pleasuring upon their foray. For there were white napkins, +and napkins that had once been white, tied across many brows. Helmets +swung clanking like iron pipkins from saddle-bows, and men rode wearily +with their arms in slings, drooping haggard faces upon their chests. But +all passed rapidly enough up the steep street, and tumbled with noise and +shouting, helter-skelter into the great court-yard beneath me as I +watched, secure as God in heaven, from my perch on the Red Tower. + +Then came the captives, some riding horses bare-backed, or held in place +before black-bearded riders--women mostly these last, with faces +white-set and strange of eye, or all beblubbered with weeping. Then came +a man or two also on horseback, old and reverend. After them a draggled +rabble of lads and half-grown girls, bound together with ropes and kept +at a dog's trot by the pricking spears of the men-at-arms behind, who +thought it a jest to sink a spear point-deep in the flesh of a man's +back--"drawing the claret wine" they called it. For these riders of Duke +Casimir were every one jolly companions, and must have their merry jest. + +After the captives had gone past--and sorry I was for them--the +body-guard of Duke Casimir came riding steadily and gallantly, all +gentlemen of the Mark, with their sons and squires, landed men, towered +men, free Junkers, serving the Duke for loyalty and not servitude, though +ever "living by the saddle"--as, indeed, most of the Ritterdom and gentry +of the Mark had done for generations. + +Then behind them came Duke Casimir himself. The Eastland blood he had +acquired from his Polish mother showed as he rode gloomily apart, +thoughtful, solitary, behind the squared shoulders of his knights. After +him another squadron of riders in ghastly armor of black-and-white, with +torches in their hand and grinning skulls upon their shields, closed in +the array. The great gate of the Wolfsberg was open now, and, leaving +behind him the hushed and darkened town, the master rode into his castle. +The Wolf was in his lair. But in the streets many a burgher's wife +trembled on her bed, while her goodman peered cautiously over the leads +by the side of a gargoyle, and fancied that already he heard the clamor +of the partisans thundering at his door with the Duke's invitation to +meet him in the Hall of Judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME + + +But there was to be no Session in the Hall of Judgment that night. The +great court-yard, roofed with the vault of stars and lit by the moon, was +to see all done that remained to be done. The torches were planted in the +iron hold-fasts round about. The plunder of the captured towns and +castles was piled for distribution on the morrow, and no man dared keep +back so much as a Brandenburg broad-piece or a handful of Bohemian +gulden. For the fear of the Duke and the Duke's dog-kennels was upon +every stout fighting-kerl. They minded the fate of Hans Pulitz, who had +kept back a belt of gold, and had gotten himself flung by the heels with +no more than the stolen belt upon him, into the kennels where the Duke's +blood-hounds howled and clambered with their fore-feet on the +black-spattered barriers. And they say that the belt of gold was all that +was ever seen again of the poor rascal. Hans Pulitz--who had hoped for so +many riotous evenings among the Fat Pigs of Thorn and so many draughts of +the slippery wine of the Rheingan careering down the poor thirsty throat +of him. But, alas for Hans Pulitz! the end of all imagining was no more +than five minutes of snapping, snarling, horrible Pandemonium in the +kennels of the Wolfsberg, and the scored gold chain on the ground was all +that remained to tell his tale. Verily, there were few Achans in Duke +Casimir's camp. + +And it is small wonder after this, that scant and sparse were the jests +played on the grim master of the Wolfsberg, or that the bay of a +blood-hound tracking on the downs frightened the most stout-hearted rider +in all that retinue of dare-devils. + +Going to the side of the Red Tower, which looked towards the court-yard, +I saw the whole array come in. I watched the prisoners unceremoniously +dismounted and huddled together against the coming of the Duke. There was +but one man among them who stood erect. The torch-light played on his +face, which was sometimes bent down to a little child in his arms, so +that I saw him well. He looked not at all upon the rude men-at-arms who +pushed and bullied about him, but continued tenderly to hush his charge, +as if he had been a nurse in a babe-chamber under the leads, with silence +in all the house below. + +It pleased me to see the man, for all my life I had loved children. And +yet at ten years of age I had never so much as touched one--no, nor +spoken even, only looked down on those that hated me and spat on the very +tower wherein I dwelt. But nevertheless I loved them and yearned to tell +them so, even when they mocked me. So I watched this little one in the +man's arms. + +Then came the Duke along the line, and behind him, like the Shadow of +Death, paced my father Gottfried Gottfried, habited all in red from neck +to heel, and carrying for his badge of office as Hereditary Justicer to +the Dukes of the Wolfmark that famous red-handled, red-bladed axe, the +gleaming white of whose deadly edge had never been wet save with the +blood of men and women. + +The guard pushed the captives rudely into line as the Duke Casimir strode +along the front. The women he passed without a sign or so much as a look. +They were kept for another day. But the men were judged sharp and sudden, +as the Duke in his black armor passed along, and that scarlet Shadow of +Death with the broad axe over his shoulder paced noiselessly behind him. + +For as each man looked into the eyes of Casimir of the Wolfsberg he read +his doom. The Duke turned his wrist sharply down, whereupon the attendant +sprites of the Red Shadow seized the man and rent his garment down from +his neck--or the hand pointed up, and then the man set his hand to his +heart and threw his head back in a long sigh of relief. + +It came the turn of the man who carried the babe. + +Duke Casimir paused before him, scowling gloomily at him. + +"Ha, Lord Prince of so great a province, you will not set yourself up any +more haughtily. You will quibble no longer concerning tithes and tolls +with Casimir of the Wolfmark." + +And the Duke lifted his hand and smote the man on the cheek with his +open hand. + +Yet the captive only hushed the child that wailed aloud to see her +guardian smitten. + +He looked Duke Casimir steadfastly in the eyes and spoke no word. + +"Great God, man, have you nothing to say to me ere you die?" cried Duke +Casimir, choked with hot, sudden anger to be so crossed. + +The elder man gazed steadily at his captor. + +"God will judge betwixt me, a man about to die, and you, Casimir of the +Wolfmark," he said at last, very slowly--"by the eyes of this little maid +He will judge!" + +"Like enough," cried Casimir, sneeringly. "Bishop Peter hath told me as +much. But then God's payments are long deferred, and, so far as I can +see, I can take Him into my own hand. And your little maid--pah! since +one day you took from me the mother, I, in my turn, will take the +daughter and make her a titbit for the teeth of my blood-hounds." + +The man answered not again, but only hushed and fondled the little one. + +Duke Casimir turned quickly to my father, showing his long teeth like a +snarling dog: + +"Take the child," he said, "and cast her into the kennels before the +man's eyes, that he may learn before he dies to dread more than God's +Judgment Seat the vengeance of Duke Casimir!" + +Then all the men-at-arms turned away, heart-sick at the horror. But the +man with the child never blanched. + +High perched on the top tower, I also heard the words and loved the maid. +And they tell me (though I do not remember it) that I cried down from the +leads of the Red Tower: "My father, save the little maid and give her to +me--or else I, Hugo Gottfried, will cast myself down on the stones at +your feet!" + +At which all the men looked up and saw me in white, a small, lonely +figure, with my legs hanging over the top of the wall. + +"Go back!" my father shouted. "Go back, Hugo! 'Tis my only son--my +successor--the fifteenth of our line, my lord!" he said to the Duke +in excuse. + +But I cried all the more: "Save the maid's life, or I will fling myself +headlong. By Jesu-Mary, I swear it!" + +For I thought that was the name of one great saint. + +Then my father, who ever doted on me, bent his knee before his master: +"A boon!" he cried, "my first and last, Duke Casimir--this maid's life +for my son!" + +But the Duke hung on the request a long, doubtful moment. + +"Gottfried Gottfried," he said, even reproachfully, "this is not well +done of you, to make me go back on my word." + +"Take the man's life," said my father--"take the man's life for the +child's and the fulfilling of your word, and by the sword of St. Peter I +will smite my best!" + +"Aye," said the man with the babe, "even so do, as the Red Axe says. +Save the young child, but bid him smite hard at this abased neck. Ye have +taken all, Duke Casimir, take my life. But save the young child alive!" + +So, without further word or question, they did so, and the man who had +carried the child kissed her once and separated gently the baby hands +that clung about his neck. Then he handed her to my father. + +"Be gracious to Helene," he said; "she was ever a sweet babe." + +Now by this time I was down hammering on the door of the Red Tower, which +had been locked on the outside. + +Presently some one turned the key, and so soon as I got among the men I +darted between their legs. + +"Give me the babe!" I cried; "the babe is mine; the Duke himself +hath said it." And my father gave her to me, crying as if her heart +would break. + +Nevertheless she clung to me, perhaps because I was nearer her own age. + +Then the dismal procession of the condemned passed us, followed by my +father, who strode in front with his axe over his shoulder, and the +laughing and jesting men-at-arms bringing up the rear. + +As I stood a little aside for them to pass, the hand of the man fell on +my head and rested there a moment. + +"God's blessing on you, little lad!" he said. "Cherish the babe you have +saved, and, as sure as that I am now about to die, one day you shall be +repaid." And he stooped and kissed the little maid before he went on with +the others to the place of slaughter. + +Then I hurried within, so that I might not hear the dull thud of the Red +Axe, on the block nor the inhuman howlings of the dogs in the kennels +afterwards. + +When my father came home an hour later, before even he took off his +costume of red, he came up to our chamber and looked long at the little +maid as she lay asleep. Then he gazed at me, who watched him from under +my lids and from behind the shadows of the bedclothes. + +But his quick eye caught the gleam of light in mine. + +"You are awake, boy!" he said, somewhat sternly. + +I nodded up to him without speaking. + +"What would you with the little maid?" he said. "Do you know that you and +she together came very near losing me my favor with the Duke, and it +might be my life also, both at one time to-night?" + +I put my hand on the maiden's head where it lay on the pillow by me. + +"She is my little wife!" I said. "The Duke gave her to me out in the +court-yard there!" + +And this is the whole tale of how the Little Playmate came to dwell with +us in the Red Tower. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + + +Just as clearly do I remember the next morning. The Little Playmate lay +by me on my bed, wrapped in one of my childish night-gowns--which old +Hanne had sought out for her the night before. It was a brisk, chill, +nippy daybreak, and I had piled most of the bedclothes upon her. I lay at +the nether side clipped tight in my single brown blanket. It was +perishing cold. Out of the heaped coverings I saw presently a pair of +eyes, great and dark, regarding me. + +Then a little voice spoke, sweetly and clearly, but yet strangely +sounding to me who had never before heard a babe speak. + +"I want my father--tell him to send Grete, my maid, to attend on me, and +then to come himself to sit by the bed and amuse me!" + +Alas! her father--well I knew what had come to him--that which in the +mercy of the Duke Casimir and in the crowning mercy of the Red Axe, I had +seen come to so many. The dogs did not howl at all that morning. They, +too, were tired with the hunting and sated with the quarry. + +All the same, I tried to answer my companion. + +"Little Maid!" said I, "let me be your maid and your father. I will +gladly get you all you want. But your good father has gone on a weary +journey, and it will be long ere he can hope to return." + +"Well," she said, "send lazy Grete, then. I will scold her soundly for +not bringing the sop of hot milk-and-bread, which, indeed, is not food +for a lady of my age. But my father insists upon it. He is dreadfully +obstinate." + +Now there was no one but our old deaf Hanne in the kitchen of the Red +Tower. She stayed only for cooking and keeping the house clean. My father +never paid her wages, and she never asked any. She did her work and took +that which she needed out of the household purse without check or +question. It was long before I guessed that Hanne also owed her life to +my father's care. I had noticed, indeed, when he had upon him the red +headman's dress, which fitted him like a flame climbing up a tall back +log on the winter's fire, that old Hanne trembled from head to foot and +shrank away into her den under the stairs. Many a time have I seen her +peeping round the corner of the kitchen-door and tottering back when she +heard him come down the stair from the garret. And I guessed so well the +reason of her fear that I used to cry to her: + +"Come out, good Hanne; the Red Axe is gone." + +Then would she run, pattering like a scared rabbit over the uneven floor, +to the window, and watch my father stalking, grim and tall, across the +open spaces of the yard towards the Judgment Hall of Duke Casimir, the +men-at-arms avoiding him with deft reverence. For though they hated him +almost as much as did the fat burghers, they feared him, too. And that +because Gottfried Gottfried was deep in the confidence of the Duke; and, +besides, was no man to stand in the ill-graces of when one lived within +the walls of the Wolfsberg. + +So this morning it was to the ancient Hanne that I ran down and told her +how, as quickly as she might, she must bring milk and bread to the +little one. + +"But," said she, "there is none save that which is to be sodden for your +father's breakfast and your own." + +"Do as you are bid, bad Hanne!" cried I, being, like all solitary +children, quickly made angry, "or I will tell my father to drive you +before him when next he goes forth clad in red to the Hall of Justice." + +At which the poor old woman gave vent to a sharp, screechy cry and caught +at her skinny throat with twitching, bony fingers. + +"Oh, but you know not what you say, cruel boy!" she gasped. "For the love +of God, speak not such words in the house of the Red Axe!" + +But, like an ill-governed child, I was cruel because I knew my power, and +so made sure that Hanne would do what I asked. + +"Well, then, bring the sop quickly," said I, "or by Peter-and-Paul I will +speak to my father. He and I can well be doing with beaten cakes made +crisp on the iron girdle. In these you have great skill." + +This last I said to cheer her, for she loved compliments on her cooking. +Though, strange to tell, I never saw her eat anything herself all the +years she remained in our house. + +When I was gone up-stairs again I looked about for the Little Playmate. +She was not to be seen anywhere. There was only a tiny cosey-hole down +among the blankets, which was yet warm when I thrust my hand within it. +But it was empty and the top a little fallen in, as if the occupant had +set her knee on it when she crawled out. A baby stocking lay outside it +on the floor. + +"Little maid!" I cried, "where are you?" + +But I heard nothing except a hissing up on the roof, and then a great +slithering rumble down below, which boomed like the distant cannons the +Margraf sent to besiege us. I listened and shuddered; but it was only the +snow from the tall roof of the Red Tower which had slipped off and fallen +to the ground. Then I had a vision of a slender little figure clambering +on the leads and the treacherous snow striking her out into the air, and +then--the cruel stones of the pavement. + +"Little maid, little maid!" I cried out again, beginning to weep myself +for pity at my thought, "where are you? Speak to me. You are my +playmate." + +Then I ran to the roof, and, though the stones chilled me to the bone and +the frost-bitten iron hasps of the fastenings burned me like fire, I +opened the trap-door and looked out. There above me was the crow-stepped +gable of the Red Tower, with the axe set on the pinnacle rustily bright +in the coming light of the morning--all swept clean of snow. But no +little maid. + +I ran to the verge and peered down. I saw a great heap of frozen snow +fallen on its edge and partly canted over, half covering a deep red stain +which was turning black and horrid in the daylight. But no little maid. + +Then I ran all over the house calling to her, but could not find her +anywhere. I was just beginning to bethink me that she might be a fairy +child, one that came at night and vanished like the dream gold which is +forever turning to withered leaves in the morning. At last I bethought me +of my father's room, where even I, his son, had never been at night, and +indeed but seldom in the day. For it was the Hereditary Justicer's fancy +to lodge himself in the high garret which ran right across the top of the +Red Tower, and was entered only by a little ladder from the first turning +of the same staircase by which I had run out upon the leads. + +I went to the bottom of the garret turnpike. The little barred door stood +open, and I heard--I was sure that I heard--light, irregularly pattering +footsteps moving about above. + +It gave me strange shakings of my heart only to listen. For, though I was +noways afraid of my father myself, yet since I had never seen any man, +woman, or child (save the Duke only) who did not quail at his approach, +it was a curious feeling to think of the lonely little child skipping +about up there, where abode the axe and the block--the axe which had +done, I knew so well what, to her father only the night before. + +So I mustered all my courage--not from any fear of Gottfried Gottfried, +but rather from the uncertainty of what I should see, and quickly mounted +the stair. + +I shall never forget what I saw as I stood with my feet on the rickety +hand-rail of the ladder. The long dim garret was already half-lighted by +the coming day. Red cloaks swung and flapped like vast, deadly, winged +bats from the rafters, and reached almost to the ground. There was no +glass in any of the windows of the garret, for my father minded neither +heat nor cold. He was a man of iron. Summer's heat nor winter's cold +neither vexed nor pleasured him. So it was no marvel that at the +chamber's upper end, and quite near to my father's bed, lay a wreath of +snow, with a fine, clean-cut, untrampled edge, just as it had blown in at +the gable window when the storm burst from the east. + +My father lay stretched out on his bed, his head thrown back, his neck +bare--almost as if he had done justice on himself, or at least as if he +waited the stroke of another Red Axe through the eastern skylight which +the morning was already crimsoning. His scarlet sheathings of garmentry +lay upon a black oaken stool, trailing across the floor lank and hideous, +one of the cuffs which had been but recently dyed a darker hue making a +wet sop upon the boards. + +All this I had seen many a time before. But that which made me tremble +from head to foot with more and worse than cold, was the little white +figure that danced about his bed--for all the world like a crisped leaf +in late autumn which whirls and turns, skipping this way and spinning +that in the wanton breezes. It was the Little Playmate. But I could not +form a word wherewith to call her. My tongue seemed dried to the roots. + +She had taken the red eye-mask which came across my father's face when he +did his greater duties and tied it about her head. Her great, innocent, +childish eyes looked elfishly through the black socket holes, sparkling +with a fairy merriment, and her tangled floss of sunny hair escaped from +the string at the back and fell tumultuously upon her shoulders. + +And even as I looked, standing silent and trembling, with a little +balancing step she danced up to the Red Axe itself where it stood angled +against the block, and seizing it by the handle high up near the head she +staggered towards the bed with it. + +Then came my words back to my mouth with a rush. + +"For the Holy Virgin's sake, little maid, put the Red Axe down!" I cried, +whisperingly. "You know not what you do!" + +Then even as I spoke I saw that my father had drawn himself up in bed, +and that he too was staring at the strange, elfish figure. Gottfried +Gottfried, as I remember him in these days, was a tall, dark, heavily +browed man, with a shock of bushy blue-black hair, of late silvering at +the temples--grave, sombre, quiet in all his actions. + +But what was my surprise as the little maid came nearer to the bed +with her pretty dancing movement, carrying the axe much as if it had +been an over-heavy babe, to see the Duke's Justicer suddenly skip over +the far side of the bedstead and stand with his red cloak about him, +watching her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PRINCESS HELENE + + +"What devil's work is this?" he said, frowning at her severely. + +And I confess that I trembled, but not so the little maid. + +"Do not be afraid, mannie," she said, laying down the axe on the stock of +the couch, against which its broad red blade and glass-clear cutting edge +made an irregular patch of light. "Come and sit down beside me on your +bed. I shall not hurt you indeed, mannie, and I want to talk to you. +There is nothing but a little boy down-stairs. And I like best to talk +with men." + +"I declare it is the dead man's brat I saved last night for Hugo's sake!" +I heard my father mutter, "the maid with the girdle of golden letters." + +Presently a smile of amusement struggled about his mouth at her bairnly +imperiousness, but he came obediently enough and sat down. Nevertheless +he took away the heavy axe from her and said, "Put this down, then, or +give it to me. It is not a pretty plaything for little girls!" + +The small figure in white put up a tiny fat hand, and solemnly withdrew +the red patch of mask from before the wide-open baby eyes. + +"I am not a little _girl_, remember, mannie," she said, "I am a Princess +and a great lady." + +My father bowed without rising. + +"I shall not forget," he said. + +"You should stand up and bow when I tell you that," said she. "I declare +you have no more manners than the little boy in the brown blanket +down-stairs." + +"Princess," said my father, gravely, "during my life I have met a great +many distinguished people of your rank; and, do you know, not one of them +has ever complained of my manners before." + +"Ah," cried the little maid, "then you have never met my father, the +Prince. He is terribly particular. You must go _so_" (she imitated the +mincing walk of a court chamberlain), "you must hold your tails thus" +(wagging her white nightrail and twisting about her head to watch the +effect), "and you must retire--so!" With that she came bowing backward +towards the well of the staircase, so far that I was almost afraid she +would fall plump into my arms. But she checked herself in time, and +without looking round or seeing me she tripped back to my father's +bedside and sat down quite confidingly beside him. + +"Now you see," cried she, "what you would have had to put up with if you +had met my father. Be thankful then that it is only the little Princess +Helene that is sitting here." + +"I think I had the honor to meet your father," said Gottfried Gottfried, +gravely, again removing the restless baby fingers from the Red Axe and +laying it on the far side of the couch beyond him. + +"Then, if you met him, did he not make you bow and bend and walk +backward?" asked the Playmate, looking up very sharply. + +"Well, you see, Princess," explained my father, "it was for such a very +short time that I had the honor of converse with him." + +"Ah, that does not matter," cried the maid; "often he would be most +difficult when you came running in just for a moment. Why, he would +straighten you up and make you do your bows if you were only racing +after a kitten, or, what was worse, he would call the Court Chamberlain +to show you how to do it. But when I am grown up--ah, then!--I mean to +make the Chamberlain bow and walk backward; for you know he is only +taking care of my princedom for me. Oh, and I shall have you well taught +by that time, long man. It is cold--cold. Let me get into your bed and I +will give you your first lesson now." + +So with that she skipped into my father's place and drew the great red +cloak about her. + +"Now then, first position," she commanded, clapping her hands like a +Sultana, "your feet together. Draw back your left--so. Very well! Bend +the knee--stupid, not that one. Now your head. If I have to come to you, +sir--there, that is better. Well done! Oh, I shall have a peck of trouble +with you, I can see that. But you will do me credit before I have done +with you." + +In a little while she tired of the lesson. + +"Come and sit down now"--she waved her hand graciously--"here on the bed +by me. Though I am a Princess really, I am not proud, and, as I said, I +may make something of you yet." + +My father came forward gravely, wrapped himself in another of his red +cloaks, and sat down. I shivered in my blanket on the stair-head, but I +could not bear to move nor yet reveal myself. This was better than any +play I had ever watched from the sparred gallery of the palace, to which +Gottfried Gottfried took me sometimes when the mummers came from +Brandenburg to divert Duke Casimir. + +"My father, the great Prince, took me for a long ride last night. There +was much noise and many bonfires behind us as we rode away, and some of +the men spoke roughly, for which my father will rate them soundly to-day. +Oh, they will be sick and sorry this morning when the Prince takes them +to task. I hope you will never make him angry," she said, laying her hand +warningly on my father's; "but if ever you do, come to me and I will +speak to the Prince for you. You need not be bashful, for I do not mind a +bit speaking to him, or indeed to any one. You will remember and not be +bashful when you have something to ask?" + +"I will assuredly not be bashful," said my father, very solemnly. "I will +come and tell you at once, little lady, if I ever have the misfortune to +offend the most noble Prince." + +Then he bent his head and raised her hand to his lips. She bowed in +return with exquisite reserve and hauteur; and, as it seemed to me, more +with her long eyelashes than with anything else. + +"Do you know, Black Man," she said--"for, you know, you are black, though +you wear red clothes--I am glad you are not afraid of me. At home every +one was afraid of me. Why, the little children stood with their mouths +open and their eyes like this whenever they saw me." + +And she illustrated the extremely vacant surprise into which her +appearance paralyzed the infantry of her native city. + +"I am glad my father left me here till he should come back. Do you know, +I like your house. There are so many interesting things about it. That +funny axe over there is nice. It looks as if it could cut things. Has it +ever cut anything? It is so nicely polished. How do you keep it so, and +can I help you?" + +"I had just finished polishing and oiling it before I fell asleep," +answered Gottfried Gottfried. "You see, little Princess, I had very many +things to cut with it last night." + +"What a pity the Prince had not time to wait and see you! He is so very +fond of going out into the forest with the woodman. Once he took me to +see the tallest tree in all our woods cut down with just such an axe as +that--only it was not red. Have you ever seen a high tree cut down?" + +"I have cut down some pretty tall ones myself!" said the Duke's Justicer, +smiling quietly at her. + +"Ah, but not as tall as my father! It is beautiful to see him strip +his doublet and lay to. They say there is not a woodman like him in +all our land." + +Helene looked at my father, whose arms were folded in his great cloak. + +"But you have fine strong arms too," she said. "You look as if you could +cut things. Did my father ever see you cut down tall trees?" + +"Yes," said Gottfried Gottfried, slowly, "once!" + +"And did he say that you cut well?" the little maid went on, with a +strange, wilful persistence in her idea. + +"He neither said that I did well nor yet that I did ill," replied +Gottfried Gottfried. + +"Ah!" said Helene, "that was just like the Prince. He was afraid of +flattering you and making you unfit for your work. But if he said +nothing, depend upon it he was pleased." + +"Thank you, Princess," said my father. "I think he was well enough +pleased." + +Just then there came a noise that I knew--a sound which chilled every +bone in my body. + +It was the clear ring of a steady footstep upon the pavement without. It +came heavily and slowly across the yard. The outer hasp of our door +clicked. The door opened, and the footstep began to ascend the stair. + +There was but one man in the world who dared make so free with the +Red Tower and its occupant. Our visitor was without doubt the Duke +Casimir himself. + +For the first time I saw my father manifestly disconcerted. The little +maid's life might be worth no more than a torn ballad if Duke Casimir +happened to be in evil humor or had repented him of his mercy of the +past night. I saw the Red Axe look aimlessly about for a hiding-place. +There was a niche round which certain cloaks and coverlets were hung. + +"Come in here," he said, abruptly. + +"Why should I hide, whoever comes?" asked the Little Playmate, +indignantly. + +"It is the Duke Casimir," whispered my father, hurriedly, stirred as I +had never seen him. "Come hither quickly!" + +But the little maid struck an attitude, and tapped the floor with her +foot. + +"I will not," she said. "What is the Duke Casimir to me that am a +Princess? If he is good, I will give him my hand to kiss!" + +But at this point I rushed from the ladder-head, and, taking her in my +arms, I sped up the turret stairs with her out upon the leads, my hand +over her mouth all the time. + +And as I ran I could hear the Duke trampling upward not twenty steps in +the rear. I opened the trap-door and went out into the clear morning +sunshine. And only the turn of the stair prevented Casimir from seeing me +go up the narrow turret corkscrew with my little white burden. + +Then I heard voices beneath, and I knew, as if I had seen it, that my +father stood up straight at the salute. Presently the voices lowered, and +I knew also that the Duke Casimir was unbending as he did to none else in +his realm save to the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark. + +But I had my hands full with the little Princess. I dared not go down +the stairs. I dared not for a moment take my palm off her mouth. For as +like as not she would call out for the Duke Casimir to come and deliver +her from my cruelty. So I stuck to my post, even though I knew that I +angered her. + +The morning was warm for a winter's day in Thorn, and I pulled open my +brown blanket and wrapped her coseyly within it, chilling myself to the +bone as I did so. + +It seemed ages before the Duke strode down the stair again, and took his +way across the yard, with my father, in black, after him. For so he was +used to dress when he went to the Hall of Judgment, to be present and +assist at the discovery of crime by means of the Minor and Extreme +Questions. + +Then, so soon as they were fairly gone, I took my hand from the mouth of +the Little Playmate, and carried her down-stairs; which as soon as I had +done, she slapped my face soundly. + +"I will never, never speak to you any more so long as I live, rude +boy--common street brat!" she said, biting her under-lip in ineffectual, +petulant anger. "Listen, never as long as I live! So do not think it! +Upstart, so to treat a lady and a Princess!" + +And with that she burst into tears. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ARE FED + + +But the Princess-Playmate spoke to me again. I was even permitted to call +her Helene. Me she addressed uniformly as "Hugo Gottfried." But neither +her name nor mine interfered with our plays, which were wholly happy and +undisturbed by quarrelling--at least, so long as I did exactly what she +wished me to do. + +On these terms life was made easy for me from that day forth. No longer +did I wistfully watch the children of the street from the lonely window +of the Red Tower. They might spit all day on the harled masonry at the +foot of the wall for aught I cared. I no longer desired their society. +Had I not that of a real Princess, and if my companion was inclined to be +a little wayward and domineering--why, was not that the very birthright +of all Princesses? + +Helene and I had great choice of plays within the walls of the solemn +castle. So long as we kept to the outer yard and did not intrude upon the +Duke's side of the enclosure, we were free to come and go at our +pleasure. For even Casimir himself was soon well accustomed to see us run +about like puppies, slapping and tumbling, and minded us no more than the +sparrows that pecked in the litter of the stable-yard. Indeed, I think he +had forgotten all about the strange home-coming of the Little Playmate. + +The kennels of the blood-hounds especially were full of fascination for +us. That fatal deep-mouthed clamoring at morn and even drew us like a +magnet. Helene, in particular, never tired of gazing between the chinks +of the fence of cloven pine-wood at the great russet-colored beasts with +their flashing white teeth, over which the heavy dewlaps fell. And when +my father, with his red livery upon him and a loaded whip in his hand, +once a day opened the tall, narrow door and went within, we thought him +brave as a god. Then the way the fierce beasts shrank cowering from him, +the fashion in which they crouched on their bellies and heaved their +shoulders up without taking their hind quarters off the ground, equally +delighted and surprised us. + +"Your father is almost as great a man as _my_ father," said the Princess +Helene, who, however, was rapidly forgetting her dignity. Indeed, +already it had become little more than a fairy-tale to her. And that was +perhaps as well. + +One day, when I was about thirteen, or a little older, my father came out +with a new short mantle in his hand, red like his own. + +"Come hither, Hugo Gottfried!" he said, for he had learned the trick of +the name from Helene. + +I went to him tardy-foot, greatly wondering. + +"Here, chick," he said, in his kindly fashion, "it is time you were +beginning to learn your duties. Come with me to-day into the kennels of +the blood-hounds." + +But I hung back, shifting the new mantle uneasily on my shoulders, yet +not daring to throw it off. + +"I do not want to go, father," said I, edging away in the direction of +the Playmate. + +"What, lad!" he cried, slapping me on the shoulder; "they will not hurt +thee with that cloak on. They know their masters better--as their fathers +and mothers knew our fathers. Have we, the Gottfrieds, been the +Hereditary Justicers of the Wolfmark for six hundred years to be afraid +now of the blood-hounds that are kept to hunt the Duke's enemies and to +feed on the Duke's carrion?" + +"It is not that I am afraid of the dogs, father," I made answer to him. +"I would quickly enough go among them, if only you would let me go +without this scarlet cloak." + +My father laughed heartily and loudly--that is, for him. A quick ear +might have heard him quite three feet away. + +"Silly one!" he exclaimed, "do you not know that even the Duke Casimir +dares not set foot in the kennels--no, nor I myself, save in the garb +they know and fear--as indeed do all men in this state." + +Still I hung my head down and scraped the gravel with my foot. + +"Haste thee," said my father, roughly. "Once it is permitted to a man to +be afraid; to fear twice, and fear the same thing, is to be a coward. And +no Gottfried ever yet was a coward. Let not my Hugo be the first." + +Then I took courage and spoke to him. + +"I do not wish to be executioner," I said; "I would rather ride +a-soldiering far away, and be in the drive of battle and the front of +danger. Let me be a soldier and a man-at-arms, my father. I am sure I +could become a war-captain and a great man!" + +Gottfried Gottfried stared blankly at me, and his blue-black hair rose in +a crest--not with anger, of which he never showed any to me, but in sheer +astonishment. He continued to rub it with his hand, as if in this manner +he might possibly reach an explanation of the mystery. + +"Not wish to be Hereditary Executioner? Why, are you not a Gottfried, the +only son of a Gottfried, the only son of his father, who also was a +Gottfried and Hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark? Why, lad, before there +was a Duke at all in the Wolfsberg, before he and his folk came out of +the land of the Poles to fight with the Ritterdom of the North, we, the +Gottfrieds of Thorn, wore the sign of the Red Axe and dwelt apart from +all the men of the Mark. For fourteen generations have we worn it!" + +"But," said I, sadly, "the very children on the street hate me and spit +on me as I pass; the maids will not so much as speak to me. They scyrry +in-doors and slam the wicket in my face. Think you that is pleasant? And +when as a lad of older years I set out to woo, whither shall I betake me? +For what door is open to a Gottfried, to him who carries the sign of +the Red Axe?" + +"Ah, lad," said my father, patiently, "life comes and life goes. It is +nigh on to forty years since even thus my father held out the curt mantle +for me. And even so said I. Time eats up all things but the hearts of +men. And they abide ever the same--yearning for that which they cannot +have, but nevertheless accepting with a sharp relish the things which are +decreed to them; even as do the Duke's carrion-eaters yonder, which, +by-the-way, are waiting most impatiently for their meal while we thus +stand arguing." + +He was about to move away when his eye fell on Helene. At sight of her he +seemed to remember my last words, about going a-wooing. + +He considered a moment and then said: "You are young yet to think of +courting, Hugo, but have no fear either for the love-making or the +wedding. Sweet maids a many shall surely come hither. Why, there is one +growing up yonder that will prove as fair as any. I tell you the +Gottfrieds have married great ladies in their time--dames and dainty +damsels. They have had princesses to be their sweethearts ere now. Come, +then, lad--no more words, but follow me." + +And for that time I went after him obediently enough, but all the same my +heart was rebellious within me. And I determined that if I had to ran to +the ends of the earth, I should never be Hereditary Executioner nor yet +handle the broadaxe on the bared necks of my fellow-men. + +We went in among the dogs--great, lank, cowering, tooth-slavering brutes. +I followed my father till we came to the feeding-troughs. Then he bade me +to stand where I was till he should set their meat in order. So he +vanished behind, the barriers. Then, when he had prepared the beasts' +horrid victual, though I saw not what, he opened the narrow gate, and the +howling, clambering throng broke helter-skelter for the troughs, cracking +and crunching the thigh-bones, tearing at the flesh, and growling at one +another till the air rang with the ear-piercing din. + +And outside the little Helene flung herself frantically at the split +pines of the enclosure, crying, bitterly, "Take off that hateful mantle, +Hugo Gottfried! I hate it--I hate it! Take it off!" + +My father stood behind the dogs, whose arched and bristling backs I could +just manage to see over the fence of wooden spars, and dealt the whip +judicially among them--at once as a warning to encroachers and a +punishment for greed. + +Then all unharmed we went out, and as soon as my father had gone up to +his garret-room in the tower, I tore the red cloak off and trampled it in +the dirt of the yard. Then I went and hid it in a little blind window of +the tower opposite the foot of the ladder which led to my father's room. +For, because of my father's anger, I dared not destroy the badge of shame +altogether, as both Helene and I wished to do. + +Day by day the Little Playmate (for so I was now allowed to call her--the +Princesshood being mostly forgotten) grew great and tall, her fair, +almost lint-white hair darkening swiftly to coppery gold with the glint +of ripe wheat upon it. + +Old Hanne followed her about with eyes at once wistful and doubtful. +Sometimes she shook her head sadly. And I wondered if ever the poor old +stumbling crone, wizened like a two-year-old winter apple, had been as +light and gay a thing as our dainty rose-leaf girl. + +One day I was laboring at the art of learning to write, along with Friar +Laurence--a scrawny, ill-favored monk, who, for good deeds or misdeeds, I +know not which, was warded in a cell opening out of the lower or garden +court of the Wolfsberg, when I heard Helene dance down the stairs to the +kitchen of the Red Tower. + +"Hannchen!" she cried, merrily, "come and teach me that trick of the +broidering needle. I never can do it but I prick myself. Nevertheless, +I can fashion the Red Axe almost as clearly as the pattern, and far +finer to see." + +Friar Laurence raised his great, softly solid face, blue about the jowls +and padded beneath the eyes with craft. + +"That little maid is over much with old Hanne," he said, as if he +meditated to himself; "she will teach her other prickings than the +needle-play. The witch-pricking at the images of wax was what brought her +here. Aye, and had it not been for your father wanting a house-keeper, +the Holy Office would have burned the hag, and sent her to hell, flaming +like a torch of pine knots." + +Now this was the first I had heard with exactness of the matter of old +Hanne's having been a witch. And now that I knew it for certain I began +to imagine all sorts of unholy things about the poor wretch, and grew +greatly jealous of Helene being so often in the kitchen. Whereas before I +had thought nothing at all about the matter, save that Hannchen was a +dull, pleasant, muttering, shuffling-footed old woman, who could make +rare good cream-cakes when you got her in the humor. + +And that was not often. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR + + +I mind it was some tale of years later that I got my first glimpse below +the surface of things in the town of Thorn, and especially in the castle +of the Wolfsberg. + +Duke Casimir continued to move, as of yore, in cavalcade through +his subject city. The burghers bowed as obsequiously as ever when +they could not avoid meeting him. There were the old lordly +perquisitions--thunderings at iron-studded doors, battering-rams set +between posts, and the clouds of dust flying from the driven lintels, the +screams of maids, the crying of women, a stray corpse or two flung on to +the street, and then the procession as before, arms and legs, with a +mercenary soldier between each pair, fore and aft. All this was repeated +and repeated, till the dull monotony of tyranny began to wear through the +long Teutonic patience to the under-quick of Wendish madness. + +It chanced that one night I could not sleep. It was no matter of maids +that kept me awake, though by this time I was sixteen or seventeen and +greatly grown--running, it is true, mostly to knees and elbows, but +nevertheless long of limb and stark of bone, needing only the muscle laid +on in lumps to be as strong as any. + +I had begun to steal out at nights too--not on any ill errand, but that I +might have the company of those about my own age--'prentice lads and the +wilder sons of burghers, who had no objection to my parentage, and +thought it rather a fine thing to be hand-in-glove with the son of the +Red Axe of Thorn. And there we played single-stick, smite-jacket, +skittles, bowls--aye, and drank deep of the city ale--the very thinnest +brew that was ever passed by a bribed and muzzy ale-taster. All this was +mightily pleasant to me. For so soon as they knew that I had determined +to be a soldier, and not the Red Axe of the Wolfmark, they complimented +me greatly on my spirit. + +Well, as I lay awake and waited for the chance to slip down a rope from +my bedroom window, whose foot should I hear on the turret stairs but that +of my Lord Duke Casimir! My very heart quailed within me. For the fear of +him sat heavy on every man and woman in the land. And as for the +children--why, as far as the Baltic shore and the land of the last +Ritters, mothers frightened their bairns with the Black Duke of the +Wolfsberg and his Red Axe. + +So now the Duke and the Red Axe were to be in conference--as indeed had +happened nearly every day and night since I could remember. So that +people called my father the Duke's Private Devil, his Familiar Spirit, +his Evil Genius. But I knew other of it--and this night, of all nights in +the year, I was to know better still. + +It was a summer midnight--not like the one I told of when the story +began, white with snow and glittering with the keen polish of frost. But +a soft, still night, drowsy yet sleepless, with an itch of thunder +tingling in the air--and, indeed, already the pulsing, uncertain glow of +sheet-lightning coming and going at long intervals along the south. + +I crouched and nestled in the hole in the wall where I had long ago +hidden the hated red cloak, pulling my knees up uncomfortably to my chin. +And great lumps of bone they were, knotted as if a smith had made them in +the rough with a welding hammer and had forgotten to reduce them with the +file afterwards. At that time I was thoroughly ashamed of my knees. + +But no matter for them now. Duke Casimir passed in and shut the door. + +"Gottfried," I heard him say, "I am a dead man!" + +These words from the great Duke Casimir startled me, and though I knew +well enough that Michael Texel, the Burgomeister's son, was waiting for +me by the corner of the Jew's Port, I decided that, as I might never hear +Duke Casimir declare his secretest soul again, I should even bide where I +was; and that was in the crevice of the wall among the old clothes, which +gave off such a faint, musty, sleepy smell I could scarcely keep awake. + +But the Duke's next words effectually roused me. + +"A dead man!" repeated Casimir. "I have not a friend in all the realm of +the Mark besides yourself. And there is none of all that take my bounty +or eat my bread that is sorry for me. See here," he said, querulously, +"twice have I been stricken at to-day--once a tile fell from a roof and +dinted the crown of my helmet, and the second time a young man struck at +my breast with a dagger." + +"Did he wound you, Duke Casimir?" asked my father, speaking for the first +time, but in a strangely easy and equal voice, not with the distance and +deference which he showed to his lord in public. + +"Nay, Gottfried," replied Duke Casimir; "but he bruised my shirt of mail +into my breast." + +And I heard plainly enough the clinking of the rings of chain-armor as +the Duke showed his hurt to my father. Presently I heard his voice again. + +"And the Bishop has touched me in a new place," he said. "He declares +that he will lay his interdict upon me and my people--ill enough to hold +in hand as they are even now. When that is done they will rise in +rebellion. My very men-at-arms and knights I cannot depend upon--only +upon you and the Black Riders." + +"In the matter of the Bishop's interdict, or in other matters, do you +mean that you can trust my counsel, Duke Casimir?" asked my father. + +"'Tis in the burial of the dead that the shoe will pinch first with these +burghers of Thorn and among our soldiers at the Wolfsberg. For mass, +indeed, they care not a dove's dropping--but that the corpse should be +carried to a dog's grave, that they cannot away with. Red Axe, I tell you +we shall have the State of the Mark about our ears in the slipping of a +hound's leash--and as for me, I know not what I shall do." + +"Listen, and I will counsel you, Duke Casimir! Care you not though the +east wind brought Bishop Peters whirling over the Mark, as many as the +January snowflakes that come to us from Muscovy. I, Gottfried Gottfried, +tell you what to do. In every parish of the Mark there is a parson. Every +clerk of them hath a Presbytery, in which he dwells with those that are +abiding with him. Bid you the soldiers that are obedient to you to carry +all the corpses of the dead to the Presbytery, and leave them there under +guard. Then let us see whether or no the parsons will give them burial. +What think you of the counsel, Duke Casimir?" + +I could hear the Duke rise and pace across the floor to where my +father sat on his bed. And by the silence I knew that the two men were +shaking hands. + +"Red Axe," said the Duke, much moved, "of a truth you are a great +man--none like you in the Dukedom. These beard-wagging, chain-jingling +gentry I have small notion of. And would you but accept it, I would give +you to-morrow the collar of gold which befits the Chancellor of the Mark. +None deserves to wear it so well as thou." + +My father laughed a low scornful laugh. + +"Because I bid you teach the parsons their own religion, am I to be made +Chancellor of the Mark? A great gray wolf out of the forest were as +suitable a Chancellor of the Mark as Gottfried Gottfried, the fourteenth +hereditary Red Axe of Thorn!" + +Then I heard him reach over his bed for something. I stole out of the +hole in the wall and crouched down till my eyes rested at the great +latchet hole through which the tang of leather to lift the bolt +ordinarily goes. I could see my father sitting on his bed and the Red +Axe lying across his knees. He took it in hand, dangling it like an +infant. He caressed it as he spoke, and ran his thumb lovingly along the +shining edge. + +"Ah," he said, "my beauty, 'tis you and not your master they should make +High Chancellor of this realm. 'Tis you that have held the power of life +and death, and laid the spirit of rebellion any time these twenty years. +And well indeed wouldst thou look with a red robe about thee" (here he +reached for a cloak that swung from the rafters contiguous to his hand); +"a noble presence wouldst thou be in a tun-bellied robe and a collar of +shining gold! Bravely, great State's Chancellor of the Wolfmark, wouldst +thou then lead the processions and preside at the diets of justice--as +indeed thou dost mostly as it is." + +And he made the Red Axe bow like a puppet in his hands as he swept the +cloak of red out behind the handle. + +I could see Duke Casimir now. He had drawn up a stool and sat opposite my +father, with his elbows on his knees. One hand was stroking the side of +his head, and his haughtiness had all fallen from him like a forgotten +overmantle. He looked another man from the cruel, relentless Prince who +had ridden so sternly at the head of his men-at-arms and looked so +callously on at the death of men and the yet more bitter agony of women. + +He stared at the floor, absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, while my +father regarded him with his eyes as though he had been a lad in his +'prenticing who needed encouragement to persevere. + +"Duke," he said, steadily, "you have borne the rule many years, and I +have stood behind you. Have I ever advised you wrong? Make peace with the +young man, your nephew; he is now only the Count von Reuss, but one day +he will be Duke Otho. And if he be rightly guided he may be a brave ruler +yet. But if not, and he gather in his hand the various seditions and +confused turbulences in the Dukedom, why, a worse thing may befall." + +"You advise me," said the Duke, lifting his head and looking at his +Justicer, "to recall my nephew and risk all that threatened us ere he +fled to the Prince of Plassenburg--Karl, the Miller's Son." + +Gottfried Gottfried continued to run his thumb to and fro along the edge +of the Red Axe. + +"Even so," he replied, without raising his head; "give him the command of +the Black Riders of the Guard, who, as it is, adore him. Let him try his +'prentice hand on Bamberg and Reichenan. And if he offend, why, then it +will be time to apply for further advice to this chancellor in the Red +Robe, whose face so shines with wisdom." + +The Duke rose. + +"Well, on your head be it!" he said. + +"Nay," said my father, "I but advise, it is for you to decide, my Lord. +If Duke Casimir sees a better way of it, why, then the words of his +servant are but as the tunes that the east wind whistles through the +key-hole." + +And at the mention of key-holes I imagined that I saw my father's eyes +rest on the latchet crevice. So I bethought me that it was time for me to +be retiring to bed. To my room, therefore, I went straightway, tiptoeing +on the points of my hose. And with ears cocked I heard my father attend +the Duke to the door, and on across the yard, lest any night-wandering +traitor should take a fancy to make a hole in the back of Duke Casimir of +the Wolfmark. + +Presently came my father in again, and I heard his foot climb steadily +up to my room. The door opened, and never was I in so deep a sleep. He +turned down the coverlet to see that I was undressed--but that I had seen +to. Whereat he departed fully satisfied. + +Nevertheless this interview left me with a great feeling of insecurity. +If the Duke Casimir were thus full of fears, doubts, misgivings, whence +came the fierce and cruel courage with which he dominated his liege +burghers and harassed the country round about for a hundred leagues? The +cunning of a weak man? Say, rather, the contrivance of a strong servant +to hide the frailty of a weak master. + +Then first it was that I saw that my father Gottfried Gottfried was the +true ruler of the Wolfmark, and that the man who had carried me on his +shoulders and played with the little Helene was--at least, so long as +Duke Casimir lived--the greatest man in all the Dukedom and first +Councillor of State, whether the matter were one of peasant or Kaiser. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +I BECOME A TRAITOR + + +Much was I flattered, and very naturally so, when Michael Texel made so +manifest a work about pleasing me and having me for his comrade. For +though I was now nineteen, he was five years my senior, and his father, +being both Burgomeister and Chief Brewer, was of the first consideration +in the town of Thorn. + +"Hugo," said Michael Texel, "there be many lads in the city that are +well, and well enough, but none of them please me like you. It may be +that your keeping so greatly to yourself has made you passing thoughtful +for your age. And whereas these street-corner scraps of rascaldom care +for nothing but the pleasing of pothouse Gretchens, we that are men think +of the concerns of the State, and make us ready for the great things that +shall one day come to pass in Thorn and the Wolfmark." + +I nodded my head as if I knew all about it. But, indeed, in my heart, I +too preferred the way of the other lads--as the favor of maids, and other +lighter matters. But since one so great and distinguished as Michael +Texel declared that such things were but useless gauds, unworthy of +thought, I considered that I had better keep my tongue tight-reined as to +my own desires. + +I shall now tell the manner of my introduction to the famous society of +the White Wolf. + +From the very first time that ever I saw him, Michael Texel had much to +say about a certain wondrous league of the young men of Thorn and the +Wolfmark. He told me how that every man with a heart in him was +enrolled among them: the sons of the rich and great, like himself; the +sons of the folk of no account (like myself, doubtless); the soldiers of +the Duke--nay, it was whispered very low in my ear, that even the young +Count Otho von Reuss, the Duke's nephew and heir, had taken high rank in +the society. + +I asked Michael what were the declared objects of the association. + +"See," he cried, grandly, with a wave of his hand, "this city of Thorn. +It lies there under the Wolfsberg. With a few cannon like Paul Grete, the +Margrave's treasure, Duke Casimir could lay our houses in ruins. +Therefore, in the meantime, let us not break out against Duke Casimir. +But one day there will come an end to the tyrant Duke. Tiles will not +always break harmless on helmets, nor the point of steel always be turned +aside by links of chain-armor. As I say, an hour will come for Casimir as +for other malefactors. And then--why, there is the young Otho. And he has +sworn the vows of the White Wolf to make of Thorn a free city with a +Stadtholder--one with power and justice, chosen freely by the people, as +in other Baltic cities. Is there a man of us that has not been +plundered?--a maid that does not go in fear of her honor while Casimir +reigns? Shall this thing be? Not surely forever. The White Wolf shall see +to it. She has many children, and they are all dear to her. Let the Duke +Casimir take his count with that!" + +So, as was natural, I became after that more than ever eager to join this +most notable league of the White Wolf. + +One night I had sat late talking to the Little Playmate, who was now +growing a great maid and a beautiful--none like her, so far as I could +see, in all the city of Thorn--a circumstance which made me more ready to +be of Michael Texel's opinion with regard to any flighty and +irresponsible courting of the maids of the town. For had I not the +fairest and the best of them all at home close by me? On this night of +which I speak it was almost bedtime when I heard a knocking at the outer +port, and went to open the wicket. + +And lo! there was Michael Texel come all the way to the Red Tower for me, +though it was by his own trysting that we had agreed to meet at the inn +of the White Swan. Nevertheless there he was. So there was nothing for it +but to bring him in. I presented him in form to the Little Playmate, who +had quite forgotten her Princess-ship by this time in the sweetness of +being our house-angel of the Red Tower. + +I saw in a moment that Michael Texel was astonished at Helene's beauty, +as indeed well he might be. But she, on her part, hardly so much as +glanced at him, though he was a tall and well-grown youth enough, with +nothing remarkable about him save pale hair of much the same color as his +complexion, and a cut on one side of his upper lip which in certain +lights gave him a sneering expression. + +But to Helene he spoke very carefully and courteously, asking her whether +she ever went to any of the Guild entertainments for which Thorn was +famous. And upon her saying no--that my father did not think it fitting, +Michael said, "I was sure of it; none could forget if once they had seen. +For never in the history of Thorn has so fair a face graced Burgher dance +or Guild festival, nor yet has a foot so light been shaken on the green +in any of our summer outgoings." + +Now this was well enough said in its way, but only what I myself had +often thought. Not that the Playmate took any notice of his words or was +in any degree elated, but kept her head bent demurely on her work all the +time Michael Texel was with us. + +Presently there entered to us, thus sitting, Gottfried Gottfried, who +had come striding gloomily across the yard in his black suit from the +Hall of Judgment, and at his entrance Michael instantly became awkward, +nervous, and constrained. + +"I must be going," he said; "the Burgomeister bade me be early within +doors to-night." + +"Is the noble Burgomeister lodging at the White Swan?" asked my father, +with his usual simple directness, as he went hither and thither ordering +his utensils without heeding the visitor. + +"No," said Michael, startled out of his equanimity; "he bides in his own +house by the Rath-house--the sign is that of the Three Golden Tuns." + +The Red Axe nodded. + +"I had forgotten," he said, indifferently, and stood by the great +polished platter-frame over the sideboard, dropping oil on the screws of +a certain cunning instrument which he was wont to use in the elucidation +of the Greater Question. + +I could see Michael turning yellow and green, but whether with anger or +fear I could not tell. Helene, who loved not the tools of my father, had, +upon his entrance, promptly gathered up her white cobwebs and lace, and +had betaken herself to her own room. + +"I must be bidding you a fortunate evening and wishing you an untroubled +sleep," said Michael, with studious politeness, rising to his feet. Yet +he did not immediately move away, but stood awkwardly fingering his hat, +as if he wished to ask a question and dared not. + +"It is indeed a fine place for a sound sleep," said my father, nodding +his head grimly, "this same upper courtyard of the Wolfsberg. There are +few that have once slept here, my noble young sir, who have ever again +complained of wakefulness." + +At this moment the hounds in the kennels raised their fierce clamor. And, +without waiting for another word, Michael Texel took himself off down +the stairs of the Red Tower. Nor did he regain his composure till I had +opened the wicket and ushered him out upon the street. + +Then, as the postern clicked and the familiar noises of the city fell on +his ear--the slapping flat-footed lasses crying "Fried Fish," the sellers +of "Hot Oyster Soup," the yelling venders of crout and salad--Michael +gradually picked up his courage, and we proceeded down the High Street of +Thorn to the retired hostel of the White Swan. + +"Frederika," he cried, as he entered, "are the lads here yet?" + +"Aye, sir, aye--a full muster," answered the old mild-faced hostess, who +was busily employed knitting a stocking of pale blue in the porch, +looking for all the world like the sainted mother of a family of saints. + +Michael Texel walked straight through a passage and down a narrow +alley, the beautiful apple-cheeked old woman following us with her eyes +as we went. + +Our feet rang suddenly on hollow pavement as we stooped to enter a low +door in the side wall, almost concealed from observation by an +overgrowth of ivy. + +"Halt!" cried a voice from the dusk ahead of us, and instantly there was +a naked sword at each of our breasts. We heard also the click of swords +meeting behind us. I turned my head, and lo! there at my very shoulder I +saw the gleam of crossed steel. My heart beat a little faster; but, after +all, I had been brought up with sights and sounds more terrible than +these, and, more than that, I had within the hour seen Michael Texel, the +high-priest of these mysteries, turn all manner of rainbow colors at the +howling of our blood-hounds and a simple question from my father. So I +judged that these mighty terrifications could portend no great ill to one +who was the son of the formidable Red Axe of the Wolfsberg. + +Sometimes it is a mighty comfortable thing to have a father like mine. + +I did not hear the question which was asked of my guide, but I heard +the answer. + +"First in charge," said Michael Texel, "and with him one of the +Wolf's litter." + +So we were allowed to proceed. But in the bare room which received us I +was soon left alone, for, with another question as briefly asked and +answered, the click of swords crossed and uncrossed before and behind +him, and the screechy grind of bolts, Michael passed out of sight within. +While as for me, I was left to twirl my thumbs, and wish that I had +stayed at home to watch the nimble fingers of the Playmate busy at her +sewing, and the rounded slenderness of her sweet body set against the +light of evening, which would at that hour be shining through the windows +of the Red Tower. + +Nevertheless, it was no use repining or repenting. Here was I, Hugo +Gottfried, the son of the Red Axe, at the inner port of a treasonable +society. It was certainly a curious position; but even thus early I had +begun to consider myself a sort of amateur of strange situations, and I +admit that I found a certain stimulus in the thought that in an hour I +might have ceased to be heir to the office of Hereditary Justicer of the +ducal province of the Wolfmark. + +Presently through the door there came one clothed in the long white +garments of a Brother of Pity, the eye-holes dark and cavernous, and the +eyes shining through the mask with a look as if the wearer were much more +frightened than those who looked upon him. + +"Child of the White Wolf," he said, in a shaking voice, "would you dare +all and become one of the companions of the mysteries?" + +But the accent of his voice struck me, the son of Gottfried Gottfried, +the dweller in the enclosure of the Red Tower, as painfully hollow and +pretentious. I had looked upon real terror, even plumbed some of the +grimmer mysteries of existence, and I had no fears. On the contrary, my +spirits rose, and I declared my readiness to follow this paltering, +knock-kneed Brother of Pity. + +We stopped and went through another narrow passage, in the midst of which +we were stayed by thin bars, which were shot before and behind us, and by +a cold point of iron laid lightly against my brow. In this constrained +position my eyes were bandaged by unseen fingers. + +The starveling Brother of the Wolf took me by the hand and led me on. +Then in another moment came the sense of lights and wider spaces, the +rustle of many people settling down to attention; and I knew that I was +in the presence of the famous secret tribunal of the White Wolf, which +had been set up in defiance of the authority of the Duke and against the +laws of the Mark. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AT THE BAR OF THE WHITE WOLF + + +"Who waits at the bar with you, brother?" said a voice which, though +disguised, carried with it a suggestion of Michael Texel. + +The announcement was made by the officer who brought me in. + +"'Tis one Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, hereditary +executioner to the tyrant." + +I could hear the thrill of interest which pervaded the assembly at the +announcement. And for the first time I thought almost well of the +honorable office to which I had been born. + +"And what do you here, son of the Red Axe, in the place of the Sacred +Fehme of the White Wolf?" + +The question was the first addressed directly to me. + +"I came," said I, as straightforwardly and simply as I could, "with +Michael Texel, because he asked me to come. And also because I heard that +there was good ale to be had for the drinking at the White Swan of Thorn, +where we are now met." + +A low moan of horror went about the assembly at the frivolity of my +answer, which plainly was not what had been expected. + +"Daring mocker!" cried a stern voice, "you speak as one unacquainted with +the dread power of the White Wolf, which has within her grasp the keys of +life and death--and has suckled great empires at her dugs. Beware, tempt +not the All-powerful to exercise her right of axe and cord!" + +"I do not tempt any," answered I, boldly enough--yet with no credit to +myself, for I could have laughed aloud at all this hollow pretence, +having been brought up within the range of that which was no mockery. "I +am willing to become a loyal member of the Society of the White Wolf for +the furtherance of any honest purpose. All things, I admit, are not well +within the body politic. Let us, in the city of Thorn, strive after the +same rights as are possessed by the Free Cities of the North. If that be +your object, the son of the Red Axe is with you--with you to the death, +if need be. But for God's sake let us take off these masks and set +ourselves down to the tankard and the good brown bread with less +mummery--a sham of which others have the reality." + +"Peace, vain, ignorant fly!" cried the same speaker, one with a young +voice, which he was trying, as I thought, to make grave and old; "terror +must first strike your heart, or you cannot sit down with the Society of +the White Wolf. You stand convicted of blasphemy against this our ancient +and honorable institution--blasphemy which must be suddenly and terribly +punished. Hugo Gottfried, I command you--make your head ready for the +striker. Bare the neck and bow the knee!" + +But I stood as erect as I could, though I felt hands laid upon my +shoulders and the breathing of many close about me. + +"Knights and gentlemen," said I, "I am not afraid to die, if need be. But +ere you do your will upon me, I would fain tell you a tale and give you a +warning. Here I am one among many. I am also of your opinion, if your +opinion be against tyranny. But for God's sake seek it as wise men and +not as posturing knaves. As for Michael Texel--" + +"Name not the mortal names of men in this place of the White Wolf!" said +the same grave voice. + +At which I laughed a little. + +"If you will tell me what to say instead in the language of the +immortals, I will call my friend by that name. Till then Michael +Texel, I say--" + +I was pulled by force down upon my knees. + +"Your pleasure, gentlemen," said I, as coolly as I might; "you may do +with me as you will, but give me at least leave to speak. Your meetings +here at the White Swan are known to the Red Axe, my father, and therefore +to the Duke Casimir." + +A low groan filled the wide hall. I could feel that my words touched them +on the raw. + +"Also this very night I saw one of your noblest members tremble with +alarm--for the Society, not for himself, I warrant--when Gottfried +Gottfried spake lightly of your meetings here as of a thing well known. +I am not afraid of my life. In the sight of my father I went forth from +the Red Tower in the company of Michael Texel. He knew of your place of +meeting. And well I wot that if I am not within the precincts of the +Red Tower by midnight, the officers of Duke Casimir and his Judgment +Hall will come knocking at these doors of yours. I ask you, are you +ready to open?" + +"Rash mortal!" said the voice again to me, "you mistake the White Wolf if +you think that she or her children are afraid of any tyrant or of his +officers. You yourself shall die, as has been appointed. For none may +speak lightly of the White Wolf and live to tell the tale!" + +"So be it," I replied, calmly; "but first let me recount to you the story +of Hans Pulitz. Not for the hiding of a belt of gold, as men say, was he +condemned. But because he had plotted against the life of the Duke and of +his minister of justice, the Red Axe. Would you know what happened? I +will tell you briefly: + +"Ten men, accounted strong, held Hans Pulitz. Ten men could scarce lead +him through the court-yard to the chair on which sat Duke Casimir. I saw +him judged. Was he not of the White Wolf? Did the White Wolf save him? +Have her teeth ravened for those that condemned him? Or have you that are +of that noble society kept close in your halls and played out your puppet +shows, while poor Hans, who was faithful to you to the end, +went--whither?" + +A sough of angry whispering filled the room, rising presently into a roar +of indignation. + +"Traitor! Murderer! Spy!" they cried. + +"Nay," said I, "'fore God, Hugo Gottfried was more sorry for the poor +deceived slave than any here. For, in the presence of the Duke, I cried +out against the horror. But being no more than a boy, I was stricken to +silence by the hand of a man-at-arms. Then I saw Hans Pulitz cast loose. +I saw him seized by one man--even by the Red Axe--raised high in the air, +and flung over the barriers among the ravening and leaping blood-hounds. +I heard the hideous noises that followed--the yells of a man fighting for +his life in a place of fiends. I shut my ears with my hands, yet could I +not shut out that clangor of hell. I shut my eyes, closer than you have +shut them for me now. I fled, I knew not where, terror pursuing me. And +yet I saw, and do now see, the Duke sitting with crossed hands as if at +prayers, and the Red Axe standing motionless before the men-at-arms, +pointing with one hand to the Duke's vengeance! Shall I tell you now why +I am not afraid?" + +After hearing these words it was small wonder that they cried yet more +against me. + +"Death to the traitor--bloody death--like that which he has rejoiced in!" + +"Nay, my friends," said I, "it was because of the death of Hans Pulitz +and that of others that I would strengthen the hands of liberty and make +an end of tyranny. But not, an' it please you, with child's plays and the +cast-off garmentry of tyrants. What can you do to me in the Inn of the +Swan that can equal the end of poor Hans Pulitz--of whom they found +neither bone nor hair, took up no fragment of skin or nail, save the +golden chain only, tooth-scarred and beslavered, which he wore about his +waist. And the belt you may see for yourselves any day if you give me +your company within the Red Tower." + +Now, as may well be understood, if the Society of the White Wolf was +angry before, it was both angry and frightened now, which is a thing +infinitely more dangerous. + +"Let him die straightway! Let the taunting blasphemer die!" they cried. +And again, for the third time, the hollow voice pronounced my doom. + +"It is well," I shouted amid the din. "It is thrice well. But look ye to +it. By the morrow's morn there shall not be one of you in your +beds--aye, and those whose heads are rolled in the dust shall count +yourselves the fortunate ones. For they at least will escape the fate of +poor Hans Pulitz." + +Now sorely do I wonder, at this distance of time, that they did not slay +me in good earnest. But I have learned from that night in the Inn of the +Swan that when defiance has to be made, it is ever best to deal in no +half-measures. And, besides, coming from the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg, +their precious Society of the White Wolf, with its mummery and flummery, +filled me with a hot contempt. + +"Kneel down!" cried the judge; "lay your head on the block! It has often +been wet with the blood of traitors, never with that of a blacker traitor +than Hugo Gottfried!" + +So with that those about me thrust me forward and forced my head down. I +was obliged to clasp the block with both my hands. As I did so I felt it +well all over. Then I laughed aloud, with a laugh that must have appeared +strange and mad to them. + +For this their mock tribunal could not deceive one who had been brought +up within the hum of judges of life and death, and with a father who as +his daily business propounded the Greater and Lesser Questions. And their +precious block, as smooth as sawn and polished timber, with never a notch +from side to side, could not take in Hugo Gottfried, who had made a +playmate and a printed book of the worn blocks of a hundred +executions--to whom each separate chip made by the Red Axe had been a +text for Gottfried Gottfried to expatiate upon concerning his own prowess +and that of his fathers. + +Nevertheless, it certainly gave me a strange turn when ice-cold steel was +laid across my neck-bone. It burned like fire, turning my very marrow to +water, and for the first time I wished myself well out of it. But only +for a moment. + +For there came a loud rattling of arms without, a thunderous and +insistent knocking at the door, which disturbed the assembly. + +"Open, in the name of the Duke!" cried, clamorously, many fierce voices +without. I heard the rush and scuffle of a multitude of feet. The hands +that had held me abruptly loosened their grip, and I was free. I raised +my bound wrists to my brow and tried to push the bandage back. But it was +firmly tied, and it was but dimly that I saw the hall of the White Wolf +filled with the armed men of the Duke's body-guard, boisterously +laughing, with their hands on their sides, or kicking over the mock +throne covered with white cloth, the coils of rope, the axes of painted +wood, and the other properties of this very faint-hearted Fehmgericht. + +"But what have we here?" they cried, when they came upon me, bound and +helpless, with the bandage only half pushed off my eyes. + +"Heave him up on his pins, and let us look at him," quoth a burly +guardsman. "I trust he is no one of any account. I want not to see +another such job done on a poor scheming knave like that last, when the +Duke Casimir settled accounts with Hans Pulitz!" + +"Ha! ha!" laughed his companion; "a rare jest, i' faith; 'tis the son of +our own Red Axe--a prisoner of the White Wolf and ready for the edge. We +came not a moment too soon, youngster. What do you here?" + +"Why," said I, "it chanced that I spoke slightingly of their precious +nonsense of a White Wolf. But they dared not do me harm. They were all +more frightened than a giggling maiden is of the dark, when no man is +with her." + +Then I saw my father at the end of the hall. He came towards me, clad in +his black Tribunal costume. + +"Well," he said, quaintly, like one that has a jest with himself +which he will not tell, "have you had enough of marching +hand-in-glove with treason? I wot this mummery of the White Wolf will +serve you for some time." + +I was proceeding to tell him all that had passed, but he patted me on +the shoulder. + +"I heard it all, lad, and you did well enough--save for your windiness +about liberty and the Free Cities--which, as I see it, are by far the +worst tyrannies. But, after all, you spoke as became a Gottfried, and one +day, I doubt not, you shall worthily learn the secrets, bear the burden, +and enlarge the honors of the fourteen Red Axes of the Wolfmark." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A HERO CARRIES WATER IN THE SUN + + +With all which adventuring and bepraisement back and forth, as those who +know nineteen will readily be assured, I went home no little elated. For +had I not come without dishonor through a new and remarkable experience, +and even defied the Mystery of the White Wolf, at perhaps more risk to +myself than at the time I had imagined. For, as I found afterwards, there +were those among the company at the Swan that night of sterner mould and +more serious make than Michael Texel. + +But, at all events, home to the Red Tower I strode, whistling, and in a +very cocksure humor. + +The little Helene was going about her house duties silently and distantly +when I came down from my turret room on the forenoon of the morrow. She +did not come forward to be kissed, as had been her wont every morning +ever since I carried her, a little forlorn maid, up to mine own bed that +chill winter's night. + +"A good-morrow, Little Playmate!" I bade her, gayly. For my heart was +singing a good tune, well pleased with itself and willing to be at amity +with every one else--counting indeed, as is the wont of brisk hearts, a +gloomy face little less than a personal insult. + +But the maid did not answer, neither indeed did she seem to have heard +me. + +"I bade you fair good-morning, Helene," said I, again, stopping in my +walk across to my breakfast platter. + +But still she was silent, casting sand upon the tiled floor and sweeping +it up with great vigor, all her fair body swaying and yielding to the +grace, of movement at every stroke. Strange, it seemed she was now just +about the age when I developed those nodosities of knee and elbow which +troubled me so sore, but yet there was nothing of the kind about her, +only delicate slimness and featly rounded grace. + +I went over to her, and would have set my palm affectionately on her +shoulder. But she escaped, just as a bird does when you try to put your +hand upon it. It does not seem to fly off. It simply is not there when +your hand reaches the place. + +"Let be," she said, looking upon me haughtily. "By what right do you seek +to touch me, sir?" + +"Sweetheart," said I, following her, and much astonished, "because I have +always done it and you never objected before." + +"When I was a child, and when you loved me as a child, it was well. But +now, when I am neither a child nor yet do you love me, I would have you +cease to treat me as you have done." + +"You are indeed no longer a child, but the fairest of sweet maids," I +made answer. "I will do nothing you do not wish me to do. For, hearken to +me, Helene, my heart is bound up in you, as indeed you know. But as to +the second word of accusation--that I do not love you anymore--" + +"You do not--you cannot!" she interrupted, "or you would not go out with +Michael Texel all night to drinking-places, and worse, keeping your +father and those that _do_ love awake, hurting their hearts here" (she +put her hand on her side), "and all for what--that you may drink and +revel and run into danger with your true friends?" + +"Sweetheart," I began--penitently. + +The Little Playmate made a gesture of infinite impatience. + +"Do not call me that," she said; "you have no right. I am not your +sweetheart. You have no heart at all to love any one with, or you would +not behave as you have done lately. You are naught but a silly, selfish +boy, that cares for nothing but his own applause and thinks that he has +nothing to do but to come home when his high mightiness is ready and find +us all on our knees before him, saying: 'Put your foot, great sir, on our +necks--so shall we be happy and honored.'" + +Now this was so perilously near the truth that I was mightily incensed, +and I felt that I did well to be angry. + +"Girl," I said, grandly, "you do not know what you say. I have been +abroad all night on the service of the State, and I have discovered a +most dangerous conspiracy at the peril of my life!" + +For I thought it was as well to put the best face on the matter; and, +besides, I have never been able, all the days of me, to hide my light +under a bushel, as the clerks prate about. + +But I was not yet done with my adventuring of this eventful day. And in +spite of my father setting me, like a misbehaving bairn, to the drudgery +of the water-carrying, there was more in life for me that day than merely +hauling upon a handle. For that is a thing which galls an aspiring youth +worse than any other labor, being so terribly monotonous. + +As for me, I did not take kindly to it at all--not even though I could +see mine own image deep in the pails of water as they came up brimming +and cool out of the fern-grown dripping darkness of the well. Aye, and +though the image given back to me was (I say it only of that time) a +likely enough picture of a lad with short, crisped locks that curled +whenever they were wet, cheeks like apples, and skin that hath always +been a trouble to me. For I thought it unmanly and like a girl's. And +that same skin of mine is, perhaps, the reason why all my days I never +could abide your buttermilk-and-roses girls, having a supply about me +enough to serve a dozen, and therefore thinking but little of their +stock-in-trade. + +Now in the Wolfmark this is the common kind of beauty--not that beauty of +any kind is over-common. For our maids--especially those of the +country--look too much as if they had been made out of wooden pillows +such as laborers use to lay their heads on of nights--one large bolster +set on the top of two other little ones, and all three well wadded with +ticking and feathers. But I hope no one will go back to the Wolfmark and +tell the maids that Hugo Gottfried said this of them, or of a surety my +left ear will tingle with the running of their tongues if there be any +truth in the old saw. + +It was three of the clock and the sun was very fierce on the dusty, +unslaked yard of the Wolfsberg, glaring down upon us like the mouth of a +wide smelter's oven. Fat Fritz, the porter, in his arm-chair of a cell, +had well-nigh dissolved into lard and running out at his own door. The +Playmate's window was open, and I caught the waft of a fan to and fro. I +judged therefore that my lady knew well that I was working out there in +the heat, and was glad of it--being a spiteful pretty minx. + +Then I began to wonder who had given her that fan, for it was not like my +father to do it, and she knew no other. "Ah!" I said to myself, as a +thought struck me, "could it possibly be Michael Texel? He is rich, and +Helene may have known him before. The cunning, dark-eyed little +vagabond--to take my introduction yester-even as if she had never set +eyes on the fellow before, while here it is as clear as daylight that he +had all the time been giving her presents--fans and such like." + +So I raved within me, half because I believed it, and half because she +seemed so comfortable up there, with her feet on a stool and a cool jug +of curds at her elbow, while I sweated and labored in the sun. + +Very decidedly it must be Texel; devil fly up with him and scratch him +among the gargoyles of the minster! + +The fan wagged on. It looked distractingly cool within. But then my +father--filial obedience was very distinctly a duty, and, also, Gottfried +Gottfried, though kind, was a man not to be disobeyed--even at nineteen, +and after defying the White Wolf. + +It was, as I have said, about three by the sundial on the wall, the arch +of which cast a shadow like jet on the scale, that my father came out +through the narrow door from the Judgment Hall, opening it with his own +key. For he had the right of entrance and outgoing of every door in the +palace, not even excepting the bedchamber of Duke Casimir. + +"Hugo," he said, "come hither, lad. I did not mean to keep you so long at +work in the sun. You must have filled all the cisterns in the place by +this time!" + +I thanked him sincerely, but did not pursue the subject. For, indeed, I +had not worked quite so hard as in his haste my father had supposed from +my appearance. + +"Go within," he said; "don quickly your saint's-day dress, and betake +yourself down to the house of Master Gerard von Sturm, the city +chamberlain, and tell him all that he asks of you--readily and truly." + +"But, father," said I, "suppose he asks of me that which might condemn +one who has trusted me, what am I to say?" + +"Tut, boy," said my father, impatiently, "you mean young Michael Texel. +Fear not for him. He was the first to inform. He was at Master von +Sturm's by eight this morning, elbowing half a dozen others, all burning +and shining lights of the famous Society of the White Wolf. You are the +hero of the day down there, it seems." + +"And lo! here I am flouted by a stripling girl, and set to carry water +by the hour in the broiling sun!" I said within myself. I possessed, +however, though without doubt a manifest hero, far too much of the +unheroic quality of discretion to say this aloud to my father. + +"I thank you, sir," I said, respectfully. "I will go at once and put on +my finest coat and my shoes of silk." + +My father smiled. + +"You need not be particular as to the silk shoes. 'Tis to see Master von +Sturm, not to court pretty Mistress Ysolinde, that I asked you to visit +the lawyer's house by the Weiss Thor." + +But I was not sorry to be able to proclaim my destination as loud as I +dared without causing suspicion. + +"Hanne," I cried down the turret stairs, "I pray you bring me the silken +shoes with the ribbon bows of silk. I am going down to Master von Sturm's +house; also my gold chain and bonnet of blue velvet with the golden +feather in it which I won at the last arrow-shooting." + +I saw the fluttering of the fan falter and stop. A light foot went +pattering up the stairway and a door slammed in the tower. + +Then I laughed, like the vain, silly boy I was. + +"Mistress Helene," I said to myself, "you will find that poor Hugo, whom +you flouted and despised, can yet pay his debts!" + +So I put on the fine clothes which I wore on festal days and sallied +forth. Now, though the lower orders still hated my father and all that +came out of the Red Tower, or indeed, for the matter of that, out of the +Wolfsberg, with hardly concealed malice--yet there were many in the city, +specially among those of the upper classes, who began to think well of my +determination to try another way of life than that to which I had been +born. For I made no secret of the matter to Michael Texel and such of his +comrades as joined us in our gatherings. + +Indeed, now, when I come to think of it, it seems to me that my father +was the only person of my acquaintance who did not suspect that I was +resolved never to wear either the black robe of Inquisition or the +crimson of Final Judgment. + +Yet it wore round to within two years, and indeed rather less, of the +time for my initiation into the mysteries of the Red Axe, and still I +remained at home, an idle boy, playing at single-stick and fence with +the men-at-arms, drinking beer in the evening with my bosom cronies, and +in the well-grounded opinion of all honest people, likely enough to come +to no good. + +But I, Hugo Gottfried, had my eyes and my books open, and knew that I was +but biding my time. + +So it came about that I carried no taint of the dread associations of the +Wolfsberg about me as I went down the bustling street to the Weiss Thor +to call on that learned and well-reputed lawyer, Master Gerard von Sturm. +So great was the fame of Master Gerard that he was often called in to +settle the mercantile quarrels of the burghers among themselves, and was +even chosen as arbiter between those of other towns. For, though +accounted severe, he had universally the name of a just and wise man, who +would not rob the litigants of all their valuables and then decide in +favor of neither, as was too often the way with the "justice" of the +great nobles. + +As for Duke Casimir of the Wolfmark, no man or woman went near him on any +plea whatsoever, save that of asking mercy or favor. And unless my father +chanced to be at hand, mostly they asked in vain. For, as I now knew, he +had to keep up the common bruit of himself throughout the country as a +cruel, fearless, and implacable tyrant. Besides, his fears were so +constant and so great, perhaps also so well-founded, that often he dared +not be merciful. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LUBBER FIEND + + +At five of the clock I lifted the great wolf's-head knocker of shining +brass which frowned above the door of Master Gerard von Sturm in the port +of the Weiss Thor. Hardly had I let it fall again when a small wicket, +apparently about two feet above my head, opened, and a huge round head +with enormous ears at either side peeped out. So vast was the head and so +small the aperture that one of the lateral wings of the chubby face +caught on the sill, and the owner brought it away successfully with a +jerk and a perfectly good-humored and audible "flip." + +"Who are you, and what do you want?" said a wide-gashed mouth, which, +with a squat, flattened-out nose and two merry little twinkling eyes, +completed this wonderful apparition. + +The words were in themselves somewhat rude. On paper I observe that they +have an appearance almost truculent. But spoken as the thing framed in +the window-sill said them, they were equal to a song of Brudershaft and +an episcopal benediction rolled in one. + +"I am Hugo Gottfried of the Red Tower, come to see Master Gerard," I +replied. "Who may you be that asks so boldly?" + +"I'll give you a stalk of rhubarb to suck if you can guess," was the +unexpected answer. + +As I had never in my life seen anything in the least like the prodigy, it +was clearly impossible for me to earn the tart succulence of the summer +vegetable on such easy terms. + +"I should say," I replied, "if the guess savor not of insolence, that one +might be forgiven for mistaking you for the Fool of the Family!" + +The grin expanded till it wellnigh circumnavigated the vast head. It +seemed first of all to make straight for the ears on either side. Then, +quite suddenly, finding these obstacles insurmountable, it dodged +underneath them, and the scared observer could almost imagine its two +ends meeting with a click somewhere in the wilderness at the back of that +unseen hemisphere of hairy thatch. + +"Pinked in the white, first time--no trial shot!" cried the object in the +doorway, cheerily. "I am the Fool of the Family. But not the only one!" + +At this moment something happened behind--what, I could not make out +for some time. The head abruptly disappeared. There was a noise as of +floor-rugs being vigorously beaten, the door opened, and the most +extraordinary figure was shot out into the street. The head which I had +seen certainly came first, but so lengthy a body followed that it seemed +a vain thing to expect legs in addition. Yet, finally, two appeared, each +of which would have made a decent body of itself, and went whirling +across the street till the whole monstrosity came violently into +collision with the walls of the house opposite, which seemed to rock to +its very foundations under the assault. + +A decent serving-man, in a semi-doctorial livery of black cloth, with a +large white collar laid far over his shoulders, and cuffs of the same +upon his wrists, stood in the open doorway and smiled apologetically at +the visitor. He was rather red in the face and panted with his exertions. + +"I ask your pardon, young sir," he said. "That fool, Jan Lubber Fiend, +will ever be at his tricks. 'Tis my young mistress that encourages him, +more is the pity! For poor serving-men are held responsible for his +knavish on-goings. Why, I had just set him cross-legged in the yard with +a basket of pease to shell, seeing how he grows as much as a foot in the +night--or near by. But so soon as my back is turned he will be forever +answering the door and peeping out into the street to gather the mongrel +boys about him. 'Tis a most foul Lubber Fiend to keep about an honest +house, plaguing decent folks withal!" + +By this time the great oaf had come back to the door of the house, and +now stood alternately rubbing his elbow and rear, with an expression +ludicrously penitent, at once puzzled and kindly. + +"Ah, come in with you, will you?" said the man. "Certes, were it not for +Mistress Ysolinde, I would set on the little imps of the street to nip +you to pieces and eat you raw." + +The angry serving-man held the door as wide as possible and stood aside, +whereat the Lubber Fiend tucked his head so far down that it seemed to +disappear into the cavity of his chest, and scurried along the passage +bent almost double. As he passed the door he drew all the latter part of +his body together, exactly like a dog that fears a kick in the by-going. +The respectable man-servant stirred not a muscle, but the gesture told a +tale of the discipline of the house by the White Gate at times when +visitors were not being admitted by the main door, and when Mistress +Ysolinde, favorer of the Fool Lubber Fiend, was not so closely at hand. + +It was a grand house, too, the finest I had ever seen, with hangings of +arras everywhere, many and parti-colored--red hunters who hunted, green +foresters who shot, puff-cheeked boys blowing on hunting-horns; a house +with mysterious vistas, glimpses into dim-lit rooms, wafts of perfume, +lamps that were not extinguished even in the daytime, burning far +within. All in mighty striking contrast to the bare stark strength of our +Red Tower on the Wolfsberg with its walls fourteen feet thick. + +As I followed the serving-man through the halls and stairways my feet +fell without noise on carpets never woven in our bare-floored Germany, +nor yet in England, where they still strew rushes, even (so they say) in +the very dining-rooms of the great--surely a most barbarous and +unwholesome country. Nevertheless, carpets of wondrous hue were here in +the house of Master Gerard, scarlet and blue, and so thick of ply that +the foot sank into them as if reluctant ever to rise again. + +As I came to the landing place at the head of the stairway, one passed +hastily before me and above me, with a sough and a rustle like the wind +among tall poplar trees on the canal edges. + +I looked up, and lo! a girl, not beautiful, but, as it were, rather +strange and fascinating. She was lithe like a serpent and undulated in +her walk. Her dress was sea-green silk of a rare loom, and clung closely +about her. It had scales upon it of dull gold, which gave back a +lustrous under-gleam of coppery red as she moved. She had a pale, eager +face, lined with precision enough, but filled more with passion than +womanly charm. Her eyes were emerald and beautiful, as the sea is when +you look down upon it from a height and the white sand shines up through +the clear depths. + +Such was Ysolinde, daughter of Gerard von Sturm, favorer of Lubber Fiends +and creator of this strange paradise through which she glided like a +spangled Orient serpent. + +As I made my way humbly enough across to Master Gerard's room his +daughter did not speak to me, only followed me boldly, and yet, as it +seemed to me, somewhat wistfully too, with her sea-green eyes. And as the +door was closing upon me I saw her beckon the serving-man. + +But I, on the inner side of the door, and with Master Gerard von Sturm +before me, had enough to do to tell my tale and answer his questions +without troubling my head about green-eyed girls. + +Master Gerard was as remarkable looking to the full as his daughter, with +the same luminously green eyes. But the orbs which in the maid shone as +steadily clear as the depths of the sea, in the father glittered +opalescent where he sat in the dusk, like the eyes of Grimalkin cornered +by dogs in some gloomy angle of the Wolfsberg wall. + +As soon as I had set eyes on him I knew that I had to do with a man--not +with a walking show like my Lord Duke Casimir. It struck me that for good +or evil Master Gerard could carry through his intent to the bitter end, +and that in council he would smile when he saw my father change his black +vesture of trial for the red of beheading. + +The Doctor Gerard was little seen in the streets of Thorn. Many citizens +had never so much as set eyes on him. Nevertheless his hand was in +everything. Some said he was a Jew, chiefly because none knew rightly +what he was or whence he had come. Thirty years had gone by since he had +suddenly appeared one day in the noble old house by the Weiss Thor, from +which Grätz the wizard and his wife had been burned out by the fury of +the populace. Twenty years of artistic labor had made this place what it +now was. And the little impish maid who used to break unexpectedly upon +the workmen of Thorn from behind doors, or who clapped hands upon their +shoulders in dusky recesses, scaring them out of their wits with +suggestions of witch-masters long dead and damned, had grown into this +maid of the sea-green eyes and silken draperies. + +"A good-day to you, Hugo Gottfried!" said Master Gerard, quietly, looking +at me keenly across the table. He wore a skull-cap on his closely cropped +head. One or two betraying locks of gray appeared under it in front, but +did not conceal a flat forehead, which ran back at such an angle that, +with the luminous eyes beneath it, it gave him the look of a serpent +rearing his yellow head a little back in act to strike. This was a look +his daughter had also. But in her the gesture was tempered by the +free-playing curves of a beautiful throat and the forward thrust of a +rounded chin--advantages not possessed by the angular anatomy and bony +jaw of the famous doctor of law. + +Master Gerard, clad in a long robe of black velvet from head to heel, sat +bending his fingers gracefully together and looking at me. His head was +thrown back, I have said, and the lights of the colored windows striking +on his gray hair and black skull-cap, caused him to look much more like +some lean ascetic ecclesiastic and prince of the church than the chief +lawyer of the ancient capital of the Wolfmark. + +"You were present at this child's play yester-eve in the hostel of the +White Swan?" he asked, boring into me with his uncomfortable, +triangular eyes. + +"Aye, truly," said I, "and much they made of me!" + +For since my father said that I was accounted a hero in this house, I had +determined not to hide away my deeds in my leathern scrip. I had had +enough practice in playing at modesty in the Tower of the Red Axe. + +Master Gerard shook his shoulders as though he would have made me believe +that he laughed. + +"You were over many for thorn, I hear great silly fellows--children +playing with fire yet afraid to burn themselves. Why, since ten this +morning I have had them all here--stout burgomeister's sons, slim scions +of the Burghershaft, moist-eyed corporation children, each more anxious +than another to prove that he had nothing to do with any treason. He had +but called in at the White Swan for a draught of Frederika's famous stone +ale, and so--well, he found himself somehow in the rear, and, all +against his will, was dragged into the Lair of the White Wolf!" + +He looked at me quietly, without speaking, for a while. + +"And you, Master Hugo, did you go thither to distinguish yourself by +breaking up their child's folly, or, like the others, to taste the +stone ale?" + +It was a question I had not expected. But it was best to be very plain +with Master Gerard. + +"I went," I replied, "along with Michael Texel, because he asked me. I +knew not in the least what I was to see, but I was ready for anything." + +"And you acquitted yourself on the whole extremely well," he nodded; "so +at least they are all very ready to say, hoping, I doubt not, for your +good offices with the Duke when it comes to their turn. You flouted them +right manfully and defied their mystery, they told me." + +At this moment I became conscious that a door opposite me was open and +the curtain drawn a little way back. There, in the half-light, I saw +Mistress Ysolinde listening. She leaned her head aside as though it had +been heavy with its weight of locks of burned gold. She pillowed her +cheek against the door-post, and let her dreamy sea-green eyes rest upon +me. And the look that was in them gave me a sense of pleasure strange and +acute, as well as a restless uneasiness and vague desire to escape out +under the blue sky, and mingle with the throng of every-day men on the +streets of the city. + +*** + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE VISION IS THE CRYSTAL + + +Master Gerard, however, did not seem to be aware of her presence, for he +continued his catechism steadily. + +"You mocked at their terrors, did you not, and told them that you, who +had seen the teeth of the Duke's hounds, had nothing to fear from the +bare gums of the White Wolf?" + +"I knew that they but played," I answered, "and that I had little to +fear." + +For with Ysolinde von Sturm watching me with her eyes I could not for +very shame's sake make myself great. + +"You told them more than that," the girl cried, suddenly flashing on me a +look keen as the light on a sword when it comes home from the cutler. +"You told them that you too desired a freer commonwealth!" + +"I did," said I, flushing quickly, for I had thought to keep my +thumb on that. + +Nevertheless I was not going back on my spoken word, even in the presence +of Duke Casimir's inquisitor. Besides which I judged that my father had +influence enough to bring me out scathless. + +"That is well and bravely said!" he replied, smiling with thin lips which +in all their constant writhings showed no vestige of teeth within; "but +the sentiment itself is somewhat strange in the son of the Red Axe and +the future Executioner of Justice in the Wolfmark." + +Then for the first time I permitted my eyes to rest on the lithe figure +of the girl in the doorway. Methought she inclined her head a little +forward to catch my answer as if it had been a matter of interest to her. + +"I am indeed son of the Red Axe," said I, "but my own head would underlie +it rather than that I should ever be Hereditary Justicer of the Mark." + +A smile that was meant for me passed over the girl's face and momently +sweetened her lips. She straightened her body and set a hand more easily +to her waist. A certain kindness dwelt in her emerald eyes. + +"Never be Duke's Justicer!" cried Master Gerard, looking up with his hand +on a skull. "This is unheard of! Are not you the only son of Gottfried +Gottfried, right hand of Duke Casimir, highest in favor with his Grace? +And within two years, according to the law of the headsman, must you not +also don the Red and the Black and stand at the Duke's left hand, as your +father at his right, when he sits in judgment?" + +I bowed my head for answer. + +"Even so," said I; "but long before that time I shall be either in a far +country waging the wars of another lord, or in a country yet +farther--that to which the men of my race have directed so many +untimeously." + +"Have you at all thought of the land or the lord to whom you would +transfer your allegiance?" said Gerard von Sturm, carelessly rapping with +his fingers on the bare white of the skull before him. + +"I have not," I replied as easily. + +He looked down a moment, and drew his black robe thoughtfully over his +knee as if turning the matter over in his mind. "What think you of +Plassenburg and the service of Prince Karl?" he said at last. + +"The place is too near and the man a usurper," I replied, brusquely. + +"I am not so sure," Master Gerard mused, slowly, "that it might not be +advantageous to bide near home. Duke Casimir is mortal, after all--long +and prosperously may he live!" (Here he inclined his head piously, while +naming his master.) "But who knows how long he may be spared to reign +over a loving people. And after that, why, there may be more usurpers. +For by the name 'usurper' the ignorant mostly mean men of the strong +heart and sure brain, who can hold that which they have with one hand and +reach out for more with the other." + +While he spoke thus he looked at me with his green eyes half closed. + +"But," said I, calmly enough, though my heart beat fast, "I am but a lad +untried. I may never rise beyond a private soldier. I may be killed at +the first assault of my virgin campaign." + +Master Gerard looked up quickly. He beckoned to his daughter. For though +by no faintest gesture had he betrayed his knowledge of her presence, he +had yet clearly known it all the time. + +"Ysolinde," he said, "bring hither thy crystal!" + +The maid disappeared and presently returned with a ball in her hand of +some substance which looked like misty glass. + +"I have been looking in it already," she said, "ever since Hugo Gottfried +came out of the Red Tower." + +Her voice was soft and even, with the same sough in it as of the wind +among poplar-trees which I had heard in the rustle of her silken dress as +she came up the stair. + +"And what," asked her father, "have you seen in the crystal, child of +my heart?" + +He looked up at me with some little shamefacedness, or so I imagined. + +"I am a dry old man of the law," he went on, "dusty of heart as these +black books up yonder--books not of magic but of fact, of crime and pain +and penalty. But this my daughter Ysolinde, wise from a child, solaces +herself with the white, innocent magic, such as helps man and brings him +nearer that which is unseen." + +The maid knelt by her father's knee, and held the crystal ball in the +hollow of her hands against the sable of his velvet robe. She passed one +hand swiftly twice or thrice over her brow, as though to clear away some +cobwebs, gossamer thin, that had folded themselves across her vision. +Then, in the same wistful, wind-soft voice, she began to speak. And as +she spoke all that I had loved and known began to pass from before me. I +forgot my father. I forgot the Red Tower. I forgot (God forgive me, yet +help it I could not!) the little Princess Playmate and her sweetest eyes. +I forgot all else save this lithe, serpentine maiden with the massive +crown of burned and tawny gold upon her head. + +"I see," she began, "a long street and many men struggling on it--the +Wolf of the Wolfmark, the Eagle of Plassenburg are face to face. I see +Red Karl the Prince. The young Wolf has the better of it. He bites his +lip and drives hard. The Prince is down. He is wounded. He is like to +die. The Wolf will drive all to destruction. + +"But see--" she sighed, and paused the while as if that which she saw +next touched her--"from the swelter in the rear comes a young soldier. He +has lost his helmet. I see his head. It is a fair head with crisp curls. +He has a sword in his hand and he lays well about him. He cuts a way to +the Prince--he bestrides his body. + +"Give way there, scullions, that I may see more!" she cried, impetuously, +and waved her hand before her eyes, which were fixed expressionless on +the crystal. "I see him again. Well done, young soldier! Valiantly laid +on. It is great sword-play. Bravo! The Wolf is down. The Eagle of +Plassenburg is up--I can see no more!" + +And suddenly she dropped the ball, which would have rolled off her +father's knee had he not caught it as it fell. + +Ysolinde kept her head on Master Gerard's lap for a long minute, as if, +after the vision of the crystal, she could not bear the common light nor +speak of meaner things. Then, without once looking at me, she rose, +gathered her skirts in her hand, and glided out of the doorway in which +she had stood. + +When she was quite gone her father reached a bony hand across to me. + +"That is a great fate which she has read for you--never have I seen her +so moved, nor yet her vision so clear and unmistakable. Surely the sooner +you seek the service of the Prince of Plassenburg the better." + +"But," said I, "how do I know that he will accept me? He may not wish to +retain in his service the son of the Red Axe of the Wolf mark." + +Master von Sturm smiled subtly at me. + +"I cannot tell," he said, "why it is that I have an interest in you. But +I desire to see you other than that which you are. I have, strange as it +may seem in one of such humble degree here in the city of Thorn, whom all +may consult without fee or reward, a certain influence and place in the +councils of the reigning Prince of Plassenburg. If, therefore, you will +take service with him, I can give you such an introduction as will +guarantee you a place, not as man-at-arms, but as officer, so that your +way may lie before you clear from the first. Also in this promotion you +shall have a good sufficient reason to give those who may accuse you of +changing your service." + +I could not answer him for gladness. The hope seemed so unbelievable--the +fortune too grateful to be true. I was overcome, and, as I guess, showed +it in my face. For twice I essayed to speak and could not. + +So that Master Gerard rose and glided over to me, patting me kindly +enough on the shoulders and bidding me take courage, saying that he loved +to see modesty in this untoward generation, in which there was little +virtue and no gratitude at all. + +So I grasped him by the hand and kissed his thin, bony fingers. + +"Bide ye, bide ye," he said; "one day I may kiss yours an you be active. +The wide spaces of Destiny lie before you, though I shall not live to see +it. But you must bestir you, for I am an old man, and have not far to +travel now to the place from which one leaps off into the dark." + +He conducted me to the door of his chamber and gave me his hand again +with the same inscrutable smile on his thin face, and his skull-cap +pushed farther back than ever over the flat, ophidian brow. + +"When you have all things ready," he said, "come to me for the letter of +introduction, and also for that which may obtain you a worthy outfit for +your journeying to Plassenburg. Or, if you are already Sir Proud-Heart, +you can repay me one day, with usury if you will. I care not to stand on +observances with you, nor desire that you should feel any obligation to a +feeble old man." + +"I am not proud," I said, "and my sense of obligation is already greater +than ever I can hope to discharge." + +"I thank you, my lad," he said. "Often have I wished for a +son of the flesh like you as you passed the window with your +companions--but go, go!" + +And with his hand he pushed me out upon the stair-head and shut the door. + +For a space I knew not where I stood. For what with the turmoil of my +thoughts and the myriad of impressions, hopes, fears, visions, regrets to +leave the Red Tower, the city of Thorn, the hope of seeing again that +high-poised head of burned gold of the Lady Ysolinde, I paused +stock-still, moidered and dazed, till a light hand touched me on the +shoulder and the soft, even voice spoke in my ear. + +"Master Hugo," said the Lady Ysolinde, bending kindly to me, "I am glad, +very glad--aye, though you have made my head ache" (here she nodded +blamefully and laid her hand upon her heart as if that ached too)--"it is +the best of fortunes, and sure to come true. Because have I seen it at +six o'clock of a Thursday in the time of full moon." + +"Come hither," she said, beckoning me; "we shall try another way of it +yet, in spite of the headache. It may be that there is more that concerns +you for me to see in the ink-pool." + +With this she took my hand and almost pulled me down the stairs by force. +As we went I saw the wild head and staring eyeballs of Jan the Lubber +Fiend peering at us. He was lying on the back staircase, prone on his +stomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it, +and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down the +stair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red ears +actually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight of +the Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end of +that smile. + +"Lubber Jan," said she, "go and sit in the yard. The servants will be +complaining of thee again, that they cannot come up the staircase, even +as they did before." + +"Then, if I do," mumbled the monster, "will you look out of window at +least once in each hour, between every stroke of the clock. Else will Jan +not stop in the yard, but come within to feast his eyes on thee." + +"Yes, Jan," she said, smiling with a gentle complaisance which made me +like her somewhat better than before, "I will look out at least once in +the hour." + +And turning a little she smiled again at me, still holding me by the +hand. The Lubber Fiend pulled his forelock, and reaching downward his +head, as if he had the power of stretching out his neck like an arm, he +kissed the cold pavement where her foot had rested a moment before. Then +he rather retracted himself, serpentwise, then betook him in Christian +fashion down the stair, and we heard him move out amid a babel of +servatorial recriminations into the outer yard. + +"A poor innocent," said the Lady Ysolinde; "one that worships me, as you +see. He is so great of stature and so uncouth that the children persecute +him, and some day he may do one of them an injury. Years ago I rescued +him from an evil pack of them and brought him hither. So that is the +reason why he cleaves to me." + +"An excellent reason, my lady," said I, "for any to cleave to you." + +"Ah," she said, wistfully, "only fools think of Ysolinde in the city of +Thorn. Some are afraid and pass by, and the rest are as the dogs that +lick the garbage in the streets. Here I have no friends, save my father +only, and here or elsewhere I have never had any that truly loved me." + +"But you are young--you are fair," I answered. "Many must come seeking +your favor." Thus did I begin lumpishly enough to comfort her. But at +my first words she snatched her fingers away angrily, and then in a +moment relented. + +"You mean well," she said, giving her hand back to me again, "but it is +not pity Ysolinde needs nor yet desires. But that is no matter. Come in +hither and see what may abide for you in the depths of the black pool." + +At the curtained doorway she turned and looked me in the eyes. + +"If you were as other young men it would be easy for you to misjudge +me. This is mine own work-chamber, and I bid you come into it, having +seen you but an hour ago. Yet never a man save my father only hath set +his foot in it before. Inquire carefully of your companions in the city +of Thorn, and if any make pretension to acquaintance with the Lady +Ysolinde of the White Gate strike him in the face and call him liar, +for the sake of the favor I have shown you and the vision I saw +concerning you in the crystal." + +I stooped and kissed her hand, which was burning hot--a thin little hand, +with long, supple fingers which bent in one's grasp. + +"The man who would pretend to such a thing is dead even as he speaks," +said I; and I meant it fully. + +"I thank you--it is well," she answered, leading me in. "I only desired +that you should not misjudge me." + +"That could I never do if I would," I made her answer. "Here my every +thought is reverence as in the oratory of a saint." + +She smiled a strange smile. + +"Mayhap that is rather more than I desire," she said. "Say rather in the +maiden bower of a woman who knows well whom she may trust." + +Again I kissed her hand for the correction. And, as I remembered +afterwards, it was at that hour that the little Princess Playmate was +used to look within my chamber to see that all was ready for me. + +And, had I known it, even that night she stooped over and kissed the +pillow where my head was to lie. + +"Dear love!" she was used to say. + +Alas that I heard it not then! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +EYES OF EMERALD + + +It was a strange little room into which the Lady Ysolinde brought me, +full of quaint, changeful scents, and all ablaze with colors the like of +which I had never seen. For not only were rugs and mats of outlandish +Eastern design scattered over the floor, but there was vividly colored +glass in the small, deeply set windows. Yet that which affected me most +powerfully was a curious, clinging, evanescent odor, which came and went +like a breeze through an open window. I liked it at first, but after a +little it went to my head like a perfumed wine of Greece, such as the men +of Venice sometimes send to our northern lands with their embassies of +merchandise. + +Altogether, it was a strange enough apartment for the daughter of a +lawyer in the city of Thorn, within a mile of the bare feudal strengths +of the Red Tower and the Wolfsberg. + +All this while Ysolinde had kept my hand, a thing which at once thrilled +and shamed me. For though I had never been what is called "in love" with +the Little Playmate, nor till that day had spoken a word to her my father +might not have heard, yet hitherto she had always been first and sole in +my heart whenever I thought on the things which were to be. + +The Lady Ysolinde having brought me to her chamber, bade me sit upon +an oaken folding-stool beside a table on which lay weapons of curious +design--crooked knives and poisoned arrows. Then she went to an +ivory cupboard of the Orient (or, as they are called in Holy Writ, +"an ivory palace"), and opening the beautifully fitting door, she +took from it a small square bottle of red glass which she held +between her and the light. + +"It is well," she said, looking long and carefully at it; "it will flow." + +And coming to the table and pouring some of a shining black liquid into +the palm of her left hand, she sat down beside me on the stool and gazed +steadily into the little pool of ink. + +It was strange to me to sit thus motionless beside a beautiful woman +(for such I then thought her)--so near that I could feel the warmth of +her body strike like sunshine through the silken fineness of her +sea-green gown. I glanced up at her eyes. They were fixed, and, as it +seemed, glazed also. But the emerald in them, usually dark as the +sea-depths, had opal lights in it, and her lips moved like those of a +devotee kneeling in church. + +Presently she began to speak. + +"Hugo--Hugo Gottfried, son of the Red Axe," she said, in the same hushed +voice as before, most like running water heard murmuring in a deep runnel +underground, "you will live to be a man fortunate, well-beloved. You will +know love--yes, more than one shall love you. But you will love one only. +I see the woman on whom your fate depends, yet not clearly--it may be, +because my desire is so great to see her face. But she is tall and moves +like a queen. She goes clad in white like a bride and her arms are held +out to you. + +"But another shall love you, and between them two there is darkness and +hate, from which come bursting clouds of fire, bringing forth lightnings +and angers and deadly jealousies! + +"Again I see you, great, honored, and sitting on a high seat. The +woman whose face I cannot distinguish is beside you, clothed in a +robe of purple. And, yes, she wears a crown on her head like the +coronet of a queen." + +Ysolinde withdrew her eyes gradually from the ink-pool, as if it were a +pain to look yet a greater to look away. Then with a quick jerk she threw +up her head, and tears were standing in her eyes ready to overflow. But +the wetness made them beautiful, like a pebble of bright colors with the +dew upon it and shone on by the sunshine of the morning. + +"You hurt me," she murmured reproachfully, looking at me more like a +child than ever I had seen her. She was very near to me. + +"_I_ make you suffer!" cried I, greatly astonished. "How can Hugo +Gottfried have done this thing?" + +For it seemed impossible that a poor lad, and one alien by his birth from +the hearts of ordinary folk, should yet have the power to make a great +lady suffer. For a great lady I knew Ysolinde to be even then, when her +father seemed to be no more in the city of Thorn than Master Gerard, the +fount and treasure-house of law and composer-general of quarrels. + +But I might have known that he was no true lawyer to be so eager about +that last. For upon the continuance and fostering of differences the +law-men of all nations thrive and eat their bread with honey thereto. + +As my father often said, "Better the stroke of the Red Axe than that of +the scrivener's goose-quill. My solution is kindlier, sooner over, hurts +less, and is all the same in the end!" + +Ysolinde thought a little before she answered me. + +"No man ever made me suffer thus before," she said, "though I have seen +and known many men. I am older than you, Hugo, and have travelled in many +countries, the lands from which these things came. But true love, the +pain and the pleasure of it, have I never known." + +She leaned her head on her hand and her elbow on the table, turning thus +to look long and intently at me. I felt oafish and awkward, as Jan Lubber +Fiend might have done before the King. Many things I might have wished to +say and do with that slender figure and lissome waist so near me. But I +knew not how to begin. Yet I think the desire came not so much from love +or passion, but rather from a natural longing to explore those mysteries +concerning which I had read so much after Friar Laurence had done me the +service of teaching me French. But it was well that stupidity was my +friend. For rebounding like a vain, upstart young monkey from my mood of +self-depreciation, I must needs hold it for certain that all was within +my grasp, and that the Lady Ysolinde expected as much of me, which thing +would have wrought my downfall. + +"Yon ride soon to Plassenburg, I hear," she said, after she had looked at +me a long time steadily with the emerald eyes shining upon me. Then it +was that I saw clearly that they were not the right emerald in hue so +much as of the shade of the stone aqua-marine, which is one not so rare, +but a better color when it comes to the matter of maiden's eyes. + +"It is indeed true, my lady," I replied, disappointed at her words, and +yet somehow infinitely relieved, "that I ride soon to Plassenburg by the +favoring of your father, who has been gracious enough to promise me his +interest with the Prince." + +I saw her lip curl a little with scorn--the least tilt of a rose leaf to +which the sun has been unkind. + +She seemed about to speak, but presently thinking better of it, +smiled instead. + +"It is like my father," she said, after a little; "but since I also go +thither, you shall be of my escort. A sufficient guard accompanies me all +the way to the city, and I dare say the arrangement may serve your +convenience as well as add to the pleasure and safety of my journeying." + +"But how will your father do without your company, Lady Ysolinde?" I +asked. For it seemed strange that father and daughter should thus part +without reason in these disturbed times. + +She laughed more heartily than I had heard her. + +"My father has been used to missing me for months at a time, and, +moreover, is well resigned also. But you do not say that you are rejoiced +to be of a lady's escort in so long a travel." + +"Indeed, I am much honored and glad to have so great a favor done to me. +I am but a mannerless, landward youth, to have been bred in the outer +courts of a palace. But that which I do not know you will teach me, and +my faults I shall be eager to amend." + +"Pshaw!--psutt!" said Ysolinde, making a little face, "be not so +mock-modest. You do very well. But tell me if you have any sweetheart in +the city to leave behind you." + +Now this bold question at once reddened my face and heightened my +confusion. + +"Nay, lady," I stammered, conscious that I was blushing furiously, "I am +over-young to have thought much of the things of love. I know no woman in +the city save our old house-keeper Hanne, and the Little Playmate." + +The Lady Ysolinde looked up quickly. + +"Ah, the Little Playmate!" she said, in a low voice, curiously distinct +from that which she used when she had interpreted her visions to me. "The +Little Playmate! That sounds as though it might be interesting. Who is +the Little Playmate?" + +"She is a maid whose folks were slain long ago by the Duke in a foray, +and the little one being left, my father begged her life. And she has +been brought up with me in the Red Tower." + +"How old is she now?" The Lady Ysolinde's next question leaped out like +the flash of a dagger from its sheath. + +"That," answered I, meditatively, "I know not exactly, because none could +tell how old she was when she came to us." + +"Tut," she said, impatiently tossing her head, "do not twist your answers +to me--only wise men and courtiers have the skill to do that and hide it. +As yet you are neither. Is she ten, or is she twenty, or is she mid-way +betwixt the two?" + +"I think she may be a matter of seventeen years of age." + +"Is she pretty?" was the next question. + +"No," said I, not knowing well what to say. + +Her face cleared as she heard that, and then, in a little, her eyes being +still bent steadily on me, reading my very heart, it clouded over again. + +"You think her not merely pretty, then, but beautiful?" she asked. + +I nodded. + +"More beautiful than I?" + +'Fore God I denied not my love, though I own I have many a time been less +tempted, and yet have lied back and forth like a Frankfort Jew. + +"Yes," said I, "I think so." + +"You love her, then?" said the Lady Ysolinde, rising quickly to her feet; +"and you told me that you loved none in this city." + +"I love her, indeed," I said. "She is my little sister. As you mean love, +I do not love her. But I love her notwithstanding. All my life I have +never thought of doing anything else. And that she is beautiful, all who +have eyes in their head may see." + +This appeased her somewhat. I think it must have been looking for my +fortune in the crystal and the ink-pool that made her so eager to know +all that concerned me--which none had ever been so importunate to find +out before. + +"I must come and see this Little Playmate of yours," she said. "It is an +ill-done thing that so fair a maid should be shut up in the tower of such +a pagan castle--the Wolfsberg; it is indeed well named. Word has reached +me to-day that the Princess of Plassenburg has need of a bower maiden. +Now the Princess can make her choice from many noble families. But if the +Little Playmate be as beautiful as you say, 'tis high time that she +should not be left immured in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg. True, the +Duke, like a careful man, neither makes nor mells with womankind. 'Tis +his only virtue. But any questing Ritterling or roaring free companion +might bear her off." + +"I think not," said I, smiling, "so long as the Red Axe of the Mark has a +polished edge and Gottfried Gottfried can send it sheer through an ox's +neck as he stands chewing the cud." + +I hardly think that I ever boasted of my father's prowess before. +And, indeed, I had some skill in the axe-play myself, but only in the +way of sport. + +"All one," said Ysolinde. "Your father, like great Caesar and Duke +Casimir, is but mortal, and may stumble across the wooden stump some day +himself and find his neck-bone in twain! None so wise that he can tell +when the Silent Rider shall meet him in the wood, leading by the bridle +the pale horse whose name is Death, and beckoning him to mount and ride." + +The Lady Ysolinde paused a while, touching her lips thoughtfully with +her fingers. + +"Let your Playmate come," she said. "There is room, I warrant, for her +and you both at Plassenburg. You shall keep each other company when +you have the homesickness, and on the journey she can ride with us +side by side." + +Then going to the curtain she summoned the servitor who had first opened +the door for me. He bowed before the girl with infinite respect. She bade +him conduct me upon my way. I will not deny that I had hoped for a +tenderer leave-taking. But all at once she seemed to have slipped back +into the great lady again, and to be desirous of setting me in my own +sphere and station ere I went, lest perchance I should presume overmuch +upon her favors. + +Yet not altogether so. For, relenting a little as I turned to leave her, +she stood holding the curtain aside for me to pass, and, as it had been +by accident, in dropping it her fingers rested a moment against my +cheek. Then the heavy curtain of blue fell into its place, and I found +myself following the eminently respectable domestic of Master Gerard +down the stairs. + +At the outer door, but before he opened it, the man put a sealed packet +in my hand. + +"From Doctor Gerard von Sturm," he said, bowing respectfully, yet with a +certain sense of being a party in a favor conferred. + +I thrust the letter into my inner pocket and went out into the street. +The sun was still shining, yet somehow I felt that it must be another +day, another world. The houses seemed hard and dry, the details of the +architecture insufferably mean and insultingly familiar. I longed with +all my heart to get away from Thorn into the new world which had opened +to me--a world of perfumes and flowers and flower-like scents and +Oriental marvels, of low voices, too, and the touching of soft hands +upon cheeks. + +In all the world of young men there was no greener or more simple Simon +than I, Hugo Gottfried, as, playing a tune on the pipe of my own conceit, +I marched up the High Street of Thorn to the entrance gate of the +Wolfsberg. + +The Little Playmate was standing at the door as I approached, sweet as a +June rose. When she saw me she went into the sitting-room to show that +she had not yet forgiven me. Though I think by this time, as was often +the way with Helene, she had forgotten almost what was the original +matter of my offending. + +But I pretended to be careless and heart-free. And so--God forgive +me!--I went whistling up the steps of the Red Tower to my room without +so much as looking within the chamber where my Little Playmate had +withdrawn herself. + +Which thing I suffered grievously for or all was done. And an excellent +dispensation of Providence it had been if I had lost my right hand, all +for making that little heart sore, or so much as one tear drop from those +deep gray eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHRISTIAN'S ELSA + + +It was about this time, and after we had made our quarrel up, that Helene +began to call me "Great Brother." After all, there is manifest virtue in +a name, and the Little Playmate seemed to find great comfort in thus +addressing me. + +And after that I had called her "Little Sister" once or twice she was +greatly assured and treated me quite differently, having ascertained that +between young men and women there is the utmost safety in such a +relationship. + +And as all ways were alike to me, I was willing enough. For indeed I +loved her and none other, and so did all the days of my life. Though I +know that my actions and conceits were not always conformable to the true +love that was in my heart, neither wholly worthy of my dear maid. + +But, then, what would you? Nineteen and the follies of one's youth! The +mercy of God rather than any virtue in me kept these from being not only +infinitely more numerous, but infinitely worse. Yet I had better confess +them, such as they are, in this place. For it was some such nothings as +those which follow that first brought Helene and me into one way of +thinking, though by paths very devious indeed. + +To begin with the earliest. There was a maid who dwelt in the Tower of +the Wolfsberg opposite, called the Tower of the Captain of the Guard. And +the maid's name was Elsa, or, as she was ordinarily called, "Christian's +Elsa." She was a comely maid enough, and greatly taken notice of. And +when I went to my window to con over my task for Friar Laurence, there at +the opposite window would be--strange that it should always he +so--Christian's Elsa. She was a little girl, short and plump, but with +merry eyes and so bright a stain upon either cheek that it seemed as if +she had been eating raspberry conserve, and had wiped her fingers upon +the smiling plumpness there. + +At any rate, as sure as ever I betook me to the window, there would be +Christian's Elsa, busy with her needles. + +And to tell truth I misliked it not greatly. Why, indeed, should I? For +there is surely no harm in looking across twenty yards of space at a +maid, and as little in the maid looking at you--that is, if neither of +you come any nearer. Besides, it is much pleasanter to look at a pretty +lass than at a vacant wall and twenty yards of uneven cobble-stones. + +Now the girl was harmless enough--a red and white maid, plump as a +partridge in the end of harvest. She was forever humming at songs, +singing little choruses, and inventing of new melodies, all tunefully and +prettily enough. And she would bring her dulcimer to the window and play +them over, nodding her head to the instrument as she sang. + +It was pleasant to watch her. For sometimes when the music refused to run +aright, she would frown at the dulcimer, as if the discord had been +entirely its fault and it was old enough to know better. Then sometimes +she would look across abstractedly to the Red Tower, trying to recall a +strain she had forgotten, with her finger all the while making the most +bewitching dimple on her plump cheek. It was most sweet and innocent to +see. And withal so entirely unconscious that any one could possibly be +observing her. + +I confess that I sat often and conned my book by the window, long after +I knew my portion by heart, in order to watch her deft fingers upon the +dulcimer sticks and the play of her dimples. But on my part also this was +in all innocence and wholly thoughtless of guile. + +Then would I be taken with a spasm of desire to play upon the recorders +or the Bavarian single flute, and would pester my father to let me learn. + +Now I never had any more ear for music than a deal board that has +knot-holes in it. I had ears indeed. But the clatter of the mill-wheel +and the lapper of water on the stones of the shore were ever better music +to me than singing or playing upon instruments. Nevertheless, at this +time, for some reason or other, I was in a great fret to learn. + +And, curiously enough, my desire made the Little Playmate call me "Great +Brother" more assiduously than ever. Though again I knew not why. + +But Christian's Elsa she could not abide either sight or mention of. +Which was passing strange in so sweet and charitable a maid as our +Helene. Also the girl at the guard-house was a good daughter, besides +being particular of her company, and in that garrison place untouched by +any breath of scandal. + +But no; Helene would have none of her. + +"_Feech_!" she would say, making a little grimace of disgust which she +had brought with her from her northern home; "that noisy, mewling cat, +purring and stroking her face, in the window, I cannot abide her. I know +not what some folks can see in her. There are surely more kinds of +blindness than of those that wait about kirk doors with a board hung +round their necks, saying, 'Good people, for the love of God, put a +copper in this wooden platter.'" + +"Why, Little Playmate, what ails thee at the maid? She is a good maid +enough, and, I am sure, a pretty one." + +So would I say to try her. Whereat the lass, being slender herself, and +with a head that sat easily on her shoulders, would walk off like the +haughty little Princess she was, and thrust her chin so far forward that +even the pretty round of it bespoke a pointed scorn. And the poutlets +would come and go on her red lips so quickly that I would come from the +window, leaving my book and Christian's Elsa, and a thousand Elsas, just +to watch them. + +"So, Great Brother," Helene would say, "you think she is pretty, do you? +'Tis interesting, for sure. As for me, I see not anything pretty about +her. Now, there is Katrin Texel, she is pretty, if you like. What say +you to her?" + +And this was because the minx knew well that I never could abide Katrin +Texel, a girl all running to seed like a shot stalk of rhubarb, who would +end up in the neighborhood of six foot in height, and just that "fine +figure of a woman" which I never could abide. + +"_Feech_!" I would say, copying her Wendish expression. "I would as soon +set my feather bolster on end, paint it black and white, and make love to +it as to Katrin Texel." + +"You do worse every day of your life," retorted Helene, with pretty +spite, tapping the floor with the point of one delicate foot. + +"And, pray, what do I that is worse?" I said, knowing full well what. + +The Little Playmate was silent a minute, only continuing to tap the flags +with a kind of naughtiness that became her. + +"Katrin Texel would not look at you, charming as you think yourself," she +said, at last. + +"Did she tell you so, Little Sister?" said I, drawing a bow at a +great venture. + +The arrow struck, and I was content. + +"Well," she answered, somewhat breathlessly, "what if she did? Surely +even your vanity can take nothing out of a girl saying that she cannot +abide you." + +But I answered nothing to this, only stroked the mustache which was +beginning to thrive admirably on my upper lip. + +"Of all the--" began Helene, looking at me fixedly. Then she stopped. + +"Well," said I, pausing in the caressing of my chin, "what do I worse +every day than make love to Katrin Texel?" + +Her eyes fairly sparkled fire at me. They were "sweetest eyes" no more, +but rarely worth looking into all the same. + +"You go ogling and staring at that little she-cat in the window over +there, that screeches and becks and pats herself, all for showing off! +And you, Hugo Gottfried, like a great oaf, thinking all the time how +innocent and sweet and--oh, I have no patience with you!--to neglect and +think nothing of--of Katrin Texel, and--and then to go gazing and gaping +after a thing like that!" + +And I declare there were tears in the Little Playmate's eyes. + +"Dear Little Sister, why are you so mindful about Katrin Texel?" said I. +"Faith, my lass, wait till she comes again, and I will court her to your +heart's content. There--there--I will be a very Valentine's true lover to +your Katrin." + +For all that she was not greatly cheered, but edged away, still strangely +disconsolate when I came near and tried to pet her. Mysterious and hidden +are the ways of women! For once, when I would have put my hand about her +pretty slender waist, she promptly took me by the wrist, and holding it +at arm's-length, she dropped it from her with a disgustful curl of her +lip, as if it had been an intruding spider she had perforce to put forth +out of her chamber into the garden. + +Yet formerly, upon occasion when, as it might be, she was reading or +looking out of the window, if I but came behind her and called her +"Little Sister," I might even put my hand upon her shoulder, and so stand +for five minutes at a time and she never seem to notice it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SIR AMOROUS IS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF + + +For, as I say, women have curious ways, and there are a good many of them +recorded in this book. And yet more I have observed which I cannot find +room for in a chronicle of so many sad and bad and warlike happenings. +But none of them all is more notable than this--that women, or at least +(for it is no use saying "women," every one being different in temper, +though like as pease in some things) many women, will permit that which +it suits them to be oblivious of, when if you ask them for permission or +make a favor of the matter, they will promptly flame sky-high with +indignation. So my advice to the young man who honestly goes a-courting +is to keep talking earnestly, to occupy his mistress's attention withal, +and progress in her favors during the abstractions of high discourse. + +Of course in this, as in all other similar enterprises, Sir Amorous +must have a certain trading-stock of favor to start with. But if he +have this much, 'tis not difficult to increase it by honest endeavor, +and, as it were, the sweat of his brain. So at least I am told by +those who have proved it. Nevertheless, for myself, I have used no +such nice refinements, but rather taken with thankfulness such things +as came in my way. + +And now when I look back over my paper--lord! what a pother of writing +about it and about! But my excuse is that many young lads and gay +bachelors will read this tale, so I desire to import what of instruction +I can into it. And not having the learning of the clerks, I must e'en +put in what wisdom I have gotten for myself in my passage through the +world. For I never could plough with another man's heifer--least of all +with that of a college-bred Mess John. Not but what Mess John knoweth +somewhat of the lear of love also among the well-favored dames of the +city. Or else, by my faith, Mess John is sorely belied. + +But where was I in my tale? And if this present errant discourse be +forgiven, surely I will not transgress again, but drive my team straight +to the furrow's end and then back again, like an honest ploughman that +has his eye ever upon the guide-poles on the windy ridge. + +Well, the Little Playmate lifted a toad from her waist--I mean my +hand--and dropped it as far from her as her arm would reach. + +And then after that she ran up-stairs, slammed the door of her own +chamber, and came not down to our nooning, so that old Hanne had to call +her three times. + +And once, when I had occasion to cross the court-yard to the guard-house, +I saw her standing pensively by the window. But so soon as she saw me she +vanished within and was seen no more. + +Yet, indeed and indeed, as all may see, there was no cause for all this +fret. For I cared no more about Christian's Elsa than about Christian +himself--less, indeed, for Christian was a good soldier and +master-at-arms, and taught me how to handle the match-lock, the pistolet, +and the other new weapons that had begun to come in from France. And +often upon Saturdays and wet days he would let me spend long mornings in +the armory with him, oiling and cleaning the ordnance. Which it certainly +was a great pleasure to do. + +And what if the little dumpling Elsa, with her red cheeks and her babyish +eyes, did run in and out. Her father was ever with us, and even had I +been willing there was no opportunity for more than a word or a touch of +her fingers--well, save once, when her father went himself to seek the +bottle of oil she had been sent to fetch, and was some time in finding +it. But even that was a mere nothing, and might have happened to any one. + +But when I came home again that night, you would have thought that the +whole happening had been printed legibly on my face. The Little Playmate +would not let me come within a hundred miles of her. And it was "Keep +your distance, sirrah!" Not perhaps said in words, but expressed as +clearly by the warlike angle of an arm, the contumelious hitch of a +shoulder, or the scornful sweep of an adverse skirt. + +And all about nothing! Mighty Hector! I never saw such things as women. + +And yet in her good moments she would call me "Great Brother," and tell +me that she thought only of my future welfare, desiring that I should not +compromise myself in any entanglement with such as were not worthy of me. +Oh, a most wise and prudent counsellor was the Playmate in these days. + +And I used ever to say: "Helene, when I am truly in love I will e'en +bring her here to you, and, by my faith, if you approve not--why, there +is an end of the matter. Back she goes to her mother like a parcel of +returned goods--aye, if she were the Kaiser's daughter herself!" + +Whereat she pouted and was not ill-pleased. + +"Ah, my man," she would reply, "after a girl hath said you nay a time or +two, it will bring you down from these high notions, and be much for your +soul's final good!" + +But yet, when I could keep her in good-humor, it was exceedingly sweet to +bide quietly in the house with the Little Playmate--far better than to +gad about with Texels and meandering fools, which indeed I did +oftentimes just because it made my little lass so full of moods and +tenses--like one of Friar Laurence's irregular verbs in his cursed +Humanities. For there is nothing so variously delightful as a woman when +she is half in love and half out of it--more interesting (say some) +though less delightful than when she is all and whole in love. +Nevertheless, there are exceptions, and one woman at least I know more +various, and more delicious also, since love's ocean hath gone over her +head, than ever she was when, like a timid bather, she shivered on the +brink or made little fearful plunges, as it were knee-deep, and so ran +out again. + +But I am not come to that in the story yet. + +Well, on the afternoon of the next day, who should come to the house in +the Red Tower but our Helene's gossip, for this week at least her bosom +friend, Katrin Texel. She was even more impressive in manner than ever, +and also a little pleasanter to behold. For her angles were clothing +themselves into curves, and she was learning, perhaps from the Little +Playmate, to leave off bouncing into a room like a cow at the trot, and +to walk in sedately instead. By-and-by I knew she would come sailing down +the street like a towered galleon from the isles of Ind. For all that, +she looked not ill--an academic study for Juno, one might say. But to +make love to--why, as Helene was wont to remark, _Feech!_ + +And the curious thing about Katrin Texel was that though her corporeal +part might be a direct inheritance from her Burgomeister father and his +substantial brewery, her spirit had been designed for an artful fairy of +half her size, in order that it might go pirouetting into airy realms of +the imagination. For she was gay enough and lightsome enough in her +demeanor. She came in with a skip which would have been entrancing in +some elfish mignonne who could dance light-foot on spring flowers without +crushing them. But when this our solid Burgomagisterial Katrin tripped +in, it nearly drove me wild with mirth. For it was as if some bland +maternal cow out of the pasture had skipped with a hop and a circle of +flying skirts into a ballroom or a butterfly of two hundred pounds' +weight had taken to flitting from flower to flower. + +And this Katrin talked in a quick, light voice, with ups and downs and +skips and quivers in it, as spring-heeled as a chamois goat on the +mountains of the south. + +"Ah, Tiny-chen," she would cry, as she came undulating and cooing in to +our Helene, "is it you, dearest? 'Tis as sweet to see you as for birds to +kiss on bough! I have danced all day in the sunshine just to think that I +should come to see you! And tell me why you have not been to visit me. +Ah, bad one--cruelest--as cruel as she is pretty" (appealing to me), "is +she not? And there, our Michael, great oaf, sits at home desolated that +he does not hear her foot on the stairs. The foolish fellow tells me that +he listens for four little pit-a-pats every time that I come up from the +court-yard, and is disappointed when there come back only my poor two." + +And Katrin becked and nodded and set her head to the side--like to the +divine Io-Cow playing at being little Jenny Wren. + +And as for me, I kept my gravity--or, rather, how could I lose it, +hearing such nonsense about that great stupid beer-vat, Michael Texel. + +Michael Texel, indeed! I should admire to hear of Michael Texel so much +as raising his eyes to the Little Playmate. Why, I would stave him on +the open street like a puncheon of eight, and think nothing of the +doing of it. + +Michael Texel, indeed! + +But I am forgetting. My business at this time was to make love to Katrin, +so that I might banish the ill impression which Helene had formed +concerning that pleasant, harmless little Christian's Elsa over there. I +never heard anything so foolish in my life. But, then, what women will +think and say passes the imagination of man. + +Michael Texel indeed! + +The thought of that young man of beef and beer recurred so persistently +and forcibly to me that for a time I could scarce command myself to speak +civilly to his sister. Though, of course, she was quite different, being +a woman, and informed with such a quick and dainty spirit that at times +it seemed as it had been imprisoned in her too massive frame and held "in +subjection to the flesh," as the clerics say. God wot, I never knew I had +so much religion and morality about me till I came to write. If I do not +have a care this tale of mine will turn out almost as painful as a book +of devotion which they set children to read on saints' days to keep them +from being over-happy. + +But I subdued my feelings and drew up somewhat nearer to Katrin. + +"My Little Sister--" so I began, cunningly, as I thought--"my sister +Helene is, indeed, fortunate to have so fair a friend, and one so +devoted--" + +"As my brother Michael, yes," she twittered, with her most ponderous, +cage-bird manner; "yes, indeed, he _is_ devoted to her." + +"No," said I, hastily (confound the great hulking camel!), "I mean such a +faithful friend as yourself. I, alas, have no friend. I am cut off from +all society of my kind. Often and often have I felt the weight of +loneliness press heavy upon me in this darksome tower." + +I saw Helene rise, go to the window, and glance across with such a +peculiar smile that I knew as well as if I had seen her that Christian's +Elsa was at her window with her music, looking across for me between each +bar. I cannot describe the smile which hovered on the face of the Little +Playmate. But perhaps all the male beings who read my book may have seen +something like it. All that I can say is, that the smile conveyed an +almost superhuman understanding of men and their little ways, and, +curiously enough, something of contempt too. + +But I was not going to be discouraged by any smile, acid or sweet. +Besides, I had something still to pay back. + +Michael Texel, indeed!--faith, by St. Blaise, I will Texel him tightly an +he comes sneaking to our gate! + +So again I drew yet nearer to his sister. Katrin dimpled and showed her +teeth, with a smile like the sun going about the world, till I had almost +put my hand behind her shoulders to catch the ends of it when it got +round. This illumination almost finished me, for it was not the kind of +smile I had been accustomed to from--well, that was not the business I +was on at present. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS + + +But I admit that the smile discouraged me. Nevertheless I proceeded +gallantly. + +"Ah, Jungfrau Texel," said I, "you cannot know how your presence +brightens our lives here in the Red Tower. Wherefore will you not come +oftener to our grim abode?" + +I thought that, on the whole, pretty well; but, looking up at Helene, I +saw that her smile (so different from that of the Io-Cow Katrin) had +become a whole volume of scathing satire. God wot, it is not easy to make +love to a lass when your "Little Sister" is listening--especially to a +woman-mountain set on watch-springs like Katrin Texel. + +But, after all, Katrin was no ways averse to love-making of any kind, +which, after all, is the main thing. And as for the Little Playmate, I +did not mind her a bonnet-tag. She had brought it upon herself. + +Michael Texel indeed! + +So I went on. It was excellent sport--such a jest as may not be played +every day. I would show Mistress Helene (so I said to myself) whether she +would like it any better if I made love to Katrin than if I went over on +an occasional wet day to clean pistolets and oil French musketoons in +Christian's guard-house. + +So I began to tell Katrin how that woman was the sacredest influence on +the life of men, with other things as I could recollect them out of a +book of chivalry which I had been reading, the fine sentiments of which +it was a pity to waste. For our Helene would have stamped her foot and +boxed my ears for coming nigh her with such nonsense (that is, at this +time she would, doubtless--not, however, always). And as for the lass +over the way--Christian's Elsa--she knew no more of letters than her +father knew of the mathematics. Plain kissing was more in her way--as I +have been told. + +So I aired my book of chivalry to Katrin Texel. + +"Fair maid," said I, "have you heard the refrain of the song that I love +so well? It is like sweet music to me to hear it. I love sweet music. +This is the latest catch: + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.' + +"How goes it, Helene?" I asked, turning to her as she stood smiling +bitterly by the window. For I knew that it would annoy her to be referred +to. "Goes it not something like this?" + +And I hummed fairly enough: + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'" +*** +"And if it goes like that," said she, quickly, "it goeth like a tomcat +mollrowing on the tiles in the middle of the night." + +Now this being manifestly only spiteful, I took no notice of her work. +"Helene does not love good music," said I; "'tis her only fault. But I +trust that you, dear Katrin, have a greater taste for angelic song?" + +"And I trust you love to scratch upon the twangling zither as cats +sharpen their claws upon the bark of trees? You love such music, _dear_ +Katrin, do you not?" cried Helene over her shoulder from the window. + +But Katrin, the divine cow, knew not what to make of us. I think she was +of the opinion that Helene and I, with much study upon books, had +suddenly gone mad. + +"I do indeed love music," she said at last, uncertainly, "but, Master +Hugo, not the kind of which my gossip, Helene, speaks. I love best of all +a ballad of love, sung sweetly and with a melting expression, as from a +lover by the wall to his mistress aloft in the balcony, like that of him +of Italy, who sings: + +"'O words that fall like summer dew on me.' + +"How goes it? + +"'O breath more sweet than is the growing--the growing--'" + +She paused, and waved her hand as if to summon the words from the +empty air. + +"'_The growing garlic,'_ if it be a lover of Italy," cried Helene, still +more spitefully. "This is enough and to spare of chivalry, besides which +Hugo hath his lessons to learn for Friar Laurence, or else he will repent +it on the morrow. Come, sweetheart, let us be going. I will e'en convoy +thee home." + +So she spoke, making great ostentation of her own superiority and +emancipation from learning, treating me as a lad that must learn his +horn-book at school. + +But I was even with her for all that. + +"And so farewell, then, dear Mistress Katrin," said I. "The delicate +pleasure of your presence shall be followed by the still more tender +remembrance which, when you are gone, my heart shall continue to +cherish of you." + +That was indeed well-minded. A whole sentence out of my romance-book +without a single slip. Katrin bowed, with the airy grace of the Grand +Duke's monument out in the square. But the little Helene swept +majestically off, muttering to herself, but so that I could hear her: "'O +wondrous, most wondrous,' quoth our cat Mall, when she saw her Tom +betwixt her and the moon." + +The application of which wise saw is indeed to seek. + +So the two maids went away, and I betook me to the window to see if I +could catch a glimpse of Christian's Elsa. + +But I only saw Katrin and Helene going gossiping down the street with +their heads very close together. + +At first I smiled, well pleased to think how excellently I had played my +cards and how daintily I had worked in those gallant speeches out of the +book of chivalry. But by-and-by it struck me that the Little Playmate was +absent a most unconscionable time. Could it be--Michael Texel? No, that +at least was plainly impossible. + +I got up and walked about. Then for a change I paused by the window. + +I had stood a good while thus moodily looking out at the casement, when I +became aware of two that walked slowly up the street and halted together +before the great iron-studded door which led to the Red Tower. + +By the thirty thousand virgins--Helene and Michael Texel! + +And then, indeed, what a coil was I in; how blackly deceitful I called +her! How keenly I watched for any token of understanding and kindness +more than ordinary that might chance to pass between them. But I could +see none, for though the great soft lout of a ruddy beer-vat tried often +to look under the brim of her hat, yet she kept her eyes down--only once, +that I could observe, raising them, and that was more towards the Red +Tower than in the direction of Michael Texel. + +I think she wished to see whether I was watching. And when she had noted +me it I wot well that she became much more animated, and laughed and +spoke quickly, with color in her cheeks and a flash of defiance on her +countenance, which were manifestly wasted on such a boastful, callow +blubber-tun as Michael Texel. + +Then it was: "Adieu to you, Master Texel!" "Farewell to you, fair maid!" + +And Helene dipped a courtesy to him, dainty and sweet enough to conquer +an angel, while the great jelly-bag shook himself almost to pieces in +his eagerness to achieve a masterly bow. All this made me angry, not +that I cared though Helene had coquetted with a dozen lads, an it had +liked her. It was only the poverty of taste shown in being seen in the +open High Street of Thorn along with such an oaf as Michael Texel. He +had first been my friend, it is true, but then at that time I had not +found him out. + +By-and-by Helene came up the stairs, tripping light as a feather that the +wind blows. Perhaps, though, she had turned in the doorway, where I could +not see her, to throw the lout a kiss--so I thought within me, jealously. + +"You have convoyed your gossip Katrin home in safety, I trust," said I, +sweetly, as she came in. + +"Yes," said she; "but I fear she has left her heart behind her. So +wondrously rapid a courtship never did I see!" + +"Save on the street," answered I; "and with a pale, soft jack-pudding +like Michael Texel! That was a sight, indeed." + +At which Helene laughed a merry little laugh--well-pleased, too, the +minx, as I could see. + +"What are courtships on the street to you, Sir Hugo," she returned, +"with your 'Twinkle-Twankle' singing-women over the way, and--Lord, +how went it? + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.' + +"Ha! ha! Sir Gallant, what need you with more? Would you have as many +loves as the Grand Turk, and invent new love-makings for each of them? +Shall we maidens petition Duke Casimir to banish the other lads of the +town and leave only Hugo Gottfried for all of us?" + +And then she went on to other such silly talk that I think it not worth +reporting. + +Whereupon I was about to leave the room in a transport of just +indignation, and that without speaking, when Helene called to me. + +"Hugo!" she said, very softly, as she alone could speak, and that only +when it liked her to make friends. + +I turned me about with some dignity, but knowing in my heart that it was +all over with me. + +"Well, what may be your will, madam?" said I. + +Helene came towards me with uplifted, petitionary eyes. + +"You are not going to be angry with me, Hugo!" she said. And she lifted +her eyes again upon me--irresistible, compelling, solvent of dignities, +and able to break down all pride. + +O all ye men who have never seen my Helene look up thus at you--but only +common other eyes, go and hang yourselves on high trees for very envy. +Well, as I say, Helene looked up at me. She kept on looking up at me. + +And I--well, I hung a moment on my pride, and then--clasped her in my +arms. + +"Dear minx, thrice wicked one!" I exclaimed, "wherefore do you torment +me--break my heart?" + +"Because," said she, escaping as soon as she had gained her pretty, +rascal way, "you think yourself so clever, Hugo, such an irresistible +person, that you must be forever returning to this window and getting +this book of chivalry by heart. Now you are going to be cross again. Oh, +shame, and with your little sister-- + +"'That never did you any harm, + But killed the mice in your father's barn.'" + +With such babyish words she talked the frowns off my face, or, when they +would not go fast enough, hastened them by reaching up and smoothing them +away with her finger. + +"Now," she said, setting her head to the side, "what a nice sweet Great +Brother! Let him sit down here on the great chair." + +So I sat down, well pleased enough, not knowing what mischief the +pranksome maid had now in her head, but judging that the matter might +turn out well for me. + +Then Helene stole round to the back of the chair, and, taking me by the +ears, she gave first one and then the other of them a pull. + +"That," she said, pulling the right, "is for listening to the little cat +over the way that squalls on the tiles! And _that_" (giving the other a +sound tug) "is for being a dandiprat when my gossip Katrin was here!" + +She paused a moment as if to summon courage, and then she stooped quickly +and kissed me on the neck. + +"And _that_ for Michael Texel!" she cried, and ran out of the room before +I could get clear of the wide arms of the chair, and so run after and +catch her. + +She turned in the doorway and wafted me a kiss from her finger-tips, +airily and a little mockingly. + +"That for Hugo Gottfried!" she said, and was off to her own chamber with +the _frou-frou_ of a light skirt, the slam of a door, and the shooting +of a bolt. + +And after all this, it was heart's pity that ever anything should have +come between us again, even for a moment. + +Though, indeed, it was but for a moment. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN + + +It was the forenoon of a Sunday, a dull, sleepy time in all countries, +and one difficult to get overpast. I was as usual busy with my +accoutrement, recently bought with the loan of Master Gerard. The Little +Playmate was just returned from the cathedral, and had indeed scarcely +laid her finery aside, when there came a loud knocking at the outer gate +of the Red Tower. Then one of the guard tramped stolidly from the wicket +to the door of our dwelling. + +"A lady waits you at the postern," said he, and so tramped his way +unceremoniously back to his post. + +I knew without any need of telling that it was the Lady Ysolinde. So I +rose, and hastily setting my fingers through my hair, went to the gate. +There, attended by the respectable servitor, was, as I had expected, the +Lady Ysolinde. + +"Good-morrow," she said very courteously to me, and I duly returned her +greeting with a low obeisance of respect and welcome. + +She wore a large garment, fashioned like a man's cloak, over her festal +attire--which, with a hood for the head, wholly enveloped her figure and +descended to her feet. + +"I have come, as I promised, to see the Little Playmate." These were her +first words as we paced together across the wide upper court under the +wondering eyes of the men of the Duke's body-guard. + +"Pray remember, Lady Ysolinde," said I, with much eagerness, "that I +have as yet said nothing of the matter to Helene, and that my father only +knows that I am to ride to Plassenburg in order to exercise myself in the +practice of arms, before becoming his assistant here in the Red Tower and +in the Hall of Judgment across the way." + +My visitor nodded a little impatiently. She who knew so many things, of a +surety might be trusted to understand so much without being told. + +In the inner doorway Helene met us. And never had it been my fortune to +see the meeting of two such women. The Little Playmate had in her hands +the broidered handkerchiefs, the long Flemish gloves, and the little +illuminated Book of the Hours which I had given her. She had been about +to lay them away together, as is the fashion of women. And when she met +the Lady Ysolinde I declare that she looked almost as tall. Helene was +perhaps an inch or two less in stature than her visitor, but what she +lacked in height she more than made up in the supple erectness of her +carriage and the vivid and extraordinary alertness of all her movements. + +"Lady Ysolinde," said I, as they met with the mutually level eyeshot of +women who measure one another, "this is Helene--whom, for love and +kindliness, we of the Wolfsberg call the 'Little Playmate.'" + +The daughter of Master Gerard impetuously threw back the gray monk's hood +which shrouded the masses of her tawny hair. She put out both hands to +Helene, held her a moment at arm's-length to look into her eyes, even as +she had done with me, but in a different way. Then, drawing her nearer, +she leaned forward and kissed her on the brow and on both cheeks. + +Now I am not ordinarily a close observer, and many things, specially +things that pertain to the acts of women, pass by me unnoticed. But I saw +in a moment that there was not, and never could be, more than the +semblance of cordial amity between these two women. + +I noted the Little Playmate instinctively quiver like a taken bird +when she was thus embraced. It was, I think, the undying antipathy of +Eve for Lilith, a hatred which is mostly on the side of Eve, the +Mother-Woman--its place being taken by sharper and more dangerous envy +in the breast of Lilith-without-the wall. + +There, face to face, stood the two women who were to make my life, ruling +it between them, as it were, striking it out between the impact of their +natures, as underneath the blows of two smiths upon the ringing anvil the +iron, hissing hot, becomes a sword or a ploughshare. + +It was impossible to avoid contrasting them. + +Helene, of a bodily beauty infinitely more full of temptation, bloomful +with radiant health, the blush of youth and conscious loveliness upon her +lips and looking out under the crisp entanglement of her hair, all simple +purity and straightness of soul in the fearless innocency of her eyes; +the Lady Ysolinde, deeper taught in the mysteries of existence, more +conscious of power, not so beautiful, but oftentimes giving the +impression of beauty more strongly than her fairer rival, compact of +swift delicate graces, half feline, half feminine (if these two be not +the same). All these passed like clouds over the unquiet sea of her +nature, reflecting the changing skies of circumstance, and were fitted to +produce a fascination ever on the verge of repulsion even when it was +strongest. Ysolinde was the more ready of speech, but her words were +touched constantly with dainty malice and clawed with subtlest spite. She +catspawed with men and things, often setting the hidden spur under the +velvet foot deeply into the very cheek which she seemed to caress. Such +as I read them then, and largely as even now I understand them, were the +two women who moulded between them my life's history. + +I suppose it is because I am of this Baltic North that I must need think +things round and round, and prose of reasons and explanations--even when +I write concerning beautiful maids--forever dreaming and dividing, +instead of going straight, sword in hand, for their hearts, as is the way +of the folk from the English land over-seas, or, more simply still, lying +about their favors, which, I hear, is mostly the Frenchman's way. + +But enough of intolerable theory. + +Instinctively the Lady Ysolinde spoke to our maid of the Red Tower in a +manner and tone very different from that which I had ever before heard +her employ, at once more equal and more guarded. + +"I was told by Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made at +my father's house on the day after his foolish boy's prank of the White +Swan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age, +like myself a maid solitary among men. So to-day I have come to solicit +her acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind to me, who have ever been in +this city and country as a stranger in a strange land." + +It was prettily enough said, and our Helene, easily touched, and perhaps +a little ashamed of her first stiffness, put out a hand which the other +quickly and securely clasped. Then those two sat down together. Ysolinde +von Sturm kept her eyes fixed on the Playmate, but our shy and slender +Helene looked steadily past her out over the tumbled red roofs and peaked +gables of the city of Thorn to the gray Wolfmark plains which lay spread +beneath our windows like a picture in a book. + +At intervals, as it came near the hour of their mid-day meal, the +blood-hounds howled in the kennels, and by their tone I knew that my +father had left the Hall of Judgment where he had been detained all the +morning. Also I knew very well that the Lady Ysolinde wished me to find +an errand elsewhere, in order that she might talk alone with her +companion. But I saw also the appeal in the eyes of the Playmate, and I +was resolved not to give her the chance. + +"Are you never weary in this dull tower?" asked the lawyer's daughter, +still holding the Playmate's hand. + +"It is not dull," replied Helene. "I have my work. There are two men as +shiftless and helpless as babes to attend to, and none to help me but +old Hanne." + +"Let men attend to themselves," cried Ysolinde; "that is ever my motto. +They ought to be our servants, not we theirs." + +It was said smilingly, yet there was bitterness under the words as well. + +"But," said Helene, smiling back at her with a fresh directness all her +own, "one of the men saved my life and brought me up as his own daughter, +and the other is--is Hugo, here." + +And as she spoke of my father and of me I saw the eyes of the Lady +Ysolinde fixed upon her, as it had been to read her inner soul. + +"And, by-the-way," she said, at last, after a long pause, "you have heard +how this same Master Hugo proposes to himself to escape from the +prison-house of this city, for a season to exercise himself in arms, and +so in roving adventure fulfil that which is not granted to a maid, his +'wandering years.' He goes (so my father tells me) to the Court of the +Prince of Plassenburg, with the promise of a company to command. And I am +glad, for I shall ride thither under his escort. Indeed, and in truth, my +home is far more there than here in Thorn. But I would fain have a +companion of my own sex. So I have come to beg of you, Mistress Helene, +that you will accompany me. The Princess, I know, has great need of a +maid of honor near her person, and will gladly welcome a friend of mine +for the post." + +The Little Playmate looked up astonished, as well she might, at this +direct assault, which was moreover spoken with a pretty shamefacedness +and the air of asking almost too great a favor. And, indeed, if there was +any patronage in the thing offered, it was at least carefully kept out of +the manner of asking. + +"Lady Ysolinde, I cannot accept your too overpowering favor," said +Helene, after a pause, "but your kindness in thinking at all of me will +always warm my heart." + +At this critical moment came my father in, looking more than grave and +severe, so that I judged at once that he had been talking to the Duke +Casimir and had found his post of chief adviser both thankless and +difficult. I knew it could be no matter of his office which worried him, +for that day he wore his holiday attire of white Friesland cloth, and the +broad bonnet in which I loved best to see him. There was no mark of his +calling about him anywhere, save a little Red Axe sewed upon his left +breast like a war veteran's decoration. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE + + +Gottfried Gottfried bowed to the guest of his house with the noble manner +which comes to every serious-minded man who deals habitually in the high +matters of life and death. I made his introductions to the Lady Ysolinde, +and as readily and gracefully he returned his acknowledgments. For the +rest I allowed Master Gerard's daughter to develop her own projects to +him, which, indeed, she was no long time in doing. + +As she proceeded I saw my father change color and become as to his face +almost as white as the Friesland cloth in which he was dressed. +Presently, however, as if struck with the sound of a well-known name, he +looked up quickly. + +"Plassenburg, said you, my lady?" he inquired. + +The Lady Ysolinde nodded. + +"Yes, to Plassenburg, where the Princess has great need of a maid +of honor." + +"Her Highness is often upon her travels, I hear it reported," said my +father, "while the Prince keeps himself much at home." + +"He esteems his armies more than all the marvels of strange countries," +replied Ysolinde, "and thus he holds the land and folk in great quiet." + +"And your father, Master Gerard, would have my son engage with this +Prince Karl for a space. Well, I think it may be good for the lad. For I +know well that the shadow of the Red Tower stalks after him through this +city of Thorn, and there is no need that he should lie down under it too +soon. But this of my little maid is a matter apart, and means a longer +and a sorer parting." + +"Fear not, my father," cried the Playmate, eagerly, "I would not leave +you alone, even to be the Princess of Plassenburg herself." + +My father took another strange look from one to the other of the two +women, the import of which I understood not then. + +"I know not," said he; "I think this thing also might be for the best. As +I see it, there are strange times coming upon us in Thorn. And the town +of Plassenburg under Karl the Prince is a defenced city, set in a strong +province, content and united. It might be wisest that you also should go, +little one." + +"I cannot go," said Helene, "and leave you alone." + +Gottfried Gottfried smiled a sad smile, wistfully pleasant. + +"Already I am wellnigh an old man, and it is the nature of my profession +that I should be alone. I work among the issues of life and death. Every +man must be lonely when he dies, and I, who have lived most with dying +men, am perforce already lonely while I live. It is well--a clearer air +for the young bird! But yet it will be lonesome to miss you when I come +in--the empty pot wanting the flower; the case without the jewel; silence +above and below; your voice and Hugo's, that have changed the sombre Red +Tower with your young folks' pleasantries, heard no more. Ah, God wot, I +had thought--I had dreamed far other things." + +He stopped and looked from one to the other of us, and I saw that +Ysolinde of the White Gate read his thought. Whereat right suddenly the +Little Playmate blushed, and as for me I kept watching the dull gold +flash on the spangles of our guest's waist-belt, which was in form like +a live serpent, with changeful scales and eyes of ruby red. + +My father went over to where Helene sat. She rose to meet him and cast +her arms about his neck. He laid his right hand on her head--that +terrible hand that was yet not dreadful to us-who loved him. + +"Little flower," he said, in his simple way, "God be good to you in the +transplanting! It is not fair to your young life that my red stain should +lie upon your lot. I have given you a quiet hermitage while you needed +it. But now it is right that my house should again be left unto me +desolate. It is already late summer with Gottfried Gottfried, and high +time that the young brood should fly away." + +He turned to me. + +"With you, Hugo, it is a thing different; you were born to that to which +you are born. And to that, as I read your horoscope, you must one day +return. But in the mean time care well for the maid. I lend her to you. I +give her into your hand. Cherish her as your chiefest treasure. Let her +enemies be yours, and if harm come to her through your neglect, slay +yourself ere you come again before me. For, by the Lord God of all +Righteous Judgment, I will have no mercy!" + +I saw the eyes of the Lady Ysolinde glitter like those of the snake in +her belt as thus my father delivered Helene over to me. + +But my father had yet more to say. + +"And if any," he went on, in a deep, still voice, keeping his hand upon +the downcast head of the Little Playmate--"if any, great or small, +prince or pauper, harm so much as a hair of this fair head, by the great +God who wields His Axe over the universe and sits in the highest Halls of +Judgment, whose servant I am--I, Gottfried Gottfried, swear that he shall +taste the vengeance of the Red Axe and drink to the dregs the cup of +agony in his own blood!" + +So saying, he kissed Helene and stalked out without turning his head or +making any further obeisance or farewell. + +We sat mazed and confounded after his departure. + +The Lady Ysolinde it was who first recovered herself. She put out a +kindly hand to Helene, who stood wet-eyed and drooping by the window, +looking out upon the roofs of Thorn, though well I wot she saw nothing of +spire, roof, or pinnacle. + +"God do so to me and more also," she said, in a low, solemn voice, "if I +too keep not this charge." + +And I think for the moment she meant it. The trouble was that the Lady +Ysolinde could not mean one thing for very long at a time. As, indeed, +shall afterwards appear. + +So it was arranged that within the week Helene and I should say our +farewells to the Red Tower which had sheltered us so long, as well as to +Gottfried Gottfried, who had ever been my kind father, and to the little +Helene more than any father. + +But in spite of all we wearied day by day to be gone. For, indeed, +Gottfried Gottfried said right. The shadow of the Red Tower, the stain of +the Red Axe, was over us both so long as we abode on the Wolfsberg. Yet +what it cost us to depart--at least till we were out of the gates of the +city--I cannot write down, for to both of us the first waygoing seemed +bitter as death. + +I remember it well. My father had been busy all the morning with his grim +work on the day when we were to ride away. A gang of malefactors who had +wasted a whole country-side with their cruelty had been brought in. And, +as it was suspected that other more important villains were yet to be +caught, there had been the repeated pain of the Extreme Question, and now +there remained but the falling of the Red Axe to settle all accounts. So +that when he came to bid us farewell he had but brief time to spare. And +of necessity he wore the fearful crimson, which fitted his tall, spare +figure like a glove. + +"Fare thee well, little one!" he said, first to Helene. "Not thus, had +the choice lain with me, would I have bidden thee farewell. But when it +shall be that I meet you again I will surely wear the white of the festa +day. I commit you to Him whose mistakes are better than our good deeds, +whose judgments are kinder than our tenderest mercies." + +So he kissed her, and reached a hand over her shoulder to me. + +"Son Hugo," he said, "go in peace. You must return to succeed me. I see +it like a picture--on the day when I lie dead you shall stand with the +Red Axe in your hand waiting to do judgment. It is well. Keep this maid +more sacred than your life--and, meantime, fare you well!" + +So saying he left us abruptly. + +Our horses were saddled in the court-yard, and as I rode last through the +rarely opened gateway, I saw Duke Casimir looking out from his window +upon the lower enclosure, as was his pleasure upon the days of execution. +I heard the dull thud, which was the meeting of the Red Axe and the +redder block as that which had been between fell apart. And for the last +time I heard the blood-hounds leap and the pattering of their eager feet +upon the barriers as they leaped up scenting the Duke's carrion. + +Thus the latest I heard of the place of my nativity was fitting and +dreadful. I was mortally glad to ride away into the clear air and the +invigorating silence. But on my heart there still lay heavy the +twice-repeated prediction of my father and of the Lady Ysolinde, that I +should yet return and hold the Red Axe in his place. + +But I resolved rather to die in the honest front of battle. +Nevertheless, had I known the future, I would have seen that they and not +I were right. + +I was indeed fated to return and stand ready to execute doom, with the +Red Axe in my hand and my father lying dead near by. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE PRIME OF THE MORNING + + +Now so strange a thing is woman that, so soon as we were started down the +High Street of the city of Thorn, the Little Playmate dried her eyes, +turned towards me in her saddle, and straightway began to take me to task +as though I had been to blame. + +"I have left," said she, "the only home I ever knew, and the only man +that ever truly loved me, to accompany a young man that cares not for +me, and a woman whom I have seen but once, to a far land and an +unkindly folk." + +"It is not fair," I said, "to say that I love you not. For, as God sees +me, I have ever loved you--loved you best and loved you only, little +Helenchen! And though you are angered with me now, I know not why--still +till now you have never doubted it." + +"I doubt it sorely enough now, I know," she said, bitterly; "yet, indeed, +I care not whether you or any love me at all." + +And this saying I was greatly sorry for. It seemed a sad wayfaring from +our old Red Tower and out of my native city of Thorn. + +"Helene, little one," said I, "believe me, I love none in the whole world +but my father and you. Trust me, for I am to keep you safe with my life +in the far land to which we go. Do not let us quarrel, littlest. There +are only the two of us here that remember the old man my father and the +little room to which you came as a babe, all in white." + +So presently she was somewhat pacified, and reached me a hand from the +back of her beast, on pretence of leaning over to avoid a swinging sign +in one of the narrow streets near by the White Gate, where we were to +meet the Lady Ysolinde. + +"And yet more, Little Playmate," said I, keeping her hand when I had it; +"do not begin by distrusting the noble lady with whom we are to travel. +For she means well to us both, and in the strange country to which we go +we may be wholly in her power." + +"You are sure that you do not love that woman, then?" said Helene, +without looking at me. For, indeed, in many things she was but a child, +and ever spoke more freely than other maids--perhaps with being brought +up in the Red Tower in the company of my father, who on all occasions +spoke his mind just as it came to him. + +"Nay," said I, "believe me, little love, I do not love her at all." + +And now on horseback Helene looked all charming, and what with the +exercise, the unknown adventure, and my reassurance, she had a glow of +rose color in her cheeks. She had never before been so far away from the +precincts of the Wolfsberg. I had even taught her to ride in the +court-yard of a summer evening, on a horse borrowed from one of the +Duke's squires. + +We found the Lady Ysolinde waiting for us at her house, Master Gerard +talking to her in the doorway, earnestly and apart. Both of them had a +look of much solemnity, as though the matter of their discourse were some +very weighty one. + +Presently her father kissed her and she came down the steps. I leaped +from my horse to help her to the saddle, but the respectable serving-man +was before me. So that instead I went about and looked to the buckles and +girths, which were all in order, and patted the arching neck of the +beautiful milk-white palfrey whereon she rode. Then Master Gerard waved a +hand and went within. + +And as we fared forth out of the Weiss Thor into the keener air of the +country, I thought what a charge I had--to squire two ladies so +surpassingly fair, each in her own several graces, as our Helene and the +Lady Ysolinde. + +No sooner, however, were we past the outer barriers, at which the +soldiers of the Duke Casimir kept guard, than a vast, ungainly wight +started up from the road-side. + +"Jan Lubber Fiend!" cried the Lady Ysolinde; "what do you here?" + +The oaf grinned his awful, writhed smile and wriggled his great body +after the manner of a puppy desirous of the milk-platter. + +"Think you, my lady," said he, cunningly, "that your poor Jan would abide +within the precincts of the city house with that funeral ape bidding me +do this and do that, sit here and sit there, come in and go out at his +pleasure? A thing of dough that I could twist into knots as easily as I +can crack my joints." + +And of this latter accomplishment he proceeded to give us certain +examples which sounded like cannon-shots delivered at close quarters. + +"Get home with you!" cried Ysolinde; "I cannot have thee following +us. There are two men presently to meet us, to guard us to +Plassenburg, and we do not need you, Jan Lubber Fiend. Get back and +take care of my father." + +"Oh, as for him," said the monster, sitting down squat upon the plain +road in the dust, "he is a tough old cock, and will come to no harm. We +can e'en leave him with a good cook, a prime cellar, and an easy mind. +But this young man is not to trust to with so many pretty maids. Jan will +come and look after him." + +And with that he nodded his hay-stack of a head three times at me, and +going to the hedge-root he laid hold of the top of a young poplar and +turned him about, keeping the stem of it over his shoulder. Then he set +himself to pull like a horse that starts a load, and presently, without +apparently distressing himself in the least, he walked away with the +young tree, roots and all. + +Having shaken off the earth roughly, he pulled out a sheath-knife and +trimmed the branches till he had made him a kind of club, with which he +threatened me, saying, "If I catch that young man at any tricks, with +this club will Jan Lubber Fiend break every bone in his skin, like the +shells of so many broken eggs." + +Then laughing a little, and seeing that nothing could be made of the +fellow, the Lady Ysolinde rode on and we followed her. We thought that +surely there would be no difficulty in shaking him off long ere we +reached our lodging-place of the evening, and that he would find his way +back to the city of Thorn. + +But even though we set our horses to their speed, it seemed to make no +difference to the unwieldy giant. He merely stretched his legs a little +farther, and caused his great gaskined feet to pass each other as fast as +if they had been shod with seven-league boots. So he not only kept up +with us easily, but oftentimes made a détour through the fields and over +the wild country on either side, as a questing dog does, ever returning +to us with some quaint vagrant fancy or quip of childish simplicity. + +But what pleased me better than the appearance of the Lubber Fiend was +that ere we had gone quite two miles out of the city we found two +well-armed and stanch-looking soldiers waiting for us at a kind of +cross-road. They were armed with the curious powder-guns which were +coming into fashion from France. These went off with a noble report, and +killed sometimes at as much as fifteen or twenty paces when the aim was +good. The fellows had swords also, and little polished shields on their +left arms--altogether worthy and notable body-guards. + +"These two are soldiers of the Guard from Plassenburg," said the Lady +Ysolinde, "though now they are travelling as members of a Free Company +desiring to enter upon new engagements. But they will make the way easier +and pleasanter for us, as well as infinitely safer, being veterans well +accustomed to the work of quartering and foraging." + +As indeed we were to find ere the day ended. + +So we rode on in the brilliant light, and the long, long day seemed all +too brief to us who were young, and scarce delivered from the +prison-house of Thorn. And to my shame I admit that my heart rose with +every mile that I put between me and the Red Tower. + +Indeed, I hardly had a thought to spend on my father. The hot quadrangle +of the Wolfsberg, ever smelling of horses and the swelter of shed blood, +the howling, fox-colored demons in the kennels, the black Duke Casimir +--right gladly I forgot them all. Aye, I forgot even my father, and +everything save that I was riding with two fair women through a world +where all was love and spring, and where it was ever the prime of a +young morning. + +The Lady Ysolinde could not make enough of our Little Playmate. She +laughed back at her over her shoulder when she let her horse out for a +canter. She marvelled loudly at Helene's good riding, and at the +unbound beauty of the crisp ringlets which clustered round her head +like a boy's. And our Helene smiled, well pleased, and ceased to watch +my eyes or to grow silent if I checked my horse too long by the side of +the Lady Ysolinde. + +Mostly we three rode abreast over the pleasant country. So long as we +were crossing the plain of the Wolfmark we saw few tilled fields, and +the farm-houses were fewer still. But wherever these were to be seen +they were fortified and defended like castles, and had gates, great and +high, with iron plates upon them and knobs like the points of spears +beaten blunt. + +The Lady Ysolinde, who had often ridden that way, told us that these were +all in the Duke Casimir's country, and were mostly possessed by the kin +of his chief captains--feudal tenants, who for the right of possession +were compelled to furnish so many riders to the Duke's Companies. + +"But wait," she said, "till you come to the dominions of the Prince of +Plassenburg. You will find that he is indeed a ruler that can make the +broom-bush keep the cow." + +So we rode on, and passed pleasant and exciting things, more than I had +ever seen in all my life before. + +Once we saw half a dozen men driving cattle across our path, and it was +curious to mark how readily they drew their swords and couched their +lances at us, turning themselves about this way and that like a quintain +till we were quite gone by, which made us laugh. For it seemed a strange +thing that men so well armed should fear a company of no more than their +own numbers, and two of them maids upon palfreys. + +But Ysolinde said: "It is not, after all, so strange, for over yonder +blue hills dwells Joan of the Swordhand, who can lead a foray as well as +any man, and once worsted Duke Casimir himself when he beset her castle." + +So the day went past swiftly, with good company and the converse of folk +well liking one another. And ever I wondered how we were to spend the +night, and what sort of cheer we should find at our inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +WENDISH WIT + + +The gray plain of the Wolfmark, which we had been traversing ever since +we descended out of the steep Weiss Thor of the city of Thorn, had now +begun to break into ridges and mounded hills of stiff red clay. And I, +who had often kept my watch on the highest pinnacle of the Red Tower, +looked with astonishment back upon the city I had left behind. Seen from +the plain, Thorn had an aspect almost imperial. + +It rose above the colorless flat of gray suddenly, unexpectedly, almost +insolently. The city, with its numberless gables, spires of churches, +turreted gate-houses, occupied a ridge of gradually swelling ground which +rose like a huge whale-back from the misty plain. Its walls were grim, +high, and far-stretching. But as we travelled farther into the Wolfmark +the city seemed to sink deeper into the plain and the dark castle of Duke +Casimir to shoot ever higher into the skies. So that presently, as we +looked back, we could only see the Wolfsberg itself, the abode of cruelty +and wrong, standing black against the white sky of noon. + +Its flanking towers stood up above the battlemented wall, their turrets +climbing higher and higher towards heaven, till the topmost Red +Tower--that in which my father's garrot was, and in which I had spent my +entire life until this day--soared straight upward above them all, like a +threatening index-finger pointing, not into the clear sky of a summer's +noon, but into clouds and thick darkness. + +I was glad when at last we lost sight of it. Then, indeed, I felt that I +had left my old life behind me. And, in spite of the Lady Ysolinde's +ink-pool prophecy and my love for my father (such as it was), I did not +mean ever to trust myself within that baleful circle of gray and weary +plain upon which the Red Tower looked down. + +Seeing that the maids were inclined to talk the one with the other, or +rather that the Lady Ysolinde spoke confidentially with Helene, and that +Helene now answered her without embarrassment and with frank, equal +glances, I dropped gradually behind and rode with the two stout +men-at-arms. These I found to be honest lads enough, but of a strangely +reserved and taciturn nature, each ever waiting for the other to +answer--being, like most Wendish men, much averse to questioning and +still more stiff as to replying. + +"You are men of Plassenburg?" I said to the nearest, simply and +innocently enough, for the purpose of improving the cordiality of our +relations. + +Whereupon he turned his head slowly about to his neighbor, as it were to +consult him. The glance said as clearly as monk's script: "What shall we +answer to this troublesome, inquisitive fellow?" + +At first I thought that perhaps they spoke not the common dialect, and +that as we were travelling towards regions roughly Wendish and but lately +heathen, they might have some uncouth speech of their own. So, as is ever +the custom with folk that are not accustomed to the speaking of foreign +tongues, I repeated the question in mine own language in a louder tone, +supposing that that would do as well. + +"You are men of the country of Plassenburg?" cried I, as loud as I +could bawl. + +"We are not deaf--we have all our faculties, praise the saints!" said the +more distant of the two, looking not at me but at his companion. He, on +his part, nodded back at his comrade's reply, as if it had been +delicately calculated at once to answer my question and at the same time +not to commit them to any dangerous opinions. + +I tried again. + +"Your prince, I hear, is a true man, brave, and well-versed in war?" + +The shorter and stouter man, who rode beside me, glanced once at my face, +and slowly screwed round his head to his companion in a long, questioning +gaze. Then as slowly he turned his head back again. + +"Umph!" he said, judicially, with a movement of his head, which seemed a +successful compromise between a nod and a shake, just as his remark +might very well have resulted from an attempt to say "Yes" and "No" at +the same time. + +This was not encouraging to one who, like myself, was in high spirits and +much inclined for conversation. But I was not to be so easily beaten off. + +"The Prince of Plassenburg has a Princess," I said, "who is often upon +her travels?" + +It was an innocent remark, and, so far as I could see, not one in itself +highly humorous. But it broke up the gravity of these red-haired northern +bears as if it had been the latest gay sally of the court-fool. + +"Ha! ha!" laughed the more distant, lanky man, rocking himself in his +saddle till the pennon on his lance shook and the point dipped towards +his horse's ear. + +"Ho! ho!" chorused his companion, slapping his thigh jovially. "Jorian, +did you hear that? 'The Prince of Plassenburg hath a Princess, and she is +often upon her travels.' Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho!" + +"He hath said it! Ho! ho! He hath said it! He is a wise fellow, after +all, this beardless Jack-pudding of Thorn!" cried the other, tee-heeing +with laughter till he nearly wept upon his own saddle-bow. + +I began to get very angry. For we men of Thorn were not accustomed to be +so flouted by any strangers, keeping mostly our own customs, and reining +in the few strangers who ventured to visit Duke Casimir's dominions +pretty tightly. Least of all could I brook insolence from these Wendish +boors from the outskirts of half-pagan Borrussia. + +"The Prince of Plassenburg hath churls among his retinue," said I, hotly, +"if they be all like you two Jacks, that cannot answer a simple question +without singing out like donkeys upon a common where there are no +thistles to keep them quiet." + +Sir Thicksides, the fat jolter-head nearest me set his thumb out to +stick it into the side armor of Longlegs, his companion, who rode cheek +by jowl with him. + +"Oo-oo-ahoo!" cried he, crowing with mirth, as if I had said a yet more +facetious thing. "'Tis a simple question--'Hath the Prince of Plassenburg +a Princess, and is she not oft--ahoo!' Boris, prod me with thy +lance-shaft hard, to keep me from doing myself an ill turn with this +fellow's innocence." + +"Hold up, Jorian !" answered the long man, promptly pounding him on the +back with the butt of his spear. "Hold up, fat Jorian! Let not thy love +of mirth do thee any injury. For thou art a good comrade, and fools were +ever apt to divert thee too much. I have seen thee at this before--that +time we went to Wilna, and the fellow in motley gave thee griping spasms +with his tomfoolery." + +Then was I mainly angry, as indeed I had sufficient occasion. + +"You are but churls," I said, "and the next thing to knaves. And I will +e'en inform the Prince when we arrive what like are the men whom he sets +to escort ladies to his castle." + +But though they were silenter after this, it was not from any alarm at my +words, but simply because they had laughed themselves out of ply. For as +I rode on in high dudgeon, half-way between the women and the +men-at-arms, I could see them with the corner of an eye still nudging +each other with their thumbs and throwing back their heads, and the +breeze blew me scraps of their limited conversation. + +"Ho! ho! Good, was it not? 'The Prince hath a Princess, and she--' Ho! +ho! Good!" + +The ridges of clay of which I have already spoken continued and increased +in size as we went on. It was a dried-up, speckled, unwholesome-looking +land. And people upon it there were none that we could see. The large +fortified farms had ceased altogether. A certain frightful monotony +reigned everywhere. Ravines, like cracks which the sun makes in mud, but +a thousand times greater, began to split the hills perpendicularly to +their very roots. The path wound perilously this way and that among them. +And presently Jorian and Boris rode past me to take the lead, for +Ysolinde and Helene were inclined to mistake the way as often as they +came to the crossing and interweaving of the intricate paths. + +And as these two jolly jackasses rode past at my right side I could see +the thumb of long Boris curving towards the ribs of his companion, and +the shoulders of both shaking as they chuckled. + +"A rare simpleton's question, i' faith, yes. Ho! ho! Good!" they +chorussed. "'The Prince hath a Princess'--the cock hath a hen, and she-- +Ha! ha! Good!" + +At that moment I could with pleasure have slain Jorian and Boris for +open-mouthed, unshaven, slab-sided Wendish pigs, as indeed they were. + +Yet, had I done so, we had fared but ill without them. For had they been +a thousand times jackasses and rotten pudding-heads (as they were), at +least they knew the way and something of the unchristian people among +whom we were going. + +And so in a little while, as we wound our way along the face of these +perilons rifts in the baked clay, with the mottled, inefficient river +feeling its way gingerly at the bottom of the buff--colored ravine, what +was my astonishment to see Jorian and Boris turn sharply at right angles +and ride single file up one of the dry lateral cracks which opened, as it +were, directly into the hill-side! + +They did this without ever looking at the landmarks, like men who are +anyways uncertain of their road. But, on the contrary, they wheeled +confidently and rode jauntily on, and we three meekly followed, having +by this time lost the Lubber Fiend, the devil doubtless knew where. +For we must have followed Boris and Jorian unquestioningly had they +led us into the bowels of the earth, as indeed, at first sight, they +seemed to be doing. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND + + +Then presently we came to a strange place, the like of which I have never +seen, save here on the borders of the Mark and the northern Wendish +lands. An amalgam of lime, or binding stuff of some sort, had glued the +clay of the ravines together, and set it stiff and fast like dried +plaster. So, as we went up the narrow, perilous path, our horses had to +tread very warily lest, going too near the edge, they should chip off +enough of the foothold to send themselves and their riders whirling +neck-over-toes to the bottom. + +All at once the Little Playmate, who was riding immediately before me, +screamed out sharp and shrill, and I hastened up to her, thinking she had +fallen upon a misfortune. I found her palfrey with ears pricked and +distended nostril, gazing at a head in a red nightcap which was set out +of a hole in the red clay. + +"The country of gnomes! Of a surety, yes! And hitherto I had thought it +had been but the nonsense of folk-tales!" said I to myself. + +Which is what we shall say one day of more things than +red-nightcapped heads. + +But the Little Playmate uttered scream after scream, for the head +continued coolly to stare at her, as if fixed alive over the gateway by +the craft of some cave-dwelling imp of the Red Axe. + +I noticed, however, that the head chewed a straw and spat, which I +deemed a gnome would not do--though wherefore straws and spitting are +not free to gnomes I do not know and could not have told. Yet, at all +events, such was my belief. And a serviceable one enough it was, since +it took the fear out of me and gave me back my speech. And when a man +can speak he can fight. Contrariwise, it is when a woman will not fight +that she can talk best, as one may see in any congress of two angry +vixens. So long as they rail there is but threatening and safe +recriminations, but when one waxes silent, then 'ware nails and teeth! +And I am _not_ in my dotage to use such illustrations--as not +unnaturally sayeth the first to read my history. + +"Good man," cried I, to Sir Red Cap in the wall, "I know not why you +stick your ugly head out of the mud, but retract it, I pray you! For do +you not see that it alarms the lady and affrights her beast?" + +The man nodded intelligently, but went on coolly chewing his straw. + +Then I went up to him, and, as civilly as I could, took him by the chin +and thrust his head back into the hole. And as I did so I saw for the +first time that the wall of the clay cliff, tough and gritty with its +alloy of lime, had been cut and hewn into houses and huts having doors of +wood of exactly the same color, and in some cases even windows with +bars--very marvellous to see, and such as I have never witnessed +elsewhere. Presently, at the trampling of the feet of so many horses, +people began to throng to their doors, and children peered out at windows +and cried to each other shrilly: "See the Christians!" + +For so, being but lately pagans themselves, if not partly so to this +day, these outlandish men of the border No Man's Land denominated us of +the south. + +Presently we came to an open space sloping away from the sheer cliff, +where was a wall and a door greater than the others. + +Jorian rode directly up to the gate, which was of the same dull +brick-red as the rest of the curious town. He took the butt of his lance +and thumped and banged lustily upon it. For a time there was no reply, +but the number of heads thrust out at neighboring windows and the swarms +of townsfolk on the pathways before and behind us enormously increased. + +Jorian thundered again, kicking with his foot and swearing explosively in +mingled Wendish and German. Then he took the point of his spear, and, +setting it to a hole in the wall above his head, he hooked out an entire +wooden window-frame, as one is taught to pull out a shrimp with a pin on +the shore of the Baltic Sea. + +Whereupon a sudden outcry arose within the house, and a head popped +angrily out of the aperture so suddenly created. But as instantly it +returned within. For Jorian tossed the lattice to the ground by the door +and thrust his spear-head into the cravat of red which the man had about +his throat, shouting to him all the while in the name of the Prince, of +the Duke, of the Emperor, of the Archbishop, of all potentates, lay and +secular, to come down and open the gates. The man in the red cravat was +threatened with the strappado, with the water-torture, with the +brodequins, and finally with the devil's cannon--which, according to our +man-at-arms, was to be planted on the opposite bank of the ravine, and +which would infallibly bring the whole of their wretched town tumbling +down into the gulf like swallows' nests from under the eaves. + +And this last threat seemed to have more weight than all the rest, +probably because the Prince of Plassenburg had already done something of +the kind to some other similar town, and the earth-burrowers of Erdborg +had good reason to fear the thunder of his artillery. + +At all events, the great door opened, and a man of the same brick-red as +all the other inhabitants of the town appeared at the portal. He bowed +profoundly, and Jorian addressed him in some outlandishly compounded +speech, of which I could only understand certain oft-recurring words, as +"lodging," "victualling," and "order of the Prince." + +So, presently, after a long, and on the side of our escort a stormy, +conference, we were permitted to enter. Our horses were secured at the +great mangers, which extended all along one side; while, opposite to the +horses, but similar to their accommodation in every respect, were stalls +wherein various families seemed to be encamped for the night. + +With all the air of a special favor conferred, we were informed that we +must take up our quarters in the middle of the room and make the best of +the hardened floor there. This information, conveyed with a polite wave +of the hand and a shrug of the shoulders by our landlord, seemed not +unnaturally to put Jorian and Boris into a furious passion, for they drew +their swords, and with a unanimous sweep of the hand cleared the capes of +their leathern jacks for fighting. So, not to be outdone, I drew my +weapon also, and stood by to protect Helene and the Lady Ysolinde. + +These two stood close together behind us, but continued to talk +indifferently, chiefly of dress and jewels--which surprised me, both in +the strange circumstances, and because I knew that Helene had seen no +more of them than the valueless trinkets that had belonged to my mother, +and which abode in a green-lined box in the Red Tower. Yet to speak of +such things seems to come naturally to all women. + +As if they had mutually arranged it "from all eternity," as the clerks +say, Jorian and Boris took, without hesitation, each a door on the +opposite wall, and, setting their shoulders to them, they pushed them +open, and went within sword in hand, leaving me alone to protect the +ladies and to provide for the safety of the horses. + +Presently out from the doors by which our conductors had entered there +came tumbling a crowd of men and women, some carrying straw bolsters and +wisps of hay, others bearing cooking utensils, and all in various +_dishabille._ Then ensued a great buzzing and stirring, much angry +growling on the part of the disturbed men, and shrill calling of women +for their errant children. + +Our little Helene looked sufficiently pitiful and disturbed as these +preparations were being made. But the Lady Ysolinde scarcely noticed +them, taking apparently all the riot and delay as so much testimony to +the important quality of such great ones of the earth as could afford to +travel under the escort of two valiant men-at-arms. + +Presently came Jorian and Boris out at a third door, having met somewhere +in the back parts of the warren. + +They came up to the Lady Ysolinde and bowed humbly. + +"Will your ladyship deign to choose her chamber? They are all empty. +Thereafter we shall see that proper furniture, such as the place affords, +is provided for your Highness." + +I could not but wonder at so much dignity expended upon the daughter of +Master Gerard, the lawyer of Thorn. But Ysolinde took their reverence as +a matter of course. She did not even speak, but only lifted her right +hand with a little casual flirt of the fingers, which said, "Lead on!" + +Then Jorian marshalled us within, Boris standing at the door to let us +pass, and bringing his sword-blade with a little click of salute to the +perpendicular as each of us passed. But I chanced to meet his eye as I +went within, whereat the rogue deliberately winked, and I could plainly +see his shoulders heave. I knew that he was still chewing the cud of his +stale and ancient jest: "The Prince hath a Princess, and she--" + +I could have disembowelled the villain. But, after all, he was +certainly doing us some service, though in a most provocative and +high-handed manner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +I STAND SENTRY + + +There are (say some) but two things worth the trouble of making in the +world--war and love. So once upon a time I believed. But since--being +laid up during the unkindly monotony of our Baltic spring by an ancient +wound--I fell to the writing of this history, I would add to these two +worthy adventures--the making of books. Which, till I tried my hand at +the task myself, I would in no wise have allowed. But now, when the days +are easterly of wind and the lashing water beats on the leaded lozenges +of our window lattice, I am fain to stretch myself, take up a new pen, +and be at it again all day. + +But I must e'en think of them that are to read me, and of their pain if I +overstretch my privilege. Besides, if I prove over-long in the wind they +may not read me at all, which, I own it, would somewhat mar my purpose. + +I was speaking, therefore, of being in the watch and ward of two women, +each of whom (in my self-conceit I thus imagined it) certainly regarded +me without dislike. God forgive me for thinking so much when they had +never plainly told me! Nevertheless I took the thing for granted, as it +were. And, as I said before, it has been my experience that, if it be +done with a careful and delicate hand, more is gained with women by +taking things for granted than by the smoothest tongue and longest +Jacob-and-Rachael service. The man who succeeds with good women is the +man who takes things for granted. Only he must know exactly what things, +otherwise I am mortally sorry for him--he will have a rough road to +travel. But to my tale. + +Jorian ushered Ysolinde and Helene into the rooms from which he had so +unceremoniously ousted the former tenants. How these chambers were +lighted in the daytime I could not at first make out, but by going to the +end of the long earth-hewn passage and leaning out of a window the +mystery was made plain. The ravine took an abrupt turn at this point, so +that we were in a house built round an angle, and so had the benefit of +light from both sides. + +"And where are our rooms to be?" I asked of the stout soldier when +he returned. + +Jorian pointed to the plain, hard earth of the passage. + +"That is poor lodging for tired bones!" I said; "have they no other rooms +to let anywhere in this hostelry?" + +He laughed again; indeed, he seemed to be able to do little else whenever +he spoke to me. + +"Tired bones will lie the stiller!" said he, at last, sententiously. +"There is some wheaten straw out there which you can bring in for a +bolster, if you will. But I think it likely that we shall get no more +sleep than the mouse in the cat's dining-room this night. These border +rascals are apt to be restless in the dark hours, and their knives prick +most consumedly sharp!" + +With that he went out, leaving the doors into the passages all open, and +presently I could hear him raging and rummaging athwart the house, +ordering this one to find him "Graubunden fleisch," the next to get him +some good bread, and not to attempt to palm off "cow-cake" upon honest +soldiers on pain of getting his stomach cut open--together with other +amenities which occur easily to a seasoned man-at-arms foraging in an +unfriendly country. + +Then, having returned successful from this quest, what was my admiration +to see Jorian (whom I had so lately called, and I began to be sorry for +it, a Wendish pig) strip his fine soldier's coat and hang it upon a peg +by the door, roll up his sleeves, and set to at the cooking in the great +open fireplace with swinging black crooks against the front wall, while +Boris stood on guard with a long pistolet ready in the hollow of his arm, +and his slow-match alight, by the doorway of the ladies' apartment. + +I went and stood by the long man for company. And after a little he +became much more friendly. + +"Why do you stand with your match alight?" I asked of him after we had +been a while silent. + +"Why, to keep a border knife out of Jorian's back, of course, while he is +turning the fry in the pan," said he, as simply as if he had said that +'twas a fine night without, or that the moon was full. + +"I wish I could help," I sighed, a little wistfully, for I wished him to +think well of me. + +"What!" he exclaimed--"with the frying-pan? Well, there is the basting +ladle!" he retorted, and laughed in his old manner. + +I own that, being yet little more than a lad, the tears stood in my eyes +to be so flouted and made nothing of. + +"I will show you perhaps sooner than you think that I am neither a coward +nor a babe!" I said, in high dudgeon. + +And so went and stood by myself over against the farther door of the +three, which led from the outer hall to the apartments in which I could +hear the murmur of women's voices. And it was lucky that I did so. For +even as I reached the door a sharp cry of terror came from within, and +there at the inner portal I caught sight of a narrow, foxy, peering +visage, and a lean, writhing figure, prone like a worm on its belly. The +rascal had been crawling towards Helene's room, for what purpose I know +not. Nor did I stop to inquire, for, being stung by the taunt of the +man-at-arms, I was on Foxface in a moment, stamping upon him with my +iron-shod feet, and then lifting him unceremoniously up by the slackness +of his back covertures, I turned him over and over like a wheel, tumbling +him out of the doorway into the outer hall with an astonishing clatter, +shedding knives and daggers as he went. + +It was certainly a pity for the fellow that Boris had taunted me so +lately. But the abusing of him gave me great comfort. And as he whirled +past the group at the fire, Jorian caught him handily in the round of his +back with a convenient spit, also without asking any questions, whereat +the fellow went out at the wide front door by which we had first entered, +revolving in a cloud of dust. And where he went after that I have no +idea. To the devil, for all I care! + +But Boris, standing quietly by his own door, was evidently somewhat +impressed by my good luck. For soon after this he came over to me. I +thought he might be about to apologize for his rudeness. And so perhaps +he did, but it was in his own way. + +"Did you spoil your dagger on him?" he said, anxiously, for the first +time speaking to me as a man speaks to his equal. + +"No," said I, "but I stubbed my toe most confoundedly, jarring it upon +the rascal's backbone as he went through the door." + +"Ah!" he replied, thoughtfully, nodding his head, "that was more fitting +for such as he. But you may get a chance at him with the dagger yet or +the night be over." + +And with that he went back to his door, blowing up his slow-match +as he went. + +Presently the supper was pronounced cooked, and, after washing his hands, +Jorian resumed his coat, amid the universal attention of the motley crew +in the great hall, and began to dish up the fragrant stew. Ho had been +collecting for it all day upon the march, now knocking over a rabbit with +a bolt from his gun, now picking some leaves of lettuce and watercress +when he chanced upon a running stream or a neglected garden--of which +last (thanks to Duke Casimir and his raiders) there were numbers along +the route we had traversed. + +Then, when he had made all ready, our sturdy cook dished the stew into a +great wooden platter--rabbits, partridges, scraps of dried flesh, bits of +bacon for flavoring, fresh eggs, vegetables in handfuls, all covered with +a dainty-smelling sauce, deftly compounded of milk, gravy, and red wine. + +Then Jorian and Boris, one taking the heap of wooden platters and the +other the smoking bowl of stew, marched solemnly within. But before he +went, Boris handed me his pistolet without a word, and the slow-match +with it. Which, as I admit, made me feel monstrously unsafe. However, I +took the engine across my arm and stood at attention as I had seen him +do, with the match thrust through my waistband. + +Then I felt as if I had suddenly grown at least a foot taller, and my joy +was changed to ecstasy when the Lady Ysolinde, coming out quickly, I knew +not at first for what purpose, found me thus standing sentinel and +blowing importantly upon my slow-match. + +"Hugo," she said, kindly, looking at me with the aqua-marine eyes that +had the opal glints in them, "come thy ways in and sit with us." + +I made her a salute with my piece and thanked her for her good thought. + +"But," said I, "Lady Ysolinde, pray remember that this is a place of +danger, and that it is more fitting that we who have the honor to be your +guards should dine together without your chamber doors." + +"Nay," she said, impetuously, "I insist. It is not right that you, who +are to be an officer, should mess with the common soldiers." + +"My lady," said I, "I thank you deeply. And it shall be so, I promise +you, when we are in safety. But let me have my way here and now." + +She smiled upon me--liking me, as I think, none the worse for my +stiffness. And so went away, and I was right glad to see her go. For I +would not have lost what I had gained in the good opinion of these two +men-at-arms--no, not for twenty maidens' favors. + +But in that respect also I changed as the years went on. For of all +things a boy loves not to be flouted and babyfied when he thinks himself +already grown up and the equal of his elders in love and war. + +So in a little while came out Jorian and Boris, and, having carried in +the bread and wine, we three sat down to the remains of the stew. +Indeed, I saw but little difference as to quantity from the time that +Jorian had taken it in. For maids' appetites when they are anyways in +love are precarious, but, after they are assured of their love's return, +then the back hunger comes upon them and the larder is made to pay for +all arrears. + +Not that I mean to assert that either of these ladies was in love +with me--far otherwise indeed. For this it would argue the conceit +of a jack-a-dandy to imagine, much more to write such a thing. +But, nevertheless, certain is it that this night they were both of +small appetite. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HELENE HATES ME + + +However, when the provision came to the outer port, we three sat down +about it, and then, by my troth, there was little to marvel at in the +tardiness of our eating. For the rabbits seemed to come alive and +positively leaped down our throats, the partridges almost flew at us out +of the pot, the pigeons fairly rejoiced to be eaten. The broth and the +gravy ebbed lower and lower in the pan and left all dry. But as soon as +we had picked the bones roughly, for there was no time for fine work lest +the others should get all the best, we threw the bones out to the hungry +crew that watched us sitting round the stalls, their very jowls pendulous +with envy. + +So after a while we came to the end, and then I went to the entrance of +the chamber where were bestowed the Little Playmate and the Lady +Ysolinde. For I began to be anxious how Helene would be able to comport +herself in the company of one so dainty and full of devices and +convenances as the lady of the Weiss Thor. + +But, by my faith, I need not have troubled about our little lass. For if +there were any embarrassed, that one was certainly not Helene. And if any +of us lacked reposefulness of manners, that one was certainly a staring +jackanapes, who did not know which foot to stand upon, nor yet how to sit +down on the oaken settle when a seat was offered him, nor, last of all, +when nor how to take his departure when he had once sat down. And as to +the identity of that jackass, there needs no further particularity. + +Nevertheless, I talked pleasantly enough with both of them, and I might +have been an acquaintance of the day for all the notice that the Little +Playmate took of me, oven when the Lady Ysolinde told her, evidently not +for the first time, of my standing sentry by the door and blowing upon +the match at my girdle. + +From without we heard presently the clapping of hands and loud deray of +merrymaking, so I went to find out what it might be that was causing such +an uproar. + +There I found Jorian and Boris giving a kind of exhibition of their skill +in military exercises. It might be, also, that they desired to teach a +lesson for the benefit of the wild robber border folk and the yet more +ruffianly kempers who foregathered in this strange inn of Erdberg on the +borders of the Mark. + +I summoned the maids that they might look on. For I wot the scene was a +curious and pleasing one, and I could see that the eyes of the Lady +Ysolinde glittered. But our little maid, being used to all these things +from her youth, cared nothing for it, though the thing was indeed +marvellous in itself. + +When I went out our two men-at-arms had each of them in hand his straight +Wendish Tolleknife, made heavy at the end of the Swedish blade, but light +as to the handle, and hafted with cork from Spain. + +Ten yards apart, shoulder to shoulder they stood, and, first of all, each +of them poising the knife in the hollow of his hand with a peculiar +dancing movement, set it writhing across the room at a marked circle on a +board. The two knives sped simultaneously with a vicious whir, and stood +quivering, with their blades touching each other, in the centre of the +white. At the next trial, so exactly had they been aimed that the point +of the one hit upon the haft of the other and stripped the cork almost +to the blade. But Jorian, to whom the knife belonged, mended it with a +piece of string, telling the company philosophically that it was no bad +thing to have a string hanging loose to a Tolleknife, for when it went +into any one the string would always hang down from the wound in order to +pull it out by. + +Then they got their knives again and played a more dangerous game. Jorian +stood on guard with his knife, waving the blade slowly before him in the +shape of a long-bodied letter S. Boris poised his weapon in the hollow of +his hand, and sent it whirring straight at Jorian's heart. As it came +buzzing like an angry bee, almost too quick for the eye to follow, Jorian +flicked it deftly up into the air at exactly the right moment, and, +without even taking his eye off it, he caught the knife by the handle as +it fell. Thereafter he bowed and gave it back to the thrower +ceremoniously. Then Boris guarded, and Jorian in his turn threw, with a +like result, though, perhaps, a little less featly done on Boris's part. + +All the while there was a clamant and manifold astonishment in the +kitchen of the inn, together with prodigal and much-whispering wonder. + +Then ensued other plays. Boris stood with his elbow crooked and his left +hand on his hip, with his back also turned to Jorian. _Buzz!_ went the +knife! It flashed like level lightning under the arch of Jorian's armpit, +and lo! it was caught in his right hand, which dropped upon it like a +hawk upon a rabbit, as it sped through his elbow port. + +Then came shooting with the cross-bow, and I regretted much that I had +only learned the six-foot yew, and that there was not one in the company, +nor indeed room to display it if there had been. For I longed to do +something to show that I also was no milksop. + +Now it chanced that there was in one corner a yearling calf that had +been killed that day, and hung up with a bar between its thighs. I saw an +axe leaning in the corner--an axe with a broad, cutting edge--and I +bethought me that perhaps, after all, I knew something which even Jorian +and Boris were ignorant of. So, mindful of my father's teaching, I took +the axe, and, before any one was aware of my intent, I swept the +long-handled axe round my head, and, getting the poise and distance for +the slow drawing cut which does not stop for bone nor muscle, I divided +the neck through at one blow so that the head dropped on the ground. + +Then there was much applause and wonder. Men ran to lift the calf's head, +and the owner of the axe came up to examine the edge of his weapon. I +looked about. The eyes of the Lady Ysolinde were aflame with pleasure, +but, on the other hand, the Little Playmate was crimson with shame. Tears +stood in her beautiful eyes. + +She marched straight up to meet me, and, clinching her hands, she said; +"Oh, I hate you !" + +And so went within to her chamber, and I saw her no more that night. Now +I take all to witness what strange things are the mind and temper of even +the best of women. And why Helene thus spoke to me I know not--nay, even +to this day I can hazard no right guess. But as I have often said, God +never made anything straight that He made beautiful, except only the line +where the sea meets the sky. + +And of all the pretty, crooked, tangled things that He has made, women +are the prettiest, the crookedest--and the most distractingly tangled. + +Which is perhaps why they are so everlastingly interesting, and why we +blundering, ram-stam, homely favored men love them so. + +But the best entertainment must at long and last come to an end. And the +one in the inn of Erdberg lasted not so long as the telling of it--for +the matter, being more comfortable than that which came after, I have, +perhaps, not hurried so much as I might. + +When at last both supper and entertainment were finished, and the +earthenware platters huddled away into the hall without, there arose a +mighty clamor, so that Jorian went to the door and cried out to the +landlord to know what was the matter. The old brick-dusty knave came +hulking forward, and, with greatly increased respect, he addressed the +men-at-arms. + +"What is your will, noble sirs?" + +"I asked," said Jorian, "what was the reason of this so ill-favored +noise. If your guests cannot be quiet, I will come among them with +something that will settle the quarrels of certain of them in +perpetuity." + +So with sulky recurrent murmurs the fray finally settled itself, and for +that time at least there was no more trouble. I went to the door of the +Lady Ysolinde and the Little Playmate and cried in to them a courteous +good-night. For I had been sorry to have Helene's "I hate you!" for her +last word. And the Lady Ysolinde came to the door in a light robe of silk +and gave me her hand to kiss. But though I said: "A sweet sleep and a +pleasant, Helene!" no voice replied. Which I took very ill, seeing that I +had done naught amiss that I knew of. + +Then Jorian, Boris, and I made us comfortable for the night, and, being +instructed by Boris, I set my straw, with the foot of my bundle to the +door, which opened inward upon us. Then, putting my sword by my side and +my other weapons convenient to my hand, I laid me down and braced my feet +firmly against the door, thus locking it safely. + +Jorian and Boris did the same at the other entrances, and before the +former went to sleep he arranged a tall candle that had been placed +unlighted before a little shrine of the Virgin (for, in name at least, +the folk were not wholly pagan) and lighted it, so that it shed a faint +illumination down the long passage in which we were bestowed, and on the +inner door of the ladies' apartment. + +And though I was far from being in love, yet the thought of the wandering +damsels, both so fair and so far from home, moved me deeply. And I was in +act to waft a kiss towards the door when Jorian caught me. + +"What now?" he said; "art at thy prayers, lad ?" + +"Aye, that am I," said I, "towards the shrine of the Saints' Rest." + +Now this was irreverent, and mayhap afterwards we were all soundly +punished for it. But at least it was on the level of their soldiers' +wit--though I own, at the most, no great matter to cackle of. + +"Ho! ho! Good!" chuckled Boris, under his breath. "One of them is +doubtless a saint. But as to the other--well, let us ask the Prince. 'He +hath a Princess, and she is oft upon her travels?' Ho! ho! ho!" + +And the lout shook among his straw to such an extent that I bade him for +God's dear sake to bide still, otherwise we might as lief lie in a barn +among questing rattons. + +"And the saints of your Saints' Rest defend us from lying among any +worse!" said he, and betook him to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +HUGO OF THE BROADAXE + + +But as for me, sleep I could not. And indeed that is small wonder. For it +was the first night I had ever slept out of the Red Tower in my life. I +seemed to lack some necessary accompaniment to the act of going to sleep. + +It was a long while before I could find out what it could be that was +disturbing me. At last I discovered that it was the howling of the +kennelled blood-hounds which I missed. For at night they even raged, and +leaped on the barriers with their forefeet, hearing mayhap the moving to +and fro of men come sleeplessly up from the streets of the city beneath. + +But here, within a long day's march of Thorn, I had come at once into a +new world. Slowly the night dragged on. The candle guttered. A draught of +air blew fitfully through the corridor in which we lay. It carried the +flame of the candle in the opposite direction. I wondered whence it could +come, for the air had been still and thick before. Yet I was glad of the +stir, for it cooled my temples, and I think that but for one thing I +might have slept. And had I fallen on sleep then no one of us might have +waked so easily. What I heard was no more than this--once or twice the +flame of the candle gave a smart little "spit," as if a moth or a fat +blue-bottle had forwandered into it and fallen spinning to the ground +with burned wings. Yet there were no moths in the chambers, or we should +have seen them circling about the lights at the time of supper. +Nevertheless, ere long I heard again the quick, light "_plap_!" And +presently I saw a pellet fall to the ground, rolling away from the wall +almost to the edge of the straw on which I lay. + +I reached out a hand for it, and in a trice had it in my fingers. It was +soft, like mason's putty. "Plop!" came another. I was sure now. Some one +was shooting at the flame of the candle with intent to leave us in the +dark. Jorian and Boris snored loudly, sleeping like true men-at-arms. I +need say no more. + +I lay with my head in the shadow, but by moving little by little, with +sleepy grunts of dissatisfaction, I brought my face far enough round to +see through the straw the window at the far end of the passage, which, as +I had discovered upon our first coming, opened out upon a ravine running +at right angles to the street by which we had come. + +Presently I could see the lattice move noiselessly, and a white face +appeared with a boy's blow-gun of pierced bore-tree at its lips. + +"Alas!" said I to myself, "that I had had these soldiers' skill of the +knife throwing. I would have marked that gentleman." But I had not even a +bow--only my sword and dagger. I resolved to begin to learn the practice +of pistol and cross-bow on the morrow. + +"_Plap! Scat!_" The aim was good this time. We were in darkness. I +listened the barest fragment of a moment. Some one was stealthily +entering at the window end. + +"Rise, Jorian and Boris!" I cried. "An enemy!" + +And leaping up I ran to relight the candle. By good luck the wick was a +sound, honest, thick one, a good housewife's wick--not such as are made +to sell and put in ordinary candles of offertory. + +The wick was still red, and smoked as I put my hands behind it and blew. +"_Twang! Twang! Zist! Zist!_" went the arrows and bolts thickly about me, +bringing down the clay dust in handfuls thickly from the walls. + +"Down on your stomachs--they are shooting crosswise along the passage !" +cried Jorian, who had instantly awakened. I longed to follow the advice, +for I felt something sharp catch the back of my undersuit of soft +leather, in which, for comfort, I had laid me down to sleep. But I _must_ +get the candle alight. Hurrah! the flame flickered and caught at last. +"_Twang! Twang!"_ went the bows, harder at it than ever. Something +hurtled hotly through my hair--the iron bolt of an arbalest, as I knew by +the song of the steel bow in a man's hand at the end of the passage. + +"Get into a doorway, man!" cried Boris, as the light revealed me. + +And like a startled rabbit I ran for the nearest--that within which +Helene and the Lady Ysolinde were lying asleep. The candle, as I have +said, was set deep in a niche, which proved a great mercy for us. For our +foes, who had thought to come on us by fraud, could not now shoot it out. +Also, in relighting it, in my eagerness to save myself from the hissing +arrows behind me, I had pushed it to the very back of the shrine. I had +no weapon now but my dagger, for, in rising to relight the candle, I had +carelessly and blamefully left my sword in the straw. And I felt very +useless and foolish as I stood there to bide the assault with only a bit +of guardless knife in my hand. + +Suddenly, however, there came a diversion. + +"Crash !" went a gun in my very ear. Flame, smoke--much of both--and the +stifling smell of sulphur. Jorian had fired at the face of the pop-gun +knave. That putty-white countenance had a crimson plash on it ere it +vanished. Then came back to us a scream of dreadful agony and the sound +of a heavy fall outside. + +"End of act the first! The Wicked Angels--hum, hum--go to hell! All in +the day's work!" cried Jorian, cheerily, recharging his pistolet and +driving home the wadding as he spoke. + +It may well be imagined that during our encounter with the assailants of +the candle, whose transverse fire had so nearly finished me, the company +out in the great kitchen had not been content to lie snoring on their +backs. We could hear them creeping and whispering out there beyond the +doors; but till after the shot from the soldier's pistolet they had not +dared to show us any overt act of hostility. + +Suddenly Jorian, once more facing the door, now that the passage was +clear, perceived by the rustling of the straw that it began to open +gradually. He waited till in another moment it would have been wide +enough to let in a man. + +"Back there, dog, or I fire!" he bellowed. And the door was +promptly shut to. + +After that there came another period of waiting very difficult to get +over. I wished with all my heart for a cross-bow or any shooting weapon. +Much did I reproach myself that I had not learned the art before, as I +might easily have done from the men-at-arms about the Wolfsberg, who, for +my father's sake (or Helene's), would gladly have taught me. + +The women folk in the room behind my back were now up and dressed. +Indeed, the Lady Ysolinde would have come out and watched with us, but I +besought her to abide where she was. Presently, however, Helene put her +head without, and seeing me stand by the door with my sword, she asked if +I wanted anything. She appeared to have forgotten her unkind good-night, +and I was not the man to remind her of it. + +"Only another weapon, Sweetheart, besides this prick-point small-sword!" +said I, looking at the thing in my hand I doubt not a trifle scornfully. + +Helene shut to the door, and for a space I heard no more. Presently, +however, she opened it again, and thrust an axe with a long handle +through to me. It was the very fellow of the weapon I had used on the +pendent calf in the kitchen. I understood at once that it was her apology +and her justification as well. For the Little Playmate was ever a +straight lass. She ever did so much more than she promised, and ever said +less than her heart meant. Which perhaps is less common than the other +way about--especially among women. + +"I found it on my incoming and hid it under the bed!" she said. + +Then judge ye if I sheathed not my small-sword right swiftly, and made +the broadaxe blade, to the skill of which I had been born, whistle +through the air. For a mightily strange thing it is that, though I had +ever a rooted horror at the thought of my father's office itself, and +from my childhood never for a moment intended to exercise it, +nevertheless I had always the most notable facility in cutting things. +Never to this day have I a stick in hand, when I walk abroad among the +ragweed waving yellow on the grassy pastures below the Wolfsberg, but I +must need make wagers with myself to cut to an inch at the heads of the +tallest and never miss. And this I can do the day by the length, and +never grow weary. Then again, for pleasaunce, my father used to put me +to the cutting of light wood with an axe, not always laying it upon a +block or hag-clog, but sometimes setting the billet upright and making +me cut the top off with a horizontal swing of the axe. And in this I +became exceedingly expert. And how difficult it is no one knows till he +has tried. + +So it is small wonder that as soon as I gripped the noble broadaxe which +Helene passed me I felt my own man again. + +Then we were silent and listened--and ever again listened and held our +breaths. Now I tell you when an enemy is whispering unseen without, +rustling like rats in straw, and you wonder at what point they will break +in next, thinking all the while of the woman you love (or do not yet +love, but may) in the chamber behind--I tell you a castle is something +less difficult to hold at such a time than just one's own breath. + +Suddenly I heard a sound in the outer chamber which I knew the meaning +of. It was the shifting of horses' feet as they turn in narrow space to +leave their stalls. Our good friends were making free with our steeds. +And, if we were not quick about it, we should soon see the last of them, +and be compelled to traverse the rest of the road to Plassenburg upon our +own proper feet. + +"Jorian," cried I, "do you hear? They are slipping our horses out of the +stalls! Shall you and I make a sortie against them, while Boris with that +pistol of his keeps the passage from the wicks of the middle door?" + +"Good!" answered Jorian. "Give the word when you are ready." + +With axe in my right hand, the handle of the door in my left, I gave +the signal. + +"When I say 'Three!' Jorian!" + +"Good!" said Jorian. + +Clatter went the horses' hoofs as they were being led towards the door. + +"One! Two! Three!" I counted, softly but clearly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SORTIE + + +The door was open, and the next I mind was my axe whirling about my head +and Jorian rushing out of the other door a step ahead of me, with his +broadsword in his hand. I cannot tell much about the fight. I never could +all my days. And I wot well that those who can relate such long +particulars of tales of fighting are the folk who stood at a distance and +labored manfully at the looking on--not of them that were close in and +felt the hot breaths and saw the death-gleam in fierce, desperate eyes, +near to their own as the eyes of lovers when they embrace. Ah, Brothers +of the Sword, these things cannot be told! Yet, of a surety, there is a +heady delight in the fray itself. And so I found. For I struck and warded +not, that being scarce necessary. Because an axe is an uncanny weapon to +wield, but still harder to stand against when well used. And I drove the +rabble before me--the men of them, I mean. I felt my terrible weapon +stopped now and then--now softly, now suddenly, according to that which I +struck against. And all the while the kitchen of the inn resounded with +yells and threatenings, with oaths and cursings. + +But Jorian and I drove them steadily back, though they came at us again +and again, with spits, iron hooks, and all manner of curious weapons. +Also from out of the corners we saw the gleaming, watchful eyes of a dark +huddle of women and children. Presently the clamorous rabble turned tail +suddenly and poured through the door out upon the pathway, quicker than +water through a tide-race in the fulness of the ebb. + +And lo! in a moment the room was sucked empty, save only for the huddled +women in the corners, who cried and suckled their children to keep them +still. And some of the wounded with the axe and the sword crawled to them +to have their ghastly wounds bound. For an axe makes ugly work at the +best of times, and still worse on the edges of such a pagan fight as we +three had just fought. + +So we went back victorious to our inner doors. + +Then Jorian looked at me and nodded across at Boris. + +"Good!" was all that he said. But the single word made me happier than +many encomiums. + +In spite of all, however, we were no nearer than before to getting away +that I could see. For there was still all that long, desperate traverse +of the defile before we could guide our horses to firm ground again. But +while I was thinking bitterly of my first night's sleep (save the mark!) +away from the Red Tower, I heard something I knew not the meaning of--the +beginning of a new attack, as I judged. + +It sounded like a scraping and a crumbling somewhere above. + +"God help us now, Jorian!" I cried, in a sudden, quick panic; "they are +coming upon us everyway. I can hear them stripping off the roof-tile +overhead--if such rabbit-warrens as this have Christian roofs!" + +Boris sat down calmly with his back against the earthen wall and +trained his pistol upward, ready to shoot whatever should appear. +Presently fragments of earth and hardened clay began to drop on the +pounded floor of the corridor. I heard the soft hiss of the man-at-arms +blowing up his match, and I waited for the crash and the little heap of +flame from the touch. + +Suddenly a foot, larger than that of mortal, plumped through our ceiling +of brick-dust and a huge scatterment of earth tumbled down. A great bare +leg, with attachment of tattered hose hanging here and there, followed. + +Before the pistol could go off, Boris meanwhile waiting shrewdly for the +appearance of a more vital part, a voice cried, "Stop!" + +I looked about me, and there was the Lady Ysolinde come out of her +chamber, with a dagger in her hand. She was looking upward at the hole in +the ceiling. + +"For God's sake, do not fire!" she cried; "tis only my poor Lubber Fiend. +Shame on me, that I had quite forgotten him all this time!" + +At which, without turning away the muzzle, Boris put it a little aside, +and waited for the disturber of brick-dust ceilings to reveal himself. +Which, when presently he did, a huge, grinning face appeared, pushing +forward at first slowly and with difficulty, then, as soon as the ears +had crossed the narrows of the pass, the whole head to the neck was +glaring down and grinning to us. + +"Lubber Jan," said Ysolinde, "what do you up there?" + +The head only grinned and waggled pleasantly, as it had been through a +horse-collar at Dantzig fair. + +"Speak!" said she, and stamped her little foot; "I will shake thee with +terrors else, monster!" + +"Poor Jan came down from above. It is quite easy!" he said. "But not for +horses. Oh no! but now I will go and bring the Burgomeister. Do you keep +the castle while I go. He bides below the town in a great house of stone, +and entertains our Prince Miller's Son's archers. I will bring all that +are sober of them." + +"God help us then!" quoth Jorian; "it is past eleven o' the clock, and +as I know them man by man, there will not be so much as one left able to +prop up another by this time!" + +"Aha!" cried the head above; "you say that because you know the archers. +But I say I shall bring full twenty of them--because I know the strength +of the Burgomeister's ale. Hold the place for half an hour and twenty +right sober men shall ye have." + +And with that the Lubber Fiend disappeared in a final avalanche of +brick-dust and clay clods. + +He was gone, and half an hour was a long time to wait. Yet in such a +case there was nothing for it but to stand it out. So I besought the +maids to retire again to their inner chamber, into which, at least, +neither bullets nor arrows could penetrate. This, after some little +persuasion, they did. + +We waited. I have since that night fought many easier battles, and +bloody battles, too. Now and then a face would look in momentarily from +the great outer door and vanish before any one could put a shot into it. +Next, ere one was aware, an arrow would whistle with a "_Hisst_!" past +one's breast-bone and stand quivering, head-covered in the clay. Vicious +things they were, too, steel-pointed and shafted with iron for half +their length. + +But all waitings come to an end, even that of him who waits on a fair +woman's arraying of herself. Erdberg evidently did not know of the little +party down at the Burgomeister's below the pass of the ravine, or, +knowing, did not care. For, just as our half-hour was crawling to an +end, with a unanimous yell a crowd of wild men with weapons in their +hands poured in through the great door and ran shouting at our position. +At the same time the window at the end of the passage opened and a man +leaped through. Him I sharply attended to with the axe, and stood waiting +for the next. He also came, but not through the window. He ran at me, +head first, through the door, and, being stricken down, completely +blocked it up. Good service! And a usefully bulky man he was. But how he +bled!--Saint Christopher! that is the worst of bulky men, they can do +nothing featly--not even die! + +One man won past me, indeed, darting under the stroke of my axe, but he +was little advantaged thereby. For I fetched a blow at the back of his +head with the handle which brought him to his knees. He stumbled and fell +at the threshold of the maids' chamber. And, by my sooth, the Lady +Ysolinde stooped and poignarded him as featly as though it had been a +work of broidering with a bodkin. Too late, Helene wept and besought her +to hold her hand. He was, she said, some one's son or lover. It was +deucedly unpractical. But, 'twas my Little Playmate. And after all, I +suppose, the crack he got from me in the way of business would have done +the job neatly enough without my lady's dagger. + +I tell you, the work was hot enough about those three doors during the +next few moments. I never again want to see warmer on this side of +Peter's gates--especially not since I got this wound in my thigh, with +its trick of reopening at the most inconvenient seasons. But the broadaxe +was a blessed thought of the little Helene's, and helped to keep the +castle right valiantly. + +Yet I can testify that I was glad with more than mere joy when I heard +the "Trot, trot!" of the Prince's archers coming at the wolf's lope, all +in each other's footsteps, along the narrow ledge of the village street. + +"Hurrah, lads!" I shouted; "quick and help us!" + +And then at the sound of them the turmoil emptied itself as quickly as it +had come. The rabble of ill-doers melted through the wide outer door, +where the archers received and attended to them there. Some precipitated +themselves over the cliff. Others were straightway knocked down, stunned, +and bound. Some died suddenly. And a few were saved to stretch the +judicial ropes of the Bailiwick. For it was always thought a good thing +by such as were in authority to have a good show on the "Thieves' +Architrave," or general gallows of the vicinity, as a thing at once +creditable to the zeal of the worthy dispensers of local justice, and +pleasing to the Kaiser's officer if he chanced to come spying that way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE + + +Hearty were the greetings when the soldiers found us all safe and sound. +They shook us again and again by the hand. They clapped us on the back. +They examined professionally the dead who lay strewn about. + +"A good stroke! Well smitten!" they cried, as they turned them over, like +spectators who applaud at a game they can all understand. Specially did +they compliment me on my axe-work. Never had anything like it been seen +in Plassenburg. The head of the yearling calf was duly exhibited, when +the neatness of the blow and the exactness of the aim at the weakest +jointing were prodigiously admired. + +The good fellows, mellow with the Burgomeister's sinall-ale, were growing +friendly beyond all telling, when, in the light of the offertory taper, +now growing beguttered and burning low, there appeared the Lady Ysolinde. + +You never saw so quick a change in any men. The heartiest reveller +forthwith became silent and slunk behind his neighbor. Knees shook +beneath stalwart frames, and there seemed a very general tendency to get +down upon marrow-bones. + +The Lady Ysolinde stood before them, strangely different from the +slim, willowy maiden I had seen her. She looked almost imperial in +her demeanor. + +"You shall be rewarded for your ready obedience," she said; "the Prince +will not forget your service. Take away that offal!" + +She pointed to the dead rascals on the floor. + +And the men, muttering something that sounded to me like "Yes, your +Highness !" hastened to obey. + +"Did you say 'Yes, your Highness' ?" I asked one of them, who seemed, by +his air of command, to be the superior among the archers. + +"Aye," answered he, dryly, "it is a term usually applied to the Lady +Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg." + +I was never more smitten dazed and dumb in my life. Ysolinde, the +daughter of Master Gerard, the maid who had read my fate in the ink-pool, +whom I had "made suffer," according to her own telling--she the Princess +of Plassenburg '. + +Ah, I had it now. Here at last was the explanation of the threadbare and +inexplicable jest of Jorian and Boris, "The Prince hath a Princess, and +she is oft upon her travels !" + +But, after all, what a Wendish barking about so small an egg. I have +heard an emperor proclaimed with less cackle. + +Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg--yes, that made a difference. And I +had taken her hand--I, the son of the Red Axe--I, the Hereditary +Justicer of the Wolfmark. Well, after all, she had sought me, not I +her. And then, the little Helene--what would she make of it? I longed +greatly to find an opportunity to tell her. It might teach her in what +manner to cut her cloth. + +The archers of the Prince camped with us the rest of the night in the +place of the outcast crew. They behaved well (though their forbearance +was perhaps as much owing to the near presence of the Princess as to any +inherent virtue in the good men of the bow) to the women and children who +remained huddled in the corners. + +Then came the dawn, swift-foot from the east. A fair dawn it was, the +sun rising, not through barred clouds, with the lightest at the +horizon (which is the foul-weather dawn), but through streamers and +bannerets that fluttered upward and fired to ever fleecier crimson and +gold as he rose. + +We rode among a subdued people, and ere we went the Princess called for +the Burgomeister and bade him send to Plassenburg the landlord, so soon +as he should be found, and also the heads of the half-dozen houses on +either side of the inn. + +Then, indeed, there was a turmoil and a wailing to speak about. Women +folk crowded out of the huts and kissed the white feet of the palfrey +that bore the Lady Ysolinde. + +"Have mercy!" they wailed; "show kindness, great Princess! Here are our +men, unwounded and unhurt, that have lain by our sides all the night. +They are innocent of all intent of evil--of every dark deed. Ah, lady, +send them not to your prisons. We shall never see them more, and they +are all we have or our children. 'Tis they bring in the bread to this +drear spot!" + +"Produce me your husbands, then!" said the Lady Ysolinde. + +Whereat the women ran and brought a number of frowsy and bleared men, all +unwounded, save one that had a broken head. + +Then Ysolinde called to the Burgomeister. "Come hither, chief of a +thievish municipality, tell me if these be indeed these women's +husbands." + +The Burgomeister, a pallid, pouch-mouthed man, tremulous, and +brick-dusty, like everything else in the village of Erdberg, came forward +and peeringly examined the men. + +"Every man to his woman!" he ordered, brusquely, and the women went and +stood each by her own property--the men shamefaced and hand-dog, the +women anxious and pale. Some of the last threw a, protecting arm about +their husbands, which they for the most part appeared to resent. In +every case the woman looked the more capable and intelligent, the men +being apparently mere boors. + +"They are all their true husbands, at least so far as one can know!" +answered the Burgomeister, cautiously. + +"Then," said the lady, "bid them catch the innkeeper and send him to +Plassenburg, and these others can abide where they are. But if they find +him not, they must all come instead of him." + +The men started at her words, their faces brightening wonderfully, and +they were out of the door before one could count ten. We mounted our +horses, and under the very humble guidance of the Burgomeister, who led +the Princess's palfrey, we were soon again upon the high table-land. Here +we enjoyed to the full the breezes which swept with morning freshness +across the scrubby undergrowths of oak and broom, and above all the sight +of misty wisps of cloud scudding and whisking about the distant +peaks-behind which lay the city of Plassenburg. + +We had not properly won clear of the ravines when we heard a great +shouting and turmoil behind us--so that I hastened to look to my weapons. +For I saw the archers instinctively draw their quarrels and bolt-pouches +off their backs, to be in readiness upon their left hips. + +But it was only the rabble of men and women who had been threatened, the +dwellers in those twelve houses next the inn, who came dragging our +brick-faced knave of a host, with that hard-polished countenance of his +slack and clammy--slate-gray in color too, all the red tan clean gone +out of it. + +"Mercy--mercy, great lady!" he cried; "I pray you, do execution on me +here and now. Carry me not to the extreme tortures. Death clears all. +And I own that for my crimes I well deserve to die. But save me from +the strappado, from the torment of the rack. I am an old man and could +not endure." + +The Lady Ysolinde looked at him, and her emerald eyes held a steely +glitter in their depths. + +"I am neither judge nor"--I think she was going to say "executioner," but +she remembered in time and for my sake was silent, which I thought was +both gracious and charming of her. She resumed in a softer tone: "What +sentence, then, would you desire, thus confessing your guilt?" + +"That I might end myself over the cliff there!" said the innkeeper, +pointing to the wall of rock along the edge of which we were riding. + +"See, then, that he is well ended!" said the Princess, briefly, to +Jorian. + +"Good!" said Jorian, saluting. + +And very coolly betook himself to the edge of the cliff, where he primed +his piece anew, and blew up his match. + +"Loose the man and stand back!" cried the Princess. + +A moment the innkeeper stood nerving himself. A moment he hung on the +thin edge of his resolve. The slack gray face worked convulsively, the +white lips moved, the hands were gripped close to his sides as though +to run a race. His whole body seemed suddenly to shrink and fall in +upon itself. + +"The torture! The terrible torture!" he shrieked aloud, and ran swiftly +from the clutches of the men who had held him. Between the path and the +verge of the cliff from which he was suffered to cast himself there +stretched some thirty or forty yards of fine green turf. The old man ran +as though at a village fair for some wager of slippery pig's tail, but +all the time the face of him was like Death and Hell following after. + +At the cliff's edge he leaped high into the air, and went headlong down, +to our watching eyes as slowly as if he had sunk through water. None of +us who were on the path saw more of him. But Jorian craned over, +regarding the man's end calmly and even critically. And when he had +satisfied himself that that which was done was properly done, as coolly +as before he stowed away his match in his cover-fire, mounted his horse, +and rode towards us. + +He nodded to the Princess. "Good, my Lady!" quoth he, for all comment. + +"I saved a charge that time!" said he to his companion. + +"Good!" quoth Boris, in his turn. + +We had now a safe and noble escort, and the way to Plassenburg was easy. +The face of the country gradually changed. No more was it the gray, +wistful plain of the Wolfmark, upon which our Red Tower looked down. No +more did we ride through the marly, dusty, parched lands, in which were +the ravines with their uncanny cavern villages, of which this Erdberg was +the chief. But green, well-watered valleys and mountains wooded to the +top lay all about us--a pleasant land, a fertile province, and, as the +Princess had said, a land in which the strong hand of Karl the Prince had +long made "the broom-bush keep the cow." + +I had all along been possessed with great desire to meet the Prince of so +noble and well-cared-for a land, and perhaps also to see what manner of +man could be the husband of so extraordinary a Princess. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON + + +Yet now, when she was in her own country, and as good as any queen +thereof, I found the Lady Ysolinde in no wise different from, what she +had been in the city of Thorn and in her father's house. She called me +often to ride beside her, Helene being on my other side, while the Lubber +Fiend, who had saved all our lives, gambolled about and came to her to be +petted like a lapdog of some monstrous sort. He licked his lips and +twisted his eyes upward at her in ludicrous ecstasy till only the whites +were visible whenever the Princess laid her hand on his head. So that it +was as much as the archers of the guard could do to hide their laughter +in their beards. But hide it they did, having a wholesome awe of the +emerald eyes of their mistress, or perhaps of the steely light which +sometimes came into them. + +It was growing twilight upon the third day (for there were no adventures +worth dwelling upon after that among the cavern dwellings of Erdberg) +when for the first time we saw the towers of Plassenburg crowning a hill, +with its clear brown river winding slow beneath. We were yet a good many +miles from it when down the dusty road towards us came a horseman, and +fifty yards or so behind him another. + +"The Prince--none rides like our Karl!" said Jorian, familiarly, under +his breath, but proudly withal. + +"He comes alone!" said I, wonderingly. For indeed Duke Casimir of the +Wolfsberg never went ten lances' length from his castle without a small +army at his tail. + +"Even so!" replied Jorian; "it is ever his custom. The officer who +follows behind him has his work cut out--and basted. Not for nothing is +our Karl called Prince Jehu Miller's Son, for indeed he rides most +furiously." + +Before there was time for more words between us a tall, grim-faced, +pleasant-eyed man of fifty rode up at a furious gallop. The first thing I +noticed about him was that his hair was exactly the same color as his +horse--an iron-gray, rusty a little, as if it had been rubbed with iron +that has been years in the wet. + +He took off his hat courteously to the Princess. + +"I bid you welcome, my noble lady," said he, smiling; "the cages are +ready for the new importations." + +The Lady Ysolinde reached a hand for her husband to kiss, which he did +with singular gentleness. But, so far as I could see, she neither looked +at him even once nor yet so much as spoke a word to him. Presently he +questioned her directly: "And who may this fair young damsel be, who has +done me the honor to journey to my country?" + +"She is Helene, called Helene Gottfried of Thorn, and has come with me to +be one of my maids of honor," answered the Lady Ysolinde, looking +straight before her into the gathering mist, which began to collect in +white ponds and streaks here and there athwart the valley. + +The Prince gave the Little Playmate a kindly ironic look out of his +gray eyes, which, as I interpreted it, had for meaning, "Then, if that +be so, God help thee, little one--'tis well thou knowest not what is +before thee!" + +"And this young man?" said the Prince, nodding across to me. + +But I answered for myself. + +"I am the son of the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark," said I. "I +had no stomach for such work. Therefore, as I was shortly to be made my +father's assistant, I have brought letters of introduction to your +Highness, in the hopes that you will permit me the exercise of arms in +your army in another and more honorable fashion." + +"I have promised him a regiment," said the Princess, speaking quickly. + +"What--of leaden soldiers?" answered the Prince, looking at her +mighty soberly. + +"Your Highness is pleased to be brutal," answered the Lady Ysolinde, +coldly. "It is your ordinary idea of humor!" + +A kind of quaint humility sat on the face of the Prince. + +"I but thought that your Highness could have nothing else in her +mind--seeing that our rough Plassenburg regiments will only accept men of +some years and experience to lead them. But the little soldiers of metal +are not so queasy of stomach." + +"May it please your Highness," said I, earnestly, "I will be content to +begin with carrying a pike, so that I be permitted in any fashion to +fight against your enemies." + +Jorian and Boris came up and saluted at this point, like twin mechanisms. +Then they stood silent and waiting. + +The Prince nodded in token that they had permission to speak. + +"With the sword the lad fights well," said Boris. "Is it not so, Jorian?" + +"Good!" said Jorian. + +"But with the broadaxe he slashes about him like an angel from +heaven--not so, Boris?" said Jorian. + +"Good!" said Boris. + +"Can you ride?" said the Prince, turning abruptly from them. + +"Aye, sire!" said I. For indeed I could, and had no shame to say it. + +"That horse of his is blown; give him your fresh one!" said he to the +officer who had accompanied him. "And do you show these good folk to +their quarters." + +Hardly was I mounted before the Prince set spurs to his beast, and, +with no more than a casual wave of his hand to the Princess and her +train, he was off. + +"Ride!" he cried to me. And was presently almost out of sight, stretching +his horse's gray belly to the earth, like a coursing dog after a hare. + +Well was it for me that I had learned to ride in a hard school--that is, +upon the unbroken colts which were brought in for the mounting of the +Duke Casimir's soldiery. For the horse that I had been given took the +bit between his teeth and pursued so fiercely after his stable companion +that I could scarce restrain him from passing the Prince. But our way +lay homeward, so that, though I was in no way able to guide nor yet +control my charger, nevertheless presently the Prince and I were +clattering through the town of Plassenburg like two fiends riding +headlong to the pit. + +Within the town the lamps were being lit in the booths, the folks busy +marketing, and the watchmen already perambulating the city and crying the +hours at the street corners. + +But as the Prince and I drove furiously through, like pursuer and +pursued, the busy streets cleared themselves in a twinkling; and we rode +through lanes of faces yellow in the lamplight, or in the darker places +like blurs of scrabbled whiteness. So I leaned forward and let the beast +take his chance of uneven causeway and open sewer. I expected nothing +less than a broken neck, and for at least half a mile, as we flew upward +to the castle, I think that the certainty of naught worse than a broken +arm would positively have pleasured me. At least, I would very willingly +have compounded my chances for that. + +Presently, without ever drawing rein, we flew beneath the dark outer port +of the castle, clattered through a court paved with slippery blocks of +stone, thundered over a noble drawbridge, plunged into a long and gloomy +archway, and finally came out in a bright inner palace court with lamps +lit all about it. + +I was at the Prince's bridle ere he could dismount. + +"You can ride, Captain Hugo Gottfried!" he said. "I think I will make you +my orderly officer." + +And so he went within, without a word more of praise or welcome. + +There came past just at that moment an ancient councillor clad in a long +robe of black velvet, with broad facings and rosettes of scarlet. He was +carrying a roll of papers in his hand. + +"What said the Prince to yon, young sir, if I may ask without offence?" +said he, looking at me with a curiously sly, upward glance out of the +corner of his eye, as if he suspected me of a fixed intention to tell him +a lie in any case. + +"If it be any satisfaction to you to know," answered I, rather piqued at +his tone, "the Prince informed me that I could ride, and that he intended +to make me his orderly officer. And he called me not 'young sir,' but +Captain Hugo Gottfried." + +"How long has he known you?" said the Chief Councillor of State. For so +by his habit I knew him to be. + +"Half an hour, or thereby," answered I. + +"God help this kingdom!" cried the old man, tripping off, flirting his +hand hopelessly in the air--"if he had known you only ten minutes you +would have been either Prime-Minister or Commander-in-Chief of the army." + +It was in this strange fashion that I entered the army of the Prince of +Plassenburg, a service which I shall ever look back upon with gratitude, +and count as having brought me all the honors and most of the pleasures +of my life. + +Half an hour or so afterwards the blowing of trumpets and the thunder of +the new leathern cannon announced that the Princess and her train were +entering the palace. The Prince came down to greet them on the threshold +in a new and magnificent dress. + +"The Prince's officer-in-waiting to attend upon his Highness!" cried a +herald in fine raiment of blue and yellow. + +I looked about for the man who was to be my superior in my new +office--that is, if Prince Karl should prove to have spoken in earnest. + +"The Prince's orderly to attend upon him!" again proclaimed the herald, +more impatiently.' + +I saw every eye turn upon me, and I began to feel a gentle heat come over +me. Presently I was blushing furiously. For I was still in my +riding-clothes, and even they had not been changed after the adventure of +the Brick-dust Town. So that they were in no wise fitting to attend upon +a mighty dignitary. + +The Prince of Plassenburg looked round. + +"Ha!" he said; "this is not well--I had forgotten. My orderly ought to +have been duly arrayed by this time." + +"Pardon, my Prince," said I, "but all the apparel I have is upon my +sumpter horse, which comes in the train of the Princess." + +My master looked right and left in his quickly imperious and yet +humorous manner. + +"Here, Count von Reuss," he said to a tall, handsome, heavily jowled +young man, "I pray you strip off thy fine coat for an hour, and lend it +to my new officer-in-waiting. The ladies will admire thee more than +ever in thy fine flowered waistcoat, with silk sleeves and frilled +purfles of lace!" + +The young man, Von Reuss, looked as if he desired much to tell the Prince +to go and be hanged. But there was something in the bearing of Karl of +Plassenburg, usurper as they called him, the like of which for command I +have never seen in the countenance and manner of any lawfully begotten +prince in the world. + +So, beckoning me into an antechamber, and swearing evilly under his +breath all the time, the young man stripped off his fine coat, and +offered it to me with one hand, without so much as looking at me. He gave +it indeed churlishly, as one might give a dole to a loathsome beggar to +be rid of his importunity. + +"I thank you, sir," said I, "but more for your obedience to the Prince +than for the fashion of your courtesy to me." + +Yet for all that he answered me never a syllable, but turned his head and +played with his mustache till his man-servant brought him another coat. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ANOTHER MAN'S COAT + + +I followed the Prince without another word, and when he received the +Princess I had the happiness of taking the Little Playmate by the hand +and conducting her as gallantly as I could into the palace. And I was +glad, for it helped to allay a kind of reproachful feeling in my heart, +which would keep tugging and gnawing there whenever I was not thinking of +anything else. I feared lest, in the throng and press of new experiences, +I might a little have neglected or been in danger of forgetting the love +of the many years and all the sweetness of our solitary companionship. + +Nevertheless, I knew well that I loved those sweetest eyes of hers more +than all the words of men and women and priests. + +And even as I helped her to dismount, I went over and told her so. + +It was just when I held her in my arms for a moment as she dismounted. +She clung to me, and methought I heard a little sob. + +"Do not ever be unkind, Hugo," she said. "I am very lonely. I wish, with +all my heart, I were back again in the old Red Tower." + +"Unkind--never while I live, little one," I whispered in her ear. "Cheer +your heart, and to-morrow your sorrows will wear off, and you and I both +shall find friendship in the strange land." + +"I hate the Princess! And I shall never like her as long as I live!" she +said, with that certain concentrated dislike which only good women feel +towards those a degree less innocent, specially when the latter are well +to look upon. + +There was no time to reply immediately as I conducted her up the steps. +For I had to keep my eyes open to observe how the Prince conducted +himself, and in the easy ceremonial of Plassenburg it chanced that I +happened upon nothing extravagant. + +"But, Helene, you said a while ago that you hated _me_!" I said, after a +little pause, smiling down at her. + +"Did I?" she answered. "Surely nay!" + +"Ah, but 'tis true as your eyes," I persisted. "Do you not remember when +I had cut the calf's head off with the axe? You did not love the thought +of the Red Tower so much then!" + +"Oh, _that_!" she said, as if the discrepancy had been fully explained by +the inflexion of her voice upon the word. + +But she pressed my hand, so I cared not a jot for logic. + +"You do not love her, you are sure?" she said, looking up at me when we +came to the darker turn of the stairs, for the corkscrews were narrower +in the ancient castle than in the new palace below. + +"Not a bit!" said I, heartily, without any more pretence that I did not +understand what she meant. + +She pressed my hand again, momentarily slipping her own down off my +arm to do it. + +"It is not that I love you, Hugo, or that I want you to love me," she +said, like one who explains that which is plain already, "except, of +course, as your Little Playmate. But I could not bear that you should +care about that--that woman." + +It was evident that there were to be stirring times in the Castle of +Plassenburg, and that I, Hugo Gottfried, was to have my share of them. + +As soon as we had arrived at the banqueting-hall, the Prince beckoned me +and presented me formally to the Lady Ysolinde. + +"Your Highness, this is Captain Hugo Gottfried, my new +officer-in-waiting." + +The Princess bowed gravely and held out her hand. Her aqua-marine eyes +were bent upon me, suffused with a certain quick and evident pleasure +which became them well. + +"Your Highness has chosen excellently. I can bear witness that the +Captain Gottfried is a brave--a very brave man," she said. + +And at that moment I was most grateful to her for the testimony. For +behind us stood the young Von Reuss, pulling at his mustache and looking +very superciliously over at me. + +Then the Lady Ysolinde withdrew to her own apartments, and that day I got +no more words with her nor yet with Helene. + +The Prince also went to his room, and I remained where I was, deeming +that for the present my duty was done. + +The servant of the man whose coat I wore stood with another servitor +close at hand--indeed, many of all ranks stood about. + +"That is the fellow," I heard one say, tauntingly, meaning me to +hear--"peacocking it there in my master's coat!" + +His companion laughed contumeliously, at which the passion within me +suddenly stirred. I gave one of them the palm of my hand, and as the +other fell hastily back my foot took him. + +"What ho, there! No quarrelling among the lackeys!" cried Von Reuss, +insolently, from the other side of the room. + +"Were you, by any chance, speaking to me?" said I, politely, looking +over at him. + +"Why, yes, fellow!" he said. "If you squabble with the waiting-men +concerning cast-off clothes, you had better do it in the stables, where, +as you say, your own wardrobe is kept." + +"Sir," said I, "the coat I wear, I wear by the command of your Prince. It +shall be immediately returned to you when the Prince permits me to go off +duty. In the mean time, pray take notice that I am Captain Hugo +Gottfried, officer-in-waiting to the Prince Karl of Plassenburg, and that +my sword is wholly at your service." + +"You are," retorted Von Reuss, "the son of my uncle Casimir's +Hereditary Executioner, and one day you may be mine. Let that be +sufficient honor for you." + +"That I may be yours is the only part of my father's hereditary office I +covet!" said I, pointedly. + +And certainly I had him there, for immediately he turned on his heel and +would have walked away. + +But this I could not permit. So I strode sharply after him, and seizing +him by his embroidered shoulder-strap, I wheeled him about. + +"But, sir," said I, "you have insulted an officer of the Prince. Will you +answer for that with your sword, or must I strike you on the face each +time I meet you to quicken your sense of honor?" + +Before he had time to answer the Prince came in. + +"What, quarrelling already, young Spitfire!" he cried. "I made you my +orderly--not my disorderly." + +Von Reuss and I stood blankly enough, looking away from one another. + +"What was the quarrel?" asked the Prince, when he had seated +himself at table. + +I looked to Von Reuss to explain. For indeed I was somewhat awed to think +that thus early in my new career I had embroiled myself with the nephew +of Duke Casimir, even though, like myself, he was in exile and dependent +upon, the liberality of Prince Karl. + +But, since he did not speak, I made bold to say: "Sire, the Count von +Reuss taunted me with wearing a borrowed coat, and called me a servitor, +because by birth I am the son of the Hereditary Executioner of the +Wolfmark. So I told him I was an officer of your household, and that my +sword was much at his service." + +"So you are," cried the Prince--"so you are--a servitor! So is he--young +fools both! And as for being son of the Hereditary Executioner, it is +throughout all our German land an honorable office. Once I was assistant +executioner myself, and wished with all my heart that I had been +principal, and so pocketed the guilders. No more of this folly, Von +Reuss. I am ashamed of you, and to a new-comer! Hear ye, sir, I will not +have it! I will e'en resume my old trade and do a little justicing on my +own account. Shake hands this instant, you young bantams!" + +And the Prince sat back in his chair and looked grimly at us. I went a +step forward. But Von Reuss held aloof. + +"Provost Marshal!" cried the Prince, in a voice which made every one in +the room jump and all the glasses ring on the table--"bring a guard!" + +The Provost Marshal advanced, bowed, and was departing, when Von Reuss +came forward and held his hand out, at first sulkily, but afterwards +readily enough. + +Then we shook hands solemnly and stiffly, of course loving each other not +one whit better. + +"Ah," said the Prince, "I thought you would! For if you had not, your +uncle, Duke Casimir, might have been a Duke without either an heir to his +Dukedom or a successor to his Hereditary Justicer." + +"Now sit down, lads, sit down and agree!" he said, after a pause. "The +ladies come not to table to-night. So now begin and tell me all the +affair of the Earthhouses. I must ride and see the place. I declare I +grow rotten and thewless in this dull Plassenburg, where they dare not +stick so much as a knife in one another, all for fear of Karl Miller's +Son! Since I cannot adventure forth on my own account, I am become a man +that wearies for news. Tell me every part of the affair, concealing +nothing. But if you can, relate even your own share in it as faithfully +as becomes a modest youth." + +So I told him at length all that hath already been told, giving as far as +I could the credit to Jorian and Boris, as indeed was only their desert. + +Whereupon the tale being finished, the Prince said: "Have the two +archers up!" + +And while the pursuivant had gone for them, the old Councillor leaned +across the table and whispered: "Enter Field-Marshal Jorian and +General Boris!" + +But when the archers came in and stood like a pair of kitchen pokers, the +Prince ordered them to tell the story. + +Jorian turned his head to Boris, and Boris turned his head to Jorian. +They both made a little impatient gesture, which said: "Tell it you!" + +But neither appeared to be able to speak first. + +"Wind them up with a cup of wine apiece!" cried the hearty Prince; +"surely that will set one of them off." + +Two great flagons of wine were handed to Jorian and Boris, and they drank +as if one machine had been propelling their internal workings, throwing +off the liquor with beautiful unanimity and then bringing their cups to +the position of salute as if they had been musketoons at the new French +drill. After which each of them, having finished, gave the little cough +of content and appreciation, which among the archers means manners. + +But nevertheless the Prince's information with regard to the affair of +Erdberg was not increased. + +"Go on!" he cried, impatiently, looking at Jorian and Boris sternly. + +They were still silent. + +"This officer, Captain Hugo Gottfried," said the Prince, looking at me, +"tells me that the credit of the preservation of the Princess among the +cave folk is due to you two brave men." + +"He lies!" said Wendish Jorian, with a face like a blank wall. + +"Good!" muttered Boris, approvingly. + +"He did it himself!" said Boris, adding, after a pause--"with an axe!" + +"Good!" quoth Jorian. + +"He cut a calf's head off!" said Jorian, as a complete explanation of how +the preserving of the Princess was effected. + +Whereat all laughed, and the Prince more than any. For ever since he +drank his first draught of wine, he had begun to mellow. + +"Well, hearty fellows, what reward would you have for your great +bravery?" + +They turned their heads simultaneously inward without moving any other +part of their bodies. They nodded to one another. + +"Well," cried the Prince, "what reward do you desire?" + +"Now for the Field-Marshal's wand!" said the Councillor near to me, under +his breath. + +"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Jorian. + +The Prince looked at Boris. + +"And you?" he said. + +"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Boris, without moving a muscle. + +"God Bacchus!" cried the Prince, "you will empty my cellars between +you, and I shall not have a sober archer for a month. But you shall +have it. Go!" + +Jorian and Boris saluted with a wink to each other as they wheeled, which +said, as plain as monk's script or plainer, "Good!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE PRINCE'S COMPACT + + +In spite of all drawbacks and difficulties (and I had my share of them) I +loved Plassenburg. And especially I loved the Prince. The son, so they +said, of a miller in the valley of the Almer, he had entered the guard of +the last Prince of Plassenburg, much as I had now entered his own +service. Prince Dietrich had taken a fancy to him, and advanced him so +rapidly that, after the disastrous war with Duke Casimir of the Mark and +the death of the last legitimate Prince, Karl, the miller's son, having +set himself to reorganize the army, succeeded so well that it was not +long before he found himself the source of all authority in Plassenburg. + +Thereafter he gave to the decimated and heartless land adequate defences +and complete safety against foreign foes, together with security for life +and property, under equal laws, within its own borders. So, in time, no +man saying him nay, Karl Miller's Son became the Prince of Plassenburg, +and his seat was more secure upon his throne than that of any legitimate +prince for a thousand miles all round about. + +After the quarrel with Von Reuss, the Prince, for reasons of his own, +favored me with a great deal of his society. He was often graciously +pleased to talk concerning his early difficulties. + +"When I was an understrapper," he was wont to say, "the land was +overswarmed and eaten up by officialdom. I could not see the good meat +wasted upon crawlers. 'Get to work,' said I, 'or ye shall neither eat +nor crawl!' + +"'We must eat--to beg we are not ashamed, to steal is the right of our +noble Ritterdom,' the crawlers replied. + +"'So,' said I, '_bitte_--as to that we shall see!' + +"Then I made me a fine gallows, builded like that outside Paris, which I +had seen once when on an embassy for Prince Dietrich. It was like a +castle, with walls twelve feet thick, and on the beams of it room for a +hundred or more to swing, each with his six feet of clearance, all +comfortable, and no complaints. + +"Then came the crawlers and asked me what this fine thing was for. + +"'For the sacred Ritterdom of Plassenburg!' answered I, 'if it will not +cease to burn houses and to ravish and carry off honest men's wives and +daughters.' + +"'But you must catch us!' quoth Crawlerdom. 'Walls fourteen feet thick!' +said they. + +"'Content,' cried I; 'there is the more fun in catching you. Only the end +is the same--that is to say, my new, well-ventilated castle out there on +the heath, fine girdles and neck-pieces and anklets of iron, and six feet +of clearance for each of you to swing in.' + +"So they went back to their castles, and robbed and ravished and rieved, +even as did their fathers for a thousand years, thinking no evil. But I +took my soldiers, whom in seven years' service I had taught to obey +orders-two foot of clearance did well enough for the disobedient among +them, not being either ritters or men of mark. And I, Karl the Miller's +brat, as at that time they called me in contempt, borrowed cannon-- +great lumbering things--from my friend the Margrave George, down there to +the south. A great work we had dragging them up to Plassenburg by rope +and chain and laboring plough oxen. We shot them off before the +fourteen-feet walls. Then arose various clouds of dust, shriekings, +surrenderings, crying of 'Forgive us, great Prince, we never meant to do +it,' followed, as I had said, by the six-feet clearances. But these in +time I had to reduce to four--so great became the competition for places +in my new Schloss Müllerssohn. + +"But 'Once done, well done--done forever!' is my motto. So since that +time the winds have mostly blown through my Schloss untainted, and the +sons of Ritterdom, magnanimous captains and honest bailies of quiet +bailiwicks, are my very good friends and faithful officers." + +Prince Karl the Miller's Son was silent a moment. + +"But I am still looking out for another man with a head-piece to come +after me. I have no son, and if I had, the chances are ten to one that he +would be either a milksop or a flittermouse painted blue. Milksops I +hate, and send to the monkeries. I can endure flittermice painted blue, +but they must wear petticoats--and pretty petticoats too. Have you +observed those of the Princess?" said he, abruptly changing the subject. + +"The Princess's flittermice?" I faltered, not well knowing what I said, +for he had turned roughly and suddenly upon me. + +"Aye, marry, you may say it! But I meant the Princess's wilicoats!" + +"No," said I, as curtly as I could, for the subject had its obvious +limitations. + +"Ah, they are pretty ones," said Karl, "I assure you. She has at least an +undeniable taste in lace and cambric. They say in other lands--not in +this--though I would not hinder them if they did--that she wears the +under-garments of men and rules the state. But I think not so. The +Princess is a better Queen than wife, a better woman than either." + +On this subject also I had nothing to say which I dared venture to the +husband of the Lady Ysolinde. + +"She read my horoscope," said I, weakly, searching for something in the +corners of my brain to change the subject. + +"How so?" said the Prince, quickly. + +"First in a crystal and then in a pool of ink," I replied. + +"It was a good horoscope and of a fortunate ending?" + +"On the whole--yes!" said I; "though there was much in it that I could +not understand." + +"Like enow!" laughed the Prince; "I warrant she could not understand it +herself! It is ever the way of the ink-pool folk." + +Then ensued a silence between us. + +Prince Karl remained long with his head resting on his hand. He looked +critically at the twisted stem of his wineglass, twirling it between his +thick fingers. + +"The Princess loves you!" he said, at last, looking shrewdly at me from +beneath his gray brows. + +It was spoken half as a question and half as information. + +"Loves me?" stammered I, the blood sucking back to my heart and leaving +my head light and tingling. + +The Prince nodded calmly. + +"So they say!" said he. + +"My Lord, it is a thing impossible!" cried I, earnestly. "I am but a poor +lad--and she has been kind to me. But of love no word has been spoken. +Besides--" + +And I stopped. + +"Out with it, man!" said the Prince, more like, as it seemed to me, a +comrade inviting a confidence than a great Prince speaking to a newly +made officer. + +"Well, I--I love the Little Playmate." + +It came out with a rush at last. + +"Oh!" said he; "that is bad. I hope that is not a matter arranged, a +thing serious. For if the Princess knows as much, the young woman will +not have her troubles to seek in the Palace of Plassenburg." + +I hung my head and said naught, save that Helene declared she loved me +not, but that I thought she was mistaken. + +"Ah, then," cried the Prince, like one exceedingly relieved, "it is but +some boy and girl affair. That is better. She may change her mind, as you +will certainly change yours--and that several times--among the ladies of +the court. I was in hopes--" + +And the Prince stopped in his turn, not from bashfulness, but rather like +a man who desires more carefully to choose his words. + +"I was in hopes," he went on, speaking slowly, "that if the Princess +loved your boy's face and liked my conversation (which I may say without +pride that I think she does) you and I together might have kept her at +home. So over-much wandering is not good for the state. Also it gets her +a name beyond all manner of ill-doing within-doors." + +Once more I knew not well what to answer to this speech of the Prince's, +so I remained discreetly silent. + +"I have seen the Princess's flittermice about her before, often enough (I +thank thee for the word, Sir Captain.), but this is the first time she +has performed the ink-pool and crystal foolery with any man. There is no +great harm in the Princess. In the things of love she is as inflammable +as the ink, and as soft as the crystal. Fear not, Joseph, Potiphera may +be depended upon not to proceed to extremities. But I was in some hopes +that you and I could have arranged matters between us, being both +men--aye, and honorable men." + +I saw that Karl Miller's Son looked sad and troubled. + +"Prince, you love the Princess!" said I, thrusting out my hand to him +before I thought. He did not take it, but instead he thrust a flagon of +wine into it, as if I had asked for that--yet the thing was not done by +way of a rebuff. I saw that plainly. + +"Pshaw! What does a grizzle-pate with love?" said he, gruffly. +"Nevertheless, I was in hopes." + +"Prince Karl," said I, "I give you word of honor, 'tis not as you say or +they say. The Princess has indeed done me the honor to be friendly--" + +"To hold your hand!" he murmured, softly, like a chorus. + +"Well, to be friendly, and--" + +"To caress your cheek?" put in the Prince, gently as before. + +"Done me the honor to be friendly--" + +"To play with your curls, lad?" + +"The Princess--" I began, all in a tremor. For anything more awkward +than this conversation I had never experienced. It bathed me in a drip +of cold sweat. + +"To kiss you, perhaps, at the waygoing?" he insinuated. + +"No!" thundered I, at last. "Prince, you do your Princess great wrong." + +He lifted his hand in a gentle, deprecating way, most unlike the rider +who had ridden so fast and so hotly that night of our coming. + +"You mistake me, sir," he said. "On the contrary, I have the greatest +respect for the Princess Ysolinde. I would not wrong her for the world. +But I know her track of old. You are a brave lad, and, after all, I fear +there is something in that calf-love of yours--devil take it!" + +I thought I could now dimly discern whither the Prince's plans +were tending. + +"Your Highness," said I, "I am a young man and of little experience. I +cannot tell why you have chosen to speak so freely to me. But I am your +servant, and, in all that hurts not the essence and matter of my love for +the Little Playmate, I will do even as you say." + +Prince Karl grasped my hand. + +"Ah, well said!" he cried. "You are running your head into a peck of +troubles, though. And you are likely to have some experience of womenkind +shortly--a thing which does no brisk young fellow any harm, unless he +lets them come between him and his career. Women are harmless enough, so +that you keep them well down to leeward. I am Baltic-bred, and have ever +held to this--that you may sail unscathed through fleets of farthingales, +so being that you keep the wind well on your quarter, and see the +fair-way clear before you." + +I did not at the time understand half he said, but I knew we had made +some sort of a bargain. And I thought, with an aching, unsatisfied heart, +that though it might be well enough for an iron-gray and cynical old +Prince, the thing would hardly commend itself to Helene, my Little +Playmate, to whom I had so recently spoken loving words, sweeter than +ever before. + +"Devil take all Princes and Princesses!" I said, as I thought, to myself. +But I must have spoken aloud, for the Prince laughed. + +"Do not waste good prayers needlessly," he said; "he will!" + +And so, with a careless and humorsome wave of his hand to one side, he +went down the staircase, and so out into the quadrangle of the Palace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT + + +Now how this plan of my Lord Prince's worked in the Palace of Plassenburg +I find it difficult to tell without writing myself down a "painted +flittermouse," as the Prince expressed it. I was in high favor with my +master; well liked also by most of the hard-driving, rough-riding young +soldiers whom the miller's son had made out of the sons of dead and +damned Ritterdom. I got my share of honor and good service, too, in going +to different courts and bringing back all that Prince Karl needed. To +exercise myself in the art of war, I hunted the border thieves and gave +them short enough shrift. In a year I had made such an assault as that of +the inn at Erdberg an impossibility all along the marches of our +provinces. + +The crusty old councillor, Leopold Dessauer, who had held office under +the last Prince of the legitimate line, was ever ready to assist me with +the kindest of deeds and the bitterest and saltest of words. + +"What did I tell you about being Field-Marshal?" said he one day--"in +Karl's kingdom the shorter the service, the higher the distinction. +If you and the Prince live long enough, I shall see you carry a +musketoon yet, and not one of the latest pattern, either. You will be +promoted down, like a booby who has been raised by chance to the top +of the class!" + +"Well," said I, humbly, for I always reverenced age, "then I hope, +High-Chancellor Dessauer, that I shall carry my musketoon as becomes a +brave man!" + +"I do not doubt it!" said he. "And that is the most hopeful thing I have +seen about you yet. It is just possible, on the other hand, that you may +yet rule and the Prince carry the piece." + +"God forbid!" said I, heartily. For next to my own father, of all men I +loved the Prince. + +"The Princess hath a pretty hand," remarked Dessauer casually, as if he +had said, "It will rain to-morrow!" + +"I' faith, yes!" said I; "what have you been at to find out that?" + +"Weak--weak!" he said, shaking his head. "I fear you will wreck on that +rock. It is your blind peril!" + +"My blind peril!" cried I. "What may that be, High Councillor?" + +"Ah, lad," he said, smiling with that wise, all-patient smile which the +aged affect when they mean to be impressive, yet know how useless is +their wisdom, "it was never intended by the Almighty that any man should +have eyes all round his head. That is why He fixed two in front, and made +them look straight forward. That is also why He made us a little lower +(generally a good deal lower) than the angels!" + +I heard him as if I heard him not. + +"You do me the honor to follow me?" he said, looking at me. He was, I +think, conscious that my eyes wandered to the door, for indeed I was +expecting the Little Playmate to come down every minute. + +"Ah! yes, you follow indeed," he said, bitterly, "but it is the trip of +feet, the flirt of farthingales down the turret steps. No matter! As I +was saying, every man has his blind peril. He can see the thousand. He +provides laboriously against them. He blocks every avenue of risk, he +locks every dangerous door, and lo! there is the thousand-and-first right +before him, yawning wide open, which he does not see--his Blind Peril!" + +"And what, High-Councillor Dessauer, is my blind peril?" + +"I will tell you, Hugo," he said; "not that you will believe or alter a +hair. A man may do many things in this world, but one thing he cannot do. +He cannot kiss the fingers of a Princess--dainty fingers, too, separating +finger from finger--and kiss also the Princess's maid of honor on the +mouth. The combination is certainly entertaining, but like the Friar's +powder it is somewhat explosive." + +"And how," asked I, "may you know all that ?" + +The old man nodded his head sagely. + +"Neither by ink-pool nor yet by scrying! All the same, I know. Moreover, +your peril is not a blind peril only, but a blind man's peril. Ye must +choose, and that quickly, little son--fingers or lips." + +I heard the rustle of a skirt down the stair. It was the light, springing +tread of the one I loved first and best, last and only. + +"By the twelve gods, lips!" cried I, and made for the door. + +And I heard the chuckling laughter of High-Chancellor Dessauer behind me +as I followed Helene down the stairs. It sounded like the decanting of +mellow wine, long hidden in darksome cellars, and now, in the flower of +its age, bringing to the light the smiling of ancient vineyards and the +shining of forgotten suns. + +I found Helene arrived before me in the rose-garden. She did not turn +round as I came, though she heard me well enough. Instead she walked on, +plucking at a marguerite. + +"Loves me--loves me _not_!" she said, bearing upon the last word with +triumphant accent, as she continued to dismantle the poor flower. + +And flashing round upon me with the solitary petal in her hand, she +presented it with a low bow, in elfish mockery of the manner of the court +exquisite. + +"Ah, true flower!" she said, apostrophizing the bare stalk, "a flower +cannot lie. It has not a glozing tongue. It cannot change back and forth. +The sun shines. It turns towards the sun. The sun leaves the skies. It +shuts itself up and waits his return. Ah,-true flower, dear flower, how +unlike a man you are!" + +"Helene," said I, "you have learned conceits from the catch-books. You +quarrel by rote. Were I as eager to answer me, I might say: 'Ah, false +flower, you grow out of the foulness underneath. You give your fragrance +to all without discretion--a common lover, prodigal of favors, fit only +to be torn to shreds by pretty, spiteful fingers, and to die at last with +a lie in your mouth. Again I say--false flower!'" + +"You can turn the corners, Sir Juggler, with the cup and ball of words," +answered Helene. "So much they have already taught you in a court. But +there is one thing that your fine-feathered tutors have not taught +you--to make love to two women in one house and hide it from both of +them. Hot and cold may not come too near each other. They will mix and +make lukewarm of both." + +A wise observation, and one that I wished I had made myself. + +"May the devil take all princes and princesses!" I began, as I had done +to the Prince himself. + +Helene shook her head. + +"Hugo," she said, "I was but a simpleton when I came hither, and knew +nothing. Now I am wise, and I know!" + +She touched her forehead with her finger, just where the curls were +softest and prettiest. + +"Oh, you have learned to be thrice more beautiful than ever you were!" I +said, impetuously. + +"So I am often told," answered she, calmly. + +"Who dared tell you ?" cried I, quick as fire, laying my hand on my +sword. + +"The false common flowers by the wayside tell me!" said Helene, pertly. + +"Let them beware, or I will take their heads off for rank weeds!" +I answered. + +For at that time, in the Court of Plassenburg, we talked in figures and +romance words. We had indeed become so familiar with the mode that we +could use no other, even in times of earnestness. So that a man would go +to be hanged or married with a quipsome conceit on his lips. + +"I think, Sir Janus Double-tongue," she said, "that you would not be the +worse of a little medicine of your own concocting." + +And with that she swept her skirts daintily about and tripped down in to +the pleasaunce of flowers, to make which the Prince Karl had brought a +skilled gardener all the way from France. + +I prowled about the higher terrace, moodily watching the sky and thinking +on the morrow's weather. And by-and-by I saw one come forth from among +the cropped Dutch hedges, and stride across to where Helene walked with +something white in her hand. I could see her again picking a flower to +pieces, and methought I could hear the words. My jealous fancy conjured +up the ending, "Loves me not--loves me! Loves me not!" + +She turned even as she had done to me. The newcomer was that sneering +Court fop, the Count von Reuss, Duke Casimir's nephew--still in hiding +from the wrath of his uncle. For at that time hardly any court in Germany +was without one or two of these hangers-on, and a bad, reckless, +ill-contriving breed they were at Plassenburg, as doubtless elsewhere. + +Then grew my heart hard and bitter, and yet, in a moment afterwards, was +again only wistful and sad. + +"She had been safer," thought I, "in the old Red Tower than playing +flower fancies with such a man!" + +For I had seen the very devil look out of his eye--which indeed it did +as often as he cast it on a fair woman. In especial, I longed to +throttle him each time he turned to watch Helene as she went by. And +here she was walking with him, and talking pleasantly too, in the rose +garden of the palace. + +"Ah, devil take all princes and princesses!" said I. This one, it is +true, was only a count, and disinherited. But I felt that the thing was +the Prince's doing, and that it was for the sake of the covenant he had +made with me that I was compelled to put up with such a toad as Von Reuss +crawling and besliming the fair garden of my love. + +It was an evening without clouds--everything shining clear after rain, +the scent of the flowers rising like incense so full and sweet that you +could almost see it. The unnumbered birds were every one awake, +responsive and emulous. The deep silence of midsummer was broken up. It +was like another spring. + +The Princess Ysolinde came out to take the air. She was wrapped in her +gown of sea-green silk, with sparkles of dull copper upon it. The dress +fitted her like a snake's skin, and glittered like it too as she swayed +her lithe body in walking. + +"Ha, Hugo," she said, "I thought I should find you here!" + +I did not say that if another had been kinder she might have found me +elsewhere and otherwise employed. I had at least the discretion to leave +things as they were. For the time to speak plainly was not yet. + +She took my arm, and we paced up and down. + +"Princess--" I began. + +"Ysolinde!" corrected she, softly. + +It was an old and unsettled contention between us. + +"Well then, Ysolinde, to-morrow must I ride to fight the men of mine own +country of the Wolfmark. I like not the duty. But since it must be, for +the sake of the brave Prince, it shall be well done." + +"You do not say 'For your sake, Ysolinde'?" she answered, pensively. + +"No," I said, bluntly, "'for the Prince's sake.'" + +"You would do all things for the Prince's sake--nothing for mine!" said +the Princess, withdrawing her hand. + +"On the contrary, Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "I do all things for +your sake. Save for the sake of your good-will, I should now be +elsewhere." + +Which was true enough. I should have been in the garden pleasaunce +beneath, and probably with my sword out, arguing the case with Von Reuss. + +But she pressed my arm, for she understood that I had delayed a day from +my duty for her sake. So touched at heart was Ysolinde that she slipped +her hand down from my arm and took my hand instead, flirting a corner of +her shawl cleverly over both, to hide the fact from the men-at-arms--as +Helene could not have done to save her life. But every maid of honor who +passed noted and knew, lifting eyebrows at one another, I doubt not, as +soon as we passed, which thing made me feel like a fool and blush hotly. +For I knew that ere they were couched that night every maid of them would +tell Helene, and with pleasure in the telling too. + +"Devil take--" I began and stopped. + +"What did you say?" asked Ysolinde, almost tenderly. + +"That if I come not back again from the Wolfmark it will be the better +for all of us!" I made answer, which was indeed the sense if not the +exact text of my remark. + +"Nay," she said, shuddering, "not better for me that am companionless!" + +"Why so?" said I, boldly. "You do not love me. Deep at the bottom of +your heart you love your husband, Karl the Prince. You know there is no +man like him. Me you do not love at all." + +"You will not let me," she said, softly, almost like a shy country +maiden. + +"Ah, if I had, you would have slain me long ere this," said I, "for I +read you like a child's horn-book that he plays battledore with. 'Have +not--_love_! Have--_hate_.' There you are, all in brief, my Lady +Ysolinde." + +"It is false," laughed she; "but nevertheless I love greatly to hear you +call me Ysolinde." + +She netted her fingers in mine beneath the shawl. Well might the High +Councillor say that she had a beautiful hand. Though, God wot, much he +knew about it. For Ysolinde of Plassenburg could speak with her hand, +love with it, be angry with it, hate with it--and kill with it. + +"I am an experiment," said I; "one indeed that has lasted you a little +longer than the others, my Lady Ysolinde, only because you have not come +to the end of me so soon." + +"Pshaw!" she said, pushing me from her, for we were at the turning of a +path, "you love another. That is the amulet against infection that you +carry. Yet sometimes I think that that other is only your hateful, +plain-favored, vainly conceited self!" + +I saw the Prince sit alone, according to his custom, in an arbor behind +us at that very moment--and judge if I blushed or no. But the Princess +saw him not, being eager upon her flouting of me. + +"I tell you," she cried, scornfully and disdainfully, "there is nothing +interesting about you but the blueness of your eyes, and that any monk +can make upon parchment, aye, and deeper and bluer, with his +lapis-lazuli. An experiment!--Why should I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, +experiment with you, the son of the Red Axe of the Wolfsberg ?" + +"Nay, that I know not," I answered; "but yet I am indeed no more than +your arrow-butts, your target of practice, your whipping-boy, to be slung +at and arrow-drilled and bullet-pitted at your pleasure!" + +"I dare say," she said, bitterly; "and all the time you go scathless--no +more heart-stricken than if summer flies lighted on thee. Away with such +a man; he is the ghost of a man--a simulacrum--no true lover!" + +"At your will, Princess. I shall indeed go away. I will to-morrow seek +the spears. But, after all, you will not send me forth in anger?" I said, +with a strong conviction that I knew the answer. + +"And why not?" said she. + +"Because," I replied, looking at her, "I am, after all, the one man who +believes thoroughly in your heart's deep inward goodness. I believe in +you even when you do not believe in yourself. I can affirm, for I know +better than you know yourself. You cover the beauty of your heart from +others. You flout and jeer. Above all, you experiment dangerously with +words and actions. But, after all, I am necessary to you. You will not +send me away in anger. For you need some one to believe in the soundness +of your heart. And I, Hugo Gottfried, am that man!" + +"Hence, flatterer!" cried the lady, smiling, but well pleased. "It is +known to all that I am the Old Serpent--the deceiver--the ill fruit of +the Knowledge of Evil. And now you say of Good also! And what is more and +worse, you expect me to believe you. Wherein you also experiment! I pray +you, do not so. That is to you the forbidden fruit. Good-night. Go, now, +and pray for a more truthful tongue!" + +And with that she went in, the copper spangles glancing at her waist red +as the light on ripe wheat, and all her tall figure lissome as the +bending corn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +INSULT AND CHALLENGE + + +Now, because there is still so much to tell, and so little time and space +to tell it in, I must go forward rapidly. In these dull times of grouting +peace, when men become like penned pigs, waking up only at feeding-time, +they have no knowledge of how swiftly life went when every day brought a +new living friend or a new dead enemy, when love and hate awakened fresh +and fresh with each morrow's sun--and when I was young. + +Perhaps that last is the true reason. But when the Baltic norther snorts +without, and mine ancient thigh-wound twinges down where my hand rests, +naturally I have no better resource than to fall to the goose-quill. And +lo! long ere I am done with the first page, and have the ink no more than +half-way to the roots of my hair, I am again in the midst of the ringing +hoofs of the foray. I hear the merry dinting of steel on steel; the +sullen _chug-chug_ of the wheels of Foul Peg, the Margrave's great +cannon, which more than once he lent our Prince; the oaths of the +men-at-arms shouldering her up, apostrophizing most indecently her fat +haunches, and the next moment getting tossed aside like ninepins by her +unexpected lurches. Ah, the times that were when I was young! + +I see these gallants about our later courts--Lord help them, sons of mine +own, too, some of them--year in and year out, crossing their legs and +staring at the gilded points of their shoon. All are grown so tame--none +now to ride a-questing in the Baltic forest for border brigands +--indeed, there be no brigands to quest for. + +But I forget. Time was when I looked love, and I too had shoon, aye, with +golden tips to match the armor of honor which the Prince gave me after I +had led my first regiment to victory--even as the Lady Ysolinde had said. +And noble shoes of price they were. + +And I could make love, too, when I had the chance. But, nevertheless, not +more than one day in six--spending the rest in the new training of my +men, the perfecting of their equipment, the choosing of their horses, and +the providing for their stores. + +God wot--it was a good time. I mind me the year when the Prince fell out +with Duke Casimir, and we played over again the old tricks with him. + +Never was I gladder of any quest than that to ride within sight of the +Red Tower, and wave the blue and yellow of my master under the very +ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and almost within hearing of the inhuman +howling of its blood-hounds. + +"Singe his beard!" said my master. And with a hundred riders I did it +too. For though the burghers clattered to their gates, I rode to the very +walls of the Wolfsberg, which for bravado I summoned to surrender. And +the best of it was that no man knew me. For I had grown soldierlike and +strong, and was most unlike the lad who had ridden away so meekly and +almost in tears out of the gate of that very Wolfsberg. + +Of my father, thank God, I saw nothing--though I doubt not he observed my +troop. For doubtless he would be with his master--aged now, soured, and +prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned +bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of +the assassin's bullet in every wind. + +And, save when an honest burgher was slain by the Black Riders, the +beasts of the kennels were fed on diet more ordinary than of old. + +So we rode back with our prisoners, and as much plunder as we could screw +out of old Burgomeister Texel and his citizens by threats of sacking the +city--a deed which I was main sorry for afterwards, in the light of that +which happened at a later day. But I knew not the future then, and it was +as well. For the guilders paid nobly for the new-fashioned ordnance which +stood us in such good stead that autumn, when we had sterner work in hand +than singeing the gray beard of Duke Casimir. + +Within Schloss Plassenburg things went on much as usual. Perhaps I was +lax in my wooing--I cannot tell; I loved sincerely enough, of a +certainty. Nor, after this, was I backward in telling Helene of it, and +sometimes she would love me well enough, and then again she would not. So +that I could not tell what she would be at. + +Looking back upon everything now, I see clearly how that the rankling +secret thorn was the accursed understanding with the Prince, that for his +peace's sake I was to abide friendly with the Princess and let her try +her fool experiments on me. Which she did, God wot, innocently +enough--that is, for all the harm they did me. But, nevertheless, without +knowing it, I kept the Little Playmate with a sore and aching heart for +many and many a day. + +But I made nothing of it--thinking, like a careless, ill-deserving +soldier-lover, eager for success and dazzled with ambition, chiefly of my +profession, of how to win battles and take fortresses against the +surrounding princelings, our Karl's enemies, till one day I found Helene +with her cheeks wet and her pretty lips bitten till the blood had come. + +"What is't, little one? Tell me!" said I, going to her and putting my +arm about her, as indeed I had some right to do, if no more than the +right of having carried her up into the Red Tower in her white gown +so long ago. + +But she wrested herself determinedly out of my hold, saying: "Do not +touch me, sir. 'Tis all your fault!" + +"What is my fault, dear lass?" said I. "Tell me, and I will instantly +amend it." + +"Oh!" she cried, casting her hands out from her in bitter complaint, +"there is nothing so meanly selfish as a man! He will say tender +things--aye, and do them, too, when it liketh him. He can be, oh, so +devoted and so full of his eternal affections. He is dying all for love! +And then, soon as he passes out of the door he ties his sword-knot and +points his mustache to his liking, and lo! there is no more of him. He +goes and straightway forgets till it shall please his High Mightiness to +call again. Oh! and we--we women, poor things, must stand about with our +mouths open, like mossy carp in a pond, and struggle and push for such +crumbs of comfort as he will deign to throw us from the full larder of +his self-satisfaction!" + +This was a most mighty speech for the Little Playmate, and took me +entirely by surprise. For mostly she was still enough and quiet enough in +her ways and speakings. + +"'Tis true, sweetheart, that some men are like that," I replied, gently, +"but not Hugo Gottfried, surely. When did you ever find me unkind, +unthankful, unfaithful? When went I ever away and left you alone?" + +"Oh, you did--you did," she cried, the tears starting from her lovely +eyes, "or I should never have been insulted--treated lightly, spoken to +as a staled thing of courts and camps!" + +And Helene sank down beside the garden wall in an abandonment of +sorrow--so that my heart grew hot and angry at the cause of her grief, to +me then unknown. + +I knelt down beside her and touched her lightly on one rounded, +heaving shoulder. + +"Dearest," said I, "I knew nothing of this. Tell me who has insulted you. +As God is in His heaven, I will have my sword in his heart or nightfall, +were it the Prince himself! Tell me, and by the Lord of the Innocents, I +will make him eat cold steel and drink his own blood therewith!" + +"Oh, it was my own fault--I know I should not have met him--let him speak +to me in the garden. But you were so cold to me, Hugo. And then I +thought--I thought that the Woman was taking you away from me. Also she +sent me out to be--to be in his path!" + +"In whose path, I bid you tell me, and what woman?" + +Though the latter I knew well enough. + +"The Princess," she answered, "and the Count von Reuss. To-day he spoke +to me of love, and spoke it hatefully, shamefully, when the Princess had +bidden me go and carry her message to him. But it was with me that he +desired to meet. And I--at first many days ago--I walked by his side and +listened, for then he spoke courteously and like a gentleman. For you +were on the high terrace, and I wished you to see. I thought--I hoped--" + +And the little one broke off with tears. + +"I know, I know!" cried I, contritely; "I am a blind, doting fool. In +this Prince's court I thought no more of such dangers than when I had +you safe and innocent, my Playmate of the Red Tower. But what did or +said Von Reuss?" + +"Truly he did naught, but only spoke--things for which I would have +smitten him to death had I possessed a dagger. I bade him begone. And he +swore he would execute his purpose yet in spite of every town's +Executioner in the Empire." + +"Ah, will he?" said I, a calm chill of hatred settling about my heart. +"I, Hugo Gottfried, will execute him, if I have to send for my father's +Red Axe to do it with--singed and scented monkey that he is." + +"Nay," said Helene, "then I wish I had not told you. Perhaps he will not +meddle with me again, and if you cross him he may slay thee. Remember, I +have no friend here but you, Hugo!" + +"Count von Reuss slay me! I could eat him up without salt or savory--a +weak reed, a kerl without backbone save of buckram; why, I will shake him +this day like a rat between my hands!" + +So I spoke in my anger, hot with myself that I had let the Little +Playmate suffer these things, and resolved that neither Prince nor +Princess would stand between me and my love a moment longer. + +But in all lands it takes more than Say-so to budge the stubborn wheels +of circumstance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +I FIND A SECOND + + +I meant to go directly to the Prince in his chamber and tell him that +from this time forth Helene and I had resolved to battle out our lives +together. But it chanced that I passed through the higher terrace on my +way to the lower--a bosky place of woods, where the Prince loved to +linger in of a summer afternoon, drowsing there to the singing of birds +and the falling of waters. For our Karl had tastes quite beyond sour +black Casimir, with his church-yard glooms and raw-bone terrors. + +On the upper terrace I found Von Reuss, lolling against the parapet with +other blue flittermice, his peers--he himself no flittermouse, indeed, +but of the true Casimir vampire breed, horrid of tooth, nocturnal, +desirous of lusts and blood. + +At sight of him I went straight at mine enemy, as if I had been +leading a charge. + +"Sir," said I, "you are a base rascal. You have insulted the Lady Helene, +maid of honor to the Princess, the adopted child of my father. Her wrongs +are mine. You will do me the honor of crossing weapons with me!" + +"I have not learned the art of the axe," said he, turning about, +listlessly. "You expect too much, Sir Executioner!" + +I wasted no more words upon him, for I had not sought him to barter +insults, but to force him to meet me where I could have my anger out upon +him, and avenge the tears in the eyes of my Little Playmate. + +Von Reuss was drawing a glove of yellow dressed kid through his hand +as he spoke. This I plucked from his fingers ere he was aware, and +struck him soundly on either cheek with it before flinging it crumpled +up in his face. + +"Now will you fight, or must I strike you with my open hand?" + +Then I saw the look of his uncle stand hell-clear in his eyes. But he was +not frightened, this one, only darkly and unscrupulously vengeful. + +"Foul toad's spawn, now I will have your blood!" he cried, tugging at +his sword. + +"We cannot fight here," said I, "within sight of the palace windows. But +to-night at sundown, or to-morrow at dawn, I am at your service." + +"Let it be to-night, on the common at the back of the Hirschgasse--one +second, and the fighting only between principals." + +Very readily I agreed to that, or anything, and then, with a wave of my +hat, I went off, cudgelling my brain whom I should ask to be my second. +Jorian, who was now an officer, I should have liked better than any +other. But, being of the people myself, it was necessary that I should +have some one of weight and standing to meet the nephew of the Duke of +the Wolfmark and his friend. + +Moodily pacing down the glade, which led from the second terrace and the +pleasaunce, I almost overran the Prince himself. He was seated under a +tree, a parchment of troubadours' songs lay by him, illuminated (to judge +by the woeful pictures) by no decent monkish or clerkly hand. He had a +bottle of Rhenish at hand, and looked the same hearty, hard-headed, +ironic soldier he ever was, and yet, what is more strange, every inch of +him a Prince. + +"Whither away, young Sir Amorous," he cried, pretending great indignation +at my absent-mindedness, "head among the clouds or intent as ever on the +damosels? Conning madrigals for lovers' lutes, mayhap? And all the while +taking no more heed of God's honest princes than if they existed only for +trampling under your feet." + +I asked his pardon--but indeed I had not come so nigh him as that. + +"I am to fight in a private quarrel," said I, "and, truth to tell, I +sorely want a second, and was pondering whom to ask." + +The Prince sighed. + +"Ah, lad," he said, "once I had wished no better than to stand up at +your side myself. I was not a Prince then though; and again, these +laws--these too strict laws of mine! But what is the matter of your +duel, and with whom?" + +"Well," said I, "I have slapped Count von Reuss's chafts with his own +glove, in the midst of his friends, on the upper terrace." + +'Tis possible I may be mistaken, I suppose, but I did think then, and +still do think, that I saw evident tokens of pleasure on the face of +the Prince. + +"And the cause--" + +I hesitated, blushing temple-high, I dare say, in spite of the growth of +my mustaches. + +"A woman, then!" cried the Prince. Then, more low, he added, "Not the--?" + +He would have said the Princess, for he paused, in his turn, with a +graver look on his face. + +So I hastened with my explanation. + +"He insulted the young Lady Helene, maid of honor to the Princess, who is +to me as a sister, having been brought up with me in one house. Her honor +is my honor, both by this tie, and because, as you know, we have long +loved each other. Therefore will I fight Count von Reuss to the death, +and a good cause enough." + +The Prince whistled--an unprincely habit, but then all millers' lads +whistle at their work. So Prince Karl whistled as he meditated. + +"I see further into this matter than that--if indeed you love this maid. +There be other things to be thought upon than vengeance upon Von Reuss! +Does the Princess know of this?" + +"Suspect she may," said I; "know she cannot. It was only half an hour ago +that I knew myself." + +"Ha," said he, musingly, with his beard in his hand, "it hath gone no +further than that. Were it not, if possible, better to conceal the cause +yet a while that our compact may go on? It were surely easy enough to +invent an excuse for the quarrel." + +"Prince," answered I, earnestly, "this bargain of ours hath gone on over +long already, in that it hath brought a true maid's honor and happiness +in question. And a maid also whom I am bound to love. I will ask you +this, have I been a good soldier and servant to you or not?" + +"Aye to that!" quoth the Prince, heartily. + +"Have I ever asked fee or reward for aught I have tried to do?" + +"Nay," he said; "but you have gotten some of both without asking." + +"Will you grant me the first boon I have asked of you since you became +Prince and Master to Hugo Gottfried?" + +"I will grant it, if it be not to separate us as friend and friend," said +my master at once. + +It was like the noble Prince thus to speak of our relation. I took his +hand in mine to kiss it, but this he would not permit. + +"Shake hands like a man," he said, "or else kiss me upon the cheek. My +hand is for young, blue-painted flittermice to kiss, for whose souls' +good it is to put their lips to the hand that has shifted the meal-bags." + +And with that Prince Karl embraced me heartily, and kissed me on +both cheeks. + +"Now for this request of yours!" said he, looking expectantly at me. + +"It is this," I answered him directly: "Give me a district to govern, a +tower to dwell in, and Helene to be my wife." + +"Nay, but these are three things, and you stipulated but for one. Choose +one!" he said. + +"Then give me Helene to wife!" I cried, instantly. + +"Spoken like a lover," said the good Prince. "You shall have her if I +have the giving of her, which I beg leave to doubt. Something tells me +that much water will run under the bridges ere that wedding comes to +pass. But so far as it concerns me the thing is done. Yet remember, I +have never been one wisely to marry, nor yet to give in marriage." + +He smiled a dry, humorsome smile--the smile of a shrewd miller casting +up his thirlage upon the mill door when he sees the fields of his parish +ripe to the harvest. + +"I wonder why, with her crystals and her ink-pools, the Princess hath not +foreseen this. By the blue robe of Mary, there will be proceedings when +she does know. I think I shall straightway go a-hunting in the mountains +with my friend the Margrave!" + +He considered a moment longer, and took a deep draught of Rhenish. + +"Then the matter of a second," continued the Prince; "he is to fight, +of course?" + +"No," said I; "principals only." + +"I wonder," said the Prince, meditatively, "if there be anything in that. +It is not our Plassenburg custom between two young men, well surrounded +with brisk lads. Three seconds, and three to meet them point to point, +was more our ancient way." + +"It was specially arranged at the request of the Count you Reuss," I +told the Prince. + +"If there is to be no fighting of seconds, what do you say to old +Dessauer? He was a pretty blade in my time, and has all the etiquette and +chivalry of the business at his finger-ends. Also he likes you." + +"At any rate, he is ever railing upon me with that sharp tongue of +his!" said I. + +"But did you ever hear him rail upon any of these young men that lean +on rails and roll their eyes under ladies' windows?" said the Prince. +"Old Leopold Dessauer is even now no weakling. I warrant he could draw +a good sword yet upon occasion. Anything more lovely than his riposte I +never saw." + +The Prince got upon his feet with the difficulty of a man naturally heavy +of body, who takes all his exercise upon horseback. + +"Page!" he cried. "My compliments to High State's Councillor +Dessauer, and ask him to come to me here. You will find him, I think, +in the library." + +So to the palace sped the boy; and presently, walking stiffly, but with +great dignity, came the old man down to us. + +"How about the ancestors, the noble men my predecessors?" cried the +Prince, when he saw him; "have you found aught to link the miller of +Chemnitz with the Princes of Plassenburg?" + +The Councillor smiled, and shook his head gravely. + +"Nothing beyond that bit of metal which hangs by your side, Prince Karl," +said Dessauer, pointing to his Highness's sword. + +The Prince looked down at the strong, unadorned hilt thoughtfully +and sighed. + +"I would I had another to transmit this sword to, as well as the power to +wield it, when I take my place as usurper in the histories of the Princes +of Plassenburg." + +"I trust your Highness may long be spared to us," replied Dessauer, +gravely; "but, Prince Karl, in default of an heir to your body (of which +there is yet no reason to despair), wherefore may not your Highness +devise the realm back to the ancient line?" + +"The line of Dietrich is extinct," said the Prince, booking up sharply. + +"So says Duke Casimir, hoping to succeed to your shoes, when he could +not to your helmet and your sword. But I have my suspicions and my +beliefs. There is more in the parchments of yonder library than has yet +seen the light." + +Suddenly the Prince recollected me, standing patiently by. + +"But we waste time, Dessauer; we can speak of ancestors and successors +anon. I and Hugo Gottfried want you to take up your ancient role. Do you +mind how you snicked Axelstein, and clipped Duke Casimir of his little +finger at the back of the barn, when we were all lads at the Kaiser's +first diet at Augsburg?" + +Old Dessauer smiled, well pleased enough at the excellence of the +Prince's memory. + +"I have seen worse cuts," he said; "Casimir has never rightly liked me +since. And had the Black Riders caught me, over to his dogs I should have +gone without so much as a belt upon me. He would have kept them without +food for a week on purpose to make a clean job of my poor scarecrow +pickings." + +"And now this young spark," said the Prince, "for the sake of a lady's +eyes, desires to do your Augsburg deed over again with Duke Casimir's +nephew. So we must give him a man with quarterings on his shield to go +along with him." + +"I am too old and stiff," said Dessauer, shaking his head mournfully, yet +with obvious desire in the itching fingers of his sword-hand; "let him +seek out one of the brisk young kerls that are drumming at the +blade-play all the time down there in the square by the guard-rooms." + +"Nay, it is to be principals only; there is to be no fighting of seconds. +The Count has specially desired that there shall be none," said the +Prince; "therefore, go with the lad, Dessauer." + +"No fighting of seconds!" cried the Councillor, in astonishment, holding +up his hands. And I think the old swordsman seemed a little disappointed. +"Well, I will go and see the lad well through, and warrant that he gets +fair-play among these wolves of the Mark." + +"Faith, when it comes to that, he is as rough-pelted a wolf of the Mark +as any of them!" laughed the Prince. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE WOLVES OF THE MARK + + +The Hirschgasse is a little inn across the river, well known to the +wilder blades of Plassenburg. There they go to be outside the authority +of the city magistrates, to make rendezvous with maids more complaisant +than maidenly, to fight their duels, and generally to do those things +without remark which otherwise bring them under the eye of the Miller's +Son, as they one and all call (behind his back) the reigning Prince of +Plassenburg. + +It was on the stroke of seven, and as fine an evening as ever failed to +touch the soul of sinful man with a sense of its beauty, that I set out +to fight the nephew of Duke Casimir. I had indeed ridden far and fast, +and withal kept my head since I left the Red Tower a poor homeless +wanderer, otherwise I had scarce found myself going out with High +Councillor Leopold von Dessauer as my second to fight my late master's +heir, the proximate Duke of the Wolfmark. + +What was my surprise to find the old man attired in the appropriate +costume for such an occasion, a close-fitting suit of dark gray, of +ancient cut indeed, and without the fashionable slashes and scallops, but +both correct and practicable, either for the sword-play or the proper +ordering of it in others. + +Von Dessauer laughed a little dry laugh when I congratulated him on the +youthfulness of his appearance. Indeed, he seemed little grateful for my +felicitations. And if it had not been for the rheumatism which he had +inherited from his father's campaigns on the tented field, and the +weakness which came from his own in other fields, he would yet have +proved as fit for the play of fence as any youngster of them all. So, at +least, he averred. And to-night the wind was southerly, and his old hurts +irked him not. Faith he was almost minded to try a ruffle with the cocks +of the Mark on his own account. + +"Mind you," he said, "guard low. The attack of the Mark ever comes from +the right leg, half-way to the knee. But I forgot--what use is it to +tell you, that are born of the Mark, and have learned sword-cunning in +their schools?" + +As we left the castle I looked about and secretly kissed a hand to that +high window, where was the chamber of my Little Playmate, whose cause I +was going out so gladly to champion. + +Dessauer and I went quickly down through the lanes which led to the river +edge where the ferry was, and more than once with the comer of my eye I +seemed to see a man in a cloak and sword stealing after us. But as the +sight of a man so attired going secretly in the direction of the +Hirschgasse was no uncommon one, I did not pay any particular attention. + +We crossed over in the large flat-boat which plied constantly between the +banks before our fine new bridge was built. We found our enemies on the +ground before us, and they seemed more than a little surprised when they +perceived who my second was. For as we came up the bank I saw them go +close and whisper together like men who hastily alter their plans at the +last moment. + +I presented my second in form. + +"The High Councillor Leopold von Dessauer, Knight of the Empire!" said I, +proudly enough. + +Then the Count presented his, as the custom then was among us of +the North: + +"His Excellency Friedrich, Count of Cannstadt, Hereditary Cup-bearer of +the Wolfmark." + +Count Cannstadt was an impecunious old-young man, who, chiefly owing to +accumulated gaming-debts and a disagreement with Duke Casimir concerning +the payment of certain rents and duties, had sought the shelter of the +Castle of Plassenburg--a refuge which the generous Prince Karl extended +to all exiles who were not proven criminals. + +The seconds bowed first to each other, and then to their opposing +principals. In those days, duels were mostly fought with the combatants' +own swords. And now Von Dessauer took my blade, and, going forward +courteously, handed the hilt to Count Cannstadt, receiving that of Von +Reuss in return. The seconds then compared the lengths, and found almost +half an inch in favor of my opponent. Which being declared, and I +offering no objection, the discrepancy was allowed and the swords +returned us to fall to. + +And this without further parley we did. + +I was no ways afraid of my opponent. For though a pretty enough, tricky +fighter, he had little practical experience. Also he had quite failed to +strengthen himself by daily custom, and especially by practice at +outrauce, with an enemy keen to run you through in front of you, and the +necessity of keeping a wary eye on half a dozen other conflicts on either +hand, as has constantly to be done in war. + +The place where we fought was on a level green platform a little way +above the roofs of the inn of the Hirschgasse, where many a similar +conflict has been fought, and on which many a good fellow has lain, +panting like a grassed trout, with the gasps growing slower and deadlier, +while his opponent wiped his blade on the trampled herbage, and the +seconds looked on with folded arms. There were many bushes and rocks +about, and the place was very secluded to be so near a great city. + +At first I did not trouble myself much, nor attempt to force the +fighting. I was content to hold Von Reuss in play, and defend myself till +the hunger edge of his attack was dulled. For I saw on his face a look of +vicious confidence that surprised me, considering his inexperience, and +he lunged with a venom and resolution which, to my mind, betokened a +determination to kill at all hazards. + +I knew, however, that presently he must overreach himself, so of set +purpose I kept my blade short, and let him approach nearer. Immediately +he began to press, thinking that he had me at his mercy. We had fought +our way round to a spot on the upper side of the plateau, where for a +moment Von Reuss had a momentary benefit from the nature of the ground. +Here I felt that he gathered himself together, and, presently, as I had +supposed he would, he centred his energy in a determined thrust at my +left breast. This was well enough timed, for my guard had been short and +a little high on purpose to lead him on, and now it took me all my time +to turn his point aside. I saw the steel shoot past, grazing my left arm. +Then with so long a recovery, and the loss of balance from lunging +downhill, he was at my mercy. + +As I did not wish to kill him I chose my spot almost at my leisure, and +pinked him two inches below the spring of the neck and close to the +collar-bone, which was running the thing as fine as I could allow myself. + +What was my surprise to see my sword-blade arch itself as if it had +stricken a stone wall, and to hear the unmistakable ring of steel +meeting steel. + +"Treachery!" cried Von Dessauer and I together; "you are villains both. +He is wearing a shirt of mail!" + +And the old man rushed forward with his sword bare in his hand and all +a-tremble with indignation. + +I heard the shrill "purl" of a silver call, and, turning me about, there +was the gambler Cannstadt with a whistle at his lips. I dared not turn my +head, for I had still to guard myself against the traitor Von Reuss's +attack, but with the tail of my eye I could see two or three men rise +from behind bushes and rocks, and come running as fast as they could +towards us. Then I knew that Dessauer and I were doomed men unless +something turned up that we wotted not of. For with an old man, and one +so stiff as the High Councillor, for my only ally, it was impossible for +me to hold my own against more than double our numbers. + +Nevertheless, Von Dessauer attacked Cannstadt with surprising fury and +determination, anger glittering in his eye, and resolution to punish +treachery lending vigor to his thrust. I had not time to observe his +method save unconsciously, for I had to change my position momentarily +that I might take the points of the two men who came down the hill at +speed, sword in hand. + +But all this foul play among high-born folk gave me a kind of mortal +sickness. To die in battle is one thing, but over against the very roofs +of your home to find yourself brought to death's door by murderous +treachery is quite another. + +At this moment there came news of a diversion. From below was heard the +crying of a stormy voice. + +"Halt! I command you! Halt!" + +And wheeling sufficiently to see, I observed through the twilight the +figure of a stout man, who came leaping heavily up the hill towards us, +waving a sword as he came. Well, thought I, the more there are of them +the quicker it will be over, and the more credit for us in keeping up our +end so long. Better die in a good fight than live with a bad conscience. + +With which admirable reflection I sent my sword through Von Reuss's +sword-arm, in the fleshy part, severing the muscle and causing him to +drop his blade. I had him then at my mercy, and experienced a great +desire to push my blade down his throat, for a treacherous cowardly +hound as he had proved himself to me. But instead of this I had to turn +towards the other two who came at the charge down the hill and were now +close upon us. + +I had just time to leap aside from the first and let him overrun himself +when he shot almost upon the sword of the thick-set man, who came up the +hill shouting to us to stop. The second man I engaged, and a stanch blade +I found him, though fighting for as dirty a cause as ever man crossed +swords in. + +"Halt!" came the voice of command again--the voice I knew so well--"in +the name of the State I bid you cease!" + +It was the voice of Karl, Prince of Plassenburg. + +"We must take the rough with the smooth now. We must kill them, every +one, like stanch men of the Mark!" cried Von Reuss. "There is no safety +for any of us else." And in a moment we were at it, the Prince furiously +assaulting the second of the bravoes who came down the hill. More coolly +than I had given him credit for, Von Reuss stuffed a silken kerchief into +the hole in his shoulder, and repossessed himself of his weapon in his +other hand. + +It was the briskest kind of a bicker that ensued for a little while there +on the bosky, broomy hill-side in the evening light. Ah, Dessauer was +down at last and Cannstadt at his throat! I went about with a whirl, +leaving my own man for the moment, and rushed upon the Count's false +second. He turned to receive me, but not quite quick enough, for I got +him two inches below where I had pinked his principal's ring-mail, and +that made all the difference. Cannstadt did not immediately drop his +sword. But his limbs weakened, and he fell forward without a sound. + +Then as I looked about, there was the Prince manfully crossing swords +with two, and the cowardly Von Reuss creeping up with his sword shortened +in his left hand with intent to slay him from behind. + +Whereat I gave a furious cry of anguish, that I should have been the +means of bringing my noble master into such peril. The Prince Karl had at +the same moment some intuition of the treacherous foe behind him, for he +leaped aside with more agility than I had ever seen him display before on +foot, and Von Reuss was too sorely wounded to follow. + +Presently I was at my first bravo again, and the Prince being left with +but one, Von Reuss took the opportunity to slip away over the hill. + +The rest of the conflict was not long a-settling. There were loud voices +from the stream beneath. The combat had been observed, and half a score +of the Prince's guard were already swimming, wading, and leaping into +small boats in their haste to be first to our assistance. + +But we did not need their aid. I passed my blade through and through my +assailant, almost at the same moment that the Prince spiked his man so +directly in the throat, so that the red point stood out in the hollow of +his neck behind. + +Both went down simultaneously, and there was Von Reuss on horseback, just +disappearing over the ridge. Prince Karl wiped his brow. + +"What devil's traitors!" he cried. "Poor Dessauer, I wonder what he has +gotten? Let us go to him." + +We went across the plateau together, and knelt by the side of the old +man. At first I could not find the wound, though there was blood enough +upon his face and fencing-habit. But presently I discovered that his +scalp had been cut from above the eye backwards to the crown of his +head--a shallow, ploughing scratch, no more, though it had effectually +stunned the old man. + +Even as I held him in my arms, he came to and looked about him. + +"Are they all dead?" he said, feeling about for his sword. + +"You were nearly dead, dearest of friends," said my master. "But be +content. You have done very well for so young a fighter. An you behave +yourself, and keep from such brawling in the future, I declare I will +give you a company!" + +Dessauer smiled. + +"All dead?" he asked, trying still to look about him. + +"Your man is dead, or the next thing to it, two other rascals grievously +wounded, and the scoundrel Von Reuss fled, as well he might. But my +archers are already on his track." + +Up the hill came Jorian and Boris leading the rout. + +"Is the Prince safe?" cried Jorian. + +"The Prince is safe," said Karl, answering for himself. + +"Good!" chorussed Jorian, Boris, and all the archers together. + +"Catch me that man on horseback there!" cried the Prince. "Take him or +kill him, but if you can help it do not let him escape. He is the Count +von Reuss, and a double traitor." + +"Good!" cried the pair, and set off after him, all dripping as they were +from their abrupt passage of the river. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE FLIGHT OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE + + +We carried Dessauer back to the boat with the utmost tenderness, the +Prince walking by his side, and oft-times taking his hand. I followed +behind them, more than a little sad to think that my troubles should have +caused so good and true a man so dangerous a wound. For though in a young +man the scalp-wound would have healed in a week, in a man of the High +Councillor's age and delicacy of constitution it might have the most +serious effects. + +But Dessauer himself made light of it. + +"I needed a leech to bleed me," he said. "I was coward enough to put off +the kindly surgery, and here our young friend has provided me one +without cost. His last operation, too, and so no fee to pay. I am a +fortunate man." + +We came to the gate of the Palace of Plassenburg. + +My Lady Princess met us, pale and obviously anxious, with lips compressed +and a strange cold glitter in her emerald eyes. + +"So strange a thing has happened!" she began. + +"No stranger than hath happened to us," cried the Prince. + +"Why, what hath happened to you?" she demanded, quickly. + +"Your fine Von Reuss has proved himself a traitor. He fought a duel with +Hugo here all tricked in chain-armor, and when found out he whistled his +rascals from the covert to slay us. But we bested him, and he is over the +hill, with Jorian and Boris hot after his heel." + +"And he hath not gone alone!" said the Princess, and her eyes were +brilliant with excitement. + +"Not gone alone?" said the Prince. "What do you know about this +black work?" + +"Because Helene, my maid of honor, hath fled to join him," she +said, looking anxiously at us, like one who perils much upon a +throw of the dice. + +I laughed aloud. So certain was I of the utter impossibility of the +thing, that I laughed a laugh of scorn. And I saw the sound of my voice +jar the Lady Ysolinde like a blow on the face. + +"You do not believe!" she said, standing straight before me. + +"I do not believe--I know!" answered I, curtly enough. + +"Nevertheless the thing is true," she said, with a curious, pleading +expression, as if she had been charged with wrong-doing and were clearing +herself, though none had accused her by word or look. + +"It is most true," the Princess went on. "She fled from the palace an +hour before sundown. She was seen mounting a horse belonging to Von +Reuss at the Wolfmark gate, with two of his men in attendance upon her. +She is known to have received a note by the hand of an unknown messenger +an hour before." + +I did not wait for the permission of the Princess, but tore up the +women's staircase to Helene's room, where I found nothing out of +place--not so much as a fold of lace. After a hurried look round I was +about to leave the room when a crumpled scrap of paper, half hidden by a +curtain, caught my eye. + +I stooped and picked it up. It was written in an unknown and probably +disguised hand--a hand cumbersome and unclerkly: + +"Come to me. Meet me at the Red Tower. I need you." + +There was no more; the signature was torn away, and if the letter were +genuine it was more than enough. But no thought of its truth nor of the +falseness of Helene so much as crossed my mind. + +To tell the truth, it struck me from the first that the Lady Ysolinde +might have placed the letter there herself. So I said nothing about it +when I descended. + +The Prince met me half-way up the stairs. + +"Well?" he questioned, bending his thick brows upon me. + +"She is gone, certainly," said I; "where or how I do not yet know. But +with your permission I will pursue and find out." + +"Or, I presume, without my permission?" said the Prince. + +I nodded, for it was vain to pretend otherwise--foolish, too, with +such a master. + +"Go, then, and God be with you!" he said. "It is a fine thing to +believe in love." + +And in ten minutes I was riding towards the Wolfsberg. + +As I went past the great four-square gibbet which had made an end of +Ritterdom in Plassenburg, I noted that there was a gathering of the +hooded folk--the carrion crows. And lo! there before me, already +comfortably a-swing, were our late foes, the two bravoes, and in the +middle the dead Cannstadt tucked up beside them, for all his five hundred +years of ancestry--stamped traitor and coward by the Miller's Son, who +minded none of these things, but understood a true man when he met him. + +I pounded along my way, and for the first ten miles did well, but there +my horse stumbled and broke a leg in a wretched mole-run widened by the +winter rains. In mercy I had to kill the poor beast, and there I was left +without other means of conveyance than my own feet. + +It was a long night as I pushed onward through the mire. For presently +it had come on to rain--a thick, dank rain, which wetted through all +covering, yet fell soft as caressing on the skin. + +I took shelter at last in a farm-house with honest folk, who right +willingly sat up all night about the fire, snoring on chairs and hard +settles that I might have their single sleeping-chamber, where, under +strings of onions and odorous dried herbs, I rested well enough. For I +was dead tired with the excitement and anxiety of the day--and at such +times one often sleeps best. + +On the morrow I got another horse, but the brute, heavy-footed from the +plough, was so slow that, save for the look of the thing, I might just as +well have been afoot. + +Nevertheless I pushed towards the town of Thorn, hearing and seeing +naught of my dear Playmate, though, as you may well imagine, I asked at +every wayside place. + +It was at the entering in of the strange country of the brick-dust that I +met Jorian and Boris. They were riding excellent horses, unblown, and in +good condition--the which, when I asked how they came by such noble +steeds, they said that a man gave them to them. + +"Jorian," said I, sharply, "where have you been?" + +"To the city of Thorn," said he, more briskly than was his wont, so that +I knew he had tidings to communicate. + +"Saw you the Lady Helene?" I asked, eagerly, of them. + +He shook his head, yet pleasantly. + +"Nay," said he, "I saw her not. The Red Tower is not a healthy place for +men of Plassenburg, nor yet the White Gate and the house of Master Gerard +von Sturm. But Mistress Helene is in safety, so much Boris and I are +assured of." + +"Not with Von Reuss?" cried I, fear thrilling sudden in my voice that he +had stolen her and now held her in captivity. + +Boris held up his hand as a signal that I must not hurry his companion, +who was clearly doing his best. + +"She is with Gottfried Gottfried, the old man, your father, and is +safe." + +"Did she go to them of her own free will, or did my father send for her?" +I went on, for much depended upon that question. + +"Nay," answered Jorian, "that I know not. But certainly she is with him, +and safe. The Count, too, is with his uncle, and they say also +safe--under lock and key." + +"Good!" quoth Boris. + +"Let us all three go back to Plassenburg forthwith!" cried I. + +"Good!" chorussed both of them together, unanimously slapping their +thighs. "Choose one of our horses. He was a good man who gave us them. We +wish we had known. We should have asked him for another when we were +about it." + +Nevertheless, I rode back to Plassenburg on the farmer's beast, sadly +enough, yet somewhat contented. For Helene was with my father, and far +safer, as I judged, than in the palace chambers of Plassenburg, and +within striking distance of the Lady Ysolinde. And in that I judged not +wrong, though the future seemed for a while to belie my confidence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE GOLDEN NECKLACE + + +The Chancellor Leopold von Dessauer, High Councillor of the Prince, with +his head still bound up, was pacing the sparred gallery outside the +private apartments of his master. It was in the heats of the late summer, +before the ripening of the orchard fruits had had time to culminate, or +the russet to come out slowly upon the apples, like a blush upon a +woman's soft, dusky cheek. + +The High Councillor was in a bad humor. For he had been kept waiting, and +that by a man of no account. At last a forester in a uniform of dark +green, with the Prince's bugle and sparrow-hawk in silver everywhere +about him, made his appearance at the foot of the gallery, and stood +waiting Dessauer's summons with his plumed hat of soft cloth in his hand. + +"Hither, man!" cried the High Councillor, sharply. "What has kept you? +Why were you not here half an hour ago? If this be the way you keep the +Prince's forests, no wonder there are many deer taken by reiving rascals +and the forest laws daily broken." + +"High Mightiness," said the man, humbly, looking down, "it was my +daughter--she would not give up the necklace. She hath had it for her own +since she was a child, and she would not deliver it, though I threatened +her with your well-born anger." + +"And have you got it with you? Surely you and she have not dared to keep +it!" began the Chancellor, with gathering fury on his eyebrow. + +"Yea, truly, truly, an you will have patience, my Lord, I have it +here,"-said the man, drawing a necklace of golden bars curiously arranged +from his leathern wallet; and, kneeling on his knee, he presented it to +the Chancellor. + +"How did you prevail with the maid?" he asked, as soon as he had it in +hand--"you used no constraint or force, I hope?" + +"Nay, sir," said the man, "for my wife being dead and my daughter +marriageable, she keeps house for me; and having a sweetheart betrothed a +year ago she hath been laying aside plenishing gear and women's dainty +gewgaws. So these I took one by one, beginning with a mirror of polished +brass, and made as if I would dash them in pieces if she discovered not +where the chain of gold was hid." + +"And she revealed it?" said Dessauer. + +"Aye," said the man, "but none so willingly, as you might suppose. I had +Saint Peter's own trouble to get it from her. Indeed, I prayed to the +Holy Apostle to aid me." + +"What had Saint Peter to do with it?" said the Councillor, pausing and +looking humorsomely at the man, like an ascetic sparrow with his head +at one side. + +"Because our Holy Saint Peter is the only saint who understands the +trouble men have with the contrariness of women." + +"Why so?" cried the Chancellor, rubbing his hand with a curious pleasure +at the colloquy. + +"Because he only among the Apostles was a married man and had experience +of a mother-in-law." + +"Art a wise forester. Where got you that wisdom?" + +"Why," said the man, modestly, "partly by nature, partly because I also +have been married, and so have graduated in the wars." + +"It is the same thing," said the Chancellor, "according to your +own telling." + +"Aye, sir," quoth the man, "but yet the young fellows will take no +warning. 'It is better to marry than to burn,' said the other Apostle. +But methinks he knew nothing about it, being no better than a +bachelor, or he would have amended it, 'It is better to burn than to +marry _and_ burn.'" + +"Ha! art also a theologe, Sir Woodman?" cried Dessauer. "But enough; this +touches on the Inquisition and the Holy Office. Let us despatch." + +All this time the High Councillor had been gazing by fits and starts at +the links of the necklace, turning it about and viewing it from +every-angle. It was composed of short bars of gold laid horizontally +three and three together, and bound together with short chains of gold. +And on each of the bars there was engraven a crest. Letters also were on +the bars, cut in plain deep script. + +"Now tell your tale and tell it briefly--that is, if brevity be in you, +which I doubt," said Dessauer. + +"As I said before," quoth the forester, "I was in the wars; I mean not +only in the wars with womenkind, but also with mankind. And among other +things I remember the night of the Duke Casimir's famous ride, when he +took Plassenburg, because there was scarce a sober man within the walls." + +"And his Highness the Prince Karl away on Baltic side with his men, else +had Casimir never set foot within the city!" cried the High Chancellor. + +"Ah, like enow," said the woodman, "I ken naught of that. But this I do +know, Plassenburg was taken with much slaughter and grievous loss of +goodly gear. They captivated many noble prisoners also, and, because I +slept in the stables, they took me to help lead the horses. Yet I was not +ill-treated, save that I had to keep pace with the horsemen upon my feet. +But I saw the Prince--" + +"Which Prince? Speak plainly," said the High Councillor, gruffly. + +"Why, the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg of Plassenburg," said the man. +"He, as your well-born Wisdom remembers, was then the only Prince in +these parts--a good man, and born of the noblest, though not of the +capacity of his present Highness the Prince Karl." + +"Proceed somewhat faster. Yon move as slowly as one of your own +forest oxen at the wood-hauling," cried the well-born Councillor in a +testy tone. + +"We were long in riding over to Thorn--two days and nights upon the way. +It was a terrible time, and all the while those condemned beasts of the +Wolfmark, Casimir's Black Riders, driving us with their spears like +prick-goads, till our backs were all bleeding, gentle and simple alike. +So at midnight of the third day we came to the city of Thorn, and up +through the streets to the Wolfsberg. There was no gladness in the town, +such as there would have been in our city had there been news of a +victory, or even of some hundreds of the enemy's horses well driven. For +then as now the town hated its Duke. And so they were all silent. + +"Then in the darkness we came to the castle, and the word was: 'Dismount, +and to the shambles!' Me and my like they meddled not with, but only the +great ones. And it was then, as I told you, that I saw Prince Dietrich +with the little maid in his arms. I had carried her part of the way for +him, and faithfully delivered her up again, feeding her with the choicest +meats I could obtain when she could eat. But she was tired, mostly, and +would not look at food. So for this he gave me her necklace from about +her pretty neck. But the rest of her noble golden gear, the belt and the +clasps, were upon the maid when the headsman of Thorn delivered her to +one that stood near by. So, being almost asleep with weariness and +exhausted with terror, they carried her away, and I saw the maid no more. + +"But the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg was beheaded within the hour, +and, as is their hellish custom, his body was thrown to the Duke's +blood-hounds that were clamoring all the time behind their fence. + +"God help us--such a disaster that night was for Plassenburg! Will the +Prince never set about wiping away the disgrace?" + +"Aye, that he will!" cried the High Chancellor, suddenly bursting into a +fury, strangely unlike him. "He will wash it away in the blood of Duke +Casimir and all his evil brood--the Wolves of the Mark truly are they +named. And the Wolfsberg shall go up in flaming fire to heaven, so that +the ashes of it shall be cast abroad to make the Mark yet grayer and more +desolate--like the fell of the beasts that dwelt within it." + +"Amen! Let it come quick, say I--that I may see it before I die!" cried +the forester, bowing low before the Chancellor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE DECENT SERVITOR + + +"This grows past all bearing," cried the Prince one morning, when he had +summoned into his hall the Chancellor Dessauer and myself. For, though +the Prince was still wont to command in person in any important action, +and in the general policy of his realm took counsel with none, yet it had +somehow come about that we, the old man and the young, had been +constituted an informal council of two which was liable to be summoned at +any moment, whenever the Prince was weary or troubled. + +He struck one clinched hand into the palm of the other before he +spoke again. + +"Duke Casimir is either in his dotage, or his riders have gotten out of +hand since Hugo and you drove the young wolf over to help the old. Both +are likely enough, with a people praying for deliverance and yearning for +their Duke's death. A bare board and an empty treasury may render a new +course of plunder necessary abroad, in order to keep his Dukedom from +toppling about his ears at home. After all, 'tis natural enough. But I +had thought that he would have had enough of sense to let the borders of +Plassenburg alone so long as its Prince lived." + +"And what, my lord, has befallen?" asked the High Councillor. + +"Why," cried the Prince, "the Black Riders of the Wolfmark are out again, +and have left their ancient trail behind them in slain men and frantic +women--and on our borders, too, among our kindly husbandmen, our honest, +sunburnt peasants. Bitterly shall Casimir Ironteeth rue the day that he +meddled with Karl Miller's Son." + +"Your Highness," I said, "this is indeed madness. We have but to collect +our forces, choose a time, and, lo! we are within the town of Thorn! Once +there, we would be welcomed by man, woman, and child. We could then +besiege the Wolfsberg, and in three days make an end." + +"Aye, that is it," said the Prince, grimly; "you have hit it, Hugo. We +_will_ make an end." + +"Also, my Prince," I went on, boldly, "so ye give me leave and approve of +my design, I will go alone to the town of Thorn, and bring you back word +of their power and dispositions. Save the Count von Reuss, there is none +who could now recognize me within the city walls." + +"What think ye, Dessauer?" said the Prince, looking over at the High +Chancellor. + +"I think well," said he, a little doubtfully; "but would it not be +better that two should go than that one should adventure alone into the +wolf's den ?" + +"Surely it were better to keep the matter between our three selves," the +Prince made answer; "not even the Princess must know of our attempt. Keep +a candle flame within the hollow of your palm, and though the wind blow +the sparks will not fly far." + +"I will go with the lad, Prince Karl," said the Chancellor, firmly. "In +my youth I had some practice as a leech. I am acquainted with the art of +healing. I could travel either as a doctor of healing, as a travelling +philosopher seeking disputation with the scholars of each country, or, +perhaps best of all, in mine own quality of a doctor of law. And in any +case this young man might with all safety be my pupil or servant, +whichever best liketh him." + +"Servant, then," said I, "for the art of disputation I have hitherto +chiefly undertaken with my fists and side-irons. And as to surgery, I am +more practised in the giving of wounds than in the healing of them." + +The Prince leaned his head upon his hand. He thought carefully over our +proposal, taking up point after point, resolving difficulty after +difficulty in his mind, as was his wont. + +"How long would you be away?" he asked, looking up at us. + +"Ten days, Prince," said I. "Give us but ten days and we will return." + +"I will give you eight, and if ye are not home again on the eve of the +last, as sure as I am Karl Miller's Son, the army of Plassenburg will be +thundering on the walls of Thorn seeking for a wandering Chancellor and a +lost Hugo Gottfried!" + +And so it was arranged. We of the Prince's staff were indeed in great +need of such a mission, for we had heard nothing from Thorn or the +Wolfmark during many months; no tidings, at all events, that could be +relied upon. For the cutting up of our frontiers by new raids, and the +severance of all relations between us and the dwellers in the Wolfmark, +through fear of reprisals, caused us to hear little news but such as was +manifest lies. + +As thus: Duke Casimir was collecting a great army, magnificent with +cannon and munitions of war. He was shut up tight in the Wolfsberg, not +daring to show his face to his own citizens. He would appear some fine +day before the Palace of Plassenburg and slay every man of us. He was in +a madman's cell, and Otho von Reuss was Duke of the Mark in his place. + +These were only a few of the stories which were brought to regale us +daily. And since there was no certainty anywhere, we were all in the dark +concerning the military matters which it behooved us greatly to be +acquainted with. Therefore I was honestly eager for my master's sake to +undertake the perilous journey. But to tell the whole truth, the fact +that I had not had a word from the Little Playmate, not so much as a line +of script nor a verbal message since her disappearance, made me more +eager to go than the high politics of a dozen provinces. + +Since the duel, and the final declaring of my love for Helene, I had seen +but little of the Princess. Indeed, I kept out of her way, so far at +least as I could. And the Lady Ysolinde remained mostly in her own +domains--to which, of late, I had been less and less invited. +Nevertheless, when we met, she was more than kind to me--gentle, +forbearing, pathetic almost in bearing and demeanor, like as a woman +wronged, slighted, misconstrued. + +Also there was sent to my quarters a new banner for my following, +broidered and blazoned in yellow and blue, a saddle-cloth of silk for my +horse, fine as a woman's robe, with a crowned Y faint and small in the +corner, lettered in straw-colored gold. No man could help being touched +by such kindly thought, which, after all, is more than mere liberality. + +Yet I saw a sight upon her stairs one night which awoke me with a sudden +start to the fact that we had one to reckon with in our journeying to the +city of Thorn whom we had not as yet taken into consideration. + +For it chanced that I was passing up to the Prince's apartments by the +quicker way, through corridors and by stairs to which he had given me +private access. And there, upon the steps leading to the Lady Ysolinde's +rooms, I saw the decent servitor of Master Gerard stand waiting. He +stared as hard at me as I did at him. But whereas his smooth, silent, +secret face remained with me, and I knew him at a glance, it was, I +judged, clean impossible that he could know the beardless stripling in +the mustached leader of soldiers, walking well-accustomed and unafraid +through palaces. + +The man had a letter in his hand, and I saw him deliver it to a maid who +came to the dividing curtain to take it. + +So there was later news from the city of Thorn within the Palace of +Plassenburg than we of the Prince's council of three possessed. Should I +tell our Karl of this encounter? I thought it might be safer not. Because +the Prince was the last man to attempt to obtain aught from his wife by +compulsion, and any question, direct or indirect, might only put her upon +her guard. + +If I let him into the secret, the Prince would be most likely to stride +straight into the Princess's rooms with the brusque words: "Gottfried has +seen a letter come to you from your father--what were its contents?" + +And that would not suit us at all. + +So, rightly or wrongly, I kept the matter from my master, speaking of it +only to Dessauer. And if aught befel from my reticence, it was at least I +myself who bore the burden, and, in the final event, paid the penalty. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL + + +The next morning early, as I went about making my dispositions, and +putting men of trust in positions fit for them--for the Prince has given +me the command of all the soldiers within the city--the Lady Ysolinde +came to me upon the terrace. + +"Walk with me a while," she said, "in the lower garden. It is a quiet +place, and I would speak with you." + +It was a command that I dared not refuse to obey, yet my greatest enemy +would not accuse me that I went lightly or willingly to such a tryst. + +The Lady Ysolinde passed on daintily and proudly before me, and I +followed, more like a condemned criminal lamping heavily to the scaffold +than a lad of mettle accompanying a fair lady to a rendezvous of her own +asking under the greenwood-tree. + +But I need not have feared. The Princess's mood was mild, and I saw her +in a humor in which I had never seen her before. + +She moved before me over the grass, with her head a little turned up to +the skies, as though appealing out of her innocence to the Beings who sat +behind and sorted out the hearts of men and women. + +At a great weeping-elm, under which was a seat, she turned. It formed a +wide canopy of shade, grateful and cool. For the breezes stirred under +the leaves, and the river moved beneath with a pleasant, meditative +hush of sound. + +"Hugo Gottfried, once you were my friend," she began; "what have I done +that you should be my friend no more? Tell me plainly. I liked you when +as a lad, the son of the Red Axe, you had come to my father's house about +some boyish freak. I have not done ill by you since that day. And now +that you are a leader of men and of rank and honor here in my husband's +country of Plassenburg, I would be your well-wisher still. I am conscious +of no reason for my having forfeited your liking. But that I would know +for certain--and now." + +As she threw back her head and let her clear emerald eyes rest upon me, I +never saw woman born of woman look more innocent. Indeed, in these days +of mistrust, it is innocence under suspicion which usually looks most +guilty, knowing what is expected of it. + +"Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "you try me hard and sore. You put me by +force in the wrong. You do me indeed great honor, as you have ever done +all these years. In reverence and high respect I shall ever hold you for +all that you have done--for your kindness to me and to Helene, the orphan +girl who came from our father's roof with me. I know no reason why there +should be any break in our friendship--nor shall there be, if you will +pardon my folly and--" + +"Tush!" she said, impetuously; "you speak things empty, vain, the +rattling of knuckle-bones in a bladder--not live words at all. Think you +I have never listened to true men? Do not I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, +know the sound of words that have the heart behind them? I have heard you +speak such yourself. Do not insult me then with platitudes, nor try to +divert me with the piping of children in the market-place. I will not +dance to them, nor yet, like a foolish kitchen-wench, smile at the +jingling of your trinketry." + +"Your Highness--" I began again. + +She waved her hand as if putting a light thing away. + +"I was a woman to you before you knew that I was a Princess," she said; +"you need not forget that I am a woman still, cursed with the plate-mail +of rank added to the weariness and inaction of a woman's breaking heart." + +I grew acutely conscious that I was not distinguishing myself in this +interview. So I dashed again at the wall, and this time, for a moment at +least, overbore interruption. + +"Ysolinde, my dear lady," I said to her, "you are the Prince's and my +good master's wife. And if I have stood aloof, it is that I wished that +he should have the companionship which one day I desire to find for +myself--and also that I might always have the right to look straight into +my master's eyes." + +"Now you talk like a silly prating priestling," she said. "You are both +mighty careful of your honesty, your virtue, your companionship--your +precious master and you. But you do not think what it is to starve a +woman's heart, to bid her find her level among broiderers of bannerets +and stitchers in tapestry. Ah! if the particular God who happened to be +at the digging of us out of the happier pit of oblivion had only made me +a man, I, at least, should neither have been a straitlaced Jackanapes nor +yet a prating, callow-bearded wiseacre." + +"And am I either?" said I, weakly enough. + +"You are in danger of becoming both," she said, promptly. "Once I saw +better things in you. I thought I had won me a friend, and that for once +I might put my anchor down. My husband neglects me, so much cannot have +escaped your eagle eye. He is twice my age, and he thinks more of you, +more of Councillor Von Dessauer, more of his horse than of me, Ysolinde +of Plassenburg. And I was made to be loved and to love. How much of +either, think you, have I ever known? The true lot of a woman shut to me, +the sweet love of man and woman wiled from me, even the communion of the +spirit forbidden. I might as lief carry a wizened nut-kernel within my +brain-pan as a thinking soul, for all that any one cares. I am a woman of +another age stranded on the shores of a time made only for men. I am the +woman priests talk against, or perhaps rather the witch-woman Lilith on +the outside of Eden's wall. Or I may be the woman of a time yet to come, +when she who is man's mate shall not be only a gay-decked bird to sit on +his wrist, tethered with a leash and called back to her master with a +silver lure." + +These things I had never listened to before, nor, indeed, thought of. +Nevertheless, though I could not answer her, I felt in my heart that +she was wrong, and that a woman has always power over men, being +stronger than all ideals, philosophies, kingdoms--aye, even our holy +religion itself. + +"After all," I said, piqued a little at her tone, as men are wont to be +at that which they do not understand, "my Lady Ysolinde, wherefore should +you not tell these things to the Prince, your husband, and not to me, +that am neither your husband nor your lover?" + +"And if you had been both?" she interjected, a little breathlessly. + +"Then, my lady," I replied, stirred by her persistence, "you would have +obeyed me and served me just as you say. Or else I should have broken +your spirit as a man is broken on the wheel." + +It was a prideful saying, and one informed with all ignorance and +conceit. Yet the Lady Ysolinde gave a long sigh. + +"Ah, that would have been sweet, too," she said. "You are the one man I +should have delighted to call master, to have done your bidding. That had +been a thing different indeed! But you love me not. You love a chit, a +chitterling--a pretty thing that can but peep and mutter, whose +heart's depths I have sounded with my finger-nail, and whose babyish +vanity I have tickled with a straw." + +This was enough and too much. + +"Madam," said I, "the clear stars are not fouled by throwing filth at +them, nor yet the Lady Helene--whom I do acknowledge that with all my +heart I love--by the speaking of any ill words. You do but wrong +yourself, most noble lady. For your heart tells you other things, both of +the maid I love and of me that am her true servant, and, if I might, your +true friend." + +The Princess reached out her hand, looking, not with anger, but rather +wistfully at me, like a mother at a son who goes to his death with +blasphemy on his lips. + +"Forgive me," she said, gently. "I would not at the last have you go +forth thinking ill of me. Indeed, you think all too well, and make me do +things that are better than mine intent, because I know that you expect +them of me. I have done many ill and cruel things in my poor life, simply +from idleness and the empty, unsatisfied heart. If you had loved me or +taught me or driven me, I might have tried better things. Perhaps in the +end, for great love's sake, I may yet do one worthy deed that shall blot +out all the rest. Farewell!" + +And without another spoken word she moved away, and left me in the green +pleasaunces of the garden, with my heart riven this way and that, scarce +knowing what I did or where I stood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON + + +Black, blank, chill, confining night shut us in as Leopold Dessauer and I +rode out of Plassenburg. Our horses had been made ready for us at the +little water-gate in the lower garden. Fain would I have taken also +Jorian and Boris, but on this occasion the fewer the safer. For to enter +Thorn was to go with lighted matches into a powder-magazine. + +The rushes in the river rustled dry and cold along the brink. The leaves +of the linden-trees chuckled overhead, rubbing their palms together +spitefully. There was mockery of our foolhardy enterprise in the soft +whispering sough of the water, as I heard it lapper beneath the +ferry-boat that lay ready to cross to the other side. Old Hans, the +Prince's ferryman, snored in his boat. Above in the women's chambers a +light went to and fro. I judged that it was in the bower of the Lady +Ysolinde. But not a string of my heart moved. For pity is so weak and +love so strong that all my nature was now on the strain forward towards +Helene and the Wolfsberg, like an eager hound that pulls at the +unslipped leash. + +"My love! my love!" I cried in my heart, "I am coming to you, I am going +out to find you! Though I give my life for it, I shall at least see and +touch you ere I die." + +For during these last days my love had grown greatly upon me, being of +that kind which gathers within a man, banks up, fills out his crevices, +and he know it not. In the Wolfmark there are oft, in the heart of the +limestone, caverns where the water sleeps deep and cool, while above, on +the thin, rocky crust, the sun beats and the very lizards die for lack +of moisture. It was only now that I had broken up the crust of my nature +and found the caverns under, where love was abiding all undreamed of, +deep, and eternal as the sea. It is a great thing and a beautiful to +meet love for the first time face to face, not to nod to only as to an +acquaintance, and to know how great and masterful he is; to say, "Love, +I am yours. Do with me that which seemeth good to you. I was strong--now +in your hands am I become weak. I was proud--now am I glad to be humble +and kneel, waiting your word. You have made life and death the same +thing to me, for the sake of the Beloved. I am ready to take either from +your hands!" + +But enough! We were riding out of the dark pleasaunces of the palace, the +leaves were rustling and the sedges blowing. That was what began it, +carrying away my thoughts. + +Dessauer rode behind me, letting his horse follow mine, nose to tail. +For, being used to the visitation of the city outposts, I knew the ground +thoroughly. + +At every hundred yards we were halted, and I answered. For I had posted +the men myself, making sure that Plassenburg should not again be taken by +surprise. On the other hand, I had determined that the spoiler should now +be made despoiled, and that the foul den of the Wolf should be cleansed +as by fire. + +Then, like the breaking up of the Baltic ice in spring, the thought ran +through me--my father and the maid of the Red Tower, what of them? + +Why, at the very first (so I told myself), I should set a guard of the +best troops in Plassenburg about the Red Tower, and carry them +all--Helene, my father, and old Hanne--to a safe place till Prince Karl +and I had made an end. With our stark veterans swarming in Thorn, that +would easily be done. And so the plan abode to be altered, broidered, and +recast in the imagination of my heart. + +We were soon out on the darksome, unguarded road, and after that I +steered chiefly by the lights of the palace behind me, Dessauer saying no +word, but riding like a man-at-arms close behind me. + +We had reached the crown of the green hill over whose slopes the path to +the Wolf markwinds--the path by which, doubtless, Helene had travelled +the night of the duel. + +As I came to the summit, mounting the steepest part slowly, I was aware +of a figure dark against the sky, no more apparent than a blacker patch +of night where all was dark. It was in shape as of a horseman sitting his +steed on the crest of the hill. + +Instantly I drew my pistol, in which I had become expert. + +"Your name and business?" cried I to the shape on the hill-side. For, +indeed, none had any right to be abroad so near the city of Plassenburg, +armed cap-a-pie, at that time of the night. And for a moment the thought +flashed upon me that the tales we had heard might after all be true, and +the armies of the Wolfmark nearer than we dreamed of. + +"Hugo--Von Dessauer!" quoth right jovially to my ear a voice well known +and ever dear to me, the voice of my master, the Prince Karl. + +"The Prince!" cried I. "My lord, what do you here? This is stark +madness--you, who should be within the walls of the palace, with the +guards watching three deep about you. What would come to the State of +Plassenburg if it wanted you?" + +"Oh," said he, lightly, falling in beside us in the most natural +fashion, "you and Von Dessauer in dual control would be a singular +improvement on the present head of the State. You, Hugo, would keep the +soldiers to their work, and Von Dessauer could look nobly after the +treasury." + +"But who would command us and be a gracious and beloved master to us?" +said I. "My Prince, we must instantly return and put you in safety!" + +"Indeed, that will you not. By God's truth, if I am not to come all the +way to the city of Thorn with you, I will at least convoy you to the +edges of the Mark. It is so dull, dragging out month by month at ease +within the castle, and not nearly so much fun as it used to be when I was +a poor captain of a free company under the old Prince. Young rattling +blades like Dessauer and yourself make no allowance for the distractions +of an aged and gouty Prince." + +Within myself I felt some amusement stir. It was almost exactly what the +Princess, his wife, had alleged as a reason for her wanderings. I could +not help marvelling why these two had not long ere this found out their +great affinity to each other. But now I see that this very likeness of +nature was the first cause of their lack of agreement. Like may, indeed, +draw to like, as the saw hath it. But in the things of love like and like +agree not well together. Fair desires dark, stout and stark desire +slender, slow desires quick, severe desires gay (though this often +secretly). And so the world goes on, and in another generation, sprung +from these desirings, once more dark desireth fair and fair dark. + +There I am at it again. Oh, but I, Hugo Gottfried, am the wise man when I +set out on my disquisitions. I could new-make all the saws of the world, +set instances to them, and never breathe myself. + +"Nay," said the Prince, "all is safe set within and without, thanks to my +brave commander and wise Chancellor, and these other matters can e'en +bide till I go back to them. Consider that I am but a captain of horse +going a-wooing and needing to talk gayly for good comradeship by the +road. Call me honest Captain Miller's Son." + +So Captain Miller's Son rode with Herr Doctor Schmidt and his servant +Johann. And a merry time the three of us had till we arrived at the +borders of the Mark. + +Now I have not time nor yet space (though a great deal of inclination) to +tell of the wondrous pranks we played--of the broad-haunched countrywomen +we rallied (or rather whom Captain Miller's Son rallied, and who, truth +to tell, mostly gave as good as they got, or better, to that soldier's +huge delight), the stout yeoman families into whose midst we went, and +their opinion of the Prince. Of the last I have a good tale to tell. "A +good man and a kindly," so the man said; "he has given us safe horse, fat +cow, and a quiet life. But yet the old was good too. The true race to +reign is ever the anointed Prince." + +"But then, did not Dietrich, the anointed Prince, harry you? And worse, +let others plunder you? And that is not the fashion of Prince Karl, +usurper though he be!" said the Prince. + +"Nay," the honest man would reply, "usurper is he not--a God-sent boon to +Plassenburg rather. We love him, would fight for him, all my six sons and +I. Would we not, chickens?" + +And the six sons rolled out a thunderous "Aye, fight--marry, that +we would!" as they sat, plaiting willow-baskets and mending bows +about the fire. + +"But, alas! he is cursed with a mad wife, and, after all said and done, +he is not of the ancient stock," said the ancient man, shaking his head. + +And the Prince answered him as quickly, tapping his brow significantly +with his forefinger, "Are not all wives a little touched? Or are yon +passing fortunate in your part of the country? Faith, we of the city will +all come courting to the Tannenwald if you prove better off." + +"We are even as our neighbors!" cried the yeoman, shrugging his +shoulders. "Maul, my troth, what sayest thou? Here is a brisk lad that +miscalls thy clan." + +The goodwife came forward, smiling, comely, and large of +well-padded bone. + +"Which?" said she, laconically. + +The farmer pointed to the Prince. The matron took a good look at him. + +"Well," she said, "he is the one that should know most about us. He has +been married once or twice, and hath gotten certain things burned into +him. As for this one," she went on, indicating Dessauer, "he may be +doctor of all the wisdoms, as ye say, but he has never compassed the +mystery of a woman. And this limber young spark with the quick eyes, he +is a bachelor also, but ardently desires to be otherwise. I wot he has a +pretty lass waiting for him somewhere." + +"How knew you that of me, goodwife ?" I cried, greatly astonished. + +"Why, by the way you looked up when my daughter came dancing in. You were +in your lost brown-study, and then, seeing a pretty lass that most are +glad to rest their eyes upon, you looked away disappointed or careless." + +"And how knew you that I was of the ancient guild of the bachelors?" +asked Dessauer. + +"Why, by the way that you looked at the pot on the fire, and sniffed +up the stew, and asked how long the dinner would be! The bachelor of +years is ever uneasy about his meals, having little else to be uneasy +about, and no wife, compact of all contrary whimsies, to teach him how +to be patient." + +"And how," cried the Prince, in his turn, "knew you that I had been +wedded once?" + +"Or twice," said the woman, smiling. "Man, ye cackle it like a hen on the +rafters advertising her egg in the manger below. I knew it by the fashion +ye had of hanging up your hat and eke scraping your feet---not after ye +entered, like these other good, careless gentlemen, but with your knife, +outside the door. I see it by your air of one that has been at once under +authority and yet master of a house." + +"Well done, good wife!" cried the Prince. "Were I indeed in authority I +would make you either Prime-Minister or chief of my thief-catchers." + +And so after that we went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE BLACK RIDERS + + +The next day we jogged along, and many were our advices and admonitions +to the Prince to return. For we were now on the borders of his kingdom, +and from indications which met us on the journeying we knew that the +Black Riders were abroad. For in one place we came to a burned cottage +and the tracks of driven cattle; in another upon a dead forest guard, +with his green coat all splashed in splotches of dark crimson, a sight +which made the Prince clinch his hands and swear. And this also kept him +pretty silent for the rest of the day. + +It was about evening of this second day, and we had come to the top of a +little swell of hills, when suddenly beneath us we heard the crackling of +timbers and saw the pale, almost invisible flames beginning to devour a +thriving farm-house at our feet. There were swarms of men in dark armor +about it, running here and there, clapping straw and brushwood to +hay-ricks and byre doors. + +"The Black Riders of Duke Casimir," I cried; "down among the bushes and +let them not see us! We must go back. If they so much as suspected the +Prince they would slay us every one." + +But ere we had time to flee half a dozen of their scouts came near us, +and, observing our horses and excellent accoutrement, they raised a cry. +There was nothing for it but the spurs on the heels of our boots. So +across the smooth, well-turfed country we had it, and in spite of our +beasts' weariness we made good running. And while we fled I considered +how best to serve the Prince. + +"There is a monastery near by," said I, "and the head thereof is a good +friend of ours. Let us, if possible, gain that shelter, and cast +ourselves on the kindness of the good Abbot Tobias." + +"Aye," said the Prince, urging his horse to speed, "but will we ever +get there?" + +Then I called myself all the stupid-heads in the world, because I had not +refused to go a foot with the Prince on such a mad venture, and so put +our future and that of the Princedom of Plassenburg in such peril. + +But there at last were the gray walls and high towers of the Abbey of +Wolgast. Our pursuers were not yet in sight, so we rode in at the gate +and cast our bridles to a lay brother of the order, crying imperiously +for instant audience of the Abbot. + +As soon as my friend Tobias saw us he threw up his hands in a rapture of +welcome. But I soon had him advertised of our great danger. Whereupon he +went directly to the window of his chamber of reception and looked out on +the court-yard. + +"Ring the abbey bell for full service," he commanded; "throw open the +outer gates and great doors, and lead these horses to the secret crypt +beneath the mortuary chapel." + +For the Abbot Tobias was a man of the readiest resource, and in other +circumstances would have made a good soldier. + +He hurried us off to the robing-rooms, and made us put on monastic and +priestly garments over our several apparels. Never, Got wot, had I +expected that I should be transformed into a rope-girt praying clerk. But +so it was. I was given a square black cap and a brown robe, and sent to +join the lay brethren. For my hair grew thick as a mat on top and there +was no time to tonsure it. + +Now, Dessauer being bald and quite practicable as to his topknot, they +endued him with the full dress of a monk. But at that time I saw not what +was done with the Prince. For my conductor, a laughing, frolicsome lad, +came for me and carried me off all in good faith, telling me the while +that he hoped we should lodge together. There were, he whispered, certain +very fair and pleasant-spoken maids just over the wall, that which you +could climb easily enough by the branches of the pear-tree that grew +contiguous at the south corner. + +As we hurried towards the chapel, the monks were streaming out of +their cells in great consternation, grumbling like soldiers at an +unexpected parade. + +"What hath gotten into our old man?" said one. "Hath he overeaten at +mid-day refection, and so is not able to sleep, that he cannot let honest +men enjoy greater peace than himself?" + +"What folly!" cried another; "as if we had not prayers enough, without +cheating the Almighty by knocking him up at uncanonical hours!" + +"And the choir summoned, and full choral service, no less! Not even a +respectable saint's day--no true churchman indeed, but some heretic of +a Greek fellow!" quoth a third. + +Nevertheless, obediently enough they made their way as the bell clanged, +and the throng filed into their places most reverently. It was a pleasant +sight. I came into rank unobtrusively at the back, among the rustling and +nudging lay brethren. In other circumstances it would have amused me to +see the grave faces they turned towards the altar, and to hear all the +while the confused scuffling as they trod on each other's toes, trying +whose skin was the tenderest or whose sandal soles were the thickest. One +or two even tried conclusions with me, but once only. For the first who +adventured got a stamp from my riding-boot which caused him to squeal out +like a stuck pig, and but for the waking thunder of the organ might have +gotten him a month's penance in addition. So after that my toes were left +severely alone among the lay brethren. + +Then came the high procession, at which the monks and all stood up. In +front there were the incense-bearers and acolytes, then officers whose +names, not being convent-bred nor yet greatly given to church-craft, I +did not know. Then after them came two men who walked together, at the +sight of whom the' jaws of all the monks dropped, and they stood so +infinitely astonished that no power was left in them. For, instead of +one, two mitred abbots entered in full canonical attire--golden mitre and +green, golden-headed staff, red embroidered robes lined with green. These +two paced solemnly in abreast, and sat down upon twin thrones. + +"The Abbot of St. Omer!" whispered one of the lay brothers, naming one of +the most famous abbeys in Europe, and the word flew round like lightning. +Whether he had been instructed or not what to say I do not know. But at +all events I saw the tidings run round the circle of the choir, overleap +the boundary stall, and even reach the officiating priests, who inclined +an eager ear to catch it, and passed the word one to another in the +intervals of the chanted sentences. + +Then the news was drowned in the thunder of the anthem, and the organ +dominating all. Everything was strange to me, but most strange the +practice of the lay brothers, who chanted bravely indeed in tune, but who +(for the words set in the chorals) substituted other sentiments of a kind +not usually found in service-books. + +"He looks a stout and be-e-e-fy o-o-old fel-low, this A-a-a-bot of St. +Omer, don't you think? Glory, glo-o-ry. Takes his meals well, likes his +qu-a-a-art of Rhenish or his Burgundy to swell his jolly paunch. +A-a-a-men!" + +Or, as it might be: "Are you coming--are you coming o-o-out to-night? +There will be-ee, good compan-ee-ee. Dancing and deray--lots of pretty +girls; no proud churls. Ten by the clock, when the doors all lock. As it +was in the beginning, is now, ever shall be, world without end, +A-a-a-men!" + +These were, of course, only the lay brothers, and I hope the friars were +better behaved. I decided, however, that for the sake of my respect for +religion, I should ask Dessauer. Because I saw even the Abbot Tobias lean +smilingly over to Abbot Prince Karl, and I marvelled what they spoke +about. Not that I had long to wonder, for through the open door of the +chapel there streamed a dismal host of invaders from the Wolfmark--black +Hussars of Death, in dark armor, with white skeletons painted over them, +all charnel-house ribs and bones in hideous and ridiculous array--which +was one of Duke Casimir's devices to frighten children, and no doubt +these scarecrows frightened many of these. Specially when these villanous +companies were recruited from all the wild bandits of the Mark, and never +punished for any atrocity, but, on the contrary, rather encouraged in +evil-doing in order to spread the terror of their name. + +Yet, when they came rushing in, even the cavaliers of death were daunted +by the sight which met them. And as the solemn service proceeded, amid +the thunder of the great organ pressing, throbbing against the roof and +reverberating along the floor, hands stole to heads, helmets were lifted, +and half-forgotten fear of Holy Church stirred in many a wicked and +outcast heart. Some of the foremost, with their blades half-drawn, +appeared to waver whether or no they should even yet stay the service +with the bloody sword. + +But as the monks calmly chanted, and the solemn responses were given, a +stillness stole over the vociferous babble within the great open doors. + +Higher and higher the voices of the choir mounted, breaking a way to +heaven. Awe sat on every fierce face, and when the Abbot Tobias arose to +pronounce the benediction, the other stood up beside him, and the +Hussars of Death knelt awe-stricken before the two mitred dignitaries of +the Church. + +Without a murmur they arose and slunk away without so much as +searching the abbey, and so departed on their errands, leaving us safe +and unharmed. + +Then, when the three of us were again united in the private rooms of the +Abbot Tobias, that hearty ecclesiastic shook us all by the hand and said, +"Good friends, we are well out of that. Nay, no thanks! My monks are not +a bit the worse of a little additional exercise to keep them humble and +lean. Nor is God the less well pleased that we have sought him in time of +need--as Prince and Abbot, as well as soldier and peasant, require." + +These being the only words of genuine piety I had heard within the walls +of the monastery, I thought more of the Abbot Tobias from that moment +that he was not ashamed to speak them in the presence of Prince and +Councillor of State, as well as before a rough soldier like myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +THE FLAG ON THE BED TOWER + + +It took us all our powers of persuasion with the Prince to induce him +to depart homeward on the morrow, under escort of a dozen sturdy and +well-armed lanzknechte attached to the monastery. But the thing was +done at last. + +"And remember," said our Karl, as he embraced us, "that if ye return not +on the eighth day at eventide, the forces of Plassenburg will e'en be +battering on the gates of Thorn by the hour of dusk. I am not going to +have my farms burned, my peasants disembowelled and cast to the +blood-hounds, my women ravished in their kindly home-steadings. God wot! +the cup of Duke Casimir hath been brimming this many a day, and we will +give him a deep and bitter draught to drink when we set it to his lips." + +Thereupon we bade our dear and brave master a respectful adieu. Karl +Miller's Son he might be, but for all that he was every inch a king--a +right royal man, whom I would rather serve than the Kaiser himself. + +And after he had gone from us a little way he turned again and waved his +hand, crying: "On the eighth day report you without fail, friends of +mine, unless ye wish me to come asking for you at the gates of Thorn, +with some din and the spilling of much blood." + +The worthy Abbot Tobias gave us a paper to the Bishop Peter, now restored +to his bishopric of Thorn, and in some measure dwelling at peace with the +Duke Casimir since that ruler's reconciliation with Holy Church. In this +paper it was set forth that the most learned Doctor of Law, Leonard +Schmidt, with his servant Johann, were on their way to Ratisbon to +dispute concerning the Practice of Law and Reason with another most +learned Doctor of the Empire, and that, desiring to remain a day of two +in Thorn, they were by the Abbot Tobias of Wolgast commended to Bishop +Peter's kind hospitality. + +For indeed the inns of Germany, and especially of the North, were not at +that time such as wise and learned men could readily submit to--neither +abide in, to be herded with dull, landward peasants and all the +tankard-swilling gutter-knaves of the town. + +Of the remainder of our journey I need not speak, seeing that more than +once I have had to tell of that journey from Thorn to Plassenburg. It is +sufficient that by evening the dark, frowning mass of the Wolfsberg lay +imminent before us, each tower black against the sky. For even the new +portions which Casimir had builded were of intention blackened with +soot--mingled with the plaster and mortar, so that they should be of one +piece of grim terror with the rest of the building. + +"After all it is not strange," said I to the Councillor, for when +there was no one in sight or very near us I rode with him instead of +behind him, "that the man who shakes at every breeze among the aspens +should take such pains to create the fiction and shadow of terror +about him, when the substance and reality is dominant all the while in +his own bosom." + +Since we had come within the distressed and depopulated territory of the +Wolfmark we had not spoken to any soul. Indeed, except a few poor, +desolate peasant folk, burned black with the sun, scuttling from den to +den at the sight of mounted men, we had not seen any living creatures. +The cruelty which had marked the reign of the Black Duke seemed to have +afflicted the very face of the country with a visible curse. + +But the day of deliverance was at hand. + +As we came nearer to Thorn, there before us was the Red Tower, at first +dimly apparent, then prominent, then commanding, finally rising higher +than all the buildings of the Wolfsberg. How many days had I not looked +down from those windows! And my father was even now up there in his grim +garret, his heart stirring calm and kindly within him, in spite of all +the atmosphere of blood in which his life had moved, as untouched as +though he had been a gardener working among the flowers of the parterre. +Also the block was there, and against it the Red Axe was leaning. + +Then I called to mind the prophecy of the Lady Ysolinde, that I should +return to take up my father's dreadful trade. And I smiled thereat. +For I thought that now I came in other circumstances--aye, even though +riding in at The tail of the learned Doctor Schmidt with my shaven and +chestnut-stained face, my flowing hair cropped to the roots, as in the +manner of the servant tribe! Yet for all that was I not the virtual +military commander of the Plassenburg and the right hand of the +Prince, whose forces would soon be clamoring against the walls of +Thorn and bringing down to destruction the hateful tyranny of the +Black Duke Casimir? + +"What is that?" said I, pointing to a standard of immense size which +drooped from the Red Tower. It had been hanging limp and straight about +the staff, and till now we had not observed it. But as we went toiling up +to the Weiss Thor, and the last links of road lengthened themselves +indefinitely out before us in their own familiar manner, suddenly a waft +of hot wind from the sun-beaten plain of the Wolfmark blew out an immense +black flag, which spread itself, fluttered feebly, and died down again +flat against the pole. + +"Nay," said the Doctor, "that I cannot tell. Surely you should know the +customs of your own city better than I!" + +For the heat had made the High Chancellor a little snappish, as well +perhaps as the length of the way. + +"Never in my time have I seen such a thing float above the Red Tower," I +made answer. "Can it be a flag of pestilence?" + +It seemed a likely thing enough. Cities were often made desolate in a few +days by the plague--the people running to the hills, a weird devil's +silence all about the gates. These might well betoken the presence of a +foe to which the army of Plassenburg would seem as a friend. + +As we rode under the Arch of the White Gate of Thorn we were summarily +halted to be examined. We gave our names, and the Doctor showed his +letters of authorization from a dozen learned universities. The Black +Hussar who examined our credentials was of a taciturn disposition, and +evidently no scholar, for he studied the parchments intently upsidedown, +and appeared to have an idea that their genuineness was best investigated +by smelling the seals. + +"Where are you bound?" he asked. + +"To the house of the learned and venerable Bishop of Thorn!" said the +Doctor Schmidt. + +So the Hussar, having finally approved of the quality of the +scholastic wax, called a subordinate, and bade him guide us to the +house of Bishop Peter. + +In an instant we were in the familiar streets, narrow, sunken, and +indescribably dirty, as they now appeared to me. For I had been +accustomed to the wider, airier spaces, and to the bickering rivulets +which ran down most of the steeper streets of Plassenburg, and which made +it one of the cleanest towns in the world. So that the ancient and +unreformed filth and wretchedness of Thorn appealed to my senses as they +had never done before. + +There were evidences too of the terror in which the inhabitants had long +lived. The houses of the rich burghers were sadly dilapidated. No man +thought it worth while to spend a pot of paint on a house which might be +knocked about his ears that very night, if the Duke conceived there was +money or gear to be found within the walls of it. + +Here and there the same black banner appeared. + +I asked the reason of it from our guide. + +"Is it that the plague is in the city?" + +"The plague has, indeed, been in the city--yes! But that is not the +reason of the flag." + +"And what then is the meaning of the black flag?" said I. + +"Ye are strangers indeed!" answered the man. "Did you not know that the +great Duke Casimir is dead, and that the black flag flies for him, and +must fly on the Wolfsberg till his successor be crowned." + +"And who is his successor?" said I. + +"Who but young Otho, the worst of the Wolfs litter. But perhaps you are +his friend?" + +He turned with a keen look, like one who has been accustomed to deliver +himself in company where he is sure of sympathy, and who suddenly has to +consider his words in society the tone of which he is not sure of. + +"Nay," said I, "we are travelling strangers and know nothing of your +politics. But this Duke Otho, wherefore has he not been crowned?" + +"Because," said the man, "the Duke Casimir, they say, hath been foully +murdered, and that through the witchcraft of a woman. So by our laws, +till the murderer is punished, the young Duke may not be crowned." + +By this time we were at the entering in of the long, dull mass of +building, which during most of my boyhood had stood unoccupied, owing to +the quarrel between Bishop Peter and the Duke. Our guide led us +unchallenged into the quadrangle, and then abruptly vanished without +pausing to bid us good-day, or even deigning to accept the modest +gratuity which my master, the learned Doctor, had in his front pouch +ready for him. + +As for me, I stood holding the horses and looking about for any of my own +quality who might show me the way to the stables. + +Presently a long, lean, lathy youth slouched out of one of the gloomy +entries. He stood amazed at the sight of me. I went to him to ask where I +might bestow the horses, now standing weary-footed, hanging their heads +after the long journey and the toil of the final ascent from the plain. + +"Will you fight, outlander?" were the first words of my lathy friend from +the entry. He seemed to have been drawn up recently from a period of +detention in some deep draw-well, and to have the mould of the stones +still upon him. + +"Why," said I, "of course I will fight, and that gladly, if you will find +me a man to fight with !" + +"I will fight you myself," he said, swelling himself. "For the end of +this candle I will fight half a dozen such Baltic sausages as you be." + +"Like enough," said I, "all in good time. But in the mean time show me +the stables, that I may put up my master's horses." + +"What know I about you or your master's horses?" cried my Lad of Lath; +"and pray why should I show the way to Bishop Peter's good stables to +every wastrel that comes sneaking in off the street and asks the freedom +of our house. For aught I know you may have come to steal corn. Though, +if that be so, Lord love you, you have come to the wrong place." + +"Come, stable-master," said I, placably, "let me see a corner and a wisp +of straw and I will ease the poor beasts. That will not harm the Bishop +Peter, whom my master has gone to visit. He is a friend of his, a man +learned in ecclesiastical affairs, who comes to hold disputations with +the Bishop--" + +"Disputations--what be those? Anything with money at the end of them? If +so, he will be a welcome guest at this house. There is very little money +at the tail of anything in this town." + +I thought I would try the effect of a broad silver piece upon him, at the +same time giving the lad the information that disputations were kinds of +fights with the tongues of men instead of with their fists. + +The silver sweetened his face like a charm. He seized me by the hand. + +"My name," he cried, "is Peter of the Pigs. I am not stable-master, but +feed the grouting piglings. And yet in a way I am indeed stable-master. +For the Bishop hath had no horses since the Duke took them away to mount +his cavalry for the raids into Plassenburg. So Peter of the Pigs looks +after all about the yard, and precious little there is to look +after--except one's own legs getting longer and leaner every day." + +"And where is the Bishop this afternoon?" I said. + +"Where should he be," cried Peter of the Pigs, "but at the trial of the +witch-woman in the Hall of Justice? It must be a rare sight. They say +she is to be put to the torture, and that they want a new executioner +to do it." + +"Why," said I, struck to the heart by his words, "what is the matter with +the old one?" + +"Oh," said the lad, "he is mortal sick abed. He happened an accident, or +some one stuck a dagger into him--no great matter if he had stuck it +through him, or cloven him to the chine with his own Red Axe!" + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH + + +At this point came my master back, looking exceedingly disconsolate. A +starveling, furtive-eyed monk accompanied him. + +"The Bishop," he said, "is gone forth of his house. He is in attendance +at the trial of a woman for witchcraft, one whom some of the common city +folk hold to be a saint. But the young Duke and others swear that she is +a witch, and hath murdered the Duke Casimir. Haste thee with the horses, +sirrah, and attend me to the Hall of Justice. I have sent a messenger +forward with my credentials to the Bishop Peter." + +So to the corner of the yard I went and rubbed down the horses with a +wisp of straw which Peter of the Pigs brought me, and which smelled of +his charges too. Then, with another piece of money in his hand, I sent +him out to the nearest corn-chandler's to buy some corn for our beasts, +the which I gave them, and stood by them till I saw them eat it too. For +in such a poverty-stricken place, and with a gentleman of the capacity of +Master Peter of the Pigs, one that is in any way fond of his horses +cannot be too careful. + +This done, I announced myself to my master as ready to accompany him. + +Then, through the streets of Thorn, all strangely empty, we took our +way. Women were leaning out of windows; every head turned castleward up +the street. + +They hardly deigned a glance at my master or at myself, but continued to +gaze. And as each passenger came down the street from the direction of +the Wolfsberg they cried questions at him, so that he ran the gantlet of +a dropping fire of shrill queries. + +"What are they doing to the sweet saint up yonder?" + +"Hath she been put to the Question?" + +"Who could be executioner in such a case? A man would be sent to +hell-fire for daring to lay hand on her." + +The popular sympathies ran clearly with the accused, which is not, as our +old Hanne had reason to remember, the rule in trials for witchcraft. + +Soon we were passing the gate of the Red Tower. It was barred and closed. +The windows of my father's house looked barrenly down, like the eye-holes +of skulls. I saw the window from which I used to gaze wistfully down upon +the children, who would not play with me, but spat upon the tower when +they saw me looking at their play and pipings upon the streets. + +There above was the window of my father's garret, with the edge of the +black flag blowing out above it. + +The streetward door of the Judgment Hall was open, and a great crowd of +people stood about, silent, anxious, respectful. Some of them talked in +low tones, and whenever there was a word passed out of the door, within +which men looked ten deep, it scattered all about like a wave which comes +into a sea-cave by a narrow entrance, and then widens out till it breaks +gently in the wide inner hall. + +"She is not to be tortured; only the Hereditary Executioner may do that. +They have threatened the old woman. She has confessed all!" + +So ran the words about the crowd, and ever and anon, one would detach +himself from the press, elbowing his way out, and then speed down the +long street, crying the latest tidings of the trial. + +It was manifestly impossible for us to obtain entrance by this door. So +we looked about for another. + +Then I minded me of the private passage which led from the inner +court-yard which I knew so well. We skirted the crowd, with our attendant +following, till we came to the side door, which led directly into the +Hall of Judgment behind the judges' high seats. + +It was the way by which many a time I had seen my father enter, either in +his dress of black or in that of red. And I was always glad when I saw +him put on the scarlet, because I knew that then the worst was over for +some poor tortured soul. + +But when my master proposed that the attendant of the Bishop should carry +a letter into the hall to his master to inform him that we waited +without, the man trembled in every limb, and the hair of his head shocked +itself up in sheer terror. + +"I cannot--I dare not," he cried; "it is the place of torture--of the +engines--the strappado--the water-drop, the leg-crushers!" + +And at this point the vision of what was contained within the fatal door +became so appalling to him that he picked up his skirts and fled, looking +over his shoulder all the while to make sure that the Red Axe was not +after him full tilt. + +So Dessauer and I were left standing. And if the matter had been less +serious, it would have been comical to see us thus deserted upon mine own +middenstead, as it were. + +"Bishop Peter of Thorn seems a prelate somewhat difficult of +approach," said the Chancellor. "I wonder if we shall ever lay any +salt on his tail?" + +"Let us risk it and go in," said I. "We are putting all our cards on the +table, at any rate. And at least we can see all that is to be sees. If +there is any risk of Von Reuss penetrating our disguises, it is as well +to gulp and get it over at once, rather than suck gingerly at it till +the fear of death chills our marrow." + +"Go on, then," he said, somewhat crossly; "there is indeed naught to be +gained by standing here as a butt for the eyes of evil-doers." + +So I opened the door carefully, and with a trembling heart. The hum of a +great assembly breathed turbidly upon us in a hushed chaos of sound. The +warm, stifling atmosphere, heavy with a thousand respirations, the sound +of a voice speaking loud and clear, the thunder of continuous heels on +the paved floor, the voices of the ushers crying, "Silentium!" at +intervals--these all came suddenly upon us as we shut out the air and +sunshine and went into the Hall of Judgment. + +We could not see the full assembly at first. We stood, as I had supposed, +directly behind the judges' rostrum. Only the corners of the vast crowd +which covered the floor and filled the galleries could be seen--a blur of +white faces all bent towards one point. But at the corner, not far from +us, a tall, spare, gray-headed ecclesiastic was speaking. + +We stood still, in order that we might not interrupt by entering till he +had finished. + +What was our surprise when we heard his words. + +"My Lord Duke," he was saying, "it is fortunate for the elucidation of +this great mystery that I have this moment received word concerning a +most learned and notable jurisconsult, a Doctor of the Law, wise in +controversy and specially skilled in such cases, who has even now arrived +in the city of Thorn, on his way to the Emperor at Ratisbon, before whom +he is to dispute for the honor of truth and our holy religion. + +"His name is the Learned, Venerable, and Reverend Doctor Schmidt, and I +trust that we of the city and faculty of the Wolfmark shall have the +honor of welcoming him as so distinguished a man deserves." + +The pattern of the Bishop's speech is one that does not vary while the +world lasts. + +"Lord, they have made me a Doctor of Theology as well!" whispered the +Chancellor to me. I gave him a little push. + +"Now is your time," said I, "the hour and the Doctor!" + +I lifted the skirt of his long black robe. He took hold of his marvellous +beard, a triumph of the disguiser's art, and we stepped forward. I could +hardly conceal a smile. + +We had come in the very nick of time. + +Then after this I have a vague remembrance of my master bowing this way +and that. I seem to see the wise men of the law, the judges, the priests, +and lictors rising and bowing in acknowledgment. I heard the hush of a +thousand people all craning their necks to look round the heads of their +neighbors, and the hum of whispered comment reach farther and farther +back, till it lapped against the walls and ebbed out into the street from +the great open door of the Hall of Judgment. It was a surprising sight, +this great trial--the gloomy hall, black with age and deeds of darkness, +lit by the rays of sunlight falling through windows of red glass, the +faces of men flecked as with blood where the evening sunlight streamed +luridly upon them. + +In the midst there was a clear four-square space. A lictor, with a bundle +of rods, stood at each corner. I looked, and there, alone in the centre, +attired in white, the cynosure of eyes, I beheld--Helene. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER + + +I felt my temples, my ears, my neck tingling with cold. I seemed to have +fallen into a sea of ice. I think I would have fallen and fainted but +that at that moment my master sat down beside the Bishop, and I was left +free to retire into a darksome corner, where I staggered against a beam, +slimy with black sweat, and hung over it with my hand clasping my brow, +trying to think what had happened. + +I do not know how long I remained in this position, nor yet when I came +to myself. All was a dream to me, a nightmare of horrid whirlings and +infinite oppressions. The faces of the folk that watched, the garmentry +of the Bishop and his priests, the red robes of the young Duke and his +assessors, spun round me in a hideous phantasmagoria. + +At last I was conscious that a trumpet had blown. Whereupon all rose up. +The secretaries stacked their papers unconcernedly with the feathers of +their pens in their mouths. And then in the solemn silence which ensued +the Duke and his judges filed out of the door, while the power of the +Church, represented by Bishop Peter and his priests, went forth by +another. Before I could realize the situation, Helene had vanished, as it +seemed, down a trap-door in the floor. + +My master accompanied Bishop Peter. As for me, I hardly knew what I did. +I did not even stand up, till our conductor, he who had gone forward to +announce us at the first, ran across to me, and, plucking me by the arm +from the beam on which I leaned, whispered, hurriedly: "Art dead or +drunk, man, that thou riskest thine ears and thy neck? Stand up while the +Judges and the new Duke go by!" + +So, dazed and numb, I hent me up, and lo! coming arm in arm towards me +were Otho von Reuss and his newly appointed Chief Justice and +assessor--who but mine old friend Michael Texel! The Duke bent a +searching look on me as I bowed low before him, but he saw only the tan +of my skin and the close bristle of my hair. And so all passed on. + +"Ho, blackamoor, thy master waits thee! Run, if thou wouldst avoid the +whipping-post!" cried another of the rout of servitors, with a small +sniggering laugh. + +So, putting out a hand to stay myself, I staggered weakly after my +master. I found him at the door, in talk with the confessor of the +Bishop. + +"And so," he was saying, "this girl was reared in the executioner's +house. And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secrets +of necromancy, it is not known where. I would see this Duke's Justicer. +Does he dwell near by? What! In that very tower? It is of good omen. Let +us go in thither." + +But the confessor excused himself, being in no wise desirous to visit the +Red Axe, even in his time of sickness. + +"I have business of the soul with Bishop Peter. I will speak with thee +again at refection," he said, twitching his head up at the Red Tower with +suspicious glances, as if he feared unseen ears might be listening, and +that some of its fearful magic might even descend upon a man so notably +holy as a Bishop's confessor. + +Presently Dessauer and I were across the court-yard at the well-known +door. I knocked, and listened, whereupon ensued silence. Again and yet +again I made the quaint death's-head knocker thunder, and then, when the +echoes ceased, there was once more a great silence in the tower. + +I heard the blood-hounds of Duke Casimir howl. The indigo shadow of the +pinnacled Hall of Justice stretched across and touched the Red Tower with +an ominous finger. + +"Let us go in," said I. And, pushing the unresisting door, I began to +climb the stone stairs. Each smoothed hollow and chipped edge was +familiar to me as my name. Indeed, much more so, for I was now passing +under a false one. So I climbed, in a dazed way, up and up. There on my +left was the sitting-room. It had been searched high and low, escritoires +rudely tossed down, aumries rifled, household stuff, grain, white linen, +empty bottles, all cast about and huddled together even as the searchers +had left them. + +Then above was the little room where Helene used to sleep. Here the wrack +was indescribable--every hidingplace rifled, her pretty worked bedquilt +lying across the doorway trampled and soiled, her dainty white clothing, +some she had worn at Plassenburg, and even the tiny dresses of her +childhood, all torn and confused together. And in the midst, what +affected me more than everything else, a tiny puppet of wood my father +had hewn her with his knife, and which she had dressed as a queen with +red ribbons and crown of tinsel--ah, so long ago--and in such happy days. + +"Father!" I called, loudly. "Father!" + +But in this I forgot myself. There might have been enemies lurking +anywhere in the house of pain and disaster. + +My own room came next, and the way out upon the roof; but we tried not +these. There remained only the garret of my father. I climbed up, with +Dessauer behind me, and pushed the door open. + +Then I stood in the entering-in, looking for the first time for years on +the face of my father. + +He lay on his conch, his head bound about with a napkin. The dark wisp of +hair which rose like a cock's comb, sticking through the stained cloth +which swathed his brow, was no longer blue-black, but of an iron-gray, +splashed and brindled with pure white. His eyes were open, and shone, +cavernous and solemn, above his fallen-in cheeks. It was like looking +into the secrets of another world. That which he had so often caused +other eyes to see, the Red Axe of Thorn was now to see for himself. The +hand which lay--mere skin, muscle, and bone--on the counterpane had +guided many to the door of the mysteries. Now at its own entrance it was +to push the arras aside, for the Death-Justicer of the Mark was to go +before the Judge of all the earth. + +My father lay gazing at me with deep, mournful eyes. So sad they seemed +that it was as if nothing in heaven or earth, neither joy nor sorrow, +life nor death, could have power to change their expression of +immeasurable sadness. + +I entered, and my companion followed. + +"You are alone? There is none with you here?" I said to my father, going +to the bedside. + +He started at the voice, and looked up even eagerly. But his eyes dulled +and deadened again as he fell back. + +"I did but dream!" he muttered, sadly. + +"You have no one with you here, Gottfried Gottfried?" said I again, for +in a matter of life and death it was as well to make sure even at risk of +disturbing a dying man. + +He set his hand to his brow as if trying to think. + +"Who should be with me--except all these?" he answered, very solemnly. +And swept his hand about the room as if he saw strange shapes standing in +rows round the walls. "I wish," he went on, almost querulously, "whoever +you may be, you would tell these people to keep their hands down. They +point at me, and thrust their dripping heads forward, holding them like +lanterns in their palms." + +He turned away to the back of the bed, and then, as if he saw something +there worse than all the rest, faced about again quickly, saying, with +some pathetic intonation of his lost childhood, "There is no need for +them to point so at me, is there? I did but my duty." + +"Father!" said I, gently touching his cheek with my hand as I used to do. + +"Ah, what is that?" he said, quickly. "Did some one call me father? Let +me go! I tell you, sirs, let me go! She needs me. They are torturing her. +I must go to her!" + +"Father," I said again, putting him gently back, "it is I--your own son +Hugo--come back to speak with you, to help if it may be--to die for the +Little Playmate if need be." + +"Hugo--Hugo!" he said. "Yes, yes--of course, I know--my little lad, my +pretty boy!" + +He pushed me back to look at me, eagerly, wistfully--and then thrust me +sharply away. + +"Bah!" he said; "you lie! What need to lie to a dying man? My Hugo had +yellow hair and a skin like lilies. Yours is dark--" + +"Father," said I, "I am here disguised. Help is coming, sure and +strong, if we can only wait a little and delay the trial. But tell me +all. Speak to me freely, if you love your daughter Helene--your +daughter and my love." + +He sat up now, and motioned me to come nearer. There was a dark, fierce, +unworldly light in his eyes. I set a pillow to his back, and went and +kneeled by the bed as I used to do at good-night time when I said my +Paternoster. + +Then for the first time he knew me. + +"Say your prayers, child!" he commanded, in his old voice. + +So, though with the stress of wars and other things I had mostly +forgotten, yet I said not only that, but the little Prayer of Childhood +he had taught me. And then I kissed him as I used to do when I bade him +good-night. + +"Yes," he said, softly, "it is true, after all. You are mine own +only son. Hugo--I am glad you have come so far to see your father +before he dies." + +I told him how I had come, and brought Dessauer forward, introducing him +as one great in the kingdom where I was, and to whom I was much +beholden. He shook him by the hand with grave, intent courtesy, and +again looked at me. + +"Now, father," said I, "we have no long time to bide with you, lest the +new Duke come upon us. We must hie us back to our lodging with the Bishop +Peter, lest we be missed." + +My father smiled. + +"Ye will live but sparely there!" said he, with a flicker of his +ancient smile. + +"Tell us how you came to this," said I, "and, if you can, why Helene, our +little Helene, stands so terribly accused." + +My father paused a long time before he began to answer. + +"It is not easy for me to tell you all," he said. "I know and I have the +words, but, somehow, when I try to fit the words to the thing, they run +asunder and will not mix, like water and oil. But see, Hugo, here is an +elixir of rare value. Drop a drop or two on my tongue if ye see me +wander. It will bring me back for a time." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +PRINCESS PLAYMATE + + +Then began my father to tell the story slowly, with many a pause and +interruption, now searching for words, now racked with pain, all of which +I need not imitate, and shall leave out. But the substance of his tale +was to this effect: + +"After you had left us, the Dukedom went from bad to worse--no peace, no +rest, no money. Duke Casimir took less and less of my advice, but, on the +contrary, began again his old horrors--plundering, killing, living by +terror and in terror. He threatened Torgau. He attacked Plassenburg. He +stirred up hornets' nests everywhere. At home he made himself the common +mark for every assassin. + +"Then suddenly came his nephew back, and almost immediately he grew great +in favor with him. Uncle and nephew drank together. They paraded the +terraces arm in arm. I was never more sent for save to do my duty. Otho +von Reuss rode abroad at the head of the Black Horsemen. + +"But, at the same time, to my great joy, arrived the Little Playmate +back to me. She was safer with me, she said. So that, having her, I +needed naught else. She came with good news of you, making the journey +not alone, for two men of the Princess's retinue brought her to the +city gates." + +"The Princess!" I cried; "aye, I thought so. I judged that it was the +Princess who sent her back." + +Dessauer motioned with his hand. He saw that it was dangerous to throw +my father off the track. And, indeed, this was proven at once, for my +unfortunate interruption set my father's mind to wandering, till finally +I had to drop certain drops of the red liquid on his tongue. These, +indeed, had a marvellous effect upon him. He sat up instantly, his eyes +flashing the old light, and began to speak rapidly and to clear purport, +even as he used to do in the old days when Duke Casimir would come +striding across the yard at all hours of the night and day to consult +his Justicer. + +"What was I telling?" he went on. "Yes, I remember, of the home-coming +of Helene under honorable escort. And she was beautiful--but all her +race were beautiful, all the women of them, at any rate. But that is +another matter. + +"So things went well enough with us till, as she went across the yard one +day to meet me at the door of the hall as I came out, who should see her +but the Count Otho von Reuss. And she turned from him like a queen and +took hold of my arm, clasping it strongly. Then he gazed fixedly at us +both, and his look was the evil-doer's look. Oh, I know it. Who knows +that look, if not I? And so we passed within. But my Helene was quivering +and much afraid, nestling to me--aye, to me, old Gottfried Gottfried, +like a frightened dove. + +"After this she went not out into the court-yard or city any more, save +with me by her side, and Otho von Reuss lingered about, watching like a +wolf about the sheepfold. For, as I say, he was in high favor with Duke +Casimir, and had already equal place with him on the bed of justice. + +"Then there came a night, lightning peeping and blazing, alternate blue +and ghastly white--God's face and the devil's time about staring in at +the lattice. I lay alone in my chamber. But I was not asleep. As you +know, I do not often sleep. But I lay awake and thought and thought. The +lightning showed me faces I had not seen for thirty years, and forms I +remembered, black against eternity. But all at once, in a certain +after-clap of silence that followed the roaring thunder, I heard a voice +call to me. + +"'My father--my father" it cried. + +"It was like a soul in danger calling on God. + +"I rose and went, clad as I was in the red of mine office (for that day I +had done the final grace more than once); even so, I ran down the stairs +to the room of my little Helene. + +"The lightning showed me my lamb crouched in the corner, her lips open, +white, squared with horror, her arms extended, as though to push some +monstrous thing away. A black shape, whose, I could not tell, I saw +bending over her. Then came blackness of darkness again. And again my +Helene's voice. Ah, God, I can hear it now, calling pitifully, like a +woman hanging over hell and losing hold: 'Father--my father!' + +"'I am here!' I cried, loudly, even as on the scaffold I cry the doom for +which the malefactors die. + +"And the room lit up with a flame, white as the face of God as He passed +by on Mount Sinai, flash on continuous flash. And there before me, with a +countenance like a demon's, stood Otho von Reuss." + +I uttered a hoarse cry, but Dessauer again checked me. My father went on: + +"Otho von Reuss it was--he saw me in my red apparel, and cried aloud with +mighty fear. If God had given me mine axe in my hand--well, Duke or no +Duke, he had cried no more. But even as he turned and fled from the room +I seized him about the waist, and, opening the window with my other hand, +I cast him forth. And as he went down backward, clutching at nothing, God +looked again out of the skylights of heaven, and showed me the face of +the devil, even as Michael saw it when he hurled him shrieking into the +nether pit. + +"Then I went back and took in my arms my one ewe lamb. + +"Many days (so they brought me word) Otho lay at the point of death, and +Duke Casimir came not near me nor yet sent for me. But by that very +circumstance I knew Otho had not revealed how his accident had befallen. +Yet he but bided his time. And as he grew well, Duke Casimir grew ill. He +waxed more and more like an armored ghost, and one day he came here and +sat on the bed as in old times. + +"'I know my friends now,' he said, 'good Red Axe of mine, friend of many +years. I have had mine eyes blinded, but this morning there has come a +mighty clearness, and from this day forth you and I shall stand face to +face and see eye to eye again, as in the days of old!' + +"Then being athirst, he asked for something to drink. Which, when our +sweet Helene had brought, he patted her cheek. 'A maid too good for a +court--one among a thousand, a fair one !' he said; and passed away down +the stairs, walking with his old steady tread. + +"But even at the steps of the Hall of Justice he stumbled and fell. They +carried him in, and there in the robing chamber he lay unconscious for a +week, and then died without speech. + +"When he was dead, and ere he had been embalmed, there arose a clamor, +first among the followers of Otho von Reuss, and after that among those +of the Wolfsberg who expected that they would be favored by the new Duke. +It was first whispered, and then cried aloud, that the death of Duke +Casimir had been compassed by witchcraft and potions. + +"Cunningly and with subtlety was spread the report how my daughter and I +had worked upon Duke Casimir. How he had gone to our house, drunken a +draught, and then died ere he could come to his own chamber. But as for +me, I went on my way and heeded them not. For just then the plague, which +had stricken the Duke first, stalked athwart the city unchecked, and all +through it this Helene of ours was as the angel of God, coming and going +by night and day among the streets and lanes of the town. And the common +folk almost worshipped her. And so do unto this day. + +"Now perhaps I did not heed this babble as I ought to have done. But +there came one night--how long ago I have forgotten--and with it a clamor +in the court-yard. The Black Riders, the worst of them, fiends incarnate +that Otho had of late gathered about him, thundered upon us without, and +presently burst in the door. + +"I met them with mine axe at the stair-head, and for the better part of +an hour I kept them at a distance. And some died and some were +dismembered. For at that business I am not a man to make mistakes. Then +came Otho limping from his fall and shot me with a bolt from behind his +men. And so over my body as I lay at the stair-head they took my love and +left me here to die. And the new Duke will not kill me, for he desires +that I shall see her agony ere my own life is taken. For that alone the +fiend keeps me in life! + +"And that," said my father, feebly, "is all." + +But just as he seemed to ebb away a wild fear startled him. + +"No," he cried, "there is yet something more. Hugo, Hugo, keep me here a +little! Hold me that my mind may not wander away among the racking-wheels +and the faces mopping and mowing. I have something yet to tell." + +I held him up while Dessauer poured a drop or two of the potent liquid +into his mouth. As before, it instantly revived him. The color came back +to his cheeks. + +"Quick, Hugo, lad!" he cried; "give me that black box which sits behind +the block." I brought it, and from this he extracted a small key, which +he gave me. + +"Unlock the panel you see there in the wall," he said. + +I looked, but could find none. + +"The oaken knob!" he cried, sharply, as to a clumsy servitor. + +I could only see a rough knob in the wood-work, a little worm-eaten, and +in the centre one hole a little larger than the rest. + +"Put in the key!" commanded my father, making as if he would come out of +bed and hasten me himself. + +I thrust in the key, indeed, but with no more faith than if I had been +bidden to put it into a mouse-hole. + +Nevertheless, it turned easy as thinking, and a little door swung open, +cunningly fitted. Here were dresses, books, parchments huddled together. + +"Bring all these to me," he said. + +And I brought them carefully in my arms and laid them on the bed. + +The eye of old Dessauer fell on something among them and was instantly +fascinated. It was a woman's waist-belt of thick bars of gold laid three +and three, with crests and letters all over it. + +The Chancellor put his hand forward for it, and my father allowed him to +take it, following him, however, with a questioning eye. + +Then Dessauer put his hand into his bosom and drew out a chain of +gold--the necklace of the woodman, in-deed--and laid the two side by +side. He uttered a shrill cry as he did so. + +"The belt of the lost Princess!" he cried; "the little Princess of +Plassenburg!" + +And, laying them one above the other, each group of six bars read thus: + +[Illustration: +o o o H o o o H o o o H o o o + | | | +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o The Necklace + | | | +o o o L o o o L o o o L o o o + + +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o + | | | +o o o N o o o N o o o N o o o The Belt + | | | +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o] + + +With delight on his face, like that of a mathematician when his +calculations work out truly, Dessauer reached over his hand for the +papers also, but my father stayed him. + +"Who may you be that has a chain to match mine?" he asked, with his +mighty hand on Dessauer's wrist. + +"I am the State's Chancellor of Plassenburg, and it needed but this to +show me our true Princess." + +"Here, then," said my father, "is more and better." + +And he handed him the papers. + +"It meets! It meets!" cried Dessauer, enthusiastically, as he glanced +them over. "It is complete. It would stand probation in the Dict of +the Emperor." + +"But yet all that will not prevent Helene Gottfried dying at the stake!" +cried my father, sadly, and fell back unconscious on his bed. + + * * * * * + +We spent this heaviest of nights at the palace of Bishop Peter--Dessauer +with the prelate--I, praise to the holy pyx, in the kitchen with the +serving men and maids. Peter of the Pigs was there, but no more eager to +fight. The lay brother who had gone with the letter, and the conductor +who had run away from the dread door of the Hall of Justice, had +returned, and had spread a favorable report of our courage. + +Certainly the house of Peter the Bishop might be a poor one and scantily +provendered, but there was little sign of it that night. For if the +master went fasting and his guests lived on pulse (as they said in +Thorn), certainly not so Bishop Peter's servants. + +For there were pasties of larks, with sauce of butter and herbs, most +excellent and toothsome. There were rabbits from the sand-hills, and +pigeons from the towers of the minster. The clear chill Rhenish vied with +the more generous wine of Burgundy and the red juice of Assmanhauser. For +me, as was natural, I ate little. I spoke not at all. But I looked so +dangerous with my swarthy face and desperate eye, I dare say, also I was +so well armed, that the roysterers left me severely alone. + +But I drank--Lord, what did I not drink that night! I poured down my +gullet all and sundry that was given me. And to render these Bishop's +thralls their dues, there was no lack and no inhospitality. But the +strange thing of it was that, though I am a man more than ordinarily +temperate, that night I poured the Rhenish into me like water down a +cistern-pipe and felt it not. God forgive me, I wanted to make me drunken +and forgetful, and lo! the dog's swill would not bite. + +So I cursed their drink, and asked if they had no Lyons +Water-of-Life, stark and mordant, or social Hollands, or indeed +anything that was not mere compound of whey and dirty water. Whereat +they wondered, and held me thereafter in great respect as a good +companion and approven worthy drinker. + +Then they brought me of the strong spirit of Dantzig, with curious +little flakes of gold dancing in it. It was raw and strong, and at first +I had good hopes of it. But I drank the Dautzig like spring-water, all +there was of it, and though it had a taste singularly displeasing to +me, it took no more effect than so much warm barley-brew for the palates +of babes. Upon this I had great glory. For the card-players and the +dicers actually left their games and gazed open-jawed to see me drink. +And I sat there and expounded the Levitical law and the wheels of the +Prophet Ezekiel, the law of succession to the empire, and also the +apostolic succession--all with surprising clearness and cogency of +reasoning. So that before I had finished they required of me whether it +was I or my master who was sent for to dispute before His Sovereign +mightiness the Emperor. + +Then I told them that the things I knew (that is, which the Hollands had +put into my head) were but the commonest chamber-sweepings of my master's +learning, which I had picked up as I rode at his elbow. And this bred a +mighty wondering what manner of man he might be who was so wise. And I +think, if I had gone on, Dessauer and I might both have found ourselves +in the Bishop's prison, on suspicion of being the devil and one of his +ministrants. + +But suddenly, as with a kind of recoil or back stroke, all that I had +drunken must have come upon me. The clearness of vision went from me like +a candle that is blown out. I know not what happened after, save that I +found myself upon my truckle-bed, with my leathern money-pouch clasped in +my hand with surprising tightness, as if I had been mortally afraid that +some one would mistake my poor satchel for his own pocket. + +So in time the morrow came, and by all rules I ought to have had a +racking headache. For I saw many of those that had been with me the night +before pale of countenance and eating handfuls of baker's salt. So I +judged that their anxiety and the turmoil of their hearts had not burned +their liquor up, as had been the case with me. + +Now it is small wonder that all my soul cried out for oblivion till I +should be able to do something for the Beloved--break her prison, hasten +the troops from Plassenburg, or in some way save my love. + +Hardly had I looked out of the main door that morning, desiring no more +than to pass away the time till the trial should begin again, before I +saw the Lubber Fiend, smirking and becking across the way. He had +squatted himself down on the side of the street opposite, looking over at +the Bishop's palace. + +He pointed at me with his finger. + +"Your complexion runs down," he said. "I know you. But go to the spring +there by the stable, wash your face, and I shall know you better." + +This was fair perdition and nothing less. For one may stay the tongue of +a scoundrel with money, or the expectation of it, until opportunity +arrive to stop it with steel or prison masonry. But who shall curb or +halter the tongue of a fool? + +Then, swift as one that sees his face in a glass, I bethought me +of a plan. + +"See," I said, "do you desire gold, Sir Lubber Fiend?" + +He wagged his great head and shook his cabbage-leaf ears till they made +currents in the heavy air, to signify that he loved the touch of the +yellow metal. + +"See then, Lubber," said I, "you shall have ten of these now, and ten +more afterwards, if you will carry a letter to the Prince at Plassenburg, +or meet him on the way." + +"Not possible," said he, shaking his head sadly; "my little Missie has +come to Thorn." + +"But," said I, "little Missie would desire it; take letter to the Prince, +good Jan, then Missie will be happy." + +"Would she let poor Jan Lubberchen kiss her hand, think you?" he asked, +looking up at me. + +"Aye," said I; "kiss her cheek maybe!" + +He danced excitedly from side to side. + +"Jan will run--Jan will run all the way!" he cried. + +So I pulled out a scrap of parchment and wrote a hasty message to the +Prince, asking him, for the love of God and us, to set every soldier in +Plassenburg on the march for Thorn, and to come on ahead himself with +such a flying column as he could gather. No more I added, because I knew +that my good master would need no more. + +Then I went down with my messenger to the Weiss Thor, and with great fear +and pulsation of the midriff I saw the idiot pass the house of Master +Gerard. Then, at the outer gate, I gave him his ten golden coins, and +watched him trot away briskly on the green winding road to Plassenburg. + +"Mind," he called back to me, "Jan is to kiss her cheek if Jan takes +letter to the Prince!" + +And I promised it him without wincing. For by this time lying had no more +effect upon me than dram-drinking. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT + + +The Bed of Justice was set by eight of the morning. For they were ever +early astir in the city of Thorn, though, like most early risers, they +did little enough afterwards all day. + +With a sadly beating heart, I accompanied Dessauer in the same guise as +on the previous day. The crowd was even greater in and about the Hall of +Judgment. And when the Duke had taken his seat and his tools set +themselves down on either side, they brought in the Little Playmate. + +She was dressed all in white, clean and spotless, in spite of prison +usage. She glanced just once about her, right and left, high and low, as +if seeking for a face she could not see, and from thenceforth she looked +down on the ground. + +The argument as to torture had been concluded on the day before, and it +had been held inadmissible--not because of any kindly thought for the +prisoner, but because, according to the laws of the Wolfmark, in the +absence of the Hereditary Executioner, there was no one legally capable +of inflicting it. + +Then came the evidence. + +The first witness against the Little Playmate was old Hanne. She was +brought in by a cowled monk of dark and sinister appearance--in fact, as +my heart leaped to observe, I saw that she was accompanied by Friar +Laurence--he who had taught me my learning in the old days, and who +even then had watched the Little Playmate with no friendly eyes. + +As she passed the judges I saw the deadly fear mount to agony on the face +of old Hanne. The look in her eyes of physical pain suffered and +overpassed was the same which I had often seen in the wars after the +surgeon has done his horrid work. That same look I saw now on the face of +Hanne. So I knew that somewhere in the dark recesses under the Hall of +Judgment the Extreme Question had been put to her, and to all appearance +answered according to the liking of the persecutors, though they dared +not torture so notable a public prisoner as Helene. + +I saw a look of satisfied vindictiveness pass over the brutal features of +Duke Otho. He changed his position and whispered to his colleagues. + +It was Master Gerard von Sturm who rose to put the questions to the +witness. And as he did so, I heard the steady sough of talk among the +people rise mutteringly in a low growl of anger and contempt. The Duke's +lictors struck right and left among the crowd, as men bent forward with +fierce hate in their voices, lowing like oxen, as if to clear their lungs +of a weight of contempt. + +It was not thus in the old days, when there was no people's arbiter +in all the Wolfmark so famous or so popular as Master Gerard of the +Weiss Thor. + +"What is the reason of that turmoil?" said I to my neighbor. + +"This is the man who was her first accuser. Why, he dares not go outside +his house without a guard of the Duke's riders," said the man, picking at +his finger-nail with his teeth, as if it were a bone and he did not think +much of its savoriness. + +"You have already confessed," said the advocate to old Hanne, when they +had propped up the poor wreck of skin and bone, "and you do now confess +that this maid and yourself have ofttimes had converse with the Enemy +of Souls?" + +A spasm passed across the face of the witness, and a low sound proceeded +from her mouth, which might have been an affirmative answer, but which +sounded to me much more like a moan of pain. + +"And you confess that she consulted you concerning the best means of +killing the Duke Casimir--by means of a draught to be administered to him +when he should, as was his custom, visit his Hereditary Justicer?" + +"There was indeed a draught spoken of between us, noble sir," stammered +the old woman, "but it was not for the Duke Casimir, nor yet for--for any +evil purpose." + +I saw the Friar Laurence incline his head a little forward and whisper in +Hanne's ear from his place behind her. + +At the words she clasped her hands and fell on the floor, grovelling: "I +will say aught that you bid me, kind sir. I cannot bear it again. I +cannot go back to that place. I am too old to be tormented. I will bear +what testimony your excellencies desire." + +"We wish only that you should tell the truth as you have already done of +your own free will in your pre-examination," said Master Gerard, "the +notes of which are before me. Was it not to kill the Duke Casimir that +this draught was compounded?" + +The old woman hesitated. Friar Laurence stooped again. + +"Yes!" she cried; "God forgive me--yes!" + +An evil look of triumph sat on the face of Otho von Reuss. I think he +felt sure of his victim now. + +"That is enough," said Master Gerard. "Take the old woman back to +her cell." + +"Oh no, great Lord!" she cried, "not there! You promised that if I said +it I was to be let go free. Kill me, but do not send me back!" + +The Duke moved his hand, and the old woman was led shrieking below. + +Then came Friar Laurence, who testified that he had often seen old Hanne +instructing the young woman who was now a prisoner in the art of drugs, +in the preparation of images carven in dough--and it might be also in +clay--things well known in the art of witchery. + +Further, he had been with the Duke Casimir at the last, and the Duke had +declared that he had partaken of a draught in the house of Gottfried +Gottfried, and immediately thereafter had been taken ill. + +There was not much else of matter in the Friar's evidence, but the most +deep and vindictive malice against the prisoner was evident in every word +and gesture. + +Then Master Gerard rose to address the judges. His venerable appearance +was enhanced by the sternly severe look on his face. He looked an +accusing angel from the pit, swart of skin and with eyes of flame. He was +tall and bent of figure, with the serpent-browed head set deep between +hunched shoulders like those of a moulting vulture. He grasped his bundle +of papers and rose to make his final speech. + +The judges settled themselves to closer attention. The hush of +listening folk broadened to the utmost limits of the great hall. At a +whisper or a cough a hundred threatening faces were turned in the +direction of the sound, so strained was the attention of the people and +such the fear of the eloquence of this most famous pleader in all +Germany. In these days when learning has reached so great a pitch, and +is so general that in a largish city there may be as many as a thousand +people who can read and write, of course there are many eloquent men. +But in those days it was not so, and Grerard von Sturm was counted the +one Golden Mouth of the Wolfmark. + +And this in brief was the matter of his speech. The manner and the +persuasive grace I cannot attempt to give: + +"It has at all times been a received opinion of the wise that witchcraft +is a thing truly practised--by which such women as the Witch of Endor in +Holy Writ were able to call dead men out of their deep graves grown with +grass; or, as in that famous case of Demarchaus, who, having by the +advice of such a woman tasted the flesh of a sacrificed child, was +immediately turned into a wolf. + +"Further, the testimony-of Scripture is clear: 'Thou shalt not suffer a +witch to live'; and, again, as sayeth the Wise Man, 'Thou hast hated +them, 0 God, because with enchantments they did horrible works.' + +"Now, men may by conspicuous bravery guard their lives against assault by +the sword of the enemy, against the spear of the invader that cometh over +the wall, even against the knife of the assassin. But who shall be able +to keep out witchcraft? It moveth in the motes of the mid-day sun. It +comes stealing into the room on the pale beams of the moon. Witchcraft +rides in the hurtling blast, and shrieks in the gust which shakes the +roof and blows awry the candle in the hall. + +"Enchantment can summon Azazeli, the Lord of Flesh and Blood, called in +another place the Lord of the Desert, by whose spiriting of the elements +even the pure water of the spring or the juice of the purple grape may +become noxious as the brew of the serpent's poison-bag. + +"Of such a sort was the ill-doing of this woman. For her own hellish +purposes she desired and compassed the death of the most noble Duke +Casimir. There may be those who try to discover a motive for such an act. +But in this they do foolishly. For to those who have studied of this +matter, as I have done, it is well known that enchanters and witches ever +attack those who are the greatest, the noblest, and the most envied--not +hoping for any good to result to themselves, but out of pure malice and +envy, being prompted by the devil in order that the great and noble +should be destroyed out of the land. Well was it spoken then, 'Ye shall +not suffer a witch to live!' + +"And if any plead hereafter of this evil-doer's youth, of her beauty, I +call you to witness that the Evil One ever makes his best implement of +the fairest metal. As the aged crone, her teacher and accomplice, hath +confessed, this Helene was for long a plotter of dark deeds. By the trust +of Duke Casimir in her maiden's innocence he was betrayed to death. That +one so fair and evil should be turned loose on the world to begin anew +her enchantments, and, like a pestilence, to creep into good men's +houses, is a thing not to be thought of. Is she to go forth breathing +death upon the faces of the young children, to sit squat, like hideous +toad, sucking the blood of the new-born infant, or distilling +poison-drops to put into the draughts of strong men which shall run like +molten iron through their veins till they go mad? + +"Hear me, judges, I bid you again remember the word: 'Ye shall not suffer +a witch to live.' And in the name of the great unbroken law of the +Wolfmark, which I hold in my hand, I conclude by claiming the pains of +death to pass upon the witch-woman who by her deed sent forth untimely +the spirit of the most noble Duke Casimir, Lord of the city of Thorn and +Duke of the Wolfmark." + +The pleader sat down, calmly as he had risen, and the judges conferred +together as though they were on the point of delivering their verdict. +There had been no sound of applause as Master Gerard had spoken--a hushed +attention only, and then the muffled thunder of the great audience +relaxing its attention and of men turning to whispered discussion among +themselves. + +"Prisoner," said Duke Otho, "have you any to speak for you? Or do +you desire to make any answer to the things which have been urged +against you?" + +Then, thrilling me to my soul, arose the voice of Helene. Clear and sweet +and girlish, without hurry or fear, yet with an innocence which might +have touched the hardest heart, the maiden upon trial for her life said a +simple word or two in her defence. + +"I have no one to speak for me. I have nothing to say, save that which I +have said so often, that before God, who knows all things, I am innocent +of thought, word, or deed against any man, and most of all against Duke +Casimir of the Wolfsberg." + +And as she spoke the multitude was stirred, and voices broke out here +and there: + +"No witch!" "She is innocent!" "The guilty are among the judges!" "Saint +Helena!" "If she die we will avenge her!" + +And though the lictors struck furiously every way, they could not settle +the tumult, and ever the mass of folk swayed more wildly to and fro. Nor +do I know what might have happened at that moment but for a cry that +arose in front of the throng. + +"The Stranger! The Great Doctor! The Wise Man! Hear him! He is going to +speak for her!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +SENTENCE OF DEATH + + +And there, standing by the place of pleading, with his foot on the first +step, I saw Dessauer, in his black doctorial gown, leaning reverently +upon a long staff. + +He made a courteous salutation to Duke Otho upon the high seat. + +"I am a stranger, most noble Duke," he began, "and as such have no +standing in this your High Court of Justice. But there is a certain +courtesy extended to doctors of the law--the right of speech in great +trials--in many of the lands to which I have adventured in the search of +wisdom. I am encouraged by my friend, the most venerable prelate, Bishop +Peter, to ask your forbearance while I say a word on behalf of the +prisoner, in reply to that learned and most celebrated jurisconsult, +Master Gerard von Sturm, who, in support of his cause, has spoken things +so apt and eloquent. This is my desire ere judgment be passed. For in a +multitude of councils there is wisdom." + +He was silent, and looked at the Duke and his tool, Michael Texel. + +They conferred together in whispers, and at first seemed on the point of +refusing. But the folk began to sway so dangerously, and the voice of +their muttering sank till it became a growl, as of a caged wild beast +which has broken all bars save the last, and which only waits an +opportunity to put forth its strength in order to shiver that also. + +"You are heartily welcome, most learned doctor," said Duke Otho, +sullenly. "We would desire to hear you briefly concerning this matter." + +"I shall assuredly be brief, my noble lord--most brief," said Dessauer. +"I am a stranger, and must therefore speak by the great principles of +equity which underlie all law and all evidence, rather than according to +the statutes of the province over which you are the distinguished ruler. + +"The crime of witchcraft is indeed a heinous one, if so be that it can be +proven--not by the compelled confession of crazed and tortured crones, +but by the clear light of reason. Now there is no evidence that I have +heard against this young girl which might not be urged with equal justice +against every cup-bearer in the Castle of the Wolfsberg. + +"The Duke Casimir died indeed after having partaken of the wine. But so +may a man at any time by the visitation of God, by the stroke which, from +the void air, falleth suddenly upon the heart of man. No poison has been +found on or about the girl. No evil has been alleged against her, save +that which has been compelled (as all must have seen) by torture, and the +fear of torture, from the palsied and reluctant lips of a frantic hag." + +"Hear him! Great is the Stranger!" cried the folk in the hall. And the +shouting of the guards commanding silence could scarce be heard for the +roar of the populace. It was some time before the speech of Dessauer was +again audible. + +Ho was beginning to speak again, but Duke Otho, without rising, called +out rudely and angrily: + +"Speak to the reason of the judges and not to the passions of the mob!" + +"I do indeed speak from the reason to the reason," said Dessauer, calmly; +"for in this matter there is no true averment, even of witchcraft, but +only of the administration of poison--which ought to be proven by the +ordinary means of producing some portion of the drug, both in the +possession of the criminal and from the body of the murdered man. This +has not been done. There has been no evidence, save, as I have shown, +such as may be easily compelled or suborned. If this maid be condemned, +there is no one of you with a wife, a daughter, a sweetheart, who may not +have her burned or beheaded on just as little evidence--if she have a +single enemy in all the city seeking for the sake of malice or thwarted +lust to compass her destruction. + +"Moreover, it indeed matters little for the argument that this damsel is +fair to the eye. Save in so far as she is more the object of desire, and +that when the greed of the lustful eye is balked" (here he paused and +looked fixedly between his knees), "disappointment oft in such a heart +turns to deadly poison. And so that which was desired is the more +bitterly hated, and revenge awakes to destroy. + +"But if beauty matters little, character matters greatly. And what, by +common consent, has been known in the city concerning this maid? + +"I ask not you, Duke Otho, who have lived apart in your castle or in far +lands, a stranger to the city like myself. But I ask the people among +whom, during all these; past months of the plague, she has dwelt. Is she +not known among them as Saint Helena?" + +"Aye," cried the people, "Saint Helena, indeed--our savior when there was +none to help! God save Saint Helena!" + +Dessauer waved his hand for silence. + +"Did she not go among you from house to house, carrying, not the +poison-cup, but the healing draught? Was not her hand soft on the brow of +the dying, comfortable about the neck of the bereaved? Day and night, +whose fingers reverently wrapped up the poor dead bodies of your +beloved? Who quieted your babes in her arms, fed thorn, nursed them, +healed them, buried them--wore herself to a shadow for your sakes ?" + +"Saint Helena!" they cried; "Saint Helena, the angel of the Red Tower!" + +"Aye," said Dessauer, in tones like thunder, "hear their voices! There +are a thousand witnesses in this house untortured, unsuborned. I tell +you, the guilt of innocent blood will lie on you, great Duke--on you +counsellors of evil things, if you condemn this maid. Your throne, +Duke Otho, shall totter and fall, and your life's sun shall set in a +sea of blood!" + +He sat down calm and fearless as the Duke raged to Michael Texel, as I +think, desiring that the fearless pleader could be seized on the instant, +and punished for his insolence. But as the folk shouted in the hall, and +the thunder of cheering came in through the open windows from the great +concourse without, Michael Texel calmed his master, urging upon him that +the temper of the people was for the present too dangerous. And also, +doubtless, that they could easily compass their ends by other means. + +I saw Texel despatch a messenger to the lictors who stood on either side +of Helene. The body-guard of the Duke stood closer about her as the Duke +Otho himself stood up to read the sentence. + +I saw that the form of it had been written out upon a paper. Doubtless, +therefore, all had been prearranged, so that neither evidence nor +eloquence could possibly have had any effect upon it. + +"We, the Court of the Wolfmark, find the prisoner, Helene, called +Gottfried, guilty of witchcraft, and especially of compassing and +causing the death of our predecessor, the most noble Duke Casimir, and +we do hereby adjudge that, on the morning of Sunday presently +following, Helene Gottfried shall be executed upon the common scaffold +by the axe of the executioner. Of our clemency is this sentence +delivered, instead of the torture and the burning alive at the stake +which it was within our power to command. This is done in consideration +of the youth of the criminal, and as the first exercise of our ducal +prerogative of high mercy." + +With an angry roar the people closed in. + +"Take her!" they cried; "rescue her out of their hands!" + +And there was a fierce rush, in which the outer barriers were snapped +like straw. But the lictors had pulled down the trap-door on the instant, +and the people surged fiercely over the spot where a moment before Helene +had stood. Before them were the levelled pikes and burning matches of the +Duke's guard. + +"Have at them!" was still the cry. "Kill the wolves! Tear them to +pieces!" + +But the mob was undisciplined, and the steady advance of the soldiers +soon cleared the hall. Nevertheless the streets without continued angry +and throbbing with incipient rebellion. Duke Otho could scarce win +scathless across the court-yard to his own apartments. Tiles from the +nearest roofs were cast upon the heads of his escort. The streets were +impassable with angry men shaking their fists at every courier and +soldier of the Duke. Women hung sobbing out of the windows, and all the +city of Thorn lamented with uncomforted tears because of the cruel +condemnation of their Saint of the plague, Helena, the maiden of the +Red Tower. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE + + +I rushed out into the street, distract and insensate with grief and +madness. I found the city seething with sullen unrest--not yet openly +hostile to the powers that abode in the Castle of the Wolfsberg--too long +cowed and down-trodden for that, but angry with the anger which one day +would of a certainty break out and be pitiless. + +The Black Horsemen of the Duke pricked a way with their lances here and +there through the people, driving them into the narrow lanes, in jets and +spurts of fleeing humanity, only once more to reunite as soon as the +Hussars of Death had passed. Pikemen cried "Make way!" and the regular +guard of the city paraded in strong companies. + +A soldier wantonly thrust me in the back with his spear, and I sprang +towards him fiercely, glad to strike home at something. But as quickly a +man of the crowd pulled me back. + +"Be wise!" he said; "not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of all +these women and children. The Black Riders seek only an excuse to sweep +the city from end to end with the besom of fire and blood." + +Then came my master out of the Hall of Judgment, his head hanging +dejectedly down. As soon as he was observed the people crowded about, +shaking him by the hand, thanking him for that which he had done for +their maid, their holy Saint Helena of the plague. + +"We will not suffer her to be put to death, not even if they of the +Wolfsberg raze our city to the ground!" + +"Make way there!" cried the Black Horsemen--"way, in the name of +Duke Otho!" + +"Who is Duke Otho?" cried a voice. "We do not know Duke Otho." + +"He is not crowned yet! Why should he take so much upon him?" +shouted another. + +"We are free burgesses of Thorn, and no man's bond-slaves!" said a third. +Such were the shouts that hurtled through the streets and were bandied +fiercely from man to man, betraying in tone more than in word the +intensity of the hatred which existed between the ducal towers of the +Wolfsberg and the city which lay beneath them. + +In my boyish days I had laughed at the assemblies of the Swan--the White +Wolves and Free Companies. But, perhaps, those who had thus played at +revolt were wiser than I. For of a surety these associations were +yielding their fruits now in a harvest of hate against the gloomy pile +that had so long dominated the town, choked its liberties, and shut it +off from the new, free, thriving world of the northern seaboard +commonwealths to which of right it belonged. + +So soon as Dessauer and I were alone in my master's room at Bishop +Peter's I tried to stammer some sort of thanks, but I could do no more +than hold out a hand to him. The old man clasped it. + +"It was wholly useless from the first," he said; "they had their purpose +fixed and their course laid out, so that there was no turning of them. +All was a mockery, so clear that even the ignorant men of the streets +were not deceived. Accusation, evidence, pleadings, condemnation, +sentence--all were ready before the maid was taken; aye, and, I think, +before Duke Casimir was dead. + +"Also there is no court in the Wolfmark higher than the mockery we have +seen to-day. The arms of the soldiers of Plassenburg are our only court +of appeal." + +"It is two days before they can come," I answered. "I fear me all will be +over before then." + +"Be not so sure," said Dessauer. "There is at present no Justicer in the +Mark capable of carrying out the sentence, so long as your father lies on +his bed of mortal weakness." + +"Duke Otho will not let that stand in his way--or I am the more +deceived," said I, with a heavy heart. + +At this moment there came an interruption. I heard a loud argument +outside in the court-yard. + +"Tell me what you want with the servant of the most learned Doctor!" +cried a voice. + +"That is his business, and mine--not yours, rusty son of a +stable-sweeper!" was the answer. + +I went out immediately, and there, facing each other in a position of +mutual defiance, I saw Peter of the Pigs and the decent legal domestic of +Master Gerard von Sturm. + +"Get out of my wind, old Muck-to-the-Eyes!" said the servitor, +offensively; "you poison the good, wholesome air that is needed for +men's breath." + +"Go back to your murderer of the saints," responded Peter of the Pigs, +valiantly. "Your master and you will swing in effigy to-night in every +street in Thorn. Some day before long you will both swing in the body--if +a hair of this angel's head be harmed." + +"I must see this learned Doctor's servant!" persisted the man of law, +avoiding the personal question. + +"Here he is," said I; "and now what would you with him?" + +"I am sent to invite you to come to the Weiss Thor immediately, on +business which deeply concerns you." + +"That is not enough for me," said I. "Who sends for me?" + +"Let me come in out of the hearing of this moon-faced idiot," said he, +pointing contumeliously to Peter of the Pigs, "and I will tell you. I am +not bidden to proclaim my business in the market sties and city +cattlepens!" + +"You do well, Parchment Knave," cried Peter; "for it is such black +business that if you proclaimed a syllable of it there you would be +torn to pieces of honest folk. Thank God there are still some such in +the world!" + +"Aye, many," quoth the servitor, "and we all know they are to be found in +the dwellings of priestlings!" + +I walked with the man to the gate, for I did not care to take him to +where Dessauer was sitting. I feared that it might be some ill news from +the Lubber Fiend, who, though I had seen him clear of the gate, might +very well have returned and told my message to Master Gerard. + +"Well," said I, brusquely, for I had no love for the Sir Rusty +Respectable, "out with it--who sends you?" + +"It is not my master," answered the man, "but one other." + +"What other?" said I. + +"The one," he said, cunningly, "with whom on a former occasion you rode +out at the White Gate." + +Then I saw that he knew me. + +"The Princess--" I began. + +"Hush," he said, touching my arm; "that is not a word to be whispered in +the streets of Thorn--the Lady Ysolinde is at her father's house, and +would see you--on a matter of life or death--so she bade me tell you." + +"I will go with you," I said, instantly. + +"Nay," he said, smirking secretly, "not now, but at nine of the clock, +when the city ways shall be dark, you must come--you know the road. +And then you two can confer together safely, and eke, an it please +you, jocosely, when Master Gerard will be safe in his study, with the +lamp lit." + +I went back to Dessauer, who during my absence had kept his head in his +hand, as if deeply absorbed in thought. + +"The Princess is in Thorn!" said I, as a startling piece of news. + +"Ah, the Princess!" he muttered, abstractedly; "truly she is the +Princess, but yet that will not advantage her a whit." + +I saw that he was thinking of our little Helene. + +"Nay," I said, taking him by the arm to secure his attention, as indeed +about this time I had often to do. "I mean the Lady Ysolinde, the wife of +our good Prince." + +"In Thorn?" said Dessauer. "Ah, I am little surprised. Twice when I was +speaking to-day I saw a face I knew well look through a lattice in the +wall at me. But being intent upon my words I did not think of it, nor +indeed recognize it till it had disappeared. Now the picture comes back +to me curiously clear. It was the face of the Princess Ysolinde." + +"I am to see her at nine o'clock to-night in the house of the +Weiss Thor." + +"Do not go, I pray you!" he said; "it is certainly a trap." + +"Go I must, and will," I replied; "for it may be to the good of our +maiden. I will risk all for that!" + +"I dare say," said he; "so should I, if I saw any advantage, such as +indeed I hoped for to-day. But if I be not mistaken, our Princess is deep +in this plot." + +"And why?" said I. "Helene never harmed her." + +"Helene is your betrothed wife, is she not?" he said. He asked as if he +did not know. + +"Surely!" said I. + +"Well!" he replied, sententiously, and so went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +A WOMAN SCORNED + + +At nine I was at the door of the dark, silent house by the Weiss Thor. I +sounded the knocker loudly, and with the end of the reverberations I +heard a foot come through the long passages. The panel behind slid +noiselessly in its grooves, and I was conscious that a pair of eyes +looked out at me. + +"You are the servant of the strange Doctor?" said the voice of the +servitor, Sir Respectable. + +"That I am, as by this time you may have seen!" answered I, for I was +in no mood of mere politeness. I was venturing my life in the house of +mine enemy, and, at least, it would be no harm if I put a bold face on +the matter. + +He opened the door, and again the same curious perfume was wafted down +the passages--something that I had never felt either in the Wolfsberg nor +yet even in the women's chambers of the Palace of Plassenburg. + +At the door of the little room in which she had first received me so long +ago, the Lady Ysolinde was waiting for me. + +She did not shut the door till Sir Respectable had betaken him down again +to his own place. Then quite frankly and undisguisedly she took my hand, +like one who had come to the end of make-believe. + +"I knew you to-day in your disguise," she said; "it is an excellent one, +and might deceive all save a woman who loves. Ah, you start. It might +deceive the woman you love, but not the woman that loves you. I am not +the Princess to-night; I am Ysolinde, the Woman. I have no restraints, no +conventions, no laws, no religions to-night--save the law of a woman's +need and the religion of a woman's passion." + +I stood before her, scarce knowing what to say. + +"Sit down," she said; "it is a long story, and yet I will not weary you, +Hugo--so much I promise you." + +I made answer to her, still standing up. + +"To-night, my lady, after what you know, you will not be surprised that I +can think of only one thing. You know that to-day--" + +"I know," she said, cutting me short, as if she did not wish to +listen to that which I might say next; "I know--I was present in the +Judgment Hall." + +"Then, being Master Gerard's daughter, you knew also the sentence before +it was pronounced!" I said, bitterly, being certain as that I lived that +the paper from which the Duke Otho read had been penned at this very +house of the Weiss Thor in which I now sat. + +Ysolinde reached a slender hand to me, as was often her wont instead +of speech. + +"Be patient to-night," she said; "I am trying hard to do that which is +best--for myself first, as a woman must in a woman's affairs. But, as God +sees me, for others also! You are a man, but I pray you think with +fairness of the fight I, a lonely, unloved woman, have to fight." + +"Will they carry out the terrible sentence?" said I, eagerly. For I +judged that she must be in her father's counsels. + +"Be patient," she said; "we will come to that presently." + +Ysolinde sat silent a while, and when I would have spoken further +she moved her hand a little impatiently aside, in sign that I was +not to interrupt. Yet even this was not done in her old imperious +manner, but rather sadly and with a certain wistful gentleness which +went to my heart. + +When she spoke again it was in the same even voice with which she had +formerly told my fortune in that very room. + +"That which I have to say to you is a thing strange--as it may seem +unwomanly. But then, I did not ask God to make me a woman, and +certainly he did not make me as other women. I have never had a true +mate, never won the love which God owes to every man and woman He +brings into the world. + +"Then I mot you, not by any seeking of mine. Next, equally against my +will, I loved you. Nay, do not start to-night. It is as well to put the +matter plainly." + +"You did not _love_ me," said I; "you were but kind to me, the unworthy +son of the Executioner of Thorn. Out of your good heart you did it." + +I acknowledge that I spoke like a paltering knave, but in truth knew not +what to say. + +"I loved you--yes, and I love you!" she said, serenely, as though my +words had been the twittering of a bird on the roof. "And I am not +ashamed. There was indeed no reason for my folly--no beauty, no +desirableness in you. But--I loved you. Pass! Let it be. We will begin +from there. You loved, or thought you loved, a maid--your Little +Playmate. Pshaw, you loved her not! Or not as I count love. I was proud, +accustomed to command, and, besides, a Prince's wife. The last, +doubtless, should have held me apart. Yet my Princessdom was but as straw +bands cast into the fire to bind the flame. As for you, Hugo Gottfried, +you were in love with your success, your future, and, most of all, with +your confident, insolently dullard self." + +She smiled bitterly, and, because the thing she spoke was partly true, I +had still nothing to answer her. + +"Hugo Gottfried," she said, "try to remember if, when we rode to +Plassenburg in the pleasant weather of that old spring, you loved this +girl whom now you love?" + +"Aye," said I, "loved her then, even as I love her now." + +"You lie," she answered, calmly, not like one in anger, but as one who +makes a necessary correction, "you loved her not. You were ready to love +me--glad, too, that I should love you. And since you knew not then of my +rank, it was not done for the sake of any advancement in Plassenburg." + +I felt again the great disadvantage I was under in speaking to the Lady +Ysolinde. I never had a word to say but she could put three to it. My +best speeches sounded empty, selfish, vain beside hers. And so was it +ever. By deeds alone could I vanquish her, and perhaps by a certain +dogged masculine persistence. + +"Princess," I said to her, "you have asked me to meet you here. It is not +of the past, nor yet of likings, imaginings, recriminations that I must +speak. My love, my sister, my playmate, bound to me by a thousand ancient +tendernesses, lies in prison in this city of Thorn, under sentence of a +cruel death. Will you help me to release her? I think that with your +father, and therefore with you, is the power to open her prison doors!" + +"And what is there then for me?" cried the Lady Ysolinde, instantly, +bending her head forward, her emerald eyes so great and clear that their +shining seemed to cover all her face as a wave covers a rock at +flood-tide. + +"What for me?" she repeated, in the silence which followed. + +"For you," said I, "the gladness to have saved an innocent life." + +"Tush!" she cried, with a gesture of extravagant contempt. "You mistake; +I am no good-deeds monger, to give my bread and butter to the next +beggar-lass. I tell you I am the woman who came first out of the womb of +Mother-earth. I will yield only that which is snatched from me. What is +mine is more mine than another's, because I would suffer, dare, sin, defy +a world of men and women in order to keep it, to possess it, to have it +all alone to myself!" + +"But," I answered, "who am I, that so great a lady should love me? What +am I to you, Princess, more than another?" + +"_That_ I know not!" she answered, swiftly. "Only God knows that. Perhaps +my curse, my punishment. My husband is a far better, truer, nobler man +than you, Hugo. I know it; but what of that, when I love him not? Love +goes not by the rungs in a ladder, stands not with the most noble on the +highest step, is not bestowed, like the rewards in a child's school, to +the most deserving. I love you, Hugo Gottfried, it is true. But I wish a +thousand times that I did not. Nevertheless--I do! Therefore make your +reckoning with that, and put aside puling shams and whimpering +subterfuges." + +This set me all on edge, and I asked a question. + +"What, then, do you propose? Where, shall this comedy end?" + +"End!" she said--"end! Aye, of course, men must ever look to an end. +Women are content with a continuance. That you should love me and keep on +loving me, that is all I want!" + +"But," I began, "I love--" + +"Ah, do not say it!" she cried, pitifully, clasping her hands with a +certain swift appeal in her voice--"do not say it! For God's sake, for +the sake of innocent blood, do not say that you love me not!" + +She paused a moment, and grew more pensive as she looked stilly and +solemnly at me. + +"I will tell you the end that I see; only be patient and answer not +before I have done. I have seen a vision--thrice have I seen it. Karl of +Plassenburg, my husband, shall die. I have seen the Black Cloak thrice +envelop him. It is the sign. No man hath ever escaped that omen--aye, and +if I choose, it shall wrap him about speedily. More, I have seen you sit +on the throne of Plassenburg and of the Mark, with a Princess by your +side. It is _not_ only my fancy. Even as in the old time I read your +present fortune, so, for good or ill, this thing also is coming to you." + +She never took her eyes from my face. + +"Now listen well and be slow to speak. The Princedom and the power shall +both fall to me when my husband dies. There are none other hands capable. +So also is it arranged in his will. Here"--she broke off suddenly, as +with a gesture of infinite surrender she thrust out her white hands +towards me--"here is my kingdom and me. Take us both, for we are +yours--yours--yours!" + +I took her hands gently in mine and kissed them. + +"Lady, Lady Ysolinde," I said, "you honor me, you overwhelm me, I know +not what to say. But think! The Prince is well, full of health and the +hope of years. This thought of yours is but a vision, a delusion--how can +we speak of the thing that is not?" + +"I wait your answer," she said, leaving her hands still in mine, but now, +as it were, on sufferance. Then, indeed, I was torn between the love that +I had in my heart for my dear and the need of pleasing the Lady +Ysolinde--between the truth and my desire to save Helene. Almost it was +in my heart to declare that I loved the Lady Ysolinde, and to promise +that I should do all she asked. But though, when need hath been, I have +lied back and forth in my time, and thought no shame, something stuck in +my throat now; and I felt that if I denied my love, who lay prison-bound +that night, I should never come within the mercy of God, but be forever +alien and outcast from any commonwealth of honorable men. + +"I cannot, Lady Ysolinde," I answered, at last. "The love of the maid +hath so grown into my heart that I cannot root it out at a word. It is +here, and it fills all my life!" + +Again she interrupted me. + +"See," she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, "they tell me this your +Helene is an angel of mercy to the sick. If she is spared she will be +content to give her life to works of good intent among the poor. This +cannot be life and death to her as it is to me. Her love is not as the +love of a woman like Ysolinde. It is not for any one man to possess in +monopoly. Though you may deceive yourself and think that it will be fixed +and centred on you. But she will never love you as I love you. See, I +would knee to you, pray to you on my knees, make myself a suppliant--I, +Ysolinde that am a princess! With you, Hugo, I have no pride, no shame. I +would take your love by violence, as a strong man surpriseth and taketh +the heart of a maid." + +She was now all trembling and distract, her lips red, her eyes bright, +her hands clasped and trembling as they were strained palm to palm. + +"Lady Ysolinde, I would that this were not so," I began. + +A new quick spasm passed over her face. I think it came across her that +my heart was wavering. "God knows that I, Hugo Gottfried, am not worth +all this!" + +"Nay," she said, with a kind of joy in her voice and in her eyes, "that +matters not. Ysolinde of Plassenburg is as a child that must have its toy +or die. Worthiness has no more to do with love than creeds and dogmas. +Love me--Hugo--love me even a little. Put me not away. I will be so true, +so willing. I will run your errands, wait on you, stand behind you in +battle, in council lead you to fame and great glory. For you, Hugo, I +will watch the faces of others, detect your enemies, unite your +well-wishers, mark the failing favor of your friends. What heart so +strong, what eye so keen as mine--for the greater the love the sharper +the eye to mark, prevent, countermine. And this maid, so cold and icy, so +full of good works and the abounding fame of saintliness, let her live +for the healing of the people, for the love of God and man both, and it +liketh her. She shall be abbess of our greatest convent. She shall indeed +be the Saint Helena of the North. Even now I will save her from death and +give her refuge. I promise it. I have the power in my hands. Only do you, +Hugo Gottfried, give me your love, your life, yourself!" + +She was standing before me now, and had her arms about my neck. I felt +them quiver upon my shoulders. Her eyes looked directly up into mine, and +whether they were the eyes of an angel or of a tempting fiend I could not +tell. Very lovely, at any rate, they were, and might have tempted even +Saint Anthony to sin. + +"Ysolinde," I said, at last, "it is small wonder that I am strongly +moved; you have offered me great things to-night. I feel my heart very +humble and unworthy. I deserve not your love. I am but a man, a soldier, +dull and slow. Were it not for one man and one woman it should be as you +say. But Karl of Plassenburg is my good master, my loyal friend. Helene +is my true love. I beseech you put this thought from you, dear lady, and +be once more my true Princess, I your liege subject--faithful, full of +reverence and devotion till life shall end!" + +As I spoke she drew herself away from me. My hand had unconsciously +rested on her hair, for at first she had leaned her head towards me. When +I had finished she took my hand by the wrist and gripped it as if she +would choke a snake ere she dropped it at arm's-length. I knew that our +interview was at an end. + +"Go!" she commanded, pointing to the door. "One day you shall know how +precious is the love you have so lightly cast aside. In a dark, dread +hour, you, Hugo Gottfried, shall sue as a suppliant. And I shall deny +you. There shall come a day when you shall abase yourself--even as you +have seen Ysolinde the Princess abase herself to Hugo, the son of the Red +Axe of the Wolf mark. Go, I tell you! Go--ere I slay you with my knife!" + +And she flashed a keen double-edged blade from some recess of her silken +serpentine dress. + +"My lady, hear me," I pleaded. "Out of the depths of my heart I +protest to you--" + +"Bah!" she cried, with a sudden uprising of tigerish fierceness in her +eyes, quick and chill as the glitter of her steel. "Go, I tell you, ere I +be tempted to strike! _Your heart!_ Why, man, there is nothing in your +heart but empty words out of monks' copy-books and proverbs dry and +rotten as last year's leaves. Ye have seen me abased. By the lords of +hell, I will abase you, Executioner's son! Aye, and you yourself, Hugo +Gottfried, shall work out in flowing blood and bitter tears the doom of +the pale trembling girl for whom you have rejected and despised Ysolinde, +Princess of Plassenburg!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +THE RED AXE DIES STANDING UP + + +How I stumbled down the stairs and found myself outside the house in +the Weiss Thor I do not know. Whether the servitor, Sir Respectable, +showed me out or not has quite passed from me. I only remember that I +came upon myself waiting outside the gate of Bishop Peter's palace +ringing at a bell which sounded ghostly enough, tinkling like a cracked +kettle behind the door. + +The lattice clicked and a face peeped out. + +"Get hence, night-raker!" cried a voice. "Wherefore do you come here so +untimeously, profaning the holy quiet of our minster-close?" + +"There was no very holy calm in the kitchen t'other night, Peter +Swinehead!" said I, my wits coming mechanically back to me at the +familiar sound. + +"Ha, Sir Blackamoor, 'tis you; surely your chafts have grown strangely +white, or else are my eyes serving me foully in the torchlight." + +Instinctively I covered as much of my face as I could with my +cloak's cape, for indeed I had washed it ere I went forth to see the +Lady Ysolinde. + +"'Tis that you have slipped too much of the Rhenish down thy gullet, old +comrade," said I, slapping Peter on the back and getting before him so +that he might remark nothing more. + +At that, being well pleased with my calling him comrade, he lighted me +cordially to my chamber, and there left me to the sleepless meditation of +the night. + +The next day was one of great quietness in the city of Thorn. An uneasy, +sultry pause of silence brooded over the lower town. Men's heads showed a +moment at door and window, looked furtively up and down the street, and +then vanished again within. Plots were being hatched and plans laid in +Thorn; yet, while there was the lowering silence in the city, up aloft +the Wolfsberg hummed gayly like a hive. Once I went up that way to see if +I could win any news of my father. But this day the door into the Red +Tower stood closed, nor would any within open for all my knocking. So +perforce I had to return unsatisfied. Several times I went to the Weiss +Thor to spy the horizon round for the troops of Plassenburg. But only the +gray plain of the Mark stretched itself out so far as the eye could +penetrate--hardly a reeking chimney to be seen, or any token of the +pleasant rustic life of man, such as in my youth I remembered to have +looked down upon from the Red Tower. Beneath me the city of Thorn lay +grimly quiescent, like a beast of prey which has eaten all its neighbors, +and must now die of starvation because there are no more to devour. + +The day passed on feet that crept like those of a tortoise, as the sullen +minutes dragged by, leaden-clogged and tardy. But the evening came at +last. And with it, knocking at the door of the Bishop's quadrangle and +interrupting my long talk with Dessauer, lo! a messenger, hot-foot from +the castle. + +"To the learned Doctor and his servant, Gottfried Gottfried, being in +death's utmost extremities, sends greeting, and desires greatly to have +speech with them." + +Thus ran my father's message in that testing hour where he had seen +so many! Yet I was but little surprised. There was no wonder in the +fact save the wonder that it should all seem so natural. Dessauer +rose quickly. + +"I will go with you," he said; "it will be safer. For at least I can +keep the door while you speak with your father." + +So, without further word, we followed the messenger up the long, narrow, +wooden-gabled street, and heard the folk muttering gloomily in the +darkness within, or talking softly in the dull russet glow of their +hearth-fires. For there were but few lighted candles in Thorn that +night. And I wondered how near or how far from us tho men of Plassenburg +might be encamping, and thrilled to think that at any moment a spy might +ride in to warn Duke Otho of the spy within his city, or the near +approach of his foe. + +But so far all was quiet at the Red Tower. The wicket-gate in the angle +of the wall was open, and we passed in without difficulty. As I mounted +the stairs I heard the key turn behind us. Obviously, therefore, we were +expected. The gate of the Red Tower had been left open for our entrance; +and so soon as the birds were in the snare, it was shut, and the silly +goslings trapped. + +Nevertheless we climbed up and up the dark stairs till we came to +the door of my father's garret. I pushed it open without knocking, +and entered. + +"The most learned the Doctor Schmidt," I announced, lest there should be +some stranger in the room. And indeed my precaution was necessary enough. +For, from my father's bed-head, disengaging himself reluctantly, like a +disturbed vulture napping up from the side of a dying steer, Friar +Laurence rose out of the darkness, and, folding his robe about him, +stalked to the door without a word or nod to either of us. I stood +holding the edge of it till I had watched him well down the stairs. Then +Dessauer relieved me at the stair-head as I went to approach my father. + +I saw a change in him, very startling, indeed, to see. "In the uttermost +extremity" he was, indeed, as he had written. A ghastly pallor overspread +his face; his eyes were wild, his breathing came both quick and hard. +The fire cast nickering lights over his face and on the outlines of his +lank figure under the scarlet mantle which had been cast over him. One +corner of it was cast aside, as if for air or coolness, and I could see a +thing which gave me a cold chill in the marrow of my spine. + +My father still wore the dress which he only donned when some poor soul +was about to die and pay the forfeit. + +At first Gottfried took no notice of me whatever, but lay looking at the +ceiling, his lips muttering something steadily, though what the words +were I could not hear. + +"Father," I said at last, bending over him gently, "I have come to see +you." + +He turned to me, as if suddenly and regretfully summoned back from very +far away. It was a movement I had seen in many dying men. He looked at +me, a strange, luminous comprehension growing up gradually in his eyes. + +"Hugo," he said, "you have come home at last! The Little Playmate has +come home, too. We three will make a merry party in the old Red Tower. We +have not been all together for so long. Lord Christ, but I have been a +man much alone! Hugo, why did you leave me so long? Ah, well, I do not +blame you, my son. You have been pushing your fortunes, doubtless, and +you have--so they tell me--become a great man in Plassenburg. And the +little maid is a lady of honor, and very fair to see. But now you two +have come to the old garret, like birds homing to the nest." + +"Yes, father," I said to him, "we have both come home to you, the Little +Playmate and I. And now you will give us your blessing!" + +"The Little Playmate--say rather the Little Princess," he cried, +cheerfully, as, with the air of one who brings good tidings, he sat up in +bed. Then he pointed to a chair on which a pillow had carelessly been +flung. "Little Maid," he said, looking at the cushion as if it had been +Helene, "I am glad you have come back to be wedded to my boy. That was +like you. I ever wished it, indeed. But I never expected to see my +children thus happy. Yet I always knew you and Hugo were made for each +other. You are at your sewing, little maid. Well, 'tis natural. I mind me +when my own love sat making dainties of just such delicate and wreathed +whiteness." + +He paused, and then, his countenance suddenly changing, he looked +fearfully and fixedly at the chair. + +"But, little maid, my own Helene," he cried, in a loud, gasping, alarmed +tone, "what is this, best beloved? Why, you are sewing at a shroud? +Surely such funeral-trappings become not bridals. A shroud--and there is +blood upon it! Put it down--_put it down,_ I pray you!" + +The red flames on the fire crackled suddenly up about the back log and +cast dancing shadows on his face. + +"Lie down and rest, dear father," I said softly to him, "the Little +Playmate is not here--I, Hugo, your son, am alone beside you." + +"Hugo," he said, instantly appeased, and passing a lean arm about me, "my +good son, my brave boy! You will be kind to the little Princess. She +loves you. There is no man so beloved as you in all the city of Thorn. +Many would have loved her besides Otho. Ah, but I threw him out of the +window there. I threw a Grand Duke out of a window! Ha! ha! it was the +bravest jest!" + +He laughed a little at intervals, as at a tale that will bear infinite +repetition. "I, Gottfried Gottfried, threw a proximate reigning Prince +out of the window! How Casimir laughed! The thing pleased him well. And +the little maid, do you remember her, Hugo? How she would teach me--me, +the Red Axe of Thorn--how to dance that first night, and how totteringly +she carried the Red Axe? The little one took heart that night. She will +have a happy future, I know; so blessed, far away from this dark and +damned place of the Wolfsberg. I am glad she is not here to see me die. +That is a sight for men, not for fair young loving women." + +"Hush, my father," I said, touching his dank brow; "you are not going to +die. You will yet live to be strong and well, a man among men." + +For one tells these things to dying men. And they smile and pass us by, +amused at our childish ignorance, as you and I shall one day smile upon +those others. And even thus did my father. + +"Nay, Hugo, I am sped," he answered. "This night ends all. The door I +have oped for so many is opening from within for me. God's mercy be on a +sinful man! Ere the light of to-morrow's dawn the Duke's Justicer must +face the Tribunal that has no assessor and no court of appeal." + +He threw back the cloak which served him as a mantle, and crying, "Give +me your hand, Hugo!" Gottfried Gottfried staggered to his feet. + +"I will die standing up," he said, bending his brows and gazing about him +uncertainly. He pointed to the walls of the garret. The fire was +flickering low, but still making the place light enough to see easily. +There beside the bed was the Red Axe, with its shining edge undimmed, +leaning against the block. There across it was the crimson mask which was +never more to bind his eyes as he did the office of final dread. + +"Do you see them, son Hugo?" he cried, leaning heavily on my shoulder and +pointing with his finger; "they are gibbering at me, mowing, +processioning by, and pointing mockingly at me. Do you hear them +laughing? That horrid one there with his head under his arm? Laughing as +if there were no God! But I am not afraid. Mercy of Jesu! Hath God +Himself no Justicer, that He should punish me because I have fulfilled my +charge? I have all my life been merciful, ever giving the blow of mercy +first, and the drop of stupefaction before the Extreme Question. Hence, +fiends! Shapes inhuman, torment me not! For in my day I was merciful to +you and never struck twice. I _will_ die standing up. The devil shall not +fright me--no, nor all his angels! + +"God Himself shall not fright me! I appeal to His judgment throne! Get +hence, false accusing spirits! I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat. Give me +the axe, boy--I will cut down the evil, I will spare the good. Here is +the Red Axe, my son. Take it! Strike with it strong and well. Strike, +strike, and spare not!" + +Totteringly he handed me the axe, and, clasping his hands, he stood +looking up. + +"God! God!" he cried in a great voice. "I see my Judge face to face; I am +not afraid! But I will die standing up!" + +And in this manner, even as I tell it, died Gottfried Gottfried, a strong +man, standing up and not afraid. And these arms received him, as, being +dead, he fell headlong. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + + +Then cried Dessauer from the door to me as I stood thus holding my father +in my arms: + +"Haste you, lad; there are men coming across the yard with torches. They +are gathering in groups about the door. Now they are on the stairs--many +soldiers--and with weapons in their hands!" + +And scarcely had he spoken when the sound of the tramping of men in haste +came to us up the turret, and the door of the garret was thrust violently +open. A turmoil of men-at-arms burst in on us. I stood still, holding +Gottfried Gottfried, his head on my shoulder, though I knew that he was +dead. But as one came forward with a paper in his hand I stooped and laid +my father gently on his bed. + +An officer of the Black Hussars, fantastically dressed in their +church-yard array, with skull and cross-bones slashed in silver across +his breast, accosted me. + +"Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, in the name of the Duke Otho +and the State of the Wolfmark, I arrest you! Also you, Leopold von +Dessauer, Chancellor of the Princedom of Plassenburg. You are accused as +spies and enemies of the commonweal. Yield yourselves therefore to me, +without condition." + +"I am indeed Hugo Gottfried," said I, "but you may see for yourselves the +mission on which I have come hither. And for this hour, at least, you +might have spared your brutal entry. Behold!" + +I caught a torch from the nearest soldier, and let its light shine on +the dead face of the fourteenth Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark. + +The men started back. The terrible countenance of the dead affected them +even more than the grim figure of the Red Axe as they had seen him +stalking from the Hall of Justice to the block. + +"Ah," said the officer, not wholly irreverently, "Gottfried Gottfried has +gone now to the dark place to which he hath sent so many. But, after all, +he is dead--and I heard a monkish clerk prate the other day, 'Let the +dead bury their dead.' I have my orders, and the Duke Otho waits. +Therefore I bid you follow me, Hugo Gottfried and Leopold von Dessauer." + +So, leaving the body of my father lying on the bed in his garret, we were +constrained to follow our captors down the stairs. Across the court-yard +we were hurried, and through the Hall of Justice into the private +apartments of the Duke. + +Otho von Reuss, now Duke of the Wolfmark, was standing erect by the great +chair in which, as my father had so often described him to me, Casimir +had sat so many days with his head sunk on his breast. The new Duke stood +up proudly, gazing at us with frowning brows and lowering, narrowed eyes. +This was mighty fine, but I could not help thinking of the poor +appearance he had made on the hill above the Hirschgasse as he slunk off +when he saw an evil cause going desperately against him. + +"So," he said, "gentlemen both, I have caught you spying in my land. You +know what those have to expect who are caught in hostile territory in +disguise." + +I thought it was as well to take the high hand at once, especially since +I saw that humility would avail us nothing at any rate. + +"Before now I have seen Otho von Reuss in hostile territory, and a right +cowed traitor he looked!" said I, boldly. + +The Duke smiled upon me, like a man that has a complete retort on his +tongue but who is content for the present to reserve it. + +"My friend," he said, suavely, "I will reply to you presently. I have a +word to speak to your betters." + +He turned him about to Dessauer. + +"And what, Lord High Chancellor of Plassenburg, think you of this +masquerading? Dignified, is it not? And your wondrous speech in court +that was to have done such great things. Will you be pleased to abide +with us here in the Wolfsberg? Or must you forsake us to pleasure the +Emperor, who, poor man, cannot sleep of nights in his bed at Ratisbon +till the eloquent Doctor is come to cheer him with the full-flowing river +of speech?" + +"Duke Otho," said Dessauer, "my life is indeed in your hands. I hold it +forfeit. A few years less or more are but little to Leopold von Dessauer +now. But there is one who will most bloodily avenge us if a hair of our +heads falls to the ground." + +"Who?" said Otho, sneeringly. "Karl Miller's Son, I suppose. Ah, fool +that you are, I hold your poor Karl in the palm of my hand!" + +"It is like enough," said Dessauer, with a quick look, the look of a keen +fencer when he sees an advantage. "I have often enough seen the palm of +your hand approach Karl Miller's Son's treasury when I kept the moneys." + +I saw the face of Otho twitch angrily. But he had evidently made up his +mind to command his temper, sure of having that up his sleeve which would +sufficiently answer all taunts. + +"You mistake me," he said, with more subtlety than I had expected from +the brute. "I had not meant to prove ungrateful. I am but newly come to +my own here in the Wolfmark. I have learned from your host, Bishop +Peter, how precious a thing forgiveness is. And now I am resolved to +practise it. There is a time to love and a time to hate; a time to war +and a time to be at peace. This is the last news I had from the holy +clerk whose revenues I pay. So lay it to heart, as I have done." + +"Glad am I," said Dessauer, courteously, as if he had been turning a +phrase on the terrace at Plassenburg--"glad am I that in your hour you +are to be mindful of old friends, for they are like old wine, which grows +better and mellower with the years." + +"It is indeed well," said Otho von Reuss, ironically. "I have known the +Chancellor Dessauer many years, and he grows more honorable and more wise +with each decade. + +"But now 'tis with this young man that I would speak," he said, changing +his tone. "He at least is mine own servant, and so I have other words for +him. Hugo Gottfried, you remember that you insulted me, striking me on +the face with a glove, because I offered certain civilities to a maid of +honor to the Princess of Plassenburg. You wounded me in the arm. Your +father, of whose death I have heard but now, cast me forth like a cur-dog +from a chamber window. Between you ye have shamed me, and would shame me +worse--for the sake of the murderess of mine uncle, Duke Casimir." + +"Well do you know that the Lady Helene is innocent of that crime, or any +other," said I; "she is purer than your eyes can look upon or your heart +conceive. Yet, solely because she knows you for the foul thing you are, +Helene lies condemned in your dungeons to-night. I ask you to grant me +but one boon--that I may die with her!" + +"Nay, my friend, gentlest squire of dames, defender of the oppressed, I +have better things in store for you and your maid than that!" + +He paused and looked a long while at me, as it seemed, chewing the cud +of revenge upon that which he had to say to me. + +At last he came a step nearer, that he might look into my eyes. + +"Hugo Gottfried," he said, slowly, "son of Gottfried Gottfried, you are +my servant now. I said that I would forgive you all for the sake of old +times in exile together. And now you and I are both again in our own +land. They that kept us out of our offices are dead, and we standing in +their places. There is a maid down there in the Wolfsberg dungeons who +to-morrow must meet her fate." + +He paused a moment and laid his hand on my shoulder impressively. + +"And you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Justicer of the Dukedom, Red Axe of +the Wolfmark, art the man who must carry out that doom!" + +Again he paused--and the world seemed instantly to dissolve into +whirling vapor at his words. I had never once thought of such a +conclusion. Yet I was indubitably, by my father's death, Hereditary +Executioner of the Wolfmark. Red Axe of Thorn I was, and by a terrible +chance I had returned in time to be installed in mine office, even as +the Lady Ysolinde had foretold. + +But a strong thought swelled triumphant in my heart. + +"Well," said I, looking the sneering tormentor in the face, "if so be +that I am your Hereditary Justicer, it will be long ere a sentence so +monstrous shall be carried out by me. I will not slay the innocent, nor +pour out the blood of a virgin saint, for a million deaths. You can +torture me with all your hellish engines, and you will find that a +Gottfried has learned how to suffer, as well as, how to make others +suffer, in fourteen generations. As God strengthens me, I will never +carry out your sentence--do with me what you will." + +"Nobly said, Justicer of the Mark!" said Otho. "I had thought of that! +But in case you should refuse to do your lawful office, it may be well +for you to remember that I have other instruments that mayhap will please +you less." + +He threw open a door suddenly, and we looked into an underground hall, +where a dozen men were carousing--Duke Casimir's Hussars of Death, +black-browed, evil-faced, slack-jowled villains every man of them, cruel +and sensual. A blast of ribald oaths came sulphurously up, as if the +mouth of hell had been opened. + +"Listen!" said Otho, with his hand on my shoulder. + +And a jest struck to our ears concerning the prisoner, the Little +Playmate--a jest which sticks in my memory to this day. And even yet I +hope to cleave the jester through the brain, meet him when I may. + +The Duke shut the door, and turned to me again. His eyes narrowed to a +thin line which glittered with hate and triumph. + +"If you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Executioner of the Mark, refuse to do +your duty at the time appointed upon the prisoner condemned, I, Duke +Otho, solemnly declare that I will cast your fair and tender lamb into +that den of wolves down there to work their wills upon. Hark to them! +They will have no misgivings--no qualms, no noble renunciations." + +Then he turned to me airily and confidently. + +"Well, my good Justicer, will you carry out the just and merciful +sentence of the law, and baptize your Red Axe with the blood of her for +whose sake you chose to insult and wound a Duke of the Mark?" + +I turned away, sick at heart. + +"Give me time. God's mercy--give me time!" I cried. "At least let me see +Helene. I will give you my answer to-night. But, first of all, let me see +my beloved." + +"I am forgiving and most merciful," he said, smiling till his teeth +showed. "Observe, I do not even cast you into prison to make sure of you. +Go your ways" (he sat down and wrote rapidly); "here is a pass which will +enable you to visit the prisoner. At midnight I shall expect you to tell +me that to-morrow you will fulfil your office." + +He handed me the paper and motioned us away. + +"We are free to go?" said I, wonderingly. + +"Surely," he replied, smiling. "Are you not both my friends, and can Otho +von Reuss be forgetful of old times? Come and go at your pleasure. Be +sure to be here to give me your answer at midnight to-night--or--" + +He pointed with his hand to the door he had again opened, and with the +fingers of his other hand beat time to the blasphemous chorus which came +belching up from below. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +THE SERPENT'S STRIFE + + +Dazed and death-stricken by the horror of the choice which lay before me, +I hastened down the street, hardly waiting for Dessauer, who toiled +vainly after me. I knew not what to do nor where to turn. I could neither +think nor speak. But it chanced that my steps brought me to the house of +the Weiss Thor. Almost without any will of mine own I found myself +raising the knocker of the house of Master Gerard von Sturm. Sir +Respectable instantly appeared. I asked of him if the Lady Ysolinde would +see me--giving my name plainly. For since Duke Otho knew me, there was no +need of concealment any more. + +The Lady Ysolinde would receive me. + +I followed my conductor, but not this time to the room in which I had +seen her on the occasion of my last visit. + +It was in her father's chamber that I met the Princess. The room was as I +had first seen it. Only there was no ascetic old man with keen, deep-set +eyes and receding forehead to rear his head back from the table as though +he would presently strike across it like a serpent from its coil. + +For the moment the room was empty, but, ere I had time to look around, +the curtains moved and the Lady Ysolinde appeared. Without entering, she +set a hand on the door-post, and stood poised against the heavy curtain, +waiting for me to speak. + +Her face was pale, her thin nostrils dilated. Anger and scorn sat white +and deadly on every feature. + +"So," she said, intensely, as I did not speak, "you have come back +already, most noble Hereditary Justicer of the Mark! Even as I told +you--so it is. You come to ask mercy from the woman you despised, from +the woman whose love you refused. You would beg her to spare her enemy. +Ere you go I shall see you on your knees; ah, that will be sweet. I have +been on my knees--can I believe it? Nay, I shall not forget it. I, +Ysolinde of Plassenburg, have pled in vain to you--to you!" + +And the accent of chill hatred and malice turned me to stone. + +"My lady," said I, "well do you know that I would never ask aught for my +own life, though the Red Axe itself were at my neck. But it is for the +maid I love, for the little child I carried home out of the arms of the +man condemned. I ask for her life, who never wronged you or any in all +this world. You have heard that task which the Duke hath laid on me, +because it is my misfortune to be my father's son--I must take away my +love's sweet life, or, if I do not--" I could proceed no further for the +horror which rose in my heart. + +"I know it," she said, calmly; "my father hath told me all." + +"Then," cried I, "if the power lie with you, as you hope for mercy to +your own soul, be merciful! Save the maiden Helene from the death of +shame, and me from becoming her murderer!" + +"Ah," she answered, with delicatest meditative inflection, "this is +indeed sweet. The mighty is fallen indeed. The proud one is suppliant +now. The knee is bent that would not bend. Hearken, you and your puling +babe, to the Princess Ysolinde! Were your lives in that glass, to save or +to destroy--her life and your suffering--to make or to break, I would +fling them to destruction, even as I cast this cup into the darkness!" + +And as she spoke the wreathed beaker of Venice glass sped out of the +window and crashed on the pavement without. + +"Thus would I end your lives," she said, "for the shame that you two put +upon me in the day of my weakness." + +"Lady," I cried, eagerly, "you do yourself a wrong! Your heart is better +than your word. Do this deed of mercy, I beseech you, if so be you can. +And my life is yours forever!" + +"Your life is mine, you say," cried she; "aye, and that means what? +The wind that cries about the house. Your life is _mine_--it is +a lie. Your life and love both are that chit's for whom you have +despised--rejected--ME!" + +And I grant that at that moment she looked noble enough in her anger as +she stood discharging her words at me with hissing directness, like bolts +shot twanging from the steel cross-bow. + +"And, lest you should think that I have not the power to save you, I will +tell you this--when you shall see the neck bared for the blade of the Red +Axe, the fine tresses you love, that your eyes look upon with desire, all +ruthlessly cut away by the shears of your assistants--ah, I know you will +remember then that I, Ysolinde, whom you refused and slighted, had the +power in her hand to deliver you both with a word, according to the +immaculate laws of the Wolfmark. Aye, and more--power to raise you both +to a pinnacle of bliss such as you can hardly conceive. In that hour, +when you see me look down upon your anguish, you will know that I can +speak the word. You will watch my lips till the axe falls, and under your +hand the young life ebbs red. But the lips of Ysolinde will be silent!" + +"Such knowledge is an easy boast, Lady Ysolinde!" I answered, thinking +to taunt her, that she might reveal whether indeed she had the power +she claimed. + +"There," she said, pointing to the great collection of black-bound books +and papers about the walls; "see, the secret is there--the secret for the +lack of which you shall strike your beloved to the death to save her from +the unnamable shame. I know it; my father has revealed it to me. I have +seen the parchment in these hands. But--you shall never hear it, she +never profit by it, and my vengeance shall be sweet--so sweet!" + +And she laughed, with a strange crackling laugh that it was a pain to +hear. + +"God forgive you, Lady Ysolinde," said I, "if this be so. For if there +be a God, you must burn in Great Hell for this deed you are about to +do. Having had no mercy on the innocent, how shall you ask God to have +mercy on you?" + +"I will not ask Him!" she cried. "Instead of puling for mercy I will have +had my revenge. And after that, come earth, heaven, or hell--I shall not +care. All will then be the same to Ysolinde!" + +I thought I would try her yet once more. + +"The Little Playmate," I said, "the maid whom I have ever loved, though I +am not worthy to touch her, is no chance child, no daughter of the Red +Axe of Thorn. Leopold von Dessauer hath found and sent to Karl the Prince +the full proofs that Helene is the daughter of the last and rightful +Prince, and therefore in her own right Princess of Plassenburg." + +"You lie, fool!" she cried--"you lie! You think to frighten me. And even +if it were true--thrice, four times fool to tell me! For shall not I, the +Princess of Plassenburg, the wife of the reigning Prince, stand for my +own name and dignity. I would not help you now though a thousand fair +heads, well-beloved, the desire of men, the envy of women, were to be +rolled in the dust." + +"Then farewell, Princess," I cried; "you are wronging to the death of +deaths two that never did you wrong, who loved each other with the love +of man and woman before ever you crossed their paths, and who since then +have only sought your good. You wrong God also, and you lose your soul, +divorcing it from the mercy of the Saviour of men. For be very sure that +with that measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." + +She did not answer, but stood with her hand still against the door-post, +her head raised, and her lips curling scornfully, looking after me as I +retired with a smiling and malicious pleasure. + +So, without further speech, I went out from the presence of the Lady +Ysolinde. And thus she had the first part of her revenge. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +THE DUNGEON OF THE WOLFSBERG + + +And now I must see the Little Playmate. Judge ye whether or no my heart +was torn in twain as I went up the long High Street of Thorn, back to the +Wolfsberg, alone. For I had compelled Dessauer to return to Bishop +Peter's, in order to avert popular suspicion, since our real names and +errands were not yet known there. + +And when I parted from him the old man was so worn out that I looked +momently for him to drop on the rough causeway stones of the street. + +Many pictures of my youth passed before me as I mounted towards the +castle that night. I remembered the ride of the wild horsemen returning +from the raid such long years agone, the old man who carried the babe, +and the Red Axe himself, who now lay dead in the Tower--my father, +Casimir's Justicer, clad now as then in crimson from head to heel. + +Ere long I arrived at the Wolfsberg, and as I came near the Red Tower I +saw that the gate was open. A little crowd of men with swords and +partisans was issuing tumultuously from it. Then came six carrying a +coffin. I stood aside to let them pass. And not till the last one brushed +me did I ask what was their business abroad with a dead man at such a +time of the night. + +"'Tis one that had wrought much fear in his time," answered the soldier, +for I had lighted on a sententious fellow--"one that made many swift +ends, and now has come to one himself." + +"You mean Gottfried Gottfried, the Duke's Justicer?" said I, speaking +like one in a dream. + +"Aye," he replied. "The Duke Otho is mightily afraid of the plague, and +will not have a dead body over-night in his castle. Since they condemned +the Saint Helena, God wot, the Duke is a fear-stricken man. He sleeps +with half a dozen black riders at the back of his door, as though that +made him any safer if a handful of minted gold were dealt out among the +rascals. But when was a Prince ever wise?" + +"My father's funeral," thought I. "Well, to-night it is, indeed, 'let the +dead bury their dead'; Helene is yet alive!" + +Surely I am not wanting in feeling, yet my heart was strangely chill and +cold. Nevertheless, I turned and followed the procession a little way +towards the walls. But even as I went, lo! the bell of the Wolfsberg +slowly and brazenly clanged ten. I stopped. I had but two hours in which +to visit the Little Playmate and tell her all. + +"Good-bye, father," said I, standing with my hat off; "so you would wish +me to do--you who met your God standing up--you who did an ill business +greatly, because it was yours and you were born to it. Teach me, my +father, to be worthy of you in this strait, to the like of which surely +never was man brought before!" + +The men-at-arms clattered roughly down the street, shifting their +burden as if it had been so much kindling-wood, and quarrelling as to +their turns. I heard their jests coming clear up the narrow street +from far away. + +I stood still as they approached a corner which they must turn. + +I waved my hand to the coffin. + +"Fare you well, true father; to-night and to-morrow may God help me also, +like you, to meet my fate standing up!" + +And the curve of the long street hid the ribald procession. My father +was gone. I had made choice. The dead was burying his dead. + +I went on towards the prison of the Wolfsberg; so it was nominated by a +sort of grim superiority in that place which was all a prison--the castle +which had lorded it so long over the red clustered roofs and stepped +gables of Thorn, solely because it meant prisonment and death to the +rebel or the refuser of the Duke's exactions. + +Often had I seen the straggling procession of prisoners rise, head +following head, up from that weary staircase, my father standing by, as +they came up from the cells, counting his victims silently, like a +shepherd who tells his flock as they pass through a gap in the sheepfold. + +For me, alas! there was but one in that dread fold to-night. And she my +one ewe lamb who ought to have lain in my bosom. + +I clamored long at the gate ere I could make the drowsy jailer hear. As +the minutes slipped away I grew more and more wild with fear and anger. +At midnight I must face the Duke, and it was after ten--how long I knew +not, but I feared every moment that I might hear the brazen clang as the +hammer struck eleven. + +For time seemed to make no impression on me at all that night. + +At last the man came, shuffling, grumbling, and cursing, from his +truckle-bed. + +"What twice-condemned drunken roysterer may you be, that hath mistaken +the prison of Duke Otho for a trull-house? + +"An order from the Duke--to see a prisoner! Come to-morrow then, and, +meanwhile, depart to Gehenna. Must a man be forever at the beck and call +of every sleepless sot? 'Urgent'--is the Duke's mandate. Shove it through +the lattice then, that a lantern may flash upon it." + +I pushed under the door a broad piece of gold, which proved more to the +purpose than much speech. + +The door was opened and I showed my pass. That and the gold together +worked wonders. + +The jailer rattled his keys, donned a hood and woollen wrapper which he +took down from a nail, and went coughing before me down the chill, +draughty passages. I could hear the prisoners leaping from their couches +within as the light of his cresset filtered beneath their doors. What +hopes and fears stirred them! A summons, it might be, for some one in +that dread warren to come up for a last look at the stars, a walk to the +heading-place through the soft, velvet-dark night--then the block, the +lightning flash of bright steel, a drench of something sweet and strong +like wine upon the lips, and--silence, rest, oblivion. + +But we passed the prison doors one by one, and the jailer of the +Wolfsberg went coughing and rasping by to another part of the prison. + +"'Tis an ill place for chills," he grumbled. "I have never been free of +them since first I came to this place, no--nor my wife neither. She has +been dead these ten years, praises to the pyx! Ah, would you?" (The torch +threatened to go out, so he held it downward in his hand till the pitch +melted and caught again, and meanwhile we stood blinded in the smoke and +glare which the strong draught forced in our faces.) + +At last came the door, a low, iron-spiked grating, like any other of the +hundred we had passed. + +"Key-metal is not often weared on this cell," the man chuckled. "Those +stay not long above ground that bide here." + +The door swung back on its creaking hinges. I slipped the fellow another +gold piece. + +"I must come in with you," he said; "you might do the wench an ill turn +which would cheat the Duke of his show and me of my head to-morrow." + +I slipped him another piece of gold, and then three together. + +"Risk it, man," I said. "Have I not the Duke's own pass? I will do +her no harm." + +"Well," he said, "pray remember I am a man with five poor motherless +children. My wife died of falling down a flight of steps ten years +agone--praise the Lord for His mercies. For He is ever mindful of us, the +sinful children of men." + +The sound of his voice died away as the door closed. I turned, and was +alone with the Beloved. The jailer had stuck the cresset in its niche +behind the door, and its glow filled the little cell. + +At first I could not see the Little Playmate--only a rough pallet bed and +something white at the head of it. But as the cresset burned up more +clearly, and my eyes became accustomed to the bleared and streaky light, +I saw Helene, my love, kneeling at her bed's head. + +I stood still and waited. Was she asleep? Was she--was she dead? I +almost hoped that she might be. Then the Duke's vengeance would be +balked indeed. + +"Helene!" I said, softly, as one speaks to the dying--"Helene, dear, +dear Helene!" + +Slowly she looked up. Her face dawned on me as one day the face of the +blessed angel will shine when he calls me out of purgatory. + +"My love--my love!" she said, sweetly, like the first note of a hymn when +the choir breathes the sweet music rather than sings it. + +Ah, Lord of Innocence, that pure loving face, the purple deepness in the +eyes, the flush on the cheek as on that of a little child asleep, the +soft curled hair which crisped in the hollow of the neck--the throat +itself--Eternal God, that I should be alive to think of the horror! + +But time was passing swiftly. The minutes were slipping by like men +running for their lives. + +I raised Helene from her knees, and she nestled her head on my shoulder. + +"You have come to me! I knew you would come. I saw you on the day--the +day when they condemned me to die." + +I broke into an angry, desperate, protesting cry, so that I heard my own +voice ring strangely through that dumb, horrible place. And it was I who +sobbed in her arms with my head on her shoulder. + +"Hush, dear love," she said, clasping her arms caressingly about my head; +"do not fear for me. God will keep your little one. God has told me that +He will bring me bravely through. Hush thee, then; do not so, Hugo, great +playmate! This I cannot bear. Help me to be good. It will not be long nor +painful. Do not weep for your little girl! I think, somehow, it is for +our love that I suffer, and that will make it sweet!" + +But still I sobbed like a child. For how--how could I tell her? + +Presently the power returned slowly to me, seeing her smiling so bravely +up at me, and rising on tiptoe to kiss my wet face. + +Then I told her all--in what words I hardly remember now. + +"Love of mine," I said, "I have but an hour or less to speak with +you--and ah! such terrible things, such inconceivable things, to say; a +horror to reveal such as never lover had to tell his love before." + +She drew one of my hands down and softly patted her breast with it. + +"Fear not," she said; "tell it Helene. If it be true that love conquers +all, your little lass can bear it!" + +"I came," said I, "with purpose to see you, and by treachery (it skills +not to ask whose) I was taken at my dead father's bedside." + +"Our father dead?" she cried, going a step away to look at me, but +coming back again immediately; "then there are but you and me in the +world, Hugo!" + +"Aye," said I, "but how can I tell you the rest? My father died like a +man, and then they took me, still holding the dead in my arms. I was +confronted with a fiend of hell in the likeness of Duke Otho." + +As I mentioned the Duke's name I could feel her shudder on my neck. + +"And--But I cannot tell you what he has bidden me do, under penalties too +fearful to conceive or speak of." + +She put her hands up, and gently, timidly, lovingly stroked my cheek. + +"Dear love, tell me! Tell the Little Playmate!" she said, as simply and +sweetly as if she had been coaxing me to whisper to her some lightest +childish secret of our plays together in the old Red Tower. + +I was silent for a space, and then, spurred by the thought of the swiftly +passing time, the words were wrenched out of me. + +"He says that I, even I, Hugo Gottfried, my father's son, being now +hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark, must strike off the head of the one I +love. And if I will not, then to the vilest of devils for vilest ends he +will deliver her. Ah, God, and he would do it too! I saw the very flame +of hell's fire in his eyes." + +Then I that write saw a strange appearance on the face that looked up in +mine. As on a dark April day, with a lowering sky, you have seen the wind +suddenly stir high in the heavens, and the sun look through on the +dripping green of the young trees and the gay bourgeoning of the flowers, +so, looking on my love's face as she took in my words, there awakened a +kind of springtime joy. Nay, wherefore need I say a kind of joy only. It +was more. It was great, overleaping, sudden-springing gladness. Her eyes +swam in lustrous beauty. She smiled up at me as I had never seen her +smile before. + +"Oh, I am glad, Hugo--so glad! I love you, Hugo! It will be hard for you, +my love. And yet you will be brave and help me. I had far rather die at +your hand than live to be the bride of the greatest man in all the world. +Do that which will save me from, shame; do it gladly, Hugo. I fear it. I +saw it in the eyes of that man Otho von Reuss. But _only_ to die will be +easy, with you near by. For I love you, Hugo. And I could just say a +prayer, and then--well, and then--Do not cry, Hugo--why, then you would +put me to sleep, even as of old you did in the Red Tower! + +"Nay, nay, dear love! You must not do so. This is not like my Hugo. See, +_I_ do not cry. Do you remember when you took me up and laid me on your +bed, and our father came and looked? You said I was your little wife. So +I was, even though I denied it, and now I can trust you, my husband. I +have never been aught else but your little wife, you see--not in my +heart, not in my heart of hearts! + +"I have been proud with you, Hugo--spoken unkind things. For love, you +know, is like that. It hurts that which it would die for. But now you +will know, once for all, that I love you. For death tests all. And you +_will_ help me. You will not cry then, Hugo--not then, when we walk, you +and I, by the shores of the great sea. You will only send me a little +voyage by myself, as you used to make me go to the well in the +court-yard, to teach me not to be frightened! + +"And then you will be with me when I go. You will watch me; soon, soon +you will come after me. Yes, I am glad, Hugo--so glad. For--bend down +your ear, Hugo--I will confess. Your little girl is such a coward. She +is afraid of the dark. But it will not be dark--and it will not be long, +and it will be sure. If my love stand by, I shall not fear. And, after +all, it is but a little thing to do for my love, when I love him so." + +What I said, or what I did, I know not. But when I came a little to +myself, I found my head on my knees, and Helene soothing and petting me, +as if I had been a child that had fallen down and hurt itself. + +"I would have been a good wife to you, Hugo; I had thought it all out. At +first I would have been such an ignorant little house-keeper, and you +would have needed--oh, such great patience with me! But so willing, so +ready, Hugo! And how I should have listened for your foot! Do you know, I +used to know it as it came across the court-yard at Plassenburg. But I +could not run and meet you then. I could only slip behind the +window-lattice and throw you a kiss. But when I was indeed your wife, how +I should have flown to meet you!" + +I think I cried out here for very agony. + +"Hush, Hugo!" she said. "Hush, lad, and listen. There are stairs up +aloft--I saw them in a dream. I saw the angels and the redeemed ascending +and descending as I prayed, even when you came in to call me back. I +shall ask God to let me wait at the stair-head a little while for +you--till it should be time for you to come, my dear, my dear. You would +not be very long, and I could wait. I would listen for your feet upon the +stair, dear love. And when at last you came, I should know your footfall; +yes, I should know it ever so far away. You would not be thinking of me +just then. And when you came to the top of the golden stairs, +there--there, all so suddenly, would be your little lass, with her arms +ready to welcome you!" + +The door of the cell creaked open. + +The jailer appeared. "It is time!" he said, curtly, and stood waiting. We +stood up, and I looked in her eyes. She was smiling, dry-eyed, but +I--the water was running down my face. + +"You will be brave, Hugo, for my sake. Next to life with you--to die by +your dear hand, knowing that you love me, is the best gift they could +have given me. They thought to hurt, but instead they have made me so +happy. Till we meet again, dear love--till we meet soon again!" + +And she accompanied me to the door, and kissed me as I went out, standing +smilingly on tiptoe to do it, even as of old she was wont to do in the +Red Tower. + +And the last thing I saw of her, as the door closed upon the darkness of +the cell, was my love standing smiling up at me, her eyes filled with the +splendors of the love that casteth out fear. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN + + +Even as the dwarf on the ledge of the castle clocktower creaked his wires +and clicked back his hammer to strike the midnight over the city, even as +the first solemn toll of the hour reverberated over the Wolfsberg, I was +at the door of the Duke's room waiting for admission. + +The Chamberlain in attendance looked within, and seeing his master +writing at a table, he was going out again without speech. + +"Has Hugo Gottfried returned?" said the Duke, without looking up. + +"Hugo Gottfried is here!" I replied, stepping unannounced into the room. + +He looked up without smiling, a keen inquiring glance glittering from +between eyelids so close together that only the faintest line of the +pupil showed black under the lashes. + +"Well?" he questioned. + +"I will do the thing you have asked," answered I. + +And said no more. + +The Duke instantly became restless, and getting up, he began to pace +about the floor like a caged beast. + +"You have seen her?" he inquired, stopping in front of me, +wide-nostrilled, like a dog that points the game. + +"I _have_ seen her," I replied, as simply. + +"Well?" he queried again, with a keen, eager note of anxiety in +his voice. + +"I am ready to do that which you have asked." + +He seemed to be on the point of saying something else. But, changing his +mind, he touched a little silver bell. + +The usher appeared. + +"Show the Hereditary Justicer of the Mark to the Red Tower. Give him all +that is necessary to eat and drink. Bid a man-at-arms attend him, and set +a sufficient guard at the door!" + +So I went out from the presence, and the Duke and the Duke's new Justicer +bowed to each other gravely as I stood a moment on the threshold. + +"Till we meet again, Red Axe of the Wolfmark!" said Duke Otho. + +"Till we meet again!" said I, countering him like blade meeting blade. + +In little more than ten minutes after I had entered them, I stood outside +the Duke's apartments, and with my escort I strode across to the empty +Red Tower, the home of so many memories. My head was reeling, and with +the overpress of excitement I could not sleep. So, bribing the soldier, +my companion--who had been charged by the Duke not to lose sight of +me--to accompany me, I went up to my father's garret. + +There I found all things as they had been when my father died. + +I set the windows wide, cast the tumbled bedclothes out upon the +dust-heap beneath, and bared the whole to the clean, large, wholesome +breezes of the night. I saw the fateful Red Axe lean as usual against the +block, and, taking it up, I found it keen as a razor. It was spotless, +and the edge gave back the long low room and our one glimmering candle +like a mirror. It must have been my father's last work in this world to +polish it. + +Then I went down to my own room and cast myself down upon the bed in +which, on that night of the first home-coming of the Playmate, I had laid +my little wife. + +The soldier couched across the door, rolled in his cloak and some chance +wrapping he found about the house. + +God keep me from ever spending such a night again! I thought it would +never come to an end. Out in the square in front of the Wolfsberg I could +hear a knocking--dull, continuous, reverberant. At first I thought it +must be within my own head. So I asked the soldier, after a little, if he +heard it also. I had some faint idea that it might be Prince Karl of +Plassenburg with his army thundering at the gates of Thorn. + +"'Tis but the scaffold going up in the Grand Place without!" said the +soldier, carelessly; "I heard that the Duke had bidden them work all +night by torch-light." + +I tried to sleep, but the knocking continued, aching across my brows +till I thought I must go mad. After a while I rose and went to the +window from which I had so often looked down wistfully upon the play of +the city children. + +Opposite me, in the middle of the open space, loomed a dark mass--a +platform, it seemed, raised a dozen feet above the road--the black +silhouette of a ladder set anglewise against it, and that was all. Lower, +plainer, somehow deadlier than a gibbet with its flamboyant beam, which +one never sees empty without imagining the malefactor aswing upon it; the +heading-block did not frown, it grinned--yes, grinned like the eye-holes +of a skeleton with a candle behind them, while the torches glinted +through the interstices of the framework as it was being nailed together. + +All night the dull _dunt-dunting_ went on without. And I sat awake by the +window and awaited the dawning. + +The city seethed unslaked beneath. When first I looked from my chamber +window the square was free to all who chose to enter it. But as the +knocking went on the news spread through the town of Thorn. + +"They are making the scaffold for our Saint Helena!" So the word ran. + +And within an hour the courts and alleys of Thorn belched forth thousands +of angry men. Pikes were carried like staves, the steel head hidden up +the long white burgess sleeve. Working-men of the trades, 'prentices, +and market porters drew their swords and came forth with the bare blades +in their hands, leaving the scabbards at home to take care of themselves, +as was their custom. + +Wives cried from escalier windows to their men to come in by and lie +decently down, to be ready for their work in the morning. And the men so +addressed paid not the least heed, as the manner of men is. These things +and many others I saw, scarce knowing what I saw. + +And so, with the hum of gathering crowds, the hours passed slowly over. +But the temper of the people in the square grew more and more difficult, +and soon the guard had to be brought down from the castle. The great +gates beneath me were open, and the Wolfsberg vomited the black +men-at-arms to keep the Duke's peace. + +But this brought only the quicker strife. Yells received them as soon as +their steel partisans showed up in the square. + +"Oppressors of the people, ye come to your reward!" cried many voices. + +"We will give you your last breakfast--of cold, tempered steel!" cried +another, from the bowels of the crowd. + +"To the Wolfsberg--ho! Break in the doors! We will have our Saint Helena +forth of their cursed prisons!" + +It was no sooner said than done. Like a wave the people rushed in a black +irregular mass at the front rank of the guard. The soldiers of the Duke +were swept away like chaff; I could see one here and another there +struggling in the vortices of the angry multitude. + +"On to the Wolfsberg!" cried the crowd. + +But when the first of them reached the castle gates, lo! they stood open, +and there behind them stood file on file of matchlock men with their +matches burning in their hands and their pieces trained upon their rests. + +"Give them the fire!" cried a voice, that of Duke Otho, as the crowd +halted a moment irresolute. + +The bright red flame started out here and there from muzzle and +touchhole, and then ran along the line in an irregular volley. + +A terrible cry of fear went up from the folk. For though they had heard +of the new ordnance, and even seen one or two, they had never realized +the effect of a fusillade. And when a man on either side sank down with a +hollow sound like a beast in shamble-thills, and the man in front fell +over on his face without a sound, the multitude turned, broke into +groups, fled, and disappeared in a moment like a whirl of snow which the +wind canters down the street in a veering flurry. + +Then the gates shut to, and the deep lines of matchlock men were hidden +from view. After this the city thrilled and murmured worse than ever, +humming like an angry hive. But the Wolfsberg kept its counsel. Not yet +had deliverance arrived for the captives within its cells. + +And the dread morning was coming fast. + +At last, wearied out with crowding emotions, I went and cast me down on +my bed, and, instantly falling asleep, I slept like a log till one +touched me on the shoulder. Looking up, I saw the Duke Otho. He had come +to make sure of his vengeance--the vengeance which I knew well was not +his, but that of Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT + + +"Rise, Justicer of the Wolfmark!" said Otho, smiling mockingly upon me +like a fiend. + +I started up and gazed about bewildered as the coming terrors of the +morning broke upon me. + +"'Tis scarcely an hour to sunrise," he continued, "and I warrant the +noble Red Axe will desire to feel the edge of his tool and see that his +assistants are in their places." + +The Duke paused as he went out of the door, and looked at me. + +"I can promise you a distinguished company at the first public +performance of your honorable office," he said, with a polite gesture. + +So soon as he was gone I rose to my feet. Across the broad, black +oaken stool, whereon from boyhood it had been my habit to place my +clothes neatly folded up, I found a suit of new red cloth, plain and +rich, with an inscription upon a strip of vellum laid across the +breast, bearing that these were a gift from the most Illustrious Duke +Otho of the Wolfmark. + +Since, after all, my fate was my fate, there was little use in straining +at the gnat. So I set to and did upon me the garmentry of shame. They +were made after the fashion of my father's, cap and hosen and shoon all +of red, with a cloak of red to cover all. + +Then I went to the Playmate's room, and before the niche where her little +Prie-Dieu had stood, I kneeled me down and said such a prayer as at the +moment I could compass. But little was needed. For I think God in heaven +Himself was praying for us both that day. + +When I went forth into the square, few there were who knew or remembered +me, but all knew my attire. Then indeed it did my heart good to hear the +great unanimous roar of execration which went up from the multitude as I +came out. The soldiers had their work cut out to push a way for me to +the scaffold. + +"Butcher him--tear him to pieces--wolf's cub that he is--he that was her +foster-brother to slay our Saint Helena!" + +It made me proud to hear them. And as they rushed furiously against the +escort, intent to kill me, we swayed from side to side. + +"Down with the Red Axe!" they shouted. "Down with the bloody house of +Gottfried and all that belong to it!" + +And I felt inclined to cry "Amen!" + +Then, when I had mounted the few steps which led to the platform on which +stood the black headsman's block, I gazed about me in wonder, holding the +Red Axe in my hand. And to my disordered vision I saw the crowd swell and +whirl about me on earth and in the air, bubbling and tossing like a pot +boiling furiously. Then I bethought me of the work I had to do, and +prayed that I might be given strength to do it swiftly and featly, that +the suffering of my love might not be long. Also I thought of the +lecherous evil demons of the Black Riders, and thereat was somewhat +comforted. At the worst I could give my love a better end than that. + +Then appeared my Lord Duke Otho. An enclosure had been formed for him by +the palace wall, covered with a red hanging, as though my sweetheart's +death were a gala sight. And when he had come to the front and arranged +his folk, lo! there by his side stood Ysolinde, Princess of +Plassenburg, with her father, Master Gerard. They had a place close by +the Duke, and Otho ofttimes bent over to confer graciously with his +councillor. But Ysolinde looked neither to right nor left, nor yet spoke +to any, keeping her eyes fixed, as it seemed, on the shining blade of +the Red Axe in my hand. + +Then, as these fine folk stood waiting and gloating among the festoons +of their balcony, the devil or God (I know which, but I will not say, +lest I be thought a blasphemer) put an intent into my heart. I walked to +the edge of the scaffold, and I looked at the barrier of the enclosure. +They were of the same height, and the distance between them little more +than six feet. + +I examined them again, and yet more intently. I saw the steely smile +on Duke Otho's face. Already he was tasting the double sweetness of +his revenge. + +"Wait," I said, within my heart, as I also smiled a little, "only wait a +little, Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark. Wait till this bright edge be sullied +with my sweet love's blood. And then--then will I leap upon you, and the +Red Axe shall crash deep into the brain that hatched and fostered this +hellish intent. And by the gentle heart of her who is about to die, so +also will I serve Gerard the lawyer, and Ysolinde, his daughter, for +their treachery against the innocent. Then, amid the flash of steel and +the heady whirl of battle, shall Hugo Gottfried be very content to die!" +It would take more than one stroke to dull that which my father had +sharpened. And I lifted up the Red Axe and felt the edge with my thumb. +It was razor keen. + +But the action was observed, and taken as a proof of callousness. And +then what a yell of hate surged up around me! I could have taken those +burghers of Thorn to my heart. And I thought if only our Karl would come. +Alas! it was a full day too soon; for I felt sure that these burghers +would proclaim him at the gates, and that the house of Otho and Casimir, +the brood of the Wolf, would, like the shadow of the raven as it flits by +in the sunshine, pass away. For by that time there would be no Otho. They +would find him low enough, with an axe cleft in his head. + +So soon as the sun's light tipped the eastern clouds with rose, the Black +Hussars came riding forth. The guards and matchlock men lined the way +from the castle gates. They blew up their matches to be ready. Suddenly +in the midst of the armed throng there appeared a radiant figure coming +down the steps of the castle from the Hall of Judgment. + +At the sight the people threw themselves wildly in that direction. The +dark lines of the guard reeled and wavered. There was the sharp click as +the pikes engaged. The shouts of the captains of the matchlock men were +heard. But the trained bands stood fast, and the rush was stayed. Then +came our Helene down towards me, walking delicately, yet proudly erect as +a young tree. She was clad all in white and wore her hair plaited high +upon her head, so that the shape of her neck was clearly seen. + +And I who stood there with the axe in my hand seemed to have a thousand +years to think all these things, and even to mark the lace upon her +dress. I saw her come nearer and nearer to me. Yet feeling was dead +within me. I seemed to sleep and wake and sleep again. And when at last I +awoke, there came a strange feeling to me. It was my wedding-day, and my +bride was coming to me, lily pure, clad in whiteness. + +Then at the foot of the scaffold there came one forth from the ranks, +a captain of the Duke's guard, and with honor and respect offered +Helene his arm. + +She declined it with a proud smile, and all that were near could hear her +clear voice say, "I thank you, sir, but I need no help. I am strong +enough to walk thus far." + +And she mounted the steps of the scaffold as though they had been those +of the grand staircase at Plassenburg. + +But when she saw me, standing in my habit of red from head to heel, she +seemed a little taken aback. Quickly, however, she came forward and +took me by the hand, looking up at me with the love-light making her +eyes glorious. + +"Hugo," she said, "I am glad you are here--glad that I am to die by no +less loving hand. That will be sweeter than to live with any other. And, +indeed, I deserve so much, for I have not known much joy in my life, save +in the old days when I was your Little Playmate." + +Then there came a stern voice from the enclosure: + +_"Executioner of the Mark, do your duty!"_ + +It was the voice of Master Gerard. + +And then I looked over and saw Gerard von Sturm standing a little in +front, with his daughter's wrist held tightly in his hand as though he +would drag her back. With that a loathing came over me, for I said within +me, "Is the woman so anxious for the blood of the innocent whom she has +hounded to death that she would intrude on the scaffold itself?" + +Then I remembered the duty of the Justicers, ere the sentence was carried +out, to recite the crimes of the condemned. + +So I cried aloud, even as I had heard my father do. + +"The crimes of Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, sole daughter of +Dietrich, lately Prince thereof--guilty of no evil, save that she has +been the savior of this people of Thorn and their deliverer in time of +pestilence!" + +The people hushed themselves with astonishment at my words. And then a +cry went up. + +"The Red Axe speaks true--she is innocent--innocent!" + +But the voice of Gerard von Sturm came again, stern as that of the +recording angel: + +"_Executioner of the Wolfmark, do your duty_!" + +Scarce knowing what I did, I went on with my formal accusation. + +"Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, who is about to die, is also guilty of +loving me, Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, and of none other +crime. For this the Duke has decreed that she should die. It is her own +will that she should die by my hand." + +Helene came forward and put her hand in mine in token that I spoke +truly, and there fell a great silence across the people. I saw the Lady +Ysolinde straining at her father's hand, like a dog in a leash when the +quarry rises. + +Then my love kissed me once, just as though she had been saying +good-night in the Red Tower, simply and sweetly, like a child, and laid +her head down on the block as on the white pillow of her own bed. + +"_God do so and more also to them on whose heads is the innocent blood of +my love and my wife_!" + +The words burst from me rather than were uttered. + +I raised the blade. + +But ere the Red Axe could fall there arose a wild scream from the Duke's +enclosure. Some one cried, "Let me go! He has said it! He has said it! I +will not be silent any longer!" It was the Lady Ysolinde, who had broken +away from her father's hand. + +"The girl is his wife," she went on. "He has claimed her--according to +the laws of the Wolfmark, that cannot be broken, he has called her his +wife. It is the Executioner's right. One woman he can claim as his +during his term of office--one only, and for his wife. Duke Otho, I call +upon you to allow it! Chancellor Texel, I call upon you to read the law! +I have it here in my hand. Head! Read! _I will save my soul! I will save +my soul_!" + +And ere any one could stop her, the Lady Ysolinde, sobbing and laughing +both at once, had overleaped the light barrier, and was thrusting a +parchment with a seal into the hands of the Chancellor Michael Texel. + +"She is mad. Let the justice of the realm be done!" cried again the voice +of Master Gerard. + +And I think the Duke would have ordered it to be so. But there arose not +only a roar from the people, but, what Otho minded far more, an ominous +murmur among the nobles and gentlemen and from the ranks of men-at-arms. + +"The law! The law! Read us the law!" + +And even Otho dare not trifle with the will of the free companions of the +Mark. For in all the realm they were now his only supporters. Helene had +risen to her feet, and stood, pale of face but erect, resting, as was her +wont, one hand on my shoulder. + +Then Michael Texel read the scroll aloud. + +"It is the immemorial privilege of the Hereditary Executioner of the +Mark, being of the family of Gottfried, a privilege not to be abrogated +or alienated, that during the term of office of each, he may claim--not +as a boon, but as a right--the life of one man for a bond-servant, or the +life of one woman for a wife. Thus, by order of the States' Council, to +be the privilege of the Gottfrieds forever, it has been proclaimed!" + +As Michael Texel went on, I saw the countenance of the Duke and the +lawyer change. I knew that salvation had come to us like lightning from a +clear sky, and I hastened to demand the right which was mine own. + +So soon as he had finished I shouted with all my power: + +"I CLAIM HELENE TO BE MY WIFE!" + +Then went up such an acclaim from the people as never had been heard in +the ancient city. Even the gentlemen within the enclosure threw their +hats in the air. The soldiers put their helmets on the points of their +spears, and the captains waved their colors as at a victory. The thunder +of the cheering roused the very rooks and jackdaws from the towers of +Thorn and the bastions of the Wolfsberg till they went drifting in a +black cloud clamorously over the city. + +Then Helene put her arms about my neck, and, upon the scaffold of death, +before all the people, we plighted our troth. + +"The Bishop--the Bishop Peter!" cried the people. + +And, leaping upon an officer's horse, a messenger rode post-haste to the +palace, the crowd making way for him. Duke Otho disappeared through a +private door, for the thing was over-strong even for him. He knew his +weakness too well to war with the immemorial privileges of the Wolfmark. + +Rulers stronger than he had been broken in doing battle against ancient +rights and amenities. Besides, the nobility were afraid of their own +perquisites if one of so ancient a charter as that of the Hereditary +Justicer were refused. + +Then from the palace came the Bishop, with due and decorous attendance of +crosier and solemn procession. And there, amid a turmoil of joy and the +ringing of every bell in the city, we, that had gone out to be together +in death, were joined in the bonds of youth and life. + +But the Lady Ysolinde saw not--heard not. For they had carried her out +white and still from the place where she had fallen fainting at the foot +of the scaffold. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN + + +Al these things had overpast so quickly that when Helene and I found +ourselves alone in the Red Tower it seemed to both of us that we dreamed. + +We sat in a kind of buzzing hush, on the low window-seat of the old room, +hand in hand. The shouts of the people came up to us from the square +beneath. We heard the tramp of the soldiers, who cheered us as they +passed to and fro. Being at last alone, we looked into each other's eyes, +and we could not believe in our own happiness. + +"My wife!" I said, but in another fashion than I had said it on +the scaffold. + +"My husband!" answered Helene, looking up at me. + +But I think, for all that we realized of the truth, we might as well have +called each other King and Queen of Sheba. + +We had been conducted with honor to the Red Tower. For since it was in +virtue of my hereditary office that I had obtained the great +deliverance, I dared for the present seek no other dwelling-place. For +Helene's sake, indeed, I should have felt safer elsewhere. Besides, +desperate and full of baffled hatred as I knew Duke Otho to be, I did +not believe that he would dare to molest us--for some time at least. The +rage of the people, their unbounded jubilation at the deliverance of +their Saint Helena from the jaws of death on the very scaffold, were too +recent to be trifled with by a prince sitting so insecure in his ducal +seat as Otho of the Wolfmark. + +So here in the ancient Red Tower, I thought, we might at least be safe +enough till my good fellows of Plassenburg, with the Prince at their +head, should swarm hammering at the gates of Thorn. + +To us, sitting thus hand in hand, there entered the Bishop Peter. + +"Hail!" he said, blandly, and in his grandest manner, as we knelt for his +benediction; "hail, bride and bridegroom! God has been good to you this +day. Bishop Peter, the least of His servants, greets you very well. May +you have long life and prosperity unfailing." + +I thanked him for his gracious words. + +"The folk of the city are full of joy," he said. "I think they would +almost proclaim you Duke to-day." + +"I desire no such perilous honor," I replied, smiling; "it were indeed an +ill-omen to have a Duke habited all in red." + +"It is your marriage-dress, Hugo," said Helene; "I will not have you +speak against it." + +Ever since the strain of the scaffold she had not once broke down--no, +nor wept--but only desired to sit very close beside me, touching me +sometimes, as if to make sure that I was real. Deliverance had been too +great and sudden, and those things which had come so near to us +both--Death and the Beyond--had left a salt and bitter spray on our lips. + +"And what of the Lady Ysolinde?" I asked of the Bishop. + +Now the Bishop Peter was a good man, but, like many of his brethren, a +lover of great, swelling words. + +"The Lady Ysolinde," he said, oratorically, "by the immediate assistance +of the city guard, was placed in a litter and deported, all unconscious +as she was, to her father's house in the Weiss Thor, where she still +remains. But her most seasonable extract from the laws of the Wolfmark, +which so opportunely saved the life of your fair wife, and led to this +present happy consummation, I have here by me, even in my hand." + +And with that the Bishop drew the rolled parchment from his pocket and +handed it to me, with all the original seals depending from it. Now I +have small gift for the deciphering of such ancient documents, being only +skilled in the common script of the day, and not over-well in that. So +that I had to depend upon the offices of Bishop Peter for the +interpretation. + +"I think," said the Bishop, after he had finished reading it over, "that +this document had best remain in my own possession. It may be safer +under the seal and protection of the Church--even as, to speak truth, +you and your wife would also be. I am a plain man," the Bishop +continued, after a pause, "but remember that there is ever a place of +refuge at the palace--and one which even Duke Otho is not likely to +violate, remembering the experiences of his predecessor, Duke Casimir, +when he crossed his sword against the crosier of this unworthy servant +of Holy Church." + +"I thank you," said I. "I would that it were possible to avail myself of +your all too generous offer. But it will be necessary to abide at least +this one night in the Red Tower." + +"Ah," he said, "why this night?" + +"Great things may happen this night, my Lord Bishop!" said I, and glanced +significantly in the direction of Plassenburg. + +"Ah," said the Bishop again, "so then the power of Holy Church may not be +the only restraint upon Duke Otho by to-morrow at this time!" + +And, calling his attendants, the suave and far-seeing prelate made his +way with gravity and reverend ceremony down the streets of Thorn towards +his palace. + +So, bit by bit, the long day passed away, and I thought it would never +end. For Helene and I sat and waited for that which might happen, with +beating and anxious hearts. Ofttimes I ran to the top of the Red Tower, +and sometimes it seemed that I could see a moving cloud of dust, and +sometimes a flurry of startled cattle afar on the horizon. But till dusk +there came to our aching eyes no better evidence that the lads of +Plassenburg were coming to our rescue and to the deliverance of the +down-trodden city of Thorn. + +The soldiers of the garrison were still encamped in the great square. +There was also a constant swarming and mustering of men upon the ramparts +of the Wolfsberg. Duke Otho had certainly enough men to make a creditable +resistance. True, they were Free Companions, and without other loyalty +than that which they owed to their paymaster. + +And beneath this warlike show lay the city, rebellious and turbulent to +the core, the merchants longing for unhampered rights of trade and +security in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labors, the craftsmen +claiming freedom to work in their guilds without a payment of labor-bond +tithes to the Duke, and especially without the fear of being snatched +away at any moment from their benches and looms to join in his forays and +incursions. + +Towards the gloaming I had come down from the roof of the tower, and was +standing, gloomy, and little like a bridegroom, at the little window +whence I had so often looked down upon the playing children of Thorn. +Suddenly a great hand was reached up from the pavement, a folded paper +was thrust in at the lattice, and I saw the face of the Lubber Fiend +looking up at me from the street below. + +"Come up hither, good Jan," I cried to him. "I will run and open +the gate!" + +But the Lubber Fiend only shook his head till his ears flapped like +burdocks in the wind by the wood edges. + +"Jan will come none within that gate to tell where he has been," he said. +"Jan may be a fool, but he knows better than that." + +"And where have you been?" I asked, eagerly. + +Jan the Lubber Fiend stood on his tiptoes and whispered up to me with his +elbows on the sill. + +"You are sure the Duke is not behind you?" + +"There is none here--except my wife," I said, smiling. And I liked +speaking the word. + +"I have seen the great Prince," said Jan, nodding backward, and smiling +mysteriously, "and he is coming, but not by himself. There are such a +peck of mad fellows out there. There will not be much to eat in Thorn +when they all come in. Better make a good dinner to-day, that is my +advice to you. And I was bid to tell you that when all was ready for +their coming a fire is to be lighted on a high place, and then the Prince +will come to the gates." + +I longed much to hear more of his adventures, but neither love nor money +would induce the thrice cautious Jan to set a foot within the precincts +of the Red Tower. + +"I will light a bonfire when it is dark at the White Gate," he said, as +he retracted himself into the dusk. "I know what will make a rare blaze. +And the Prince cannot come too soon." + +So indeed I thought also, as I looked out and saw the swarms of Duke +Otho's men in the court-yard and about the square, and reflected on our +helplessness here in the Red Tower within the defenced precincts of the +Wolfsberg. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO + + +But at long and last the most tardy-footed day comes to an end. And so, +just as fast as on any common day, the sun at last dropped to the edge +of the horizon and slowly sank, leaving a shallowing lake of orange +color behind. + +The red roofs of Thorn grew gray, with purple veins of shadow in the +interstices where the streets ran, or rather burrowed. The nightly hum of +the city began. For, under the cruel rule of the wolves of the castle, +Thorn was ever busiest in the right. Indeed, the cheating of the guard +had become a business well understood of all the citizens, who had a +regular code of signals to warn each other of its approach. + +Lights winked and kindled in the Wolfsberg over against me. I could see +the long array of lighted windows where the Duke would presently be +dining with Michael Texel, High Councillor Gerard von Sturm, and most of +his other intimates. There, beneath, were the stables of the Black +Riders, and before them men were constantly passing and repassing with +buckets and soldier gear. + +I wondered if the Duke had news of the approach of the enemy. + +So soon as I judged it safe I went to the top of the Red Tower and +unfolded the paper which Jan the Lubber Fiend had brought me. It was +without name and address or signature, and read as follows: + +"To-night we shall be all in readiness. When the time is ripe let a fire +be lighted upon some conspicuous tower or high place of the city. Then we +will come." + +Thereafter Helene, being lonely, climbed up and sat down beside me. I +handed her the paper. + +"To-night will be a stormy one in Thorn and the Wolfsberg, little one," +said I. "I fear you and I are not yet out of the wood." + +The Little Playmate read the letter and gave it back to me. I tore it up, +and let the wind carry away the pieces one by one, small, like dust, so +that scarce one letter clave to another. + +Her hand stole into mine. + +"Ah," she sighed, "I am beginning to believe in it now! To-night may be +as dangerous as yesternight. But at least we are together, never to be +separated. And to us two that means all." + +It was a strange marriage night, this of ours--thus to sit on the roof of +the Tower, under the iron beacon which had been placed there in my +grandfather's time, and listen to the hum and murmur of the city, +straining our eyes meanwhile through the darkness to catch the first +spear-glint from the army of the Prince. + +"If they do not come by midnight, or if Jan Lubber Fiend does not light +his fire by the White Gate, we must e'en risk it and kindle this one here +on the Red Tower." + +So the night passed on till it was about eleven, or it might be a quarter +of an hour later. Then all suddenly I saw a little crowd of men disengage +themselves from that private entrance of the Hall of Judgment by which, +on the day of the trial, Dessauer and I had entered. They made straight +towards the Red Tower at a quick run. + +"Dear love," said I to Helene, "see yonder! Be ready to light the +beacon. I fear me much that our time has come to fight for life." + +"Kiss me, then," she said, "and I will be ready for all that may be. At +worst, we can die together, true husband and true wife." + +Presently there came a thundering knock at the door of the Red Tower. I +crouched on the stairs behind and listened intently. I could hear the +breathing of several men. + +"He is surely within," said a voice. "The tower has been watched every +moment of the day." + +Again came the loud knocking. + +"Open--in the name of the Duke!" cried the voice. And the door was +rattled fiercely against its fastenings. + +But I knew well enough that it could hold against any force of unassisted +men. For my father had ever taken a special pride in the bars and +defences of the single low door which led into his much-threatened +residence. + +So I crouched in the dark of the stairs and listened with yet more +quivering intentness. Presently I could hear shoulders set to the +iron-studded surface, and a voice counted, softly, "One--two--three--and +a heave!" But though I discerned the laboring of the men straining +themselves with all their might, they might as well have pushed at the +rough-harled wall of the Wolfsberg. + +"It will not do," I heard one say at last. "We cannot hope to succeed +thus. Bring the powder-bag and prepare the fuse." + +So then I knew indeed that our time was at hand. I mounted the stairs +three at a time till I came to the room where Helene was waiting for me +in the dark. + +"Fire the beacon on the Tower!" I bade her--"our enemies are upon us!" + +"And after that may I come to you, Hugo?" she said. + +"Nay, little one, it is better that you bide on the roof and see that +the beacon burns. You will find plenty of tow and oil in the niche by the +stair-head." + +I could hear Helene give vent to a little sigh. But she obeyed instantly, +and her light feet went pattering up the stairs. + +Then I waited for the explosion, which seemed as if it would never come. +I had my dagger in my belt, but of pure instinct my right hand seized the +Red Axe. For I had more skill of that than any other weapon, and as I had +cast it down when they brought us in from the scaffold that morning, it +lay ready to my hand. + +So I waited at the stair-head, and watched keenly the narrow passage up +which the men must come one by one. I measured my distance with the +axe-handle, and made a trial sweep or two, so that I might be sure of +clearing the stones on either side. I could not see that there would be +much difficulty in holding the place for a while, if only Prince Karl +would haste him and come. For to me the game of breaking heads and +slicing necks would be easy as cracking nuts on an anvil--at least, so +long as they would come up singly. + +Presently I heard the roar of burning fuel above me, and immediately +after a cry from below. Through the narrow stairway lattice I could see +the uncertain flicker of flames lighting up the street. Men ran backward +across the open square, looking up as they ran. So by that I knew that +Helene had done her work, and was now watching the burning beacon, as the +flames flicked upward and clapped their fiery applausive palms. + +But at the same moment, from the foot of the stairs, there came the loud +report of the explosion beneath the door of the Red Tower, the rumble of +stones, and then an eager rush of men to see what had been effected. + +"Now for it!" I thought, as I gripped the Red Axe. + +But it was not to be so soon. The iron bars, which my father had +engineered so that they sank deep into the wall on either side, still +held nobly, and I heard the loud voice crying again for a battering-ram. +The soldiers of the attacking party went scurrying across the yard, and +presently returned, carrying between them a young tree cleared of its +branches, but with the rough bark still upon it. + +Without, in the square, the turmoil increased, and the streets echoed +with shouting. A wild hope came into my heart that Prince Karl had not +awaited the summons of the beacon, and that his troops were already in +the streets of Thorn. But even as the thought passed through my brain I +knew that it was vain. + +On the other hand, it was evident that in the town the general alarm had +been given, for the trumpets blew from the ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and +the call to arms resounded incessantly in the court-yard. I doubted not +also that many a stout burgher was getting him under arms--and but few of +them to fight for the Duke. + +Suddenly the bars of the door jangled on the stones under the swinging +blows of the battering-ram. I heard feet clatter on the stair. They came +with a rush, but long ere they had arrived at the top the pace slackened. +Only one man at a time could come up the stairway, and it is always a +drag upon the enthusiasm of an assault when at least two cannot advance +together. The light flickered and filtered in from the torches in the +streets, and the reflected glow of the bonfire on the roof made the +stair-head clear as a lucid twilight. + +I waited, with the axe swinging loosely in one hand. A head bobbed up, +clad in a steel cap. Bat as the unseen feet propelled it upward the Red +Axe took little reck of the head. Betwixt the steel cap and the rim of +steel of the body armor appeared a gray line of leather jerkin and a +thinner white line of neck. The Red Axe swung. I bethought me that it was +a bad light to cut off calves' heads in. But the Red Axe made no mistake. +I had learned my trade. There was not even a groan--only a dull thud +some way underneath, such as you may hear when the children of the +quarter play football on the streets. + +Then the foremost of the assailants were blocked by the fallen body, and +the feet of the men behind were stayed as the strange round plaything +rebounded among them. + +"Back!" they cried, who were in front. + +"Forward!" replied those who were hindmost and knew nothing. + +"Come, men--on and finish it!" cried the voice which had commanded the +powder-flask and the tree--the voice I now knew to be that of Duke +Otho himself. + +But the kick-ball argument of the Red Axe was mightily discouraging to +those immediately concerned, and as I felt the muscles of my right arm +and waited, I could hear Otho reasoning, threatening, coaxing, all in +vain. Then his tones mounted steadily into hot anger. He reviled his +followers for dogs, cowards, curs who had eaten his bread and now would +not rid him of his enemies. + +"A thousand rix-dollars to the man who kills Hugo Gottfried!" he shouted. +"But, hear ye, save the girl alive!" + +Yet not a man would attempt the first hazard of the stair. + +"Knaves, traitors, curs!" he cried; "would that there were so much as a +single true man among you--but there is not one worth spitting upon!" + +"Cur yourself!" growled a man, somewhere in the dark--"you have most at +stake in this. Try the stair yourself if you are so keen. We will follow +fast enough!" + +"God strike me dead if I do not!" shouted Otho; "if it were only to shame +you cowards." + +He paused to prepare his weapons. + +"Follow me, men!" he shouted again; "all together!" + +Again there was the clatter of iron-shod feet on the stone steps +beneath me. + +My grip on the Red Axe became like iron, but my joints were loose and +swung easily as a flail swings on well-seasoned leathers. + +"Welcome, Otho von Reuss!" I cried; "ye could not be crowned without the +death of Helene my wife! Come up hither and I will crown thee once for +all with the iron crown." + +There, at last, was mine enemy at the turn of the stair, rushing +furiously upon me, sword in hand. + +"Traitor!" he cried, and his sword was almost at my breast, so +fast he came. + +"Murderer!" I shouted. + +And almost ere I was aware the Red Axe flashed as it swept full circle +with scarce a pause, but it took the head of a man with it on its way. + +Otho von Reuss was crowned. Helene, the Little Playmate, was avenged. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + +THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL + + +The Duke's body sank down upon that of the soldier, still further +blocking the passage. And as for his head, I know not where that went to. +But the rush of his followers was utterly checked by the barrier of dead. +With a wild cry, "The Duke is dead! Duke Otho is slain!" they rushed down +and out of the Red Tower, eager at once to escape unharmed, and to carry +to their companions in the Wolfsberg the startling news. + +Nevertheless, I cleared my arm, wiped my axe, and again stood ready. + +"Come!" I cried--"come all of you. You desire to kill me? Well, I am +still waiting!" + +But not a man answered. The stairway was clear, save of the headless +dead. And then, sudden as summer thunder, through the dumb and empty +silence, I heard clear and loud the clanging of the hammers of Prince +Karl upon the gates of Thorn. + +At that I felt that I must roar aloud in my fierce joy. I shouted angrily +for more and more assailants to come up the stair, that I might kill them +all. I yearned to be first at the gate, to see the men whom I had led +break their way in to deliver the city. I, more than any other, had +brought them there. I had trained them for that work. Best of all, across +the stairway beneath me lay dead Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark, beheaded by +the Red Axe of his own Justicer. + +"Husband! Hugo! Are you wounded?" said a voice behind me, a voice +which in a moment recalled me from my bloody imaginings and baresark +fury of fighting. + +"Helene!" I cried. + +She approached, and would have thrown her arms about me. But I held out +my hand to keep her off. + +"Not now, child," I said; "touch me not. I am unwounded, but wet!" + +And so I was, wet with that which had spouted from the neck of Otho von +Reuss, as his trunk stood a moment headless in the stairway ere it fell +prone--a hideous thing to see. + +"Come, Helene," I said, "we must away. There is other work for your +husband to-night. You I will place with the Bishop Peter. But my place is +with the men of Plassenburg and with Karl, my noble Prince." + +And I took her by the hand to lead her out. + +"Not that way!" she cried, shrinking back. + +For the bodies of the two slain men lay there. And the stairs ran red +from step to step in red drips and lappering pools. + +So I bethought me of what we should do, and ran forthwith for my father's +cord, with which he was used to bind the malefactors upon the wheel. + +"Come, Helene," said I, and straightway fastened the rope to the iron bar +from which I had made so many descents to the pavement in the old days of +the White Wolves. + +I let myself down, and there in the angle of the tower wall, I waited to +catch my wife. She delayed somewhat, and I could not think wherefore. + +But at last she came, bringing the Red Axe in her hand. + +"Go not weaponless!" she said, and I reached up and took from her hand +that which had already served me so well. The Red Axe had done its work +now, and she was grateful. + +Then full lightly she descended to my side, and we went down the streets +of Thorn, which were filled with hurrying burgesses, all with weapons in +their hands, rushing to discover the cause of the clamor. I took Helene +hastily to the palace of the Bishop. And when I arrived there I saw Peter +himself with his head out of a window. + +"I come to claim your protection for my wife!" I cried. + +He came down immediately with an attendant. + +"Fear not," I said, "you will never be called in question for this kindly +deed. The Duke Otho is slain, and the army of Prince Karl of Plassenburg +is already at the gates." + +"The Duke is dead!" he gasped. "Who slew him?" + +"Who but the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark should slay a traitor?" +said I, smiling at his astonishment. And I held up the Red Axe, on which +there was now no crystal-clear rim of shining steel. All was crimson from +haft to edge--red as blood. + +"Here, for an hour, Helene, little wife, I must leave you!" I said. +But now she sobbed and clung to me as she had not done before, even in +the dungeon. + +"Stay with me," she said. "I need you, Hugo!" + +I took her by the hand. + +"Little one," I whispered, as tenderly as I could, "I would not be +worthily your husband if I went not to meet those who are fighting to +save us all this night. They have come from far to deliver us. I were +false and recreant if I went not to their assistance." + +"I know--I know," she said. "Go!" + +And with that she gave a hand to the good Bishop and went quietly within, +with no more than a smile over her shoulder, like a watery April +sun-glint. + +Then I betook me with all speed to the Weiss Thor, where I judged the +chief struggle would take place. And as I came I heard the rattle of +shot and the jarring thunder of the forehammers. The soldiers without +shouted, and the men within more feebly replied. + +I came in sight of the gate. There on my left hand was the house of +Master Gerard von Sturm. + +A fire was still flickering upon the tower of it. + +Without I could hear the cheering and clamoring of the besiegers. But the +gates remained obstinately shut. They were stronger than the Prince had +anticipated. + +As _I_ stood, uncertain what to do, I saw a slim white figure, the figure +of a woman, flash across the open space towards the gate. The men who +defended the gate towers were all upon the top of the wall. Before any +could stop her she had thrown herself upon the wheel by which the bars +were unfastened, and with a few turns had drawn them as deftly as evil +Duke Casimir had been wont to remove the teeth of the rich Hebrew folk +when he wanted supplies. + +The White Gate slowly opened upon creaking hinges. The faces of the +soldiers of Plassenburg were seen without, the weapons gleamed in their +hands as they came on shouting fiercely. The guards of the Duke rushed +forward to close the gate. But the woman had clamped the wheel and stood +holding the bar. + +It was the Lady Ysolinde. She saw me as the soldiers of Duke Otho closed +threateningly upon her. She waved her hand to me almost happily. + +"_I have saved my soul, Hugo Gottfried_!" she cried. "_I have saved +my soul_!" + +At that moment a soldier of the Black Riders struck her fiercely with his +lance. I saw the white bosom of her dress redden as he plucked his weapon +to him again. I was in time to catch her in my arms as the soldiers of +Plassenburg, with Prince Karl at their head, came through the White Gate +like a spring-tide, carrying all before them. + +The Prince stayed at his wife's side. + +"Ysolinde!" cried the Prince, aghast, bending over her--not heeding, nor +indeed, as I think, even seeing me. + +"Karl!" she said, looking gently at him, "try and forgive me all the +rest. But be glad that I opened the White Gate for yon. I, Ysolinde, your +wife, did it for your sake." + +I put her into her husband's arms. I saw at a glance that there was no +hope. She could not live many moments with that lance-thrust through +her breast. + +She looked at him again. + +"Karl--say 'Ysolinde, I love you!'" she whispered, almost shyly. + +He looked down, and a rush of unwonted tears came to the eyes of the +Prince of Plassenburg. + +"Ysolinde, I love you!" he made answer, in a broken voice. + +She smiled, and then looked over his shoulder up at me. + +_"Hugo Gottfried, have I not saved my soul?"_ she cried. + +And so passed. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG + + +There was, however, deadly work yet before the men of Plassenburg. We +found, indeed, that the townsfolk were with us almost to a man. Their +guild train-bands gathered and mustered at their halls. The guards at the +city gates fraternally turned their arms to the ground. + +"The Prince will restore your ancient liberties!" I cried. And the people +shouted. "Prince Karl of Plassenburg and our ancient liberties!" + +Then we made our way up the street by different routes to the Wolfsberg. +There was little fighting till we arrived under those vast and gloomy +walls. The Black Riders had disappeared within. Those worst tools of grim +tyranny had early withdrawn themselves, knowing that small mercy would be +shown them by the people if once the Wolfsberg were taken. But the common +soldiers of the fighting rank, sons and brothers of the women of Thorn, +tore off the badge of the bloody Dukes and with loud shouts marched with +us as comrades. + +But when we came before the walls, and with sound of trumpet and loud +shouts summoned the Wolfsberg to surrender, a discharge of musketry from +the walls, and the determined faces of a multitude of defenders showed us +conclusively that all was not yet over. + +It was no use wasting men in attacking the great pile of buildings +with the force at our disposal. We had men in plenty, but for +breeching we needed the cannon left behind by these swift forces, +which, marching day and night, had arrived in the very nick of time +before the walls of Thorn. + +Nevertheless, it was not the fate of the Wolfsberg to be taken by Lazy +Peg and her compeers. + +These ponderous pieces of ordnance were presently being dragged through +the swamps and over the brick-dust barrens of the borderlands, and it +might be three or four days before they could arrive to aid us. There was +nothing, therefore, to do but to sit down and wait, drawing a cincture +that not a mouse could creep through about the cliffs of the Wolfsberg. + +But deep within the heart of the old Red Tower there was one stronger +than Lazy Peg fighting for us. + +"Fire! Fire!" cried the people in the streets. "The Wolfsberg is on +fire!" And so, surely, it was. The flames burst out from the windows +of the Red Tower and were rapidly carried by a dry fanning northerly +wind along the wooden workshops and kennels to the main building, +where the Hall of Judgment was soon blazing like a torch. The +defenders seemed paralyzed by this misadventure. Some ran to the +castle well. Some threw themselves desperately from the walls, others +crowded to the gates, and through the bars besought our Prince's +pledge that mercy would be shown them. + +Then the crowd without were ill to deal with, for they cried aloud, "No +mercy to the murderers! Show us our Saint Helena!" + +Then it was that I leaped once more upon the scaffold, which had seen +such a sight the day before, and cried, "Duke Otho is dead! I, Hugo +Gottfried, slew him with this Red Axe. Prince Karl is come to save you, +and to give you back your ancient liberties. Your Saint Helena is my +wife, and is safe under the protection of Bishop Peter." + +But though they cheered at my words they would not cease from crying, +"Show us Saint Helena, and if she bid us we will have mercy on the wolves +of the Wolfsberg!" + +So it was necessary for Helene to be brought and to show herself to them, +for the sake of the poor souls sore driven and in jeopardy 'twixt the +fire and the knives. + +"Have mercy on the poor folk!" she cried, when they had done shouting +because of her safety. "At worst, they are but misguided, ignorant men!" + +By this time the doors of the Wolfsberg were thrown open from within, and +the men crowded out, casting down their arms in heaps on either side the +gate. They were then marched, under charge of the soldiers of +Plassenburg, to various strongholds which were pointed out by the +Burgomeister and the chiefs of the guilds. The fortified halls of the +trades were filled with them. By daybreak the whole of Thorn was in our +hands, while the gray barrens of the Wolfmark were lit for leagues by the +flaming Wolfsberg, which, on its craggy height, vomited fire and sparks +into the blackness of night. + +And the reek of this great burning hung for days after in the heavens. +Thus was an end made to the iniquities of the house of the Black Duke +Casimir and the Red Duke Otho. And the last Duke mixed his ashes with +that of the fatal Tower. For on the morrow there remained only the +blackened walls and glowing skeleton beams of all that mighty +palace--which, indeed, has never been rebuilt. For the people of Thorn, +under the mild and equitable rule which followed, erected a great +memorial church upon the spot--as may be seen to this day, a landmark +from far to witness if I have lied in the tale which has been told. + +So the Prince Karl gave back to Thorn its liberties, as he had promised. +But the regality of the Dukedom he kept for himself, and he took the +Wolfmark and made it part of his dominions, till, as he had formerly +undertaken, the broom-bush kept the cow throughout the length and breadth +of Plassenburg and the Mark. + +It was a noble home-coming when we returned to Plassenburg--victorious +and famous; but also there was mourning deep and solemn for the Princess +Ysolinde, who by her sacrifice had wrought such great things for the arms +of Plassenburg, and had died in the moment of victory. + +Then, when after the stately funeral of the dead Princess we returned +back to the palace, it was the Prince's pleasure that Helene and myself +should ride on either hand of him through the city. + +And when we were announced in the court, and the councillors of state +stood about, my wife was named by her true name, "Helena, Princess of +Plassenburg!" + +Whereat the courtiers opened their mouths and widened their +eyes--thinking, perhaps, that that ancient wizard, Chancellor Leopold von +Dessauer had suddenly gone mad. + +But when the representatives of the cities of the Princedom, and the +delegates from Thorn and the Mark, had been received with due honor, the +Prince bade his Chancellor recount all he had learned from my father, and +all that he had discovered in the archives of Plassenburg. + +Then, when Dessauer had finished, Karl the Prince arose. + +"I am," he said, "a plain, brusque man. And speech was never my +stronghold. But this I say. When Karl the Miller's Son goes the way of +King's son and beggar's son, it is his will that Helene, legitimate +Princess of Plassenburg, shall reign over you. And also that her husband, +Hugo, who, as you know, won her from dreadful death, shall stand by her +right hand." + +Then the nobles and great lords, fearing the Prince, and perhaps also +envying a little the man who was the Prince's general of his armies, +shouted amain: + +"We swear to obey the Princess Helena!" + +Whereat uprose the Little Playmate, very princess-like and full of sweet +regal dignity. + +"I thank you, noble Prince," she said. "I am glad that I can claim so +honorable a name and lineage; but I had rather be no Princess, nor +anything else than that which my husband hath made me--the wife of the +captain-general of the armies of Karl, the only true and noble Prince of +Plassenburg!" + +Then the Prince rose and clasped her in his arms, kissing her fondly on +both cheeks. + +"Fear not," he said, "dear and loyal lady. If you live to be the +Princess, your goodman shall be the Prince. Never shall the gray mare +flaunt it first, in Plassenburg!" + +And he gave us each a hand, and conducted us to a pair of seats which had +been set level with his on the platform of the Council-chamber of the +Princedom. + +The Prince Karl lived many days after the winning of the Wolfmark and the +ending of the ducal Wolves. But he gave less and less care to the +regalities, leaving them even more completely to me, sitting mostly in +the pleasaunce by the river-side, or in the far-regarding room which had +been the Lady Ysolinde's. + +Also he never looked again on the face of a woman--except as it might +be to bid them good-day--save on that of my wife, Helene, who, as you +who know her may guess, waxed but the sweeter and the fairer as the +years went by. + +And the blessing of children came to us, and in this thing the Prince +Karl was even happier than we. + +One day, however, it chanced that he was seated in full Council, and +right noble he looked. I had just handed him a paper to sign. But he +looked neither at me nor yet at the paper. His eyes were fixed on the +locked doors of the privy bedchamber, through which only those of +princely blood might come. + +He stared so long at it that to recall him I put my hand on his sleeve +and said, "Prince, the Council waits your pleasure!" + +Bat he heard me not, his eyes being fixed on the door. + +"Your pardon, my lords and knights," he said, at last, fighting a little +stiffly with his utterance, "but it seemed that I saw the Princess, my +wife, come through the door, clad in white, and beckon me with her hand. +I must go to her, my lords; I think she waits for me. The Prince Hugo +will take my place at the Council." + +And the old man took a step from the high seat. But at the foot of the +throne he stumbled and fell into my arms. + +He said but one word after that, with his eyes still fixed on the +bolted door. + +"_Ysolinde_!" + +And so the Prince Karl and his wife were united at last. + +Since then we have lived long, the Little Playmate and I; but never have +we been other than comrades and friends--lovers also, which is the best +of all. And so (an the good God please) we shall abide till the end +comes. And in the gloaming we two also shall see the beckoning finger +from beyond the bolted door and turn our feet homeward, passing the +bourne of the new life hand in hand--and undismayed. + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Red Axe, by Samuel Rutherford Crockett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED AXE *** + +***** This file should be named 12191-8.txt or 12191-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/9/12191/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Red Axe + +Author: Samuel Rutherford Crockett + +Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12191] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED AXE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + THE RED AXE + + By S.R. Crockett + + 1900 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE + II. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME + III. THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + IV. THE PRINCESS HELENE + V. THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ARE FED + VI. DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR + VII. I BECOME A TRAITOR + VIII. AT THE BAR OF THE WHITE WOLF + IX. A HERO CARRIES WATER IN THE SUN + X. THE LUBBER FIEND + XI. THE VISION IN THE CRYSTAL + XII. EYES OF EMERALD + XIII. CHRISTIAN'S ELSA + XIV. SIR AMOROUS IS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF + XV. THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS + XVI. TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN + XVII. THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE + XVIII. THE PRIME OF THE MORNING + XIX. WENDISH WIT + XX. THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND + XXI. I STAND SENTRY + XXII. HELENE HATES ME + XXIII. HUGO OF THE BROADAXE + XXIV. THE SORTIE + XXV. MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE + XXVI. PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON + XXVII. ANOTHER MAN'S COAT + XXVIII. THE PRINCE'S COMPACT + XXIX. LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT + XXX. INSULT AND CHALLENGE + XXXI. I FIND A SECOND + XXXII. THE WOLVES OF THE MARK + XXXIII. THE FLIGHT OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE + XXXIV. THE GOLDEN NECKLACE + XXXV. THE DECENT SERVITOR + XXXVI. YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL + XXXVII. CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON +XXXVIII. THE BLACK RIDERS + XXXIX. THE FLAG ON THE RED TOWER + XL. THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH + XLI. THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER + XLII. PRINCESS PLAYMATE + XLIII. THE TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT + XLIV. SENTENCE OF DEATH + XLV. THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE + XLVI. A WOMAN SCORNED + XLVII. THE RED AXE DIES STANDING UP + XLVIII. HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + XLIX. THE SERPENT'S STRIFE + L. THE DUNGEON OF THE WOLFSBERG + LI. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN + LII. THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT + LIII. THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN + LIV. THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO + LV. THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL + LVI. HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG + + + + +THE RED AXE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DUKE CASIMIR RIDES LATE + + +Well do I, Hugo Gottfried, remember the night of snow and moonlight when +first they brought the Little Playmate home. I had been sleeping--a +sturdy, well-grown fellow I, ten years or so as to my age--in a stomacher +of blanket and a bed-gown my mother had made me before she died at the +beginning of the cold weather. Suddenly something awoke me out of my +sleep. So, all in the sharp chill of the night, I got out of my bed, +sitting on the edge with my legs dangling, and looked curiously at the +bright streams of moonlight which crossed the wooden floor of my garret. +I thought if only I could swim straight up one of them, as the motes did +in the sunshine, I should be sure to come in time to the place where my +mother was--the place where all the pretty white things came from--the +sunshine, the moonshine, the starshine, and the snow. + +And there would be children to play with up there--hundreds of children +like myself, and all close at hand. I should not any longer have to sit +up aloft in the Red Tower with none to speak to me--all alone on the top +of a wall--just because I had a crimson patch sewn on my blue-corded +blouse, on my little white shirt, embroidered in red wool on each of my +warm winter wristlets, and staring out from the front of both my +stockings. It was a pretty enough pattern, too. Yet whenever one of the +children I so much longed to play with down on the paved roadway beneath +our tower caught sight of it he rose instantly out of the dust and hurled +oaths and ill-words at me--aye, and oftentimes other missiles that hurt +even worse--at a little lonely boy who was breaking his heart with loving +him up there on the tower. + +"Come down and be killed, foul brood of the Red Axe!" the children cried. +And with that they ran as near as they dared, and spat on the wall of our +house, or at least on the little wooden panel which opened inward in the +great trebly spiked iron door of the Duke's court-yard. + +But this night of the first home-coming of the Little Playmate I awoke +crying and fearful in the dead vast of the night, when all the other +children who would not speak to me were asleep. Then pulling on my +comfortable shoes of woollen list (for my father gave me all things to +make me warm, thinking me delicate of body), and drawing the many-patched +coverlet of the bed about me, I clambered up the stone stairway to the +very top of the tower in which I slept. The moon was broad, like one of +the shields in the great hall, whither I went often when the great Duke +was not at home, and when old Hanne would be busy cleaning the pavement +and scrubbing viciously at the armor of the iron knights who stood on +pedestals round about. + +"One day I shall be a man-at-arms, too," I said once to Hanne, "and ride +a-foraying with Duke Ironteeth." + +But old Hanne only shook her head and answered: + +"Ill foraying shalt thou make, little shrimp. Such work as thine is not +done on horseback--keep wide from me, _toadchen_, touch me not!" + +For even old Hanne flouted me and would not let me approach her too +closely, all because once I had asked her what my father did to witches, +and if she were a witch that she crossed herself and trembled whenever +she passed him in the court-yard. + +Now, having little else to do, I loved to look down from the top of the +tower at all times. But never more so than when there was snow on the +ground, for then the City of Thorn lay apparent beneath me, all spread +out like a painted picture, with its white and red roofs and white houses +bright in the moonlight--so near that it seemed as though I could pat +every child lying asleep in its little bed, and scrape away the snow with +my fingers from every red tile off which the house-fires had not already +melted it. + +The town of Thorn was the chief place of arms, and high capital city of +all the Wolfmark. It was a thriving place, too, humming with burghers and +trades and guilds, when our great Duke Casimir would let them alone; +perilous, often also, with pikes and discontents when he swooped from the +tall over-frowning Castle of the Wolfsberg upon their booths and +guilderies--"to scotch the pride of rascaldom," as he told them when they +complained. In these days my father was little at home, his business +keeping him abroad all the day about the castle-yard, at secret +examinations in the Hall of Judgment, or in mysterious vaults in the +deepest parts of the castle, where the walls are eighteen feet thick, and +from which not a groan can penetrate to the outside while the Duke +Casimir's judgment was being done upon the poor bodies and souls of men +and women his prisoners. + +In the court-yard, too, the dogs, fierce russet-tan blood-hounds, +ravined for their fearsome food. And in these days there was plenty of +it, too, so that they were yelling and clamoring all day, and most of +the night, for that which it made me sweat to think of. And beneath the +rebellious city cowered and muttered, while the burghers and their +wives shivered in their beds as the howling of Duke Casimir's +blood-hounds came fitfully down the wind, and Duke Casimir's guards +clashed arms under their windows. + +So this night I looked down contentedly enough from my perched eyrie on +the top of the Red Tower. It had been snowing a little earlier in the +evening, and the brief blast had swept the sky clean, so that even the +brightest stars seemed sunken and waterlogged in the white floods of +moonlight. Under my hand lay the city. Even the feet of the watch made no +clatter on the pavements. The fresh-fallen snow masked the sound. The +kennels of the blood-hounds were silent, for their dreadful tenants were +abroad that night on the Duke's work. + +Yet, sitting up there on the Wolfsberg, it seemed to me that I could +distinguish a muttering as of voices full of hate, like men talking low +on their beds the secret things of evil and treason. I discerned +discontent and rebellion rumbling and brooding over the city that clear, +keen night of early winter. + +Then, when after a while I turned from the crowded roofs and looked down +upon the gray, far-spreading plain of the Wolfmark, to the east I saw +that which appeared like winking sparks of light moving among the black +clumps of copse and woodland which fringed the river. These wimpled and +scattered, and presently grew brighter. A long howl, like that of a +lonely wolf on the waste when he calls to his kindred to tell him their +where-abouts, came faintly up to my ears. + +A hound gave tongue responsively among the heaped mews and doggeries +beneath the ramparts. Lights shone in windows athwart the city. Red +nightcaps were thrust out of hastily opened casements. The Duke's +standing guard clamored with their spear-butts on the uneven pavements, +crying up and down the streets: "To your kennels, devil's brats, Duke +Casimir comes riding home!" + +Then I tell you my small heart beat furiously. For I knew that if I +only kept quiet I should see that which I had never yet seen--the +home-coming of our famous foraying Duke. I had, indeed, seen Duke +Casimir often enough in the castle, or striding across the court-yard +to speak to my father, for whom he had ever a remarkable affection. He +was a tall, swart, black-a-vised man, with a huge hairy mole on his +cheek, and long dog-teeth which showed at the sides of his mouth when +he smiled, almost as pleasantly as those of a she-wolf looking out of +her den at the hunters. + +But I had never seen the Duke of all the Wolfmark come riding home ere +daybreak, laden with the plunder of captured castles and the rout of +deforced cities. For at such times my father would carefully lock the +door on me, and confine me to my little sleeping-chamber--from whence I +could see nothing but the square of smooth pavement on which the +children chalked their games, and from which they cried naughtily up at +me, the poor hermit of the Red Tower. But this night my father would be +with the Duke, and I should see all. For high or low there was none in +the empty Red Tower to hinder or forbid. + +As I waited, thrilling with expectation, I heard beneath me the +quickening pulse-beat of the town. The watch hurried here and there, +hectoring, threatening, and commanding. But, in spite of all, men +gathered as soon as their backs were turned in the alleys and street +openings. Clusters of heads showed black for a moment in some darksome +entry, cried "U-g-g-hh!" with a hateful sound, and vanished ere the +steel-clad veterans of the Duke's guard could come upon them. It was like +the hide-and-seek which I used to play with Boldo, my blood-hound puppy, +among the dusty waste of the lumber-room over the Hall of Judgment, +before my father took him back to the kennels for biting Christian's +Elsa, a child who lived in the lower Guard opposite to the Red Tower. + +But this was a stranger hide-and-seek than mine and Boldo's had been. For +I saw one of the men who cried hatefully to the guard stumble on the +slippery ice; and lo! or ever he had time to cry out or gather himself +up, the men-at-arms were upon him. I saw the glitter of stabbing steel +and heard the sickening sound of blows stricken silently in anger. Then +the soldiers took the man up by head and heels carelessly, jesting as +they went. And I shuddered, for I knew that they were bringing him to the +horrible long sheds by the Red Tower through which the wind whistled. But +in the moonlight the patch which was left on the snow was black, not red. + +After this the crooked alleys were kept clearer, and I could see down the +long High Street of Thorn right to the Weiss Thor and the snow-whitened +pinnacles of the Palace, out of which Duke Casimir had for the time being +frightened Bishop Peter. Black stood the Gate Port against the moonlight +and the snow when I first looked at it. A moment after it had opened, and +a hundred lights came crowding through, like sheep through an entry on +their way to the shambles--which doubtless is their Hall of Judgment, +where there waits for them the Red Axe of a lowlier degree. + +The lights, I say, came thronging through the gate. For though it was +moonlight, the Duke Casimir loved to come home amid the red flame of +torches, the trail of bituminous reek, and with a dashing train of riders +clattering up to the Wolfsberg behind him, through the streets of Thorn, +lying black and cowed under the shadows of its thousand gables. + +So the procession undulated towards me, turbid and tumultuous. First a +reckless pour of riders urging wearied horses, their sides white-flecked +above with blown foam, and dark beneath with rowelled blood. Many of the +horsemen carried marks upon them which showed that all had not been +plunder and pleasuring upon their foray. For there were white napkins, +and napkins that had once been white, tied across many brows. Helmets +swung clanking like iron pipkins from saddle-bows, and men rode wearily +with their arms in slings, drooping haggard faces upon their chests. But +all passed rapidly enough up the steep street, and tumbled with noise and +shouting, helter-skelter into the great court-yard beneath me as I +watched, secure as God in heaven, from my perch on the Red Tower. + +Then came the captives, some riding horses bare-backed, or held in place +before black-bearded riders--women mostly these last, with faces +white-set and strange of eye, or all beblubbered with weeping. Then came +a man or two also on horseback, old and reverend. After them a draggled +rabble of lads and half-grown girls, bound together with ropes and kept +at a dog's trot by the pricking spears of the men-at-arms behind, who +thought it a jest to sink a spear point-deep in the flesh of a man's +back--"drawing the claret wine" they called it. For these riders of Duke +Casimir were every one jolly companions, and must have their merry jest. + +After the captives had gone past--and sorry I was for them--the +body-guard of Duke Casimir came riding steadily and gallantly, all +gentlemen of the Mark, with their sons and squires, landed men, towered +men, free Junkers, serving the Duke for loyalty and not servitude, though +ever "living by the saddle"--as, indeed, most of the Ritterdom and gentry +of the Mark had done for generations. + +Then behind them came Duke Casimir himself. The Eastland blood he had +acquired from his Polish mother showed as he rode gloomily apart, +thoughtful, solitary, behind the squared shoulders of his knights. After +him another squadron of riders in ghastly armor of black-and-white, with +torches in their hand and grinning skulls upon their shields, closed in +the array. The great gate of the Wolfsberg was open now, and, leaving +behind him the hushed and darkened town, the master rode into his castle. +The Wolf was in his lair. But in the streets many a burgher's wife +trembled on her bed, while her goodman peered cautiously over the leads +by the side of a gargoyle, and fancied that already he heard the clamor +of the partisans thundering at his door with the Duke's invitation to +meet him in the Hall of Judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME + + +But there was to be no Session in the Hall of Judgment that night. The +great court-yard, roofed with the vault of stars and lit by the moon, was +to see all done that remained to be done. The torches were planted in the +iron hold-fasts round about. The plunder of the captured towns and +castles was piled for distribution on the morrow, and no man dared keep +back so much as a Brandenburg broad-piece or a handful of Bohemian +gulden. For the fear of the Duke and the Duke's dog-kennels was upon +every stout fighting-kerl. They minded the fate of Hans Pulitz, who had +kept back a belt of gold, and had gotten himself flung by the heels with +no more than the stolen belt upon him, into the kennels where the Duke's +blood-hounds howled and clambered with their fore-feet on the +black-spattered barriers. And they say that the belt of gold was all that +was ever seen again of the poor rascal. Hans Pulitz--who had hoped for so +many riotous evenings among the Fat Pigs of Thorn and so many draughts of +the slippery wine of the Rheingan careering down the poor thirsty throat +of him. But, alas for Hans Pulitz! the end of all imagining was no more +than five minutes of snapping, snarling, horrible Pandemonium in the +kennels of the Wolfsberg, and the scored gold chain on the ground was all +that remained to tell his tale. Verily, there were few Achans in Duke +Casimir's camp. + +And it is small wonder after this, that scant and sparse were the jests +played on the grim master of the Wolfsberg, or that the bay of a +blood-hound tracking on the downs frightened the most stout-hearted rider +in all that retinue of dare-devils. + +Going to the side of the Red Tower, which looked towards the court-yard, +I saw the whole array come in. I watched the prisoners unceremoniously +dismounted and huddled together against the coming of the Duke. There was +but one man among them who stood erect. The torch-light played on his +face, which was sometimes bent down to a little child in his arms, so +that I saw him well. He looked not at all upon the rude men-at-arms who +pushed and bullied about him, but continued tenderly to hush his charge, +as if he had been a nurse in a babe-chamber under the leads, with silence +in all the house below. + +It pleased me to see the man, for all my life I had loved children. And +yet at ten years of age I had never so much as touched one--no, nor +spoken even, only looked down on those that hated me and spat on the very +tower wherein I dwelt. But nevertheless I loved them and yearned to tell +them so, even when they mocked me. So I watched this little one in the +man's arms. + +Then came the Duke along the line, and behind him, like the Shadow of +Death, paced my father Gottfried Gottfried, habited all in red from neck +to heel, and carrying for his badge of office as Hereditary Justicer to +the Dukes of the Wolfmark that famous red-handled, red-bladed axe, the +gleaming white of whose deadly edge had never been wet save with the +blood of men and women. + +The guard pushed the captives rudely into line as the Duke Casimir strode +along the front. The women he passed without a sign or so much as a look. +They were kept for another day. But the men were judged sharp and sudden, +as the Duke in his black armor passed along, and that scarlet Shadow of +Death with the broad axe over his shoulder paced noiselessly behind him. + +For as each man looked into the eyes of Casimir of the Wolfsberg he read +his doom. The Duke turned his wrist sharply down, whereupon the attendant +sprites of the Red Shadow seized the man and rent his garment down from +his neck--or the hand pointed up, and then the man set his hand to his +heart and threw his head back in a long sigh of relief. + +It came the turn of the man who carried the babe. + +Duke Casimir paused before him, scowling gloomily at him. + +"Ha, Lord Prince of so great a province, you will not set yourself up any +more haughtily. You will quibble no longer concerning tithes and tolls +with Casimir of the Wolfmark." + +And the Duke lifted his hand and smote the man on the cheek with his +open hand. + +Yet the captive only hushed the child that wailed aloud to see her +guardian smitten. + +He looked Duke Casimir steadfastly in the eyes and spoke no word. + +"Great God, man, have you nothing to say to me ere you die?" cried Duke +Casimir, choked with hot, sudden anger to be so crossed. + +The elder man gazed steadily at his captor. + +"God will judge betwixt me, a man about to die, and you, Casimir of the +Wolfmark," he said at last, very slowly--"by the eyes of this little maid +He will judge!" + +"Like enough," cried Casimir, sneeringly. "Bishop Peter hath told me as +much. But then God's payments are long deferred, and, so far as I can +see, I can take Him into my own hand. And your little maid--pah! since +one day you took from me the mother, I, in my turn, will take the +daughter and make her a titbit for the teeth of my blood-hounds." + +The man answered not again, but only hushed and fondled the little one. + +Duke Casimir turned quickly to my father, showing his long teeth like a +snarling dog: + +"Take the child," he said, "and cast her into the kennels before the +man's eyes, that he may learn before he dies to dread more than God's +Judgment Seat the vengeance of Duke Casimir!" + +Then all the men-at-arms turned away, heart-sick at the horror. But the +man with the child never blanched. + +High perched on the top tower, I also heard the words and loved the maid. +And they tell me (though I do not remember it) that I cried down from the +leads of the Red Tower: "My father, save the little maid and give her to +me--or else I, Hugo Gottfried, will cast myself down on the stones at +your feet!" + +At which all the men looked up and saw me in white, a small, lonely +figure, with my legs hanging over the top of the wall. + +"Go back!" my father shouted. "Go back, Hugo! 'Tis my only son--my +successor--the fifteenth of our line, my lord!" he said to the Duke +in excuse. + +But I cried all the more: "Save the maid's life, or I will fling myself +headlong. By Jesu-Mary, I swear it!" + +For I thought that was the name of one great saint. + +Then my father, who ever doted on me, bent his knee before his master: +"A boon!" he cried, "my first and last, Duke Casimir--this maid's life +for my son!" + +But the Duke hung on the request a long, doubtful moment. + +"Gottfried Gottfried," he said, even reproachfully, "this is not well +done of you, to make me go back on my word." + +"Take the man's life," said my father--"take the man's life for the +child's and the fulfilling of your word, and by the sword of St. Peter I +will smite my best!" + +"Aye," said the man with the babe, "even so do, as the Red Axe says. +Save the young child, but bid him smite hard at this abased neck. Ye have +taken all, Duke Casimir, take my life. But save the young child alive!" + +So, without further word or question, they did so, and the man who had +carried the child kissed her once and separated gently the baby hands +that clung about his neck. Then he handed her to my father. + +"Be gracious to Helene," he said; "she was ever a sweet babe." + +Now by this time I was down hammering on the door of the Red Tower, which +had been locked on the outside. + +Presently some one turned the key, and so soon as I got among the men I +darted between their legs. + +"Give me the babe!" I cried; "the babe is mine; the Duke himself +hath said it." And my father gave her to me, crying as if her heart +would break. + +Nevertheless she clung to me, perhaps because I was nearer her own age. + +Then the dismal procession of the condemned passed us, followed by my +father, who strode in front with his axe over his shoulder, and the +laughing and jesting men-at-arms bringing up the rear. + +As I stood a little aside for them to pass, the hand of the man fell on +my head and rested there a moment. + +"God's blessing on you, little lad!" he said. "Cherish the babe you have +saved, and, as sure as that I am now about to die, one day you shall be +repaid." And he stooped and kissed the little maid before he went on with +the others to the place of slaughter. + +Then I hurried within, so that I might not hear the dull thud of the Red +Axe, on the block nor the inhuman howlings of the dogs in the kennels +afterwards. + +When my father came home an hour later, before even he took off his +costume of red, he came up to our chamber and looked long at the little +maid as she lay asleep. Then he gazed at me, who watched him from under +my lids and from behind the shadows of the bedclothes. + +But his quick eye caught the gleam of light in mine. + +"You are awake, boy!" he said, somewhat sternly. + +I nodded up to him without speaking. + +"What would you with the little maid?" he said. "Do you know that you and +she together came very near losing me my favor with the Duke, and it +might be my life also, both at one time to-night?" + +I put my hand on the maiden's head where it lay on the pillow by me. + +"She is my little wife!" I said. "The Duke gave her to me out in the +court-yard there!" + +And this is the whole tale of how the Little Playmate came to dwell with +us in the Red Tower. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + + +Just as clearly do I remember the next morning. The Little Playmate lay +by me on my bed, wrapped in one of my childish night-gowns--which old +Hanne had sought out for her the night before. It was a brisk, chill, +nippy daybreak, and I had piled most of the bedclothes upon her. I lay at +the nether side clipped tight in my single brown blanket. It was +perishing cold. Out of the heaped coverings I saw presently a pair of +eyes, great and dark, regarding me. + +Then a little voice spoke, sweetly and clearly, but yet strangely +sounding to me who had never before heard a babe speak. + +"I want my father--tell him to send Grete, my maid, to attend on me, and +then to come himself to sit by the bed and amuse me!" + +Alas! her father--well I knew what had come to him--that which in the +mercy of the Duke Casimir and in the crowning mercy of the Red Axe, I had +seen come to so many. The dogs did not howl at all that morning. They, +too, were tired with the hunting and sated with the quarry. + +All the same, I tried to answer my companion. + +"Little Maid!" said I, "let me be your maid and your father. I will +gladly get you all you want. But your good father has gone on a weary +journey, and it will be long ere he can hope to return." + +"Well," she said, "send lazy Grete, then. I will scold her soundly for +not bringing the sop of hot milk-and-bread, which, indeed, is not food +for a lady of my age. But my father insists upon it. He is dreadfully +obstinate." + +Now there was no one but our old deaf Hanne in the kitchen of the Red +Tower. She stayed only for cooking and keeping the house clean. My father +never paid her wages, and she never asked any. She did her work and took +that which she needed out of the household purse without check or +question. It was long before I guessed that Hanne also owed her life to +my father's care. I had noticed, indeed, when he had upon him the red +headman's dress, which fitted him like a flame climbing up a tall back +log on the winter's fire, that old Hanne trembled from head to foot and +shrank away into her den under the stairs. Many a time have I seen her +peeping round the corner of the kitchen-door and tottering back when she +heard him come down the stair from the garret. And I guessed so well the +reason of her fear that I used to cry to her: + +"Come out, good Hanne; the Red Axe is gone." + +Then would she run, pattering like a scared rabbit over the uneven floor, +to the window, and watch my father stalking, grim and tall, across the +open spaces of the yard towards the Judgment Hall of Duke Casimir, the +men-at-arms avoiding him with deft reverence. For though they hated him +almost as much as did the fat burghers, they feared him, too. And that +because Gottfried Gottfried was deep in the confidence of the Duke; and, +besides, was no man to stand in the ill-graces of when one lived within +the walls of the Wolfsberg. + +So this morning it was to the ancient Hanne that I ran down and told her +how, as quickly as she might, she must bring milk and bread to the +little one. + +"But," said she, "there is none save that which is to be sodden for your +father's breakfast and your own." + +"Do as you are bid, bad Hanne!" cried I, being, like all solitary +children, quickly made angry, "or I will tell my father to drive you +before him when next he goes forth clad in red to the Hall of Justice." + +At which the poor old woman gave vent to a sharp, screechy cry and caught +at her skinny throat with twitching, bony fingers. + +"Oh, but you know not what you say, cruel boy!" she gasped. "For the love +of God, speak not such words in the house of the Red Axe!" + +But, like an ill-governed child, I was cruel because I knew my power, and +so made sure that Hanne would do what I asked. + +"Well, then, bring the sop quickly," said I, "or by Peter-and-Paul I will +speak to my father. He and I can well be doing with beaten cakes made +crisp on the iron girdle. In these you have great skill." + +This last I said to cheer her, for she loved compliments on her cooking. +Though, strange to tell, I never saw her eat anything herself all the +years she remained in our house. + +When I was gone up-stairs again I looked about for the Little Playmate. +She was not to be seen anywhere. There was only a tiny cosey-hole down +among the blankets, which was yet warm when I thrust my hand within it. +But it was empty and the top a little fallen in, as if the occupant had +set her knee on it when she crawled out. A baby stocking lay outside it +on the floor. + +"Little maid!" I cried, "where are you?" + +But I heard nothing except a hissing up on the roof, and then a great +slithering rumble down below, which boomed like the distant cannons the +Margraf sent to besiege us. I listened and shuddered; but it was only the +snow from the tall roof of the Red Tower which had slipped off and fallen +to the ground. Then I had a vision of a slender little figure clambering +on the leads and the treacherous snow striking her out into the air, and +then--the cruel stones of the pavement. + +"Little maid, little maid!" I cried out again, beginning to weep myself +for pity at my thought, "where are you? Speak to me. You are my +playmate." + +Then I ran to the roof, and, though the stones chilled me to the bone and +the frost-bitten iron hasps of the fastenings burned me like fire, I +opened the trap-door and looked out. There above me was the crow-stepped +gable of the Red Tower, with the axe set on the pinnacle rustily bright +in the coming light of the morning--all swept clean of snow. But no +little maid. + +I ran to the verge and peered down. I saw a great heap of frozen snow +fallen on its edge and partly canted over, half covering a deep red stain +which was turning black and horrid in the daylight. But no little maid. + +Then I ran all over the house calling to her, but could not find her +anywhere. I was just beginning to bethink me that she might be a fairy +child, one that came at night and vanished like the dream gold which is +forever turning to withered leaves in the morning. At last I bethought me +of my father's room, where even I, his son, had never been at night, and +indeed but seldom in the day. For it was the Hereditary Justicer's fancy +to lodge himself in the high garret which ran right across the top of the +Red Tower, and was entered only by a little ladder from the first turning +of the same staircase by which I had run out upon the leads. + +I went to the bottom of the garret turnpike. The little barred door stood +open, and I heard--I was sure that I heard--light, irregularly pattering +footsteps moving about above. + +It gave me strange shakings of my heart only to listen. For, though I was +noways afraid of my father myself, yet since I had never seen any man, +woman, or child (save the Duke only) who did not quail at his approach, +it was a curious feeling to think of the lonely little child skipping +about up there, where abode the axe and the block--the axe which had +done, I knew so well what, to her father only the night before. + +So I mustered all my courage--not from any fear of Gottfried Gottfried, +but rather from the uncertainty of what I should see, and quickly mounted +the stair. + +I shall never forget what I saw as I stood with my feet on the rickety +hand-rail of the ladder. The long dim garret was already half-lighted by +the coming day. Red cloaks swung and flapped like vast, deadly, winged +bats from the rafters, and reached almost to the ground. There was no +glass in any of the windows of the garret, for my father minded neither +heat nor cold. He was a man of iron. Summer's heat nor winter's cold +neither vexed nor pleasured him. So it was no marvel that at the +chamber's upper end, and quite near to my father's bed, lay a wreath of +snow, with a fine, clean-cut, untrampled edge, just as it had blown in at +the gable window when the storm burst from the east. + +My father lay stretched out on his bed, his head thrown back, his neck +bare--almost as if he had done justice on himself, or at least as if he +waited the stroke of another Red Axe through the eastern skylight which +the morning was already crimsoning. His scarlet sheathings of garmentry +lay upon a black oaken stool, trailing across the floor lank and hideous, +one of the cuffs which had been but recently dyed a darker hue making a +wet sop upon the boards. + +All this I had seen many a time before. But that which made me tremble +from head to foot with more and worse than cold, was the little white +figure that danced about his bed--for all the world like a crisped leaf +in late autumn which whirls and turns, skipping this way and spinning +that in the wanton breezes. It was the Little Playmate. But I could not +form a word wherewith to call her. My tongue seemed dried to the roots. + +She had taken the red eye-mask which came across my father's face when he +did his greater duties and tied it about her head. Her great, innocent, +childish eyes looked elfishly through the black socket holes, sparkling +with a fairy merriment, and her tangled floss of sunny hair escaped from +the string at the back and fell tumultuously upon her shoulders. + +And even as I looked, standing silent and trembling, with a little +balancing step she danced up to the Red Axe itself where it stood angled +against the block, and seizing it by the handle high up near the head she +staggered towards the bed with it. + +Then came my words back to my mouth with a rush. + +"For the Holy Virgin's sake, little maid, put the Red Axe down!" I cried, +whisperingly. "You know not what you do!" + +Then even as I spoke I saw that my father had drawn himself up in bed, +and that he too was staring at the strange, elfish figure. Gottfried +Gottfried, as I remember him in these days, was a tall, dark, heavily +browed man, with a shock of bushy blue-black hair, of late silvering at +the temples--grave, sombre, quiet in all his actions. + +But what was my surprise as the little maid came nearer to the bed +with her pretty dancing movement, carrying the axe much as if it had +been an over-heavy babe, to see the Duke's Justicer suddenly skip over +the far side of the bedstead and stand with his red cloak about him, +watching her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PRINCESS HELENE + + +"What devil's work is this?" he said, frowning at her severely. + +And I confess that I trembled, but not so the little maid. + +"Do not be afraid, mannie," she said, laying down the axe on the stock of +the couch, against which its broad red blade and glass-clear cutting edge +made an irregular patch of light. "Come and sit down beside me on your +bed. I shall not hurt you indeed, mannie, and I want to talk to you. +There is nothing but a little boy down-stairs. And I like best to talk +with men." + +"I declare it is the dead man's brat I saved last night for Hugo's sake!" +I heard my father mutter, "the maid with the girdle of golden letters." + +Presently a smile of amusement struggled about his mouth at her bairnly +imperiousness, but he came obediently enough and sat down. Nevertheless +he took away the heavy axe from her and said, "Put this down, then, or +give it to me. It is not a pretty plaything for little girls!" + +The small figure in white put up a tiny fat hand, and solemnly withdrew +the red patch of mask from before the wide-open baby eyes. + +"I am not a little _girl_, remember, mannie," she said, "I am a Princess +and a great lady." + +My father bowed without rising. + +"I shall not forget," he said. + +"You should stand up and bow when I tell you that," said she. "I declare +you have no more manners than the little boy in the brown blanket +down-stairs." + +"Princess," said my father, gravely, "during my life I have met a great +many distinguished people of your rank; and, do you know, not one of them +has ever complained of my manners before." + +"Ah," cried the little maid, "then you have never met my father, the +Prince. He is terribly particular. You must go _so_" (she imitated the +mincing walk of a court chamberlain), "you must hold your tails thus" +(wagging her white nightrail and twisting about her head to watch the +effect), "and you must retire--so!" With that she came bowing backward +towards the well of the staircase, so far that I was almost afraid she +would fall plump into my arms. But she checked herself in time, and +without looking round or seeing me she tripped back to my father's +bedside and sat down quite confidingly beside him. + +"Now you see," cried she, "what you would have had to put up with if you +had met my father. Be thankful then that it is only the little Princess +Helene that is sitting here." + +"I think I had the honor to meet your father," said Gottfried Gottfried, +gravely, again removing the restless baby fingers from the Red Axe and +laying it on the far side of the couch beyond him. + +"Then, if you met him, did he not make you bow and bend and walk +backward?" asked the Playmate, looking up very sharply. + +"Well, you see, Princess," explained my father, "it was for such a very +short time that I had the honor of converse with him." + +"Ah, that does not matter," cried the maid; "often he would be most +difficult when you came running in just for a moment. Why, he would +straighten you up and make you do your bows if you were only racing +after a kitten, or, what was worse, he would call the Court Chamberlain +to show you how to do it. But when I am grown up--ah, then!--I mean to +make the Chamberlain bow and walk backward; for you know he is only +taking care of my princedom for me. Oh, and I shall have you well taught +by that time, long man. It is cold--cold. Let me get into your bed and I +will give you your first lesson now." + +So with that she skipped into my father's place and drew the great red +cloak about her. + +"Now then, first position," she commanded, clapping her hands like a +Sultana, "your feet together. Draw back your left--so. Very well! Bend +the knee--stupid, not that one. Now your head. If I have to come to you, +sir--there, that is better. Well done! Oh, I shall have a peck of trouble +with you, I can see that. But you will do me credit before I have done +with you." + +In a little while she tired of the lesson. + +"Come and sit down now"--she waved her hand graciously--"here on the bed +by me. Though I am a Princess really, I am not proud, and, as I said, I +may make something of you yet." + +My father came forward gravely, wrapped himself in another of his red +cloaks, and sat down. I shivered in my blanket on the stair-head, but I +could not bear to move nor yet reveal myself. This was better than any +play I had ever watched from the sparred gallery of the palace, to which +Gottfried Gottfried took me sometimes when the mummers came from +Brandenburg to divert Duke Casimir. + +"My father, the great Prince, took me for a long ride last night. There +was much noise and many bonfires behind us as we rode away, and some of +the men spoke roughly, for which my father will rate them soundly to-day. +Oh, they will be sick and sorry this morning when the Prince takes them +to task. I hope you will never make him angry," she said, laying her hand +warningly on my father's; "but if ever you do, come to me and I will +speak to the Prince for you. You need not be bashful, for I do not mind a +bit speaking to him, or indeed to any one. You will remember and not be +bashful when you have something to ask?" + +"I will assuredly not be bashful," said my father, very solemnly. "I will +come and tell you at once, little lady, if I ever have the misfortune to +offend the most noble Prince." + +Then he bent his head and raised her hand to his lips. She bowed in +return with exquisite reserve and hauteur; and, as it seemed to me, more +with her long eyelashes than with anything else. + +"Do you know, Black Man," she said--"for, you know, you are black, though +you wear red clothes--I am glad you are not afraid of me. At home every +one was afraid of me. Why, the little children stood with their mouths +open and their eyes like this whenever they saw me." + +And she illustrated the extremely vacant surprise into which her +appearance paralyzed the infantry of her native city. + +"I am glad my father left me here till he should come back. Do you know, +I like your house. There are so many interesting things about it. That +funny axe over there is nice. It looks as if it could cut things. Has it +ever cut anything? It is so nicely polished. How do you keep it so, and +can I help you?" + +"I had just finished polishing and oiling it before I fell asleep," +answered Gottfried Gottfried. "You see, little Princess, I had very many +things to cut with it last night." + +"What a pity the Prince had not time to wait and see you! He is so very +fond of going out into the forest with the woodman. Once he took me to +see the tallest tree in all our woods cut down with just such an axe as +that--only it was not red. Have you ever seen a high tree cut down?" + +"I have cut down some pretty tall ones myself!" said the Duke's Justicer, +smiling quietly at her. + +"Ah, but not as tall as my father! It is beautiful to see him strip +his doublet and lay to. They say there is not a woodman like him in +all our land." + +Helene looked at my father, whose arms were folded in his great cloak. + +"But you have fine strong arms too," she said. "You look as if you could +cut things. Did my father ever see you cut down tall trees?" + +"Yes," said Gottfried Gottfried, slowly, "once!" + +"And did he say that you cut well?" the little maid went on, with a +strange, wilful persistence in her idea. + +"He neither said that I did well nor yet that I did ill," replied +Gottfried Gottfried. + +"Ah!" said Helene, "that was just like the Prince. He was afraid of +flattering you and making you unfit for your work. But if he said +nothing, depend upon it he was pleased." + +"Thank you, Princess," said my father. "I think he was well enough +pleased." + +Just then there came a noise that I knew--a sound which chilled every +bone in my body. + +It was the clear ring of a steady footstep upon the pavement without. It +came heavily and slowly across the yard. The outer hasp of our door +clicked. The door opened, and the footstep began to ascend the stair. + +There was but one man in the world who dared make so free with the +Red Tower and its occupant. Our visitor was without doubt the Duke +Casimir himself. + +For the first time I saw my father manifestly disconcerted. The little +maid's life might be worth no more than a torn ballad if Duke Casimir +happened to be in evil humor or had repented him of his mercy of the +past night. I saw the Red Axe look aimlessly about for a hiding-place. +There was a niche round which certain cloaks and coverlets were hung. + +"Come in here," he said, abruptly. + +"Why should I hide, whoever comes?" asked the Little Playmate, +indignantly. + +"It is the Duke Casimir," whispered my father, hurriedly, stirred as I +had never seen him. "Come hither quickly!" + +But the little maid struck an attitude, and tapped the floor with her +foot. + +"I will not," she said. "What is the Duke Casimir to me that am a +Princess? If he is good, I will give him my hand to kiss!" + +But at this point I rushed from the ladder-head, and, taking her in my +arms, I sped up the turret stairs with her out upon the leads, my hand +over her mouth all the time. + +And as I ran I could hear the Duke trampling upward not twenty steps in +the rear. I opened the trap-door and went out into the clear morning +sunshine. And only the turn of the stair prevented Casimir from seeing me +go up the narrow turret corkscrew with my little white burden. + +Then I heard voices beneath, and I knew, as if I had seen it, that my +father stood up straight at the salute. Presently the voices lowered, and +I knew also that the Duke Casimir was unbending as he did to none else in +his realm save to the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark. + +But I had my hands full with the little Princess. I dared not go down +the stairs. I dared not for a moment take my palm off her mouth. For as +like as not she would call out for the Duke Casimir to come and deliver +her from my cruelty. So I stuck to my post, even though I knew that I +angered her. + +The morning was warm for a winter's day in Thorn, and I pulled open my +brown blanket and wrapped her coseyly within it, chilling myself to the +bone as I did so. + +It seemed ages before the Duke strode down the stair again, and took his +way across the yard, with my father, in black, after him. For so he was +used to dress when he went to the Hall of Judgment, to be present and +assist at the discovery of crime by means of the Minor and Extreme +Questions. + +Then, so soon as they were fairly gone, I took my hand from the mouth of +the Little Playmate, and carried her down-stairs; which as soon as I had +done, she slapped my face soundly. + +"I will never, never speak to you any more so long as I live, rude +boy--common street brat!" she said, biting her under-lip in ineffectual, +petulant anger. "Listen, never as long as I live! So do not think it! +Upstart, so to treat a lady and a Princess!" + +And with that she burst into tears. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BLOOD-HOUNDS ARE FED + + +But the Princess-Playmate spoke to me again. I was even permitted to call +her Helene. Me she addressed uniformly as "Hugo Gottfried." But neither +her name nor mine interfered with our plays, which were wholly happy and +undisturbed by quarrelling--at least, so long as I did exactly what she +wished me to do. + +On these terms life was made easy for me from that day forth. No longer +did I wistfully watch the children of the street from the lonely window +of the Red Tower. They might spit all day on the harled masonry at the +foot of the wall for aught I cared. I no longer desired their society. +Had I not that of a real Princess, and if my companion was inclined to be +a little wayward and domineering--why, was not that the very birthright +of all Princesses? + +Helene and I had great choice of plays within the walls of the solemn +castle. So long as we kept to the outer yard and did not intrude upon the +Duke's side of the enclosure, we were free to come and go at our +pleasure. For even Casimir himself was soon well accustomed to see us run +about like puppies, slapping and tumbling, and minded us no more than the +sparrows that pecked in the litter of the stable-yard. Indeed, I think he +had forgotten all about the strange home-coming of the Little Playmate. + +The kennels of the blood-hounds especially were full of fascination for +us. That fatal deep-mouthed clamoring at morn and even drew us like a +magnet. Helene, in particular, never tired of gazing between the chinks +of the fence of cloven pine-wood at the great russet-colored beasts with +their flashing white teeth, over which the heavy dewlaps fell. And when +my father, with his red livery upon him and a loaded whip in his hand, +once a day opened the tall, narrow door and went within, we thought him +brave as a god. Then the way the fierce beasts shrank cowering from him, +the fashion in which they crouched on their bellies and heaved their +shoulders up without taking their hind quarters off the ground, equally +delighted and surprised us. + +"Your father is almost as great a man as _my_ father," said the Princess +Helene, who, however, was rapidly forgetting her dignity. Indeed, +already it had become little more than a fairy-tale to her. And that was +perhaps as well. + +One day, when I was about thirteen, or a little older, my father came out +with a new short mantle in his hand, red like his own. + +"Come hither, Hugo Gottfried!" he said, for he had learned the trick of +the name from Helene. + +I went to him tardy-foot, greatly wondering. + +"Here, chick," he said, in his kindly fashion, "it is time you were +beginning to learn your duties. Come with me to-day into the kennels of +the blood-hounds." + +But I hung back, shifting the new mantle uneasily on my shoulders, yet +not daring to throw it off. + +"I do not want to go, father," said I, edging away in the direction of +the Playmate. + +"What, lad!" he cried, slapping me on the shoulder; "they will not hurt +thee with that cloak on. They know their masters better--as their fathers +and mothers knew our fathers. Have we, the Gottfrieds, been the +Hereditary Justicers of the Wolfmark for six hundred years to be afraid +now of the blood-hounds that are kept to hunt the Duke's enemies and to +feed on the Duke's carrion?" + +"It is not that I am afraid of the dogs, father," I made answer to him. +"I would quickly enough go among them, if only you would let me go +without this scarlet cloak." + +My father laughed heartily and loudly--that is, for him. A quick ear +might have heard him quite three feet away. + +"Silly one!" he exclaimed, "do you not know that even the Duke Casimir +dares not set foot in the kennels--no, nor I myself, save in the garb +they know and fear--as indeed do all men in this state." + +Still I hung my head down and scraped the gravel with my foot. + +"Haste thee," said my father, roughly. "Once it is permitted to a man to +be afraid; to fear twice, and fear the same thing, is to be a coward. And +no Gottfried ever yet was a coward. Let not my Hugo be the first." + +Then I took courage and spoke to him. + +"I do not wish to be executioner," I said; "I would rather ride +a-soldiering far away, and be in the drive of battle and the front of +danger. Let me be a soldier and a man-at-arms, my father. I am sure I +could become a war-captain and a great man!" + +Gottfried Gottfried stared blankly at me, and his blue-black hair rose in +a crest--not with anger, of which he never showed any to me, but in sheer +astonishment. He continued to rub it with his hand, as if in this manner +he might possibly reach an explanation of the mystery. + +"Not wish to be Hereditary Executioner? Why, are you not a Gottfried, the +only son of a Gottfried, the only son of his father, who also was a +Gottfried and Hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark? Why, lad, before there +was a Duke at all in the Wolfsberg, before he and his folk came out of +the land of the Poles to fight with the Ritterdom of the North, we, the +Gottfrieds of Thorn, wore the sign of the Red Axe and dwelt apart from +all the men of the Mark. For fourteen generations have we worn it!" + +"But," said I, sadly, "the very children on the street hate me and spit +on me as I pass; the maids will not so much as speak to me. They scyrry +in-doors and slam the wicket in my face. Think you that is pleasant? And +when as a lad of older years I set out to woo, whither shall I betake me? +For what door is open to a Gottfried, to him who carries the sign of +the Red Axe?" + +"Ah, lad," said my father, patiently, "life comes and life goes. It is +nigh on to forty years since even thus my father held out the curt mantle +for me. And even so said I. Time eats up all things but the hearts of +men. And they abide ever the same--yearning for that which they cannot +have, but nevertheless accepting with a sharp relish the things which are +decreed to them; even as do the Duke's carrion-eaters yonder, which, +by-the-way, are waiting most impatiently for their meal while we thus +stand arguing." + +He was about to move away when his eye fell on Helene. At sight of her he +seemed to remember my last words, about going a-wooing. + +He considered a moment and then said: "You are young yet to think of +courting, Hugo, but have no fear either for the love-making or the +wedding. Sweet maids a many shall surely come hither. Why, there is one +growing up yonder that will prove as fair as any. I tell you the +Gottfrieds have married great ladies in their time--dames and dainty +damsels. They have had princesses to be their sweethearts ere now. Come, +then, lad--no more words, but follow me." + +And for that time I went after him obediently enough, but all the same my +heart was rebellious within me. And I determined that if I had to ran to +the ends of the earth, I should never be Hereditary Executioner nor yet +handle the broadaxe on the bared necks of my fellow-men. + +We went in among the dogs--great, lank, cowering, tooth-slavering brutes. +I followed my father till we came to the feeding-troughs. Then he bade me +to stand where I was till he should set their meat in order. So he +vanished behind, the barriers. Then, when he had prepared the beasts' +horrid victual, though I saw not what, he opened the narrow gate, and the +howling, clambering throng broke helter-skelter for the troughs, cracking +and crunching the thigh-bones, tearing at the flesh, and growling at one +another till the air rang with the ear-piercing din. + +And outside the little Helene flung herself frantically at the split +pines of the enclosure, crying, bitterly, "Take off that hateful mantle, +Hugo Gottfried! I hate it--I hate it! Take it off!" + +My father stood behind the dogs, whose arched and bristling backs I could +just manage to see over the fence of wooden spars, and dealt the whip +judicially among them--at once as a warning to encroachers and a +punishment for greed. + +Then all unharmed we went out, and as soon as my father had gone up to +his garret-room in the tower, I tore the red cloak off and trampled it in +the dirt of the yard. Then I went and hid it in a little blind window of +the tower opposite the foot of the ladder which led to my father's room. +For, because of my father's anger, I dared not destroy the badge of shame +altogether, as both Helene and I wished to do. + +Day by day the Little Playmate (for so I was now allowed to call her--the +Princesshood being mostly forgotten) grew great and tall, her fair, +almost lint-white hair darkening swiftly to coppery gold with the glint +of ripe wheat upon it. + +Old Hanne followed her about with eyes at once wistful and doubtful. +Sometimes she shook her head sadly. And I wondered if ever the poor old +stumbling crone, wizened like a two-year-old winter apple, had been as +light and gay a thing as our dainty rose-leaf girl. + +One day I was laboring at the art of learning to write, along with Friar +Laurence--a scrawny, ill-favored monk, who, for good deeds or misdeeds, I +know not which, was warded in a cell opening out of the lower or garden +court of the Wolfsberg, when I heard Helene dance down the stairs to the +kitchen of the Red Tower. + +"Hannchen!" she cried, merrily, "come and teach me that trick of the +broidering needle. I never can do it but I prick myself. Nevertheless, +I can fashion the Red Axe almost as clearly as the pattern, and far +finer to see." + +Friar Laurence raised his great, softly solid face, blue about the jowls +and padded beneath the eyes with craft. + +"That little maid is over much with old Hanne," he said, as if he +meditated to himself; "she will teach her other prickings than the +needle-play. The witch-pricking at the images of wax was what brought her +here. Aye, and had it not been for your father wanting a house-keeper, +the Holy Office would have burned the hag, and sent her to hell, flaming +like a torch of pine knots." + +Now this was the first I had heard with exactness of the matter of old +Hanne's having been a witch. And now that I knew it for certain I began +to imagine all sorts of unholy things about the poor wretch, and grew +greatly jealous of Helene being so often in the kitchen. Whereas before I +had thought nothing at all about the matter, save that Hannchen was a +dull, pleasant, muttering, shuffling-footed old woman, who could make +rare good cream-cakes when you got her in the humor. + +And that was not often. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR + + +I mind it was some tale of years later that I got my first glimpse below +the surface of things in the town of Thorn, and especially in the castle +of the Wolfsberg. + +Duke Casimir continued to move, as of yore, in cavalcade through +his subject city. The burghers bowed as obsequiously as ever when +they could not avoid meeting him. There were the old lordly +perquisitions--thunderings at iron-studded doors, battering-rams set +between posts, and the clouds of dust flying from the driven lintels, the +screams of maids, the crying of women, a stray corpse or two flung on to +the street, and then the procession as before, arms and legs, with a +mercenary soldier between each pair, fore and aft. All this was repeated +and repeated, till the dull monotony of tyranny began to wear through the +long Teutonic patience to the under-quick of Wendish madness. + +It chanced that one night I could not sleep. It was no matter of maids +that kept me awake, though by this time I was sixteen or seventeen and +greatly grown--running, it is true, mostly to knees and elbows, but +nevertheless long of limb and stark of bone, needing only the muscle laid +on in lumps to be as strong as any. + +I had begun to steal out at nights too--not on any ill errand, but that I +might have the company of those about my own age--'prentice lads and the +wilder sons of burghers, who had no objection to my parentage, and +thought it rather a fine thing to be hand-in-glove with the son of the +Red Axe of Thorn. And there we played single-stick, smite-jacket, +skittles, bowls--aye, and drank deep of the city ale--the very thinnest +brew that was ever passed by a bribed and muzzy ale-taster. All this was +mightily pleasant to me. For so soon as they knew that I had determined +to be a soldier, and not the Red Axe of the Wolfmark, they complimented +me greatly on my spirit. + +Well, as I lay awake and waited for the chance to slip down a rope from +my bedroom window, whose foot should I hear on the turret stairs but that +of my Lord Duke Casimir! My very heart quailed within me. For the fear of +him sat heavy on every man and woman in the land. And as for the +children--why, as far as the Baltic shore and the land of the last +Ritters, mothers frightened their bairns with the Black Duke of the +Wolfsberg and his Red Axe. + +So now the Duke and the Red Axe were to be in conference--as indeed had +happened nearly every day and night since I could remember. So that +people called my father the Duke's Private Devil, his Familiar Spirit, +his Evil Genius. But I knew other of it--and this night, of all nights in +the year, I was to know better still. + +It was a summer midnight--not like the one I told of when the story +began, white with snow and glittering with the keen polish of frost. But +a soft, still night, drowsy yet sleepless, with an itch of thunder +tingling in the air--and, indeed, already the pulsing, uncertain glow of +sheet-lightning coming and going at long intervals along the south. + +I crouched and nestled in the hole in the wall where I had long ago +hidden the hated red cloak, pulling my knees up uncomfortably to my chin. +And great lumps of bone they were, knotted as if a smith had made them in +the rough with a welding hammer and had forgotten to reduce them with the +file afterwards. At that time I was thoroughly ashamed of my knees. + +But no matter for them now. Duke Casimir passed in and shut the door. + +"Gottfried," I heard him say, "I am a dead man!" + +These words from the great Duke Casimir startled me, and though I knew +well enough that Michael Texel, the Burgomeister's son, was waiting for +me by the corner of the Jew's Port, I decided that, as I might never hear +Duke Casimir declare his secretest soul again, I should even bide where I +was; and that was in the crevice of the wall among the old clothes, which +gave off such a faint, musty, sleepy smell I could scarcely keep awake. + +But the Duke's next words effectually roused me. + +"A dead man!" repeated Casimir. "I have not a friend in all the realm of +the Mark besides yourself. And there is none of all that take my bounty +or eat my bread that is sorry for me. See here," he said, querulously, +"twice have I been stricken at to-day--once a tile fell from a roof and +dinted the crown of my helmet, and the second time a young man struck at +my breast with a dagger." + +"Did he wound you, Duke Casimir?" asked my father, speaking for the first +time, but in a strangely easy and equal voice, not with the distance and +deference which he showed to his lord in public. + +"Nay, Gottfried," replied Duke Casimir; "but he bruised my shirt of mail +into my breast." + +And I heard plainly enough the clinking of the rings of chain-armor as +the Duke showed his hurt to my father. Presently I heard his voice again. + +"And the Bishop has touched me in a new place," he said. "He declares +that he will lay his interdict upon me and my people--ill enough to hold +in hand as they are even now. When that is done they will rise in +rebellion. My very men-at-arms and knights I cannot depend upon--only +upon you and the Black Riders." + +"In the matter of the Bishop's interdict, or in other matters, do you +mean that you can trust my counsel, Duke Casimir?" asked my father. + +"'Tis in the burial of the dead that the shoe will pinch first with these +burghers of Thorn and among our soldiers at the Wolfsberg. For mass, +indeed, they care not a dove's dropping--but that the corpse should be +carried to a dog's grave, that they cannot away with. Red Axe, I tell you +we shall have the State of the Mark about our ears in the slipping of a +hound's leash--and as for me, I know not what I shall do." + +"Listen, and I will counsel you, Duke Casimir! Care you not though the +east wind brought Bishop Peters whirling over the Mark, as many as the +January snowflakes that come to us from Muscovy. I, Gottfried Gottfried, +tell you what to do. In every parish of the Mark there is a parson. Every +clerk of them hath a Presbytery, in which he dwells with those that are +abiding with him. Bid you the soldiers that are obedient to you to carry +all the corpses of the dead to the Presbytery, and leave them there under +guard. Then let us see whether or no the parsons will give them burial. +What think you of the counsel, Duke Casimir?" + +I could hear the Duke rise and pace across the floor to where my +father sat on his bed. And by the silence I knew that the two men were +shaking hands. + +"Red Axe," said the Duke, much moved, "of a truth you are a great +man--none like you in the Dukedom. These beard-wagging, chain-jingling +gentry I have small notion of. And would you but accept it, I would give +you to-morrow the collar of gold which befits the Chancellor of the Mark. +None deserves to wear it so well as thou." + +My father laughed a low scornful laugh. + +"Because I bid you teach the parsons their own religion, am I to be made +Chancellor of the Mark? A great gray wolf out of the forest were as +suitable a Chancellor of the Mark as Gottfried Gottfried, the fourteenth +hereditary Red Axe of Thorn!" + +Then I heard him reach over his bed for something. I stole out of the +hole in the wall and crouched down till my eyes rested at the great +latchet hole through which the tang of leather to lift the bolt +ordinarily goes. I could see my father sitting on his bed and the Red +Axe lying across his knees. He took it in hand, dangling it like an +infant. He caressed it as he spoke, and ran his thumb lovingly along the +shining edge. + +"Ah," he said, "my beauty, 'tis you and not your master they should make +High Chancellor of this realm. 'Tis you that have held the power of life +and death, and laid the spirit of rebellion any time these twenty years. +And well indeed wouldst thou look with a red robe about thee" (here he +reached for a cloak that swung from the rafters contiguous to his hand); +"a noble presence wouldst thou be in a tun-bellied robe and a collar of +shining gold! Bravely, great State's Chancellor of the Wolfmark, wouldst +thou then lead the processions and preside at the diets of justice--as +indeed thou dost mostly as it is." + +And he made the Red Axe bow like a puppet in his hands as he swept the +cloak of red out behind the handle. + +I could see Duke Casimir now. He had drawn up a stool and sat opposite my +father, with his elbows on his knees. One hand was stroking the side of +his head, and his haughtiness had all fallen from him like a forgotten +overmantle. He looked another man from the cruel, relentless Prince who +had ridden so sternly at the head of his men-at-arms and looked so +callously on at the death of men and the yet more bitter agony of women. + +He stared at the floor, absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, while my +father regarded him with his eyes as though he had been a lad in his +'prenticing who needed encouragement to persevere. + +"Duke," he said, steadily, "you have borne the rule many years, and I +have stood behind you. Have I ever advised you wrong? Make peace with the +young man, your nephew; he is now only the Count von Reuss, but one day +he will be Duke Otho. And if he be rightly guided he may be a brave ruler +yet. But if not, and he gather in his hand the various seditions and +confused turbulences in the Dukedom, why, a worse thing may befall." + +"You advise me," said the Duke, lifting his head and looking at his +Justicer, "to recall my nephew and risk all that threatened us ere he +fled to the Prince of Plassenburg--Karl, the Miller's Son." + +Gottfried Gottfried continued to run his thumb to and fro along the edge +of the Red Axe. + +"Even so," he replied, without raising his head; "give him the command of +the Black Riders of the Guard, who, as it is, adore him. Let him try his +'prentice hand on Bamberg and Reichenan. And if he offend, why, then it +will be time to apply for further advice to this chancellor in the Red +Robe, whose face so shines with wisdom." + +The Duke rose. + +"Well, on your head be it!" he said. + +"Nay," said my father, "I but advise, it is for you to decide, my Lord. +If Duke Casimir sees a better way of it, why, then the words of his +servant are but as the tunes that the east wind whistles through the +key-hole." + +And at the mention of key-holes I imagined that I saw my father's eyes +rest on the latchet crevice. So I bethought me that it was time for me to +be retiring to bed. To my room, therefore, I went straightway, tiptoeing +on the points of my hose. And with ears cocked I heard my father attend +the Duke to the door, and on across the yard, lest any night-wandering +traitor should take a fancy to make a hole in the back of Duke Casimir of +the Wolfmark. + +Presently came my father in again, and I heard his foot climb steadily +up to my room. The door opened, and never was I in so deep a sleep. He +turned down the coverlet to see that I was undressed--but that I had seen +to. Whereat he departed fully satisfied. + +Nevertheless this interview left me with a great feeling of insecurity. +If the Duke Casimir were thus full of fears, doubts, misgivings, whence +came the fierce and cruel courage with which he dominated his liege +burghers and harassed the country round about for a hundred leagues? The +cunning of a weak man? Say, rather, the contrivance of a strong servant +to hide the frailty of a weak master. + +Then first it was that I saw that my father Gottfried Gottfried was the +true ruler of the Wolfmark, and that the man who had carried me on his +shoulders and played with the little Helene was--at least, so long as +Duke Casimir lived--the greatest man in all the Dukedom and first +Councillor of State, whether the matter were one of peasant or Kaiser. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +I BECOME A TRAITOR + + +Much was I flattered, and very naturally so, when Michael Texel made so +manifest a work about pleasing me and having me for his comrade. For +though I was now nineteen, he was five years my senior, and his father, +being both Burgomeister and Chief Brewer, was of the first consideration +in the town of Thorn. + +"Hugo," said Michael Texel, "there be many lads in the city that are +well, and well enough, but none of them please me like you. It may be +that your keeping so greatly to yourself has made you passing thoughtful +for your age. And whereas these street-corner scraps of rascaldom care +for nothing but the pleasing of pothouse Gretchens, we that are men think +of the concerns of the State, and make us ready for the great things that +shall one day come to pass in Thorn and the Wolfmark." + +I nodded my head as if I knew all about it. But, indeed, in my heart, I +too preferred the way of the other lads--as the favor of maids, and other +lighter matters. But since one so great and distinguished as Michael +Texel declared that such things were but useless gauds, unworthy of +thought, I considered that I had better keep my tongue tight-reined as to +my own desires. + +I shall now tell the manner of my introduction to the famous society of +the White Wolf. + +From the very first time that ever I saw him, Michael Texel had much to +say about a certain wondrous league of the young men of Thorn and the +Wolfmark. He told me how that every man with a heart in him was +enrolled among them: the sons of the rich and great, like himself; the +sons of the folk of no account (like myself, doubtless); the soldiers of +the Duke--nay, it was whispered very low in my ear, that even the young +Count Otho von Reuss, the Duke's nephew and heir, had taken high rank in +the society. + +I asked Michael what were the declared objects of the association. + +"See," he cried, grandly, with a wave of his hand, "this city of Thorn. +It lies there under the Wolfsberg. With a few cannon like Paul Grete, the +Margrave's treasure, Duke Casimir could lay our houses in ruins. +Therefore, in the meantime, let us not break out against Duke Casimir. +But one day there will come an end to the tyrant Duke. Tiles will not +always break harmless on helmets, nor the point of steel always be turned +aside by links of chain-armor. As I say, an hour will come for Casimir as +for other malefactors. And then--why, there is the young Otho. And he has +sworn the vows of the White Wolf to make of Thorn a free city with a +Stadtholder--one with power and justice, chosen freely by the people, as +in other Baltic cities. Is there a man of us that has not been +plundered?--a maid that does not go in fear of her honor while Casimir +reigns? Shall this thing be? Not surely forever. The White Wolf shall see +to it. She has many children, and they are all dear to her. Let the Duke +Casimir take his count with that!" + +So, as was natural, I became after that more than ever eager to join this +most notable league of the White Wolf. + +One night I had sat late talking to the Little Playmate, who was now +growing a great maid and a beautiful--none like her, so far as I could +see, in all the city of Thorn--a circumstance which made me more ready to +be of Michael Texel's opinion with regard to any flighty and +irresponsible courting of the maids of the town. For had I not the +fairest and the best of them all at home close by me? On this night of +which I speak it was almost bedtime when I heard a knocking at the outer +port, and went to open the wicket. + +And lo! there was Michael Texel come all the way to the Red Tower for me, +though it was by his own trysting that we had agreed to meet at the inn +of the White Swan. Nevertheless there he was. So there was nothing for it +but to bring him in. I presented him in form to the Little Playmate, who +had quite forgotten her Princess-ship by this time in the sweetness of +being our house-angel of the Red Tower. + +I saw in a moment that Michael Texel was astonished at Helene's beauty, +as indeed well he might be. But she, on her part, hardly so much as +glanced at him, though he was a tall and well-grown youth enough, with +nothing remarkable about him save pale hair of much the same color as his +complexion, and a cut on one side of his upper lip which in certain +lights gave him a sneering expression. + +But to Helene he spoke very carefully and courteously, asking her whether +she ever went to any of the Guild entertainments for which Thorn was +famous. And upon her saying no--that my father did not think it fitting, +Michael said, "I was sure of it; none could forget if once they had seen. +For never in the history of Thorn has so fair a face graced Burgher dance +or Guild festival, nor yet has a foot so light been shaken on the green +in any of our summer outgoings." + +Now this was well enough said in its way, but only what I myself had +often thought. Not that the Playmate took any notice of his words or was +in any degree elated, but kept her head bent demurely on her work all the +time Michael Texel was with us. + +Presently there entered to us, thus sitting, Gottfried Gottfried, who +had come striding gloomily across the yard in his black suit from the +Hall of Judgment, and at his entrance Michael instantly became awkward, +nervous, and constrained. + +"I must be going," he said; "the Burgomeister bade me be early within +doors to-night." + +"Is the noble Burgomeister lodging at the White Swan?" asked my father, +with his usual simple directness, as he went hither and thither ordering +his utensils without heeding the visitor. + +"No," said Michael, startled out of his equanimity; "he bides in his own +house by the Rath-house--the sign is that of the Three Golden Tuns." + +The Red Axe nodded. + +"I had forgotten," he said, indifferently, and stood by the great +polished platter-frame over the sideboard, dropping oil on the screws of +a certain cunning instrument which he was wont to use in the elucidation +of the Greater Question. + +I could see Michael turning yellow and green, but whether with anger or +fear I could not tell. Helene, who loved not the tools of my father, had, +upon his entrance, promptly gathered up her white cobwebs and lace, and +had betaken herself to her own room. + +"I must be bidding you a fortunate evening and wishing you an untroubled +sleep," said Michael, with studious politeness, rising to his feet. Yet +he did not immediately move away, but stood awkwardly fingering his hat, +as if he wished to ask a question and dared not. + +"It is indeed a fine place for a sound sleep," said my father, nodding +his head grimly, "this same upper courtyard of the Wolfsberg. There are +few that have once slept here, my noble young sir, who have ever again +complained of wakefulness." + +At this moment the hounds in the kennels raised their fierce clamor. And, +without waiting for another word, Michael Texel took himself off down +the stairs of the Red Tower. Nor did he regain his composure till I had +opened the wicket and ushered him out upon the street. + +Then, as the postern clicked and the familiar noises of the city fell on +his ear--the slapping flat-footed lasses crying "Fried Fish," the sellers +of "Hot Oyster Soup," the yelling venders of crout and salad--Michael +gradually picked up his courage, and we proceeded down the High Street of +Thorn to the retired hostel of the White Swan. + +"Frederika," he cried, as he entered, "are the lads here yet?" + +"Aye, sir, aye--a full muster," answered the old mild-faced hostess, who +was busily employed knitting a stocking of pale blue in the porch, +looking for all the world like the sainted mother of a family of saints. + +Michael Texel walked straight through a passage and down a narrow +alley, the beautiful apple-cheeked old woman following us with her eyes +as we went. + +Our feet rang suddenly on hollow pavement as we stooped to enter a low +door in the side wall, almost concealed from observation by an +overgrowth of ivy. + +"Halt!" cried a voice from the dusk ahead of us, and instantly there was +a naked sword at each of our breasts. We heard also the click of swords +meeting behind us. I turned my head, and lo! there at my very shoulder I +saw the gleam of crossed steel. My heart beat a little faster; but, after +all, I had been brought up with sights and sounds more terrible than +these, and, more than that, I had within the hour seen Michael Texel, the +high-priest of these mysteries, turn all manner of rainbow colors at the +howling of our blood-hounds and a simple question from my father. So I +judged that these mighty terrifications could portend no great ill to one +who was the son of the formidable Red Axe of the Wolfsberg. + +Sometimes it is a mighty comfortable thing to have a father like mine. + +I did not hear the question which was asked of my guide, but I heard +the answer. + +"First in charge," said Michael Texel, "and with him one of the +Wolf's litter." + +So we were allowed to proceed. But in the bare room which received us I +was soon left alone, for, with another question as briefly asked and +answered, the click of swords crossed and uncrossed before and behind +him, and the screechy grind of bolts, Michael passed out of sight within. +While as for me, I was left to twirl my thumbs, and wish that I had +stayed at home to watch the nimble fingers of the Playmate busy at her +sewing, and the rounded slenderness of her sweet body set against the +light of evening, which would at that hour be shining through the windows +of the Red Tower. + +Nevertheless, it was no use repining or repenting. Here was I, Hugo +Gottfried, the son of the Red Axe, at the inner port of a treasonable +society. It was certainly a curious position; but even thus early I had +begun to consider myself a sort of amateur of strange situations, and I +admit that I found a certain stimulus in the thought that in an hour I +might have ceased to be heir to the office of Hereditary Justicer of the +ducal province of the Wolfmark. + +Presently through the door there came one clothed in the long white +garments of a Brother of Pity, the eye-holes dark and cavernous, and the +eyes shining through the mask with a look as if the wearer were much more +frightened than those who looked upon him. + +"Child of the White Wolf," he said, in a shaking voice, "would you dare +all and become one of the companions of the mysteries?" + +But the accent of his voice struck me, the son of Gottfried Gottfried, +the dweller in the enclosure of the Red Tower, as painfully hollow and +pretentious. I had looked upon real terror, even plumbed some of the +grimmer mysteries of existence, and I had no fears. On the contrary, my +spirits rose, and I declared my readiness to follow this paltering, +knock-kneed Brother of Pity. + +We stopped and went through another narrow passage, in the midst of which +we were stayed by thin bars, which were shot before and behind us, and by +a cold point of iron laid lightly against my brow. In this constrained +position my eyes were bandaged by unseen fingers. + +The starveling Brother of the Wolf took me by the hand and led me on. +Then in another moment came the sense of lights and wider spaces, the +rustle of many people settling down to attention; and I knew that I was +in the presence of the famous secret tribunal of the White Wolf, which +had been set up in defiance of the authority of the Duke and against the +laws of the Mark. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AT THE BAR OF THE WHITE WOLF + + +"Who waits at the bar with you, brother?" said a voice which, though +disguised, carried with it a suggestion of Michael Texel. + +The announcement was made by the officer who brought me in. + +"'Tis one Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, hereditary +executioner to the tyrant." + +I could hear the thrill of interest which pervaded the assembly at the +announcement. And for the first time I thought almost well of the +honorable office to which I had been born. + +"And what do you here, son of the Red Axe, in the place of the Sacred +Fehme of the White Wolf?" + +The question was the first addressed directly to me. + +"I came," said I, as straightforwardly and simply as I could, "with +Michael Texel, because he asked me to come. And also because I heard that +there was good ale to be had for the drinking at the White Swan of Thorn, +where we are now met." + +A low moan of horror went about the assembly at the frivolity of my +answer, which plainly was not what had been expected. + +"Daring mocker!" cried a stern voice, "you speak as one unacquainted with +the dread power of the White Wolf, which has within her grasp the keys of +life and death--and has suckled great empires at her dugs. Beware, tempt +not the All-powerful to exercise her right of axe and cord!" + +"I do not tempt any," answered I, boldly enough--yet with no credit to +myself, for I could have laughed aloud at all this hollow pretence, +having been brought up within the range of that which was no mockery. "I +am willing to become a loyal member of the Society of the White Wolf for +the furtherance of any honest purpose. All things, I admit, are not well +within the body politic. Let us, in the city of Thorn, strive after the +same rights as are possessed by the Free Cities of the North. If that be +your object, the son of the Red Axe is with you--with you to the death, +if need be. But for God's sake let us take off these masks and set +ourselves down to the tankard and the good brown bread with less +mummery--a sham of which others have the reality." + +"Peace, vain, ignorant fly!" cried the same speaker, one with a young +voice, which he was trying, as I thought, to make grave and old; "terror +must first strike your heart, or you cannot sit down with the Society of +the White Wolf. You stand convicted of blasphemy against this our ancient +and honorable institution--blasphemy which must be suddenly and terribly +punished. Hugo Gottfried, I command you--make your head ready for the +striker. Bare the neck and bow the knee!" + +But I stood as erect as I could, though I felt hands laid upon my +shoulders and the breathing of many close about me. + +"Knights and gentlemen," said I, "I am not afraid to die, if need be. But +ere you do your will upon me, I would fain tell you a tale and give you a +warning. Here I am one among many. I am also of your opinion, if your +opinion be against tyranny. But for God's sake seek it as wise men and +not as posturing knaves. As for Michael Texel--" + +"Name not the mortal names of men in this place of the White Wolf!" said +the same grave voice. + +At which I laughed a little. + +"If you will tell me what to say instead in the language of the +immortals, I will call my friend by that name. Till then Michael +Texel, I say--" + +I was pulled by force down upon my knees. + +"Your pleasure, gentlemen," said I, as coolly as I might; "you may do +with me as you will, but give me at least leave to speak. Your meetings +here at the White Swan are known to the Red Axe, my father, and therefore +to the Duke Casimir." + +A low groan filled the wide hall. I could feel that my words touched them +on the raw. + +"Also this very night I saw one of your noblest members tremble with +alarm--for the Society, not for himself, I warrant--when Gottfried +Gottfried spake lightly of your meetings here as of a thing well known. +I am not afraid of my life. In the sight of my father I went forth from +the Red Tower in the company of Michael Texel. He knew of your place of +meeting. And well I wot that if I am not within the precincts of the +Red Tower by midnight, the officers of Duke Casimir and his Judgment +Hall will come knocking at these doors of yours. I ask you, are you +ready to open?" + +"Rash mortal!" said the voice again to me, "you mistake the White Wolf if +you think that she or her children are afraid of any tyrant or of his +officers. You yourself shall die, as has been appointed. For none may +speak lightly of the White Wolf and live to tell the tale!" + +"So be it," I replied, calmly; "but first let me recount to you the story +of Hans Pulitz. Not for the hiding of a belt of gold, as men say, was he +condemned. But because he had plotted against the life of the Duke and of +his minister of justice, the Red Axe. Would you know what happened? I +will tell you briefly: + +"Ten men, accounted strong, held Hans Pulitz. Ten men could scarce lead +him through the court-yard to the chair on which sat Duke Casimir. I saw +him judged. Was he not of the White Wolf? Did the White Wolf save him? +Have her teeth ravened for those that condemned him? Or have you that are +of that noble society kept close in your halls and played out your puppet +shows, while poor Hans, who was faithful to you to the end, +went--whither?" + +A sough of angry whispering filled the room, rising presently into a roar +of indignation. + +"Traitor! Murderer! Spy!" they cried. + +"Nay," said I, "'fore God, Hugo Gottfried was more sorry for the poor +deceived slave than any here. For, in the presence of the Duke, I cried +out against the horror. But being no more than a boy, I was stricken to +silence by the hand of a man-at-arms. Then I saw Hans Pulitz cast loose. +I saw him seized by one man--even by the Red Axe--raised high in the air, +and flung over the barriers among the ravening and leaping blood-hounds. +I heard the hideous noises that followed--the yells of a man fighting for +his life in a place of fiends. I shut my ears with my hands, yet could I +not shut out that clangor of hell. I shut my eyes, closer than you have +shut them for me now. I fled, I knew not where, terror pursuing me. And +yet I saw, and do now see, the Duke sitting with crossed hands as if at +prayers, and the Red Axe standing motionless before the men-at-arms, +pointing with one hand to the Duke's vengeance! Shall I tell you now why +I am not afraid?" + +After hearing these words it was small wonder that they cried yet more +against me. + +"Death to the traitor--bloody death--like that which he has rejoiced in!" + +"Nay, my friends," said I, "it was because of the death of Hans Pulitz +and that of others that I would strengthen the hands of liberty and make +an end of tyranny. But not, an' it please you, with child's plays and the +cast-off garmentry of tyrants. What can you do to me in the Inn of the +Swan that can equal the end of poor Hans Pulitz--of whom they found +neither bone nor hair, took up no fragment of skin or nail, save the +golden chain only, tooth-scarred and beslavered, which he wore about his +waist. And the belt you may see for yourselves any day if you give me +your company within the Red Tower." + +Now, as may well be understood, if the Society of the White Wolf was +angry before, it was both angry and frightened now, which is a thing +infinitely more dangerous. + +"Let him die straightway! Let the taunting blasphemer die!" they cried. +And again, for the third time, the hollow voice pronounced my doom. + +"It is well," I shouted amid the din. "It is thrice well. But look ye to +it. By the morrow's morn there shall not be one of you in your +beds--aye, and those whose heads are rolled in the dust shall count +yourselves the fortunate ones. For they at least will escape the fate of +poor Hans Pulitz." + +Now sorely do I wonder, at this distance of time, that they did not slay +me in good earnest. But I have learned from that night in the Inn of the +Swan that when defiance has to be made, it is ever best to deal in no +half-measures. And, besides, coming from the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg, +their precious Society of the White Wolf, with its mummery and flummery, +filled me with a hot contempt. + +"Kneel down!" cried the judge; "lay your head on the block! It has often +been wet with the blood of traitors, never with that of a blacker traitor +than Hugo Gottfried!" + +So with that those about me thrust me forward and forced my head down. I +was obliged to clasp the block with both my hands. As I did so I felt it +well all over. Then I laughed aloud, with a laugh that must have appeared +strange and mad to them. + +For this their mock tribunal could not deceive one who had been brought +up within the hum of judges of life and death, and with a father who as +his daily business propounded the Greater and Lesser Questions. And their +precious block, as smooth as sawn and polished timber, with never a notch +from side to side, could not take in Hugo Gottfried, who had made a +playmate and a printed book of the worn blocks of a hundred +executions--to whom each separate chip made by the Red Axe had been a +text for Gottfried Gottfried to expatiate upon concerning his own prowess +and that of his fathers. + +Nevertheless, it certainly gave me a strange turn when ice-cold steel was +laid across my neck-bone. It burned like fire, turning my very marrow to +water, and for the first time I wished myself well out of it. But only +for a moment. + +For there came a loud rattling of arms without, a thunderous and +insistent knocking at the door, which disturbed the assembly. + +"Open, in the name of the Duke!" cried, clamorously, many fierce voices +without. I heard the rush and scuffle of a multitude of feet. The hands +that had held me abruptly loosened their grip, and I was free. I raised +my bound wrists to my brow and tried to push the bandage back. But it was +firmly tied, and it was but dimly that I saw the hall of the White Wolf +filled with the armed men of the Duke's body-guard, boisterously +laughing, with their hands on their sides, or kicking over the mock +throne covered with white cloth, the coils of rope, the axes of painted +wood, and the other properties of this very faint-hearted Fehmgericht. + +"But what have we here?" they cried, when they came upon me, bound and +helpless, with the bandage only half pushed off my eyes. + +"Heave him up on his pins, and let us look at him," quoth a burly +guardsman. "I trust he is no one of any account. I want not to see +another such job done on a poor scheming knave like that last, when the +Duke Casimir settled accounts with Hans Pulitz!" + +"Ha! ha!" laughed his companion; "a rare jest, i' faith; 'tis the son of +our own Red Axe--a prisoner of the White Wolf and ready for the edge. We +came not a moment too soon, youngster. What do you here?" + +"Why," said I, "it chanced that I spoke slightingly of their precious +nonsense of a White Wolf. But they dared not do me harm. They were all +more frightened than a giggling maiden is of the dark, when no man is +with her." + +Then I saw my father at the end of the hall. He came towards me, clad in +his black Tribunal costume. + +"Well," he said, quaintly, like one that has a jest with himself +which he will not tell, "have you had enough of marching +hand-in-glove with treason? I wot this mummery of the White Wolf will +serve you for some time." + +I was proceeding to tell him all that had passed, but he patted me on +the shoulder. + +"I heard it all, lad, and you did well enough--save for your windiness +about liberty and the Free Cities--which, as I see it, are by far the +worst tyrannies. But, after all, you spoke as became a Gottfried, and one +day, I doubt not, you shall worthily learn the secrets, bear the burden, +and enlarge the honors of the fourteen Red Axes of the Wolfmark." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A HERO CARRIES WATER IN THE SUN + + +With all which adventuring and bepraisement back and forth, as those who +know nineteen will readily be assured, I went home no little elated. For +had I not come without dishonor through a new and remarkable experience, +and even defied the Mystery of the White Wolf, at perhaps more risk to +myself than at the time I had imagined. For, as I found afterwards, there +were those among the company at the Swan that night of sterner mould and +more serious make than Michael Texel. + +But, at all events, home to the Red Tower I strode, whistling, and in a +very cocksure humor. + +The little Helene was going about her house duties silently and distantly +when I came down from my turret room on the forenoon of the morrow. She +did not come forward to be kissed, as had been her wont every morning +ever since I carried her, a little forlorn maid, up to mine own bed that +chill winter's night. + +"A good-morrow, Little Playmate!" I bade her, gayly. For my heart was +singing a good tune, well pleased with itself and willing to be at amity +with every one else--counting indeed, as is the wont of brisk hearts, a +gloomy face little less than a personal insult. + +But the maid did not answer, neither indeed did she seem to have heard +me. + +"I bade you fair good-morning, Helene," said I, again, stopping in my +walk across to my breakfast platter. + +But still she was silent, casting sand upon the tiled floor and sweeping +it up with great vigor, all her fair body swaying and yielding to the +grace, of movement at every stroke. Strange, it seemed she was now just +about the age when I developed those nodosities of knee and elbow which +troubled me so sore, but yet there was nothing of the kind about her, +only delicate slimness and featly rounded grace. + +I went over to her, and would have set my palm affectionately on her +shoulder. But she escaped, just as a bird does when you try to put your +hand upon it. It does not seem to fly off. It simply is not there when +your hand reaches the place. + +"Let be," she said, looking upon me haughtily. "By what right do you seek +to touch me, sir?" + +"Sweetheart," said I, following her, and much astonished, "because I have +always done it and you never objected before." + +"When I was a child, and when you loved me as a child, it was well. But +now, when I am neither a child nor yet do you love me, I would have you +cease to treat me as you have done." + +"You are indeed no longer a child, but the fairest of sweet maids," I +made answer. "I will do nothing you do not wish me to do. For, hearken to +me, Helene, my heart is bound up in you, as indeed you know. But as to +the second word of accusation--that I do not love you anymore--" + +"You do not--you cannot!" she interrupted, "or you would not go out with +Michael Texel all night to drinking-places, and worse, keeping your +father and those that _do_ love awake, hurting their hearts here" (she +put her hand on her side), "and all for what--that you may drink and +revel and run into danger with your true friends?" + +"Sweetheart," I began--penitently. + +The Little Playmate made a gesture of infinite impatience. + +"Do not call me that," she said; "you have no right. I am not your +sweetheart. You have no heart at all to love any one with, or you would +not behave as you have done lately. You are naught but a silly, selfish +boy, that cares for nothing but his own applause and thinks that he has +nothing to do but to come home when his high mightiness is ready and find +us all on our knees before him, saying: 'Put your foot, great sir, on our +necks--so shall we be happy and honored.'" + +Now this was so perilously near the truth that I was mightily incensed, +and I felt that I did well to be angry. + +"Girl," I said, grandly, "you do not know what you say. I have been +abroad all night on the service of the State, and I have discovered a +most dangerous conspiracy at the peril of my life!" + +For I thought it was as well to put the best face on the matter; and, +besides, I have never been able, all the days of me, to hide my light +under a bushel, as the clerks prate about. + +But I was not yet done with my adventuring of this eventful day. And in +spite of my father setting me, like a misbehaving bairn, to the drudgery +of the water-carrying, there was more in life for me that day than merely +hauling upon a handle. For that is a thing which galls an aspiring youth +worse than any other labor, being so terribly monotonous. + +As for me, I did not take kindly to it at all--not even though I could +see mine own image deep in the pails of water as they came up brimming +and cool out of the fern-grown dripping darkness of the well. Aye, and +though the image given back to me was (I say it only of that time) a +likely enough picture of a lad with short, crisped locks that curled +whenever they were wet, cheeks like apples, and skin that hath always +been a trouble to me. For I thought it unmanly and like a girl's. And +that same skin of mine is, perhaps, the reason why all my days I never +could abide your buttermilk-and-roses girls, having a supply about me +enough to serve a dozen, and therefore thinking but little of their +stock-in-trade. + +Now in the Wolfmark this is the common kind of beauty--not that beauty of +any kind is over-common. For our maids--especially those of the +country--look too much as if they had been made out of wooden pillows +such as laborers use to lay their heads on of nights--one large bolster +set on the top of two other little ones, and all three well wadded with +ticking and feathers. But I hope no one will go back to the Wolfmark and +tell the maids that Hugo Gottfried said this of them, or of a surety my +left ear will tingle with the running of their tongues if there be any +truth in the old saw. + +It was three of the clock and the sun was very fierce on the dusty, +unslaked yard of the Wolfsberg, glaring down upon us like the mouth of a +wide smelter's oven. Fat Fritz, the porter, in his arm-chair of a cell, +had well-nigh dissolved into lard and running out at his own door. The +Playmate's window was open, and I caught the waft of a fan to and fro. I +judged therefore that my lady knew well that I was working out there in +the heat, and was glad of it--being a spiteful pretty minx. + +Then I began to wonder who had given her that fan, for it was not like my +father to do it, and she knew no other. "Ah!" I said to myself, as a +thought struck me, "could it possibly be Michael Texel? He is rich, and +Helene may have known him before. The cunning, dark-eyed little +vagabond--to take my introduction yester-even as if she had never set +eyes on the fellow before, while here it is as clear as daylight that he +had all the time been giving her presents--fans and such like." + +So I raved within me, half because I believed it, and half because she +seemed so comfortable up there, with her feet on a stool and a cool jug +of curds at her elbow, while I sweated and labored in the sun. + +Very decidedly it must be Texel; devil fly up with him and scratch him +among the gargoyles of the minster! + +The fan wagged on. It looked distractingly cool within. But then my +father--filial obedience was very distinctly a duty, and, also, Gottfried +Gottfried, though kind, was a man not to be disobeyed--even at nineteen, +and after defying the White Wolf. + +It was, as I have said, about three by the sundial on the wall, the arch +of which cast a shadow like jet on the scale, that my father came out +through the narrow door from the Judgment Hall, opening it with his own +key. For he had the right of entrance and outgoing of every door in the +palace, not even excepting the bedchamber of Duke Casimir. + +"Hugo," he said, "come hither, lad. I did not mean to keep you so long at +work in the sun. You must have filled all the cisterns in the place by +this time!" + +I thanked him sincerely, but did not pursue the subject. For, indeed, I +had not worked quite so hard as in his haste my father had supposed from +my appearance. + +"Go within," he said; "don quickly your saint's-day dress, and betake +yourself down to the house of Master Gerard von Sturm, the city +chamberlain, and tell him all that he asks of you--readily and truly." + +"But, father," said I, "suppose he asks of me that which might condemn +one who has trusted me, what am I to say?" + +"Tut, boy," said my father, impatiently, "you mean young Michael Texel. +Fear not for him. He was the first to inform. He was at Master von +Sturm's by eight this morning, elbowing half a dozen others, all burning +and shining lights of the famous Society of the White Wolf. You are the +hero of the day down there, it seems." + +"And lo! here I am flouted by a stripling girl, and set to carry water +by the hour in the broiling sun!" I said within myself. I possessed, +however, though without doubt a manifest hero, far too much of the +unheroic quality of discretion to say this aloud to my father. + +"I thank you, sir," I said, respectfully. "I will go at once and put on +my finest coat and my shoes of silk." + +My father smiled. + +"You need not be particular as to the silk shoes. 'Tis to see Master von +Sturm, not to court pretty Mistress Ysolinde, that I asked you to visit +the lawyer's house by the Weiss Thor." + +But I was not sorry to be able to proclaim my destination as loud as I +dared without causing suspicion. + +"Hanne," I cried down the turret stairs, "I pray you bring me the silken +shoes with the ribbon bows of silk. I am going down to Master von Sturm's +house; also my gold chain and bonnet of blue velvet with the golden +feather in it which I won at the last arrow-shooting." + +I saw the fluttering of the fan falter and stop. A light foot went +pattering up the stairway and a door slammed in the tower. + +Then I laughed, like the vain, silly boy I was. + +"Mistress Helene," I said to myself, "you will find that poor Hugo, whom +you flouted and despised, can yet pay his debts!" + +So I put on the fine clothes which I wore on festal days and sallied +forth. Now, though the lower orders still hated my father and all that +came out of the Red Tower, or indeed, for the matter of that, out of the +Wolfsberg, with hardly concealed malice--yet there were many in the city, +specially among those of the upper classes, who began to think well of my +determination to try another way of life than that to which I had been +born. For I made no secret of the matter to Michael Texel and such of his +comrades as joined us in our gatherings. + +Indeed, now, when I come to think of it, it seems to me that my father +was the only person of my acquaintance who did not suspect that I was +resolved never to wear either the black robe of Inquisition or the +crimson of Final Judgment. + +Yet it wore round to within two years, and indeed rather less, of the +time for my initiation into the mysteries of the Red Axe, and still I +remained at home, an idle boy, playing at single-stick and fence with +the men-at-arms, drinking beer in the evening with my bosom cronies, and +in the well-grounded opinion of all honest people, likely enough to come +to no good. + +But I, Hugo Gottfried, had my eyes and my books open, and knew that I was +but biding my time. + +So it came about that I carried no taint of the dread associations of the +Wolfsberg about me as I went down the bustling street to the Weiss Thor +to call on that learned and well-reputed lawyer, Master Gerard von Sturm. +So great was the fame of Master Gerard that he was often called in to +settle the mercantile quarrels of the burghers among themselves, and was +even chosen as arbiter between those of other towns. For, though +accounted severe, he had universally the name of a just and wise man, who +would not rob the litigants of all their valuables and then decide in +favor of neither, as was too often the way with the "justice" of the +great nobles. + +As for Duke Casimir of the Wolfmark, no man or woman went near him on any +plea whatsoever, save that of asking mercy or favor. And unless my father +chanced to be at hand, mostly they asked in vain. For, as I now knew, he +had to keep up the common bruit of himself throughout the country as a +cruel, fearless, and implacable tyrant. Besides, his fears were so +constant and so great, perhaps also so well-founded, that often he dared +not be merciful. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LUBBER FIEND + + +At five of the clock I lifted the great wolf's-head knocker of shining +brass which frowned above the door of Master Gerard von Sturm in the port +of the Weiss Thor. Hardly had I let it fall again when a small wicket, +apparently about two feet above my head, opened, and a huge round head +with enormous ears at either side peeped out. So vast was the head and so +small the aperture that one of the lateral wings of the chubby face +caught on the sill, and the owner brought it away successfully with a +jerk and a perfectly good-humored and audible "flip." + +"Who are you, and what do you want?" said a wide-gashed mouth, which, +with a squat, flattened-out nose and two merry little twinkling eyes, +completed this wonderful apparition. + +The words were in themselves somewhat rude. On paper I observe that they +have an appearance almost truculent. But spoken as the thing framed in +the window-sill said them, they were equal to a song of Brudershaft and +an episcopal benediction rolled in one. + +"I am Hugo Gottfried of the Red Tower, come to see Master Gerard," I +replied. "Who may you be that asks so boldly?" + +"I'll give you a stalk of rhubarb to suck if you can guess," was the +unexpected answer. + +As I had never in my life seen anything in the least like the prodigy, it +was clearly impossible for me to earn the tart succulence of the summer +vegetable on such easy terms. + +"I should say," I replied, "if the guess savor not of insolence, that one +might be forgiven for mistaking you for the Fool of the Family!" + +The grin expanded till it wellnigh circumnavigated the vast head. It +seemed first of all to make straight for the ears on either side. Then, +quite suddenly, finding these obstacles insurmountable, it dodged +underneath them, and the scared observer could almost imagine its two +ends meeting with a click somewhere in the wilderness at the back of that +unseen hemisphere of hairy thatch. + +"Pinked in the white, first time--no trial shot!" cried the object in the +doorway, cheerily. "I am the Fool of the Family. But not the only one!" + +At this moment something happened behind--what, I could not make out +for some time. The head abruptly disappeared. There was a noise as of +floor-rugs being vigorously beaten, the door opened, and the most +extraordinary figure was shot out into the street. The head which I had +seen certainly came first, but so lengthy a body followed that it seemed +a vain thing to expect legs in addition. Yet, finally, two appeared, each +of which would have made a decent body of itself, and went whirling +across the street till the whole monstrosity came violently into +collision with the walls of the house opposite, which seemed to rock to +its very foundations under the assault. + +A decent serving-man, in a semi-doctorial livery of black cloth, with a +large white collar laid far over his shoulders, and cuffs of the same +upon his wrists, stood in the open doorway and smiled apologetically at +the visitor. He was rather red in the face and panted with his exertions. + +"I ask your pardon, young sir," he said. "That fool, Jan Lubber Fiend, +will ever be at his tricks. 'Tis my young mistress that encourages him, +more is the pity! For poor serving-men are held responsible for his +knavish on-goings. Why, I had just set him cross-legged in the yard with +a basket of pease to shell, seeing how he grows as much as a foot in the +night--or near by. But so soon as my back is turned he will be forever +answering the door and peeping out into the street to gather the mongrel +boys about him. 'Tis a most foul Lubber Fiend to keep about an honest +house, plaguing decent folks withal!" + +By this time the great oaf had come back to the door of the house, and +now stood alternately rubbing his elbow and rear, with an expression +ludicrously penitent, at once puzzled and kindly. + +"Ah, come in with you, will you?" said the man. "Certes, were it not for +Mistress Ysolinde, I would set on the little imps of the street to nip +you to pieces and eat you raw." + +The angry serving-man held the door as wide as possible and stood aside, +whereat the Lubber Fiend tucked his head so far down that it seemed to +disappear into the cavity of his chest, and scurried along the passage +bent almost double. As he passed the door he drew all the latter part of +his body together, exactly like a dog that fears a kick in the by-going. +The respectable man-servant stirred not a muscle, but the gesture told a +tale of the discipline of the house by the White Gate at times when +visitors were not being admitted by the main door, and when Mistress +Ysolinde, favorer of the Fool Lubber Fiend, was not so closely at hand. + +It was a grand house, too, the finest I had ever seen, with hangings of +arras everywhere, many and parti-colored--red hunters who hunted, green +foresters who shot, puff-cheeked boys blowing on hunting-horns; a house +with mysterious vistas, glimpses into dim-lit rooms, wafts of perfume, +lamps that were not extinguished even in the daytime, burning far +within. All in mighty striking contrast to the bare stark strength of our +Red Tower on the Wolfsberg with its walls fourteen feet thick. + +As I followed the serving-man through the halls and stairways my feet +fell without noise on carpets never woven in our bare-floored Germany, +nor yet in England, where they still strew rushes, even (so they say) in +the very dining-rooms of the great--surely a most barbarous and +unwholesome country. Nevertheless, carpets of wondrous hue were here in +the house of Master Gerard, scarlet and blue, and so thick of ply that +the foot sank into them as if reluctant ever to rise again. + +As I came to the landing place at the head of the stairway, one passed +hastily before me and above me, with a sough and a rustle like the wind +among tall poplar trees on the canal edges. + +I looked up, and lo! a girl, not beautiful, but, as it were, rather +strange and fascinating. She was lithe like a serpent and undulated in +her walk. Her dress was sea-green silk of a rare loom, and clung closely +about her. It had scales upon it of dull gold, which gave back a +lustrous under-gleam of coppery red as she moved. She had a pale, eager +face, lined with precision enough, but filled more with passion than +womanly charm. Her eyes were emerald and beautiful, as the sea is when +you look down upon it from a height and the white sand shines up through +the clear depths. + +Such was Ysolinde, daughter of Gerard von Sturm, favorer of Lubber Fiends +and creator of this strange paradise through which she glided like a +spangled Orient serpent. + +As I made my way humbly enough across to Master Gerard's room his +daughter did not speak to me, only followed me boldly, and yet, as it +seemed to me, somewhat wistfully too, with her sea-green eyes. And as the +door was closing upon me I saw her beckon the serving-man. + +But I, on the inner side of the door, and with Master Gerard von Sturm +before me, had enough to do to tell my tale and answer his questions +without troubling my head about green-eyed girls. + +Master Gerard was as remarkable looking to the full as his daughter, with +the same luminously green eyes. But the orbs which in the maid shone as +steadily clear as the depths of the sea, in the father glittered +opalescent where he sat in the dusk, like the eyes of Grimalkin cornered +by dogs in some gloomy angle of the Wolfsberg wall. + +As soon as I had set eyes on him I knew that I had to do with a man--not +with a walking show like my Lord Duke Casimir. It struck me that for good +or evil Master Gerard could carry through his intent to the bitter end, +and that in council he would smile when he saw my father change his black +vesture of trial for the red of beheading. + +The Doctor Gerard was little seen in the streets of Thorn. Many citizens +had never so much as set eyes on him. Nevertheless his hand was in +everything. Some said he was a Jew, chiefly because none knew rightly +what he was or whence he had come. Thirty years had gone by since he had +suddenly appeared one day in the noble old house by the Weiss Thor, from +which Graetz the wizard and his wife had been burned out by the fury of +the populace. Twenty years of artistic labor had made this place what it +now was. And the little impish maid who used to break unexpectedly upon +the workmen of Thorn from behind doors, or who clapped hands upon their +shoulders in dusky recesses, scaring them out of their wits with +suggestions of witch-masters long dead and damned, had grown into this +maid of the sea-green eyes and silken draperies. + +"A good-day to you, Hugo Gottfried!" said Master Gerard, quietly, looking +at me keenly across the table. He wore a skull-cap on his closely cropped +head. One or two betraying locks of gray appeared under it in front, but +did not conceal a flat forehead, which ran back at such an angle that, +with the luminous eyes beneath it, it gave him the look of a serpent +rearing his yellow head a little back in act to strike. This was a look +his daughter had also. But in her the gesture was tempered by the +free-playing curves of a beautiful throat and the forward thrust of a +rounded chin--advantages not possessed by the angular anatomy and bony +jaw of the famous doctor of law. + +Master Gerard, clad in a long robe of black velvet from head to heel, sat +bending his fingers gracefully together and looking at me. His head was +thrown back, I have said, and the lights of the colored windows striking +on his gray hair and black skull-cap, caused him to look much more like +some lean ascetic ecclesiastic and prince of the church than the chief +lawyer of the ancient capital of the Wolfmark. + +"You were present at this child's play yester-eve in the hostel of the +White Swan?" he asked, boring into me with his uncomfortable, +triangular eyes. + +"Aye, truly," said I, "and much they made of me!" + +For since my father said that I was accounted a hero in this house, I had +determined not to hide away my deeds in my leathern scrip. I had had +enough practice in playing at modesty in the Tower of the Red Axe. + +Master Gerard shook his shoulders as though he would have made me believe +that he laughed. + +"You were over many for thorn, I hear great silly fellows--children +playing with fire yet afraid to burn themselves. Why, since ten this +morning I have had them all here--stout burgomeister's sons, slim scions +of the Burghershaft, moist-eyed corporation children, each more anxious +than another to prove that he had nothing to do with any treason. He had +but called in at the White Swan for a draught of Frederika's famous stone +ale, and so--well, he found himself somehow in the rear, and, all +against his will, was dragged into the Lair of the White Wolf!" + +He looked at me quietly, without speaking, for a while. + +"And you, Master Hugo, did you go thither to distinguish yourself by +breaking up their child's folly, or, like the others, to taste the +stone ale?" + +It was a question I had not expected. But it was best to be very plain +with Master Gerard. + +"I went," I replied, "along with Michael Texel, because he asked me. I +knew not in the least what I was to see, but I was ready for anything." + +"And you acquitted yourself on the whole extremely well," he nodded; "so +at least they are all very ready to say, hoping, I doubt not, for your +good offices with the Duke when it comes to their turn. You flouted them +right manfully and defied their mystery, they told me." + +At this moment I became conscious that a door opposite me was open and +the curtain drawn a little way back. There, in the half-light, I saw +Mistress Ysolinde listening. She leaned her head aside as though it had +been heavy with its weight of locks of burned gold. She pillowed her +cheek against the door-post, and let her dreamy sea-green eyes rest upon +me. And the look that was in them gave me a sense of pleasure strange and +acute, as well as a restless uneasiness and vague desire to escape out +under the blue sky, and mingle with the throng of every-day men on the +streets of the city. + +*** + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE VISION IS THE CRYSTAL + + +Master Gerard, however, did not seem to be aware of her presence, for he +continued his catechism steadily. + +"You mocked at their terrors, did you not, and told them that you, who +had seen the teeth of the Duke's hounds, had nothing to fear from the +bare gums of the White Wolf?" + +"I knew that they but played," I answered, "and that I had little to +fear." + +For with Ysolinde von Sturm watching me with her eyes I could not for +very shame's sake make myself great. + +"You told them more than that," the girl cried, suddenly flashing on me a +look keen as the light on a sword when it comes home from the cutler. +"You told them that you too desired a freer commonwealth!" + +"I did," said I, flushing quickly, for I had thought to keep my +thumb on that. + +Nevertheless I was not going back on my spoken word, even in the presence +of Duke Casimir's inquisitor. Besides which I judged that my father had +influence enough to bring me out scathless. + +"That is well and bravely said!" he replied, smiling with thin lips which +in all their constant writhings showed no vestige of teeth within; "but +the sentiment itself is somewhat strange in the son of the Red Axe and +the future Executioner of Justice in the Wolfmark." + +Then for the first time I permitted my eyes to rest on the lithe figure +of the girl in the doorway. Methought she inclined her head a little +forward to catch my answer as if it had been a matter of interest to her. + +"I am indeed son of the Red Axe," said I, "but my own head would underlie +it rather than that I should ever be Hereditary Justicer of the Mark." + +A smile that was meant for me passed over the girl's face and momently +sweetened her lips. She straightened her body and set a hand more easily +to her waist. A certain kindness dwelt in her emerald eyes. + +"Never be Duke's Justicer!" cried Master Gerard, looking up with his hand +on a skull. "This is unheard of! Are not you the only son of Gottfried +Gottfried, right hand of Duke Casimir, highest in favor with his Grace? +And within two years, according to the law of the headsman, must you not +also don the Red and the Black and stand at the Duke's left hand, as your +father at his right, when he sits in judgment?" + +I bowed my head for answer. + +"Even so," said I; "but long before that time I shall be either in a far +country waging the wars of another lord, or in a country yet +farther--that to which the men of my race have directed so many +untimeously." + +"Have you at all thought of the land or the lord to whom you would +transfer your allegiance?" said Gerard von Sturm, carelessly rapping with +his fingers on the bare white of the skull before him. + +"I have not," I replied as easily. + +He looked down a moment, and drew his black robe thoughtfully over his +knee as if turning the matter over in his mind. "What think you of +Plassenburg and the service of Prince Karl?" he said at last. + +"The place is too near and the man a usurper," I replied, brusquely. + +"I am not so sure," Master Gerard mused, slowly, "that it might not be +advantageous to bide near home. Duke Casimir is mortal, after all--long +and prosperously may he live!" (Here he inclined his head piously, while +naming his master.) "But who knows how long he may be spared to reign +over a loving people. And after that, why, there may be more usurpers. +For by the name 'usurper' the ignorant mostly mean men of the strong +heart and sure brain, who can hold that which they have with one hand and +reach out for more with the other." + +While he spoke thus he looked at me with his green eyes half closed. + +"But," said I, calmly enough, though my heart beat fast, "I am but a lad +untried. I may never rise beyond a private soldier. I may be killed at +the first assault of my virgin campaign." + +Master Gerard looked up quickly. He beckoned to his daughter. For though +by no faintest gesture had he betrayed his knowledge of her presence, he +had yet clearly known it all the time. + +"Ysolinde," he said, "bring hither thy crystal!" + +The maid disappeared and presently returned with a ball in her hand of +some substance which looked like misty glass. + +"I have been looking in it already," she said, "ever since Hugo Gottfried +came out of the Red Tower." + +Her voice was soft and even, with the same sough in it as of the wind +among poplar-trees which I had heard in the rustle of her silken dress as +she came up the stair. + +"And what," asked her father, "have you seen in the crystal, child of +my heart?" + +He looked up at me with some little shamefacedness, or so I imagined. + +"I am a dry old man of the law," he went on, "dusty of heart as these +black books up yonder--books not of magic but of fact, of crime and pain +and penalty. But this my daughter Ysolinde, wise from a child, solaces +herself with the white, innocent magic, such as helps man and brings him +nearer that which is unseen." + +The maid knelt by her father's knee, and held the crystal ball in the +hollow of her hands against the sable of his velvet robe. She passed one +hand swiftly twice or thrice over her brow, as though to clear away some +cobwebs, gossamer thin, that had folded themselves across her vision. +Then, in the same wistful, wind-soft voice, she began to speak. And as +she spoke all that I had loved and known began to pass from before me. I +forgot my father. I forgot the Red Tower. I forgot (God forgive me, yet +help it I could not!) the little Princess Playmate and her sweetest eyes. +I forgot all else save this lithe, serpentine maiden with the massive +crown of burned and tawny gold upon her head. + +"I see," she began, "a long street and many men struggling on it--the +Wolf of the Wolfmark, the Eagle of Plassenburg are face to face. I see +Red Karl the Prince. The young Wolf has the better of it. He bites his +lip and drives hard. The Prince is down. He is wounded. He is like to +die. The Wolf will drive all to destruction. + +"But see--" she sighed, and paused the while as if that which she saw +next touched her--"from the swelter in the rear comes a young soldier. He +has lost his helmet. I see his head. It is a fair head with crisp curls. +He has a sword in his hand and he lays well about him. He cuts a way to +the Prince--he bestrides his body. + +"Give way there, scullions, that I may see more!" she cried, impetuously, +and waved her hand before her eyes, which were fixed expressionless on +the crystal. "I see him again. Well done, young soldier! Valiantly laid +on. It is great sword-play. Bravo! The Wolf is down. The Eagle of +Plassenburg is up--I can see no more!" + +And suddenly she dropped the ball, which would have rolled off her +father's knee had he not caught it as it fell. + +Ysolinde kept her head on Master Gerard's lap for a long minute, as if, +after the vision of the crystal, she could not bear the common light nor +speak of meaner things. Then, without once looking at me, she rose, +gathered her skirts in her hand, and glided out of the doorway in which +she had stood. + +When she was quite gone her father reached a bony hand across to me. + +"That is a great fate which she has read for you--never have I seen her +so moved, nor yet her vision so clear and unmistakable. Surely the sooner +you seek the service of the Prince of Plassenburg the better." + +"But," said I, "how do I know that he will accept me? He may not wish to +retain in his service the son of the Red Axe of the Wolf mark." + +Master von Sturm smiled subtly at me. + +"I cannot tell," he said, "why it is that I have an interest in you. But +I desire to see you other than that which you are. I have, strange as it +may seem in one of such humble degree here in the city of Thorn, whom all +may consult without fee or reward, a certain influence and place in the +councils of the reigning Prince of Plassenburg. If, therefore, you will +take service with him, I can give you such an introduction as will +guarantee you a place, not as man-at-arms, but as officer, so that your +way may lie before you clear from the first. Also in this promotion you +shall have a good sufficient reason to give those who may accuse you of +changing your service." + +I could not answer him for gladness. The hope seemed so unbelievable--the +fortune too grateful to be true. I was overcome, and, as I guess, showed +it in my face. For twice I essayed to speak and could not. + +So that Master Gerard rose and glided over to me, patting me kindly +enough on the shoulders and bidding me take courage, saying that he loved +to see modesty in this untoward generation, in which there was little +virtue and no gratitude at all. + +So I grasped him by the hand and kissed his thin, bony fingers. + +"Bide ye, bide ye," he said; "one day I may kiss yours an you be active. +The wide spaces of Destiny lie before you, though I shall not live to see +it. But you must bestir you, for I am an old man, and have not far to +travel now to the place from which one leaps off into the dark." + +He conducted me to the door of his chamber and gave me his hand again +with the same inscrutable smile on his thin face, and his skull-cap +pushed farther back than ever over the flat, ophidian brow. + +"When you have all things ready," he said, "come to me for the letter of +introduction, and also for that which may obtain you a worthy outfit for +your journeying to Plassenburg. Or, if you are already Sir Proud-Heart, +you can repay me one day, with usury if you will. I care not to stand on +observances with you, nor desire that you should feel any obligation to a +feeble old man." + +"I am not proud," I said, "and my sense of obligation is already greater +than ever I can hope to discharge." + +"I thank you, my lad," he said. "Often have I wished for a +son of the flesh like you as you passed the window with your +companions--but go, go!" + +And with his hand he pushed me out upon the stair-head and shut the door. + +For a space I knew not where I stood. For what with the turmoil of my +thoughts and the myriad of impressions, hopes, fears, visions, regrets to +leave the Red Tower, the city of Thorn, the hope of seeing again that +high-poised head of burned gold of the Lady Ysolinde, I paused +stock-still, moidered and dazed, till a light hand touched me on the +shoulder and the soft, even voice spoke in my ear. + +"Master Hugo," said the Lady Ysolinde, bending kindly to me, "I am glad, +very glad--aye, though you have made my head ache" (here she nodded +blamefully and laid her hand upon her heart as if that ached too)--"it is +the best of fortunes, and sure to come true. Because have I seen it at +six o'clock of a Thursday in the time of full moon." + +"Come hither," she said, beckoning me; "we shall try another way of it +yet, in spite of the headache. It may be that there is more that concerns +you for me to see in the ink-pool." + +With this she took my hand and almost pulled me down the stairs by force. +As we went I saw the wild head and staring eyeballs of Jan the Lubber +Fiend peering at us. He was lying on the back staircase, prone on his +stomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it, +and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down the +stair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red ears +actually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight of +the Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end of +that smile. + +"Lubber Jan," said she, "go and sit in the yard. The servants will be +complaining of thee again, that they cannot come up the staircase, even +as they did before." + +"Then, if I do," mumbled the monster, "will you look out of window at +least once in each hour, between every stroke of the clock. Else will Jan +not stop in the yard, but come within to feast his eyes on thee." + +"Yes, Jan," she said, smiling with a gentle complaisance which made me +like her somewhat better than before, "I will look out at least once in +the hour." + +And turning a little she smiled again at me, still holding me by the +hand. The Lubber Fiend pulled his forelock, and reaching downward his +head, as if he had the power of stretching out his neck like an arm, he +kissed the cold pavement where her foot had rested a moment before. Then +he rather retracted himself, serpentwise, then betook him in Christian +fashion down the stair, and we heard him move out amid a babel of +servatorial recriminations into the outer yard. + +"A poor innocent," said the Lady Ysolinde; "one that worships me, as you +see. He is so great of stature and so uncouth that the children persecute +him, and some day he may do one of them an injury. Years ago I rescued +him from an evil pack of them and brought him hither. So that is the +reason why he cleaves to me." + +"An excellent reason, my lady," said I, "for any to cleave to you." + +"Ah," she said, wistfully, "only fools think of Ysolinde in the city of +Thorn. Some are afraid and pass by, and the rest are as the dogs that +lick the garbage in the streets. Here I have no friends, save my father +only, and here or elsewhere I have never had any that truly loved me." + +"But you are young--you are fair," I answered. "Many must come seeking +your favor." Thus did I begin lumpishly enough to comfort her. But at +my first words she snatched her fingers away angrily, and then in a +moment relented. + +"You mean well," she said, giving her hand back to me again, "but it is +not pity Ysolinde needs nor yet desires. But that is no matter. Come in +hither and see what may abide for you in the depths of the black pool." + +At the curtained doorway she turned and looked me in the eyes. + +"If you were as other young men it would be easy for you to misjudge +me. This is mine own work-chamber, and I bid you come into it, having +seen you but an hour ago. Yet never a man save my father only hath set +his foot in it before. Inquire carefully of your companions in the city +of Thorn, and if any make pretension to acquaintance with the Lady +Ysolinde of the White Gate strike him in the face and call him liar, +for the sake of the favor I have shown you and the vision I saw +concerning you in the crystal." + +I stooped and kissed her hand, which was burning hot--a thin little hand, +with long, supple fingers which bent in one's grasp. + +"The man who would pretend to such a thing is dead even as he speaks," +said I; and I meant it fully. + +"I thank you--it is well," she answered, leading me in. "I only desired +that you should not misjudge me." + +"That could I never do if I would," I made her answer. "Here my every +thought is reverence as in the oratory of a saint." + +She smiled a strange smile. + +"Mayhap that is rather more than I desire," she said. "Say rather in the +maiden bower of a woman who knows well whom she may trust." + +Again I kissed her hand for the correction. And, as I remembered +afterwards, it was at that hour that the little Princess Playmate was +used to look within my chamber to see that all was ready for me. + +And, had I known it, even that night she stooped over and kissed the +pillow where my head was to lie. + +"Dear love!" she was used to say. + +Alas that I heard it not then! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +EYES OF EMERALD + + +It was a strange little room into which the Lady Ysolinde brought me, +full of quaint, changeful scents, and all ablaze with colors the like of +which I had never seen. For not only were rugs and mats of outlandish +Eastern design scattered over the floor, but there was vividly colored +glass in the small, deeply set windows. Yet that which affected me most +powerfully was a curious, clinging, evanescent odor, which came and went +like a breeze through an open window. I liked it at first, but after a +little it went to my head like a perfumed wine of Greece, such as the men +of Venice sometimes send to our northern lands with their embassies of +merchandise. + +Altogether, it was a strange enough apartment for the daughter of a +lawyer in the city of Thorn, within a mile of the bare feudal strengths +of the Red Tower and the Wolfsberg. + +All this while Ysolinde had kept my hand, a thing which at once thrilled +and shamed me. For though I had never been what is called "in love" with +the Little Playmate, nor till that day had spoken a word to her my father +might not have heard, yet hitherto she had always been first and sole in +my heart whenever I thought on the things which were to be. + +The Lady Ysolinde having brought me to her chamber, bade me sit upon +an oaken folding-stool beside a table on which lay weapons of curious +design--crooked knives and poisoned arrows. Then she went to an +ivory cupboard of the Orient (or, as they are called in Holy Writ, +"an ivory palace"), and opening the beautifully fitting door, she +took from it a small square bottle of red glass which she held +between her and the light. + +"It is well," she said, looking long and carefully at it; "it will flow." + +And coming to the table and pouring some of a shining black liquid into +the palm of her left hand, she sat down beside me on the stool and gazed +steadily into the little pool of ink. + +It was strange to me to sit thus motionless beside a beautiful woman +(for such I then thought her)--so near that I could feel the warmth of +her body strike like sunshine through the silken fineness of her +sea-green gown. I glanced up at her eyes. They were fixed, and, as it +seemed, glazed also. But the emerald in them, usually dark as the +sea-depths, had opal lights in it, and her lips moved like those of a +devotee kneeling in church. + +Presently she began to speak. + +"Hugo--Hugo Gottfried, son of the Red Axe," she said, in the same hushed +voice as before, most like running water heard murmuring in a deep runnel +underground, "you will live to be a man fortunate, well-beloved. You will +know love--yes, more than one shall love you. But you will love one only. +I see the woman on whom your fate depends, yet not clearly--it may be, +because my desire is so great to see her face. But she is tall and moves +like a queen. She goes clad in white like a bride and her arms are held +out to you. + +"But another shall love you, and between them two there is darkness and +hate, from which come bursting clouds of fire, bringing forth lightnings +and angers and deadly jealousies! + +"Again I see you, great, honored, and sitting on a high seat. The +woman whose face I cannot distinguish is beside you, clothed in a +robe of purple. And, yes, she wears a crown on her head like the +coronet of a queen." + +Ysolinde withdrew her eyes gradually from the ink-pool, as if it were a +pain to look yet a greater to look away. Then with a quick jerk she threw +up her head, and tears were standing in her eyes ready to overflow. But +the wetness made them beautiful, like a pebble of bright colors with the +dew upon it and shone on by the sunshine of the morning. + +"You hurt me," she murmured reproachfully, looking at me more like a +child than ever I had seen her. She was very near to me. + +"_I_ make you suffer!" cried I, greatly astonished. "How can Hugo +Gottfried have done this thing?" + +For it seemed impossible that a poor lad, and one alien by his birth from +the hearts of ordinary folk, should yet have the power to make a great +lady suffer. For a great lady I knew Ysolinde to be even then, when her +father seemed to be no more in the city of Thorn than Master Gerard, the +fount and treasure-house of law and composer-general of quarrels. + +But I might have known that he was no true lawyer to be so eager about +that last. For upon the continuance and fostering of differences the +law-men of all nations thrive and eat their bread with honey thereto. + +As my father often said, "Better the stroke of the Red Axe than that of +the scrivener's goose-quill. My solution is kindlier, sooner over, hurts +less, and is all the same in the end!" + +Ysolinde thought a little before she answered me. + +"No man ever made me suffer thus before," she said, "though I have seen +and known many men. I am older than you, Hugo, and have travelled in many +countries, the lands from which these things came. But true love, the +pain and the pleasure of it, have I never known." + +She leaned her head on her hand and her elbow on the table, turning thus +to look long and intently at me. I felt oafish and awkward, as Jan Lubber +Fiend might have done before the King. Many things I might have wished to +say and do with that slender figure and lissome waist so near me. But I +knew not how to begin. Yet I think the desire came not so much from love +or passion, but rather from a natural longing to explore those mysteries +concerning which I had read so much after Friar Laurence had done me the +service of teaching me French. But it was well that stupidity was my +friend. For rebounding like a vain, upstart young monkey from my mood of +self-depreciation, I must needs hold it for certain that all was within +my grasp, and that the Lady Ysolinde expected as much of me, which thing +would have wrought my downfall. + +"Yon ride soon to Plassenburg, I hear," she said, after she had looked at +me a long time steadily with the emerald eyes shining upon me. Then it +was that I saw clearly that they were not the right emerald in hue so +much as of the shade of the stone aqua-marine, which is one not so rare, +but a better color when it comes to the matter of maiden's eyes. + +"It is indeed true, my lady," I replied, disappointed at her words, and +yet somehow infinitely relieved, "that I ride soon to Plassenburg by the +favoring of your father, who has been gracious enough to promise me his +interest with the Prince." + +I saw her lip curl a little with scorn--the least tilt of a rose leaf to +which the sun has been unkind. + +She seemed about to speak, but presently thinking better of it, +smiled instead. + +"It is like my father," she said, after a little; "but since I also go +thither, you shall be of my escort. A sufficient guard accompanies me all +the way to the city, and I dare say the arrangement may serve your +convenience as well as add to the pleasure and safety of my journeying." + +"But how will your father do without your company, Lady Ysolinde?" I +asked. For it seemed strange that father and daughter should thus part +without reason in these disturbed times. + +She laughed more heartily than I had heard her. + +"My father has been used to missing me for months at a time, and, +moreover, is well resigned also. But you do not say that you are rejoiced +to be of a lady's escort in so long a travel." + +"Indeed, I am much honored and glad to have so great a favor done to me. +I am but a mannerless, landward youth, to have been bred in the outer +courts of a palace. But that which I do not know you will teach me, and +my faults I shall be eager to amend." + +"Pshaw!--psutt!" said Ysolinde, making a little face, "be not so +mock-modest. You do very well. But tell me if you have any sweetheart in +the city to leave behind you." + +Now this bold question at once reddened my face and heightened my +confusion. + +"Nay, lady," I stammered, conscious that I was blushing furiously, "I am +over-young to have thought much of the things of love. I know no woman in +the city save our old house-keeper Hanne, and the Little Playmate." + +The Lady Ysolinde looked up quickly. + +"Ah, the Little Playmate!" she said, in a low voice, curiously distinct +from that which she used when she had interpreted her visions to me. "The +Little Playmate! That sounds as though it might be interesting. Who is +the Little Playmate?" + +"She is a maid whose folks were slain long ago by the Duke in a foray, +and the little one being left, my father begged her life. And she has +been brought up with me in the Red Tower." + +"How old is she now?" The Lady Ysolinde's next question leaped out like +the flash of a dagger from its sheath. + +"That," answered I, meditatively, "I know not exactly, because none could +tell how old she was when she came to us." + +"Tut," she said, impatiently tossing her head, "do not twist your answers +to me--only wise men and courtiers have the skill to do that and hide it. +As yet you are neither. Is she ten, or is she twenty, or is she mid-way +betwixt the two?" + +"I think she may be a matter of seventeen years of age." + +"Is she pretty?" was the next question. + +"No," said I, not knowing well what to say. + +Her face cleared as she heard that, and then, in a little, her eyes being +still bent steadily on me, reading my very heart, it clouded over again. + +"You think her not merely pretty, then, but beautiful?" she asked. + +I nodded. + +"More beautiful than I?" + +'Fore God I denied not my love, though I own I have many a time been less +tempted, and yet have lied back and forth like a Frankfort Jew. + +"Yes," said I, "I think so." + +"You love her, then?" said the Lady Ysolinde, rising quickly to her feet; +"and you told me that you loved none in this city." + +"I love her, indeed," I said. "She is my little sister. As you mean love, +I do not love her. But I love her notwithstanding. All my life I have +never thought of doing anything else. And that she is beautiful, all who +have eyes in their head may see." + +This appeased her somewhat. I think it must have been looking for my +fortune in the crystal and the ink-pool that made her so eager to know +all that concerned me--which none had ever been so importunate to find +out before. + +"I must come and see this Little Playmate of yours," she said. "It is an +ill-done thing that so fair a maid should be shut up in the tower of such +a pagan castle--the Wolfsberg; it is indeed well named. Word has reached +me to-day that the Princess of Plassenburg has need of a bower maiden. +Now the Princess can make her choice from many noble families. But if the +Little Playmate be as beautiful as you say, 'tis high time that she +should not be left immured in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg. True, the +Duke, like a careful man, neither makes nor mells with womankind. 'Tis +his only virtue. But any questing Ritterling or roaring free companion +might bear her off." + +"I think not," said I, smiling, "so long as the Red Axe of the Mark has a +polished edge and Gottfried Gottfried can send it sheer through an ox's +neck as he stands chewing the cud." + +I hardly think that I ever boasted of my father's prowess before. +And, indeed, I had some skill in the axe-play myself, but only in the +way of sport. + +"All one," said Ysolinde. "Your father, like great Caesar and Duke +Casimir, is but mortal, and may stumble across the wooden stump some day +himself and find his neck-bone in twain! None so wise that he can tell +when the Silent Rider shall meet him in the wood, leading by the bridle +the pale horse whose name is Death, and beckoning him to mount and ride." + +The Lady Ysolinde paused a while, touching her lips thoughtfully with +her fingers. + +"Let your Playmate come," she said. "There is room, I warrant, for her +and you both at Plassenburg. You shall keep each other company when +you have the homesickness, and on the journey she can ride with us +side by side." + +Then going to the curtain she summoned the servitor who had first opened +the door for me. He bowed before the girl with infinite respect. She bade +him conduct me upon my way. I will not deny that I had hoped for a +tenderer leave-taking. But all at once she seemed to have slipped back +into the great lady again, and to be desirous of setting me in my own +sphere and station ere I went, lest perchance I should presume overmuch +upon her favors. + +Yet not altogether so. For, relenting a little as I turned to leave her, +she stood holding the curtain aside for me to pass, and, as it had been +by accident, in dropping it her fingers rested a moment against my +cheek. Then the heavy curtain of blue fell into its place, and I found +myself following the eminently respectable domestic of Master Gerard +down the stairs. + +At the outer door, but before he opened it, the man put a sealed packet +in my hand. + +"From Doctor Gerard von Sturm," he said, bowing respectfully, yet with a +certain sense of being a party in a favor conferred. + +I thrust the letter into my inner pocket and went out into the street. +The sun was still shining, yet somehow I felt that it must be another +day, another world. The houses seemed hard and dry, the details of the +architecture insufferably mean and insultingly familiar. I longed with +all my heart to get away from Thorn into the new world which had opened +to me--a world of perfumes and flowers and flower-like scents and +Oriental marvels, of low voices, too, and the touching of soft hands +upon cheeks. + +In all the world of young men there was no greener or more simple Simon +than I, Hugo Gottfried, as, playing a tune on the pipe of my own conceit, +I marched up the High Street of Thorn to the entrance gate of the +Wolfsberg. + +The Little Playmate was standing at the door as I approached, sweet as a +June rose. When she saw me she went into the sitting-room to show that +she had not yet forgiven me. Though I think by this time, as was often +the way with Helene, she had forgotten almost what was the original +matter of my offending. + +But I pretended to be careless and heart-free. And so--God forgive +me!--I went whistling up the steps of the Red Tower to my room without +so much as looking within the chamber where my Little Playmate had +withdrawn herself. + +Which thing I suffered grievously for or all was done. And an excellent +dispensation of Providence it had been if I had lost my right hand, all +for making that little heart sore, or so much as one tear drop from those +deep gray eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHRISTIAN'S ELSA + + +It was about this time, and after we had made our quarrel up, that Helene +began to call me "Great Brother." After all, there is manifest virtue in +a name, and the Little Playmate seemed to find great comfort in thus +addressing me. + +And after that I had called her "Little Sister" once or twice she was +greatly assured and treated me quite differently, having ascertained that +between young men and women there is the utmost safety in such a +relationship. + +And as all ways were alike to me, I was willing enough. For indeed I +loved her and none other, and so did all the days of my life. Though I +know that my actions and conceits were not always conformable to the true +love that was in my heart, neither wholly worthy of my dear maid. + +But, then, what would you? Nineteen and the follies of one's youth! The +mercy of God rather than any virtue in me kept these from being not only +infinitely more numerous, but infinitely worse. Yet I had better confess +them, such as they are, in this place. For it was some such nothings as +those which follow that first brought Helene and me into one way of +thinking, though by paths very devious indeed. + +To begin with the earliest. There was a maid who dwelt in the Tower of +the Wolfsberg opposite, called the Tower of the Captain of the Guard. And +the maid's name was Elsa, or, as she was ordinarily called, "Christian's +Elsa." She was a comely maid enough, and greatly taken notice of. And +when I went to my window to con over my task for Friar Laurence, there at +the opposite window would be--strange that it should always he +so--Christian's Elsa. She was a little girl, short and plump, but with +merry eyes and so bright a stain upon either cheek that it seemed as if +she had been eating raspberry conserve, and had wiped her fingers upon +the smiling plumpness there. + +At any rate, as sure as ever I betook me to the window, there would be +Christian's Elsa, busy with her needles. + +And to tell truth I misliked it not greatly. Why, indeed, should I? For +there is surely no harm in looking across twenty yards of space at a +maid, and as little in the maid looking at you--that is, if neither of +you come any nearer. Besides, it is much pleasanter to look at a pretty +lass than at a vacant wall and twenty yards of uneven cobble-stones. + +Now the girl was harmless enough--a red and white maid, plump as a +partridge in the end of harvest. She was forever humming at songs, +singing little choruses, and inventing of new melodies, all tunefully and +prettily enough. And she would bring her dulcimer to the window and play +them over, nodding her head to the instrument as she sang. + +It was pleasant to watch her. For sometimes when the music refused to run +aright, she would frown at the dulcimer, as if the discord had been +entirely its fault and it was old enough to know better. Then sometimes +she would look across abstractedly to the Red Tower, trying to recall a +strain she had forgotten, with her finger all the while making the most +bewitching dimple on her plump cheek. It was most sweet and innocent to +see. And withal so entirely unconscious that any one could possibly be +observing her. + +I confess that I sat often and conned my book by the window, long after +I knew my portion by heart, in order to watch her deft fingers upon the +dulcimer sticks and the play of her dimples. But on my part also this was +in all innocence and wholly thoughtless of guile. + +Then would I be taken with a spasm of desire to play upon the recorders +or the Bavarian single flute, and would pester my father to let me learn. + +Now I never had any more ear for music than a deal board that has +knot-holes in it. I had ears indeed. But the clatter of the mill-wheel +and the lapper of water on the stones of the shore were ever better music +to me than singing or playing upon instruments. Nevertheless, at this +time, for some reason or other, I was in a great fret to learn. + +And, curiously enough, my desire made the Little Playmate call me "Great +Brother" more assiduously than ever. Though again I knew not why. + +But Christian's Elsa she could not abide either sight or mention of. +Which was passing strange in so sweet and charitable a maid as our +Helene. Also the girl at the guard-house was a good daughter, besides +being particular of her company, and in that garrison place untouched by +any breath of scandal. + +But no; Helene would have none of her. + +"_Feech_!" she would say, making a little grimace of disgust which she +had brought with her from her northern home; "that noisy, mewling cat, +purring and stroking her face, in the window, I cannot abide her. I know +not what some folks can see in her. There are surely more kinds of +blindness than of those that wait about kirk doors with a board hung +round their necks, saying, 'Good people, for the love of God, put a +copper in this wooden platter.'" + +"Why, Little Playmate, what ails thee at the maid? She is a good maid +enough, and, I am sure, a pretty one." + +So would I say to try her. Whereat the lass, being slender herself, and +with a head that sat easily on her shoulders, would walk off like the +haughty little Princess she was, and thrust her chin so far forward that +even the pretty round of it bespoke a pointed scorn. And the poutlets +would come and go on her red lips so quickly that I would come from the +window, leaving my book and Christian's Elsa, and a thousand Elsas, just +to watch them. + +"So, Great Brother," Helene would say, "you think she is pretty, do you? +'Tis interesting, for sure. As for me, I see not anything pretty about +her. Now, there is Katrin Texel, she is pretty, if you like. What say +you to her?" + +And this was because the minx knew well that I never could abide Katrin +Texel, a girl all running to seed like a shot stalk of rhubarb, who would +end up in the neighborhood of six foot in height, and just that "fine +figure of a woman" which I never could abide. + +"_Feech_!" I would say, copying her Wendish expression. "I would as soon +set my feather bolster on end, paint it black and white, and make love to +it as to Katrin Texel." + +"You do worse every day of your life," retorted Helene, with pretty +spite, tapping the floor with the point of one delicate foot. + +"And, pray, what do I that is worse?" I said, knowing full well what. + +The Little Playmate was silent a minute, only continuing to tap the flags +with a kind of naughtiness that became her. + +"Katrin Texel would not look at you, charming as you think yourself," she +said, at last. + +"Did she tell you so, Little Sister?" said I, drawing a bow at a +great venture. + +The arrow struck, and I was content. + +"Well," she answered, somewhat breathlessly, "what if she did? Surely +even your vanity can take nothing out of a girl saying that she cannot +abide you." + +But I answered nothing to this, only stroked the mustache which was +beginning to thrive admirably on my upper lip. + +"Of all the--" began Helene, looking at me fixedly. Then she stopped. + +"Well," said I, pausing in the caressing of my chin, "what do I worse +every day than make love to Katrin Texel?" + +Her eyes fairly sparkled fire at me. They were "sweetest eyes" no more, +but rarely worth looking into all the same. + +"You go ogling and staring at that little she-cat in the window over +there, that screeches and becks and pats herself, all for showing off! +And you, Hugo Gottfried, like a great oaf, thinking all the time how +innocent and sweet and--oh, I have no patience with you!--to neglect and +think nothing of--of Katrin Texel, and--and then to go gazing and gaping +after a thing like that!" + +And I declare there were tears in the Little Playmate's eyes. + +"Dear Little Sister, why are you so mindful about Katrin Texel?" said I. +"Faith, my lass, wait till she comes again, and I will court her to your +heart's content. There--there--I will be a very Valentine's true lover to +your Katrin." + +For all that she was not greatly cheered, but edged away, still strangely +disconsolate when I came near and tried to pet her. Mysterious and hidden +are the ways of women! For once, when I would have put my hand about her +pretty slender waist, she promptly took me by the wrist, and holding it +at arm's-length, she dropped it from her with a disgustful curl of her +lip, as if it had been an intruding spider she had perforce to put forth +out of her chamber into the garden. + +Yet formerly, upon occasion when, as it might be, she was reading or +looking out of the window, if I but came behind her and called her +"Little Sister," I might even put my hand upon her shoulder, and so stand +for five minutes at a time and she never seem to notice it. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SIR AMOROUS IS PLEASED WITH HIMSELF + + +For, as I say, women have curious ways, and there are a good many of them +recorded in this book. And yet more I have observed which I cannot find +room for in a chronicle of so many sad and bad and warlike happenings. +But none of them all is more notable than this--that women, or at least +(for it is no use saying "women," every one being different in temper, +though like as pease in some things) many women, will permit that which +it suits them to be oblivious of, when if you ask them for permission or +make a favor of the matter, they will promptly flame sky-high with +indignation. So my advice to the young man who honestly goes a-courting +is to keep talking earnestly, to occupy his mistress's attention withal, +and progress in her favors during the abstractions of high discourse. + +Of course in this, as in all other similar enterprises, Sir Amorous +must have a certain trading-stock of favor to start with. But if he +have this much, 'tis not difficult to increase it by honest endeavor, +and, as it were, the sweat of his brain. So at least I am told by +those who have proved it. Nevertheless, for myself, I have used no +such nice refinements, but rather taken with thankfulness such things +as came in my way. + +And now when I look back over my paper--lord! what a pother of writing +about it and about! But my excuse is that many young lads and gay +bachelors will read this tale, so I desire to import what of instruction +I can into it. And not having the learning of the clerks, I must e'en +put in what wisdom I have gotten for myself in my passage through the +world. For I never could plough with another man's heifer--least of all +with that of a college-bred Mess John. Not but what Mess John knoweth +somewhat of the lear of love also among the well-favored dames of the +city. Or else, by my faith, Mess John is sorely belied. + +But where was I in my tale? And if this present errant discourse be +forgiven, surely I will not transgress again, but drive my team straight +to the furrow's end and then back again, like an honest ploughman that +has his eye ever upon the guide-poles on the windy ridge. + +Well, the Little Playmate lifted a toad from her waist--I mean my +hand--and dropped it as far from her as her arm would reach. + +And then after that she ran up-stairs, slammed the door of her own +chamber, and came not down to our nooning, so that old Hanne had to call +her three times. + +And once, when I had occasion to cross the court-yard to the guard-house, +I saw her standing pensively by the window. But so soon as she saw me she +vanished within and was seen no more. + +Yet, indeed and indeed, as all may see, there was no cause for all this +fret. For I cared no more about Christian's Elsa than about Christian +himself--less, indeed, for Christian was a good soldier and +master-at-arms, and taught me how to handle the match-lock, the pistolet, +and the other new weapons that had begun to come in from France. And +often upon Saturdays and wet days he would let me spend long mornings in +the armory with him, oiling and cleaning the ordnance. Which it certainly +was a great pleasure to do. + +And what if the little dumpling Elsa, with her red cheeks and her babyish +eyes, did run in and out. Her father was ever with us, and even had I +been willing there was no opportunity for more than a word or a touch of +her fingers--well, save once, when her father went himself to seek the +bottle of oil she had been sent to fetch, and was some time in finding +it. But even that was a mere nothing, and might have happened to any one. + +But when I came home again that night, you would have thought that the +whole happening had been printed legibly on my face. The Little Playmate +would not let me come within a hundred miles of her. And it was "Keep +your distance, sirrah!" Not perhaps said in words, but expressed as +clearly by the warlike angle of an arm, the contumelious hitch of a +shoulder, or the scornful sweep of an adverse skirt. + +And all about nothing! Mighty Hector! I never saw such things as women. + +And yet in her good moments she would call me "Great Brother," and tell +me that she thought only of my future welfare, desiring that I should not +compromise myself in any entanglement with such as were not worthy of me. +Oh, a most wise and prudent counsellor was the Playmate in these days. + +And I used ever to say: "Helene, when I am truly in love I will e'en +bring her here to you, and, by my faith, if you approve not--why, there +is an end of the matter. Back she goes to her mother like a parcel of +returned goods--aye, if she were the Kaiser's daughter herself!" + +Whereat she pouted and was not ill-pleased. + +"Ah, my man," she would reply, "after a girl hath said you nay a time or +two, it will bring you down from these high notions, and be much for your +soul's final good!" + +But yet, when I could keep her in good-humor, it was exceedingly sweet to +bide quietly in the house with the Little Playmate--far better than to +gad about with Texels and meandering fools, which indeed I did +oftentimes just because it made my little lass so full of moods and +tenses--like one of Friar Laurence's irregular verbs in his cursed +Humanities. For there is nothing so variously delightful as a woman when +she is half in love and half out of it--more interesting (say some) +though less delightful than when she is all and whole in love. +Nevertheless, there are exceptions, and one woman at least I know more +various, and more delicious also, since love's ocean hath gone over her +head, than ever she was when, like a timid bather, she shivered on the +brink or made little fearful plunges, as it were knee-deep, and so ran +out again. + +But I am not come to that in the story yet. + +Well, on the afternoon of the next day, who should come to the house in +the Red Tower but our Helene's gossip, for this week at least her bosom +friend, Katrin Texel. She was even more impressive in manner than ever, +and also a little pleasanter to behold. For her angles were clothing +themselves into curves, and she was learning, perhaps from the Little +Playmate, to leave off bouncing into a room like a cow at the trot, and +to walk in sedately instead. By-and-by I knew she would come sailing down +the street like a towered galleon from the isles of Ind. For all that, +she looked not ill--an academic study for Juno, one might say. But to +make love to--why, as Helene was wont to remark, _Feech!_ + +And the curious thing about Katrin Texel was that though her corporeal +part might be a direct inheritance from her Burgomeister father and his +substantial brewery, her spirit had been designed for an artful fairy of +half her size, in order that it might go pirouetting into airy realms of +the imagination. For she was gay enough and lightsome enough in her +demeanor. She came in with a skip which would have been entrancing in +some elfish mignonne who could dance light-foot on spring flowers without +crushing them. But when this our solid Burgomagisterial Katrin tripped +in, it nearly drove me wild with mirth. For it was as if some bland +maternal cow out of the pasture had skipped with a hop and a circle of +flying skirts into a ballroom or a butterfly of two hundred pounds' +weight had taken to flitting from flower to flower. + +And this Katrin talked in a quick, light voice, with ups and downs and +skips and quivers in it, as spring-heeled as a chamois goat on the +mountains of the south. + +"Ah, Tiny-chen," she would cry, as she came undulating and cooing in to +our Helene, "is it you, dearest? 'Tis as sweet to see you as for birds to +kiss on bough! I have danced all day in the sunshine just to think that I +should come to see you! And tell me why you have not been to visit me. +Ah, bad one--cruelest--as cruel as she is pretty" (appealing to me), "is +she not? And there, our Michael, great oaf, sits at home desolated that +he does not hear her foot on the stairs. The foolish fellow tells me that +he listens for four little pit-a-pats every time that I come up from the +court-yard, and is disappointed when there come back only my poor two." + +And Katrin becked and nodded and set her head to the side--like to the +divine Io-Cow playing at being little Jenny Wren. + +And as for me, I kept my gravity--or, rather, how could I lose it, +hearing such nonsense about that great stupid beer-vat, Michael Texel. + +Michael Texel, indeed! I should admire to hear of Michael Texel so much +as raising his eyes to the Little Playmate. Why, I would stave him on +the open street like a puncheon of eight, and think nothing of the +doing of it. + +Michael Texel, indeed! + +But I am forgetting. My business at this time was to make love to Katrin, +so that I might banish the ill impression which Helene had formed +concerning that pleasant, harmless little Christian's Elsa over there. I +never heard anything so foolish in my life. But, then, what women will +think and say passes the imagination of man. + +Michael Texel indeed! + +The thought of that young man of beef and beer recurred so persistently +and forcibly to me that for a time I could scarce command myself to speak +civilly to his sister. Though, of course, she was quite different, being +a woman, and informed with such a quick and dainty spirit that at times +it seemed as it had been imprisoned in her too massive frame and held "in +subjection to the flesh," as the clerics say. God wot, I never knew I had +so much religion and morality about me till I came to write. If I do not +have a care this tale of mine will turn out almost as painful as a book +of devotion which they set children to read on saints' days to keep them +from being over-happy. + +But I subdued my feelings and drew up somewhat nearer to Katrin. + +"My Little Sister--" so I began, cunningly, as I thought--"my sister +Helene is, indeed, fortunate to have so fair a friend, and one so +devoted--" + +"As my brother Michael, yes," she twittered, with her most ponderous, +cage-bird manner; "yes, indeed, he _is_ devoted to her." + +"No," said I, hastily (confound the great hulking camel!), "I mean such a +faithful friend as yourself. I, alas, have no friend. I am cut off from +all society of my kind. Often and often have I felt the weight of +loneliness press heavy upon me in this darksome tower." + +I saw Helene rise, go to the window, and glance across with such a +peculiar smile that I knew as well as if I had seen her that Christian's +Elsa was at her window with her music, looking across for me between each +bar. I cannot describe the smile which hovered on the face of the Little +Playmate. But perhaps all the male beings who read my book may have seen +something like it. All that I can say is, that the smile conveyed an +almost superhuman understanding of men and their little ways, and, +curiously enough, something of contempt too. + +But I was not going to be discouraged by any smile, acid or sweet. +Besides, I had something still to pay back. + +Michael Texel, indeed!--faith, by St. Blaise, I will Texel him tightly an +he comes sneaking to our gate! + +So again I drew yet nearer to his sister. Katrin dimpled and showed her +teeth, with a smile like the sun going about the world, till I had almost +put my hand behind her shoulders to catch the ends of it when it got +round. This illumination almost finished me, for it was not the kind of +smile I had been accustomed to from--well, that was not the business I +was on at present. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS + + +But I admit that the smile discouraged me. Nevertheless I proceeded +gallantly. + +"Ah, Jungfrau Texel," said I, "you cannot know how your presence +brightens our lives here in the Red Tower. Wherefore will you not come +oftener to our grim abode?" + +I thought that, on the whole, pretty well; but, looking up at Helene, I +saw that her smile (so different from that of the Io-Cow Katrin) had +become a whole volume of scathing satire. God wot, it is not easy to make +love to a lass when your "Little Sister" is listening--especially to a +woman-mountain set on watch-springs like Katrin Texel. + +But, after all, Katrin was no ways averse to love-making of any kind, +which, after all, is the main thing. And as for the Little Playmate, I +did not mind her a bonnet-tag. She had brought it upon herself. + +Michael Texel indeed! + +So I went on. It was excellent sport--such a jest as may not be played +every day. I would show Mistress Helene (so I said to myself) whether she +would like it any better if I made love to Katrin than if I went over on +an occasional wet day to clean pistolets and oil French musketoons in +Christian's guard-house. + +So I began to tell Katrin how that woman was the sacredest influence on +the life of men, with other things as I could recollect them out of a +book of chivalry which I had been reading, the fine sentiments of which +it was a pity to waste. For our Helene would have stamped her foot and +boxed my ears for coming nigh her with such nonsense (that is, at this +time she would, doubtless--not, however, always). And as for the lass +over the way--Christian's Elsa--she knew no more of letters than her +father knew of the mathematics. Plain kissing was more in her way--as I +have been told. + +So I aired my book of chivalry to Katrin Texel. + +"Fair maid," said I, "have you heard the refrain of the song that I love +so well? It is like sweet music to me to hear it. I love sweet music. +This is the latest catch: + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.' + +"How goes it, Helene?" I asked, turning to her as she stood smiling +bitterly by the window. For I knew that it would annoy her to be referred +to. "Goes it not something like this?" + +And I hummed fairly enough: + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'" +*** +"And if it goes like that," said she, quickly, "it goeth like a tomcat +mollrowing on the tiles in the middle of the night." + +Now this being manifestly only spiteful, I took no notice of her work. +"Helene does not love good music," said I; "'tis her only fault. But I +trust that you, dear Katrin, have a greater taste for angelic song?" + +"And I trust you love to scratch upon the twangling zither as cats +sharpen their claws upon the bark of trees? You love such music, _dear_ +Katrin, do you not?" cried Helene over her shoulder from the window. + +But Katrin, the divine cow, knew not what to make of us. I think she was +of the opinion that Helene and I, with much study upon books, had +suddenly gone mad. + +"I do indeed love music," she said at last, uncertainly, "but, Master +Hugo, not the kind of which my gossip, Helene, speaks. I love best of all +a ballad of love, sung sweetly and with a melting expression, as from a +lover by the wall to his mistress aloft in the balcony, like that of him +of Italy, who sings: + +"'O words that fall like summer dew on me.' + +"How goes it? + +"'O breath more sweet than is the growing--the growing--'" + +She paused, and waved her hand as if to summon the words from the +empty air. + +"'_The growing garlic,'_ if it be a lover of Italy," cried Helene, still +more spitefully. "This is enough and to spare of chivalry, besides which +Hugo hath his lessons to learn for Friar Laurence, or else he will repent +it on the morrow. Come, sweetheart, let us be going. I will e'en convoy +thee home." + +So she spoke, making great ostentation of her own superiority and +emancipation from learning, treating me as a lad that must learn his +horn-book at school. + +But I was even with her for all that. + +"And so farewell, then, dear Mistress Katrin," said I. "The delicate +pleasure of your presence shall be followed by the still more tender +remembrance which, when you are gone, my heart shall continue to +cherish of you." + +That was indeed well-minded. A whole sentence out of my romance-book +without a single slip. Katrin bowed, with the airy grace of the Grand +Duke's monument out in the square. But the little Helene swept +majestically off, muttering to herself, but so that I could hear her: "'O +wondrous, most wondrous,' quoth our cat Mall, when she saw her Tom +betwixt her and the moon." + +The application of which wise saw is indeed to seek. + +So the two maids went away, and I betook me to the window to see if I +could catch a glimpse of Christian's Elsa. + +But I only saw Katrin and Helene going gossiping down the street with +their heads very close together. + +At first I smiled, well pleased to think how excellently I had played my +cards and how daintily I had worked in those gallant speeches out of the +book of chivalry. But by-and-by it struck me that the Little Playmate was +absent a most unconscionable time. Could it be--Michael Texel? No, that +at least was plainly impossible. + +I got up and walked about. Then for a change I paused by the window. + +I had stood a good while thus moodily looking out at the casement, when I +became aware of two that walked slowly up the street and halted together +before the great iron-studded door which led to the Red Tower. + +By the thirty thousand virgins--Helene and Michael Texel! + +And then, indeed, what a coil was I in; how blackly deceitful I called +her! How keenly I watched for any token of understanding and kindness +more than ordinary that might chance to pass between them. But I could +see none, for though the great soft lout of a ruddy beer-vat tried often +to look under the brim of her hat, yet she kept her eyes down--only once, +that I could observe, raising them, and that was more towards the Red +Tower than in the direction of Michael Texel. + +I think she wished to see whether I was watching. And when she had noted +me it I wot well that she became much more animated, and laughed and +spoke quickly, with color in her cheeks and a flash of defiance on her +countenance, which were manifestly wasted on such a boastful, callow +blubber-tun as Michael Texel. + +Then it was: "Adieu to you, Master Texel!" "Farewell to you, fair maid!" + +And Helene dipped a courtesy to him, dainty and sweet enough to conquer +an angel, while the great jelly-bag shook himself almost to pieces in +his eagerness to achieve a masterly bow. All this made me angry, not +that I cared though Helene had coquetted with a dozen lads, an it had +liked her. It was only the poverty of taste shown in being seen in the +open High Street of Thorn along with such an oaf as Michael Texel. He +had first been my friend, it is true, but then at that time I had not +found him out. + +By-and-by Helene came up the stairs, tripping light as a feather that the +wind blows. Perhaps, though, she had turned in the doorway, where I could +not see her, to throw the lout a kiss--so I thought within me, jealously. + +"You have convoyed your gossip Katrin home in safety, I trust," said I, +sweetly, as she came in. + +"Yes," said she; "but I fear she has left her heart behind her. So +wondrously rapid a courtship never did I see!" + +"Save on the street," answered I; "and with a pale, soft jack-pudding +like Michael Texel! That was a sight, indeed." + +At which Helene laughed a merry little laugh--well-pleased, too, the +minx, as I could see. + +"What are courtships on the street to you, Sir Hugo," she returned, +"with your 'Twinkle-Twankle' singing-women over the way, and--Lord, +how went it? + +"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.' + +"Ha! ha! Sir Gallant, what need you with more? Would you have as many +loves as the Grand Turk, and invent new love-makings for each of them? +Shall we maidens petition Duke Casimir to banish the other lads of the +town and leave only Hugo Gottfried for all of us?" + +And then she went on to other such silly talk that I think it not worth +reporting. + +Whereupon I was about to leave the room in a transport of just +indignation, and that without speaking, when Helene called to me. + +"Hugo!" she said, very softly, as she alone could speak, and that only +when it liked her to make friends. + +I turned me about with some dignity, but knowing in my heart that it was +all over with me. + +"Well, what may be your will, madam?" said I. + +Helene came towards me with uplifted, petitionary eyes. + +"You are not going to be angry with me, Hugo!" she said. And she lifted +her eyes again upon me--irresistible, compelling, solvent of dignities, +and able to break down all pride. + +O all ye men who have never seen my Helene look up thus at you--but only +common other eyes, go and hang yourselves on high trees for very envy. +Well, as I say, Helene looked up at me. She kept on looking up at me. + +And I--well, I hung a moment on my pride, and then--clasped her in my +arms. + +"Dear minx, thrice wicked one!" I exclaimed, "wherefore do you torment +me--break my heart?" + +"Because," said she, escaping as soon as she had gained her pretty, +rascal way, "you think yourself so clever, Hugo, such an irresistible +person, that you must be forever returning to this window and getting +this book of chivalry by heart. Now you are going to be cross again. Oh, +shame, and with your little sister-- + +"'That never did you any harm, + But killed the mice in your father's barn.'" + +With such babyish words she talked the frowns off my face, or, when they +would not go fast enough, hastened them by reaching up and smoothing them +away with her finger. + +"Now," she said, setting her head to the side, "what a nice sweet Great +Brother! Let him sit down here on the great chair." + +So I sat down, well pleased enough, not knowing what mischief the +pranksome maid had now in her head, but judging that the matter might +turn out well for me. + +Then Helene stole round to the back of the chair, and, taking me by the +ears, she gave first one and then the other of them a pull. + +"That," she said, pulling the right, "is for listening to the little cat +over the way that squalls on the tiles! And _that_" (giving the other a +sound tug) "is for being a dandiprat when my gossip Katrin was here!" + +She paused a moment as if to summon courage, and then she stooped quickly +and kissed me on the neck. + +"And _that_ for Michael Texel!" she cried, and ran out of the room before +I could get clear of the wide arms of the chair, and so run after and +catch her. + +She turned in the doorway and wafted me a kiss from her finger-tips, +airily and a little mockingly. + +"That for Hugo Gottfried!" she said, and was off to her own chamber with +the _frou-frou_ of a light skirt, the slam of a door, and the shooting +of a bolt. + +And after all this, it was heart's pity that ever anything should have +come between us again, even for a moment. + +Though, indeed, it was but for a moment. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN + + +It was the forenoon of a Sunday, a dull, sleepy time in all countries, +and one difficult to get overpast. I was as usual busy with my +accoutrement, recently bought with the loan of Master Gerard. The Little +Playmate was just returned from the cathedral, and had indeed scarcely +laid her finery aside, when there came a loud knocking at the outer gate +of the Red Tower. Then one of the guard tramped stolidly from the wicket +to the door of our dwelling. + +"A lady waits you at the postern," said he, and so tramped his way +unceremoniously back to his post. + +I knew without any need of telling that it was the Lady Ysolinde. So I +rose, and hastily setting my fingers through my hair, went to the gate. +There, attended by the respectable servitor, was, as I had expected, the +Lady Ysolinde. + +"Good-morrow," she said very courteously to me, and I duly returned her +greeting with a low obeisance of respect and welcome. + +She wore a large garment, fashioned like a man's cloak, over her festal +attire--which, with a hood for the head, wholly enveloped her figure and +descended to her feet. + +"I have come, as I promised, to see the Little Playmate." These were her +first words as we paced together across the wide upper court under the +wondering eyes of the men of the Duke's body-guard. + +"Pray remember, Lady Ysolinde," said I, with much eagerness, "that I +have as yet said nothing of the matter to Helene, and that my father only +knows that I am to ride to Plassenburg in order to exercise myself in the +practice of arms, before becoming his assistant here in the Red Tower and +in the Hall of Judgment across the way." + +My visitor nodded a little impatiently. She who knew so many things, of a +surety might be trusted to understand so much without being told. + +In the inner doorway Helene met us. And never had it been my fortune to +see the meeting of two such women. The Little Playmate had in her hands +the broidered handkerchiefs, the long Flemish gloves, and the little +illuminated Book of the Hours which I had given her. She had been about +to lay them away together, as is the fashion of women. And when she met +the Lady Ysolinde I declare that she looked almost as tall. Helene was +perhaps an inch or two less in stature than her visitor, but what she +lacked in height she more than made up in the supple erectness of her +carriage and the vivid and extraordinary alertness of all her movements. + +"Lady Ysolinde," said I, as they met with the mutually level eyeshot of +women who measure one another, "this is Helene--whom, for love and +kindliness, we of the Wolfsberg call the 'Little Playmate.'" + +The daughter of Master Gerard impetuously threw back the gray monk's hood +which shrouded the masses of her tawny hair. She put out both hands to +Helene, held her a moment at arm's-length to look into her eyes, even as +she had done with me, but in a different way. Then, drawing her nearer, +she leaned forward and kissed her on the brow and on both cheeks. + +Now I am not ordinarily a close observer, and many things, specially +things that pertain to the acts of women, pass by me unnoticed. But I saw +in a moment that there was not, and never could be, more than the +semblance of cordial amity between these two women. + +I noted the Little Playmate instinctively quiver like a taken bird +when she was thus embraced. It was, I think, the undying antipathy of +Eve for Lilith, a hatred which is mostly on the side of Eve, the +Mother-Woman--its place being taken by sharper and more dangerous envy +in the breast of Lilith-without-the wall. + +There, face to face, stood the two women who were to make my life, ruling +it between them, as it were, striking it out between the impact of their +natures, as underneath the blows of two smiths upon the ringing anvil the +iron, hissing hot, becomes a sword or a ploughshare. + +It was impossible to avoid contrasting them. + +Helene, of a bodily beauty infinitely more full of temptation, bloomful +with radiant health, the blush of youth and conscious loveliness upon her +lips and looking out under the crisp entanglement of her hair, all simple +purity and straightness of soul in the fearless innocency of her eyes; +the Lady Ysolinde, deeper taught in the mysteries of existence, more +conscious of power, not so beautiful, but oftentimes giving the +impression of beauty more strongly than her fairer rival, compact of +swift delicate graces, half feline, half feminine (if these two be not +the same). All these passed like clouds over the unquiet sea of her +nature, reflecting the changing skies of circumstance, and were fitted to +produce a fascination ever on the verge of repulsion even when it was +strongest. Ysolinde was the more ready of speech, but her words were +touched constantly with dainty malice and clawed with subtlest spite. She +catspawed with men and things, often setting the hidden spur under the +velvet foot deeply into the very cheek which she seemed to caress. Such +as I read them then, and largely as even now I understand them, were the +two women who moulded between them my life's history. + +I suppose it is because I am of this Baltic North that I must need think +things round and round, and prose of reasons and explanations--even when +I write concerning beautiful maids--forever dreaming and dividing, +instead of going straight, sword in hand, for their hearts, as is the way +of the folk from the English land over-seas, or, more simply still, lying +about their favors, which, I hear, is mostly the Frenchman's way. + +But enough of intolerable theory. + +Instinctively the Lady Ysolinde spoke to our maid of the Red Tower in a +manner and tone very different from that which I had ever before heard +her employ, at once more equal and more guarded. + +"I was told by Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made at +my father's house on the day after his foolish boy's prank of the White +Swan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age, +like myself a maid solitary among men. So to-day I have come to solicit +her acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind to me, who have ever been in +this city and country as a stranger in a strange land." + +It was prettily enough said, and our Helene, easily touched, and perhaps +a little ashamed of her first stiffness, put out a hand which the other +quickly and securely clasped. Then those two sat down together. Ysolinde +von Sturm kept her eyes fixed on the Playmate, but our shy and slender +Helene looked steadily past her out over the tumbled red roofs and peaked +gables of the city of Thorn to the gray Wolfmark plains which lay spread +beneath our windows like a picture in a book. + +At intervals, as it came near the hour of their mid-day meal, the +blood-hounds howled in the kennels, and by their tone I knew that my +father had left the Hall of Judgment where he had been detained all the +morning. Also I knew very well that the Lady Ysolinde wished me to find +an errand elsewhere, in order that she might talk alone with her +companion. But I saw also the appeal in the eyes of the Playmate, and I +was resolved not to give her the chance. + +"Are you never weary in this dull tower?" asked the lawyer's daughter, +still holding the Playmate's hand. + +"It is not dull," replied Helene. "I have my work. There are two men as +shiftless and helpless as babes to attend to, and none to help me but +old Hanne." + +"Let men attend to themselves," cried Ysolinde; "that is ever my motto. +They ought to be our servants, not we theirs." + +It was said smilingly, yet there was bitterness under the words as well. + +"But," said Helene, smiling back at her with a fresh directness all her +own, "one of the men saved my life and brought me up as his own daughter, +and the other is--is Hugo, here." + +And as she spoke of my father and of me I saw the eyes of the Lady +Ysolinde fixed upon her, as it had been to read her inner soul. + +"And, by-the-way," she said, at last, after a long pause, "you have heard +how this same Master Hugo proposes to himself to escape from the +prison-house of this city, for a season to exercise himself in arms, and +so in roving adventure fulfil that which is not granted to a maid, his +'wandering years.' He goes (so my father tells me) to the Court of the +Prince of Plassenburg, with the promise of a company to command. And I am +glad, for I shall ride thither under his escort. Indeed, and in truth, my +home is far more there than here in Thorn. But I would fain have a +companion of my own sex. So I have come to beg of you, Mistress Helene, +that you will accompany me. The Princess, I know, has great need of a +maid of honor near her person, and will gladly welcome a friend of mine +for the post." + +The Little Playmate looked up astonished, as well she might, at this +direct assault, which was moreover spoken with a pretty shamefacedness +and the air of asking almost too great a favor. And, indeed, if there was +any patronage in the thing offered, it was at least carefully kept out of +the manner of asking. + +"Lady Ysolinde, I cannot accept your too overpowering favor," said +Helene, after a pause, "but your kindness in thinking at all of me will +always warm my heart." + +At this critical moment came my father in, looking more than grave and +severe, so that I judged at once that he had been talking to the Duke +Casimir and had found his post of chief adviser both thankless and +difficult. I knew it could be no matter of his office which worried him, +for that day he wore his holiday attire of white Friesland cloth, and the +broad bonnet in which I loved best to see him. There was no mark of his +calling about him anywhere, save a little Red Axe sewed upon his left +breast like a war veteran's decoration. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE + + +Gottfried Gottfried bowed to the guest of his house with the noble manner +which comes to every serious-minded man who deals habitually in the high +matters of life and death. I made his introductions to the Lady Ysolinde, +and as readily and gracefully he returned his acknowledgments. For the +rest I allowed Master Gerard's daughter to develop her own projects to +him, which, indeed, she was no long time in doing. + +As she proceeded I saw my father change color and become as to his face +almost as white as the Friesland cloth in which he was dressed. +Presently, however, as if struck with the sound of a well-known name, he +looked up quickly. + +"Plassenburg, said you, my lady?" he inquired. + +The Lady Ysolinde nodded. + +"Yes, to Plassenburg, where the Princess has great need of a maid +of honor." + +"Her Highness is often upon her travels, I hear it reported," said my +father, "while the Prince keeps himself much at home." + +"He esteems his armies more than all the marvels of strange countries," +replied Ysolinde, "and thus he holds the land and folk in great quiet." + +"And your father, Master Gerard, would have my son engage with this +Prince Karl for a space. Well, I think it may be good for the lad. For I +know well that the shadow of the Red Tower stalks after him through this +city of Thorn, and there is no need that he should lie down under it too +soon. But this of my little maid is a matter apart, and means a longer +and a sorer parting." + +"Fear not, my father," cried the Playmate, eagerly, "I would not leave +you alone, even to be the Princess of Plassenburg herself." + +My father took another strange look from one to the other of the two +women, the import of which I understood not then. + +"I know not," said he; "I think this thing also might be for the best. As +I see it, there are strange times coming upon us in Thorn. And the town +of Plassenburg under Karl the Prince is a defenced city, set in a strong +province, content and united. It might be wisest that you also should go, +little one." + +"I cannot go," said Helene, "and leave you alone." + +Gottfried Gottfried smiled a sad smile, wistfully pleasant. + +"Already I am wellnigh an old man, and it is the nature of my profession +that I should be alone. I work among the issues of life and death. Every +man must be lonely when he dies, and I, who have lived most with dying +men, am perforce already lonely while I live. It is well--a clearer air +for the young bird! But yet it will be lonesome to miss you when I come +in--the empty pot wanting the flower; the case without the jewel; silence +above and below; your voice and Hugo's, that have changed the sombre Red +Tower with your young folks' pleasantries, heard no more. Ah, God wot, I +had thought--I had dreamed far other things." + +He stopped and looked from one to the other of us, and I saw that +Ysolinde of the White Gate read his thought. Whereat right suddenly the +Little Playmate blushed, and as for me I kept watching the dull gold +flash on the spangles of our guest's waist-belt, which was in form like +a live serpent, with changeful scales and eyes of ruby red. + +My father went over to where Helene sat. She rose to meet him and cast +her arms about his neck. He laid his right hand on her head--that +terrible hand that was yet not dreadful to us-who loved him. + +"Little flower," he said, in his simple way, "God be good to you in the +transplanting! It is not fair to your young life that my red stain should +lie upon your lot. I have given you a quiet hermitage while you needed +it. But now it is right that my house should again be left unto me +desolate. It is already late summer with Gottfried Gottfried, and high +time that the young brood should fly away." + +He turned to me. + +"With you, Hugo, it is a thing different; you were born to that to which +you are born. And to that, as I read your horoscope, you must one day +return. But in the mean time care well for the maid. I lend her to you. I +give her into your hand. Cherish her as your chiefest treasure. Let her +enemies be yours, and if harm come to her through your neglect, slay +yourself ere you come again before me. For, by the Lord God of all +Righteous Judgment, I will have no mercy!" + +I saw the eyes of the Lady Ysolinde glitter like those of the snake in +her belt as thus my father delivered Helene over to me. + +But my father had yet more to say. + +"And if any," he went on, in a deep, still voice, keeping his hand upon +the downcast head of the Little Playmate--"if any, great or small, +prince or pauper, harm so much as a hair of this fair head, by the great +God who wields His Axe over the universe and sits in the highest Halls of +Judgment, whose servant I am--I, Gottfried Gottfried, swear that he shall +taste the vengeance of the Red Axe and drink to the dregs the cup of +agony in his own blood!" + +So saying, he kissed Helene and stalked out without turning his head or +making any further obeisance or farewell. + +We sat mazed and confounded after his departure. + +The Lady Ysolinde it was who first recovered herself. She put out a +kindly hand to Helene, who stood wet-eyed and drooping by the window, +looking out upon the roofs of Thorn, though well I wot she saw nothing of +spire, roof, or pinnacle. + +"God do so to me and more also," she said, in a low, solemn voice, "if I +too keep not this charge." + +And I think for the moment she meant it. The trouble was that the Lady +Ysolinde could not mean one thing for very long at a time. As, indeed, +shall afterwards appear. + +So it was arranged that within the week Helene and I should say our +farewells to the Red Tower which had sheltered us so long, as well as to +Gottfried Gottfried, who had ever been my kind father, and to the little +Helene more than any father. + +But in spite of all we wearied day by day to be gone. For, indeed, +Gottfried Gottfried said right. The shadow of the Red Tower, the stain of +the Red Axe, was over us both so long as we abode on the Wolfsberg. Yet +what it cost us to depart--at least till we were out of the gates of the +city--I cannot write down, for to both of us the first waygoing seemed +bitter as death. + +I remember it well. My father had been busy all the morning with his grim +work on the day when we were to ride away. A gang of malefactors who had +wasted a whole country-side with their cruelty had been brought in. And, +as it was suspected that other more important villains were yet to be +caught, there had been the repeated pain of the Extreme Question, and now +there remained but the falling of the Red Axe to settle all accounts. So +that when he came to bid us farewell he had but brief time to spare. And +of necessity he wore the fearful crimson, which fitted his tall, spare +figure like a glove. + +"Fare thee well, little one!" he said, first to Helene. "Not thus, had +the choice lain with me, would I have bidden thee farewell. But when it +shall be that I meet you again I will surely wear the white of the festa +day. I commit you to Him whose mistakes are better than our good deeds, +whose judgments are kinder than our tenderest mercies." + +So he kissed her, and reached a hand over her shoulder to me. + +"Son Hugo," he said, "go in peace. You must return to succeed me. I see +it like a picture--on the day when I lie dead you shall stand with the +Red Axe in your hand waiting to do judgment. It is well. Keep this maid +more sacred than your life--and, meantime, fare you well!" + +So saying he left us abruptly. + +Our horses were saddled in the court-yard, and as I rode last through the +rarely opened gateway, I saw Duke Casimir looking out from his window +upon the lower enclosure, as was his pleasure upon the days of execution. +I heard the dull thud, which was the meeting of the Red Axe and the +redder block as that which had been between fell apart. And for the last +time I heard the blood-hounds leap and the pattering of their eager feet +upon the barriers as they leaped up scenting the Duke's carrion. + +Thus the latest I heard of the place of my nativity was fitting and +dreadful. I was mortally glad to ride away into the clear air and the +invigorating silence. But on my heart there still lay heavy the +twice-repeated prediction of my father and of the Lady Ysolinde, that I +should yet return and hold the Red Axe in his place. + +But I resolved rather to die in the honest front of battle. +Nevertheless, had I known the future, I would have seen that they and not +I were right. + +I was indeed fated to return and stand ready to execute doom, with the +Red Axe in my hand and my father lying dead near by. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE PRIME OF THE MORNING + + +Now so strange a thing is woman that, so soon as we were started down the +High Street of the city of Thorn, the Little Playmate dried her eyes, +turned towards me in her saddle, and straightway began to take me to task +as though I had been to blame. + +"I have left," said she, "the only home I ever knew, and the only man +that ever truly loved me, to accompany a young man that cares not for +me, and a woman whom I have seen but once, to a far land and an +unkindly folk." + +"It is not fair," I said, "to say that I love you not. For, as God sees +me, I have ever loved you--loved you best and loved you only, little +Helenchen! And though you are angered with me now, I know not why--still +till now you have never doubted it." + +"I doubt it sorely enough now, I know," she said, bitterly; "yet, indeed, +I care not whether you or any love me at all." + +And this saying I was greatly sorry for. It seemed a sad wayfaring from +our old Red Tower and out of my native city of Thorn. + +"Helene, little one," said I, "believe me, I love none in the whole world +but my father and you. Trust me, for I am to keep you safe with my life +in the far land to which we go. Do not let us quarrel, littlest. There +are only the two of us here that remember the old man my father and the +little room to which you came as a babe, all in white." + +So presently she was somewhat pacified, and reached me a hand from the +back of her beast, on pretence of leaning over to avoid a swinging sign +in one of the narrow streets near by the White Gate, where we were to +meet the Lady Ysolinde. + +"And yet more, Little Playmate," said I, keeping her hand when I had it; +"do not begin by distrusting the noble lady with whom we are to travel. +For she means well to us both, and in the strange country to which we go +we may be wholly in her power." + +"You are sure that you do not love that woman, then?" said Helene, +without looking at me. For, indeed, in many things she was but a child, +and ever spoke more freely than other maids--perhaps with being brought +up in the Red Tower in the company of my father, who on all occasions +spoke his mind just as it came to him. + +"Nay," said I, "believe me, little love, I do not love her at all." + +And now on horseback Helene looked all charming, and what with the +exercise, the unknown adventure, and my reassurance, she had a glow of +rose color in her cheeks. She had never before been so far away from the +precincts of the Wolfsberg. I had even taught her to ride in the +court-yard of a summer evening, on a horse borrowed from one of the +Duke's squires. + +We found the Lady Ysolinde waiting for us at her house, Master Gerard +talking to her in the doorway, earnestly and apart. Both of them had a +look of much solemnity, as though the matter of their discourse were some +very weighty one. + +Presently her father kissed her and she came down the steps. I leaped +from my horse to help her to the saddle, but the respectable serving-man +was before me. So that instead I went about and looked to the buckles and +girths, which were all in order, and patted the arching neck of the +beautiful milk-white palfrey whereon she rode. Then Master Gerard waved a +hand and went within. + +And as we fared forth out of the Weiss Thor into the keener air of the +country, I thought what a charge I had--to squire two ladies so +surpassingly fair, each in her own several graces, as our Helene and the +Lady Ysolinde. + +No sooner, however, were we past the outer barriers, at which the +soldiers of the Duke Casimir kept guard, than a vast, ungainly wight +started up from the road-side. + +"Jan Lubber Fiend!" cried the Lady Ysolinde; "what do you here?" + +The oaf grinned his awful, writhed smile and wriggled his great body +after the manner of a puppy desirous of the milk-platter. + +"Think you, my lady," said he, cunningly, "that your poor Jan would abide +within the precincts of the city house with that funeral ape bidding me +do this and do that, sit here and sit there, come in and go out at his +pleasure? A thing of dough that I could twist into knots as easily as I +can crack my joints." + +And of this latter accomplishment he proceeded to give us certain +examples which sounded like cannon-shots delivered at close quarters. + +"Get home with you!" cried Ysolinde; "I cannot have thee following +us. There are two men presently to meet us, to guard us to +Plassenburg, and we do not need you, Jan Lubber Fiend. Get back and +take care of my father." + +"Oh, as for him," said the monster, sitting down squat upon the plain +road in the dust, "he is a tough old cock, and will come to no harm. We +can e'en leave him with a good cook, a prime cellar, and an easy mind. +But this young man is not to trust to with so many pretty maids. Jan will +come and look after him." + +And with that he nodded his hay-stack of a head three times at me, and +going to the hedge-root he laid hold of the top of a young poplar and +turned him about, keeping the stem of it over his shoulder. Then he set +himself to pull like a horse that starts a load, and presently, without +apparently distressing himself in the least, he walked away with the +young tree, roots and all. + +Having shaken off the earth roughly, he pulled out a sheath-knife and +trimmed the branches till he had made him a kind of club, with which he +threatened me, saying, "If I catch that young man at any tricks, with +this club will Jan Lubber Fiend break every bone in his skin, like the +shells of so many broken eggs." + +Then laughing a little, and seeing that nothing could be made of the +fellow, the Lady Ysolinde rode on and we followed her. We thought that +surely there would be no difficulty in shaking him off long ere we +reached our lodging-place of the evening, and that he would find his way +back to the city of Thorn. + +But even though we set our horses to their speed, it seemed to make no +difference to the unwieldy giant. He merely stretched his legs a little +farther, and caused his great gaskined feet to pass each other as fast as +if they had been shod with seven-league boots. So he not only kept up +with us easily, but oftentimes made a detour through the fields and over +the wild country on either side, as a questing dog does, ever returning +to us with some quaint vagrant fancy or quip of childish simplicity. + +But what pleased me better than the appearance of the Lubber Fiend was +that ere we had gone quite two miles out of the city we found two +well-armed and stanch-looking soldiers waiting for us at a kind of +cross-road. They were armed with the curious powder-guns which were +coming into fashion from France. These went off with a noble report, and +killed sometimes at as much as fifteen or twenty paces when the aim was +good. The fellows had swords also, and little polished shields on their +left arms--altogether worthy and notable body-guards. + +"These two are soldiers of the Guard from Plassenburg," said the Lady +Ysolinde, "though now they are travelling as members of a Free Company +desiring to enter upon new engagements. But they will make the way easier +and pleasanter for us, as well as infinitely safer, being veterans well +accustomed to the work of quartering and foraging." + +As indeed we were to find ere the day ended. + +So we rode on in the brilliant light, and the long, long day seemed all +too brief to us who were young, and scarce delivered from the +prison-house of Thorn. And to my shame I admit that my heart rose with +every mile that I put between me and the Red Tower. + +Indeed, I hardly had a thought to spend on my father. The hot quadrangle +of the Wolfsberg, ever smelling of horses and the swelter of shed blood, +the howling, fox-colored demons in the kennels, the black Duke Casimir +--right gladly I forgot them all. Aye, I forgot even my father, and +everything save that I was riding with two fair women through a world +where all was love and spring, and where it was ever the prime of a +young morning. + +The Lady Ysolinde could not make enough of our Little Playmate. She +laughed back at her over her shoulder when she let her horse out for a +canter. She marvelled loudly at Helene's good riding, and at the +unbound beauty of the crisp ringlets which clustered round her head +like a boy's. And our Helene smiled, well pleased, and ceased to watch +my eyes or to grow silent if I checked my horse too long by the side of +the Lady Ysolinde. + +Mostly we three rode abreast over the pleasant country. So long as we +were crossing the plain of the Wolfmark we saw few tilled fields, and +the farm-houses were fewer still. But wherever these were to be seen +they were fortified and defended like castles, and had gates, great and +high, with iron plates upon them and knobs like the points of spears +beaten blunt. + +The Lady Ysolinde, who had often ridden that way, told us that these were +all in the Duke Casimir's country, and were mostly possessed by the kin +of his chief captains--feudal tenants, who for the right of possession +were compelled to furnish so many riders to the Duke's Companies. + +"But wait," she said, "till you come to the dominions of the Prince of +Plassenburg. You will find that he is indeed a ruler that can make the +broom-bush keep the cow." + +So we rode on, and passed pleasant and exciting things, more than I had +ever seen in all my life before. + +Once we saw half a dozen men driving cattle across our path, and it was +curious to mark how readily they drew their swords and couched their +lances at us, turning themselves about this way and that like a quintain +till we were quite gone by, which made us laugh. For it seemed a strange +thing that men so well armed should fear a company of no more than their +own numbers, and two of them maids upon palfreys. + +But Ysolinde said: "It is not, after all, so strange, for over yonder +blue hills dwells Joan of the Swordhand, who can lead a foray as well as +any man, and once worsted Duke Casimir himself when he beset her castle." + +So the day went past swiftly, with good company and the converse of folk +well liking one another. And ever I wondered how we were to spend the +night, and what sort of cheer we should find at our inn. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +WENDISH WIT + + +The gray plain of the Wolfmark, which we had been traversing ever since +we descended out of the steep Weiss Thor of the city of Thorn, had now +begun to break into ridges and mounded hills of stiff red clay. And I, +who had often kept my watch on the highest pinnacle of the Red Tower, +looked with astonishment back upon the city I had left behind. Seen from +the plain, Thorn had an aspect almost imperial. + +It rose above the colorless flat of gray suddenly, unexpectedly, almost +insolently. The city, with its numberless gables, spires of churches, +turreted gate-houses, occupied a ridge of gradually swelling ground which +rose like a huge whale-back from the misty plain. Its walls were grim, +high, and far-stretching. But as we travelled farther into the Wolfmark +the city seemed to sink deeper into the plain and the dark castle of Duke +Casimir to shoot ever higher into the skies. So that presently, as we +looked back, we could only see the Wolfsberg itself, the abode of cruelty +and wrong, standing black against the white sky of noon. + +Its flanking towers stood up above the battlemented wall, their turrets +climbing higher and higher towards heaven, till the topmost Red +Tower--that in which my father's garrot was, and in which I had spent my +entire life until this day--soared straight upward above them all, like a +threatening index-finger pointing, not into the clear sky of a summer's +noon, but into clouds and thick darkness. + +I was glad when at last we lost sight of it. Then, indeed, I felt that I +had left my old life behind me. And, in spite of the Lady Ysolinde's +ink-pool prophecy and my love for my father (such as it was), I did not +mean ever to trust myself within that baleful circle of gray and weary +plain upon which the Red Tower looked down. + +Seeing that the maids were inclined to talk the one with the other, or +rather that the Lady Ysolinde spoke confidentially with Helene, and that +Helene now answered her without embarrassment and with frank, equal +glances, I dropped gradually behind and rode with the two stout +men-at-arms. These I found to be honest lads enough, but of a strangely +reserved and taciturn nature, each ever waiting for the other to +answer--being, like most Wendish men, much averse to questioning and +still more stiff as to replying. + +"You are men of Plassenburg?" I said to the nearest, simply and +innocently enough, for the purpose of improving the cordiality of our +relations. + +Whereupon he turned his head slowly about to his neighbor, as it were to +consult him. The glance said as clearly as monk's script: "What shall we +answer to this troublesome, inquisitive fellow?" + +At first I thought that perhaps they spoke not the common dialect, and +that as we were travelling towards regions roughly Wendish and but lately +heathen, they might have some uncouth speech of their own. So, as is ever +the custom with folk that are not accustomed to the speaking of foreign +tongues, I repeated the question in mine own language in a louder tone, +supposing that that would do as well. + +"You are men of the country of Plassenburg?" cried I, as loud as I +could bawl. + +"We are not deaf--we have all our faculties, praise the saints!" said the +more distant of the two, looking not at me but at his companion. He, on +his part, nodded back at his comrade's reply, as if it had been +delicately calculated at once to answer my question and at the same time +not to commit them to any dangerous opinions. + +I tried again. + +"Your prince, I hear, is a true man, brave, and well-versed in war?" + +The shorter and stouter man, who rode beside me, glanced once at my face, +and slowly screwed round his head to his companion in a long, questioning +gaze. Then as slowly he turned his head back again. + +"Umph!" he said, judicially, with a movement of his head, which seemed a +successful compromise between a nod and a shake, just as his remark +might very well have resulted from an attempt to say "Yes" and "No" at +the same time. + +This was not encouraging to one who, like myself, was in high spirits and +much inclined for conversation. But I was not to be so easily beaten off. + +"The Prince of Plassenburg has a Princess," I said, "who is often upon +her travels?" + +It was an innocent remark, and, so far as I could see, not one in itself +highly humorous. But it broke up the gravity of these red-haired northern +bears as if it had been the latest gay sally of the court-fool. + +"Ha! ha!" laughed the more distant, lanky man, rocking himself in his +saddle till the pennon on his lance shook and the point dipped towards +his horse's ear. + +"Ho! ho!" chorused his companion, slapping his thigh jovially. "Jorian, +did you hear that? 'The Prince of Plassenburg hath a Princess, and she is +often upon her travels.' Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho!" + +"He hath said it! Ho! ho! He hath said it! He is a wise fellow, after +all, this beardless Jack-pudding of Thorn!" cried the other, tee-heeing +with laughter till he nearly wept upon his own saddle-bow. + +I began to get very angry. For we men of Thorn were not accustomed to be +so flouted by any strangers, keeping mostly our own customs, and reining +in the few strangers who ventured to visit Duke Casimir's dominions +pretty tightly. Least of all could I brook insolence from these Wendish +boors from the outskirts of half-pagan Borrussia. + +"The Prince of Plassenburg hath churls among his retinue," said I, hotly, +"if they be all like you two Jacks, that cannot answer a simple question +without singing out like donkeys upon a common where there are no +thistles to keep them quiet." + +Sir Thicksides, the fat jolter-head nearest me set his thumb out to +stick it into the side armor of Longlegs, his companion, who rode cheek +by jowl with him. + +"Oo-oo-ahoo!" cried he, crowing with mirth, as if I had said a yet more +facetious thing. "'Tis a simple question--'Hath the Prince of Plassenburg +a Princess, and is she not oft--ahoo!' Boris, prod me with thy +lance-shaft hard, to keep me from doing myself an ill turn with this +fellow's innocence." + +"Hold up, Jorian !" answered the long man, promptly pounding him on the +back with the butt of his spear. "Hold up, fat Jorian! Let not thy love +of mirth do thee any injury. For thou art a good comrade, and fools were +ever apt to divert thee too much. I have seen thee at this before--that +time we went to Wilna, and the fellow in motley gave thee griping spasms +with his tomfoolery." + +Then was I mainly angry, as indeed I had sufficient occasion. + +"You are but churls," I said, "and the next thing to knaves. And I will +e'en inform the Prince when we arrive what like are the men whom he sets +to escort ladies to his castle." + +But though they were silenter after this, it was not from any alarm at my +words, but simply because they had laughed themselves out of ply. For as +I rode on in high dudgeon, half-way between the women and the +men-at-arms, I could see them with the corner of an eye still nudging +each other with their thumbs and throwing back their heads, and the +breeze blew me scraps of their limited conversation. + +"Ho! ho! Good, was it not? 'The Prince hath a Princess, and she--' Ho! +ho! Good!" + +The ridges of clay of which I have already spoken continued and increased +in size as we went on. It was a dried-up, speckled, unwholesome-looking +land. And people upon it there were none that we could see. The large +fortified farms had ceased altogether. A certain frightful monotony +reigned everywhere. Ravines, like cracks which the sun makes in mud, but +a thousand times greater, began to split the hills perpendicularly to +their very roots. The path wound perilously this way and that among them. +And presently Jorian and Boris rode past me to take the lead, for +Ysolinde and Helene were inclined to mistake the way as often as they +came to the crossing and interweaving of the intricate paths. + +And as these two jolly jackasses rode past at my right side I could see +the thumb of long Boris curving towards the ribs of his companion, and +the shoulders of both shaking as they chuckled. + +"A rare simpleton's question, i' faith, yes. Ho! ho! Good!" they +chorussed. "'The Prince hath a Princess'--the cock hath a hen, and she-- +Ha! ha! Good!" + +At that moment I could with pleasure have slain Jorian and Boris for +open-mouthed, unshaven, slab-sided Wendish pigs, as indeed they were. + +Yet, had I done so, we had fared but ill without them. For had they been +a thousand times jackasses and rotten pudding-heads (as they were), at +least they knew the way and something of the unchristian people among +whom we were going. + +And so in a little while, as we wound our way along the face of these +perilons rifts in the baked clay, with the mottled, inefficient river +feeling its way gingerly at the bottom of the buff--colored ravine, what +was my astonishment to see Jorian and Boris turn sharply at right angles +and ride single file up one of the dry lateral cracks which opened, as it +were, directly into the hill-side! + +They did this without ever looking at the landmarks, like men who are +anyways uncertain of their road. But, on the contrary, they wheeled +confidently and rode jauntily on, and we three meekly followed, having +by this time lost the Lubber Fiend, the devil doubtless knew where. +For we must have followed Boris and Jorian unquestioningly had they +led us into the bowels of the earth, as indeed, at first sight, they +seemed to be doing. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE EARTH-DWELLERS OF NO MAN'S LAND + + +Then presently we came to a strange place, the like of which I have never +seen, save here on the borders of the Mark and the northern Wendish +lands. An amalgam of lime, or binding stuff of some sort, had glued the +clay of the ravines together, and set it stiff and fast like dried +plaster. So, as we went up the narrow, perilous path, our horses had to +tread very warily lest, going too near the edge, they should chip off +enough of the foothold to send themselves and their riders whirling +neck-over-toes to the bottom. + +All at once the Little Playmate, who was riding immediately before me, +screamed out sharp and shrill, and I hastened up to her, thinking she had +fallen upon a misfortune. I found her palfrey with ears pricked and +distended nostril, gazing at a head in a red nightcap which was set out +of a hole in the red clay. + +"The country of gnomes! Of a surety, yes! And hitherto I had thought it +had been but the nonsense of folk-tales!" said I to myself. + +Which is what we shall say one day of more things than +red-nightcapped heads. + +But the Little Playmate uttered scream after scream, for the head +continued coolly to stare at her, as if fixed alive over the gateway by +the craft of some cave-dwelling imp of the Red Axe. + +I noticed, however, that the head chewed a straw and spat, which I +deemed a gnome would not do--though wherefore straws and spitting are +not free to gnomes I do not know and could not have told. Yet, at all +events, such was my belief. And a serviceable one enough it was, since +it took the fear out of me and gave me back my speech. And when a man +can speak he can fight. Contrariwise, it is when a woman will not fight +that she can talk best, as one may see in any congress of two angry +vixens. So long as they rail there is but threatening and safe +recriminations, but when one waxes silent, then 'ware nails and teeth! +And I am _not_ in my dotage to use such illustrations--as not +unnaturally sayeth the first to read my history. + +"Good man," cried I, to Sir Red Cap in the wall, "I know not why you +stick your ugly head out of the mud, but retract it, I pray you! For do +you not see that it alarms the lady and affrights her beast?" + +The man nodded intelligently, but went on coolly chewing his straw. + +Then I went up to him, and, as civilly as I could, took him by the chin +and thrust his head back into the hole. And as I did so I saw for the +first time that the wall of the clay cliff, tough and gritty with its +alloy of lime, had been cut and hewn into houses and huts having doors of +wood of exactly the same color, and in some cases even windows with +bars--very marvellous to see, and such as I have never witnessed +elsewhere. Presently, at the trampling of the feet of so many horses, +people began to throng to their doors, and children peered out at windows +and cried to each other shrilly: "See the Christians!" + +For so, being but lately pagans themselves, if not partly so to this +day, these outlandish men of the border No Man's Land denominated us of +the south. + +Presently we came to an open space sloping away from the sheer cliff, +where was a wall and a door greater than the others. + +Jorian rode directly up to the gate, which was of the same dull +brick-red as the rest of the curious town. He took the butt of his lance +and thumped and banged lustily upon it. For a time there was no reply, +but the number of heads thrust out at neighboring windows and the swarms +of townsfolk on the pathways before and behind us enormously increased. + +Jorian thundered again, kicking with his foot and swearing explosively in +mingled Wendish and German. Then he took the point of his spear, and, +setting it to a hole in the wall above his head, he hooked out an entire +wooden window-frame, as one is taught to pull out a shrimp with a pin on +the shore of the Baltic Sea. + +Whereupon a sudden outcry arose within the house, and a head popped +angrily out of the aperture so suddenly created. But as instantly it +returned within. For Jorian tossed the lattice to the ground by the door +and thrust his spear-head into the cravat of red which the man had about +his throat, shouting to him all the while in the name of the Prince, of +the Duke, of the Emperor, of the Archbishop, of all potentates, lay and +secular, to come down and open the gates. The man in the red cravat was +threatened with the strappado, with the water-torture, with the +brodequins, and finally with the devil's cannon--which, according to our +man-at-arms, was to be planted on the opposite bank of the ravine, and +which would infallibly bring the whole of their wretched town tumbling +down into the gulf like swallows' nests from under the eaves. + +And this last threat seemed to have more weight than all the rest, +probably because the Prince of Plassenburg had already done something of +the kind to some other similar town, and the earth-burrowers of Erdborg +had good reason to fear the thunder of his artillery. + +At all events, the great door opened, and a man of the same brick-red as +all the other inhabitants of the town appeared at the portal. He bowed +profoundly, and Jorian addressed him in some outlandishly compounded +speech, of which I could only understand certain oft-recurring words, as +"lodging," "victualling," and "order of the Prince." + +So, presently, after a long, and on the side of our escort a stormy, +conference, we were permitted to enter. Our horses were secured at the +great mangers, which extended all along one side; while, opposite to the +horses, but similar to their accommodation in every respect, were stalls +wherein various families seemed to be encamped for the night. + +With all the air of a special favor conferred, we were informed that we +must take up our quarters in the middle of the room and make the best of +the hardened floor there. This information, conveyed with a polite wave +of the hand and a shrug of the shoulders by our landlord, seemed not +unnaturally to put Jorian and Boris into a furious passion, for they drew +their swords, and with a unanimous sweep of the hand cleared the capes of +their leathern jacks for fighting. So, not to be outdone, I drew my +weapon also, and stood by to protect Helene and the Lady Ysolinde. + +These two stood close together behind us, but continued to talk +indifferently, chiefly of dress and jewels--which surprised me, both in +the strange circumstances, and because I knew that Helene had seen no +more of them than the valueless trinkets that had belonged to my mother, +and which abode in a green-lined box in the Red Tower. Yet to speak of +such things seems to come naturally to all women. + +As if they had mutually arranged it "from all eternity," as the clerks +say, Jorian and Boris took, without hesitation, each a door on the +opposite wall, and, setting their shoulders to them, they pushed them +open, and went within sword in hand, leaving me alone to protect the +ladies and to provide for the safety of the horses. + +Presently out from the doors by which our conductors had entered there +came tumbling a crowd of men and women, some carrying straw bolsters and +wisps of hay, others bearing cooking utensils, and all in various +_dishabille._ Then ensued a great buzzing and stirring, much angry +growling on the part of the disturbed men, and shrill calling of women +for their errant children. + +Our little Helene looked sufficiently pitiful and disturbed as these +preparations were being made. But the Lady Ysolinde scarcely noticed +them, taking apparently all the riot and delay as so much testimony to +the important quality of such great ones of the earth as could afford to +travel under the escort of two valiant men-at-arms. + +Presently came Jorian and Boris out at a third door, having met somewhere +in the back parts of the warren. + +They came up to the Lady Ysolinde and bowed humbly. + +"Will your ladyship deign to choose her chamber? They are all empty. +Thereafter we shall see that proper furniture, such as the place affords, +is provided for your Highness." + +I could not but wonder at so much dignity expended upon the daughter of +Master Gerard, the lawyer of Thorn. But Ysolinde took their reverence as +a matter of course. She did not even speak, but only lifted her right +hand with a little casual flirt of the fingers, which said, "Lead on!" + +Then Jorian marshalled us within, Boris standing at the door to let us +pass, and bringing his sword-blade with a little click of salute to the +perpendicular as each of us passed. But I chanced to meet his eye as I +went within, whereat the rogue deliberately winked, and I could plainly +see his shoulders heave. I knew that he was still chewing the cud of his +stale and ancient jest: "The Prince hath a Princess, and she--" + +I could have disembowelled the villain. But, after all, he was +certainly doing us some service, though in a most provocative and +high-handed manner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +I STAND SENTRY + + +There are (say some) but two things worth the trouble of making in the +world--war and love. So once upon a time I believed. But since--being +laid up during the unkindly monotony of our Baltic spring by an ancient +wound--I fell to the writing of this history, I would add to these two +worthy adventures--the making of books. Which, till I tried my hand at +the task myself, I would in no wise have allowed. But now, when the days +are easterly of wind and the lashing water beats on the leaded lozenges +of our window lattice, I am fain to stretch myself, take up a new pen, +and be at it again all day. + +But I must e'en think of them that are to read me, and of their pain if I +overstretch my privilege. Besides, if I prove over-long in the wind they +may not read me at all, which, I own it, would somewhat mar my purpose. + +I was speaking, therefore, of being in the watch and ward of two women, +each of whom (in my self-conceit I thus imagined it) certainly regarded +me without dislike. God forgive me for thinking so much when they had +never plainly told me! Nevertheless I took the thing for granted, as it +were. And, as I said before, it has been my experience that, if it be +done with a careful and delicate hand, more is gained with women by +taking things for granted than by the smoothest tongue and longest +Jacob-and-Rachael service. The man who succeeds with good women is the +man who takes things for granted. Only he must know exactly what things, +otherwise I am mortally sorry for him--he will have a rough road to +travel. But to my tale. + +Jorian ushered Ysolinde and Helene into the rooms from which he had so +unceremoniously ousted the former tenants. How these chambers were +lighted in the daytime I could not at first make out, but by going to the +end of the long earth-hewn passage and leaning out of a window the +mystery was made plain. The ravine took an abrupt turn at this point, so +that we were in a house built round an angle, and so had the benefit of +light from both sides. + +"And where are our rooms to be?" I asked of the stout soldier when +he returned. + +Jorian pointed to the plain, hard earth of the passage. + +"That is poor lodging for tired bones!" I said; "have they no other rooms +to let anywhere in this hostelry?" + +He laughed again; indeed, he seemed to be able to do little else whenever +he spoke to me. + +"Tired bones will lie the stiller!" said he, at last, sententiously. +"There is some wheaten straw out there which you can bring in for a +bolster, if you will. But I think it likely that we shall get no more +sleep than the mouse in the cat's dining-room this night. These border +rascals are apt to be restless in the dark hours, and their knives prick +most consumedly sharp!" + +With that he went out, leaving the doors into the passages all open, and +presently I could hear him raging and rummaging athwart the house, +ordering this one to find him "Graubunden fleisch," the next to get him +some good bread, and not to attempt to palm off "cow-cake" upon honest +soldiers on pain of getting his stomach cut open--together with other +amenities which occur easily to a seasoned man-at-arms foraging in an +unfriendly country. + +Then, having returned successful from this quest, what was my admiration +to see Jorian (whom I had so lately called, and I began to be sorry for +it, a Wendish pig) strip his fine soldier's coat and hang it upon a peg +by the door, roll up his sleeves, and set to at the cooking in the great +open fireplace with swinging black crooks against the front wall, while +Boris stood on guard with a long pistolet ready in the hollow of his arm, +and his slow-match alight, by the doorway of the ladies' apartment. + +I went and stood by the long man for company. And after a little he +became much more friendly. + +"Why do you stand with your match alight?" I asked of him after we had +been a while silent. + +"Why, to keep a border knife out of Jorian's back, of course, while he is +turning the fry in the pan," said he, as simply as if he had said that +'twas a fine night without, or that the moon was full. + +"I wish I could help," I sighed, a little wistfully, for I wished him to +think well of me. + +"What!" he exclaimed--"with the frying-pan? Well, there is the basting +ladle!" he retorted, and laughed in his old manner. + +I own that, being yet little more than a lad, the tears stood in my eyes +to be so flouted and made nothing of. + +"I will show you perhaps sooner than you think that I am neither a coward +nor a babe!" I said, in high dudgeon. + +And so went and stood by myself over against the farther door of the +three, which led from the outer hall to the apartments in which I could +hear the murmur of women's voices. And it was lucky that I did so. For +even as I reached the door a sharp cry of terror came from within, and +there at the inner portal I caught sight of a narrow, foxy, peering +visage, and a lean, writhing figure, prone like a worm on its belly. The +rascal had been crawling towards Helene's room, for what purpose I know +not. Nor did I stop to inquire, for, being stung by the taunt of the +man-at-arms, I was on Foxface in a moment, stamping upon him with my +iron-shod feet, and then lifting him unceremoniously up by the slackness +of his back covertures, I turned him over and over like a wheel, tumbling +him out of the doorway into the outer hall with an astonishing clatter, +shedding knives and daggers as he went. + +It was certainly a pity for the fellow that Boris had taunted me so +lately. But the abusing of him gave me great comfort. And as he whirled +past the group at the fire, Jorian caught him handily in the round of his +back with a convenient spit, also without asking any questions, whereat +the fellow went out at the wide front door by which we had first entered, +revolving in a cloud of dust. And where he went after that I have no +idea. To the devil, for all I care! + +But Boris, standing quietly by his own door, was evidently somewhat +impressed by my good luck. For soon after this he came over to me. I +thought he might be about to apologize for his rudeness. And so perhaps +he did, but it was in his own way. + +"Did you spoil your dagger on him?" he said, anxiously, for the first +time speaking to me as a man speaks to his equal. + +"No," said I, "but I stubbed my toe most confoundedly, jarring it upon +the rascal's backbone as he went through the door." + +"Ah!" he replied, thoughtfully, nodding his head, "that was more fitting +for such as he. But you may get a chance at him with the dagger yet or +the night be over." + +And with that he went back to his door, blowing up his slow-match +as he went. + +Presently the supper was pronounced cooked, and, after washing his hands, +Jorian resumed his coat, amid the universal attention of the motley crew +in the great hall, and began to dish up the fragrant stew. Ho had been +collecting for it all day upon the march, now knocking over a rabbit with +a bolt from his gun, now picking some leaves of lettuce and watercress +when he chanced upon a running stream or a neglected garden--of which +last (thanks to Duke Casimir and his raiders) there were numbers along +the route we had traversed. + +Then, when he had made all ready, our sturdy cook dished the stew into a +great wooden platter--rabbits, partridges, scraps of dried flesh, bits of +bacon for flavoring, fresh eggs, vegetables in handfuls, all covered with +a dainty-smelling sauce, deftly compounded of milk, gravy, and red wine. + +Then Jorian and Boris, one taking the heap of wooden platters and the +other the smoking bowl of stew, marched solemnly within. But before he +went, Boris handed me his pistolet without a word, and the slow-match +with it. Which, as I admit, made me feel monstrously unsafe. However, I +took the engine across my arm and stood at attention as I had seen him +do, with the match thrust through my waistband. + +Then I felt as if I had suddenly grown at least a foot taller, and my joy +was changed to ecstasy when the Lady Ysolinde, coming out quickly, I knew +not at first for what purpose, found me thus standing sentinel and +blowing importantly upon my slow-match. + +"Hugo," she said, kindly, looking at me with the aqua-marine eyes that +had the opal glints in them, "come thy ways in and sit with us." + +I made her a salute with my piece and thanked her for her good thought. + +"But," said I, "Lady Ysolinde, pray remember that this is a place of +danger, and that it is more fitting that we who have the honor to be your +guards should dine together without your chamber doors." + +"Nay," she said, impetuously, "I insist. It is not right that you, who +are to be an officer, should mess with the common soldiers." + +"My lady," said I, "I thank you deeply. And it shall be so, I promise +you, when we are in safety. But let me have my way here and now." + +She smiled upon me--liking me, as I think, none the worse for my +stiffness. And so went away, and I was right glad to see her go. For I +would not have lost what I had gained in the good opinion of these two +men-at-arms--no, not for twenty maidens' favors. + +But in that respect also I changed as the years went on. For of all +things a boy loves not to be flouted and babyfied when he thinks himself +already grown up and the equal of his elders in love and war. + +So in a little while came out Jorian and Boris, and, having carried in +the bread and wine, we three sat down to the remains of the stew. +Indeed, I saw but little difference as to quantity from the time that +Jorian had taken it in. For maids' appetites when they are anyways in +love are precarious, but, after they are assured of their love's return, +then the back hunger comes upon them and the larder is made to pay for +all arrears. + +Not that I mean to assert that either of these ladies was in love +with me--far otherwise indeed. For this it would argue the conceit +of a jack-a-dandy to imagine, much more to write such a thing. +But, nevertheless, certain is it that this night they were both of +small appetite. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +HELENE HATES ME + + +However, when the provision came to the outer port, we three sat down +about it, and then, by my troth, there was little to marvel at in the +tardiness of our eating. For the rabbits seemed to come alive and +positively leaped down our throats, the partridges almost flew at us out +of the pot, the pigeons fairly rejoiced to be eaten. The broth and the +gravy ebbed lower and lower in the pan and left all dry. But as soon as +we had picked the bones roughly, for there was no time for fine work lest +the others should get all the best, we threw the bones out to the hungry +crew that watched us sitting round the stalls, their very jowls pendulous +with envy. + +So after a while we came to the end, and then I went to the entrance of +the chamber where were bestowed the Little Playmate and the Lady +Ysolinde. For I began to be anxious how Helene would be able to comport +herself in the company of one so dainty and full of devices and +convenances as the lady of the Weiss Thor. + +But, by my faith, I need not have troubled about our little lass. For if +there were any embarrassed, that one was certainly not Helene. And if any +of us lacked reposefulness of manners, that one was certainly a staring +jackanapes, who did not know which foot to stand upon, nor yet how to sit +down on the oaken settle when a seat was offered him, nor, last of all, +when nor how to take his departure when he had once sat down. And as to +the identity of that jackass, there needs no further particularity. + +Nevertheless, I talked pleasantly enough with both of them, and I might +have been an acquaintance of the day for all the notice that the Little +Playmate took of me, oven when the Lady Ysolinde told her, evidently not +for the first time, of my standing sentry by the door and blowing upon +the match at my girdle. + +From without we heard presently the clapping of hands and loud deray of +merrymaking, so I went to find out what it might be that was causing such +an uproar. + +There I found Jorian and Boris giving a kind of exhibition of their skill +in military exercises. It might be, also, that they desired to teach a +lesson for the benefit of the wild robber border folk and the yet more +ruffianly kempers who foregathered in this strange inn of Erdberg on the +borders of the Mark. + +I summoned the maids that they might look on. For I wot the scene was a +curious and pleasing one, and I could see that the eyes of the Lady +Ysolinde glittered. But our little maid, being used to all these things +from her youth, cared nothing for it, though the thing was indeed +marvellous in itself. + +When I went out our two men-at-arms had each of them in hand his straight +Wendish Tolleknife, made heavy at the end of the Swedish blade, but light +as to the handle, and hafted with cork from Spain. + +Ten yards apart, shoulder to shoulder they stood, and, first of all, each +of them poising the knife in the hollow of his hand with a peculiar +dancing movement, set it writhing across the room at a marked circle on a +board. The two knives sped simultaneously with a vicious whir, and stood +quivering, with their blades touching each other, in the centre of the +white. At the next trial, so exactly had they been aimed that the point +of the one hit upon the haft of the other and stripped the cork almost +to the blade. But Jorian, to whom the knife belonged, mended it with a +piece of string, telling the company philosophically that it was no bad +thing to have a string hanging loose to a Tolleknife, for when it went +into any one the string would always hang down from the wound in order to +pull it out by. + +Then they got their knives again and played a more dangerous game. Jorian +stood on guard with his knife, waving the blade slowly before him in the +shape of a long-bodied letter S. Boris poised his weapon in the hollow of +his hand, and sent it whirring straight at Jorian's heart. As it came +buzzing like an angry bee, almost too quick for the eye to follow, Jorian +flicked it deftly up into the air at exactly the right moment, and, +without even taking his eye off it, he caught the knife by the handle as +it fell. Thereafter he bowed and gave it back to the thrower +ceremoniously. Then Boris guarded, and Jorian in his turn threw, with a +like result, though, perhaps, a little less featly done on Boris's part. + +All the while there was a clamant and manifold astonishment in the +kitchen of the inn, together with prodigal and much-whispering wonder. + +Then ensued other plays. Boris stood with his elbow crooked and his left +hand on his hip, with his back also turned to Jorian. _Buzz!_ went the +knife! It flashed like level lightning under the arch of Jorian's armpit, +and lo! it was caught in his right hand, which dropped upon it like a +hawk upon a rabbit, as it sped through his elbow port. + +Then came shooting with the cross-bow, and I regretted much that I had +only learned the six-foot yew, and that there was not one in the company, +nor indeed room to display it if there had been. For I longed to do +something to show that I also was no milksop. + +Now it chanced that there was in one corner a yearling calf that had +been killed that day, and hung up with a bar between its thighs. I saw an +axe leaning in the corner--an axe with a broad, cutting edge--and I +bethought me that perhaps, after all, I knew something which even Jorian +and Boris were ignorant of. So, mindful of my father's teaching, I took +the axe, and, before any one was aware of my intent, I swept the +long-handled axe round my head, and, getting the poise and distance for +the slow drawing cut which does not stop for bone nor muscle, I divided +the neck through at one blow so that the head dropped on the ground. + +Then there was much applause and wonder. Men ran to lift the calf's head, +and the owner of the axe came up to examine the edge of his weapon. I +looked about. The eyes of the Lady Ysolinde were aflame with pleasure, +but, on the other hand, the Little Playmate was crimson with shame. Tears +stood in her beautiful eyes. + +She marched straight up to meet me, and, clinching her hands, she said; +"Oh, I hate you !" + +And so went within to her chamber, and I saw her no more that night. Now +I take all to witness what strange things are the mind and temper of even +the best of women. And why Helene thus spoke to me I know not--nay, even +to this day I can hazard no right guess. But as I have often said, God +never made anything straight that He made beautiful, except only the line +where the sea meets the sky. + +And of all the pretty, crooked, tangled things that He has made, women +are the prettiest, the crookedest--and the most distractingly tangled. + +Which is perhaps why they are so everlastingly interesting, and why we +blundering, ram-stam, homely favored men love them so. + +But the best entertainment must at long and last come to an end. And the +one in the inn of Erdberg lasted not so long as the telling of it--for +the matter, being more comfortable than that which came after, I have, +perhaps, not hurried so much as I might. + +When at last both supper and entertainment were finished, and the +earthenware platters huddled away into the hall without, there arose a +mighty clamor, so that Jorian went to the door and cried out to the +landlord to know what was the matter. The old brick-dusty knave came +hulking forward, and, with greatly increased respect, he addressed the +men-at-arms. + +"What is your will, noble sirs?" + +"I asked," said Jorian, "what was the reason of this so ill-favored +noise. If your guests cannot be quiet, I will come among them with +something that will settle the quarrels of certain of them in +perpetuity." + +So with sulky recurrent murmurs the fray finally settled itself, and for +that time at least there was no more trouble. I went to the door of the +Lady Ysolinde and the Little Playmate and cried in to them a courteous +good-night. For I had been sorry to have Helene's "I hate you!" for her +last word. And the Lady Ysolinde came to the door in a light robe of silk +and gave me her hand to kiss. But though I said: "A sweet sleep and a +pleasant, Helene!" no voice replied. Which I took very ill, seeing that I +had done naught amiss that I knew of. + +Then Jorian, Boris, and I made us comfortable for the night, and, being +instructed by Boris, I set my straw, with the foot of my bundle to the +door, which opened inward upon us. Then, putting my sword by my side and +my other weapons convenient to my hand, I laid me down and braced my feet +firmly against the door, thus locking it safely. + +Jorian and Boris did the same at the other entrances, and before the +former went to sleep he arranged a tall candle that had been placed +unlighted before a little shrine of the Virgin (for, in name at least, +the folk were not wholly pagan) and lighted it, so that it shed a faint +illumination down the long passage in which we were bestowed, and on the +inner door of the ladies' apartment. + +And though I was far from being in love, yet the thought of the wandering +damsels, both so fair and so far from home, moved me deeply. And I was in +act to waft a kiss towards the door when Jorian caught me. + +"What now?" he said; "art at thy prayers, lad ?" + +"Aye, that am I," said I, "towards the shrine of the Saints' Rest." + +Now this was irreverent, and mayhap afterwards we were all soundly +punished for it. But at least it was on the level of their soldiers' +wit--though I own, at the most, no great matter to cackle of. + +"Ho! ho! Good!" chuckled Boris, under his breath. "One of them is +doubtless a saint. But as to the other--well, let us ask the Prince. 'He +hath a Princess, and she is oft upon her travels?' Ho! ho! ho!" + +And the lout shook among his straw to such an extent that I bade him for +God's dear sake to bide still, otherwise we might as lief lie in a barn +among questing rattons. + +"And the saints of your Saints' Rest defend us from lying among any +worse!" said he, and betook him to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +HUGO OF THE BROADAXE + + +But as for me, sleep I could not. And indeed that is small wonder. For it +was the first night I had ever slept out of the Red Tower in my life. I +seemed to lack some necessary accompaniment to the act of going to sleep. + +It was a long while before I could find out what it could be that was +disturbing me. At last I discovered that it was the howling of the +kennelled blood-hounds which I missed. For at night they even raged, and +leaped on the barriers with their forefeet, hearing mayhap the moving to +and fro of men come sleeplessly up from the streets of the city beneath. + +But here, within a long day's march of Thorn, I had come at once into a +new world. Slowly the night dragged on. The candle guttered. A draught of +air blew fitfully through the corridor in which we lay. It carried the +flame of the candle in the opposite direction. I wondered whence it could +come, for the air had been still and thick before. Yet I was glad of the +stir, for it cooled my temples, and I think that but for one thing I +might have slept. And had I fallen on sleep then no one of us might have +waked so easily. What I heard was no more than this--once or twice the +flame of the candle gave a smart little "spit," as if a moth or a fat +blue-bottle had forwandered into it and fallen spinning to the ground +with burned wings. Yet there were no moths in the chambers, or we should +have seen them circling about the lights at the time of supper. +Nevertheless, ere long I heard again the quick, light "_plap_!" And +presently I saw a pellet fall to the ground, rolling away from the wall +almost to the edge of the straw on which I lay. + +I reached out a hand for it, and in a trice had it in my fingers. It was +soft, like mason's putty. "Plop!" came another. I was sure now. Some one +was shooting at the flame of the candle with intent to leave us in the +dark. Jorian and Boris snored loudly, sleeping like true men-at-arms. I +need say no more. + +I lay with my head in the shadow, but by moving little by little, with +sleepy grunts of dissatisfaction, I brought my face far enough round to +see through the straw the window at the far end of the passage, which, as +I had discovered upon our first coming, opened out upon a ravine running +at right angles to the street by which we had come. + +Presently I could see the lattice move noiselessly, and a white face +appeared with a boy's blow-gun of pierced bore-tree at its lips. + +"Alas!" said I to myself, "that I had had these soldiers' skill of the +knife throwing. I would have marked that gentleman." But I had not even a +bow--only my sword and dagger. I resolved to begin to learn the practice +of pistol and cross-bow on the morrow. + +"_Plap! Scat!_" The aim was good this time. We were in darkness. I +listened the barest fragment of a moment. Some one was stealthily +entering at the window end. + +"Rise, Jorian and Boris!" I cried. "An enemy!" + +And leaping up I ran to relight the candle. By good luck the wick was a +sound, honest, thick one, a good housewife's wick--not such as are made +to sell and put in ordinary candles of offertory. + +The wick was still red, and smoked as I put my hands behind it and blew. +"_Twang! Twang! Zist! Zist!_" went the arrows and bolts thickly about me, +bringing down the clay dust in handfuls thickly from the walls. + +"Down on your stomachs--they are shooting crosswise along the passage !" +cried Jorian, who had instantly awakened. I longed to follow the advice, +for I felt something sharp catch the back of my undersuit of soft +leather, in which, for comfort, I had laid me down to sleep. But I _must_ +get the candle alight. Hurrah! the flame flickered and caught at last. +"_Twang! Twang!"_ went the bows, harder at it than ever. Something +hurtled hotly through my hair--the iron bolt of an arbalest, as I knew by +the song of the steel bow in a man's hand at the end of the passage. + +"Get into a doorway, man!" cried Boris, as the light revealed me. + +And like a startled rabbit I ran for the nearest--that within which +Helene and the Lady Ysolinde were lying asleep. The candle, as I have +said, was set deep in a niche, which proved a great mercy for us. For our +foes, who had thought to come on us by fraud, could not now shoot it out. +Also, in relighting it, in my eagerness to save myself from the hissing +arrows behind me, I had pushed it to the very back of the shrine. I had +no weapon now but my dagger, for, in rising to relight the candle, I had +carelessly and blamefully left my sword in the straw. And I felt very +useless and foolish as I stood there to bide the assault with only a bit +of guardless knife in my hand. + +Suddenly, however, there came a diversion. + +"Crash !" went a gun in my very ear. Flame, smoke--much of both--and the +stifling smell of sulphur. Jorian had fired at the face of the pop-gun +knave. That putty-white countenance had a crimson plash on it ere it +vanished. Then came back to us a scream of dreadful agony and the sound +of a heavy fall outside. + +"End of act the first! The Wicked Angels--hum, hum--go to hell! All in +the day's work!" cried Jorian, cheerily, recharging his pistolet and +driving home the wadding as he spoke. + +It may well be imagined that during our encounter with the assailants of +the candle, whose transverse fire had so nearly finished me, the company +out in the great kitchen had not been content to lie snoring on their +backs. We could hear them creeping and whispering out there beyond the +doors; but till after the shot from the soldier's pistolet they had not +dared to show us any overt act of hostility. + +Suddenly Jorian, once more facing the door, now that the passage was +clear, perceived by the rustling of the straw that it began to open +gradually. He waited till in another moment it would have been wide +enough to let in a man. + +"Back there, dog, or I fire!" he bellowed. And the door was +promptly shut to. + +After that there came another period of waiting very difficult to get +over. I wished with all my heart for a cross-bow or any shooting weapon. +Much did I reproach myself that I had not learned the art before, as I +might easily have done from the men-at-arms about the Wolfsberg, who, for +my father's sake (or Helene's), would gladly have taught me. + +The women folk in the room behind my back were now up and dressed. +Indeed, the Lady Ysolinde would have come out and watched with us, but I +besought her to abide where she was. Presently, however, Helene put her +head without, and seeing me stand by the door with my sword, she asked if +I wanted anything. She appeared to have forgotten her unkind good-night, +and I was not the man to remind her of it. + +"Only another weapon, Sweetheart, besides this prick-point small-sword!" +said I, looking at the thing in my hand I doubt not a trifle scornfully. + +Helene shut to the door, and for a space I heard no more. Presently, +however, she opened it again, and thrust an axe with a long handle +through to me. It was the very fellow of the weapon I had used on the +pendent calf in the kitchen. I understood at once that it was her apology +and her justification as well. For the Little Playmate was ever a +straight lass. She ever did so much more than she promised, and ever said +less than her heart meant. Which perhaps is less common than the other +way about--especially among women. + +"I found it on my incoming and hid it under the bed!" she said. + +Then judge ye if I sheathed not my small-sword right swiftly, and made +the broadaxe blade, to the skill of which I had been born, whistle +through the air. For a mightily strange thing it is that, though I had +ever a rooted horror at the thought of my father's office itself, and +from my childhood never for a moment intended to exercise it, +nevertheless I had always the most notable facility in cutting things. +Never to this day have I a stick in hand, when I walk abroad among the +ragweed waving yellow on the grassy pastures below the Wolfsberg, but I +must need make wagers with myself to cut to an inch at the heads of the +tallest and never miss. And this I can do the day by the length, and +never grow weary. Then again, for pleasaunce, my father used to put me +to the cutting of light wood with an axe, not always laying it upon a +block or hag-clog, but sometimes setting the billet upright and making +me cut the top off with a horizontal swing of the axe. And in this I +became exceedingly expert. And how difficult it is no one knows till he +has tried. + +So it is small wonder that as soon as I gripped the noble broadaxe which +Helene passed me I felt my own man again. + +Then we were silent and listened--and ever again listened and held our +breaths. Now I tell you when an enemy is whispering unseen without, +rustling like rats in straw, and you wonder at what point they will break +in next, thinking all the while of the woman you love (or do not yet +love, but may) in the chamber behind--I tell you a castle is something +less difficult to hold at such a time than just one's own breath. + +Suddenly I heard a sound in the outer chamber which I knew the meaning +of. It was the shifting of horses' feet as they turn in narrow space to +leave their stalls. Our good friends were making free with our steeds. +And, if we were not quick about it, we should soon see the last of them, +and be compelled to traverse the rest of the road to Plassenburg upon our +own proper feet. + +"Jorian," cried I, "do you hear? They are slipping our horses out of the +stalls! Shall you and I make a sortie against them, while Boris with that +pistol of his keeps the passage from the wicks of the middle door?" + +"Good!" answered Jorian. "Give the word when you are ready." + +With axe in my right hand, the handle of the door in my left, I gave +the signal. + +"When I say 'Three!' Jorian!" + +"Good!" said Jorian. + +Clatter went the horses' hoofs as they were being led towards the door. + +"One! Two! Three!" I counted, softly but clearly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SORTIE + + +The door was open, and the next I mind was my axe whirling about my head +and Jorian rushing out of the other door a step ahead of me, with his +broadsword in his hand. I cannot tell much about the fight. I never could +all my days. And I wot well that those who can relate such long +particulars of tales of fighting are the folk who stood at a distance and +labored manfully at the looking on--not of them that were close in and +felt the hot breaths and saw the death-gleam in fierce, desperate eyes, +near to their own as the eyes of lovers when they embrace. Ah, Brothers +of the Sword, these things cannot be told! Yet, of a surety, there is a +heady delight in the fray itself. And so I found. For I struck and warded +not, that being scarce necessary. Because an axe is an uncanny weapon to +wield, but still harder to stand against when well used. And I drove the +rabble before me--the men of them, I mean. I felt my terrible weapon +stopped now and then--now softly, now suddenly, according to that which I +struck against. And all the while the kitchen of the inn resounded with +yells and threatenings, with oaths and cursings. + +But Jorian and I drove them steadily back, though they came at us again +and again, with spits, iron hooks, and all manner of curious weapons. +Also from out of the corners we saw the gleaming, watchful eyes of a dark +huddle of women and children. Presently the clamorous rabble turned tail +suddenly and poured through the door out upon the pathway, quicker than +water through a tide-race in the fulness of the ebb. + +And lo! in a moment the room was sucked empty, save only for the huddled +women in the corners, who cried and suckled their children to keep them +still. And some of the wounded with the axe and the sword crawled to them +to have their ghastly wounds bound. For an axe makes ugly work at the +best of times, and still worse on the edges of such a pagan fight as we +three had just fought. + +So we went back victorious to our inner doors. + +Then Jorian looked at me and nodded across at Boris. + +"Good!" was all that he said. But the single word made me happier than +many encomiums. + +In spite of all, however, we were no nearer than before to getting away +that I could see. For there was still all that long, desperate traverse +of the defile before we could guide our horses to firm ground again. But +while I was thinking bitterly of my first night's sleep (save the mark!) +away from the Red Tower, I heard something I knew not the meaning of--the +beginning of a new attack, as I judged. + +It sounded like a scraping and a crumbling somewhere above. + +"God help us now, Jorian!" I cried, in a sudden, quick panic; "they are +coming upon us everyway. I can hear them stripping off the roof-tile +overhead--if such rabbit-warrens as this have Christian roofs!" + +Boris sat down calmly with his back against the earthen wall and +trained his pistol upward, ready to shoot whatever should appear. +Presently fragments of earth and hardened clay began to drop on the +pounded floor of the corridor. I heard the soft hiss of the man-at-arms +blowing up his match, and I waited for the crash and the little heap of +flame from the touch. + +Suddenly a foot, larger than that of mortal, plumped through our ceiling +of brick-dust and a huge scatterment of earth tumbled down. A great bare +leg, with attachment of tattered hose hanging here and there, followed. + +Before the pistol could go off, Boris meanwhile waiting shrewdly for the +appearance of a more vital part, a voice cried, "Stop!" + +I looked about me, and there was the Lady Ysolinde come out of her +chamber, with a dagger in her hand. She was looking upward at the hole in +the ceiling. + +"For God's sake, do not fire!" she cried; "tis only my poor Lubber Fiend. +Shame on me, that I had quite forgotten him all this time!" + +At which, without turning away the muzzle, Boris put it a little aside, +and waited for the disturber of brick-dust ceilings to reveal himself. +Which, when presently he did, a huge, grinning face appeared, pushing +forward at first slowly and with difficulty, then, as soon as the ears +had crossed the narrows of the pass, the whole head to the neck was +glaring down and grinning to us. + +"Lubber Jan," said Ysolinde, "what do you up there?" + +The head only grinned and waggled pleasantly, as it had been through a +horse-collar at Dantzig fair. + +"Speak!" said she, and stamped her little foot; "I will shake thee with +terrors else, monster!" + +"Poor Jan came down from above. It is quite easy!" he said. "But not for +horses. Oh no! but now I will go and bring the Burgomeister. Do you keep +the castle while I go. He bides below the town in a great house of stone, +and entertains our Prince Miller's Son's archers. I will bring all that +are sober of them." + +"God help us then!" quoth Jorian; "it is past eleven o' the clock, and +as I know them man by man, there will not be so much as one left able to +prop up another by this time!" + +"Aha!" cried the head above; "you say that because you know the archers. +But I say I shall bring full twenty of them--because I know the strength +of the Burgomeister's ale. Hold the place for half an hour and twenty +right sober men shall ye have." + +And with that the Lubber Fiend disappeared in a final avalanche of +brick-dust and clay clods. + +He was gone, and half an hour was a long time to wait. Yet in such a +case there was nothing for it but to stand it out. So I besought the +maids to retire again to their inner chamber, into which, at least, +neither bullets nor arrows could penetrate. This, after some little +persuasion, they did. + +We waited. I have since that night fought many easier battles, and +bloody battles, too. Now and then a face would look in momentarily from +the great outer door and vanish before any one could put a shot into it. +Next, ere one was aware, an arrow would whistle with a "_Hisst_!" past +one's breast-bone and stand quivering, head-covered in the clay. Vicious +things they were, too, steel-pointed and shafted with iron for half +their length. + +But all waitings come to an end, even that of him who waits on a fair +woman's arraying of herself. Erdberg evidently did not know of the little +party down at the Burgomeister's below the pass of the ravine, or, +knowing, did not care. For, just as our half-hour was crawling to an +end, with a unanimous yell a crowd of wild men with weapons in their +hands poured in through the great door and ran shouting at our position. +At the same time the window at the end of the passage opened and a man +leaped through. Him I sharply attended to with the axe, and stood waiting +for the next. He also came, but not through the window. He ran at me, +head first, through the door, and, being stricken down, completely +blocked it up. Good service! And a usefully bulky man he was. But how he +bled!--Saint Christopher! that is the worst of bulky men, they can do +nothing featly--not even die! + +One man won past me, indeed, darting under the stroke of my axe, but he +was little advantaged thereby. For I fetched a blow at the back of his +head with the handle which brought him to his knees. He stumbled and fell +at the threshold of the maids' chamber. And, by my sooth, the Lady +Ysolinde stooped and poignarded him as featly as though it had been a +work of broidering with a bodkin. Too late, Helene wept and besought her +to hold her hand. He was, she said, some one's son or lover. It was +deucedly unpractical. But, 'twas my Little Playmate. And after all, I +suppose, the crack he got from me in the way of business would have done +the job neatly enough without my lady's dagger. + +I tell you, the work was hot enough about those three doors during the +next few moments. I never again want to see warmer on this side of +Peter's gates--especially not since I got this wound in my thigh, with +its trick of reopening at the most inconvenient seasons. But the broadaxe +was a blessed thought of the little Helene's, and helped to keep the +castle right valiantly. + +Yet I can testify that I was glad with more than mere joy when I heard +the "Trot, trot!" of the Prince's archers coming at the wolf's lope, all +in each other's footsteps, along the narrow ledge of the village street. + +"Hurrah, lads!" I shouted; "quick and help us!" + +And then at the sound of them the turmoil emptied itself as quickly as it +had come. The rabble of ill-doers melted through the wide outer door, +where the archers received and attended to them there. Some precipitated +themselves over the cliff. Others were straightway knocked down, stunned, +and bound. Some died suddenly. And a few were saved to stretch the +judicial ropes of the Bailiwick. For it was always thought a good thing +by such as were in authority to have a good show on the "Thieves' +Architrave," or general gallows of the vicinity, as a thing at once +creditable to the zeal of the worthy dispensers of local justice, and +pleasing to the Kaiser's officer if he chanced to come spying that way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MINE HOST RUNS HIS LAST RACE + + +Hearty were the greetings when the soldiers found us all safe and sound. +They shook us again and again by the hand. They clapped us on the back. +They examined professionally the dead who lay strewn about. + +"A good stroke! Well smitten!" they cried, as they turned them over, like +spectators who applaud at a game they can all understand. Specially did +they compliment me on my axe-work. Never had anything like it been seen +in Plassenburg. The head of the yearling calf was duly exhibited, when +the neatness of the blow and the exactness of the aim at the weakest +jointing were prodigiously admired. + +The good fellows, mellow with the Burgomeister's sinall-ale, were growing +friendly beyond all telling, when, in the light of the offertory taper, +now growing beguttered and burning low, there appeared the Lady Ysolinde. + +You never saw so quick a change in any men. The heartiest reveller +forthwith became silent and slunk behind his neighbor. Knees shook +beneath stalwart frames, and there seemed a very general tendency to get +down upon marrow-bones. + +The Lady Ysolinde stood before them, strangely different from the +slim, willowy maiden I had seen her. She looked almost imperial in +her demeanor. + +"You shall be rewarded for your ready obedience," she said; "the Prince +will not forget your service. Take away that offal!" + +She pointed to the dead rascals on the floor. + +And the men, muttering something that sounded to me like "Yes, your +Highness !" hastened to obey. + +"Did you say 'Yes, your Highness' ?" I asked one of them, who seemed, by +his air of command, to be the superior among the archers. + +"Aye," answered he, dryly, "it is a term usually applied to the Lady +Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg." + +I was never more smitten dazed and dumb in my life. Ysolinde, the +daughter of Master Gerard, the maid who had read my fate in the ink-pool, +whom I had "made suffer," according to her own telling--she the Princess +of Plassenburg '. + +Ah, I had it now. Here at last was the explanation of the threadbare and +inexplicable jest of Jorian and Boris, "The Prince hath a Princess, and +she is oft upon her travels !" + +But, after all, what a Wendish barking about so small an egg. I have +heard an emperor proclaimed with less cackle. + +Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg--yes, that made a difference. And I +had taken her hand--I, the son of the Red Axe--I, the Hereditary +Justicer of the Wolfmark. Well, after all, she had sought me, not I +her. And then, the little Helene--what would she make of it? I longed +greatly to find an opportunity to tell her. It might teach her in what +manner to cut her cloth. + +The archers of the Prince camped with us the rest of the night in the +place of the outcast crew. They behaved well (though their forbearance +was perhaps as much owing to the near presence of the Princess as to any +inherent virtue in the good men of the bow) to the women and children who +remained huddled in the corners. + +Then came the dawn, swift-foot from the east. A fair dawn it was, the +sun rising, not through barred clouds, with the lightest at the +horizon (which is the foul-weather dawn), but through streamers and +bannerets that fluttered upward and fired to ever fleecier crimson and +gold as he rose. + +We rode among a subdued people, and ere we went the Princess called for +the Burgomeister and bade him send to Plassenburg the landlord, so soon +as he should be found, and also the heads of the half-dozen houses on +either side of the inn. + +Then, indeed, there was a turmoil and a wailing to speak about. Women +folk crowded out of the huts and kissed the white feet of the palfrey +that bore the Lady Ysolinde. + +"Have mercy!" they wailed; "show kindness, great Princess! Here are our +men, unwounded and unhurt, that have lain by our sides all the night. +They are innocent of all intent of evil--of every dark deed. Ah, lady, +send them not to your prisons. We shall never see them more, and they +are all we have or our children. 'Tis they bring in the bread to this +drear spot!" + +"Produce me your husbands, then!" said the Lady Ysolinde. + +Whereat the women ran and brought a number of frowsy and bleared men, all +unwounded, save one that had a broken head. + +Then Ysolinde called to the Burgomeister. "Come hither, chief of a +thievish municipality, tell me if these be indeed these women's +husbands." + +The Burgomeister, a pallid, pouch-mouthed man, tremulous, and +brick-dusty, like everything else in the village of Erdberg, came forward +and peeringly examined the men. + +"Every man to his woman!" he ordered, brusquely, and the women went and +stood each by her own property--the men shamefaced and hand-dog, the +women anxious and pale. Some of the last threw a, protecting arm about +their husbands, which they for the most part appeared to resent. In +every case the woman looked the more capable and intelligent, the men +being apparently mere boors. + +"They are all their true husbands, at least so far as one can know!" +answered the Burgomeister, cautiously. + +"Then," said the lady, "bid them catch the innkeeper and send him to +Plassenburg, and these others can abide where they are. But if they find +him not, they must all come instead of him." + +The men started at her words, their faces brightening wonderfully, and +they were out of the door before one could count ten. We mounted our +horses, and under the very humble guidance of the Burgomeister, who led +the Princess's palfrey, we were soon again upon the high table-land. Here +we enjoyed to the full the breezes which swept with morning freshness +across the scrubby undergrowths of oak and broom, and above all the sight +of misty wisps of cloud scudding and whisking about the distant +peaks-behind which lay the city of Plassenburg. + +We had not properly won clear of the ravines when we heard a great +shouting and turmoil behind us--so that I hastened to look to my weapons. +For I saw the archers instinctively draw their quarrels and bolt-pouches +off their backs, to be in readiness upon their left hips. + +But it was only the rabble of men and women who had been threatened, the +dwellers in those twelve houses next the inn, who came dragging our +brick-faced knave of a host, with that hard-polished countenance of his +slack and clammy--slate-gray in color too, all the red tan clean gone +out of it. + +"Mercy--mercy, great lady!" he cried; "I pray you, do execution on me +here and now. Carry me not to the extreme tortures. Death clears all. +And I own that for my crimes I well deserve to die. But save me from +the strappado, from the torment of the rack. I am an old man and could +not endure." + +The Lady Ysolinde looked at him, and her emerald eyes held a steely +glitter in their depths. + +"I am neither judge nor"--I think she was going to say "executioner," but +she remembered in time and for my sake was silent, which I thought was +both gracious and charming of her. She resumed in a softer tone: "What +sentence, then, would you desire, thus confessing your guilt?" + +"That I might end myself over the cliff there!" said the innkeeper, +pointing to the wall of rock along the edge of which we were riding. + +"See, then, that he is well ended!" said the Princess, briefly, to +Jorian. + +"Good!" said Jorian, saluting. + +And very coolly betook himself to the edge of the cliff, where he primed +his piece anew, and blew up his match. + +"Loose the man and stand back!" cried the Princess. + +A moment the innkeeper stood nerving himself. A moment he hung on the +thin edge of his resolve. The slack gray face worked convulsively, the +white lips moved, the hands were gripped close to his sides as though +to run a race. His whole body seemed suddenly to shrink and fall in +upon itself. + +"The torture! The terrible torture!" he shrieked aloud, and ran swiftly +from the clutches of the men who had held him. Between the path and the +verge of the cliff from which he was suffered to cast himself there +stretched some thirty or forty yards of fine green turf. The old man ran +as though at a village fair for some wager of slippery pig's tail, but +all the time the face of him was like Death and Hell following after. + +At the cliff's edge he leaped high into the air, and went headlong down, +to our watching eyes as slowly as if he had sunk through water. None of +us who were on the path saw more of him. But Jorian craned over, +regarding the man's end calmly and even critically. And when he had +satisfied himself that that which was done was properly done, as coolly +as before he stowed away his match in his cover-fire, mounted his horse, +and rode towards us. + +He nodded to the Princess. "Good, my Lady!" quoth he, for all comment. + +"I saved a charge that time!" said he to his companion. + +"Good!" quoth Boris, in his turn. + +We had now a safe and noble escort, and the way to Plassenburg was easy. +The face of the country gradually changed. No more was it the gray, +wistful plain of the Wolfmark, upon which our Red Tower looked down. No +more did we ride through the marly, dusty, parched lands, in which were +the ravines with their uncanny cavern villages, of which this Erdberg was +the chief. But green, well-watered valleys and mountains wooded to the +top lay all about us--a pleasant land, a fertile province, and, as the +Princess had said, a land in which the strong hand of Karl the Prince had +long made "the broom-bush keep the cow." + +I had all along been possessed with great desire to meet the Prince of so +noble and well-cared-for a land, and perhaps also to see what manner of +man could be the husband of so extraordinary a Princess. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON + + +Yet now, when she was in her own country, and as good as any queen +thereof, I found the Lady Ysolinde in no wise different from, what she +had been in the city of Thorn and in her father's house. She called me +often to ride beside her, Helene being on my other side, while the Lubber +Fiend, who had saved all our lives, gambolled about and came to her to be +petted like a lapdog of some monstrous sort. He licked his lips and +twisted his eyes upward at her in ludicrous ecstasy till only the whites +were visible whenever the Princess laid her hand on his head. So that it +was as much as the archers of the guard could do to hide their laughter +in their beards. But hide it they did, having a wholesome awe of the +emerald eyes of their mistress, or perhaps of the steely light which +sometimes came into them. + +It was growing twilight upon the third day (for there were no adventures +worth dwelling upon after that among the cavern dwellings of Erdberg) +when for the first time we saw the towers of Plassenburg crowning a hill, +with its clear brown river winding slow beneath. We were yet a good many +miles from it when down the dusty road towards us came a horseman, and +fifty yards or so behind him another. + +"The Prince--none rides like our Karl!" said Jorian, familiarly, under +his breath, but proudly withal. + +"He comes alone!" said I, wonderingly. For indeed Duke Casimir of the +Wolfsberg never went ten lances' length from his castle without a small +army at his tail. + +"Even so!" replied Jorian; "it is ever his custom. The officer who +follows behind him has his work cut out--and basted. Not for nothing is +our Karl called Prince Jehu Miller's Son, for indeed he rides most +furiously." + +Before there was time for more words between us a tall, grim-faced, +pleasant-eyed man of fifty rode up at a furious gallop. The first thing I +noticed about him was that his hair was exactly the same color as his +horse--an iron-gray, rusty a little, as if it had been rubbed with iron +that has been years in the wet. + +He took off his hat courteously to the Princess. + +"I bid you welcome, my noble lady," said he, smiling; "the cages are +ready for the new importations." + +The Lady Ysolinde reached a hand for her husband to kiss, which he did +with singular gentleness. But, so far as I could see, she neither looked +at him even once nor yet so much as spoke a word to him. Presently he +questioned her directly: "And who may this fair young damsel be, who has +done me the honor to journey to my country?" + +"She is Helene, called Helene Gottfried of Thorn, and has come with me to +be one of my maids of honor," answered the Lady Ysolinde, looking +straight before her into the gathering mist, which began to collect in +white ponds and streaks here and there athwart the valley. + +The Prince gave the Little Playmate a kindly ironic look out of his +gray eyes, which, as I interpreted it, had for meaning, "Then, if that +be so, God help thee, little one--'tis well thou knowest not what is +before thee!" + +"And this young man?" said the Prince, nodding across to me. + +But I answered for myself. + +"I am the son of the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark," said I. "I +had no stomach for such work. Therefore, as I was shortly to be made my +father's assistant, I have brought letters of introduction to your +Highness, in the hopes that you will permit me the exercise of arms in +your army in another and more honorable fashion." + +"I have promised him a regiment," said the Princess, speaking quickly. + +"What--of leaden soldiers?" answered the Prince, looking at her +mighty soberly. + +"Your Highness is pleased to be brutal," answered the Lady Ysolinde, +coldly. "It is your ordinary idea of humor!" + +A kind of quaint humility sat on the face of the Prince. + +"I but thought that your Highness could have nothing else in her +mind--seeing that our rough Plassenburg regiments will only accept men of +some years and experience to lead them. But the little soldiers of metal +are not so queasy of stomach." + +"May it please your Highness," said I, earnestly, "I will be content to +begin with carrying a pike, so that I be permitted in any fashion to +fight against your enemies." + +Jorian and Boris came up and saluted at this point, like twin mechanisms. +Then they stood silent and waiting. + +The Prince nodded in token that they had permission to speak. + +"With the sword the lad fights well," said Boris. "Is it not so, Jorian?" + +"Good!" said Jorian. + +"But with the broadaxe he slashes about him like an angel from +heaven--not so, Boris?" said Jorian. + +"Good!" said Boris. + +"Can you ride?" said the Prince, turning abruptly from them. + +"Aye, sire!" said I. For indeed I could, and had no shame to say it. + +"That horse of his is blown; give him your fresh one!" said he to the +officer who had accompanied him. "And do you show these good folk to +their quarters." + +Hardly was I mounted before the Prince set spurs to his beast, and, +with no more than a casual wave of his hand to the Princess and her +train, he was off. + +"Ride!" he cried to me. And was presently almost out of sight, stretching +his horse's gray belly to the earth, like a coursing dog after a hare. + +Well was it for me that I had learned to ride in a hard school--that is, +upon the unbroken colts which were brought in for the mounting of the +Duke Casimir's soldiery. For the horse that I had been given took the +bit between his teeth and pursued so fiercely after his stable companion +that I could scarce restrain him from passing the Prince. But our way +lay homeward, so that, though I was in no way able to guide nor yet +control my charger, nevertheless presently the Prince and I were +clattering through the town of Plassenburg like two fiends riding +headlong to the pit. + +Within the town the lamps were being lit in the booths, the folks busy +marketing, and the watchmen already perambulating the city and crying the +hours at the street corners. + +But as the Prince and I drove furiously through, like pursuer and +pursued, the busy streets cleared themselves in a twinkling; and we rode +through lanes of faces yellow in the lamplight, or in the darker places +like blurs of scrabbled whiteness. So I leaned forward and let the beast +take his chance of uneven causeway and open sewer. I expected nothing +less than a broken neck, and for at least half a mile, as we flew upward +to the castle, I think that the certainty of naught worse than a broken +arm would positively have pleasured me. At least, I would very willingly +have compounded my chances for that. + +Presently, without ever drawing rein, we flew beneath the dark outer port +of the castle, clattered through a court paved with slippery blocks of +stone, thundered over a noble drawbridge, plunged into a long and gloomy +archway, and finally came out in a bright inner palace court with lamps +lit all about it. + +I was at the Prince's bridle ere he could dismount. + +"You can ride, Captain Hugo Gottfried!" he said. "I think I will make you +my orderly officer." + +And so he went within, without a word more of praise or welcome. + +There came past just at that moment an ancient councillor clad in a long +robe of black velvet, with broad facings and rosettes of scarlet. He was +carrying a roll of papers in his hand. + +"What said the Prince to yon, young sir, if I may ask without offence?" +said he, looking at me with a curiously sly, upward glance out of the +corner of his eye, as if he suspected me of a fixed intention to tell him +a lie in any case. + +"If it be any satisfaction to you to know," answered I, rather piqued at +his tone, "the Prince informed me that I could ride, and that he intended +to make me his orderly officer. And he called me not 'young sir,' but +Captain Hugo Gottfried." + +"How long has he known you?" said the Chief Councillor of State. For so +by his habit I knew him to be. + +"Half an hour, or thereby," answered I. + +"God help this kingdom!" cried the old man, tripping off, flirting his +hand hopelessly in the air--"if he had known you only ten minutes you +would have been either Prime-Minister or Commander-in-Chief of the army." + +It was in this strange fashion that I entered the army of the Prince of +Plassenburg, a service which I shall ever look back upon with gratitude, +and count as having brought me all the honors and most of the pleasures +of my life. + +Half an hour or so afterwards the blowing of trumpets and the thunder of +the new leathern cannon announced that the Princess and her train were +entering the palace. The Prince came down to greet them on the threshold +in a new and magnificent dress. + +"The Prince's officer-in-waiting to attend upon his Highness!" cried a +herald in fine raiment of blue and yellow. + +I looked about for the man who was to be my superior in my new +office--that is, if Prince Karl should prove to have spoken in earnest. + +"The Prince's orderly to attend upon him!" again proclaimed the herald, +more impatiently.' + +I saw every eye turn upon me, and I began to feel a gentle heat come over +me. Presently I was blushing furiously. For I was still in my +riding-clothes, and even they had not been changed after the adventure of +the Brick-dust Town. So that they were in no wise fitting to attend upon +a mighty dignitary. + +The Prince of Plassenburg looked round. + +"Ha!" he said; "this is not well--I had forgotten. My orderly ought to +have been duly arrayed by this time." + +"Pardon, my Prince," said I, "but all the apparel I have is upon my +sumpter horse, which comes in the train of the Princess." + +My master looked right and left in his quickly imperious and yet +humorous manner. + +"Here, Count von Reuss," he said to a tall, handsome, heavily jowled +young man, "I pray you strip off thy fine coat for an hour, and lend it +to my new officer-in-waiting. The ladies will admire thee more than +ever in thy fine flowered waistcoat, with silk sleeves and frilled +purfles of lace!" + +The young man, Von Reuss, looked as if he desired much to tell the Prince +to go and be hanged. But there was something in the bearing of Karl of +Plassenburg, usurper as they called him, the like of which for command I +have never seen in the countenance and manner of any lawfully begotten +prince in the world. + +So, beckoning me into an antechamber, and swearing evilly under his +breath all the time, the young man stripped off his fine coat, and +offered it to me with one hand, without so much as looking at me. He gave +it indeed churlishly, as one might give a dole to a loathsome beggar to +be rid of his importunity. + +"I thank you, sir," said I, "but more for your obedience to the Prince +than for the fashion of your courtesy to me." + +Yet for all that he answered me never a syllable, but turned his head and +played with his mustache till his man-servant brought him another coat. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ANOTHER MAN'S COAT + + +I followed the Prince without another word, and when he received the +Princess I had the happiness of taking the Little Playmate by the hand +and conducting her as gallantly as I could into the palace. And I was +glad, for it helped to allay a kind of reproachful feeling in my heart, +which would keep tugging and gnawing there whenever I was not thinking of +anything else. I feared lest, in the throng and press of new experiences, +I might a little have neglected or been in danger of forgetting the love +of the many years and all the sweetness of our solitary companionship. + +Nevertheless, I knew well that I loved those sweetest eyes of hers more +than all the words of men and women and priests. + +And even as I helped her to dismount, I went over and told her so. + +It was just when I held her in my arms for a moment as she dismounted. +She clung to me, and methought I heard a little sob. + +"Do not ever be unkind, Hugo," she said. "I am very lonely. I wish, with +all my heart, I were back again in the old Red Tower." + +"Unkind--never while I live, little one," I whispered in her ear. "Cheer +your heart, and to-morrow your sorrows will wear off, and you and I both +shall find friendship in the strange land." + +"I hate the Princess! And I shall never like her as long as I live!" she +said, with that certain concentrated dislike which only good women feel +towards those a degree less innocent, specially when the latter are well +to look upon. + +There was no time to reply immediately as I conducted her up the steps. +For I had to keep my eyes open to observe how the Prince conducted +himself, and in the easy ceremonial of Plassenburg it chanced that I +happened upon nothing extravagant. + +"But, Helene, you said a while ago that you hated _me_!" I said, after a +little pause, smiling down at her. + +"Did I?" she answered. "Surely nay!" + +"Ah, but 'tis true as your eyes," I persisted. "Do you not remember when +I had cut the calf's head off with the axe? You did not love the thought +of the Red Tower so much then!" + +"Oh, _that_!" she said, as if the discrepancy had been fully explained by +the inflexion of her voice upon the word. + +But she pressed my hand, so I cared not a jot for logic. + +"You do not love her, you are sure?" she said, looking up at me when we +came to the darker turn of the stairs, for the corkscrews were narrower +in the ancient castle than in the new palace below. + +"Not a bit!" said I, heartily, without any more pretence that I did not +understand what she meant. + +She pressed my hand again, momentarily slipping her own down off my +arm to do it. + +"It is not that I love you, Hugo, or that I want you to love me," she +said, like one who explains that which is plain already, "except, of +course, as your Little Playmate. But I could not bear that you should +care about that--that woman." + +It was evident that there were to be stirring times in the Castle of +Plassenburg, and that I, Hugo Gottfried, was to have my share of them. + +As soon as we had arrived at the banqueting-hall, the Prince beckoned me +and presented me formally to the Lady Ysolinde. + +"Your Highness, this is Captain Hugo Gottfried, my new +officer-in-waiting." + +The Princess bowed gravely and held out her hand. Her aqua-marine eyes +were bent upon me, suffused with a certain quick and evident pleasure +which became them well. + +"Your Highness has chosen excellently. I can bear witness that the +Captain Gottfried is a brave--a very brave man," she said. + +And at that moment I was most grateful to her for the testimony. For +behind us stood the young Von Reuss, pulling at his mustache and looking +very superciliously over at me. + +Then the Lady Ysolinde withdrew to her own apartments, and that day I got +no more words with her nor yet with Helene. + +The Prince also went to his room, and I remained where I was, deeming +that for the present my duty was done. + +The servant of the man whose coat I wore stood with another servitor +close at hand--indeed, many of all ranks stood about. + +"That is the fellow," I heard one say, tauntingly, meaning me to +hear--"peacocking it there in my master's coat!" + +His companion laughed contumeliously, at which the passion within me +suddenly stirred. I gave one of them the palm of my hand, and as the +other fell hastily back my foot took him. + +"What ho, there! No quarrelling among the lackeys!" cried Von Reuss, +insolently, from the other side of the room. + +"Were you, by any chance, speaking to me?" said I, politely, looking +over at him. + +"Why, yes, fellow!" he said. "If you squabble with the waiting-men +concerning cast-off clothes, you had better do it in the stables, where, +as you say, your own wardrobe is kept." + +"Sir," said I, "the coat I wear, I wear by the command of your Prince. It +shall be immediately returned to you when the Prince permits me to go off +duty. In the mean time, pray take notice that I am Captain Hugo +Gottfried, officer-in-waiting to the Prince Karl of Plassenburg, and that +my sword is wholly at your service." + +"You are," retorted Von Reuss, "the son of my uncle Casimir's +Hereditary Executioner, and one day you may be mine. Let that be +sufficient honor for you." + +"That I may be yours is the only part of my father's hereditary office I +covet!" said I, pointedly. + +And certainly I had him there, for immediately he turned on his heel and +would have walked away. + +But this I could not permit. So I strode sharply after him, and seizing +him by his embroidered shoulder-strap, I wheeled him about. + +"But, sir," said I, "you have insulted an officer of the Prince. Will you +answer for that with your sword, or must I strike you on the face each +time I meet you to quicken your sense of honor?" + +Before he had time to answer the Prince came in. + +"What, quarrelling already, young Spitfire!" he cried. "I made you my +orderly--not my disorderly." + +Von Reuss and I stood blankly enough, looking away from one another. + +"What was the quarrel?" asked the Prince, when he had seated +himself at table. + +I looked to Von Reuss to explain. For indeed I was somewhat awed to think +that thus early in my new career I had embroiled myself with the nephew +of Duke Casimir, even though, like myself, he was in exile and dependent +upon, the liberality of Prince Karl. + +But, since he did not speak, I made bold to say: "Sire, the Count von +Reuss taunted me with wearing a borrowed coat, and called me a servitor, +because by birth I am the son of the Hereditary Executioner of the +Wolfmark. So I told him I was an officer of your household, and that my +sword was much at his service." + +"So you are," cried the Prince--"so you are--a servitor! So is he--young +fools both! And as for being son of the Hereditary Executioner, it is +throughout all our German land an honorable office. Once I was assistant +executioner myself, and wished with all my heart that I had been +principal, and so pocketed the guilders. No more of this folly, Von +Reuss. I am ashamed of you, and to a new-comer! Hear ye, sir, I will not +have it! I will e'en resume my old trade and do a little justicing on my +own account. Shake hands this instant, you young bantams!" + +And the Prince sat back in his chair and looked grimly at us. I went a +step forward. But Von Reuss held aloof. + +"Provost Marshal!" cried the Prince, in a voice which made every one in +the room jump and all the glasses ring on the table--"bring a guard!" + +The Provost Marshal advanced, bowed, and was departing, when Von Reuss +came forward and held his hand out, at first sulkily, but afterwards +readily enough. + +Then we shook hands solemnly and stiffly, of course loving each other not +one whit better. + +"Ah," said the Prince, "I thought you would! For if you had not, your +uncle, Duke Casimir, might have been a Duke without either an heir to his +Dukedom or a successor to his Hereditary Justicer." + +"Now sit down, lads, sit down and agree!" he said, after a pause. "The +ladies come not to table to-night. So now begin and tell me all the +affair of the Earthhouses. I must ride and see the place. I declare I +grow rotten and thewless in this dull Plassenburg, where they dare not +stick so much as a knife in one another, all for fear of Karl Miller's +Son! Since I cannot adventure forth on my own account, I am become a man +that wearies for news. Tell me every part of the affair, concealing +nothing. But if you can, relate even your own share in it as faithfully +as becomes a modest youth." + +So I told him at length all that hath already been told, giving as far as +I could the credit to Jorian and Boris, as indeed was only their desert. + +Whereupon the tale being finished, the Prince said: "Have the two +archers up!" + +And while the pursuivant had gone for them, the old Councillor leaned +across the table and whispered: "Enter Field-Marshal Jorian and +General Boris!" + +But when the archers came in and stood like a pair of kitchen pokers, the +Prince ordered them to tell the story. + +Jorian turned his head to Boris, and Boris turned his head to Jorian. +They both made a little impatient gesture, which said: "Tell it you!" + +But neither appeared to be able to speak first. + +"Wind them up with a cup of wine apiece!" cried the hearty Prince; +"surely that will set one of them off." + +Two great flagons of wine were handed to Jorian and Boris, and they drank +as if one machine had been propelling their internal workings, throwing +off the liquor with beautiful unanimity and then bringing their cups to +the position of salute as if they had been musketoons at the new French +drill. After which each of them, having finished, gave the little cough +of content and appreciation, which among the archers means manners. + +But nevertheless the Prince's information with regard to the affair of +Erdberg was not increased. + +"Go on!" he cried, impatiently, looking at Jorian and Boris sternly. + +They were still silent. + +"This officer, Captain Hugo Gottfried," said the Prince, looking at me, +"tells me that the credit of the preservation of the Princess among the +cave folk is due to you two brave men." + +"He lies!" said Wendish Jorian, with a face like a blank wall. + +"Good!" muttered Boris, approvingly. + +"He did it himself!" said Boris, adding, after a pause--"with an axe!" + +"Good!" quoth Jorian. + +"He cut a calf's head off!" said Jorian, as a complete explanation of how +the preserving of the Princess was effected. + +Whereat all laughed, and the Prince more than any. For ever since he +drank his first draught of wine, he had begun to mellow. + +"Well, hearty fellows, what reward would you have for your great +bravery?" + +They turned their heads simultaneously inward without moving any other +part of their bodies. They nodded to one another. + +"Well," cried the Prince, "what reward do you desire?" + +"Now for the Field-Marshal's wand!" said the Councillor near to me, under +his breath. + +"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Jorian. + +The Prince looked at Boris. + +"And you?" he said. + +"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Boris, without moving a muscle. + +"God Bacchus!" cried the Prince, "you will empty my cellars between +you, and I shall not have a sober archer for a month. But you shall +have it. Go!" + +Jorian and Boris saluted with a wink to each other as they wheeled, which +said, as plain as monk's script or plainer, "Good!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE PRINCE'S COMPACT + + +In spite of all drawbacks and difficulties (and I had my share of them) I +loved Plassenburg. And especially I loved the Prince. The son, so they +said, of a miller in the valley of the Almer, he had entered the guard of +the last Prince of Plassenburg, much as I had now entered his own +service. Prince Dietrich had taken a fancy to him, and advanced him so +rapidly that, after the disastrous war with Duke Casimir of the Mark and +the death of the last legitimate Prince, Karl, the miller's son, having +set himself to reorganize the army, succeeded so well that it was not +long before he found himself the source of all authority in Plassenburg. + +Thereafter he gave to the decimated and heartless land adequate defences +and complete safety against foreign foes, together with security for life +and property, under equal laws, within its own borders. So, in time, no +man saying him nay, Karl Miller's Son became the Prince of Plassenburg, +and his seat was more secure upon his throne than that of any legitimate +prince for a thousand miles all round about. + +After the quarrel with Von Reuss, the Prince, for reasons of his own, +favored me with a great deal of his society. He was often graciously +pleased to talk concerning his early difficulties. + +"When I was an understrapper," he was wont to say, "the land was +overswarmed and eaten up by officialdom. I could not see the good meat +wasted upon crawlers. 'Get to work,' said I, 'or ye shall neither eat +nor crawl!' + +"'We must eat--to beg we are not ashamed, to steal is the right of our +noble Ritterdom,' the crawlers replied. + +"'So,' said I, '_bitte_--as to that we shall see!' + +"Then I made me a fine gallows, builded like that outside Paris, which I +had seen once when on an embassy for Prince Dietrich. It was like a +castle, with walls twelve feet thick, and on the beams of it room for a +hundred or more to swing, each with his six feet of clearance, all +comfortable, and no complaints. + +"Then came the crawlers and asked me what this fine thing was for. + +"'For the sacred Ritterdom of Plassenburg!' answered I, 'if it will not +cease to burn houses and to ravish and carry off honest men's wives and +daughters.' + +"'But you must catch us!' quoth Crawlerdom. 'Walls fourteen feet thick!' +said they. + +"'Content,' cried I; 'there is the more fun in catching you. Only the end +is the same--that is to say, my new, well-ventilated castle out there on +the heath, fine girdles and neck-pieces and anklets of iron, and six feet +of clearance for each of you to swing in.' + +"So they went back to their castles, and robbed and ravished and rieved, +even as did their fathers for a thousand years, thinking no evil. But I +took my soldiers, whom in seven years' service I had taught to obey +orders-two foot of clearance did well enough for the disobedient among +them, not being either ritters or men of mark. And I, Karl the Miller's +brat, as at that time they called me in contempt, borrowed cannon-- +great lumbering things--from my friend the Margrave George, down there to +the south. A great work we had dragging them up to Plassenburg by rope +and chain and laboring plough oxen. We shot them off before the +fourteen-feet walls. Then arose various clouds of dust, shriekings, +surrenderings, crying of 'Forgive us, great Prince, we never meant to do +it,' followed, as I had said, by the six-feet clearances. But these in +time I had to reduce to four--so great became the competition for places +in my new Schloss Muellerssohn. + +"But 'Once done, well done--done forever!' is my motto. So since that +time the winds have mostly blown through my Schloss untainted, and the +sons of Ritterdom, magnanimous captains and honest bailies of quiet +bailiwicks, are my very good friends and faithful officers." + +Prince Karl the Miller's Son was silent a moment. + +"But I am still looking out for another man with a head-piece to come +after me. I have no son, and if I had, the chances are ten to one that he +would be either a milksop or a flittermouse painted blue. Milksops I +hate, and send to the monkeries. I can endure flittermice painted blue, +but they must wear petticoats--and pretty petticoats too. Have you +observed those of the Princess?" said he, abruptly changing the subject. + +"The Princess's flittermice?" I faltered, not well knowing what I said, +for he had turned roughly and suddenly upon me. + +"Aye, marry, you may say it! But I meant the Princess's wilicoats!" + +"No," said I, as curtly as I could, for the subject had its obvious +limitations. + +"Ah, they are pretty ones," said Karl, "I assure you. She has at least an +undeniable taste in lace and cambric. They say in other lands--not in +this--though I would not hinder them if they did--that she wears the +under-garments of men and rules the state. But I think not so. The +Princess is a better Queen than wife, a better woman than either." + +On this subject also I had nothing to say which I dared venture to the +husband of the Lady Ysolinde. + +"She read my horoscope," said I, weakly, searching for something in the +corners of my brain to change the subject. + +"How so?" said the Prince, quickly. + +"First in a crystal and then in a pool of ink," I replied. + +"It was a good horoscope and of a fortunate ending?" + +"On the whole--yes!" said I; "though there was much in it that I could +not understand." + +"Like enow!" laughed the Prince; "I warrant she could not understand it +herself! It is ever the way of the ink-pool folk." + +Then ensued a silence between us. + +Prince Karl remained long with his head resting on his hand. He looked +critically at the twisted stem of his wineglass, twirling it between his +thick fingers. + +"The Princess loves you!" he said, at last, looking shrewdly at me from +beneath his gray brows. + +It was spoken half as a question and half as information. + +"Loves me?" stammered I, the blood sucking back to my heart and leaving +my head light and tingling. + +The Prince nodded calmly. + +"So they say!" said he. + +"My Lord, it is a thing impossible!" cried I, earnestly. "I am but a poor +lad--and she has been kind to me. But of love no word has been spoken. +Besides--" + +And I stopped. + +"Out with it, man!" said the Prince, more like, as it seemed to me, a +comrade inviting a confidence than a great Prince speaking to a newly +made officer. + +"Well, I--I love the Little Playmate." + +It came out with a rush at last. + +"Oh!" said he; "that is bad. I hope that is not a matter arranged, a +thing serious. For if the Princess knows as much, the young woman will +not have her troubles to seek in the Palace of Plassenburg." + +I hung my head and said naught, save that Helene declared she loved me +not, but that I thought she was mistaken. + +"Ah, then," cried the Prince, like one exceedingly relieved, "it is but +some boy and girl affair. That is better. She may change her mind, as you +will certainly change yours--and that several times--among the ladies of +the court. I was in hopes--" + +And the Prince stopped in his turn, not from bashfulness, but rather like +a man who desires more carefully to choose his words. + +"I was in hopes," he went on, speaking slowly, "that if the Princess +loved your boy's face and liked my conversation (which I may say without +pride that I think she does) you and I together might have kept her at +home. So over-much wandering is not good for the state. Also it gets her +a name beyond all manner of ill-doing within-doors." + +Once more I knew not well what to answer to this speech of the Prince's, +so I remained discreetly silent. + +"I have seen the Princess's flittermice about her before, often enough (I +thank thee for the word, Sir Captain.), but this is the first time she +has performed the ink-pool and crystal foolery with any man. There is no +great harm in the Princess. In the things of love she is as inflammable +as the ink, and as soft as the crystal. Fear not, Joseph, Potiphera may +be depended upon not to proceed to extremities. But I was in some hopes +that you and I could have arranged matters between us, being both +men--aye, and honorable men." + +I saw that Karl Miller's Son looked sad and troubled. + +"Prince, you love the Princess!" said I, thrusting out my hand to him +before I thought. He did not take it, but instead he thrust a flagon of +wine into it, as if I had asked for that--yet the thing was not done by +way of a rebuff. I saw that plainly. + +"Pshaw! What does a grizzle-pate with love?" said he, gruffly. +"Nevertheless, I was in hopes." + +"Prince Karl," said I, "I give you word of honor, 'tis not as you say or +they say. The Princess has indeed done me the honor to be friendly--" + +"To hold your hand!" he murmured, softly, like a chorus. + +"Well, to be friendly, and--" + +"To caress your cheek?" put in the Prince, gently as before. + +"Done me the honor to be friendly--" + +"To play with your curls, lad?" + +"The Princess--" I began, all in a tremor. For anything more awkward +than this conversation I had never experienced. It bathed me in a drip +of cold sweat. + +"To kiss you, perhaps, at the waygoing?" he insinuated. + +"No!" thundered I, at last. "Prince, you do your Princess great wrong." + +He lifted his hand in a gentle, deprecating way, most unlike the rider +who had ridden so fast and so hotly that night of our coming. + +"You mistake me, sir," he said. "On the contrary, I have the greatest +respect for the Princess Ysolinde. I would not wrong her for the world. +But I know her track of old. You are a brave lad, and, after all, I fear +there is something in that calf-love of yours--devil take it!" + +I thought I could now dimly discern whither the Prince's plans +were tending. + +"Your Highness," said I, "I am a young man and of little experience. I +cannot tell why you have chosen to speak so freely to me. But I am your +servant, and, in all that hurts not the essence and matter of my love for +the Little Playmate, I will do even as you say." + +Prince Karl grasped my hand. + +"Ah, well said!" he cried. "You are running your head into a peck of +troubles, though. And you are likely to have some experience of womenkind +shortly--a thing which does no brisk young fellow any harm, unless he +lets them come between him and his career. Women are harmless enough, so +that you keep them well down to leeward. I am Baltic-bred, and have ever +held to this--that you may sail unscathed through fleets of farthingales, +so being that you keep the wind well on your quarter, and see the +fair-way clear before you." + +I did not at the time understand half he said, but I knew we had made +some sort of a bargain. And I thought, with an aching, unsatisfied heart, +that though it might be well enough for an iron-gray and cynical old +Prince, the thing would hardly commend itself to Helene, my Little +Playmate, to whom I had so recently spoken loving words, sweeter than +ever before. + +"Devil take all Princes and Princesses!" I said, as I thought, to myself. +But I must have spoken aloud, for the Prince laughed. + +"Do not waste good prayers needlessly," he said; "he will!" + +And so, with a careless and humorsome wave of his hand to one side, he +went down the staircase, and so out into the quadrangle of the Palace. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +LOVES ME--LOVES ME NOT + + +Now how this plan of my Lord Prince's worked in the Palace of Plassenburg +I find it difficult to tell without writing myself down a "painted +flittermouse," as the Prince expressed it. I was in high favor with my +master; well liked also by most of the hard-driving, rough-riding young +soldiers whom the miller's son had made out of the sons of dead and +damned Ritterdom. I got my share of honor and good service, too, in going +to different courts and bringing back all that Prince Karl needed. To +exercise myself in the art of war, I hunted the border thieves and gave +them short enough shrift. In a year I had made such an assault as that of +the inn at Erdberg an impossibility all along the marches of our +provinces. + +The crusty old councillor, Leopold Dessauer, who had held office under +the last Prince of the legitimate line, was ever ready to assist me with +the kindest of deeds and the bitterest and saltest of words. + +"What did I tell you about being Field-Marshal?" said he one day--"in +Karl's kingdom the shorter the service, the higher the distinction. +If you and the Prince live long enough, I shall see you carry a +musketoon yet, and not one of the latest pattern, either. You will be +promoted down, like a booby who has been raised by chance to the top +of the class!" + +"Well," said I, humbly, for I always reverenced age, "then I hope, +High-Chancellor Dessauer, that I shall carry my musketoon as becomes a +brave man!" + +"I do not doubt it!" said he. "And that is the most hopeful thing I have +seen about you yet. It is just possible, on the other hand, that you may +yet rule and the Prince carry the piece." + +"God forbid!" said I, heartily. For next to my own father, of all men I +loved the Prince. + +"The Princess hath a pretty hand," remarked Dessauer casually, as if he +had said, "It will rain to-morrow!" + +"I' faith, yes!" said I; "what have you been at to find out that?" + +"Weak--weak!" he said, shaking his head. "I fear you will wreck on that +rock. It is your blind peril!" + +"My blind peril!" cried I. "What may that be, High Councillor?" + +"Ah, lad," he said, smiling with that wise, all-patient smile which the +aged affect when they mean to be impressive, yet know how useless is +their wisdom, "it was never intended by the Almighty that any man should +have eyes all round his head. That is why He fixed two in front, and made +them look straight forward. That is also why He made us a little lower +(generally a good deal lower) than the angels!" + +I heard him as if I heard him not. + +"You do me the honor to follow me?" he said, looking at me. He was, I +think, conscious that my eyes wandered to the door, for indeed I was +expecting the Little Playmate to come down every minute. + +"Ah! yes, you follow indeed," he said, bitterly, "but it is the trip of +feet, the flirt of farthingales down the turret steps. No matter! As I +was saying, every man has his blind peril. He can see the thousand. He +provides laboriously against them. He blocks every avenue of risk, he +locks every dangerous door, and lo! there is the thousand-and-first right +before him, yawning wide open, which he does not see--his Blind Peril!" + +"And what, High-Councillor Dessauer, is my blind peril?" + +"I will tell you, Hugo," he said; "not that you will believe or alter a +hair. A man may do many things in this world, but one thing he cannot do. +He cannot kiss the fingers of a Princess--dainty fingers, too, separating +finger from finger--and kiss also the Princess's maid of honor on the +mouth. The combination is certainly entertaining, but like the Friar's +powder it is somewhat explosive." + +"And how," asked I, "may you know all that ?" + +The old man nodded his head sagely. + +"Neither by ink-pool nor yet by scrying! All the same, I know. Moreover, +your peril is not a blind peril only, but a blind man's peril. Ye must +choose, and that quickly, little son--fingers or lips." + +I heard the rustle of a skirt down the stair. It was the light, springing +tread of the one I loved first and best, last and only. + +"By the twelve gods, lips!" cried I, and made for the door. + +And I heard the chuckling laughter of High-Chancellor Dessauer behind me +as I followed Helene down the stairs. It sounded like the decanting of +mellow wine, long hidden in darksome cellars, and now, in the flower of +its age, bringing to the light the smiling of ancient vineyards and the +shining of forgotten suns. + +I found Helene arrived before me in the rose-garden. She did not turn +round as I came, though she heard me well enough. Instead she walked on, +plucking at a marguerite. + +"Loves me--loves me _not_!" she said, bearing upon the last word with +triumphant accent, as she continued to dismantle the poor flower. + +And flashing round upon me with the solitary petal in her hand, she +presented it with a low bow, in elfish mockery of the manner of the court +exquisite. + +"Ah, true flower!" she said, apostrophizing the bare stalk, "a flower +cannot lie. It has not a glozing tongue. It cannot change back and forth. +The sun shines. It turns towards the sun. The sun leaves the skies. It +shuts itself up and waits his return. Ah,-true flower, dear flower, how +unlike a man you are!" + +"Helene," said I, "you have learned conceits from the catch-books. You +quarrel by rote. Were I as eager to answer me, I might say: 'Ah, false +flower, you grow out of the foulness underneath. You give your fragrance +to all without discretion--a common lover, prodigal of favors, fit only +to be torn to shreds by pretty, spiteful fingers, and to die at last with +a lie in your mouth. Again I say--false flower!'" + +"You can turn the corners, Sir Juggler, with the cup and ball of words," +answered Helene. "So much they have already taught you in a court. But +there is one thing that your fine-feathered tutors have not taught +you--to make love to two women in one house and hide it from both of +them. Hot and cold may not come too near each other. They will mix and +make lukewarm of both." + +A wise observation, and one that I wished I had made myself. + +"May the devil take all princes and princesses!" I began, as I had done +to the Prince himself. + +Helene shook her head. + +"Hugo," she said, "I was but a simpleton when I came hither, and knew +nothing. Now I am wise, and I know!" + +She touched her forehead with her finger, just where the curls were +softest and prettiest. + +"Oh, you have learned to be thrice more beautiful than ever you were!" I +said, impetuously. + +"So I am often told," answered she, calmly. + +"Who dared tell you ?" cried I, quick as fire, laying my hand on my +sword. + +"The false common flowers by the wayside tell me!" said Helene, pertly. + +"Let them beware, or I will take their heads off for rank weeds!" +I answered. + +For at that time, in the Court of Plassenburg, we talked in figures and +romance words. We had indeed become so familiar with the mode that we +could use no other, even in times of earnestness. So that a man would go +to be hanged or married with a quipsome conceit on his lips. + +"I think, Sir Janus Double-tongue," she said, "that you would not be the +worse of a little medicine of your own concocting." + +And with that she swept her skirts daintily about and tripped down in to +the pleasaunce of flowers, to make which the Prince Karl had brought a +skilled gardener all the way from France. + +I prowled about the higher terrace, moodily watching the sky and thinking +on the morrow's weather. And by-and-by I saw one come forth from among +the cropped Dutch hedges, and stride across to where Helene walked with +something white in her hand. I could see her again picking a flower to +pieces, and methought I could hear the words. My jealous fancy conjured +up the ending, "Loves me not--loves me! Loves me not!" + +She turned even as she had done to me. The newcomer was that sneering +Court fop, the Count von Reuss, Duke Casimir's nephew--still in hiding +from the wrath of his uncle. For at that time hardly any court in Germany +was without one or two of these hangers-on, and a bad, reckless, +ill-contriving breed they were at Plassenburg, as doubtless elsewhere. + +Then grew my heart hard and bitter, and yet, in a moment afterwards, was +again only wistful and sad. + +"She had been safer," thought I, "in the old Red Tower than playing +flower fancies with such a man!" + +For I had seen the very devil look out of his eye--which indeed it did +as often as he cast it on a fair woman. In especial, I longed to +throttle him each time he turned to watch Helene as she went by. And +here she was walking with him, and talking pleasantly too, in the rose +garden of the palace. + +"Ah, devil take all princes and princesses!" said I. This one, it is +true, was only a count, and disinherited. But I felt that the thing was +the Prince's doing, and that it was for the sake of the covenant he had +made with me that I was compelled to put up with such a toad as Von Reuss +crawling and besliming the fair garden of my love. + +It was an evening without clouds--everything shining clear after rain, +the scent of the flowers rising like incense so full and sweet that you +could almost see it. The unnumbered birds were every one awake, +responsive and emulous. The deep silence of midsummer was broken up. It +was like another spring. + +The Princess Ysolinde came out to take the air. She was wrapped in her +gown of sea-green silk, with sparkles of dull copper upon it. The dress +fitted her like a snake's skin, and glittered like it too as she swayed +her lithe body in walking. + +"Ha, Hugo," she said, "I thought I should find you here!" + +I did not say that if another had been kinder she might have found me +elsewhere and otherwise employed. I had at least the discretion to leave +things as they were. For the time to speak plainly was not yet. + +She took my arm, and we paced up and down. + +"Princess--" I began. + +"Ysolinde!" corrected she, softly. + +It was an old and unsettled contention between us. + +"Well then, Ysolinde, to-morrow must I ride to fight the men of mine own +country of the Wolfmark. I like not the duty. But since it must be, for +the sake of the brave Prince, it shall be well done." + +"You do not say 'For your sake, Ysolinde'?" she answered, pensively. + +"No," I said, bluntly, "'for the Prince's sake.'" + +"You would do all things for the Prince's sake--nothing for mine!" said +the Princess, withdrawing her hand. + +"On the contrary, Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "I do all things for +your sake. Save for the sake of your good-will, I should now be +elsewhere." + +Which was true enough. I should have been in the garden pleasaunce +beneath, and probably with my sword out, arguing the case with Von Reuss. + +But she pressed my arm, for she understood that I had delayed a day from +my duty for her sake. So touched at heart was Ysolinde that she slipped +her hand down from my arm and took my hand instead, flirting a corner of +her shawl cleverly over both, to hide the fact from the men-at-arms--as +Helene could not have done to save her life. But every maid of honor who +passed noted and knew, lifting eyebrows at one another, I doubt not, as +soon as we passed, which thing made me feel like a fool and blush hotly. +For I knew that ere they were couched that night every maid of them would +tell Helene, and with pleasure in the telling too. + +"Devil take--" I began and stopped. + +"What did you say?" asked Ysolinde, almost tenderly. + +"That if I come not back again from the Wolfmark it will be the better +for all of us!" I made answer, which was indeed the sense if not the +exact text of my remark. + +"Nay," she said, shuddering, "not better for me that am companionless!" + +"Why so?" said I, boldly. "You do not love me. Deep at the bottom of +your heart you love your husband, Karl the Prince. You know there is no +man like him. Me you do not love at all." + +"You will not let me," she said, softly, almost like a shy country +maiden. + +"Ah, if I had, you would have slain me long ere this," said I, "for I +read you like a child's horn-book that he plays battledore with. 'Have +not--_love_! Have--_hate_.' There you are, all in brief, my Lady +Ysolinde." + +"It is false," laughed she; "but nevertheless I love greatly to hear you +call me Ysolinde." + +She netted her fingers in mine beneath the shawl. Well might the High +Councillor say that she had a beautiful hand. Though, God wot, much he +knew about it. For Ysolinde of Plassenburg could speak with her hand, +love with it, be angry with it, hate with it--and kill with it. + +"I am an experiment," said I; "one indeed that has lasted you a little +longer than the others, my Lady Ysolinde, only because you have not come +to the end of me so soon." + +"Pshaw!" she said, pushing me from her, for we were at the turning of a +path, "you love another. That is the amulet against infection that you +carry. Yet sometimes I think that that other is only your hateful, +plain-favored, vainly conceited self!" + +I saw the Prince sit alone, according to his custom, in an arbor behind +us at that very moment--and judge if I blushed or no. But the Princess +saw him not, being eager upon her flouting of me. + +"I tell you," she cried, scornfully and disdainfully, "there is nothing +interesting about you but the blueness of your eyes, and that any monk +can make upon parchment, aye, and deeper and bluer, with his +lapis-lazuli. An experiment!--Why should I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, +experiment with you, the son of the Red Axe of the Wolfsberg ?" + +"Nay, that I know not," I answered; "but yet I am indeed no more than +your arrow-butts, your target of practice, your whipping-boy, to be slung +at and arrow-drilled and bullet-pitted at your pleasure!" + +"I dare say," she said, bitterly; "and all the time you go scathless--no +more heart-stricken than if summer flies lighted on thee. Away with such +a man; he is the ghost of a man--a simulacrum--no true lover!" + +"At your will, Princess. I shall indeed go away. I will to-morrow seek +the spears. But, after all, you will not send me forth in anger?" I said, +with a strong conviction that I knew the answer. + +"And why not?" said she. + +"Because," I replied, looking at her, "I am, after all, the one man who +believes thoroughly in your heart's deep inward goodness. I believe in +you even when you do not believe in yourself. I can affirm, for I know +better than you know yourself. You cover the beauty of your heart from +others. You flout and jeer. Above all, you experiment dangerously with +words and actions. But, after all, I am necessary to you. You will not +send me away in anger. For you need some one to believe in the soundness +of your heart. And I, Hugo Gottfried, am that man!" + +"Hence, flatterer!" cried the lady, smiling, but well pleased. "It is +known to all that I am the Old Serpent--the deceiver--the ill fruit of +the Knowledge of Evil. And now you say of Good also! And what is more and +worse, you expect me to believe you. Wherein you also experiment! I pray +you, do not so. That is to you the forbidden fruit. Good-night. Go, now, +and pray for a more truthful tongue!" + +And with that she went in, the copper spangles glancing at her waist red +as the light on ripe wheat, and all her tall figure lissome as the +bending corn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +INSULT AND CHALLENGE + + +Now, because there is still so much to tell, and so little time and space +to tell it in, I must go forward rapidly. In these dull times of grouting +peace, when men become like penned pigs, waking up only at feeding-time, +they have no knowledge of how swiftly life went when every day brought a +new living friend or a new dead enemy, when love and hate awakened fresh +and fresh with each morrow's sun--and when I was young. + +Perhaps that last is the true reason. But when the Baltic norther snorts +without, and mine ancient thigh-wound twinges down where my hand rests, +naturally I have no better resource than to fall to the goose-quill. And +lo! long ere I am done with the first page, and have the ink no more than +half-way to the roots of my hair, I am again in the midst of the ringing +hoofs of the foray. I hear the merry dinting of steel on steel; the +sullen _chug-chug_ of the wheels of Foul Peg, the Margrave's great +cannon, which more than once he lent our Prince; the oaths of the +men-at-arms shouldering her up, apostrophizing most indecently her fat +haunches, and the next moment getting tossed aside like ninepins by her +unexpected lurches. Ah, the times that were when I was young! + +I see these gallants about our later courts--Lord help them, sons of mine +own, too, some of them--year in and year out, crossing their legs and +staring at the gilded points of their shoon. All are grown so tame--none +now to ride a-questing in the Baltic forest for border brigands +--indeed, there be no brigands to quest for. + +But I forget. Time was when I looked love, and I too had shoon, aye, with +golden tips to match the armor of honor which the Prince gave me after I +had led my first regiment to victory--even as the Lady Ysolinde had said. +And noble shoes of price they were. + +And I could make love, too, when I had the chance. But, nevertheless, not +more than one day in six--spending the rest in the new training of my +men, the perfecting of their equipment, the choosing of their horses, and +the providing for their stores. + +God wot--it was a good time. I mind me the year when the Prince fell out +with Duke Casimir, and we played over again the old tricks with him. + +Never was I gladder of any quest than that to ride within sight of the +Red Tower, and wave the blue and yellow of my master under the very +ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and almost within hearing of the inhuman +howling of its blood-hounds. + +"Singe his beard!" said my master. And with a hundred riders I did it +too. For though the burghers clattered to their gates, I rode to the very +walls of the Wolfsberg, which for bravado I summoned to surrender. And +the best of it was that no man knew me. For I had grown soldierlike and +strong, and was most unlike the lad who had ridden away so meekly and +almost in tears out of the gate of that very Wolfsberg. + +Of my father, thank God, I saw nothing--though I doubt not he observed my +troop. For doubtless he would be with his master--aged now, soured, and +prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned +bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of +the assassin's bullet in every wind. + +And, save when an honest burgher was slain by the Black Riders, the +beasts of the kennels were fed on diet more ordinary than of old. + +So we rode back with our prisoners, and as much plunder as we could screw +out of old Burgomeister Texel and his citizens by threats of sacking the +city--a deed which I was main sorry for afterwards, in the light of that +which happened at a later day. But I knew not the future then, and it was +as well. For the guilders paid nobly for the new-fashioned ordnance which +stood us in such good stead that autumn, when we had sterner work in hand +than singeing the gray beard of Duke Casimir. + +Within Schloss Plassenburg things went on much as usual. Perhaps I was +lax in my wooing--I cannot tell; I loved sincerely enough, of a +certainty. Nor, after this, was I backward in telling Helene of it, and +sometimes she would love me well enough, and then again she would not. So +that I could not tell what she would be at. + +Looking back upon everything now, I see clearly how that the rankling +secret thorn was the accursed understanding with the Prince, that for his +peace's sake I was to abide friendly with the Princess and let her try +her fool experiments on me. Which she did, God wot, innocently +enough--that is, for all the harm they did me. But, nevertheless, without +knowing it, I kept the Little Playmate with a sore and aching heart for +many and many a day. + +But I made nothing of it--thinking, like a careless, ill-deserving +soldier-lover, eager for success and dazzled with ambition, chiefly of my +profession, of how to win battles and take fortresses against the +surrounding princelings, our Karl's enemies, till one day I found Helene +with her cheeks wet and her pretty lips bitten till the blood had come. + +"What is't, little one? Tell me!" said I, going to her and putting my +arm about her, as indeed I had some right to do, if no more than the +right of having carried her up into the Red Tower in her white gown +so long ago. + +But she wrested herself determinedly out of my hold, saying: "Do not +touch me, sir. 'Tis all your fault!" + +"What is my fault, dear lass?" said I. "Tell me, and I will instantly +amend it." + +"Oh!" she cried, casting her hands out from her in bitter complaint, +"there is nothing so meanly selfish as a man! He will say tender +things--aye, and do them, too, when it liketh him. He can be, oh, so +devoted and so full of his eternal affections. He is dying all for love! +And then, soon as he passes out of the door he ties his sword-knot and +points his mustache to his liking, and lo! there is no more of him. He +goes and straightway forgets till it shall please his High Mightiness to +call again. Oh! and we--we women, poor things, must stand about with our +mouths open, like mossy carp in a pond, and struggle and push for such +crumbs of comfort as he will deign to throw us from the full larder of +his self-satisfaction!" + +This was a most mighty speech for the Little Playmate, and took me +entirely by surprise. For mostly she was still enough and quiet enough in +her ways and speakings. + +"'Tis true, sweetheart, that some men are like that," I replied, gently, +"but not Hugo Gottfried, surely. When did you ever find me unkind, +unthankful, unfaithful? When went I ever away and left you alone?" + +"Oh, you did--you did," she cried, the tears starting from her lovely +eyes, "or I should never have been insulted--treated lightly, spoken to +as a staled thing of courts and camps!" + +And Helene sank down beside the garden wall in an abandonment of +sorrow--so that my heart grew hot and angry at the cause of her grief, to +me then unknown. + +I knelt down beside her and touched her lightly on one rounded, +heaving shoulder. + +"Dearest," said I, "I knew nothing of this. Tell me who has insulted you. +As God is in His heaven, I will have my sword in his heart or nightfall, +were it the Prince himself! Tell me, and by the Lord of the Innocents, I +will make him eat cold steel and drink his own blood therewith!" + +"Oh, it was my own fault--I know I should not have met him--let him speak +to me in the garden. But you were so cold to me, Hugo. And then I +thought--I thought that the Woman was taking you away from me. Also she +sent me out to be--to be in his path!" + +"In whose path, I bid you tell me, and what woman?" + +Though the latter I knew well enough. + +"The Princess," she answered, "and the Count von Reuss. To-day he spoke +to me of love, and spoke it hatefully, shamefully, when the Princess had +bidden me go and carry her message to him. But it was with me that he +desired to meet. And I--at first many days ago--I walked by his side and +listened, for then he spoke courteously and like a gentleman. For you +were on the high terrace, and I wished you to see. I thought--I hoped--" + +And the little one broke off with tears. + +"I know, I know!" cried I, contritely; "I am a blind, doting fool. In +this Prince's court I thought no more of such dangers than when I had +you safe and innocent, my Playmate of the Red Tower. But what did or +said Von Reuss?" + +"Truly he did naught, but only spoke--things for which I would have +smitten him to death had I possessed a dagger. I bade him begone. And he +swore he would execute his purpose yet in spite of every town's +Executioner in the Empire." + +"Ah, will he?" said I, a calm chill of hatred settling about my heart. +"I, Hugo Gottfried, will execute him, if I have to send for my father's +Red Axe to do it with--singed and scented monkey that he is." + +"Nay," said Helene, "then I wish I had not told you. Perhaps he will not +meddle with me again, and if you cross him he may slay thee. Remember, I +have no friend here but you, Hugo!" + +"Count von Reuss slay me! I could eat him up without salt or savory--a +weak reed, a kerl without backbone save of buckram; why, I will shake him +this day like a rat between my hands!" + +So I spoke in my anger, hot with myself that I had let the Little +Playmate suffer these things, and resolved that neither Prince nor +Princess would stand between me and my love a moment longer. + +But in all lands it takes more than Say-so to budge the stubborn wheels +of circumstance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +I FIND A SECOND + + +I meant to go directly to the Prince in his chamber and tell him that +from this time forth Helene and I had resolved to battle out our lives +together. But it chanced that I passed through the higher terrace on my +way to the lower--a bosky place of woods, where the Prince loved to +linger in of a summer afternoon, drowsing there to the singing of birds +and the falling of waters. For our Karl had tastes quite beyond sour +black Casimir, with his church-yard glooms and raw-bone terrors. + +On the upper terrace I found Von Reuss, lolling against the parapet with +other blue flittermice, his peers--he himself no flittermouse, indeed, +but of the true Casimir vampire breed, horrid of tooth, nocturnal, +desirous of lusts and blood. + +At sight of him I went straight at mine enemy, as if I had been +leading a charge. + +"Sir," said I, "you are a base rascal. You have insulted the Lady Helene, +maid of honor to the Princess, the adopted child of my father. Her wrongs +are mine. You will do me the honor of crossing weapons with me!" + +"I have not learned the art of the axe," said he, turning about, +listlessly. "You expect too much, Sir Executioner!" + +I wasted no more words upon him, for I had not sought him to barter +insults, but to force him to meet me where I could have my anger out upon +him, and avenge the tears in the eyes of my Little Playmate. + +Von Reuss was drawing a glove of yellow dressed kid through his hand +as he spoke. This I plucked from his fingers ere he was aware, and +struck him soundly on either cheek with it before flinging it crumpled +up in his face. + +"Now will you fight, or must I strike you with my open hand?" + +Then I saw the look of his uncle stand hell-clear in his eyes. But he was +not frightened, this one, only darkly and unscrupulously vengeful. + +"Foul toad's spawn, now I will have your blood!" he cried, tugging at +his sword. + +"We cannot fight here," said I, "within sight of the palace windows. But +to-night at sundown, or to-morrow at dawn, I am at your service." + +"Let it be to-night, on the common at the back of the Hirschgasse--one +second, and the fighting only between principals." + +Very readily I agreed to that, or anything, and then, with a wave of my +hat, I went off, cudgelling my brain whom I should ask to be my second. +Jorian, who was now an officer, I should have liked better than any +other. But, being of the people myself, it was necessary that I should +have some one of weight and standing to meet the nephew of the Duke of +the Wolfmark and his friend. + +Moodily pacing down the glade, which led from the second terrace and the +pleasaunce, I almost overran the Prince himself. He was seated under a +tree, a parchment of troubadours' songs lay by him, illuminated (to judge +by the woeful pictures) by no decent monkish or clerkly hand. He had a +bottle of Rhenish at hand, and looked the same hearty, hard-headed, +ironic soldier he ever was, and yet, what is more strange, every inch of +him a Prince. + +"Whither away, young Sir Amorous," he cried, pretending great indignation +at my absent-mindedness, "head among the clouds or intent as ever on the +damosels? Conning madrigals for lovers' lutes, mayhap? And all the while +taking no more heed of God's honest princes than if they existed only for +trampling under your feet." + +I asked his pardon--but indeed I had not come so nigh him as that. + +"I am to fight in a private quarrel," said I, "and, truth to tell, I +sorely want a second, and was pondering whom to ask." + +The Prince sighed. + +"Ah, lad," he said, "once I had wished no better than to stand up at +your side myself. I was not a Prince then though; and again, these +laws--these too strict laws of mine! But what is the matter of your +duel, and with whom?" + +"Well," said I, "I have slapped Count von Reuss's chafts with his own +glove, in the midst of his friends, on the upper terrace." + +'Tis possible I may be mistaken, I suppose, but I did think then, and +still do think, that I saw evident tokens of pleasure on the face of +the Prince. + +"And the cause--" + +I hesitated, blushing temple-high, I dare say, in spite of the growth of +my mustaches. + +"A woman, then!" cried the Prince. Then, more low, he added, "Not the--?" + +He would have said the Princess, for he paused, in his turn, with a +graver look on his face. + +So I hastened with my explanation. + +"He insulted the young Lady Helene, maid of honor to the Princess, who is +to me as a sister, having been brought up with me in one house. Her honor +is my honor, both by this tie, and because, as you know, we have long +loved each other. Therefore will I fight Count von Reuss to the death, +and a good cause enough." + +The Prince whistled--an unprincely habit, but then all millers' lads +whistle at their work. So Prince Karl whistled as he meditated. + +"I see further into this matter than that--if indeed you love this maid. +There be other things to be thought upon than vengeance upon Von Reuss! +Does the Princess know of this?" + +"Suspect she may," said I; "know she cannot. It was only half an hour ago +that I knew myself." + +"Ha," said he, musingly, with his beard in his hand, "it hath gone no +further than that. Were it not, if possible, better to conceal the cause +yet a while that our compact may go on? It were surely easy enough to +invent an excuse for the quarrel." + +"Prince," answered I, earnestly, "this bargain of ours hath gone on over +long already, in that it hath brought a true maid's honor and happiness +in question. And a maid also whom I am bound to love. I will ask you +this, have I been a good soldier and servant to you or not?" + +"Aye to that!" quoth the Prince, heartily. + +"Have I ever asked fee or reward for aught I have tried to do?" + +"Nay," he said; "but you have gotten some of both without asking." + +"Will you grant me the first boon I have asked of you since you became +Prince and Master to Hugo Gottfried?" + +"I will grant it, if it be not to separate us as friend and friend," said +my master at once. + +It was like the noble Prince thus to speak of our relation. I took his +hand in mine to kiss it, but this he would not permit. + +"Shake hands like a man," he said, "or else kiss me upon the cheek. My +hand is for young, blue-painted flittermice to kiss, for whose souls' +good it is to put their lips to the hand that has shifted the meal-bags." + +And with that Prince Karl embraced me heartily, and kissed me on +both cheeks. + +"Now for this request of yours!" said he, looking expectantly at me. + +"It is this," I answered him directly: "Give me a district to govern, a +tower to dwell in, and Helene to be my wife." + +"Nay, but these are three things, and you stipulated but for one. Choose +one!" he said. + +"Then give me Helene to wife!" I cried, instantly. + +"Spoken like a lover," said the good Prince. "You shall have her if I +have the giving of her, which I beg leave to doubt. Something tells me +that much water will run under the bridges ere that wedding comes to +pass. But so far as it concerns me the thing is done. Yet remember, I +have never been one wisely to marry, nor yet to give in marriage." + +He smiled a dry, humorsome smile--the smile of a shrewd miller casting +up his thirlage upon the mill door when he sees the fields of his parish +ripe to the harvest. + +"I wonder why, with her crystals and her ink-pools, the Princess hath not +foreseen this. By the blue robe of Mary, there will be proceedings when +she does know. I think I shall straightway go a-hunting in the mountains +with my friend the Margrave!" + +He considered a moment longer, and took a deep draught of Rhenish. + +"Then the matter of a second," continued the Prince; "he is to fight, +of course?" + +"No," said I; "principals only." + +"I wonder," said the Prince, meditatively, "if there be anything in that. +It is not our Plassenburg custom between two young men, well surrounded +with brisk lads. Three seconds, and three to meet them point to point, +was more our ancient way." + +"It was specially arranged at the request of the Count you Reuss," I +told the Prince. + +"If there is to be no fighting of seconds, what do you say to old +Dessauer? He was a pretty blade in my time, and has all the etiquette and +chivalry of the business at his finger-ends. Also he likes you." + +"At any rate, he is ever railing upon me with that sharp tongue of +his!" said I. + +"But did you ever hear him rail upon any of these young men that lean +on rails and roll their eyes under ladies' windows?" said the Prince. +"Old Leopold Dessauer is even now no weakling. I warrant he could draw +a good sword yet upon occasion. Anything more lovely than his riposte I +never saw." + +The Prince got upon his feet with the difficulty of a man naturally heavy +of body, who takes all his exercise upon horseback. + +"Page!" he cried. "My compliments to High State's Councillor +Dessauer, and ask him to come to me here. You will find him, I think, +in the library." + +So to the palace sped the boy; and presently, walking stiffly, but with +great dignity, came the old man down to us. + +"How about the ancestors, the noble men my predecessors?" cried the +Prince, when he saw him; "have you found aught to link the miller of +Chemnitz with the Princes of Plassenburg?" + +The Councillor smiled, and shook his head gravely. + +"Nothing beyond that bit of metal which hangs by your side, Prince Karl," +said Dessauer, pointing to his Highness's sword. + +The Prince looked down at the strong, unadorned hilt thoughtfully +and sighed. + +"I would I had another to transmit this sword to, as well as the power to +wield it, when I take my place as usurper in the histories of the Princes +of Plassenburg." + +"I trust your Highness may long be spared to us," replied Dessauer, +gravely; "but, Prince Karl, in default of an heir to your body (of which +there is yet no reason to despair), wherefore may not your Highness +devise the realm back to the ancient line?" + +"The line of Dietrich is extinct," said the Prince, booking up sharply. + +"So says Duke Casimir, hoping to succeed to your shoes, when he could +not to your helmet and your sword. But I have my suspicions and my +beliefs. There is more in the parchments of yonder library than has yet +seen the light." + +Suddenly the Prince recollected me, standing patiently by. + +"But we waste time, Dessauer; we can speak of ancestors and successors +anon. I and Hugo Gottfried want you to take up your ancient role. Do you +mind how you snicked Axelstein, and clipped Duke Casimir of his little +finger at the back of the barn, when we were all lads at the Kaiser's +first diet at Augsburg?" + +Old Dessauer smiled, well pleased enough at the excellence of the +Prince's memory. + +"I have seen worse cuts," he said; "Casimir has never rightly liked me +since. And had the Black Riders caught me, over to his dogs I should have +gone without so much as a belt upon me. He would have kept them without +food for a week on purpose to make a clean job of my poor scarecrow +pickings." + +"And now this young spark," said the Prince, "for the sake of a lady's +eyes, desires to do your Augsburg deed over again with Duke Casimir's +nephew. So we must give him a man with quarterings on his shield to go +along with him." + +"I am too old and stiff," said Dessauer, shaking his head mournfully, yet +with obvious desire in the itching fingers of his sword-hand; "let him +seek out one of the brisk young kerls that are drumming at the +blade-play all the time down there in the square by the guard-rooms." + +"Nay, it is to be principals only; there is to be no fighting of seconds. +The Count has specially desired that there shall be none," said the +Prince; "therefore, go with the lad, Dessauer." + +"No fighting of seconds!" cried the Councillor, in astonishment, holding +up his hands. And I think the old swordsman seemed a little disappointed. +"Well, I will go and see the lad well through, and warrant that he gets +fair-play among these wolves of the Mark." + +"Faith, when it comes to that, he is as rough-pelted a wolf of the Mark +as any of them!" laughed the Prince. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE WOLVES OF THE MARK + + +The Hirschgasse is a little inn across the river, well known to the +wilder blades of Plassenburg. There they go to be outside the authority +of the city magistrates, to make rendezvous with maids more complaisant +than maidenly, to fight their duels, and generally to do those things +without remark which otherwise bring them under the eye of the Miller's +Son, as they one and all call (behind his back) the reigning Prince of +Plassenburg. + +It was on the stroke of seven, and as fine an evening as ever failed to +touch the soul of sinful man with a sense of its beauty, that I set out +to fight the nephew of Duke Casimir. I had indeed ridden far and fast, +and withal kept my head since I left the Red Tower a poor homeless +wanderer, otherwise I had scarce found myself going out with High +Councillor Leopold von Dessauer as my second to fight my late master's +heir, the proximate Duke of the Wolfmark. + +What was my surprise to find the old man attired in the appropriate +costume for such an occasion, a close-fitting suit of dark gray, of +ancient cut indeed, and without the fashionable slashes and scallops, but +both correct and practicable, either for the sword-play or the proper +ordering of it in others. + +Von Dessauer laughed a little dry laugh when I congratulated him on the +youthfulness of his appearance. Indeed, he seemed little grateful for my +felicitations. And if it had not been for the rheumatism which he had +inherited from his father's campaigns on the tented field, and the +weakness which came from his own in other fields, he would yet have +proved as fit for the play of fence as any youngster of them all. So, at +least, he averred. And to-night the wind was southerly, and his old hurts +irked him not. Faith he was almost minded to try a ruffle with the cocks +of the Mark on his own account. + +"Mind you," he said, "guard low. The attack of the Mark ever comes from +the right leg, half-way to the knee. But I forgot--what use is it to +tell you, that are born of the Mark, and have learned sword-cunning in +their schools?" + +As we left the castle I looked about and secretly kissed a hand to that +high window, where was the chamber of my Little Playmate, whose cause I +was going out so gladly to champion. + +Dessauer and I went quickly down through the lanes which led to the river +edge where the ferry was, and more than once with the comer of my eye I +seemed to see a man in a cloak and sword stealing after us. But as the +sight of a man so attired going secretly in the direction of the +Hirschgasse was no uncommon one, I did not pay any particular attention. + +We crossed over in the large flat-boat which plied constantly between the +banks before our fine new bridge was built. We found our enemies on the +ground before us, and they seemed more than a little surprised when they +perceived who my second was. For as we came up the bank I saw them go +close and whisper together like men who hastily alter their plans at the +last moment. + +I presented my second in form. + +"The High Councillor Leopold von Dessauer, Knight of the Empire!" said I, +proudly enough. + +Then the Count presented his, as the custom then was among us of +the North: + +"His Excellency Friedrich, Count of Cannstadt, Hereditary Cup-bearer of +the Wolfmark." + +Count Cannstadt was an impecunious old-young man, who, chiefly owing to +accumulated gaming-debts and a disagreement with Duke Casimir concerning +the payment of certain rents and duties, had sought the shelter of the +Castle of Plassenburg--a refuge which the generous Prince Karl extended +to all exiles who were not proven criminals. + +The seconds bowed first to each other, and then to their opposing +principals. In those days, duels were mostly fought with the combatants' +own swords. And now Von Dessauer took my blade, and, going forward +courteously, handed the hilt to Count Cannstadt, receiving that of Von +Reuss in return. The seconds then compared the lengths, and found almost +half an inch in favor of my opponent. Which being declared, and I +offering no objection, the discrepancy was allowed and the swords +returned us to fall to. + +And this without further parley we did. + +I was no ways afraid of my opponent. For though a pretty enough, tricky +fighter, he had little practical experience. Also he had quite failed to +strengthen himself by daily custom, and especially by practice at +outrauce, with an enemy keen to run you through in front of you, and the +necessity of keeping a wary eye on half a dozen other conflicts on either +hand, as has constantly to be done in war. + +The place where we fought was on a level green platform a little way +above the roofs of the inn of the Hirschgasse, where many a similar +conflict has been fought, and on which many a good fellow has lain, +panting like a grassed trout, with the gasps growing slower and deadlier, +while his opponent wiped his blade on the trampled herbage, and the +seconds looked on with folded arms. There were many bushes and rocks +about, and the place was very secluded to be so near a great city. + +At first I did not trouble myself much, nor attempt to force the +fighting. I was content to hold Von Reuss in play, and defend myself till +the hunger edge of his attack was dulled. For I saw on his face a look of +vicious confidence that surprised me, considering his inexperience, and +he lunged with a venom and resolution which, to my mind, betokened a +determination to kill at all hazards. + +I knew, however, that presently he must overreach himself, so of set +purpose I kept my blade short, and let him approach nearer. Immediately +he began to press, thinking that he had me at his mercy. We had fought +our way round to a spot on the upper side of the plateau, where for a +moment Von Reuss had a momentary benefit from the nature of the ground. +Here I felt that he gathered himself together, and, presently, as I had +supposed he would, he centred his energy in a determined thrust at my +left breast. This was well enough timed, for my guard had been short and +a little high on purpose to lead him on, and now it took me all my time +to turn his point aside. I saw the steel shoot past, grazing my left arm. +Then with so long a recovery, and the loss of balance from lunging +downhill, he was at my mercy. + +As I did not wish to kill him I chose my spot almost at my leisure, and +pinked him two inches below the spring of the neck and close to the +collar-bone, which was running the thing as fine as I could allow myself. + +What was my surprise to see my sword-blade arch itself as if it had +stricken a stone wall, and to hear the unmistakable ring of steel +meeting steel. + +"Treachery!" cried Von Dessauer and I together; "you are villains both. +He is wearing a shirt of mail!" + +And the old man rushed forward with his sword bare in his hand and all +a-tremble with indignation. + +I heard the shrill "purl" of a silver call, and, turning me about, there +was the gambler Cannstadt with a whistle at his lips. I dared not turn my +head, for I had still to guard myself against the traitor Von Reuss's +attack, but with the tail of my eye I could see two or three men rise +from behind bushes and rocks, and come running as fast as they could +towards us. Then I knew that Dessauer and I were doomed men unless +something turned up that we wotted not of. For with an old man, and one +so stiff as the High Councillor, for my only ally, it was impossible for +me to hold my own against more than double our numbers. + +Nevertheless, Von Dessauer attacked Cannstadt with surprising fury and +determination, anger glittering in his eye, and resolution to punish +treachery lending vigor to his thrust. I had not time to observe his +method save unconsciously, for I had to change my position momentarily +that I might take the points of the two men who came down the hill at +speed, sword in hand. + +But all this foul play among high-born folk gave me a kind of mortal +sickness. To die in battle is one thing, but over against the very roofs +of your home to find yourself brought to death's door by murderous +treachery is quite another. + +At this moment there came news of a diversion. From below was heard the +crying of a stormy voice. + +"Halt! I command you! Halt!" + +And wheeling sufficiently to see, I observed through the twilight the +figure of a stout man, who came leaping heavily up the hill towards us, +waving a sword as he came. Well, thought I, the more there are of them +the quicker it will be over, and the more credit for us in keeping up our +end so long. Better die in a good fight than live with a bad conscience. + +With which admirable reflection I sent my sword through Von Reuss's +sword-arm, in the fleshy part, severing the muscle and causing him to +drop his blade. I had him then at my mercy, and experienced a great +desire to push my blade down his throat, for a treacherous cowardly +hound as he had proved himself to me. But instead of this I had to turn +towards the other two who came at the charge down the hill and were now +close upon us. + +I had just time to leap aside from the first and let him overrun himself +when he shot almost upon the sword of the thick-set man, who came up the +hill shouting to us to stop. The second man I engaged, and a stanch blade +I found him, though fighting for as dirty a cause as ever man crossed +swords in. + +"Halt!" came the voice of command again--the voice I knew so well--"in +the name of the State I bid you cease!" + +It was the voice of Karl, Prince of Plassenburg. + +"We must take the rough with the smooth now. We must kill them, every +one, like stanch men of the Mark!" cried Von Reuss. "There is no safety +for any of us else." And in a moment we were at it, the Prince furiously +assaulting the second of the bravoes who came down the hill. More coolly +than I had given him credit for, Von Reuss stuffed a silken kerchief into +the hole in his shoulder, and repossessed himself of his weapon in his +other hand. + +It was the briskest kind of a bicker that ensued for a little while there +on the bosky, broomy hill-side in the evening light. Ah, Dessauer was +down at last and Cannstadt at his throat! I went about with a whirl, +leaving my own man for the moment, and rushed upon the Count's false +second. He turned to receive me, but not quite quick enough, for I got +him two inches below where I had pinked his principal's ring-mail, and +that made all the difference. Cannstadt did not immediately drop his +sword. But his limbs weakened, and he fell forward without a sound. + +Then as I looked about, there was the Prince manfully crossing swords +with two, and the cowardly Von Reuss creeping up with his sword shortened +in his left hand with intent to slay him from behind. + +Whereat I gave a furious cry of anguish, that I should have been the +means of bringing my noble master into such peril. The Prince Karl had at +the same moment some intuition of the treacherous foe behind him, for he +leaped aside with more agility than I had ever seen him display before on +foot, and Von Reuss was too sorely wounded to follow. + +Presently I was at my first bravo again, and the Prince being left with +but one, Von Reuss took the opportunity to slip away over the hill. + +The rest of the conflict was not long a-settling. There were loud voices +from the stream beneath. The combat had been observed, and half a score +of the Prince's guard were already swimming, wading, and leaping into +small boats in their haste to be first to our assistance. + +But we did not need their aid. I passed my blade through and through my +assailant, almost at the same moment that the Prince spiked his man so +directly in the throat, so that the red point stood out in the hollow of +his neck behind. + +Both went down simultaneously, and there was Von Reuss on horseback, just +disappearing over the ridge. Prince Karl wiped his brow. + +"What devil's traitors!" he cried. "Poor Dessauer, I wonder what he has +gotten? Let us go to him." + +We went across the plateau together, and knelt by the side of the old +man. At first I could not find the wound, though there was blood enough +upon his face and fencing-habit. But presently I discovered that his +scalp had been cut from above the eye backwards to the crown of his +head--a shallow, ploughing scratch, no more, though it had effectually +stunned the old man. + +Even as I held him in my arms, he came to and looked about him. + +"Are they all dead?" he said, feeling about for his sword. + +"You were nearly dead, dearest of friends," said my master. "But be +content. You have done very well for so young a fighter. An you behave +yourself, and keep from such brawling in the future, I declare I will +give you a company!" + +Dessauer smiled. + +"All dead?" he asked, trying still to look about him. + +"Your man is dead, or the next thing to it, two other rascals grievously +wounded, and the scoundrel Von Reuss fled, as well he might. But my +archers are already on his track." + +Up the hill came Jorian and Boris leading the rout. + +"Is the Prince safe?" cried Jorian. + +"The Prince is safe," said Karl, answering for himself. + +"Good!" chorussed Jorian, Boris, and all the archers together. + +"Catch me that man on horseback there!" cried the Prince. "Take him or +kill him, but if you can help it do not let him escape. He is the Count +von Reuss, and a double traitor." + +"Good!" cried the pair, and set off after him, all dripping as they were +from their abrupt passage of the river. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE FLIGHT OF THE LITTLE PLAYMATE + + +We carried Dessauer back to the boat with the utmost tenderness, the +Prince walking by his side, and oft-times taking his hand. I followed +behind them, more than a little sad to think that my troubles should have +caused so good and true a man so dangerous a wound. For though in a young +man the scalp-wound would have healed in a week, in a man of the High +Councillor's age and delicacy of constitution it might have the most +serious effects. + +But Dessauer himself made light of it. + +"I needed a leech to bleed me," he said. "I was coward enough to put off +the kindly surgery, and here our young friend has provided me one +without cost. His last operation, too, and so no fee to pay. I am a +fortunate man." + +We came to the gate of the Palace of Plassenburg. + +My Lady Princess met us, pale and obviously anxious, with lips compressed +and a strange cold glitter in her emerald eyes. + +"So strange a thing has happened!" she began. + +"No stranger than hath happened to us," cried the Prince. + +"Why, what hath happened to you?" she demanded, quickly. + +"Your fine Von Reuss has proved himself a traitor. He fought a duel with +Hugo here all tricked in chain-armor, and when found out he whistled his +rascals from the covert to slay us. But we bested him, and he is over the +hill, with Jorian and Boris hot after his heel." + +"And he hath not gone alone!" said the Princess, and her eyes were +brilliant with excitement. + +"Not gone alone?" said the Prince. "What do you know about this +black work?" + +"Because Helene, my maid of honor, hath fled to join him," she +said, looking anxiously at us, like one who perils much upon a +throw of the dice. + +I laughed aloud. So certain was I of the utter impossibility of the +thing, that I laughed a laugh of scorn. And I saw the sound of my voice +jar the Lady Ysolinde like a blow on the face. + +"You do not believe!" she said, standing straight before me. + +"I do not believe--I know!" answered I, curtly enough. + +"Nevertheless the thing is true," she said, with a curious, pleading +expression, as if she had been charged with wrong-doing and were clearing +herself, though none had accused her by word or look. + +"It is most true," the Princess went on. "She fled from the palace an +hour before sundown. She was seen mounting a horse belonging to Von +Reuss at the Wolfmark gate, with two of his men in attendance upon her. +She is known to have received a note by the hand of an unknown messenger +an hour before." + +I did not wait for the permission of the Princess, but tore up the +women's staircase to Helene's room, where I found nothing out of +place--not so much as a fold of lace. After a hurried look round I was +about to leave the room when a crumpled scrap of paper, half hidden by a +curtain, caught my eye. + +I stooped and picked it up. It was written in an unknown and probably +disguised hand--a hand cumbersome and unclerkly: + +"Come to me. Meet me at the Red Tower. I need you." + +There was no more; the signature was torn away, and if the letter were +genuine it was more than enough. But no thought of its truth nor of the +falseness of Helene so much as crossed my mind. + +To tell the truth, it struck me from the first that the Lady Ysolinde +might have placed the letter there herself. So I said nothing about it +when I descended. + +The Prince met me half-way up the stairs. + +"Well?" he questioned, bending his thick brows upon me. + +"She is gone, certainly," said I; "where or how I do not yet know. But +with your permission I will pursue and find out." + +"Or, I presume, without my permission?" said the Prince. + +I nodded, for it was vain to pretend otherwise--foolish, too, with +such a master. + +"Go, then, and God be with you!" he said. "It is a fine thing to +believe in love." + +And in ten minutes I was riding towards the Wolfsberg. + +As I went past the great four-square gibbet which had made an end of +Ritterdom in Plassenburg, I noted that there was a gathering of the +hooded folk--the carrion crows. And lo! there before me, already +comfortably a-swing, were our late foes, the two bravoes, and in the +middle the dead Cannstadt tucked up beside them, for all his five hundred +years of ancestry--stamped traitor and coward by the Miller's Son, who +minded none of these things, but understood a true man when he met him. + +I pounded along my way, and for the first ten miles did well, but there +my horse stumbled and broke a leg in a wretched mole-run widened by the +winter rains. In mercy I had to kill the poor beast, and there I was left +without other means of conveyance than my own feet. + +It was a long night as I pushed onward through the mire. For presently +it had come on to rain--a thick, dank rain, which wetted through all +covering, yet fell soft as caressing on the skin. + +I took shelter at last in a farm-house with honest folk, who right +willingly sat up all night about the fire, snoring on chairs and hard +settles that I might have their single sleeping-chamber, where, under +strings of onions and odorous dried herbs, I rested well enough. For I +was dead tired with the excitement and anxiety of the day--and at such +times one often sleeps best. + +On the morrow I got another horse, but the brute, heavy-footed from the +plough, was so slow that, save for the look of the thing, I might just as +well have been afoot. + +Nevertheless I pushed towards the town of Thorn, hearing and seeing +naught of my dear Playmate, though, as you may well imagine, I asked at +every wayside place. + +It was at the entering in of the strange country of the brick-dust that I +met Jorian and Boris. They were riding excellent horses, unblown, and in +good condition--the which, when I asked how they came by such noble +steeds, they said that a man gave them to them. + +"Jorian," said I, sharply, "where have you been?" + +"To the city of Thorn," said he, more briskly than was his wont, so that +I knew he had tidings to communicate. + +"Saw you the Lady Helene?" I asked, eagerly, of them. + +He shook his head, yet pleasantly. + +"Nay," said he, "I saw her not. The Red Tower is not a healthy place for +men of Plassenburg, nor yet the White Gate and the house of Master Gerard +von Sturm. But Mistress Helene is in safety, so much Boris and I are +assured of." + +"Not with Von Reuss?" cried I, fear thrilling sudden in my voice that he +had stolen her and now held her in captivity. + +Boris held up his hand as a signal that I must not hurry his companion, +who was clearly doing his best. + +"She is with Gottfried Gottfried, the old man, your father, and is +safe." + +"Did she go to them of her own free will, or did my father send for her?" +I went on, for much depended upon that question. + +"Nay," answered Jorian, "that I know not. But certainly she is with him, +and safe. The Count, too, is with his uncle, and they say also +safe--under lock and key." + +"Good!" quoth Boris. + +"Let us all three go back to Plassenburg forthwith!" cried I. + +"Good!" chorussed both of them together, unanimously slapping their +thighs. "Choose one of our horses. He was a good man who gave us them. We +wish we had known. We should have asked him for another when we were +about it." + +Nevertheless, I rode back to Plassenburg on the farmer's beast, sadly +enough, yet somewhat contented. For Helene was with my father, and far +safer, as I judged, than in the palace chambers of Plassenburg, and +within striking distance of the Lady Ysolinde. And in that I judged not +wrong, though the future seemed for a while to belie my confidence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE GOLDEN NECKLACE + + +The Chancellor Leopold von Dessauer, High Councillor of the Prince, with +his head still bound up, was pacing the sparred gallery outside the +private apartments of his master. It was in the heats of the late summer, +before the ripening of the orchard fruits had had time to culminate, or +the russet to come out slowly upon the apples, like a blush upon a +woman's soft, dusky cheek. + +The High Councillor was in a bad humor. For he had been kept waiting, and +that by a man of no account. At last a forester in a uniform of dark +green, with the Prince's bugle and sparrow-hawk in silver everywhere +about him, made his appearance at the foot of the gallery, and stood +waiting Dessauer's summons with his plumed hat of soft cloth in his hand. + +"Hither, man!" cried the High Councillor, sharply. "What has kept you? +Why were you not here half an hour ago? If this be the way you keep the +Prince's forests, no wonder there are many deer taken by reiving rascals +and the forest laws daily broken." + +"High Mightiness," said the man, humbly, looking down, "it was my +daughter--she would not give up the necklace. She hath had it for her own +since she was a child, and she would not deliver it, though I threatened +her with your well-born anger." + +"And have you got it with you? Surely you and she have not dared to keep +it!" began the Chancellor, with gathering fury on his eyebrow. + +"Yea, truly, truly, an you will have patience, my Lord, I have it +here,"-said the man, drawing a necklace of golden bars curiously arranged +from his leathern wallet; and, kneeling on his knee, he presented it to +the Chancellor. + +"How did you prevail with the maid?" he asked, as soon as he had it in +hand--"you used no constraint or force, I hope?" + +"Nay, sir," said the man, "for my wife being dead and my daughter +marriageable, she keeps house for me; and having a sweetheart betrothed a +year ago she hath been laying aside plenishing gear and women's dainty +gewgaws. So these I took one by one, beginning with a mirror of polished +brass, and made as if I would dash them in pieces if she discovered not +where the chain of gold was hid." + +"And she revealed it?" said Dessauer. + +"Aye," said the man, "but none so willingly, as you might suppose. I had +Saint Peter's own trouble to get it from her. Indeed, I prayed to the +Holy Apostle to aid me." + +"What had Saint Peter to do with it?" said the Councillor, pausing and +looking humorsomely at the man, like an ascetic sparrow with his head +at one side. + +"Because our Holy Saint Peter is the only saint who understands the +trouble men have with the contrariness of women." + +"Why so?" cried the Chancellor, rubbing his hand with a curious pleasure +at the colloquy. + +"Because he only among the Apostles was a married man and had experience +of a mother-in-law." + +"Art a wise forester. Where got you that wisdom?" + +"Why," said the man, modestly, "partly by nature, partly because I also +have been married, and so have graduated in the wars." + +"It is the same thing," said the Chancellor, "according to your +own telling." + +"Aye, sir," quoth the man, "but yet the young fellows will take no +warning. 'It is better to marry than to burn,' said the other Apostle. +But methinks he knew nothing about it, being no better than a +bachelor, or he would have amended it, 'It is better to burn than to +marry _and_ burn.'" + +"Ha! art also a theologe, Sir Woodman?" cried Dessauer. "But enough; this +touches on the Inquisition and the Holy Office. Let us despatch." + +All this time the High Councillor had been gazing by fits and starts at +the links of the necklace, turning it about and viewing it from +every-angle. It was composed of short bars of gold laid horizontally +three and three together, and bound together with short chains of gold. +And on each of the bars there was engraven a crest. Letters also were on +the bars, cut in plain deep script. + +"Now tell your tale and tell it briefly--that is, if brevity be in you, +which I doubt," said Dessauer. + +"As I said before," quoth the forester, "I was in the wars; I mean not +only in the wars with womenkind, but also with mankind. And among other +things I remember the night of the Duke Casimir's famous ride, when he +took Plassenburg, because there was scarce a sober man within the walls." + +"And his Highness the Prince Karl away on Baltic side with his men, else +had Casimir never set foot within the city!" cried the High Chancellor. + +"Ah, like enow," said the woodman, "I ken naught of that. But this I do +know, Plassenburg was taken with much slaughter and grievous loss of +goodly gear. They captivated many noble prisoners also, and, because I +slept in the stables, they took me to help lead the horses. Yet I was not +ill-treated, save that I had to keep pace with the horsemen upon my feet. +But I saw the Prince--" + +"Which Prince? Speak plainly," said the High Councillor, gruffly. + +"Why, the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg of Plassenburg," said the man. +"He, as your well-born Wisdom remembers, was then the only Prince in +these parts--a good man, and born of the noblest, though not of the +capacity of his present Highness the Prince Karl." + +"Proceed somewhat faster. Yon move as slowly as one of your own +forest oxen at the wood-hauling," cried the well-born Councillor in a +testy tone. + +"We were long in riding over to Thorn--two days and nights upon the way. +It was a terrible time, and all the while those condemned beasts of the +Wolfmark, Casimir's Black Riders, driving us with their spears like +prick-goads, till our backs were all bleeding, gentle and simple alike. +So at midnight of the third day we came to the city of Thorn, and up +through the streets to the Wolfsberg. There was no gladness in the town, +such as there would have been in our city had there been news of a +victory, or even of some hundreds of the enemy's horses well driven. For +then as now the town hated its Duke. And so they were all silent. + +"Then in the darkness we came to the castle, and the word was: 'Dismount, +and to the shambles!' Me and my like they meddled not with, but only the +great ones. And it was then, as I told you, that I saw Prince Dietrich +with the little maid in his arms. I had carried her part of the way for +him, and faithfully delivered her up again, feeding her with the choicest +meats I could obtain when she could eat. But she was tired, mostly, and +would not look at food. So for this he gave me her necklace from about +her pretty neck. But the rest of her noble golden gear, the belt and the +clasps, were upon the maid when the headsman of Thorn delivered her to +one that stood near by. So, being almost asleep with weariness and +exhausted with terror, they carried her away, and I saw the maid no more. + +"But the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg was beheaded within the hour, +and, as is their hellish custom, his body was thrown to the Duke's +blood-hounds that were clamoring all the time behind their fence. + +"God help us--such a disaster that night was for Plassenburg! Will the +Prince never set about wiping away the disgrace?" + +"Aye, that he will!" cried the High Chancellor, suddenly bursting into a +fury, strangely unlike him. "He will wash it away in the blood of Duke +Casimir and all his evil brood--the Wolves of the Mark truly are they +named. And the Wolfsberg shall go up in flaming fire to heaven, so that +the ashes of it shall be cast abroad to make the Mark yet grayer and more +desolate--like the fell of the beasts that dwelt within it." + +"Amen! Let it come quick, say I--that I may see it before I die!" cried +the forester, bowing low before the Chancellor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE DECENT SERVITOR + + +"This grows past all bearing," cried the Prince one morning, when he had +summoned into his hall the Chancellor Dessauer and myself. For, though +the Prince was still wont to command in person in any important action, +and in the general policy of his realm took counsel with none, yet it had +somehow come about that we, the old man and the young, had been +constituted an informal council of two which was liable to be summoned at +any moment, whenever the Prince was weary or troubled. + +He struck one clinched hand into the palm of the other before he +spoke again. + +"Duke Casimir is either in his dotage, or his riders have gotten out of +hand since Hugo and you drove the young wolf over to help the old. Both +are likely enough, with a people praying for deliverance and yearning for +their Duke's death. A bare board and an empty treasury may render a new +course of plunder necessary abroad, in order to keep his Dukedom from +toppling about his ears at home. After all, 'tis natural enough. But I +had thought that he would have had enough of sense to let the borders of +Plassenburg alone so long as its Prince lived." + +"And what, my lord, has befallen?" asked the High Councillor. + +"Why," cried the Prince, "the Black Riders of the Wolfmark are out again, +and have left their ancient trail behind them in slain men and frantic +women--and on our borders, too, among our kindly husbandmen, our honest, +sunburnt peasants. Bitterly shall Casimir Ironteeth rue the day that he +meddled with Karl Miller's Son." + +"Your Highness," I said, "this is indeed madness. We have but to collect +our forces, choose a time, and, lo! we are within the town of Thorn! Once +there, we would be welcomed by man, woman, and child. We could then +besiege the Wolfsberg, and in three days make an end." + +"Aye, that is it," said the Prince, grimly; "you have hit it, Hugo. We +_will_ make an end." + +"Also, my Prince," I went on, boldly, "so ye give me leave and approve of +my design, I will go alone to the town of Thorn, and bring you back word +of their power and dispositions. Save the Count von Reuss, there is none +who could now recognize me within the city walls." + +"What think ye, Dessauer?" said the Prince, looking over at the High +Chancellor. + +"I think well," said he, a little doubtfully; "but would it not be +better that two should go than that one should adventure alone into the +wolf's den ?" + +"Surely it were better to keep the matter between our three selves," the +Prince made answer; "not even the Princess must know of our attempt. Keep +a candle flame within the hollow of your palm, and though the wind blow +the sparks will not fly far." + +"I will go with the lad, Prince Karl," said the Chancellor, firmly. "In +my youth I had some practice as a leech. I am acquainted with the art of +healing. I could travel either as a doctor of healing, as a travelling +philosopher seeking disputation with the scholars of each country, or, +perhaps best of all, in mine own quality of a doctor of law. And in any +case this young man might with all safety be my pupil or servant, +whichever best liketh him." + +"Servant, then," said I, "for the art of disputation I have hitherto +chiefly undertaken with my fists and side-irons. And as to surgery, I am +more practised in the giving of wounds than in the healing of them." + +The Prince leaned his head upon his hand. He thought carefully over our +proposal, taking up point after point, resolving difficulty after +difficulty in his mind, as was his wont. + +"How long would you be away?" he asked, looking up at us. + +"Ten days, Prince," said I. "Give us but ten days and we will return." + +"I will give you eight, and if ye are not home again on the eve of the +last, as sure as I am Karl Miller's Son, the army of Plassenburg will be +thundering on the walls of Thorn seeking for a wandering Chancellor and a +lost Hugo Gottfried!" + +And so it was arranged. We of the Prince's staff were indeed in great +need of such a mission, for we had heard nothing from Thorn or the +Wolfmark during many months; no tidings, at all events, that could be +relied upon. For the cutting up of our frontiers by new raids, and the +severance of all relations between us and the dwellers in the Wolfmark, +through fear of reprisals, caused us to hear little news but such as was +manifest lies. + +As thus: Duke Casimir was collecting a great army, magnificent with +cannon and munitions of war. He was shut up tight in the Wolfsberg, not +daring to show his face to his own citizens. He would appear some fine +day before the Palace of Plassenburg and slay every man of us. He was in +a madman's cell, and Otho von Reuss was Duke of the Mark in his place. + +These were only a few of the stories which were brought to regale us +daily. And since there was no certainty anywhere, we were all in the dark +concerning the military matters which it behooved us greatly to be +acquainted with. Therefore I was honestly eager for my master's sake to +undertake the perilous journey. But to tell the whole truth, the fact +that I had not had a word from the Little Playmate, not so much as a line +of script nor a verbal message since her disappearance, made me more +eager to go than the high politics of a dozen provinces. + +Since the duel, and the final declaring of my love for Helene, I had seen +but little of the Princess. Indeed, I kept out of her way, so far at +least as I could. And the Lady Ysolinde remained mostly in her own +domains--to which, of late, I had been less and less invited. +Nevertheless, when we met, she was more than kind to me--gentle, +forbearing, pathetic almost in bearing and demeanor, like as a woman +wronged, slighted, misconstrued. + +Also there was sent to my quarters a new banner for my following, +broidered and blazoned in yellow and blue, a saddle-cloth of silk for my +horse, fine as a woman's robe, with a crowned Y faint and small in the +corner, lettered in straw-colored gold. No man could help being touched +by such kindly thought, which, after all, is more than mere liberality. + +Yet I saw a sight upon her stairs one night which awoke me with a sudden +start to the fact that we had one to reckon with in our journeying to the +city of Thorn whom we had not as yet taken into consideration. + +For it chanced that I was passing up to the Prince's apartments by the +quicker way, through corridors and by stairs to which he had given me +private access. And there, upon the steps leading to the Lady Ysolinde's +rooms, I saw the decent servitor of Master Gerard stand waiting. He +stared as hard at me as I did at him. But whereas his smooth, silent, +secret face remained with me, and I knew him at a glance, it was, I +judged, clean impossible that he could know the beardless stripling in +the mustached leader of soldiers, walking well-accustomed and unafraid +through palaces. + +The man had a letter in his hand, and I saw him deliver it to a maid who +came to the dividing curtain to take it. + +So there was later news from the city of Thorn within the Palace of +Plassenburg than we of the Prince's council of three possessed. Should I +tell our Karl of this encounter? I thought it might be safer not. Because +the Prince was the last man to attempt to obtain aught from his wife by +compulsion, and any question, direct or indirect, might only put her upon +her guard. + +If I let him into the secret, the Prince would be most likely to stride +straight into the Princess's rooms with the brusque words: "Gottfried has +seen a letter come to you from your father--what were its contents?" + +And that would not suit us at all. + +So, rightly or wrongly, I kept the matter from my master, speaking of it +only to Dessauer. And if aught befel from my reticence, it was at least I +myself who bore the burden, and, in the final event, paid the penalty. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL + + +The next morning early, as I went about making my dispositions, and +putting men of trust in positions fit for them--for the Prince has given +me the command of all the soldiers within the city--the Lady Ysolinde +came to me upon the terrace. + +"Walk with me a while," she said, "in the lower garden. It is a quiet +place, and I would speak with you." + +It was a command that I dared not refuse to obey, yet my greatest enemy +would not accuse me that I went lightly or willingly to such a tryst. + +The Lady Ysolinde passed on daintily and proudly before me, and I +followed, more like a condemned criminal lamping heavily to the scaffold +than a lad of mettle accompanying a fair lady to a rendezvous of her own +asking under the greenwood-tree. + +But I need not have feared. The Princess's mood was mild, and I saw her +in a humor in which I had never seen her before. + +She moved before me over the grass, with her head a little turned up to +the skies, as though appealing out of her innocence to the Beings who sat +behind and sorted out the hearts of men and women. + +At a great weeping-elm, under which was a seat, she turned. It formed a +wide canopy of shade, grateful and cool. For the breezes stirred under +the leaves, and the river moved beneath with a pleasant, meditative +hush of sound. + +"Hugo Gottfried, once you were my friend," she began; "what have I done +that you should be my friend no more? Tell me plainly. I liked you when +as a lad, the son of the Red Axe, you had come to my father's house about +some boyish freak. I have not done ill by you since that day. And now +that you are a leader of men and of rank and honor here in my husband's +country of Plassenburg, I would be your well-wisher still. I am conscious +of no reason for my having forfeited your liking. But that I would know +for certain--and now." + +As she threw back her head and let her clear emerald eyes rest upon me, I +never saw woman born of woman look more innocent. Indeed, in these days +of mistrust, it is innocence under suspicion which usually looks most +guilty, knowing what is expected of it. + +"Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "you try me hard and sore. You put me by +force in the wrong. You do me indeed great honor, as you have ever done +all these years. In reverence and high respect I shall ever hold you for +all that you have done--for your kindness to me and to Helene, the orphan +girl who came from our father's roof with me. I know no reason why there +should be any break in our friendship--nor shall there be, if you will +pardon my folly and--" + +"Tush!" she said, impetuously; "you speak things empty, vain, the +rattling of knuckle-bones in a bladder--not live words at all. Think you +I have never listened to true men? Do not I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, +know the sound of words that have the heart behind them? I have heard you +speak such yourself. Do not insult me then with platitudes, nor try to +divert me with the piping of children in the market-place. I will not +dance to them, nor yet, like a foolish kitchen-wench, smile at the +jingling of your trinketry." + +"Your Highness--" I began again. + +She waved her hand as if putting a light thing away. + +"I was a woman to you before you knew that I was a Princess," she said; +"you need not forget that I am a woman still, cursed with the plate-mail +of rank added to the weariness and inaction of a woman's breaking heart." + +I grew acutely conscious that I was not distinguishing myself in this +interview. So I dashed again at the wall, and this time, for a moment at +least, overbore interruption. + +"Ysolinde, my dear lady," I said to her, "you are the Prince's and my +good master's wife. And if I have stood aloof, it is that I wished that +he should have the companionship which one day I desire to find for +myself--and also that I might always have the right to look straight into +my master's eyes." + +"Now you talk like a silly prating priestling," she said. "You are both +mighty careful of your honesty, your virtue, your companionship--your +precious master and you. But you do not think what it is to starve a +woman's heart, to bid her find her level among broiderers of bannerets +and stitchers in tapestry. Ah! if the particular God who happened to be +at the digging of us out of the happier pit of oblivion had only made me +a man, I, at least, should neither have been a straitlaced Jackanapes nor +yet a prating, callow-bearded wiseacre." + +"And am I either?" said I, weakly enough. + +"You are in danger of becoming both," she said, promptly. "Once I saw +better things in you. I thought I had won me a friend, and that for once +I might put my anchor down. My husband neglects me, so much cannot have +escaped your eagle eye. He is twice my age, and he thinks more of you, +more of Councillor Von Dessauer, more of his horse than of me, Ysolinde +of Plassenburg. And I was made to be loved and to love. How much of +either, think you, have I ever known? The true lot of a woman shut to me, +the sweet love of man and woman wiled from me, even the communion of the +spirit forbidden. I might as lief carry a wizened nut-kernel within my +brain-pan as a thinking soul, for all that any one cares. I am a woman of +another age stranded on the shores of a time made only for men. I am the +woman priests talk against, or perhaps rather the witch-woman Lilith on +the outside of Eden's wall. Or I may be the woman of a time yet to come, +when she who is man's mate shall not be only a gay-decked bird to sit on +his wrist, tethered with a leash and called back to her master with a +silver lure." + +These things I had never listened to before, nor, indeed, thought of. +Nevertheless, though I could not answer her, I felt in my heart that +she was wrong, and that a woman has always power over men, being +stronger than all ideals, philosophies, kingdoms--aye, even our holy +religion itself. + +"After all," I said, piqued a little at her tone, as men are wont to be +at that which they do not understand, "my Lady Ysolinde, wherefore should +you not tell these things to the Prince, your husband, and not to me, +that am neither your husband nor your lover?" + +"And if you had been both?" she interjected, a little breathlessly. + +"Then, my lady," I replied, stirred by her persistence, "you would have +obeyed me and served me just as you say. Or else I should have broken +your spirit as a man is broken on the wheel." + +It was a prideful saying, and one informed with all ignorance and +conceit. Yet the Lady Ysolinde gave a long sigh. + +"Ah, that would have been sweet, too," she said. "You are the one man I +should have delighted to call master, to have done your bidding. That had +been a thing different indeed! But you love me not. You love a chit, a +chitterling--a pretty thing that can but peep and mutter, whose +heart's depths I have sounded with my finger-nail, and whose babyish +vanity I have tickled with a straw." + +This was enough and too much. + +"Madam," said I, "the clear stars are not fouled by throwing filth at +them, nor yet the Lady Helene--whom I do acknowledge that with all my +heart I love--by the speaking of any ill words. You do but wrong +yourself, most noble lady. For your heart tells you other things, both of +the maid I love and of me that am her true servant, and, if I might, your +true friend." + +The Princess reached out her hand, looking, not with anger, but rather +wistfully at me, like a mother at a son who goes to his death with +blasphemy on his lips. + +"Forgive me," she said, gently. "I would not at the last have you go +forth thinking ill of me. Indeed, you think all too well, and make me do +things that are better than mine intent, because I know that you expect +them of me. I have done many ill and cruel things in my poor life, simply +from idleness and the empty, unsatisfied heart. If you had loved me or +taught me or driven me, I might have tried better things. Perhaps in the +end, for great love's sake, I may yet do one worthy deed that shall blot +out all the rest. Farewell!" + +And without another spoken word she moved away, and left me in the green +pleasaunces of the garden, with my heart riven this way and that, scarce +knowing what I did or where I stood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON + + +Black, blank, chill, confining night shut us in as Leopold Dessauer and I +rode out of Plassenburg. Our horses had been made ready for us at the +little water-gate in the lower garden. Fain would I have taken also +Jorian and Boris, but on this occasion the fewer the safer. For to enter +Thorn was to go with lighted matches into a powder-magazine. + +The rushes in the river rustled dry and cold along the brink. The leaves +of the linden-trees chuckled overhead, rubbing their palms together +spitefully. There was mockery of our foolhardy enterprise in the soft +whispering sough of the water, as I heard it lapper beneath the +ferry-boat that lay ready to cross to the other side. Old Hans, the +Prince's ferryman, snored in his boat. Above in the women's chambers a +light went to and fro. I judged that it was in the bower of the Lady +Ysolinde. But not a string of my heart moved. For pity is so weak and +love so strong that all my nature was now on the strain forward towards +Helene and the Wolfsberg, like an eager hound that pulls at the +unslipped leash. + +"My love! my love!" I cried in my heart, "I am coming to you, I am going +out to find you! Though I give my life for it, I shall at least see and +touch you ere I die." + +For during these last days my love had grown greatly upon me, being of +that kind which gathers within a man, banks up, fills out his crevices, +and he know it not. In the Wolfmark there are oft, in the heart of the +limestone, caverns where the water sleeps deep and cool, while above, on +the thin, rocky crust, the sun beats and the very lizards die for lack +of moisture. It was only now that I had broken up the crust of my nature +and found the caverns under, where love was abiding all undreamed of, +deep, and eternal as the sea. It is a great thing and a beautiful to +meet love for the first time face to face, not to nod to only as to an +acquaintance, and to know how great and masterful he is; to say, "Love, +I am yours. Do with me that which seemeth good to you. I was strong--now +in your hands am I become weak. I was proud--now am I glad to be humble +and kneel, waiting your word. You have made life and death the same +thing to me, for the sake of the Beloved. I am ready to take either from +your hands!" + +But enough! We were riding out of the dark pleasaunces of the palace, the +leaves were rustling and the sedges blowing. That was what began it, +carrying away my thoughts. + +Dessauer rode behind me, letting his horse follow mine, nose to tail. +For, being used to the visitation of the city outposts, I knew the ground +thoroughly. + +At every hundred yards we were halted, and I answered. For I had posted +the men myself, making sure that Plassenburg should not again be taken by +surprise. On the other hand, I had determined that the spoiler should now +be made despoiled, and that the foul den of the Wolf should be cleansed +as by fire. + +Then, like the breaking up of the Baltic ice in spring, the thought ran +through me--my father and the maid of the Red Tower, what of them? + +Why, at the very first (so I told myself), I should set a guard of the +best troops in Plassenburg about the Red Tower, and carry them +all--Helene, my father, and old Hanne--to a safe place till Prince Karl +and I had made an end. With our stark veterans swarming in Thorn, that +would easily be done. And so the plan abode to be altered, broidered, and +recast in the imagination of my heart. + +We were soon out on the darksome, unguarded road, and after that I +steered chiefly by the lights of the palace behind me, Dessauer saying no +word, but riding like a man-at-arms close behind me. + +We had reached the crown of the green hill over whose slopes the path to +the Wolf markwinds--the path by which, doubtless, Helene had travelled +the night of the duel. + +As I came to the summit, mounting the steepest part slowly, I was aware +of a figure dark against the sky, no more apparent than a blacker patch +of night where all was dark. It was in shape as of a horseman sitting his +steed on the crest of the hill. + +Instantly I drew my pistol, in which I had become expert. + +"Your name and business?" cried I to the shape on the hill-side. For, +indeed, none had any right to be abroad so near the city of Plassenburg, +armed cap-a-pie, at that time of the night. And for a moment the thought +flashed upon me that the tales we had heard might after all be true, and +the armies of the Wolfmark nearer than we dreamed of. + +"Hugo--Von Dessauer!" quoth right jovially to my ear a voice well known +and ever dear to me, the voice of my master, the Prince Karl. + +"The Prince!" cried I. "My lord, what do you here? This is stark +madness--you, who should be within the walls of the palace, with the +guards watching three deep about you. What would come to the State of +Plassenburg if it wanted you?" + +"Oh," said he, lightly, falling in beside us in the most natural +fashion, "you and Von Dessauer in dual control would be a singular +improvement on the present head of the State. You, Hugo, would keep the +soldiers to their work, and Von Dessauer could look nobly after the +treasury." + +"But who would command us and be a gracious and beloved master to us?" +said I. "My Prince, we must instantly return and put you in safety!" + +"Indeed, that will you not. By God's truth, if I am not to come all the +way to the city of Thorn with you, I will at least convoy you to the +edges of the Mark. It is so dull, dragging out month by month at ease +within the castle, and not nearly so much fun as it used to be when I was +a poor captain of a free company under the old Prince. Young rattling +blades like Dessauer and yourself make no allowance for the distractions +of an aged and gouty Prince." + +Within myself I felt some amusement stir. It was almost exactly what the +Princess, his wife, had alleged as a reason for her wanderings. I could +not help marvelling why these two had not long ere this found out their +great affinity to each other. But now I see that this very likeness of +nature was the first cause of their lack of agreement. Like may, indeed, +draw to like, as the saw hath it. But in the things of love like and like +agree not well together. Fair desires dark, stout and stark desire +slender, slow desires quick, severe desires gay (though this often +secretly). And so the world goes on, and in another generation, sprung +from these desirings, once more dark desireth fair and fair dark. + +There I am at it again. Oh, but I, Hugo Gottfried, am the wise man when I +set out on my disquisitions. I could new-make all the saws of the world, +set instances to them, and never breathe myself. + +"Nay," said the Prince, "all is safe set within and without, thanks to my +brave commander and wise Chancellor, and these other matters can e'en +bide till I go back to them. Consider that I am but a captain of horse +going a-wooing and needing to talk gayly for good comradeship by the +road. Call me honest Captain Miller's Son." + +So Captain Miller's Son rode with Herr Doctor Schmidt and his servant +Johann. And a merry time the three of us had till we arrived at the +borders of the Mark. + +Now I have not time nor yet space (though a great deal of inclination) to +tell of the wondrous pranks we played--of the broad-haunched countrywomen +we rallied (or rather whom Captain Miller's Son rallied, and who, truth +to tell, mostly gave as good as they got, or better, to that soldier's +huge delight), the stout yeoman families into whose midst we went, and +their opinion of the Prince. Of the last I have a good tale to tell. "A +good man and a kindly," so the man said; "he has given us safe horse, fat +cow, and a quiet life. But yet the old was good too. The true race to +reign is ever the anointed Prince." + +"But then, did not Dietrich, the anointed Prince, harry you? And worse, +let others plunder you? And that is not the fashion of Prince Karl, +usurper though he be!" said the Prince. + +"Nay," the honest man would reply, "usurper is he not--a God-sent boon to +Plassenburg rather. We love him, would fight for him, all my six sons and +I. Would we not, chickens?" + +And the six sons rolled out a thunderous "Aye, fight--marry, that +we would!" as they sat, plaiting willow-baskets and mending bows +about the fire. + +"But, alas! he is cursed with a mad wife, and, after all said and done, +he is not of the ancient stock," said the ancient man, shaking his head. + +And the Prince answered him as quickly, tapping his brow significantly +with his forefinger, "Are not all wives a little touched? Or are yon +passing fortunate in your part of the country? Faith, we of the city will +all come courting to the Tannenwald if you prove better off." + +"We are even as our neighbors!" cried the yeoman, shrugging his +shoulders. "Maul, my troth, what sayest thou? Here is a brisk lad that +miscalls thy clan." + +The goodwife came forward, smiling, comely, and large of +well-padded bone. + +"Which?" said she, laconically. + +The farmer pointed to the Prince. The matron took a good look at him. + +"Well," she said, "he is the one that should know most about us. He has +been married once or twice, and hath gotten certain things burned into +him. As for this one," she went on, indicating Dessauer, "he may be +doctor of all the wisdoms, as ye say, but he has never compassed the +mystery of a woman. And this limber young spark with the quick eyes, he +is a bachelor also, but ardently desires to be otherwise. I wot he has a +pretty lass waiting for him somewhere." + +"How knew you that of me, goodwife ?" I cried, greatly astonished. + +"Why, by the way you looked up when my daughter came dancing in. You were +in your lost brown-study, and then, seeing a pretty lass that most are +glad to rest their eyes upon, you looked away disappointed or careless." + +"And how knew you that I was of the ancient guild of the bachelors?" +asked Dessauer. + +"Why, by the way that you looked at the pot on the fire, and sniffed +up the stew, and asked how long the dinner would be! The bachelor of +years is ever uneasy about his meals, having little else to be uneasy +about, and no wife, compact of all contrary whimsies, to teach him how +to be patient." + +"And how," cried the Prince, in his turn, "knew you that I had been +wedded once?" + +"Or twice," said the woman, smiling. "Man, ye cackle it like a hen on the +rafters advertising her egg in the manger below. I knew it by the fashion +ye had of hanging up your hat and eke scraping your feet---not after ye +entered, like these other good, careless gentlemen, but with your knife, +outside the door. I see it by your air of one that has been at once under +authority and yet master of a house." + +"Well done, good wife!" cried the Prince. "Were I indeed in authority I +would make you either Prime-Minister or chief of my thief-catchers." + +And so after that we went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE BLACK RIDERS + + +The next day we jogged along, and many were our advices and admonitions +to the Prince to return. For we were now on the borders of his kingdom, +and from indications which met us on the journeying we knew that the +Black Riders were abroad. For in one place we came to a burned cottage +and the tracks of driven cattle; in another upon a dead forest guard, +with his green coat all splashed in splotches of dark crimson, a sight +which made the Prince clinch his hands and swear. And this also kept him +pretty silent for the rest of the day. + +It was about evening of this second day, and we had come to the top of a +little swell of hills, when suddenly beneath us we heard the crackling of +timbers and saw the pale, almost invisible flames beginning to devour a +thriving farm-house at our feet. There were swarms of men in dark armor +about it, running here and there, clapping straw and brushwood to +hay-ricks and byre doors. + +"The Black Riders of Duke Casimir," I cried; "down among the bushes and +let them not see us! We must go back. If they so much as suspected the +Prince they would slay us every one." + +But ere we had time to flee half a dozen of their scouts came near us, +and, observing our horses and excellent accoutrement, they raised a cry. +There was nothing for it but the spurs on the heels of our boots. So +across the smooth, well-turfed country we had it, and in spite of our +beasts' weariness we made good running. And while we fled I considered +how best to serve the Prince. + +"There is a monastery near by," said I, "and the head thereof is a good +friend of ours. Let us, if possible, gain that shelter, and cast +ourselves on the kindness of the good Abbot Tobias." + +"Aye," said the Prince, urging his horse to speed, "but will we ever +get there?" + +Then I called myself all the stupid-heads in the world, because I had not +refused to go a foot with the Prince on such a mad venture, and so put +our future and that of the Princedom of Plassenburg in such peril. + +But there at last were the gray walls and high towers of the Abbey of +Wolgast. Our pursuers were not yet in sight, so we rode in at the gate +and cast our bridles to a lay brother of the order, crying imperiously +for instant audience of the Abbot. + +As soon as my friend Tobias saw us he threw up his hands in a rapture of +welcome. But I soon had him advertised of our great danger. Whereupon he +went directly to the window of his chamber of reception and looked out on +the court-yard. + +"Ring the abbey bell for full service," he commanded; "throw open the +outer gates and great doors, and lead these horses to the secret crypt +beneath the mortuary chapel." + +For the Abbot Tobias was a man of the readiest resource, and in other +circumstances would have made a good soldier. + +He hurried us off to the robing-rooms, and made us put on monastic and +priestly garments over our several apparels. Never, Got wot, had I +expected that I should be transformed into a rope-girt praying clerk. But +so it was. I was given a square black cap and a brown robe, and sent to +join the lay brethren. For my hair grew thick as a mat on top and there +was no time to tonsure it. + +Now, Dessauer being bald and quite practicable as to his topknot, they +endued him with the full dress of a monk. But at that time I saw not what +was done with the Prince. For my conductor, a laughing, frolicsome lad, +came for me and carried me off all in good faith, telling me the while +that he hoped we should lodge together. There were, he whispered, certain +very fair and pleasant-spoken maids just over the wall, that which you +could climb easily enough by the branches of the pear-tree that grew +contiguous at the south corner. + +As we hurried towards the chapel, the monks were streaming out of +their cells in great consternation, grumbling like soldiers at an +unexpected parade. + +"What hath gotten into our old man?" said one. "Hath he overeaten at +mid-day refection, and so is not able to sleep, that he cannot let honest +men enjoy greater peace than himself?" + +"What folly!" cried another; "as if we had not prayers enough, without +cheating the Almighty by knocking him up at uncanonical hours!" + +"And the choir summoned, and full choral service, no less! Not even a +respectable saint's day--no true churchman indeed, but some heretic of +a Greek fellow!" quoth a third. + +Nevertheless, obediently enough they made their way as the bell clanged, +and the throng filed into their places most reverently. It was a pleasant +sight. I came into rank unobtrusively at the back, among the rustling and +nudging lay brethren. In other circumstances it would have amused me to +see the grave faces they turned towards the altar, and to hear all the +while the confused scuffling as they trod on each other's toes, trying +whose skin was the tenderest or whose sandal soles were the thickest. One +or two even tried conclusions with me, but once only. For the first who +adventured got a stamp from my riding-boot which caused him to squeal out +like a stuck pig, and but for the waking thunder of the organ might have +gotten him a month's penance in addition. So after that my toes were left +severely alone among the lay brethren. + +Then came the high procession, at which the monks and all stood up. In +front there were the incense-bearers and acolytes, then officers whose +names, not being convent-bred nor yet greatly given to church-craft, I +did not know. Then after them came two men who walked together, at the +sight of whom the' jaws of all the monks dropped, and they stood so +infinitely astonished that no power was left in them. For, instead of +one, two mitred abbots entered in full canonical attire--golden mitre and +green, golden-headed staff, red embroidered robes lined with green. These +two paced solemnly in abreast, and sat down upon twin thrones. + +"The Abbot of St. Omer!" whispered one of the lay brothers, naming one of +the most famous abbeys in Europe, and the word flew round like lightning. +Whether he had been instructed or not what to say I do not know. But at +all events I saw the tidings run round the circle of the choir, overleap +the boundary stall, and even reach the officiating priests, who inclined +an eager ear to catch it, and passed the word one to another in the +intervals of the chanted sentences. + +Then the news was drowned in the thunder of the anthem, and the organ +dominating all. Everything was strange to me, but most strange the +practice of the lay brothers, who chanted bravely indeed in tune, but who +(for the words set in the chorals) substituted other sentiments of a kind +not usually found in service-books. + +"He looks a stout and be-e-e-fy o-o-old fel-low, this A-a-a-bot of St. +Omer, don't you think? Glory, glo-o-ry. Takes his meals well, likes his +qu-a-a-art of Rhenish or his Burgundy to swell his jolly paunch. +A-a-a-men!" + +Or, as it might be: "Are you coming--are you coming o-o-out to-night? +There will be-ee, good compan-ee-ee. Dancing and deray--lots of pretty +girls; no proud churls. Ten by the clock, when the doors all lock. As it +was in the beginning, is now, ever shall be, world without end, +A-a-a-men!" + +These were, of course, only the lay brothers, and I hope the friars were +better behaved. I decided, however, that for the sake of my respect for +religion, I should ask Dessauer. Because I saw even the Abbot Tobias lean +smilingly over to Abbot Prince Karl, and I marvelled what they spoke +about. Not that I had long to wonder, for through the open door of the +chapel there streamed a dismal host of invaders from the Wolfmark--black +Hussars of Death, in dark armor, with white skeletons painted over them, +all charnel-house ribs and bones in hideous and ridiculous array--which +was one of Duke Casimir's devices to frighten children, and no doubt +these scarecrows frightened many of these. Specially when these villanous +companies were recruited from all the wild bandits of the Mark, and never +punished for any atrocity, but, on the contrary, rather encouraged in +evil-doing in order to spread the terror of their name. + +Yet, when they came rushing in, even the cavaliers of death were daunted +by the sight which met them. And as the solemn service proceeded, amid +the thunder of the great organ pressing, throbbing against the roof and +reverberating along the floor, hands stole to heads, helmets were lifted, +and half-forgotten fear of Holy Church stirred in many a wicked and +outcast heart. Some of the foremost, with their blades half-drawn, +appeared to waver whether or no they should even yet stay the service +with the bloody sword. + +But as the monks calmly chanted, and the solemn responses were given, a +stillness stole over the vociferous babble within the great open doors. + +Higher and higher the voices of the choir mounted, breaking a way to +heaven. Awe sat on every fierce face, and when the Abbot Tobias arose to +pronounce the benediction, the other stood up beside him, and the +Hussars of Death knelt awe-stricken before the two mitred dignitaries of +the Church. + +Without a murmur they arose and slunk away without so much as +searching the abbey, and so departed on their errands, leaving us safe +and unharmed. + +Then, when the three of us were again united in the private rooms of the +Abbot Tobias, that hearty ecclesiastic shook us all by the hand and said, +"Good friends, we are well out of that. Nay, no thanks! My monks are not +a bit the worse of a little additional exercise to keep them humble and +lean. Nor is God the less well pleased that we have sought him in time of +need--as Prince and Abbot, as well as soldier and peasant, require." + +These being the only words of genuine piety I had heard within the walls +of the monastery, I thought more of the Abbot Tobias from that moment +that he was not ashamed to speak them in the presence of Prince and +Councillor of State, as well as before a rough soldier like myself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +THE FLAG ON THE BED TOWER + + +It took us all our powers of persuasion with the Prince to induce him +to depart homeward on the morrow, under escort of a dozen sturdy and +well-armed lanzknechte attached to the monastery. But the thing was +done at last. + +"And remember," said our Karl, as he embraced us, "that if ye return not +on the eighth day at eventide, the forces of Plassenburg will e'en be +battering on the gates of Thorn by the hour of dusk. I am not going to +have my farms burned, my peasants disembowelled and cast to the +blood-hounds, my women ravished in their kindly home-steadings. God wot! +the cup of Duke Casimir hath been brimming this many a day, and we will +give him a deep and bitter draught to drink when we set it to his lips." + +Thereupon we bade our dear and brave master a respectful adieu. Karl +Miller's Son he might be, but for all that he was every inch a king--a +right royal man, whom I would rather serve than the Kaiser himself. + +And after he had gone from us a little way he turned again and waved his +hand, crying: "On the eighth day report you without fail, friends of +mine, unless ye wish me to come asking for you at the gates of Thorn, +with some din and the spilling of much blood." + +The worthy Abbot Tobias gave us a paper to the Bishop Peter, now restored +to his bishopric of Thorn, and in some measure dwelling at peace with the +Duke Casimir since that ruler's reconciliation with Holy Church. In this +paper it was set forth that the most learned Doctor of Law, Leonard +Schmidt, with his servant Johann, were on their way to Ratisbon to +dispute concerning the Practice of Law and Reason with another most +learned Doctor of the Empire, and that, desiring to remain a day of two +in Thorn, they were by the Abbot Tobias of Wolgast commended to Bishop +Peter's kind hospitality. + +For indeed the inns of Germany, and especially of the North, were not at +that time such as wise and learned men could readily submit to--neither +abide in, to be herded with dull, landward peasants and all the +tankard-swilling gutter-knaves of the town. + +Of the remainder of our journey I need not speak, seeing that more than +once I have had to tell of that journey from Thorn to Plassenburg. It is +sufficient that by evening the dark, frowning mass of the Wolfsberg lay +imminent before us, each tower black against the sky. For even the new +portions which Casimir had builded were of intention blackened with +soot--mingled with the plaster and mortar, so that they should be of one +piece of grim terror with the rest of the building. + +"After all it is not strange," said I to the Councillor, for when +there was no one in sight or very near us I rode with him instead of +behind him, "that the man who shakes at every breeze among the aspens +should take such pains to create the fiction and shadow of terror +about him, when the substance and reality is dominant all the while in +his own bosom." + +Since we had come within the distressed and depopulated territory of the +Wolfmark we had not spoken to any soul. Indeed, except a few poor, +desolate peasant folk, burned black with the sun, scuttling from den to +den at the sight of mounted men, we had not seen any living creatures. +The cruelty which had marked the reign of the Black Duke seemed to have +afflicted the very face of the country with a visible curse. + +But the day of deliverance was at hand. + +As we came nearer to Thorn, there before us was the Red Tower, at first +dimly apparent, then prominent, then commanding, finally rising higher +than all the buildings of the Wolfsberg. How many days had I not looked +down from those windows! And my father was even now up there in his grim +garret, his heart stirring calm and kindly within him, in spite of all +the atmosphere of blood in which his life had moved, as untouched as +though he had been a gardener working among the flowers of the parterre. +Also the block was there, and against it the Red Axe was leaning. + +Then I called to mind the prophecy of the Lady Ysolinde, that I should +return to take up my father's dreadful trade. And I smiled thereat. +For I thought that now I came in other circumstances--aye, even though +riding in at The tail of the learned Doctor Schmidt with my shaven and +chestnut-stained face, my flowing hair cropped to the roots, as in the +manner of the servant tribe! Yet for all that was I not the virtual +military commander of the Plassenburg and the right hand of the +Prince, whose forces would soon be clamoring against the walls of +Thorn and bringing down to destruction the hateful tyranny of the +Black Duke Casimir? + +"What is that?" said I, pointing to a standard of immense size which +drooped from the Red Tower. It had been hanging limp and straight about +the staff, and till now we had not observed it. But as we went toiling up +to the Weiss Thor, and the last links of road lengthened themselves +indefinitely out before us in their own familiar manner, suddenly a waft +of hot wind from the sun-beaten plain of the Wolfmark blew out an immense +black flag, which spread itself, fluttered feebly, and died down again +flat against the pole. + +"Nay," said the Doctor, "that I cannot tell. Surely you should know the +customs of your own city better than I!" + +For the heat had made the High Chancellor a little snappish, as well +perhaps as the length of the way. + +"Never in my time have I seen such a thing float above the Red Tower," I +made answer. "Can it be a flag of pestilence?" + +It seemed a likely thing enough. Cities were often made desolate in a few +days by the plague--the people running to the hills, a weird devil's +silence all about the gates. These might well betoken the presence of a +foe to which the army of Plassenburg would seem as a friend. + +As we rode under the Arch of the White Gate of Thorn we were summarily +halted to be examined. We gave our names, and the Doctor showed his +letters of authorization from a dozen learned universities. The Black +Hussar who examined our credentials was of a taciturn disposition, and +evidently no scholar, for he studied the parchments intently upsidedown, +and appeared to have an idea that their genuineness was best investigated +by smelling the seals. + +"Where are you bound?" he asked. + +"To the house of the learned and venerable Bishop of Thorn!" said the +Doctor Schmidt. + +So the Hussar, having finally approved of the quality of the +scholastic wax, called a subordinate, and bade him guide us to the +house of Bishop Peter. + +In an instant we were in the familiar streets, narrow, sunken, and +indescribably dirty, as they now appeared to me. For I had been +accustomed to the wider, airier spaces, and to the bickering rivulets +which ran down most of the steeper streets of Plassenburg, and which made +it one of the cleanest towns in the world. So that the ancient and +unreformed filth and wretchedness of Thorn appealed to my senses as they +had never done before. + +There were evidences too of the terror in which the inhabitants had long +lived. The houses of the rich burghers were sadly dilapidated. No man +thought it worth while to spend a pot of paint on a house which might be +knocked about his ears that very night, if the Duke conceived there was +money or gear to be found within the walls of it. + +Here and there the same black banner appeared. + +I asked the reason of it from our guide. + +"Is it that the plague is in the city?" + +"The plague has, indeed, been in the city--yes! But that is not the +reason of the flag." + +"And what then is the meaning of the black flag?" said I. + +"Ye are strangers indeed!" answered the man. "Did you not know that the +great Duke Casimir is dead, and that the black flag flies for him, and +must fly on the Wolfsberg till his successor be crowned." + +"And who is his successor?" said I. + +"Who but young Otho, the worst of the Wolfs litter. But perhaps you are +his friend?" + +He turned with a keen look, like one who has been accustomed to deliver +himself in company where he is sure of sympathy, and who suddenly has to +consider his words in society the tone of which he is not sure of. + +"Nay," said I, "we are travelling strangers and know nothing of your +politics. But this Duke Otho, wherefore has he not been crowned?" + +"Because," said the man, "the Duke Casimir, they say, hath been foully +murdered, and that through the witchcraft of a woman. So by our laws, +till the murderer is punished, the young Duke may not be crowned." + +By this time we were at the entering in of the long, dull mass of +building, which during most of my boyhood had stood unoccupied, owing to +the quarrel between Bishop Peter and the Duke. Our guide led us +unchallenged into the quadrangle, and then abruptly vanished without +pausing to bid us good-day, or even deigning to accept the modest +gratuity which my master, the learned Doctor, had in his front pouch +ready for him. + +As for me, I stood holding the horses and looking about for any of my own +quality who might show me the way to the stables. + +Presently a long, lean, lathy youth slouched out of one of the gloomy +entries. He stood amazed at the sight of me. I went to him to ask where I +might bestow the horses, now standing weary-footed, hanging their heads +after the long journey and the toil of the final ascent from the plain. + +"Will you fight, outlander?" were the first words of my lathy friend from +the entry. He seemed to have been drawn up recently from a period of +detention in some deep draw-well, and to have the mould of the stones +still upon him. + +"Why," said I, "of course I will fight, and that gladly, if you will find +me a man to fight with !" + +"I will fight you myself," he said, swelling himself. "For the end of +this candle I will fight half a dozen such Baltic sausages as you be." + +"Like enough," said I, "all in good time. But in the mean time show me +the stables, that I may put up my master's horses." + +"What know I about you or your master's horses?" cried my Lad of Lath; +"and pray why should I show the way to Bishop Peter's good stables to +every wastrel that comes sneaking in off the street and asks the freedom +of our house. For aught I know you may have come to steal corn. Though, +if that be so, Lord love you, you have come to the wrong place." + +"Come, stable-master," said I, placably, "let me see a corner and a wisp +of straw and I will ease the poor beasts. That will not harm the Bishop +Peter, whom my master has gone to visit. He is a friend of his, a man +learned in ecclesiastical affairs, who comes to hold disputations with +the Bishop--" + +"Disputations--what be those? Anything with money at the end of them? If +so, he will be a welcome guest at this house. There is very little money +at the tail of anything in this town." + +I thought I would try the effect of a broad silver piece upon him, at the +same time giving the lad the information that disputations were kinds of +fights with the tongues of men instead of with their fists. + +The silver sweetened his face like a charm. He seized me by the hand. + +"My name," he cried, "is Peter of the Pigs. I am not stable-master, but +feed the grouting piglings. And yet in a way I am indeed stable-master. +For the Bishop hath had no horses since the Duke took them away to mount +his cavalry for the raids into Plassenburg. So Peter of the Pigs looks +after all about the yard, and precious little there is to look +after--except one's own legs getting longer and leaner every day." + +"And where is the Bishop this afternoon?" I said. + +"Where should he be," cried Peter of the Pigs, "but at the trial of the +witch-woman in the Hall of Justice? It must be a rare sight. They say +she is to be put to the torture, and that they want a new executioner +to do it." + +"Why," said I, struck to the heart by his words, "what is the matter with +the old one?" + +"Oh," said the lad, "he is mortal sick abed. He happened an accident, or +some one stuck a dagger into him--no great matter if he had stuck it +through him, or cloven him to the chine with his own Red Axe!" + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH + + +At this point came my master back, looking exceedingly disconsolate. A +starveling, furtive-eyed monk accompanied him. + +"The Bishop," he said, "is gone forth of his house. He is in attendance +at the trial of a woman for witchcraft, one whom some of the common city +folk hold to be a saint. But the young Duke and others swear that she is +a witch, and hath murdered the Duke Casimir. Haste thee with the horses, +sirrah, and attend me to the Hall of Justice. I have sent a messenger +forward with my credentials to the Bishop Peter." + +So to the corner of the yard I went and rubbed down the horses with a +wisp of straw which Peter of the Pigs brought me, and which smelled of +his charges too. Then, with another piece of money in his hand, I sent +him out to the nearest corn-chandler's to buy some corn for our beasts, +the which I gave them, and stood by them till I saw them eat it too. For +in such a poverty-stricken place, and with a gentleman of the capacity of +Master Peter of the Pigs, one that is in any way fond of his horses +cannot be too careful. + +This done, I announced myself to my master as ready to accompany him. + +Then, through the streets of Thorn, all strangely empty, we took our +way. Women were leaning out of windows; every head turned castleward up +the street. + +They hardly deigned a glance at my master or at myself, but continued to +gaze. And as each passenger came down the street from the direction of +the Wolfsberg they cried questions at him, so that he ran the gantlet of +a dropping fire of shrill queries. + +"What are they doing to the sweet saint up yonder?" + +"Hath she been put to the Question?" + +"Who could be executioner in such a case? A man would be sent to +hell-fire for daring to lay hand on her." + +The popular sympathies ran clearly with the accused, which is not, as our +old Hanne had reason to remember, the rule in trials for witchcraft. + +Soon we were passing the gate of the Red Tower. It was barred and closed. +The windows of my father's house looked barrenly down, like the eye-holes +of skulls. I saw the window from which I used to gaze wistfully down upon +the children, who would not play with me, but spat upon the tower when +they saw me looking at their play and pipings upon the streets. + +There above was the window of my father's garret, with the edge of the +black flag blowing out above it. + +The streetward door of the Judgment Hall was open, and a great crowd of +people stood about, silent, anxious, respectful. Some of them talked in +low tones, and whenever there was a word passed out of the door, within +which men looked ten deep, it scattered all about like a wave which comes +into a sea-cave by a narrow entrance, and then widens out till it breaks +gently in the wide inner hall. + +"She is not to be tortured; only the Hereditary Executioner may do that. +They have threatened the old woman. She has confessed all!" + +So ran the words about the crowd, and ever and anon, one would detach +himself from the press, elbowing his way out, and then speed down the +long street, crying the latest tidings of the trial. + +It was manifestly impossible for us to obtain entrance by this door. So +we looked about for another. + +Then I minded me of the private passage which led from the inner +court-yard which I knew so well. We skirted the crowd, with our attendant +following, till we came to the side door, which led directly into the +Hall of Judgment behind the judges' high seats. + +It was the way by which many a time I had seen my father enter, either in +his dress of black or in that of red. And I was always glad when I saw +him put on the scarlet, because I knew that then the worst was over for +some poor tortured soul. + +But when my master proposed that the attendant of the Bishop should carry +a letter into the hall to his master to inform him that we waited +without, the man trembled in every limb, and the hair of his head shocked +itself up in sheer terror. + +"I cannot--I dare not," he cried; "it is the place of torture--of the +engines--the strappado--the water-drop, the leg-crushers!" + +And at this point the vision of what was contained within the fatal door +became so appalling to him that he picked up his skirts and fled, looking +over his shoulder all the while to make sure that the Red Axe was not +after him full tilt. + +So Dessauer and I were left standing. And if the matter had been less +serious, it would have been comical to see us thus deserted upon mine own +middenstead, as it were. + +"Bishop Peter of Thorn seems a prelate somewhat difficult of +approach," said the Chancellor. "I wonder if we shall ever lay any +salt on his tail?" + +"Let us risk it and go in," said I. "We are putting all our cards on the +table, at any rate. And at least we can see all that is to be sees. If +there is any risk of Von Reuss penetrating our disguises, it is as well +to gulp and get it over at once, rather than suck gingerly at it till +the fear of death chills our marrow." + +"Go on, then," he said, somewhat crossly; "there is indeed naught to be +gained by standing here as a butt for the eyes of evil-doers." + +So I opened the door carefully, and with a trembling heart. The hum of a +great assembly breathed turbidly upon us in a hushed chaos of sound. The +warm, stifling atmosphere, heavy with a thousand respirations, the sound +of a voice speaking loud and clear, the thunder of continuous heels on +the paved floor, the voices of the ushers crying, "Silentium!" at +intervals--these all came suddenly upon us as we shut out the air and +sunshine and went into the Hall of Judgment. + +We could not see the full assembly at first. We stood, as I had supposed, +directly behind the judges' rostrum. Only the corners of the vast crowd +which covered the floor and filled the galleries could be seen--a blur of +white faces all bent towards one point. But at the corner, not far from +us, a tall, spare, gray-headed ecclesiastic was speaking. + +We stood still, in order that we might not interrupt by entering till he +had finished. + +What was our surprise when we heard his words. + +"My Lord Duke," he was saying, "it is fortunate for the elucidation of +this great mystery that I have this moment received word concerning a +most learned and notable jurisconsult, a Doctor of the Law, wise in +controversy and specially skilled in such cases, who has even now arrived +in the city of Thorn, on his way to the Emperor at Ratisbon, before whom +he is to dispute for the honor of truth and our holy religion. + +"His name is the Learned, Venerable, and Reverend Doctor Schmidt, and I +trust that we of the city and faculty of the Wolfmark shall have the +honor of welcoming him as so distinguished a man deserves." + +The pattern of the Bishop's speech is one that does not vary while the +world lasts. + +"Lord, they have made me a Doctor of Theology as well!" whispered the +Chancellor to me. I gave him a little push. + +"Now is your time," said I, "the hour and the Doctor!" + +I lifted the skirt of his long black robe. He took hold of his marvellous +beard, a triumph of the disguiser's art, and we stepped forward. I could +hardly conceal a smile. + +We had come in the very nick of time. + +Then after this I have a vague remembrance of my master bowing this way +and that. I seem to see the wise men of the law, the judges, the priests, +and lictors rising and bowing in acknowledgment. I heard the hush of a +thousand people all craning their necks to look round the heads of their +neighbors, and the hum of whispered comment reach farther and farther +back, till it lapped against the walls and ebbed out into the street from +the great open door of the Hall of Judgment. It was a surprising sight, +this great trial--the gloomy hall, black with age and deeds of darkness, +lit by the rays of sunlight falling through windows of red glass, the +faces of men flecked as with blood where the evening sunlight streamed +luridly upon them. + +In the midst there was a clear four-square space. A lictor, with a bundle +of rods, stood at each corner. I looked, and there, alone in the centre, +attired in white, the cynosure of eyes, I beheld--Helene. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER + + +I felt my temples, my ears, my neck tingling with cold. I seemed to have +fallen into a sea of ice. I think I would have fallen and fainted but +that at that moment my master sat down beside the Bishop, and I was left +free to retire into a darksome corner, where I staggered against a beam, +slimy with black sweat, and hung over it with my hand clasping my brow, +trying to think what had happened. + +I do not know how long I remained in this position, nor yet when I came +to myself. All was a dream to me, a nightmare of horrid whirlings and +infinite oppressions. The faces of the folk that watched, the garmentry +of the Bishop and his priests, the red robes of the young Duke and his +assessors, spun round me in a hideous phantasmagoria. + +At last I was conscious that a trumpet had blown. Whereupon all rose up. +The secretaries stacked their papers unconcernedly with the feathers of +their pens in their mouths. And then in the solemn silence which ensued +the Duke and his judges filed out of the door, while the power of the +Church, represented by Bishop Peter and his priests, went forth by +another. Before I could realize the situation, Helene had vanished, as it +seemed, down a trap-door in the floor. + +My master accompanied Bishop Peter. As for me, I hardly knew what I did. +I did not even stand up, till our conductor, he who had gone forward to +announce us at the first, ran across to me, and, plucking me by the arm +from the beam on which I leaned, whispered, hurriedly: "Art dead or +drunk, man, that thou riskest thine ears and thy neck? Stand up while the +Judges and the new Duke go by!" + +So, dazed and numb, I hent me up, and lo! coming arm in arm towards me +were Otho von Reuss and his newly appointed Chief Justice and +assessor--who but mine old friend Michael Texel! The Duke bent a +searching look on me as I bowed low before him, but he saw only the tan +of my skin and the close bristle of my hair. And so all passed on. + +"Ho, blackamoor, thy master waits thee! Run, if thou wouldst avoid the +whipping-post!" cried another of the rout of servitors, with a small +sniggering laugh. + +So, putting out a hand to stay myself, I staggered weakly after my +master. I found him at the door, in talk with the confessor of the +Bishop. + +"And so," he was saying, "this girl was reared in the executioner's +house. And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secrets +of necromancy, it is not known where. I would see this Duke's Justicer. +Does he dwell near by? What! In that very tower? It is of good omen. Let +us go in thither." + +But the confessor excused himself, being in no wise desirous to visit the +Red Axe, even in his time of sickness. + +"I have business of the soul with Bishop Peter. I will speak with thee +again at refection," he said, twitching his head up at the Red Tower with +suspicious glances, as if he feared unseen ears might be listening, and +that some of its fearful magic might even descend upon a man so notably +holy as a Bishop's confessor. + +Presently Dessauer and I were across the court-yard at the well-known +door. I knocked, and listened, whereupon ensued silence. Again and yet +again I made the quaint death's-head knocker thunder, and then, when the +echoes ceased, there was once more a great silence in the tower. + +I heard the blood-hounds of Duke Casimir howl. The indigo shadow of the +pinnacled Hall of Justice stretched across and touched the Red Tower with +an ominous finger. + +"Let us go in," said I. And, pushing the unresisting door, I began to +climb the stone stairs. Each smoothed hollow and chipped edge was +familiar to me as my name. Indeed, much more so, for I was now passing +under a false one. So I climbed, in a dazed way, up and up. There on my +left was the sitting-room. It had been searched high and low, escritoires +rudely tossed down, aumries rifled, household stuff, grain, white linen, +empty bottles, all cast about and huddled together even as the searchers +had left them. + +Then above was the little room where Helene used to sleep. Here the wrack +was indescribable--every hidingplace rifled, her pretty worked bedquilt +lying across the doorway trampled and soiled, her dainty white clothing, +some she had worn at Plassenburg, and even the tiny dresses of her +childhood, all torn and confused together. And in the midst, what +affected me more than everything else, a tiny puppet of wood my father +had hewn her with his knife, and which she had dressed as a queen with +red ribbons and crown of tinsel--ah, so long ago--and in such happy days. + +"Father!" I called, loudly. "Father!" + +But in this I forgot myself. There might have been enemies lurking +anywhere in the house of pain and disaster. + +My own room came next, and the way out upon the roof; but we tried not +these. There remained only the garret of my father. I climbed up, with +Dessauer behind me, and pushed the door open. + +Then I stood in the entering-in, looking for the first time for years on +the face of my father. + +He lay on his conch, his head bound about with a napkin. The dark wisp of +hair which rose like a cock's comb, sticking through the stained cloth +which swathed his brow, was no longer blue-black, but of an iron-gray, +splashed and brindled with pure white. His eyes were open, and shone, +cavernous and solemn, above his fallen-in cheeks. It was like looking +into the secrets of another world. That which he had so often caused +other eyes to see, the Red Axe of Thorn was now to see for himself. The +hand which lay--mere skin, muscle, and bone--on the counterpane had +guided many to the door of the mysteries. Now at its own entrance it was +to push the arras aside, for the Death-Justicer of the Mark was to go +before the Judge of all the earth. + +My father lay gazing at me with deep, mournful eyes. So sad they seemed +that it was as if nothing in heaven or earth, neither joy nor sorrow, +life nor death, could have power to change their expression of +immeasurable sadness. + +I entered, and my companion followed. + +"You are alone? There is none with you here?" I said to my father, going +to the bedside. + +He started at the voice, and looked up even eagerly. But his eyes dulled +and deadened again as he fell back. + +"I did but dream!" he muttered, sadly. + +"You have no one with you here, Gottfried Gottfried?" said I again, for +in a matter of life and death it was as well to make sure even at risk of +disturbing a dying man. + +He set his hand to his brow as if trying to think. + +"Who should be with me--except all these?" he answered, very solemnly. +And swept his hand about the room as if he saw strange shapes standing in +rows round the walls. "I wish," he went on, almost querulously, "whoever +you may be, you would tell these people to keep their hands down. They +point at me, and thrust their dripping heads forward, holding them like +lanterns in their palms." + +He turned away to the back of the bed, and then, as if he saw something +there worse than all the rest, faced about again quickly, saying, with +some pathetic intonation of his lost childhood, "There is no need for +them to point so at me, is there? I did but my duty." + +"Father!" said I, gently touching his cheek with my hand as I used to do. + +"Ah, what is that?" he said, quickly. "Did some one call me father? Let +me go! I tell you, sirs, let me go! She needs me. They are torturing her. +I must go to her!" + +"Father," I said again, putting him gently back, "it is I--your own son +Hugo--come back to speak with you, to help if it may be--to die for the +Little Playmate if need be." + +"Hugo--Hugo!" he said. "Yes, yes--of course, I know--my little lad, my +pretty boy!" + +He pushed me back to look at me, eagerly, wistfully--and then thrust me +sharply away. + +"Bah!" he said; "you lie! What need to lie to a dying man? My Hugo had +yellow hair and a skin like lilies. Yours is dark--" + +"Father," said I, "I am here disguised. Help is coming, sure and +strong, if we can only wait a little and delay the trial. But tell me +all. Speak to me freely, if you love your daughter Helene--your +daughter and my love." + +He sat up now, and motioned me to come nearer. There was a dark, fierce, +unworldly light in his eyes. I set a pillow to his back, and went and +kneeled by the bed as I used to do at good-night time when I said my +Paternoster. + +Then for the first time he knew me. + +"Say your prayers, child!" he commanded, in his old voice. + +So, though with the stress of wars and other things I had mostly +forgotten, yet I said not only that, but the little Prayer of Childhood +he had taught me. And then I kissed him as I used to do when I bade him +good-night. + +"Yes," he said, softly, "it is true, after all. You are mine own +only son. Hugo--I am glad you have come so far to see your father +before he dies." + +I told him how I had come, and brought Dessauer forward, introducing him +as one great in the kingdom where I was, and to whom I was much +beholden. He shook him by the hand with grave, intent courtesy, and +again looked at me. + +"Now, father," said I, "we have no long time to bide with you, lest the +new Duke come upon us. We must hie us back to our lodging with the Bishop +Peter, lest we be missed." + +My father smiled. + +"Ye will live but sparely there!" said he, with a flicker of his +ancient smile. + +"Tell us how you came to this," said I, "and, if you can, why Helene, our +little Helene, stands so terribly accused." + +My father paused a long time before he began to answer. + +"It is not easy for me to tell you all," he said. "I know and I have the +words, but, somehow, when I try to fit the words to the thing, they run +asunder and will not mix, like water and oil. But see, Hugo, here is an +elixir of rare value. Drop a drop or two on my tongue if ye see me +wander. It will bring me back for a time." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +PRINCESS PLAYMATE + + +Then began my father to tell the story slowly, with many a pause and +interruption, now searching for words, now racked with pain, all of which +I need not imitate, and shall leave out. But the substance of his tale +was to this effect: + +"After you had left us, the Dukedom went from bad to worse--no peace, no +rest, no money. Duke Casimir took less and less of my advice, but, on the +contrary, began again his old horrors--plundering, killing, living by +terror and in terror. He threatened Torgau. He attacked Plassenburg. He +stirred up hornets' nests everywhere. At home he made himself the common +mark for every assassin. + +"Then suddenly came his nephew back, and almost immediately he grew great +in favor with him. Uncle and nephew drank together. They paraded the +terraces arm in arm. I was never more sent for save to do my duty. Otho +von Reuss rode abroad at the head of the Black Horsemen. + +"But, at the same time, to my great joy, arrived the Little Playmate +back to me. She was safer with me, she said. So that, having her, I +needed naught else. She came with good news of you, making the journey +not alone, for two men of the Princess's retinue brought her to the +city gates." + +"The Princess!" I cried; "aye, I thought so. I judged that it was the +Princess who sent her back." + +Dessauer motioned with his hand. He saw that it was dangerous to throw +my father off the track. And, indeed, this was proven at once, for my +unfortunate interruption set my father's mind to wandering, till finally +I had to drop certain drops of the red liquid on his tongue. These, +indeed, had a marvellous effect upon him. He sat up instantly, his eyes +flashing the old light, and began to speak rapidly and to clear purport, +even as he used to do in the old days when Duke Casimir would come +striding across the yard at all hours of the night and day to consult +his Justicer. + +"What was I telling?" he went on. "Yes, I remember, of the home-coming +of Helene under honorable escort. And she was beautiful--but all her +race were beautiful, all the women of them, at any rate. But that is +another matter. + +"So things went well enough with us till, as she went across the yard one +day to meet me at the door of the hall as I came out, who should see her +but the Count Otho von Reuss. And she turned from him like a queen and +took hold of my arm, clasping it strongly. Then he gazed fixedly at us +both, and his look was the evil-doer's look. Oh, I know it. Who knows +that look, if not I? And so we passed within. But my Helene was quivering +and much afraid, nestling to me--aye, to me, old Gottfried Gottfried, +like a frightened dove. + +"After this she went not out into the court-yard or city any more, save +with me by her side, and Otho von Reuss lingered about, watching like a +wolf about the sheepfold. For, as I say, he was in high favor with Duke +Casimir, and had already equal place with him on the bed of justice. + +"Then there came a night, lightning peeping and blazing, alternate blue +and ghastly white--God's face and the devil's time about staring in at +the lattice. I lay alone in my chamber. But I was not asleep. As you +know, I do not often sleep. But I lay awake and thought and thought. The +lightning showed me faces I had not seen for thirty years, and forms I +remembered, black against eternity. But all at once, in a certain +after-clap of silence that followed the roaring thunder, I heard a voice +call to me. + +"'My father--my father" it cried. + +"It was like a soul in danger calling on God. + +"I rose and went, clad as I was in the red of mine office (for that day I +had done the final grace more than once); even so, I ran down the stairs +to the room of my little Helene. + +"The lightning showed me my lamb crouched in the corner, her lips open, +white, squared with horror, her arms extended, as though to push some +monstrous thing away. A black shape, whose, I could not tell, I saw +bending over her. Then came blackness of darkness again. And again my +Helene's voice. Ah, God, I can hear it now, calling pitifully, like a +woman hanging over hell and losing hold: 'Father--my father!' + +"'I am here!' I cried, loudly, even as on the scaffold I cry the doom for +which the malefactors die. + +"And the room lit up with a flame, white as the face of God as He passed +by on Mount Sinai, flash on continuous flash. And there before me, with a +countenance like a demon's, stood Otho von Reuss." + +I uttered a hoarse cry, but Dessauer again checked me. My father went on: + +"Otho von Reuss it was--he saw me in my red apparel, and cried aloud with +mighty fear. If God had given me mine axe in my hand--well, Duke or no +Duke, he had cried no more. But even as he turned and fled from the room +I seized him about the waist, and, opening the window with my other hand, +I cast him forth. And as he went down backward, clutching at nothing, God +looked again out of the skylights of heaven, and showed me the face of +the devil, even as Michael saw it when he hurled him shrieking into the +nether pit. + +"Then I went back and took in my arms my one ewe lamb. + +"Many days (so they brought me word) Otho lay at the point of death, and +Duke Casimir came not near me nor yet sent for me. But by that very +circumstance I knew Otho had not revealed how his accident had befallen. +Yet he but bided his time. And as he grew well, Duke Casimir grew ill. He +waxed more and more like an armored ghost, and one day he came here and +sat on the bed as in old times. + +"'I know my friends now,' he said, 'good Red Axe of mine, friend of many +years. I have had mine eyes blinded, but this morning there has come a +mighty clearness, and from this day forth you and I shall stand face to +face and see eye to eye again, as in the days of old!' + +"Then being athirst, he asked for something to drink. Which, when our +sweet Helene had brought, he patted her cheek. 'A maid too good for a +court--one among a thousand, a fair one !' he said; and passed away down +the stairs, walking with his old steady tread. + +"But even at the steps of the Hall of Justice he stumbled and fell. They +carried him in, and there in the robing chamber he lay unconscious for a +week, and then died without speech. + +"When he was dead, and ere he had been embalmed, there arose a clamor, +first among the followers of Otho von Reuss, and after that among those +of the Wolfsberg who expected that they would be favored by the new Duke. +It was first whispered, and then cried aloud, that the death of Duke +Casimir had been compassed by witchcraft and potions. + +"Cunningly and with subtlety was spread the report how my daughter and I +had worked upon Duke Casimir. How he had gone to our house, drunken a +draught, and then died ere he could come to his own chamber. But as for +me, I went on my way and heeded them not. For just then the plague, which +had stricken the Duke first, stalked athwart the city unchecked, and all +through it this Helene of ours was as the angel of God, coming and going +by night and day among the streets and lanes of the town. And the common +folk almost worshipped her. And so do unto this day. + +"Now perhaps I did not heed this babble as I ought to have done. But +there came one night--how long ago I have forgotten--and with it a clamor +in the court-yard. The Black Riders, the worst of them, fiends incarnate +that Otho had of late gathered about him, thundered upon us without, and +presently burst in the door. + +"I met them with mine axe at the stair-head, and for the better part of +an hour I kept them at a distance. And some died and some were +dismembered. For at that business I am not a man to make mistakes. Then +came Otho limping from his fall and shot me with a bolt from behind his +men. And so over my body as I lay at the stair-head they took my love and +left me here to die. And the new Duke will not kill me, for he desires +that I shall see her agony ere my own life is taken. For that alone the +fiend keeps me in life! + +"And that," said my father, feebly, "is all." + +But just as he seemed to ebb away a wild fear startled him. + +"No," he cried, "there is yet something more. Hugo, Hugo, keep me here a +little! Hold me that my mind may not wander away among the racking-wheels +and the faces mopping and mowing. I have something yet to tell." + +I held him up while Dessauer poured a drop or two of the potent liquid +into his mouth. As before, it instantly revived him. The color came back +to his cheeks. + +"Quick, Hugo, lad!" he cried; "give me that black box which sits behind +the block." I brought it, and from this he extracted a small key, which +he gave me. + +"Unlock the panel you see there in the wall," he said. + +I looked, but could find none. + +"The oaken knob!" he cried, sharply, as to a clumsy servitor. + +I could only see a rough knob in the wood-work, a little worm-eaten, and +in the centre one hole a little larger than the rest. + +"Put in the key!" commanded my father, making as if he would come out of +bed and hasten me himself. + +I thrust in the key, indeed, but with no more faith than if I had been +bidden to put it into a mouse-hole. + +Nevertheless, it turned easy as thinking, and a little door swung open, +cunningly fitted. Here were dresses, books, parchments huddled together. + +"Bring all these to me," he said. + +And I brought them carefully in my arms and laid them on the bed. + +The eye of old Dessauer fell on something among them and was instantly +fascinated. It was a woman's waist-belt of thick bars of gold laid three +and three, with crests and letters all over it. + +The Chancellor put his hand forward for it, and my father allowed him to +take it, following him, however, with a questioning eye. + +Then Dessauer put his hand into his bosom and drew out a chain of +gold--the necklace of the woodman, in-deed--and laid the two side by +side. He uttered a shrill cry as he did so. + +"The belt of the lost Princess!" he cried; "the little Princess of +Plassenburg!" + +And, laying them one above the other, each group of six bars read thus: + +[Illustration: +o o o H o o o H o o o H o o o + | | | +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o The Necklace + | | | +o o o L o o o L o o o L o o o + + +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o + | | | +o o o N o o o N o o o N o o o The Belt + | | | +o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o] + + +With delight on his face, like that of a mathematician when his +calculations work out truly, Dessauer reached over his hand for the +papers also, but my father stayed him. + +"Who may you be that has a chain to match mine?" he asked, with his +mighty hand on Dessauer's wrist. + +"I am the State's Chancellor of Plassenburg, and it needed but this to +show me our true Princess." + +"Here, then," said my father, "is more and better." + +And he handed him the papers. + +"It meets! It meets!" cried Dessauer, enthusiastically, as he glanced +them over. "It is complete. It would stand probation in the Dict of +the Emperor." + +"But yet all that will not prevent Helene Gottfried dying at the stake!" +cried my father, sadly, and fell back unconscious on his bed. + + * * * * * + +We spent this heaviest of nights at the palace of Bishop Peter--Dessauer +with the prelate--I, praise to the holy pyx, in the kitchen with the +serving men and maids. Peter of the Pigs was there, but no more eager to +fight. The lay brother who had gone with the letter, and the conductor +who had run away from the dread door of the Hall of Justice, had +returned, and had spread a favorable report of our courage. + +Certainly the house of Peter the Bishop might be a poor one and scantily +provendered, but there was little sign of it that night. For if the +master went fasting and his guests lived on pulse (as they said in +Thorn), certainly not so Bishop Peter's servants. + +For there were pasties of larks, with sauce of butter and herbs, most +excellent and toothsome. There were rabbits from the sand-hills, and +pigeons from the towers of the minster. The clear chill Rhenish vied with +the more generous wine of Burgundy and the red juice of Assmanhauser. For +me, as was natural, I ate little. I spoke not at all. But I looked so +dangerous with my swarthy face and desperate eye, I dare say, also I was +so well armed, that the roysterers left me severely alone. + +But I drank--Lord, what did I not drink that night! I poured down my +gullet all and sundry that was given me. And to render these Bishop's +thralls their dues, there was no lack and no inhospitality. But the +strange thing of it was that, though I am a man more than ordinarily +temperate, that night I poured the Rhenish into me like water down a +cistern-pipe and felt it not. God forgive me, I wanted to make me drunken +and forgetful, and lo! the dog's swill would not bite. + +So I cursed their drink, and asked if they had no Lyons +Water-of-Life, stark and mordant, or social Hollands, or indeed +anything that was not mere compound of whey and dirty water. Whereat +they wondered, and held me thereafter in great respect as a good +companion and approven worthy drinker. + +Then they brought me of the strong spirit of Dantzig, with curious +little flakes of gold dancing in it. It was raw and strong, and at first +I had good hopes of it. But I drank the Dautzig like spring-water, all +there was of it, and though it had a taste singularly displeasing to +me, it took no more effect than so much warm barley-brew for the palates +of babes. Upon this I had great glory. For the card-players and the +dicers actually left their games and gazed open-jawed to see me drink. +And I sat there and expounded the Levitical law and the wheels of the +Prophet Ezekiel, the law of succession to the empire, and also the +apostolic succession--all with surprising clearness and cogency of +reasoning. So that before I had finished they required of me whether it +was I or my master who was sent for to dispute before His Sovereign +mightiness the Emperor. + +Then I told them that the things I knew (that is, which the Hollands had +put into my head) were but the commonest chamber-sweepings of my master's +learning, which I had picked up as I rode at his elbow. And this bred a +mighty wondering what manner of man he might be who was so wise. And I +think, if I had gone on, Dessauer and I might both have found ourselves +in the Bishop's prison, on suspicion of being the devil and one of his +ministrants. + +But suddenly, as with a kind of recoil or back stroke, all that I had +drunken must have come upon me. The clearness of vision went from me like +a candle that is blown out. I know not what happened after, save that I +found myself upon my truckle-bed, with my leathern money-pouch clasped in +my hand with surprising tightness, as if I had been mortally afraid that +some one would mistake my poor satchel for his own pocket. + +So in time the morrow came, and by all rules I ought to have had a +racking headache. For I saw many of those that had been with me the night +before pale of countenance and eating handfuls of baker's salt. So I +judged that their anxiety and the turmoil of their hearts had not burned +their liquor up, as had been the case with me. + +Now it is small wonder that all my soul cried out for oblivion till I +should be able to do something for the Beloved--break her prison, hasten +the troops from Plassenburg, or in some way save my love. + +Hardly had I looked out of the main door that morning, desiring no more +than to pass away the time till the trial should begin again, before I +saw the Lubber Fiend, smirking and becking across the way. He had +squatted himself down on the side of the street opposite, looking over at +the Bishop's palace. + +He pointed at me with his finger. + +"Your complexion runs down," he said. "I know you. But go to the spring +there by the stable, wash your face, and I shall know you better." + +This was fair perdition and nothing less. For one may stay the tongue of +a scoundrel with money, or the expectation of it, until opportunity +arrive to stop it with steel or prison masonry. But who shall curb or +halter the tongue of a fool? + +Then, swift as one that sees his face in a glass, I bethought me +of a plan. + +"See," I said, "do you desire gold, Sir Lubber Fiend?" + +He wagged his great head and shook his cabbage-leaf ears till they made +currents in the heavy air, to signify that he loved the touch of the +yellow metal. + +"See then, Lubber," said I, "you shall have ten of these now, and ten +more afterwards, if you will carry a letter to the Prince at Plassenburg, +or meet him on the way." + +"Not possible," said he, shaking his head sadly; "my little Missie has +come to Thorn." + +"But," said I, "little Missie would desire it; take letter to the Prince, +good Jan, then Missie will be happy." + +"Would she let poor Jan Lubberchen kiss her hand, think you?" he asked, +looking up at me. + +"Aye," said I; "kiss her cheek maybe!" + +He danced excitedly from side to side. + +"Jan will run--Jan will run all the way!" he cried. + +So I pulled out a scrap of parchment and wrote a hasty message to the +Prince, asking him, for the love of God and us, to set every soldier in +Plassenburg on the march for Thorn, and to come on ahead himself with +such a flying column as he could gather. No more I added, because I knew +that my good master would need no more. + +Then I went down with my messenger to the Weiss Thor, and with great fear +and pulsation of the midriff I saw the idiot pass the house of Master +Gerard. Then, at the outer gate, I gave him his ten golden coins, and +watched him trot away briskly on the green winding road to Plassenburg. + +"Mind," he called back to me, "Jan is to kiss her cheek if Jan takes +letter to the Prince!" + +And I promised it him without wincing. For by this time lying had no more +effect upon me than dram-drinking. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT + + +The Bed of Justice was set by eight of the morning. For they were ever +early astir in the city of Thorn, though, like most early risers, they +did little enough afterwards all day. + +With a sadly beating heart, I accompanied Dessauer in the same guise as +on the previous day. The crowd was even greater in and about the Hall of +Judgment. And when the Duke had taken his seat and his tools set +themselves down on either side, they brought in the Little Playmate. + +She was dressed all in white, clean and spotless, in spite of prison +usage. She glanced just once about her, right and left, high and low, as +if seeking for a face she could not see, and from thenceforth she looked +down on the ground. + +The argument as to torture had been concluded on the day before, and it +had been held inadmissible--not because of any kindly thought for the +prisoner, but because, according to the laws of the Wolfmark, in the +absence of the Hereditary Executioner, there was no one legally capable +of inflicting it. + +Then came the evidence. + +The first witness against the Little Playmate was old Hanne. She was +brought in by a cowled monk of dark and sinister appearance--in fact, as +my heart leaped to observe, I saw that she was accompanied by Friar +Laurence--he who had taught me my learning in the old days, and who +even then had watched the Little Playmate with no friendly eyes. + +As she passed the judges I saw the deadly fear mount to agony on the face +of old Hanne. The look in her eyes of physical pain suffered and +overpassed was the same which I had often seen in the wars after the +surgeon has done his horrid work. That same look I saw now on the face of +Hanne. So I knew that somewhere in the dark recesses under the Hall of +Judgment the Extreme Question had been put to her, and to all appearance +answered according to the liking of the persecutors, though they dared +not torture so notable a public prisoner as Helene. + +I saw a look of satisfied vindictiveness pass over the brutal features of +Duke Otho. He changed his position and whispered to his colleagues. + +It was Master Gerard von Sturm who rose to put the questions to the +witness. And as he did so, I heard the steady sough of talk among the +people rise mutteringly in a low growl of anger and contempt. The Duke's +lictors struck right and left among the crowd, as men bent forward with +fierce hate in their voices, lowing like oxen, as if to clear their lungs +of a weight of contempt. + +It was not thus in the old days, when there was no people's arbiter +in all the Wolfmark so famous or so popular as Master Gerard of the +Weiss Thor. + +"What is the reason of that turmoil?" said I to my neighbor. + +"This is the man who was her first accuser. Why, he dares not go outside +his house without a guard of the Duke's riders," said the man, picking at +his finger-nail with his teeth, as if it were a bone and he did not think +much of its savoriness. + +"You have already confessed," said the advocate to old Hanne, when they +had propped up the poor wreck of skin and bone, "and you do now confess +that this maid and yourself have ofttimes had converse with the Enemy +of Souls?" + +A spasm passed across the face of the witness, and a low sound proceeded +from her mouth, which might have been an affirmative answer, but which +sounded to me much more like a moan of pain. + +"And you confess that she consulted you concerning the best means of +killing the Duke Casimir--by means of a draught to be administered to him +when he should, as was his custom, visit his Hereditary Justicer?" + +"There was indeed a draught spoken of between us, noble sir," stammered +the old woman, "but it was not for the Duke Casimir, nor yet for--for any +evil purpose." + +I saw the Friar Laurence incline his head a little forward and whisper in +Hanne's ear from his place behind her. + +At the words she clasped her hands and fell on the floor, grovelling: "I +will say aught that you bid me, kind sir. I cannot bear it again. I +cannot go back to that place. I am too old to be tormented. I will bear +what testimony your excellencies desire." + +"We wish only that you should tell the truth as you have already done of +your own free will in your pre-examination," said Master Gerard, "the +notes of which are before me. Was it not to kill the Duke Casimir that +this draught was compounded?" + +The old woman hesitated. Friar Laurence stooped again. + +"Yes!" she cried; "God forgive me--yes!" + +An evil look of triumph sat on the face of Otho von Reuss. I think he +felt sure of his victim now. + +"That is enough," said Master Gerard. "Take the old woman back to +her cell." + +"Oh no, great Lord!" she cried, "not there! You promised that if I said +it I was to be let go free. Kill me, but do not send me back!" + +The Duke moved his hand, and the old woman was led shrieking below. + +Then came Friar Laurence, who testified that he had often seen old Hanne +instructing the young woman who was now a prisoner in the art of drugs, +in the preparation of images carven in dough--and it might be also in +clay--things well known in the art of witchery. + +Further, he had been with the Duke Casimir at the last, and the Duke had +declared that he had partaken of a draught in the house of Gottfried +Gottfried, and immediately thereafter had been taken ill. + +There was not much else of matter in the Friar's evidence, but the most +deep and vindictive malice against the prisoner was evident in every word +and gesture. + +Then Master Gerard rose to address the judges. His venerable appearance +was enhanced by the sternly severe look on his face. He looked an +accusing angel from the pit, swart of skin and with eyes of flame. He was +tall and bent of figure, with the serpent-browed head set deep between +hunched shoulders like those of a moulting vulture. He grasped his bundle +of papers and rose to make his final speech. + +The judges settled themselves to closer attention. The hush of +listening folk broadened to the utmost limits of the great hall. At a +whisper or a cough a hundred threatening faces were turned in the +direction of the sound, so strained was the attention of the people and +such the fear of the eloquence of this most famous pleader in all +Germany. In these days when learning has reached so great a pitch, and +is so general that in a largish city there may be as many as a thousand +people who can read and write, of course there are many eloquent men. +But in those days it was not so, and Grerard von Sturm was counted the +one Golden Mouth of the Wolfmark. + +And this in brief was the matter of his speech. The manner and the +persuasive grace I cannot attempt to give: + +"It has at all times been a received opinion of the wise that witchcraft +is a thing truly practised--by which such women as the Witch of Endor in +Holy Writ were able to call dead men out of their deep graves grown with +grass; or, as in that famous case of Demarchaus, who, having by the +advice of such a woman tasted the flesh of a sacrificed child, was +immediately turned into a wolf. + +"Further, the testimony-of Scripture is clear: 'Thou shalt not suffer a +witch to live'; and, again, as sayeth the Wise Man, 'Thou hast hated +them, 0 God, because with enchantments they did horrible works.' + +"Now, men may by conspicuous bravery guard their lives against assault by +the sword of the enemy, against the spear of the invader that cometh over +the wall, even against the knife of the assassin. But who shall be able +to keep out witchcraft? It moveth in the motes of the mid-day sun. It +comes stealing into the room on the pale beams of the moon. Witchcraft +rides in the hurtling blast, and shrieks in the gust which shakes the +roof and blows awry the candle in the hall. + +"Enchantment can summon Azazeli, the Lord of Flesh and Blood, called in +another place the Lord of the Desert, by whose spiriting of the elements +even the pure water of the spring or the juice of the purple grape may +become noxious as the brew of the serpent's poison-bag. + +"Of such a sort was the ill-doing of this woman. For her own hellish +purposes she desired and compassed the death of the most noble Duke +Casimir. There may be those who try to discover a motive for such an act. +But in this they do foolishly. For to those who have studied of this +matter, as I have done, it is well known that enchanters and witches ever +attack those who are the greatest, the noblest, and the most envied--not +hoping for any good to result to themselves, but out of pure malice and +envy, being prompted by the devil in order that the great and noble +should be destroyed out of the land. Well was it spoken then, 'Ye shall +not suffer a witch to live!' + +"And if any plead hereafter of this evil-doer's youth, of her beauty, I +call you to witness that the Evil One ever makes his best implement of +the fairest metal. As the aged crone, her teacher and accomplice, hath +confessed, this Helene was for long a plotter of dark deeds. By the trust +of Duke Casimir in her maiden's innocence he was betrayed to death. That +one so fair and evil should be turned loose on the world to begin anew +her enchantments, and, like a pestilence, to creep into good men's +houses, is a thing not to be thought of. Is she to go forth breathing +death upon the faces of the young children, to sit squat, like hideous +toad, sucking the blood of the new-born infant, or distilling +poison-drops to put into the draughts of strong men which shall run like +molten iron through their veins till they go mad? + +"Hear me, judges, I bid you again remember the word: 'Ye shall not suffer +a witch to live.' And in the name of the great unbroken law of the +Wolfmark, which I hold in my hand, I conclude by claiming the pains of +death to pass upon the witch-woman who by her deed sent forth untimely +the spirit of the most noble Duke Casimir, Lord of the city of Thorn and +Duke of the Wolfmark." + +The pleader sat down, calmly as he had risen, and the judges conferred +together as though they were on the point of delivering their verdict. +There had been no sound of applause as Master Gerard had spoken--a hushed +attention only, and then the muffled thunder of the great audience +relaxing its attention and of men turning to whispered discussion among +themselves. + +"Prisoner," said Duke Otho, "have you any to speak for you? Or do +you desire to make any answer to the things which have been urged +against you?" + +Then, thrilling me to my soul, arose the voice of Helene. Clear and sweet +and girlish, without hurry or fear, yet with an innocence which might +have touched the hardest heart, the maiden upon trial for her life said a +simple word or two in her defence. + +"I have no one to speak for me. I have nothing to say, save that which I +have said so often, that before God, who knows all things, I am innocent +of thought, word, or deed against any man, and most of all against Duke +Casimir of the Wolfsberg." + +And as she spoke the multitude was stirred, and voices broke out here +and there: + +"No witch!" "She is innocent!" "The guilty are among the judges!" "Saint +Helena!" "If she die we will avenge her!" + +And though the lictors struck furiously every way, they could not settle +the tumult, and ever the mass of folk swayed more wildly to and fro. Nor +do I know what might have happened at that moment but for a cry that +arose in front of the throng. + +"The Stranger! The Great Doctor! The Wise Man! Hear him! He is going to +speak for her!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +SENTENCE OF DEATH + + +And there, standing by the place of pleading, with his foot on the first +step, I saw Dessauer, in his black doctorial gown, leaning reverently +upon a long staff. + +He made a courteous salutation to Duke Otho upon the high seat. + +"I am a stranger, most noble Duke," he began, "and as such have no +standing in this your High Court of Justice. But there is a certain +courtesy extended to doctors of the law--the right of speech in great +trials--in many of the lands to which I have adventured in the search of +wisdom. I am encouraged by my friend, the most venerable prelate, Bishop +Peter, to ask your forbearance while I say a word on behalf of the +prisoner, in reply to that learned and most celebrated jurisconsult, +Master Gerard von Sturm, who, in support of his cause, has spoken things +so apt and eloquent. This is my desire ere judgment be passed. For in a +multitude of councils there is wisdom." + +He was silent, and looked at the Duke and his tool, Michael Texel. + +They conferred together in whispers, and at first seemed on the point of +refusing. But the folk began to sway so dangerously, and the voice of +their muttering sank till it became a growl, as of a caged wild beast +which has broken all bars save the last, and which only waits an +opportunity to put forth its strength in order to shiver that also. + +"You are heartily welcome, most learned doctor," said Duke Otho, +sullenly. "We would desire to hear you briefly concerning this matter." + +"I shall assuredly be brief, my noble lord--most brief," said Dessauer. +"I am a stranger, and must therefore speak by the great principles of +equity which underlie all law and all evidence, rather than according to +the statutes of the province over which you are the distinguished ruler. + +"The crime of witchcraft is indeed a heinous one, if so be that it can be +proven--not by the compelled confession of crazed and tortured crones, +but by the clear light of reason. Now there is no evidence that I have +heard against this young girl which might not be urged with equal justice +against every cup-bearer in the Castle of the Wolfsberg. + +"The Duke Casimir died indeed after having partaken of the wine. But so +may a man at any time by the visitation of God, by the stroke which, from +the void air, falleth suddenly upon the heart of man. No poison has been +found on or about the girl. No evil has been alleged against her, save +that which has been compelled (as all must have seen) by torture, and the +fear of torture, from the palsied and reluctant lips of a frantic hag." + +"Hear him! Great is the Stranger!" cried the folk in the hall. And the +shouting of the guards commanding silence could scarce be heard for the +roar of the populace. It was some time before the speech of Dessauer was +again audible. + +Ho was beginning to speak again, but Duke Otho, without rising, called +out rudely and angrily: + +"Speak to the reason of the judges and not to the passions of the mob!" + +"I do indeed speak from the reason to the reason," said Dessauer, calmly; +"for in this matter there is no true averment, even of witchcraft, but +only of the administration of poison--which ought to be proven by the +ordinary means of producing some portion of the drug, both in the +possession of the criminal and from the body of the murdered man. This +has not been done. There has been no evidence, save, as I have shown, +such as may be easily compelled or suborned. If this maid be condemned, +there is no one of you with a wife, a daughter, a sweetheart, who may not +have her burned or beheaded on just as little evidence--if she have a +single enemy in all the city seeking for the sake of malice or thwarted +lust to compass her destruction. + +"Moreover, it indeed matters little for the argument that this damsel is +fair to the eye. Save in so far as she is more the object of desire, and +that when the greed of the lustful eye is balked" (here he paused and +looked fixedly between his knees), "disappointment oft in such a heart +turns to deadly poison. And so that which was desired is the more +bitterly hated, and revenge awakes to destroy. + +"But if beauty matters little, character matters greatly. And what, by +common consent, has been known in the city concerning this maid? + +"I ask not you, Duke Otho, who have lived apart in your castle or in far +lands, a stranger to the city like myself. But I ask the people among +whom, during all these; past months of the plague, she has dwelt. Is she +not known among them as Saint Helena?" + +"Aye," cried the people, "Saint Helena, indeed--our savior when there was +none to help! God save Saint Helena!" + +Dessauer waved his hand for silence. + +"Did she not go among you from house to house, carrying, not the +poison-cup, but the healing draught? Was not her hand soft on the brow of +the dying, comfortable about the neck of the bereaved? Day and night, +whose fingers reverently wrapped up the poor dead bodies of your +beloved? Who quieted your babes in her arms, fed thorn, nursed them, +healed them, buried them--wore herself to a shadow for your sakes ?" + +"Saint Helena!" they cried; "Saint Helena, the angel of the Red Tower!" + +"Aye," said Dessauer, in tones like thunder, "hear their voices! There +are a thousand witnesses in this house untortured, unsuborned. I tell +you, the guilt of innocent blood will lie on you, great Duke--on you +counsellors of evil things, if you condemn this maid. Your throne, +Duke Otho, shall totter and fall, and your life's sun shall set in a +sea of blood!" + +He sat down calm and fearless as the Duke raged to Michael Texel, as I +think, desiring that the fearless pleader could be seized on the instant, +and punished for his insolence. But as the folk shouted in the hall, and +the thunder of cheering came in through the open windows from the great +concourse without, Michael Texel calmed his master, urging upon him that +the temper of the people was for the present too dangerous. And also, +doubtless, that they could easily compass their ends by other means. + +I saw Texel despatch a messenger to the lictors who stood on either side +of Helene. The body-guard of the Duke stood closer about her as the Duke +Otho himself stood up to read the sentence. + +I saw that the form of it had been written out upon a paper. Doubtless, +therefore, all had been prearranged, so that neither evidence nor +eloquence could possibly have had any effect upon it. + +"We, the Court of the Wolfmark, find the prisoner, Helene, called +Gottfried, guilty of witchcraft, and especially of compassing and +causing the death of our predecessor, the most noble Duke Casimir, and +we do hereby adjudge that, on the morning of Sunday presently +following, Helene Gottfried shall be executed upon the common scaffold +by the axe of the executioner. Of our clemency is this sentence +delivered, instead of the torture and the burning alive at the stake +which it was within our power to command. This is done in consideration +of the youth of the criminal, and as the first exercise of our ducal +prerogative of high mercy." + +With an angry roar the people closed in. + +"Take her!" they cried; "rescue her out of their hands!" + +And there was a fierce rush, in which the outer barriers were snapped +like straw. But the lictors had pulled down the trap-door on the instant, +and the people surged fiercely over the spot where a moment before Helene +had stood. Before them were the levelled pikes and burning matches of the +Duke's guard. + +"Have at them!" was still the cry. "Kill the wolves! Tear them to +pieces!" + +But the mob was undisciplined, and the steady advance of the soldiers +soon cleared the hall. Nevertheless the streets without continued angry +and throbbing with incipient rebellion. Duke Otho could scarce win +scathless across the court-yard to his own apartments. Tiles from the +nearest roofs were cast upon the heads of his escort. The streets were +impassable with angry men shaking their fists at every courier and +soldier of the Duke. Women hung sobbing out of the windows, and all the +city of Thorn lamented with uncomforted tears because of the cruel +condemnation of their Saint of the plague, Helena, the maiden of the +Red Tower. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +THE MESSAGE FROM THE WHITE GATE + + +I rushed out into the street, distract and insensate with grief and +madness. I found the city seething with sullen unrest--not yet openly +hostile to the powers that abode in the Castle of the Wolfsberg--too long +cowed and down-trodden for that, but angry with the anger which one day +would of a certainty break out and be pitiless. + +The Black Horsemen of the Duke pricked a way with their lances here and +there through the people, driving them into the narrow lanes, in jets and +spurts of fleeing humanity, only once more to reunite as soon as the +Hussars of Death had passed. Pikemen cried "Make way!" and the regular +guard of the city paraded in strong companies. + +A soldier wantonly thrust me in the back with his spear, and I sprang +towards him fiercely, glad to strike home at something. But as quickly a +man of the crowd pulled me back. + +"Be wise!" he said; "not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of all +these women and children. The Black Riders seek only an excuse to sweep +the city from end to end with the besom of fire and blood." + +Then came my master out of the Hall of Judgment, his head hanging +dejectedly down. As soon as he was observed the people crowded about, +shaking him by the hand, thanking him for that which he had done for +their maid, their holy Saint Helena of the plague. + +"We will not suffer her to be put to death, not even if they of the +Wolfsberg raze our city to the ground!" + +"Make way there!" cried the Black Horsemen--"way, in the name of +Duke Otho!" + +"Who is Duke Otho?" cried a voice. "We do not know Duke Otho." + +"He is not crowned yet! Why should he take so much upon him?" +shouted another. + +"We are free burgesses of Thorn, and no man's bond-slaves!" said a third. +Such were the shouts that hurtled through the streets and were bandied +fiercely from man to man, betraying in tone more than in word the +intensity of the hatred which existed between the ducal towers of the +Wolfsberg and the city which lay beneath them. + +In my boyish days I had laughed at the assemblies of the Swan--the White +Wolves and Free Companies. But, perhaps, those who had thus played at +revolt were wiser than I. For of a surety these associations were +yielding their fruits now in a harvest of hate against the gloomy pile +that had so long dominated the town, choked its liberties, and shut it +off from the new, free, thriving world of the northern seaboard +commonwealths to which of right it belonged. + +So soon as Dessauer and I were alone in my master's room at Bishop +Peter's I tried to stammer some sort of thanks, but I could do no more +than hold out a hand to him. The old man clasped it. + +"It was wholly useless from the first," he said; "they had their purpose +fixed and their course laid out, so that there was no turning of them. +All was a mockery, so clear that even the ignorant men of the streets +were not deceived. Accusation, evidence, pleadings, condemnation, +sentence--all were ready before the maid was taken; aye, and, I think, +before Duke Casimir was dead. + +"Also there is no court in the Wolfmark higher than the mockery we have +seen to-day. The arms of the soldiers of Plassenburg are our only court +of appeal." + +"It is two days before they can come," I answered. "I fear me all will be +over before then." + +"Be not so sure," said Dessauer. "There is at present no Justicer in the +Mark capable of carrying out the sentence, so long as your father lies on +his bed of mortal weakness." + +"Duke Otho will not let that stand in his way--or I am the more +deceived," said I, with a heavy heart. + +At this moment there came an interruption. I heard a loud argument +outside in the court-yard. + +"Tell me what you want with the servant of the most learned Doctor!" +cried a voice. + +"That is his business, and mine--not yours, rusty son of a +stable-sweeper!" was the answer. + +I went out immediately, and there, facing each other in a position of +mutual defiance, I saw Peter of the Pigs and the decent legal domestic of +Master Gerard von Sturm. + +"Get out of my wind, old Muck-to-the-Eyes!" said the servitor, +offensively; "you poison the good, wholesome air that is needed for +men's breath." + +"Go back to your murderer of the saints," responded Peter of the Pigs, +valiantly. "Your master and you will swing in effigy to-night in every +street in Thorn. Some day before long you will both swing in the body--if +a hair of this angel's head be harmed." + +"I must see this learned Doctor's servant!" persisted the man of law, +avoiding the personal question. + +"Here he is," said I; "and now what would you with him?" + +"I am sent to invite you to come to the Weiss Thor immediately, on +business which deeply concerns you." + +"That is not enough for me," said I. "Who sends for me?" + +"Let me come in out of the hearing of this moon-faced idiot," said he, +pointing contumeliously to Peter of the Pigs, "and I will tell you. I am +not bidden to proclaim my business in the market sties and city +cattlepens!" + +"You do well, Parchment Knave," cried Peter; "for it is such black +business that if you proclaimed a syllable of it there you would be +torn to pieces of honest folk. Thank God there are still some such in +the world!" + +"Aye, many," quoth the servitor, "and we all know they are to be found in +the dwellings of priestlings!" + +I walked with the man to the gate, for I did not care to take him to +where Dessauer was sitting. I feared that it might be some ill news from +the Lubber Fiend, who, though I had seen him clear of the gate, might +very well have returned and told my message to Master Gerard. + +"Well," said I, brusquely, for I had no love for the Sir Rusty +Respectable, "out with it--who sends you?" + +"It is not my master," answered the man, "but one other." + +"What other?" said I. + +"The one," he said, cunningly, "with whom on a former occasion you rode +out at the White Gate." + +Then I saw that he knew me. + +"The Princess--" I began. + +"Hush," he said, touching my arm; "that is not a word to be whispered in +the streets of Thorn--the Lady Ysolinde is at her father's house, and +would see you--on a matter of life or death--so she bade me tell you." + +"I will go with you," I said, instantly. + +"Nay," he said, smirking secretly, "not now, but at nine of the clock, +when the city ways shall be dark, you must come--you know the road. +And then you two can confer together safely, and eke, an it please +you, jocosely, when Master Gerard will be safe in his study, with the +lamp lit." + +I went back to Dessauer, who during my absence had kept his head in his +hand, as if deeply absorbed in thought. + +"The Princess is in Thorn!" said I, as a startling piece of news. + +"Ah, the Princess!" he muttered, abstractedly; "truly she is the +Princess, but yet that will not advantage her a whit." + +I saw that he was thinking of our little Helene. + +"Nay," I said, taking him by the arm to secure his attention, as indeed +about this time I had often to do. "I mean the Lady Ysolinde, the wife of +our good Prince." + +"In Thorn?" said Dessauer. "Ah, I am little surprised. Twice when I was +speaking to-day I saw a face I knew well look through a lattice in the +wall at me. But being intent upon my words I did not think of it, nor +indeed recognize it till it had disappeared. Now the picture comes back +to me curiously clear. It was the face of the Princess Ysolinde." + +"I am to see her at nine o'clock to-night in the house of the +Weiss Thor." + +"Do not go, I pray you!" he said; "it is certainly a trap." + +"Go I must, and will," I replied; "for it may be to the good of our +maiden. I will risk all for that!" + +"I dare say," said he; "so should I, if I saw any advantage, such as +indeed I hoped for to-day. But if I be not mistaken, our Princess is deep +in this plot." + +"And why?" said I. "Helene never harmed her." + +"Helene is your betrothed wife, is she not?" he said. He asked as if he +did not know. + +"Surely!" said I. + +"Well!" he replied, sententiously, and so went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +A WOMAN SCORNED + + +At nine I was at the door of the dark, silent house by the Weiss Thor. I +sounded the knocker loudly, and with the end of the reverberations I +heard a foot come through the long passages. The panel behind slid +noiselessly in its grooves, and I was conscious that a pair of eyes +looked out at me. + +"You are the servant of the strange Doctor?" said the voice of the +servitor, Sir Respectable. + +"That I am, as by this time you may have seen!" answered I, for I was +in no mood of mere politeness. I was venturing my life in the house of +mine enemy, and, at least, it would be no harm if I put a bold face on +the matter. + +He opened the door, and again the same curious perfume was wafted down +the passages--something that I had never felt either in the Wolfsberg nor +yet even in the women's chambers of the Palace of Plassenburg. + +At the door of the little room in which she had first received me so long +ago, the Lady Ysolinde was waiting for me. + +She did not shut the door till Sir Respectable had betaken him down again +to his own place. Then quite frankly and undisguisedly she took my hand, +like one who had come to the end of make-believe. + +"I knew you to-day in your disguise," she said; "it is an excellent one, +and might deceive all save a woman who loves. Ah, you start. It might +deceive the woman you love, but not the woman that loves you. I am not +the Princess to-night; I am Ysolinde, the Woman. I have no restraints, no +conventions, no laws, no religions to-night--save the law of a woman's +need and the religion of a woman's passion." + +I stood before her, scarce knowing what to say. + +"Sit down," she said; "it is a long story, and yet I will not weary you, +Hugo--so much I promise you." + +I made answer to her, still standing up. + +"To-night, my lady, after what you know, you will not be surprised that I +can think of only one thing. You know that to-day--" + +"I know," she said, cutting me short, as if she did not wish to +listen to that which I might say next; "I know--I was present in the +Judgment Hall." + +"Then, being Master Gerard's daughter, you knew also the sentence before +it was pronounced!" I said, bitterly, being certain as that I lived that +the paper from which the Duke Otho read had been penned at this very +house of the Weiss Thor in which I now sat. + +Ysolinde reached a slender hand to me, as was often her wont instead +of speech. + +"Be patient to-night," she said; "I am trying hard to do that which is +best--for myself first, as a woman must in a woman's affairs. But, as God +sees me, for others also! You are a man, but I pray you think with +fairness of the fight I, a lonely, unloved woman, have to fight." + +"Will they carry out the terrible sentence?" said I, eagerly. For I +judged that she must be in her father's counsels. + +"Be patient," she said; "we will come to that presently." + +Ysolinde sat silent a while, and when I would have spoken further +she moved her hand a little impatiently aside, in sign that I was +not to interrupt. Yet even this was not done in her old imperious +manner, but rather sadly and with a certain wistful gentleness which +went to my heart. + +When she spoke again it was in the same even voice with which she had +formerly told my fortune in that very room. + +"That which I have to say to you is a thing strange--as it may seem +unwomanly. But then, I did not ask God to make me a woman, and +certainly he did not make me as other women. I have never had a true +mate, never won the love which God owes to every man and woman He +brings into the world. + +"Then I mot you, not by any seeking of mine. Next, equally against my +will, I loved you. Nay, do not start to-night. It is as well to put the +matter plainly." + +"You did not _love_ me," said I; "you were but kind to me, the unworthy +son of the Executioner of Thorn. Out of your good heart you did it." + +I acknowledge that I spoke like a paltering knave, but in truth knew not +what to say. + +"I loved you--yes, and I love you!" she said, serenely, as though my +words had been the twittering of a bird on the roof. "And I am not +ashamed. There was indeed no reason for my folly--no beauty, no +desirableness in you. But--I loved you. Pass! Let it be. We will begin +from there. You loved, or thought you loved, a maid--your Little +Playmate. Pshaw, you loved her not! Or not as I count love. I was proud, +accustomed to command, and, besides, a Prince's wife. The last, +doubtless, should have held me apart. Yet my Princessdom was but as straw +bands cast into the fire to bind the flame. As for you, Hugo Gottfried, +you were in love with your success, your future, and, most of all, with +your confident, insolently dullard self." + +She smiled bitterly, and, because the thing she spoke was partly true, I +had still nothing to answer her. + +"Hugo Gottfried," she said, "try to remember if, when we rode to +Plassenburg in the pleasant weather of that old spring, you loved this +girl whom now you love?" + +"Aye," said I, "loved her then, even as I love her now." + +"You lie," she answered, calmly, not like one in anger, but as one who +makes a necessary correction, "you loved her not. You were ready to love +me--glad, too, that I should love you. And since you knew not then of my +rank, it was not done for the sake of any advancement in Plassenburg." + +I felt again the great disadvantage I was under in speaking to the Lady +Ysolinde. I never had a word to say but she could put three to it. My +best speeches sounded empty, selfish, vain beside hers. And so was it +ever. By deeds alone could I vanquish her, and perhaps by a certain +dogged masculine persistence. + +"Princess," I said to her, "you have asked me to meet you here. It is not +of the past, nor yet of likings, imaginings, recriminations that I must +speak. My love, my sister, my playmate, bound to me by a thousand ancient +tendernesses, lies in prison in this city of Thorn, under sentence of a +cruel death. Will you help me to release her? I think that with your +father, and therefore with you, is the power to open her prison doors!" + +"And what is there then for me?" cried the Lady Ysolinde, instantly, +bending her head forward, her emerald eyes so great and clear that their +shining seemed to cover all her face as a wave covers a rock at +flood-tide. + +"What for me?" she repeated, in the silence which followed. + +"For you," said I, "the gladness to have saved an innocent life." + +"Tush!" she cried, with a gesture of extravagant contempt. "You mistake; +I am no good-deeds monger, to give my bread and butter to the next +beggar-lass. I tell you I am the woman who came first out of the womb of +Mother-earth. I will yield only that which is snatched from me. What is +mine is more mine than another's, because I would suffer, dare, sin, defy +a world of men and women in order to keep it, to possess it, to have it +all alone to myself!" + +"But," I answered, "who am I, that so great a lady should love me? What +am I to you, Princess, more than another?" + +"_That_ I know not!" she answered, swiftly. "Only God knows that. Perhaps +my curse, my punishment. My husband is a far better, truer, nobler man +than you, Hugo. I know it; but what of that, when I love him not? Love +goes not by the rungs in a ladder, stands not with the most noble on the +highest step, is not bestowed, like the rewards in a child's school, to +the most deserving. I love you, Hugo Gottfried, it is true. But I wish a +thousand times that I did not. Nevertheless--I do! Therefore make your +reckoning with that, and put aside puling shams and whimpering +subterfuges." + +This set me all on edge, and I asked a question. + +"What, then, do you propose? Where, shall this comedy end?" + +"End!" she said--"end! Aye, of course, men must ever look to an end. +Women are content with a continuance. That you should love me and keep on +loving me, that is all I want!" + +"But," I began, "I love--" + +"Ah, do not say it!" she cried, pitifully, clasping her hands with a +certain swift appeal in her voice--"do not say it! For God's sake, for +the sake of innocent blood, do not say that you love me not!" + +She paused a moment, and grew more pensive as she looked stilly and +solemnly at me. + +"I will tell you the end that I see; only be patient and answer not +before I have done. I have seen a vision--thrice have I seen it. Karl of +Plassenburg, my husband, shall die. I have seen the Black Cloak thrice +envelop him. It is the sign. No man hath ever escaped that omen--aye, and +if I choose, it shall wrap him about speedily. More, I have seen you sit +on the throne of Plassenburg and of the Mark, with a Princess by your +side. It is _not_ only my fancy. Even as in the old time I read your +present fortune, so, for good or ill, this thing also is coming to you." + +She never took her eyes from my face. + +"Now listen well and be slow to speak. The Princedom and the power shall +both fall to me when my husband dies. There are none other hands capable. +So also is it arranged in his will. Here"--she broke off suddenly, as +with a gesture of infinite surrender she thrust out her white hands +towards me--"here is my kingdom and me. Take us both, for we are +yours--yours--yours!" + +I took her hands gently in mine and kissed them. + +"Lady, Lady Ysolinde," I said, "you honor me, you overwhelm me, I know +not what to say. But think! The Prince is well, full of health and the +hope of years. This thought of yours is but a vision, a delusion--how can +we speak of the thing that is not?" + +"I wait your answer," she said, leaving her hands still in mine, but now, +as it were, on sufferance. Then, indeed, I was torn between the love that +I had in my heart for my dear and the need of pleasing the Lady +Ysolinde--between the truth and my desire to save Helene. Almost it was +in my heart to declare that I loved the Lady Ysolinde, and to promise +that I should do all she asked. But though, when need hath been, I have +lied back and forth in my time, and thought no shame, something stuck in +my throat now; and I felt that if I denied my love, who lay prison-bound +that night, I should never come within the mercy of God, but be forever +alien and outcast from any commonwealth of honorable men. + +"I cannot, Lady Ysolinde," I answered, at last. "The love of the maid +hath so grown into my heart that I cannot root it out at a word. It is +here, and it fills all my life!" + +Again she interrupted me. + +"See," she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, "they tell me this your +Helene is an angel of mercy to the sick. If she is spared she will be +content to give her life to works of good intent among the poor. This +cannot be life and death to her as it is to me. Her love is not as the +love of a woman like Ysolinde. It is not for any one man to possess in +monopoly. Though you may deceive yourself and think that it will be fixed +and centred on you. But she will never love you as I love you. See, I +would knee to you, pray to you on my knees, make myself a suppliant--I, +Ysolinde that am a princess! With you, Hugo, I have no pride, no shame. I +would take your love by violence, as a strong man surpriseth and taketh +the heart of a maid." + +She was now all trembling and distract, her lips red, her eyes bright, +her hands clasped and trembling as they were strained palm to palm. + +"Lady Ysolinde, I would that this were not so," I began. + +A new quick spasm passed over her face. I think it came across her that +my heart was wavering. "God knows that I, Hugo Gottfried, am not worth +all this!" + +"Nay," she said, with a kind of joy in her voice and in her eyes, "that +matters not. Ysolinde of Plassenburg is as a child that must have its toy +or die. Worthiness has no more to do with love than creeds and dogmas. +Love me--Hugo--love me even a little. Put me not away. I will be so true, +so willing. I will run your errands, wait on you, stand behind you in +battle, in council lead you to fame and great glory. For you, Hugo, I +will watch the faces of others, detect your enemies, unite your +well-wishers, mark the failing favor of your friends. What heart so +strong, what eye so keen as mine--for the greater the love the sharper +the eye to mark, prevent, countermine. And this maid, so cold and icy, so +full of good works and the abounding fame of saintliness, let her live +for the healing of the people, for the love of God and man both, and it +liketh her. She shall be abbess of our greatest convent. She shall indeed +be the Saint Helena of the North. Even now I will save her from death and +give her refuge. I promise it. I have the power in my hands. Only do you, +Hugo Gottfried, give me your love, your life, yourself!" + +She was standing before me now, and had her arms about my neck. I felt +them quiver upon my shoulders. Her eyes looked directly up into mine, and +whether they were the eyes of an angel or of a tempting fiend I could not +tell. Very lovely, at any rate, they were, and might have tempted even +Saint Anthony to sin. + +"Ysolinde," I said, at last, "it is small wonder that I am strongly +moved; you have offered me great things to-night. I feel my heart very +humble and unworthy. I deserve not your love. I am but a man, a soldier, +dull and slow. Were it not for one man and one woman it should be as you +say. But Karl of Plassenburg is my good master, my loyal friend. Helene +is my true love. I beseech you put this thought from you, dear lady, and +be once more my true Princess, I your liege subject--faithful, full of +reverence and devotion till life shall end!" + +As I spoke she drew herself away from me. My hand had unconsciously +rested on her hair, for at first she had leaned her head towards me. When +I had finished she took my hand by the wrist and gripped it as if she +would choke a snake ere she dropped it at arm's-length. I knew that our +interview was at an end. + +"Go!" she commanded, pointing to the door. "One day you shall know how +precious is the love you have so lightly cast aside. In a dark, dread +hour, you, Hugo Gottfried, shall sue as a suppliant. And I shall deny +you. There shall come a day when you shall abase yourself--even as you +have seen Ysolinde the Princess abase herself to Hugo, the son of the Red +Axe of the Wolf mark. Go, I tell you! Go--ere I slay you with my knife!" + +And she flashed a keen double-edged blade from some recess of her silken +serpentine dress. + +"My lady, hear me," I pleaded. "Out of the depths of my heart I +protest to you--" + +"Bah!" she cried, with a sudden uprising of tigerish fierceness in her +eyes, quick and chill as the glitter of her steel. "Go, I tell you, ere I +be tempted to strike! _Your heart!_ Why, man, there is nothing in your +heart but empty words out of monks' copy-books and proverbs dry and +rotten as last year's leaves. Ye have seen me abased. By the lords of +hell, I will abase you, Executioner's son! Aye, and you yourself, Hugo +Gottfried, shall work out in flowing blood and bitter tears the doom of +the pale trembling girl for whom you have rejected and despised Ysolinde, +Princess of Plassenburg!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +THE RED AXE DIES STANDING UP + + +How I stumbled down the stairs and found myself outside the house in +the Weiss Thor I do not know. Whether the servitor, Sir Respectable, +showed me out or not has quite passed from me. I only remember that I +came upon myself waiting outside the gate of Bishop Peter's palace +ringing at a bell which sounded ghostly enough, tinkling like a cracked +kettle behind the door. + +The lattice clicked and a face peeped out. + +"Get hence, night-raker!" cried a voice. "Wherefore do you come here so +untimeously, profaning the holy quiet of our minster-close?" + +"There was no very holy calm in the kitchen t'other night, Peter +Swinehead!" said I, my wits coming mechanically back to me at the +familiar sound. + +"Ha, Sir Blackamoor, 'tis you; surely your chafts have grown strangely +white, or else are my eyes serving me foully in the torchlight." + +Instinctively I covered as much of my face as I could with my +cloak's cape, for indeed I had washed it ere I went forth to see the +Lady Ysolinde. + +"'Tis that you have slipped too much of the Rhenish down thy gullet, old +comrade," said I, slapping Peter on the back and getting before him so +that he might remark nothing more. + +At that, being well pleased with my calling him comrade, he lighted me +cordially to my chamber, and there left me to the sleepless meditation of +the night. + +The next day was one of great quietness in the city of Thorn. An uneasy, +sultry pause of silence brooded over the lower town. Men's heads showed a +moment at door and window, looked furtively up and down the street, and +then vanished again within. Plots were being hatched and plans laid in +Thorn; yet, while there was the lowering silence in the city, up aloft +the Wolfsberg hummed gayly like a hive. Once I went up that way to see if +I could win any news of my father. But this day the door into the Red +Tower stood closed, nor would any within open for all my knocking. So +perforce I had to return unsatisfied. Several times I went to the Weiss +Thor to spy the horizon round for the troops of Plassenburg. But only the +gray plain of the Mark stretched itself out so far as the eye could +penetrate--hardly a reeking chimney to be seen, or any token of the +pleasant rustic life of man, such as in my youth I remembered to have +looked down upon from the Red Tower. Beneath me the city of Thorn lay +grimly quiescent, like a beast of prey which has eaten all its neighbors, +and must now die of starvation because there are no more to devour. + +The day passed on feet that crept like those of a tortoise, as the sullen +minutes dragged by, leaden-clogged and tardy. But the evening came at +last. And with it, knocking at the door of the Bishop's quadrangle and +interrupting my long talk with Dessauer, lo! a messenger, hot-foot from +the castle. + +"To the learned Doctor and his servant, Gottfried Gottfried, being in +death's utmost extremities, sends greeting, and desires greatly to have +speech with them." + +Thus ran my father's message in that testing hour where he had seen +so many! Yet I was but little surprised. There was no wonder in the +fact save the wonder that it should all seem so natural. Dessauer +rose quickly. + +"I will go with you," he said; "it will be safer. For at least I can +keep the door while you speak with your father." + +So, without further word, we followed the messenger up the long, narrow, +wooden-gabled street, and heard the folk muttering gloomily in the +darkness within, or talking softly in the dull russet glow of their +hearth-fires. For there were but few lighted candles in Thorn that +night. And I wondered how near or how far from us tho men of Plassenburg +might be encamping, and thrilled to think that at any moment a spy might +ride in to warn Duke Otho of the spy within his city, or the near +approach of his foe. + +But so far all was quiet at the Red Tower. The wicket-gate in the angle +of the wall was open, and we passed in without difficulty. As I mounted +the stairs I heard the key turn behind us. Obviously, therefore, we were +expected. The gate of the Red Tower had been left open for our entrance; +and so soon as the birds were in the snare, it was shut, and the silly +goslings trapped. + +Nevertheless we climbed up and up the dark stairs till we came to +the door of my father's garret. I pushed it open without knocking, +and entered. + +"The most learned the Doctor Schmidt," I announced, lest there should be +some stranger in the room. And indeed my precaution was necessary enough. +For, from my father's bed-head, disengaging himself reluctantly, like a +disturbed vulture napping up from the side of a dying steer, Friar +Laurence rose out of the darkness, and, folding his robe about him, +stalked to the door without a word or nod to either of us. I stood +holding the edge of it till I had watched him well down the stairs. Then +Dessauer relieved me at the stair-head as I went to approach my father. + +I saw a change in him, very startling, indeed, to see. "In the uttermost +extremity" he was, indeed, as he had written. A ghastly pallor overspread +his face; his eyes were wild, his breathing came both quick and hard. +The fire cast nickering lights over his face and on the outlines of his +lank figure under the scarlet mantle which had been cast over him. One +corner of it was cast aside, as if for air or coolness, and I could see a +thing which gave me a cold chill in the marrow of my spine. + +My father still wore the dress which he only donned when some poor soul +was about to die and pay the forfeit. + +At first Gottfried took no notice of me whatever, but lay looking at the +ceiling, his lips muttering something steadily, though what the words +were I could not hear. + +"Father," I said at last, bending over him gently, "I have come to see +you." + +He turned to me, as if suddenly and regretfully summoned back from very +far away. It was a movement I had seen in many dying men. He looked at +me, a strange, luminous comprehension growing up gradually in his eyes. + +"Hugo," he said, "you have come home at last! The Little Playmate has +come home, too. We three will make a merry party in the old Red Tower. We +have not been all together for so long. Lord Christ, but I have been a +man much alone! Hugo, why did you leave me so long? Ah, well, I do not +blame you, my son. You have been pushing your fortunes, doubtless, and +you have--so they tell me--become a great man in Plassenburg. And the +little maid is a lady of honor, and very fair to see. But now you two +have come to the old garret, like birds homing to the nest." + +"Yes, father," I said to him, "we have both come home to you, the Little +Playmate and I. And now you will give us your blessing!" + +"The Little Playmate--say rather the Little Princess," he cried, +cheerfully, as, with the air of one who brings good tidings, he sat up in +bed. Then he pointed to a chair on which a pillow had carelessly been +flung. "Little Maid," he said, looking at the cushion as if it had been +Helene, "I am glad you have come back to be wedded to my boy. That was +like you. I ever wished it, indeed. But I never expected to see my +children thus happy. Yet I always knew you and Hugo were made for each +other. You are at your sewing, little maid. Well, 'tis natural. I mind me +when my own love sat making dainties of just such delicate and wreathed +whiteness." + +He paused, and then, his countenance suddenly changing, he looked +fearfully and fixedly at the chair. + +"But, little maid, my own Helene," he cried, in a loud, gasping, alarmed +tone, "what is this, best beloved? Why, you are sewing at a shroud? +Surely such funeral-trappings become not bridals. A shroud--and there is +blood upon it! Put it down--_put it down,_ I pray you!" + +The red flames on the fire crackled suddenly up about the back log and +cast dancing shadows on his face. + +"Lie down and rest, dear father," I said softly to him, "the Little +Playmate is not here--I, Hugo, your son, am alone beside you." + +"Hugo," he said, instantly appeased, and passing a lean arm about me, "my +good son, my brave boy! You will be kind to the little Princess. She +loves you. There is no man so beloved as you in all the city of Thorn. +Many would have loved her besides Otho. Ah, but I threw him out of the +window there. I threw a Grand Duke out of a window! Ha! ha! it was the +bravest jest!" + +He laughed a little at intervals, as at a tale that will bear infinite +repetition. "I, Gottfried Gottfried, threw a proximate reigning Prince +out of the window! How Casimir laughed! The thing pleased him well. And +the little maid, do you remember her, Hugo? How she would teach me--me, +the Red Axe of Thorn--how to dance that first night, and how totteringly +she carried the Red Axe? The little one took heart that night. She will +have a happy future, I know; so blessed, far away from this dark and +damned place of the Wolfsberg. I am glad she is not here to see me die. +That is a sight for men, not for fair young loving women." + +"Hush, my father," I said, touching his dank brow; "you are not going to +die. You will yet live to be strong and well, a man among men." + +For one tells these things to dying men. And they smile and pass us by, +amused at our childish ignorance, as you and I shall one day smile upon +those others. And even thus did my father. + +"Nay, Hugo, I am sped," he answered. "This night ends all. The door I +have oped for so many is opening from within for me. God's mercy be on a +sinful man! Ere the light of to-morrow's dawn the Duke's Justicer must +face the Tribunal that has no assessor and no court of appeal." + +He threw back the cloak which served him as a mantle, and crying, "Give +me your hand, Hugo!" Gottfried Gottfried staggered to his feet. + +"I will die standing up," he said, bending his brows and gazing about him +uncertainly. He pointed to the walls of the garret. The fire was +flickering low, but still making the place light enough to see easily. +There beside the bed was the Red Axe, with its shining edge undimmed, +leaning against the block. There across it was the crimson mask which was +never more to bind his eyes as he did the office of final dread. + +"Do you see them, son Hugo?" he cried, leaning heavily on my shoulder and +pointing with his finger; "they are gibbering at me, mowing, +processioning by, and pointing mockingly at me. Do you hear them +laughing? That horrid one there with his head under his arm? Laughing as +if there were no God! But I am not afraid. Mercy of Jesu! Hath God +Himself no Justicer, that He should punish me because I have fulfilled my +charge? I have all my life been merciful, ever giving the blow of mercy +first, and the drop of stupefaction before the Extreme Question. Hence, +fiends! Shapes inhuman, torment me not! For in my day I was merciful to +you and never struck twice. I _will_ die standing up. The devil shall not +fright me--no, nor all his angels! + +"God Himself shall not fright me! I appeal to His judgment throne! Get +hence, false accusing spirits! I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat. Give me +the axe, boy--I will cut down the evil, I will spare the good. Here is +the Red Axe, my son. Take it! Strike with it strong and well. Strike, +strike, and spare not!" + +Totteringly he handed me the axe, and, clasping his hands, he stood +looking up. + +"God! God!" he cried in a great voice. "I see my Judge face to face; I am +not afraid! But I will die standing up!" + +And in this manner, even as I tell it, died Gottfried Gottfried, a strong +man, standing up and not afraid. And these arms received him, as, being +dead, he fell headlong. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK + + +Then cried Dessauer from the door to me as I stood thus holding my father +in my arms: + +"Haste you, lad; there are men coming across the yard with torches. They +are gathering in groups about the door. Now they are on the stairs--many +soldiers--and with weapons in their hands!" + +And scarcely had he spoken when the sound of the tramping of men in haste +came to us up the turret, and the door of the garret was thrust violently +open. A turmoil of men-at-arms burst in on us. I stood still, holding +Gottfried Gottfried, his head on my shoulder, though I knew that he was +dead. But as one came forward with a paper in his hand I stooped and laid +my father gently on his bed. + +An officer of the Black Hussars, fantastically dressed in their +church-yard array, with skull and cross-bones slashed in silver across +his breast, accosted me. + +"Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, in the name of the Duke Otho +and the State of the Wolfmark, I arrest you! Also you, Leopold von +Dessauer, Chancellor of the Princedom of Plassenburg. You are accused as +spies and enemies of the commonweal. Yield yourselves therefore to me, +without condition." + +"I am indeed Hugo Gottfried," said I, "but you may see for yourselves the +mission on which I have come hither. And for this hour, at least, you +might have spared your brutal entry. Behold!" + +I caught a torch from the nearest soldier, and let its light shine on +the dead face of the fourteenth Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark. + +The men started back. The terrible countenance of the dead affected them +even more than the grim figure of the Red Axe as they had seen him +stalking from the Hall of Justice to the block. + +"Ah," said the officer, not wholly irreverently, "Gottfried Gottfried has +gone now to the dark place to which he hath sent so many. But, after all, +he is dead--and I heard a monkish clerk prate the other day, 'Let the +dead bury their dead.' I have my orders, and the Duke Otho waits. +Therefore I bid you follow me, Hugo Gottfried and Leopold von Dessauer." + +So, leaving the body of my father lying on the bed in his garret, we were +constrained to follow our captors down the stairs. Across the court-yard +we were hurried, and through the Hall of Justice into the private +apartments of the Duke. + +Otho von Reuss, now Duke of the Wolfmark, was standing erect by the great +chair in which, as my father had so often described him to me, Casimir +had sat so many days with his head sunk on his breast. The new Duke stood +up proudly, gazing at us with frowning brows and lowering, narrowed eyes. +This was mighty fine, but I could not help thinking of the poor +appearance he had made on the hill above the Hirschgasse as he slunk off +when he saw an evil cause going desperately against him. + +"So," he said, "gentlemen both, I have caught you spying in my land. You +know what those have to expect who are caught in hostile territory in +disguise." + +I thought it was as well to take the high hand at once, especially since +I saw that humility would avail us nothing at any rate. + +"Before now I have seen Otho von Reuss in hostile territory, and a right +cowed traitor he looked!" said I, boldly. + +The Duke smiled upon me, like a man that has a complete retort on his +tongue but who is content for the present to reserve it. + +"My friend," he said, suavely, "I will reply to you presently. I have a +word to speak to your betters." + +He turned him about to Dessauer. + +"And what, Lord High Chancellor of Plassenburg, think you of this +masquerading? Dignified, is it not? And your wondrous speech in court +that was to have done such great things. Will you be pleased to abide +with us here in the Wolfsberg? Or must you forsake us to pleasure the +Emperor, who, poor man, cannot sleep of nights in his bed at Ratisbon +till the eloquent Doctor is come to cheer him with the full-flowing river +of speech?" + +"Duke Otho," said Dessauer, "my life is indeed in your hands. I hold it +forfeit. A few years less or more are but little to Leopold von Dessauer +now. But there is one who will most bloodily avenge us if a hair of our +heads falls to the ground." + +"Who?" said Otho, sneeringly. "Karl Miller's Son, I suppose. Ah, fool +that you are, I hold your poor Karl in the palm of my hand!" + +"It is like enough," said Dessauer, with a quick look, the look of a keen +fencer when he sees an advantage. "I have often enough seen the palm of +your hand approach Karl Miller's Son's treasury when I kept the moneys." + +I saw the face of Otho twitch angrily. But he had evidently made up his +mind to command his temper, sure of having that up his sleeve which would +sufficiently answer all taunts. + +"You mistake me," he said, with more subtlety than I had expected from +the brute. "I had not meant to prove ungrateful. I am but newly come to +my own here in the Wolfmark. I have learned from your host, Bishop +Peter, how precious a thing forgiveness is. And now I am resolved to +practise it. There is a time to love and a time to hate; a time to war +and a time to be at peace. This is the last news I had from the holy +clerk whose revenues I pay. So lay it to heart, as I have done." + +"Glad am I," said Dessauer, courteously, as if he had been turning a +phrase on the terrace at Plassenburg--"glad am I that in your hour you +are to be mindful of old friends, for they are like old wine, which grows +better and mellower with the years." + +"It is indeed well," said Otho von Reuss, ironically. "I have known the +Chancellor Dessauer many years, and he grows more honorable and more wise +with each decade. + +"But now 'tis with this young man that I would speak," he said, changing +his tone. "He at least is mine own servant, and so I have other words for +him. Hugo Gottfried, you remember that you insulted me, striking me on +the face with a glove, because I offered certain civilities to a maid of +honor to the Princess of Plassenburg. You wounded me in the arm. Your +father, of whose death I have heard but now, cast me forth like a cur-dog +from a chamber window. Between you ye have shamed me, and would shame me +worse--for the sake of the murderess of mine uncle, Duke Casimir." + +"Well do you know that the Lady Helene is innocent of that crime, or any +other," said I; "she is purer than your eyes can look upon or your heart +conceive. Yet, solely because she knows you for the foul thing you are, +Helene lies condemned in your dungeons to-night. I ask you to grant me +but one boon--that I may die with her!" + +"Nay, my friend, gentlest squire of dames, defender of the oppressed, I +have better things in store for you and your maid than that!" + +He paused and looked a long while at me, as it seemed, chewing the cud +of revenge upon that which he had to say to me. + +At last he came a step nearer, that he might look into my eyes. + +"Hugo Gottfried," he said, slowly, "son of Gottfried Gottfried, you are +my servant now. I said that I would forgive you all for the sake of old +times in exile together. And now you and I are both again in our own +land. They that kept us out of our offices are dead, and we standing in +their places. There is a maid down there in the Wolfsberg dungeons who +to-morrow must meet her fate." + +He paused a moment and laid his hand on my shoulder impressively. + +"And you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Justicer of the Dukedom, Red Axe of +the Wolfmark, art the man who must carry out that doom!" + +Again he paused--and the world seemed instantly to dissolve into +whirling vapor at his words. I had never once thought of such a +conclusion. Yet I was indubitably, by my father's death, Hereditary +Executioner of the Wolfmark. Red Axe of Thorn I was, and by a terrible +chance I had returned in time to be installed in mine office, even as +the Lady Ysolinde had foretold. + +But a strong thought swelled triumphant in my heart. + +"Well," said I, looking the sneering tormentor in the face, "if so be +that I am your Hereditary Justicer, it will be long ere a sentence so +monstrous shall be carried out by me. I will not slay the innocent, nor +pour out the blood of a virgin saint, for a million deaths. You can +torture me with all your hellish engines, and you will find that a +Gottfried has learned how to suffer, as well as, how to make others +suffer, in fourteen generations. As God strengthens me, I will never +carry out your sentence--do with me what you will." + +"Nobly said, Justicer of the Mark!" said Otho. "I had thought of that! +But in case you should refuse to do your lawful office, it may be well +for you to remember that I have other instruments that mayhap will please +you less." + +He threw open a door suddenly, and we looked into an underground hall, +where a dozen men were carousing--Duke Casimir's Hussars of Death, +black-browed, evil-faced, slack-jowled villains every man of them, cruel +and sensual. A blast of ribald oaths came sulphurously up, as if the +mouth of hell had been opened. + +"Listen!" said Otho, with his hand on my shoulder. + +And a jest struck to our ears concerning the prisoner, the Little +Playmate--a jest which sticks in my memory to this day. And even yet I +hope to cleave the jester through the brain, meet him when I may. + +The Duke shut the door, and turned to me again. His eyes narrowed to a +thin line which glittered with hate and triumph. + +"If you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Executioner of the Mark, refuse to do +your duty at the time appointed upon the prisoner condemned, I, Duke +Otho, solemnly declare that I will cast your fair and tender lamb into +that den of wolves down there to work their wills upon. Hark to them! +They will have no misgivings--no qualms, no noble renunciations." + +Then he turned to me airily and confidently. + +"Well, my good Justicer, will you carry out the just and merciful +sentence of the law, and baptize your Red Axe with the blood of her for +whose sake you chose to insult and wound a Duke of the Mark?" + +I turned away, sick at heart. + +"Give me time. God's mercy--give me time!" I cried. "At least let me see +Helene. I will give you my answer to-night. But, first of all, let me see +my beloved." + +"I am forgiving and most merciful," he said, smiling till his teeth +showed. "Observe, I do not even cast you into prison to make sure of you. +Go your ways" (he sat down and wrote rapidly); "here is a pass which will +enable you to visit the prisoner. At midnight I shall expect you to tell +me that to-morrow you will fulfil your office." + +He handed me the paper and motioned us away. + +"We are free to go?" said I, wonderingly. + +"Surely," he replied, smiling. "Are you not both my friends, and can Otho +von Reuss be forgetful of old times? Come and go at your pleasure. Be +sure to be here to give me your answer at midnight to-night--or--" + +He pointed with his hand to the door he had again opened, and with the +fingers of his other hand beat time to the blasphemous chorus which came +belching up from below. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +THE SERPENT'S STRIFE + + +Dazed and death-stricken by the horror of the choice which lay before me, +I hastened down the street, hardly waiting for Dessauer, who toiled +vainly after me. I knew not what to do nor where to turn. I could neither +think nor speak. But it chanced that my steps brought me to the house of +the Weiss Thor. Almost without any will of mine own I found myself +raising the knocker of the house of Master Gerard von Sturm. Sir +Respectable instantly appeared. I asked of him if the Lady Ysolinde would +see me--giving my name plainly. For since Duke Otho knew me, there was no +need of concealment any more. + +The Lady Ysolinde would receive me. + +I followed my conductor, but not this time to the room in which I had +seen her on the occasion of my last visit. + +It was in her father's chamber that I met the Princess. The room was as I +had first seen it. Only there was no ascetic old man with keen, deep-set +eyes and receding forehead to rear his head back from the table as though +he would presently strike across it like a serpent from its coil. + +For the moment the room was empty, but, ere I had time to look around, +the curtains moved and the Lady Ysolinde appeared. Without entering, she +set a hand on the door-post, and stood poised against the heavy curtain, +waiting for me to speak. + +Her face was pale, her thin nostrils dilated. Anger and scorn sat white +and deadly on every feature. + +"So," she said, intensely, as I did not speak, "you have come back +already, most noble Hereditary Justicer of the Mark! Even as I told +you--so it is. You come to ask mercy from the woman you despised, from +the woman whose love you refused. You would beg her to spare her enemy. +Ere you go I shall see you on your knees; ah, that will be sweet. I have +been on my knees--can I believe it? Nay, I shall not forget it. I, +Ysolinde of Plassenburg, have pled in vain to you--to you!" + +And the accent of chill hatred and malice turned me to stone. + +"My lady," said I, "well do you know that I would never ask aught for my +own life, though the Red Axe itself were at my neck. But it is for the +maid I love, for the little child I carried home out of the arms of the +man condemned. I ask for her life, who never wronged you or any in all +this world. You have heard that task which the Duke hath laid on me, +because it is my misfortune to be my father's son--I must take away my +love's sweet life, or, if I do not--" I could proceed no further for the +horror which rose in my heart. + +"I know it," she said, calmly; "my father hath told me all." + +"Then," cried I, "if the power lie with you, as you hope for mercy to +your own soul, be merciful! Save the maiden Helene from the death of +shame, and me from becoming her murderer!" + +"Ah," she answered, with delicatest meditative inflection, "this is +indeed sweet. The mighty is fallen indeed. The proud one is suppliant +now. The knee is bent that would not bend. Hearken, you and your puling +babe, to the Princess Ysolinde! Were your lives in that glass, to save or +to destroy--her life and your suffering--to make or to break, I would +fling them to destruction, even as I cast this cup into the darkness!" + +And as she spoke the wreathed beaker of Venice glass sped out of the +window and crashed on the pavement without. + +"Thus would I end your lives," she said, "for the shame that you two put +upon me in the day of my weakness." + +"Lady," I cried, eagerly, "you do yourself a wrong! Your heart is better +than your word. Do this deed of mercy, I beseech you, if so be you can. +And my life is yours forever!" + +"Your life is mine, you say," cried she; "aye, and that means what? +The wind that cries about the house. Your life is _mine_--it is +a lie. Your life and love both are that chit's for whom you have +despised--rejected--ME!" + +And I grant that at that moment she looked noble enough in her anger as +she stood discharging her words at me with hissing directness, like bolts +shot twanging from the steel cross-bow. + +"And, lest you should think that I have not the power to save you, I will +tell you this--when you shall see the neck bared for the blade of the Red +Axe, the fine tresses you love, that your eyes look upon with desire, all +ruthlessly cut away by the shears of your assistants--ah, I know you will +remember then that I, Ysolinde, whom you refused and slighted, had the +power in her hand to deliver you both with a word, according to the +immaculate laws of the Wolfmark. Aye, and more--power to raise you both +to a pinnacle of bliss such as you can hardly conceive. In that hour, +when you see me look down upon your anguish, you will know that I can +speak the word. You will watch my lips till the axe falls, and under your +hand the young life ebbs red. But the lips of Ysolinde will be silent!" + +"Such knowledge is an easy boast, Lady Ysolinde!" I answered, thinking +to taunt her, that she might reveal whether indeed she had the power +she claimed. + +"There," she said, pointing to the great collection of black-bound books +and papers about the walls; "see, the secret is there--the secret for the +lack of which you shall strike your beloved to the death to save her from +the unnamable shame. I know it; my father has revealed it to me. I have +seen the parchment in these hands. But--you shall never hear it, she +never profit by it, and my vengeance shall be sweet--so sweet!" + +And she laughed, with a strange crackling laugh that it was a pain to +hear. + +"God forgive you, Lady Ysolinde," said I, "if this be so. For if there +be a God, you must burn in Great Hell for this deed you are about to +do. Having had no mercy on the innocent, how shall you ask God to have +mercy on you?" + +"I will not ask Him!" she cried. "Instead of puling for mercy I will have +had my revenge. And after that, come earth, heaven, or hell--I shall not +care. All will then be the same to Ysolinde!" + +I thought I would try her yet once more. + +"The Little Playmate," I said, "the maid whom I have ever loved, though I +am not worthy to touch her, is no chance child, no daughter of the Red +Axe of Thorn. Leopold von Dessauer hath found and sent to Karl the Prince +the full proofs that Helene is the daughter of the last and rightful +Prince, and therefore in her own right Princess of Plassenburg." + +"You lie, fool!" she cried--"you lie! You think to frighten me. And even +if it were true--thrice, four times fool to tell me! For shall not I, the +Princess of Plassenburg, the wife of the reigning Prince, stand for my +own name and dignity. I would not help you now though a thousand fair +heads, well-beloved, the desire of men, the envy of women, were to be +rolled in the dust." + +"Then farewell, Princess," I cried; "you are wronging to the death of +deaths two that never did you wrong, who loved each other with the love +of man and woman before ever you crossed their paths, and who since then +have only sought your good. You wrong God also, and you lose your soul, +divorcing it from the mercy of the Saviour of men. For be very sure that +with that measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." + +She did not answer, but stood with her hand still against the door-post, +her head raised, and her lips curling scornfully, looking after me as I +retired with a smiling and malicious pleasure. + +So, without further speech, I went out from the presence of the Lady +Ysolinde. And thus she had the first part of her revenge. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +THE DUNGEON OF THE WOLFSBERG + + +And now I must see the Little Playmate. Judge ye whether or no my heart +was torn in twain as I went up the long High Street of Thorn, back to the +Wolfsberg, alone. For I had compelled Dessauer to return to Bishop +Peter's, in order to avert popular suspicion, since our real names and +errands were not yet known there. + +And when I parted from him the old man was so worn out that I looked +momently for him to drop on the rough causeway stones of the street. + +Many pictures of my youth passed before me as I mounted towards the +castle that night. I remembered the ride of the wild horsemen returning +from the raid such long years agone, the old man who carried the babe, +and the Red Axe himself, who now lay dead in the Tower--my father, +Casimir's Justicer, clad now as then in crimson from head to heel. + +Ere long I arrived at the Wolfsberg, and as I came near the Red Tower I +saw that the gate was open. A little crowd of men with swords and +partisans was issuing tumultuously from it. Then came six carrying a +coffin. I stood aside to let them pass. And not till the last one brushed +me did I ask what was their business abroad with a dead man at such a +time of the night. + +"'Tis one that had wrought much fear in his time," answered the soldier, +for I had lighted on a sententious fellow--"one that made many swift +ends, and now has come to one himself." + +"You mean Gottfried Gottfried, the Duke's Justicer?" said I, speaking +like one in a dream. + +"Aye," he replied. "The Duke Otho is mightily afraid of the plague, and +will not have a dead body over-night in his castle. Since they condemned +the Saint Helena, God wot, the Duke is a fear-stricken man. He sleeps +with half a dozen black riders at the back of his door, as though that +made him any safer if a handful of minted gold were dealt out among the +rascals. But when was a Prince ever wise?" + +"My father's funeral," thought I. "Well, to-night it is, indeed, 'let the +dead bury their dead'; Helene is yet alive!" + +Surely I am not wanting in feeling, yet my heart was strangely chill and +cold. Nevertheless, I turned and followed the procession a little way +towards the walls. But even as I went, lo! the bell of the Wolfsberg +slowly and brazenly clanged ten. I stopped. I had but two hours in which +to visit the Little Playmate and tell her all. + +"Good-bye, father," said I, standing with my hat off; "so you would wish +me to do--you who met your God standing up--you who did an ill business +greatly, because it was yours and you were born to it. Teach me, my +father, to be worthy of you in this strait, to the like of which surely +never was man brought before!" + +The men-at-arms clattered roughly down the street, shifting their +burden as if it had been so much kindling-wood, and quarrelling as to +their turns. I heard their jests coming clear up the narrow street +from far away. + +I stood still as they approached a corner which they must turn. + +I waved my hand to the coffin. + +"Fare you well, true father; to-night and to-morrow may God help me also, +like you, to meet my fate standing up!" + +And the curve of the long street hid the ribald procession. My father +was gone. I had made choice. The dead was burying his dead. + +I went on towards the prison of the Wolfsberg; so it was nominated by a +sort of grim superiority in that place which was all a prison--the castle +which had lorded it so long over the red clustered roofs and stepped +gables of Thorn, solely because it meant prisonment and death to the +rebel or the refuser of the Duke's exactions. + +Often had I seen the straggling procession of prisoners rise, head +following head, up from that weary staircase, my father standing by, as +they came up from the cells, counting his victims silently, like a +shepherd who tells his flock as they pass through a gap in the sheepfold. + +For me, alas! there was but one in that dread fold to-night. And she my +one ewe lamb who ought to have lain in my bosom. + +I clamored long at the gate ere I could make the drowsy jailer hear. As +the minutes slipped away I grew more and more wild with fear and anger. +At midnight I must face the Duke, and it was after ten--how long I knew +not, but I feared every moment that I might hear the brazen clang as the +hammer struck eleven. + +For time seemed to make no impression on me at all that night. + +At last the man came, shuffling, grumbling, and cursing, from his +truckle-bed. + +"What twice-condemned drunken roysterer may you be, that hath mistaken +the prison of Duke Otho for a trull-house? + +"An order from the Duke--to see a prisoner! Come to-morrow then, and, +meanwhile, depart to Gehenna. Must a man be forever at the beck and call +of every sleepless sot? 'Urgent'--is the Duke's mandate. Shove it through +the lattice then, that a lantern may flash upon it." + +I pushed under the door a broad piece of gold, which proved more to the +purpose than much speech. + +The door was opened and I showed my pass. That and the gold together +worked wonders. + +The jailer rattled his keys, donned a hood and woollen wrapper which he +took down from a nail, and went coughing before me down the chill, +draughty passages. I could hear the prisoners leaping from their couches +within as the light of his cresset filtered beneath their doors. What +hopes and fears stirred them! A summons, it might be, for some one in +that dread warren to come up for a last look at the stars, a walk to the +heading-place through the soft, velvet-dark night--then the block, the +lightning flash of bright steel, a drench of something sweet and strong +like wine upon the lips, and--silence, rest, oblivion. + +But we passed the prison doors one by one, and the jailer of the +Wolfsberg went coughing and rasping by to another part of the prison. + +"'Tis an ill place for chills," he grumbled. "I have never been free of +them since first I came to this place, no--nor my wife neither. She has +been dead these ten years, praises to the pyx! Ah, would you?" (The torch +threatened to go out, so he held it downward in his hand till the pitch +melted and caught again, and meanwhile we stood blinded in the smoke and +glare which the strong draught forced in our faces.) + +At last came the door, a low, iron-spiked grating, like any other of the +hundred we had passed. + +"Key-metal is not often weared on this cell," the man chuckled. "Those +stay not long above ground that bide here." + +The door swung back on its creaking hinges. I slipped the fellow another +gold piece. + +"I must come in with you," he said; "you might do the wench an ill turn +which would cheat the Duke of his show and me of my head to-morrow." + +I slipped him another piece of gold, and then three together. + +"Risk it, man," I said. "Have I not the Duke's own pass? I will do +her no harm." + +"Well," he said, "pray remember I am a man with five poor motherless +children. My wife died of falling down a flight of steps ten years +agone--praise the Lord for His mercies. For He is ever mindful of us, the +sinful children of men." + +The sound of his voice died away as the door closed. I turned, and was +alone with the Beloved. The jailer had stuck the cresset in its niche +behind the door, and its glow filled the little cell. + +At first I could not see the Little Playmate--only a rough pallet bed and +something white at the head of it. But as the cresset burned up more +clearly, and my eyes became accustomed to the bleared and streaky light, +I saw Helene, my love, kneeling at her bed's head. + +I stood still and waited. Was she asleep? Was she--was she dead? I +almost hoped that she might be. Then the Duke's vengeance would be +balked indeed. + +"Helene!" I said, softly, as one speaks to the dying--"Helene, dear, +dear Helene!" + +Slowly she looked up. Her face dawned on me as one day the face of the +blessed angel will shine when he calls me out of purgatory. + +"My love--my love!" she said, sweetly, like the first note of a hymn when +the choir breathes the sweet music rather than sings it. + +Ah, Lord of Innocence, that pure loving face, the purple deepness in the +eyes, the flush on the cheek as on that of a little child asleep, the +soft curled hair which crisped in the hollow of the neck--the throat +itself--Eternal God, that I should be alive to think of the horror! + +But time was passing swiftly. The minutes were slipping by like men +running for their lives. + +I raised Helene from her knees, and she nestled her head on my shoulder. + +"You have come to me! I knew you would come. I saw you on the day--the +day when they condemned me to die." + +I broke into an angry, desperate, protesting cry, so that I heard my own +voice ring strangely through that dumb, horrible place. And it was I who +sobbed in her arms with my head on her shoulder. + +"Hush, dear love," she said, clasping her arms caressingly about my head; +"do not fear for me. God will keep your little one. God has told me that +He will bring me bravely through. Hush thee, then; do not so, Hugo, great +playmate! This I cannot bear. Help me to be good. It will not be long nor +painful. Do not weep for your little girl! I think, somehow, it is for +our love that I suffer, and that will make it sweet!" + +But still I sobbed like a child. For how--how could I tell her? + +Presently the power returned slowly to me, seeing her smiling so bravely +up at me, and rising on tiptoe to kiss my wet face. + +Then I told her all--in what words I hardly remember now. + +"Love of mine," I said, "I have but an hour or less to speak with +you--and ah! such terrible things, such inconceivable things, to say; a +horror to reveal such as never lover had to tell his love before." + +She drew one of my hands down and softly patted her breast with it. + +"Fear not," she said; "tell it Helene. If it be true that love conquers +all, your little lass can bear it!" + +"I came," said I, "with purpose to see you, and by treachery (it skills +not to ask whose) I was taken at my dead father's bedside." + +"Our father dead?" she cried, going a step away to look at me, but +coming back again immediately; "then there are but you and me in the +world, Hugo!" + +"Aye," said I, "but how can I tell you the rest? My father died like a +man, and then they took me, still holding the dead in my arms. I was +confronted with a fiend of hell in the likeness of Duke Otho." + +As I mentioned the Duke's name I could feel her shudder on my neck. + +"And--But I cannot tell you what he has bidden me do, under penalties too +fearful to conceive or speak of." + +She put her hands up, and gently, timidly, lovingly stroked my cheek. + +"Dear love, tell me! Tell the Little Playmate!" she said, as simply and +sweetly as if she had been coaxing me to whisper to her some lightest +childish secret of our plays together in the old Red Tower. + +I was silent for a space, and then, spurred by the thought of the swiftly +passing time, the words were wrenched out of me. + +"He says that I, even I, Hugo Gottfried, my father's son, being now +hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark, must strike off the head of the one I +love. And if I will not, then to the vilest of devils for vilest ends he +will deliver her. Ah, God, and he would do it too! I saw the very flame +of hell's fire in his eyes." + +Then I that write saw a strange appearance on the face that looked up in +mine. As on a dark April day, with a lowering sky, you have seen the wind +suddenly stir high in the heavens, and the sun look through on the +dripping green of the young trees and the gay bourgeoning of the flowers, +so, looking on my love's face as she took in my words, there awakened a +kind of springtime joy. Nay, wherefore need I say a kind of joy only. It +was more. It was great, overleaping, sudden-springing gladness. Her eyes +swam in lustrous beauty. She smiled up at me as I had never seen her +smile before. + +"Oh, I am glad, Hugo--so glad! I love you, Hugo! It will be hard for you, +my love. And yet you will be brave and help me. I had far rather die at +your hand than live to be the bride of the greatest man in all the world. +Do that which will save me from, shame; do it gladly, Hugo. I fear it. I +saw it in the eyes of that man Otho von Reuss. But _only_ to die will be +easy, with you near by. For I love you, Hugo. And I could just say a +prayer, and then--well, and then--Do not cry, Hugo--why, then you would +put me to sleep, even as of old you did in the Red Tower! + +"Nay, nay, dear love! You must not do so. This is not like my Hugo. See, +_I_ do not cry. Do you remember when you took me up and laid me on your +bed, and our father came and looked? You said I was your little wife. So +I was, even though I denied it, and now I can trust you, my husband. I +have never been aught else but your little wife, you see--not in my +heart, not in my heart of hearts! + +"I have been proud with you, Hugo--spoken unkind things. For love, you +know, is like that. It hurts that which it would die for. But now you +will know, once for all, that I love you. For death tests all. And you +_will_ help me. You will not cry then, Hugo--not then, when we walk, you +and I, by the shores of the great sea. You will only send me a little +voyage by myself, as you used to make me go to the well in the +court-yard, to teach me not to be frightened! + +"And then you will be with me when I go. You will watch me; soon, soon +you will come after me. Yes, I am glad, Hugo--so glad. For--bend down +your ear, Hugo--I will confess. Your little girl is such a coward. She +is afraid of the dark. But it will not be dark--and it will not be long, +and it will be sure. If my love stand by, I shall not fear. And, after +all, it is but a little thing to do for my love, when I love him so." + +What I said, or what I did, I know not. But when I came a little to +myself, I found my head on my knees, and Helene soothing and petting me, +as if I had been a child that had fallen down and hurt itself. + +"I would have been a good wife to you, Hugo; I had thought it all out. At +first I would have been such an ignorant little house-keeper, and you +would have needed--oh, such great patience with me! But so willing, so +ready, Hugo! And how I should have listened for your foot! Do you know, I +used to know it as it came across the court-yard at Plassenburg. But I +could not run and meet you then. I could only slip behind the +window-lattice and throw you a kiss. But when I was indeed your wife, how +I should have flown to meet you!" + +I think I cried out here for very agony. + +"Hush, Hugo!" she said. "Hush, lad, and listen. There are stairs up +aloft--I saw them in a dream. I saw the angels and the redeemed ascending +and descending as I prayed, even when you came in to call me back. I +shall ask God to let me wait at the stair-head a little while for +you--till it should be time for you to come, my dear, my dear. You would +not be very long, and I could wait. I would listen for your feet upon the +stair, dear love. And when at last you came, I should know your footfall; +yes, I should know it ever so far away. You would not be thinking of me +just then. And when you came to the top of the golden stairs, +there--there, all so suddenly, would be your little lass, with her arms +ready to welcome you!" + +The door of the cell creaked open. + +The jailer appeared. "It is time!" he said, curtly, and stood waiting. We +stood up, and I looked in her eyes. She was smiling, dry-eyed, but +I--the water was running down my face. + +"You will be brave, Hugo, for my sake. Next to life with you--to die by +your dear hand, knowing that you love me, is the best gift they could +have given me. They thought to hurt, but instead they have made me so +happy. Till we meet again, dear love--till we meet soon again!" + +And she accompanied me to the door, and kissed me as I went out, standing +smilingly on tiptoe to do it, even as of old she was wont to do in the +Red Tower. + +And the last thing I saw of her, as the door closed upon the darkness of +the cell, was my love standing smiling up at me, her eyes filled with the +splendors of the love that casteth out fear. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MORN + + +Even as the dwarf on the ledge of the castle clocktower creaked his wires +and clicked back his hammer to strike the midnight over the city, even as +the first solemn toll of the hour reverberated over the Wolfsberg, I was +at the door of the Duke's room waiting for admission. + +The Chamberlain in attendance looked within, and seeing his master +writing at a table, he was going out again without speech. + +"Has Hugo Gottfried returned?" said the Duke, without looking up. + +"Hugo Gottfried is here!" I replied, stepping unannounced into the room. + +He looked up without smiling, a keen inquiring glance glittering from +between eyelids so close together that only the faintest line of the +pupil showed black under the lashes. + +"Well?" he questioned. + +"I will do the thing you have asked," answered I. + +And said no more. + +The Duke instantly became restless, and getting up, he began to pace +about the floor like a caged beast. + +"You have seen her?" he inquired, stopping in front of me, +wide-nostrilled, like a dog that points the game. + +"I _have_ seen her," I replied, as simply. + +"Well?" he queried again, with a keen, eager note of anxiety in +his voice. + +"I am ready to do that which you have asked." + +He seemed to be on the point of saying something else. But, changing his +mind, he touched a little silver bell. + +The usher appeared. + +"Show the Hereditary Justicer of the Mark to the Red Tower. Give him all +that is necessary to eat and drink. Bid a man-at-arms attend him, and set +a sufficient guard at the door!" + +So I went out from the presence, and the Duke and the Duke's new Justicer +bowed to each other gravely as I stood a moment on the threshold. + +"Till we meet again, Red Axe of the Wolfmark!" said Duke Otho. + +"Till we meet again!" said I, countering him like blade meeting blade. + +In little more than ten minutes after I had entered them, I stood outside +the Duke's apartments, and with my escort I strode across to the empty +Red Tower, the home of so many memories. My head was reeling, and with +the overpress of excitement I could not sleep. So, bribing the soldier, +my companion--who had been charged by the Duke not to lose sight of +me--to accompany me, I went up to my father's garret. + +There I found all things as they had been when my father died. + +I set the windows wide, cast the tumbled bedclothes out upon the +dust-heap beneath, and bared the whole to the clean, large, wholesome +breezes of the night. I saw the fateful Red Axe lean as usual against the +block, and, taking it up, I found it keen as a razor. It was spotless, +and the edge gave back the long low room and our one glimmering candle +like a mirror. It must have been my father's last work in this world to +polish it. + +Then I went down to my own room and cast myself down upon the bed in +which, on that night of the first home-coming of the Playmate, I had laid +my little wife. + +The soldier couched across the door, rolled in his cloak and some chance +wrapping he found about the house. + +God keep me from ever spending such a night again! I thought it would +never come to an end. Out in the square in front of the Wolfsberg I could +hear a knocking--dull, continuous, reverberant. At first I thought it +must be within my own head. So I asked the soldier, after a little, if he +heard it also. I had some faint idea that it might be Prince Karl of +Plassenburg with his army thundering at the gates of Thorn. + +"'Tis but the scaffold going up in the Grand Place without!" said the +soldier, carelessly; "I heard that the Duke had bidden them work all +night by torch-light." + +I tried to sleep, but the knocking continued, aching across my brows +till I thought I must go mad. After a while I rose and went to the +window from which I had so often looked down wistfully upon the play of +the city children. + +Opposite me, in the middle of the open space, loomed a dark mass--a +platform, it seemed, raised a dozen feet above the road--the black +silhouette of a ladder set anglewise against it, and that was all. Lower, +plainer, somehow deadlier than a gibbet with its flamboyant beam, which +one never sees empty without imagining the malefactor aswing upon it; the +heading-block did not frown, it grinned--yes, grinned like the eye-holes +of a skeleton with a candle behind them, while the torches glinted +through the interstices of the framework as it was being nailed together. + +All night the dull _dunt-dunting_ went on without. And I sat awake by the +window and awaited the dawning. + +The city seethed unslaked beneath. When first I looked from my chamber +window the square was free to all who chose to enter it. But as the +knocking went on the news spread through the town of Thorn. + +"They are making the scaffold for our Saint Helena!" So the word ran. + +And within an hour the courts and alleys of Thorn belched forth thousands +of angry men. Pikes were carried like staves, the steel head hidden up +the long white burgess sleeve. Working-men of the trades, 'prentices, +and market porters drew their swords and came forth with the bare blades +in their hands, leaving the scabbards at home to take care of themselves, +as was their custom. + +Wives cried from escalier windows to their men to come in by and lie +decently down, to be ready for their work in the morning. And the men so +addressed paid not the least heed, as the manner of men is. These things +and many others I saw, scarce knowing what I saw. + +And so, with the hum of gathering crowds, the hours passed slowly over. +But the temper of the people in the square grew more and more difficult, +and soon the guard had to be brought down from the castle. The great +gates beneath me were open, and the Wolfsberg vomited the black +men-at-arms to keep the Duke's peace. + +But this brought only the quicker strife. Yells received them as soon as +their steel partisans showed up in the square. + +"Oppressors of the people, ye come to your reward!" cried many voices. + +"We will give you your last breakfast--of cold, tempered steel!" cried +another, from the bowels of the crowd. + +"To the Wolfsberg--ho! Break in the doors! We will have our Saint Helena +forth of their cursed prisons!" + +It was no sooner said than done. Like a wave the people rushed in a black +irregular mass at the front rank of the guard. The soldiers of the Duke +were swept away like chaff; I could see one here and another there +struggling in the vortices of the angry multitude. + +"On to the Wolfsberg!" cried the crowd. + +But when the first of them reached the castle gates, lo! they stood open, +and there behind them stood file on file of matchlock men with their +matches burning in their hands and their pieces trained upon their rests. + +"Give them the fire!" cried a voice, that of Duke Otho, as the crowd +halted a moment irresolute. + +The bright red flame started out here and there from muzzle and +touchhole, and then ran along the line in an irregular volley. + +A terrible cry of fear went up from the folk. For though they had heard +of the new ordnance, and even seen one or two, they had never realized +the effect of a fusillade. And when a man on either side sank down with a +hollow sound like a beast in shamble-thills, and the man in front fell +over on his face without a sound, the multitude turned, broke into +groups, fled, and disappeared in a moment like a whirl of snow which the +wind canters down the street in a veering flurry. + +Then the gates shut to, and the deep lines of matchlock men were hidden +from view. After this the city thrilled and murmured worse than ever, +humming like an angry hive. But the Wolfsberg kept its counsel. Not yet +had deliverance arrived for the captives within its cells. + +And the dread morning was coming fast. + +At last, wearied out with crowding emotions, I went and cast me down on +my bed, and, instantly falling asleep, I slept like a log till one +touched me on the shoulder. Looking up, I saw the Duke Otho. He had come +to make sure of his vengeance--the vengeance which I knew well was not +his, but that of Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT + + +"Rise, Justicer of the Wolfmark!" said Otho, smiling mockingly upon me +like a fiend. + +I started up and gazed about bewildered as the coming terrors of the +morning broke upon me. + +"'Tis scarcely an hour to sunrise," he continued, "and I warrant the +noble Red Axe will desire to feel the edge of his tool and see that his +assistants are in their places." + +The Duke paused as he went out of the door, and looked at me. + +"I can promise you a distinguished company at the first public +performance of your honorable office," he said, with a polite gesture. + +So soon as he was gone I rose to my feet. Across the broad, black +oaken stool, whereon from boyhood it had been my habit to place my +clothes neatly folded up, I found a suit of new red cloth, plain and +rich, with an inscription upon a strip of vellum laid across the +breast, bearing that these were a gift from the most Illustrious Duke +Otho of the Wolfmark. + +Since, after all, my fate was my fate, there was little use in straining +at the gnat. So I set to and did upon me the garmentry of shame. They +were made after the fashion of my father's, cap and hosen and shoon all +of red, with a cloak of red to cover all. + +Then I went to the Playmate's room, and before the niche where her little +Prie-Dieu had stood, I kneeled me down and said such a prayer as at the +moment I could compass. But little was needed. For I think God in heaven +Himself was praying for us both that day. + +When I went forth into the square, few there were who knew or remembered +me, but all knew my attire. Then indeed it did my heart good to hear the +great unanimous roar of execration which went up from the multitude as I +came out. The soldiers had their work cut out to push a way for me to +the scaffold. + +"Butcher him--tear him to pieces--wolf's cub that he is--he that was her +foster-brother to slay our Saint Helena!" + +It made me proud to hear them. And as they rushed furiously against the +escort, intent to kill me, we swayed from side to side. + +"Down with the Red Axe!" they shouted. "Down with the bloody house of +Gottfried and all that belong to it!" + +And I felt inclined to cry "Amen!" + +Then, when I had mounted the few steps which led to the platform on which +stood the black headsman's block, I gazed about me in wonder, holding the +Red Axe in my hand. And to my disordered vision I saw the crowd swell and +whirl about me on earth and in the air, bubbling and tossing like a pot +boiling furiously. Then I bethought me of the work I had to do, and +prayed that I might be given strength to do it swiftly and featly, that +the suffering of my love might not be long. Also I thought of the +lecherous evil demons of the Black Riders, and thereat was somewhat +comforted. At the worst I could give my love a better end than that. + +Then appeared my Lord Duke Otho. An enclosure had been formed for him by +the palace wall, covered with a red hanging, as though my sweetheart's +death were a gala sight. And when he had come to the front and arranged +his folk, lo! there by his side stood Ysolinde, Princess of +Plassenburg, with her father, Master Gerard. They had a place close by +the Duke, and Otho ofttimes bent over to confer graciously with his +councillor. But Ysolinde looked neither to right nor left, nor yet spoke +to any, keeping her eyes fixed, as it seemed, on the shining blade of +the Red Axe in my hand. + +Then, as these fine folk stood waiting and gloating among the festoons +of their balcony, the devil or God (I know which, but I will not say, +lest I be thought a blasphemer) put an intent into my heart. I walked to +the edge of the scaffold, and I looked at the barrier of the enclosure. +They were of the same height, and the distance between them little more +than six feet. + +I examined them again, and yet more intently. I saw the steely smile +on Duke Otho's face. Already he was tasting the double sweetness of +his revenge. + +"Wait," I said, within my heart, as I also smiled a little, "only wait a +little, Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark. Wait till this bright edge be sullied +with my sweet love's blood. And then--then will I leap upon you, and the +Red Axe shall crash deep into the brain that hatched and fostered this +hellish intent. And by the gentle heart of her who is about to die, so +also will I serve Gerard the lawyer, and Ysolinde, his daughter, for +their treachery against the innocent. Then, amid the flash of steel and +the heady whirl of battle, shall Hugo Gottfried be very content to die!" +It would take more than one stroke to dull that which my father had +sharpened. And I lifted up the Red Axe and felt the edge with my thumb. +It was razor keen. + +But the action was observed, and taken as a proof of callousness. And +then what a yell of hate surged up around me! I could have taken those +burghers of Thorn to my heart. And I thought if only our Karl would come. +Alas! it was a full day too soon; for I felt sure that these burghers +would proclaim him at the gates, and that the house of Otho and Casimir, +the brood of the Wolf, would, like the shadow of the raven as it flits by +in the sunshine, pass away. For by that time there would be no Otho. They +would find him low enough, with an axe cleft in his head. + +So soon as the sun's light tipped the eastern clouds with rose, the Black +Hussars came riding forth. The guards and matchlock men lined the way +from the castle gates. They blew up their matches to be ready. Suddenly +in the midst of the armed throng there appeared a radiant figure coming +down the steps of the castle from the Hall of Judgment. + +At the sight the people threw themselves wildly in that direction. The +dark lines of the guard reeled and wavered. There was the sharp click as +the pikes engaged. The shouts of the captains of the matchlock men were +heard. But the trained bands stood fast, and the rush was stayed. Then +came our Helene down towards me, walking delicately, yet proudly erect as +a young tree. She was clad all in white and wore her hair plaited high +upon her head, so that the shape of her neck was clearly seen. + +And I who stood there with the axe in my hand seemed to have a thousand +years to think all these things, and even to mark the lace upon her +dress. I saw her come nearer and nearer to me. Yet feeling was dead +within me. I seemed to sleep and wake and sleep again. And when at last I +awoke, there came a strange feeling to me. It was my wedding-day, and my +bride was coming to me, lily pure, clad in whiteness. + +Then at the foot of the scaffold there came one forth from the ranks, +a captain of the Duke's guard, and with honor and respect offered +Helene his arm. + +She declined it with a proud smile, and all that were near could hear her +clear voice say, "I thank you, sir, but I need no help. I am strong +enough to walk thus far." + +And she mounted the steps of the scaffold as though they had been those +of the grand staircase at Plassenburg. + +But when she saw me, standing in my habit of red from head to heel, she +seemed a little taken aback. Quickly, however, she came forward and +took me by the hand, looking up at me with the love-light making her +eyes glorious. + +"Hugo," she said, "I am glad you are here--glad that I am to die by no +less loving hand. That will be sweeter than to live with any other. And, +indeed, I deserve so much, for I have not known much joy in my life, save +in the old days when I was your Little Playmate." + +Then there came a stern voice from the enclosure: + +_"Executioner of the Mark, do your duty!"_ + +It was the voice of Master Gerard. + +And then I looked over and saw Gerard von Sturm standing a little in +front, with his daughter's wrist held tightly in his hand as though he +would drag her back. With that a loathing came over me, for I said within +me, "Is the woman so anxious for the blood of the innocent whom she has +hounded to death that she would intrude on the scaffold itself?" + +Then I remembered the duty of the Justicers, ere the sentence was carried +out, to recite the crimes of the condemned. + +So I cried aloud, even as I had heard my father do. + +"The crimes of Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, sole daughter of +Dietrich, lately Prince thereof--guilty of no evil, save that she has +been the savior of this people of Thorn and their deliverer in time of +pestilence!" + +The people hushed themselves with astonishment at my words. And then a +cry went up. + +"The Red Axe speaks true--she is innocent--innocent!" + +But the voice of Gerard von Sturm came again, stern as that of the +recording angel: + +"_Executioner of the Wolfmark, do your duty_!" + +Scarce knowing what I did, I went on with my formal accusation. + +"Helene, Princess of Plassenburg, who is about to die, is also guilty of +loving me, Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, and of none other +crime. For this the Duke has decreed that she should die. It is her own +will that she should die by my hand." + +Helene came forward and put her hand in mine in token that I spoke +truly, and there fell a great silence across the people. I saw the Lady +Ysolinde straining at her father's hand, like a dog in a leash when the +quarry rises. + +Then my love kissed me once, just as though she had been saying +good-night in the Red Tower, simply and sweetly, like a child, and laid +her head down on the block as on the white pillow of her own bed. + +"_God do so and more also to them on whose heads is the innocent blood of +my love and my wife_!" + +The words burst from me rather than were uttered. + +I raised the blade. + +But ere the Red Axe could fall there arose a wild scream from the Duke's +enclosure. Some one cried, "Let me go! He has said it! He has said it! I +will not be silent any longer!" It was the Lady Ysolinde, who had broken +away from her father's hand. + +"The girl is his wife," she went on. "He has claimed her--according to +the laws of the Wolfmark, that cannot be broken, he has called her his +wife. It is the Executioner's right. One woman he can claim as his +during his term of office--one only, and for his wife. Duke Otho, I call +upon you to allow it! Chancellor Texel, I call upon you to read the law! +I have it here in my hand. Head! Read! _I will save my soul! I will save +my soul_!" + +And ere any one could stop her, the Lady Ysolinde, sobbing and laughing +both at once, had overleaped the light barrier, and was thrusting a +parchment with a seal into the hands of the Chancellor Michael Texel. + +"She is mad. Let the justice of the realm be done!" cried again the voice +of Master Gerard. + +And I think the Duke would have ordered it to be so. But there arose not +only a roar from the people, but, what Otho minded far more, an ominous +murmur among the nobles and gentlemen and from the ranks of men-at-arms. + +"The law! The law! Read us the law!" + +And even Otho dare not trifle with the will of the free companions of the +Mark. For in all the realm they were now his only supporters. Helene had +risen to her feet, and stood, pale of face but erect, resting, as was her +wont, one hand on my shoulder. + +Then Michael Texel read the scroll aloud. + +"It is the immemorial privilege of the Hereditary Executioner of the +Mark, being of the family of Gottfried, a privilege not to be abrogated +or alienated, that during the term of office of each, he may claim--not +as a boon, but as a right--the life of one man for a bond-servant, or the +life of one woman for a wife. Thus, by order of the States' Council, to +be the privilege of the Gottfrieds forever, it has been proclaimed!" + +As Michael Texel went on, I saw the countenance of the Duke and the +lawyer change. I knew that salvation had come to us like lightning from a +clear sky, and I hastened to demand the right which was mine own. + +So soon as he had finished I shouted with all my power: + +"I CLAIM HELENE TO BE MY WIFE!" + +Then went up such an acclaim from the people as never had been heard in +the ancient city. Even the gentlemen within the enclosure threw their +hats in the air. The soldiers put their helmets on the points of their +spears, and the captains waved their colors as at a victory. The thunder +of the cheering roused the very rooks and jackdaws from the towers of +Thorn and the bastions of the Wolfsberg till they went drifting in a +black cloud clamorously over the city. + +Then Helene put her arms about my neck, and, upon the scaffold of death, +before all the people, we plighted our troth. + +"The Bishop--the Bishop Peter!" cried the people. + +And, leaping upon an officer's horse, a messenger rode post-haste to the +palace, the crowd making way for him. Duke Otho disappeared through a +private door, for the thing was over-strong even for him. He knew his +weakness too well to war with the immemorial privileges of the Wolfmark. + +Rulers stronger than he had been broken in doing battle against ancient +rights and amenities. Besides, the nobility were afraid of their own +perquisites if one of so ancient a charter as that of the Hereditary +Justicer were refused. + +Then from the palace came the Bishop, with due and decorous attendance of +crosier and solemn procession. And there, amid a turmoil of joy and the +ringing of every bell in the city, we, that had gone out to be together +in death, were joined in the bonds of youth and life. + +But the Lady Ysolinde saw not--heard not. For they had carried her out +white and still from the place where she had fallen fainting at the foot +of the scaffold. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN + + +Al these things had overpast so quickly that when Helene and I found +ourselves alone in the Red Tower it seemed to both of us that we dreamed. + +We sat in a kind of buzzing hush, on the low window-seat of the old room, +hand in hand. The shouts of the people came up to us from the square +beneath. We heard the tramp of the soldiers, who cheered us as they +passed to and fro. Being at last alone, we looked into each other's eyes, +and we could not believe in our own happiness. + +"My wife!" I said, but in another fashion than I had said it on +the scaffold. + +"My husband!" answered Helene, looking up at me. + +But I think, for all that we realized of the truth, we might as well have +called each other King and Queen of Sheba. + +We had been conducted with honor to the Red Tower. For since it was in +virtue of my hereditary office that I had obtained the great +deliverance, I dared for the present seek no other dwelling-place. For +Helene's sake, indeed, I should have felt safer elsewhere. Besides, +desperate and full of baffled hatred as I knew Duke Otho to be, I did +not believe that he would dare to molest us--for some time at least. The +rage of the people, their unbounded jubilation at the deliverance of +their Saint Helena from the jaws of death on the very scaffold, were too +recent to be trifled with by a prince sitting so insecure in his ducal +seat as Otho of the Wolfmark. + +So here in the ancient Red Tower, I thought, we might at least be safe +enough till my good fellows of Plassenburg, with the Prince at their +head, should swarm hammering at the gates of Thorn. + +To us, sitting thus hand in hand, there entered the Bishop Peter. + +"Hail!" he said, blandly, and in his grandest manner, as we knelt for his +benediction; "hail, bride and bridegroom! God has been good to you this +day. Bishop Peter, the least of His servants, greets you very well. May +you have long life and prosperity unfailing." + +I thanked him for his gracious words. + +"The folk of the city are full of joy," he said. "I think they would +almost proclaim you Duke to-day." + +"I desire no such perilous honor," I replied, smiling; "it were indeed an +ill-omen to have a Duke habited all in red." + +"It is your marriage-dress, Hugo," said Helene; "I will not have you +speak against it." + +Ever since the strain of the scaffold she had not once broke down--no, +nor wept--but only desired to sit very close beside me, touching me +sometimes, as if to make sure that I was real. Deliverance had been too +great and sudden, and those things which had come so near to us +both--Death and the Beyond--had left a salt and bitter spray on our lips. + +"And what of the Lady Ysolinde?" I asked of the Bishop. + +Now the Bishop Peter was a good man, but, like many of his brethren, a +lover of great, swelling words. + +"The Lady Ysolinde," he said, oratorically, "by the immediate assistance +of the city guard, was placed in a litter and deported, all unconscious +as she was, to her father's house in the Weiss Thor, where she still +remains. But her most seasonable extract from the laws of the Wolfmark, +which so opportunely saved the life of your fair wife, and led to this +present happy consummation, I have here by me, even in my hand." + +And with that the Bishop drew the rolled parchment from his pocket and +handed it to me, with all the original seals depending from it. Now I +have small gift for the deciphering of such ancient documents, being only +skilled in the common script of the day, and not over-well in that. So +that I had to depend upon the offices of Bishop Peter for the +interpretation. + +"I think," said the Bishop, after he had finished reading it over, "that +this document had best remain in my own possession. It may be safer +under the seal and protection of the Church--even as, to speak truth, +you and your wife would also be. I am a plain man," the Bishop +continued, after a pause, "but remember that there is ever a place of +refuge at the palace--and one which even Duke Otho is not likely to +violate, remembering the experiences of his predecessor, Duke Casimir, +when he crossed his sword against the crosier of this unworthy servant +of Holy Church." + +"I thank you," said I. "I would that it were possible to avail myself of +your all too generous offer. But it will be necessary to abide at least +this one night in the Red Tower." + +"Ah," he said, "why this night?" + +"Great things may happen this night, my Lord Bishop!" said I, and glanced +significantly in the direction of Plassenburg. + +"Ah," said the Bishop again, "so then the power of Holy Church may not be +the only restraint upon Duke Otho by to-morrow at this time!" + +And, calling his attendants, the suave and far-seeing prelate made his +way with gravity and reverend ceremony down the streets of Thorn towards +his palace. + +So, bit by bit, the long day passed away, and I thought it would never +end. For Helene and I sat and waited for that which might happen, with +beating and anxious hearts. Ofttimes I ran to the top of the Red Tower, +and sometimes it seemed that I could see a moving cloud of dust, and +sometimes a flurry of startled cattle afar on the horizon. But till dusk +there came to our aching eyes no better evidence that the lads of +Plassenburg were coming to our rescue and to the deliverance of the +down-trodden city of Thorn. + +The soldiers of the garrison were still encamped in the great square. +There was also a constant swarming and mustering of men upon the ramparts +of the Wolfsberg. Duke Otho had certainly enough men to make a creditable +resistance. True, they were Free Companions, and without other loyalty +than that which they owed to their paymaster. + +And beneath this warlike show lay the city, rebellious and turbulent to +the core, the merchants longing for unhampered rights of trade and +security in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labors, the craftsmen +claiming freedom to work in their guilds without a payment of labor-bond +tithes to the Duke, and especially without the fear of being snatched +away at any moment from their benches and looms to join in his forays and +incursions. + +Towards the gloaming I had come down from the roof of the tower, and was +standing, gloomy, and little like a bridegroom, at the little window +whence I had so often looked down upon the playing children of Thorn. +Suddenly a great hand was reached up from the pavement, a folded paper +was thrust in at the lattice, and I saw the face of the Lubber Fiend +looking up at me from the street below. + +"Come up hither, good Jan," I cried to him. "I will run and open +the gate!" + +But the Lubber Fiend only shook his head till his ears flapped like +burdocks in the wind by the wood edges. + +"Jan will come none within that gate to tell where he has been," he said. +"Jan may be a fool, but he knows better than that." + +"And where have you been?" I asked, eagerly. + +Jan the Lubber Fiend stood on his tiptoes and whispered up to me with his +elbows on the sill. + +"You are sure the Duke is not behind you?" + +"There is none here--except my wife," I said, smiling. And I liked +speaking the word. + +"I have seen the great Prince," said Jan, nodding backward, and smiling +mysteriously, "and he is coming, but not by himself. There are such a +peck of mad fellows out there. There will not be much to eat in Thorn +when they all come in. Better make a good dinner to-day, that is my +advice to you. And I was bid to tell you that when all was ready for +their coming a fire is to be lighted on a high place, and then the Prince +will come to the gates." + +I longed much to hear more of his adventures, but neither love nor money +would induce the thrice cautious Jan to set a foot within the precincts +of the Red Tower. + +"I will light a bonfire when it is dark at the White Gate," he said, as +he retracted himself into the dusk. "I know what will make a rare blaze. +And the Prince cannot come too soon." + +So indeed I thought also, as I looked out and saw the swarms of Duke +Otho's men in the court-yard and about the square, and reflected on our +helplessness here in the Red Tower within the defenced precincts of the +Wolfsberg. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +THE CROWNING OF DUKE OTHO + + +But at long and last the most tardy-footed day comes to an end. And so, +just as fast as on any common day, the sun at last dropped to the edge +of the horizon and slowly sank, leaving a shallowing lake of orange +color behind. + +The red roofs of Thorn grew gray, with purple veins of shadow in the +interstices where the streets ran, or rather burrowed. The nightly hum of +the city began. For, under the cruel rule of the wolves of the castle, +Thorn was ever busiest in the right. Indeed, the cheating of the guard +had become a business well understood of all the citizens, who had a +regular code of signals to warn each other of its approach. + +Lights winked and kindled in the Wolfsberg over against me. I could see +the long array of lighted windows where the Duke would presently be +dining with Michael Texel, High Councillor Gerard von Sturm, and most of +his other intimates. There, beneath, were the stables of the Black +Riders, and before them men were constantly passing and repassing with +buckets and soldier gear. + +I wondered if the Duke had news of the approach of the enemy. + +So soon as I judged it safe I went to the top of the Red Tower and +unfolded the paper which Jan the Lubber Fiend had brought me. It was +without name and address or signature, and read as follows: + +"To-night we shall be all in readiness. When the time is ripe let a fire +be lighted upon some conspicuous tower or high place of the city. Then we +will come." + +Thereafter Helene, being lonely, climbed up and sat down beside me. I +handed her the paper. + +"To-night will be a stormy one in Thorn and the Wolfsberg, little one," +said I. "I fear you and I are not yet out of the wood." + +The Little Playmate read the letter and gave it back to me. I tore it up, +and let the wind carry away the pieces one by one, small, like dust, so +that scarce one letter clave to another. + +Her hand stole into mine. + +"Ah," she sighed, "I am beginning to believe in it now! To-night may be +as dangerous as yesternight. But at least we are together, never to be +separated. And to us two that means all." + +It was a strange marriage night, this of ours--thus to sit on the roof of +the Tower, under the iron beacon which had been placed there in my +grandfather's time, and listen to the hum and murmur of the city, +straining our eyes meanwhile through the darkness to catch the first +spear-glint from the army of the Prince. + +"If they do not come by midnight, or if Jan Lubber Fiend does not light +his fire by the White Gate, we must e'en risk it and kindle this one here +on the Red Tower." + +So the night passed on till it was about eleven, or it might be a quarter +of an hour later. Then all suddenly I saw a little crowd of men disengage +themselves from that private entrance of the Hall of Judgment by which, +on the day of the trial, Dessauer and I had entered. They made straight +towards the Red Tower at a quick run. + +"Dear love," said I to Helene, "see yonder! Be ready to light the +beacon. I fear me much that our time has come to fight for life." + +"Kiss me, then," she said, "and I will be ready for all that may be. At +worst, we can die together, true husband and true wife." + +Presently there came a thundering knock at the door of the Red Tower. I +crouched on the stairs behind and listened intently. I could hear the +breathing of several men. + +"He is surely within," said a voice. "The tower has been watched every +moment of the day." + +Again came the loud knocking. + +"Open--in the name of the Duke!" cried the voice. And the door was +rattled fiercely against its fastenings. + +But I knew well enough that it could hold against any force of unassisted +men. For my father had ever taken a special pride in the bars and +defences of the single low door which led into his much-threatened +residence. + +So I crouched in the dark of the stairs and listened with yet more +quivering intentness. Presently I could hear shoulders set to the +iron-studded surface, and a voice counted, softly, "One--two--three--and +a heave!" But though I discerned the laboring of the men straining +themselves with all their might, they might as well have pushed at the +rough-harled wall of the Wolfsberg. + +"It will not do," I heard one say at last. "We cannot hope to succeed +thus. Bring the powder-bag and prepare the fuse." + +So then I knew indeed that our time was at hand. I mounted the stairs +three at a time till I came to the room where Helene was waiting for me +in the dark. + +"Fire the beacon on the Tower!" I bade her--"our enemies are upon us!" + +"And after that may I come to you, Hugo?" she said. + +"Nay, little one, it is better that you bide on the roof and see that +the beacon burns. You will find plenty of tow and oil in the niche by the +stair-head." + +I could hear Helene give vent to a little sigh. But she obeyed instantly, +and her light feet went pattering up the stairs. + +Then I waited for the explosion, which seemed as if it would never come. +I had my dagger in my belt, but of pure instinct my right hand seized the +Red Axe. For I had more skill of that than any other weapon, and as I had +cast it down when they brought us in from the scaffold that morning, it +lay ready to my hand. + +So I waited at the stair-head, and watched keenly the narrow passage up +which the men must come one by one. I measured my distance with the +axe-handle, and made a trial sweep or two, so that I might be sure of +clearing the stones on either side. I could not see that there would be +much difficulty in holding the place for a while, if only Prince Karl +would haste him and come. For to me the game of breaking heads and +slicing necks would be easy as cracking nuts on an anvil--at least, so +long as they would come up singly. + +Presently I heard the roar of burning fuel above me, and immediately +after a cry from below. Through the narrow stairway lattice I could see +the uncertain flicker of flames lighting up the street. Men ran backward +across the open square, looking up as they ran. So by that I knew that +Helene had done her work, and was now watching the burning beacon, as the +flames flicked upward and clapped their fiery applausive palms. + +But at the same moment, from the foot of the stairs, there came the loud +report of the explosion beneath the door of the Red Tower, the rumble of +stones, and then an eager rush of men to see what had been effected. + +"Now for it!" I thought, as I gripped the Red Axe. + +But it was not to be so soon. The iron bars, which my father had +engineered so that they sank deep into the wall on either side, still +held nobly, and I heard the loud voice crying again for a battering-ram. +The soldiers of the attacking party went scurrying across the yard, and +presently returned, carrying between them a young tree cleared of its +branches, but with the rough bark still upon it. + +Without, in the square, the turmoil increased, and the streets echoed +with shouting. A wild hope came into my heart that Prince Karl had not +awaited the summons of the beacon, and that his troops were already in +the streets of Thorn. But even as the thought passed through my brain I +knew that it was vain. + +On the other hand, it was evident that in the town the general alarm had +been given, for the trumpets blew from the ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and +the call to arms resounded incessantly in the court-yard. I doubted not +also that many a stout burgher was getting him under arms--and but few of +them to fight for the Duke. + +Suddenly the bars of the door jangled on the stones under the swinging +blows of the battering-ram. I heard feet clatter on the stair. They came +with a rush, but long ere they had arrived at the top the pace slackened. +Only one man at a time could come up the stairway, and it is always a +drag upon the enthusiasm of an assault when at least two cannot advance +together. The light flickered and filtered in from the torches in the +streets, and the reflected glow of the bonfire on the roof made the +stair-head clear as a lucid twilight. + +I waited, with the axe swinging loosely in one hand. A head bobbed up, +clad in a steel cap. Bat as the unseen feet propelled it upward the Red +Axe took little reck of the head. Betwixt the steel cap and the rim of +steel of the body armor appeared a gray line of leather jerkin and a +thinner white line of neck. The Red Axe swung. I bethought me that it was +a bad light to cut off calves' heads in. But the Red Axe made no mistake. +I had learned my trade. There was not even a groan--only a dull thud +some way underneath, such as you may hear when the children of the +quarter play football on the streets. + +Then the foremost of the assailants were blocked by the fallen body, and +the feet of the men behind were stayed as the strange round plaything +rebounded among them. + +"Back!" they cried, who were in front. + +"Forward!" replied those who were hindmost and knew nothing. + +"Come, men--on and finish it!" cried the voice which had commanded the +powder-flask and the tree--the voice I now knew to be that of Duke +Otho himself. + +But the kick-ball argument of the Red Axe was mightily discouraging to +those immediately concerned, and as I felt the muscles of my right arm +and waited, I could hear Otho reasoning, threatening, coaxing, all in +vain. Then his tones mounted steadily into hot anger. He reviled his +followers for dogs, cowards, curs who had eaten his bread and now would +not rid him of his enemies. + +"A thousand rix-dollars to the man who kills Hugo Gottfried!" he shouted. +"But, hear ye, save the girl alive!" + +Yet not a man would attempt the first hazard of the stair. + +"Knaves, traitors, curs!" he cried; "would that there were so much as a +single true man among you--but there is not one worth spitting upon!" + +"Cur yourself!" growled a man, somewhere in the dark--"you have most at +stake in this. Try the stair yourself if you are so keen. We will follow +fast enough!" + +"God strike me dead if I do not!" shouted Otho; "if it were only to shame +you cowards." + +He paused to prepare his weapons. + +"Follow me, men!" he shouted again; "all together!" + +Again there was the clatter of iron-shod feet on the stone steps +beneath me. + +My grip on the Red Axe became like iron, but my joints were loose and +swung easily as a flail swings on well-seasoned leathers. + +"Welcome, Otho von Reuss!" I cried; "ye could not be crowned without the +death of Helene my wife! Come up hither and I will crown thee once for +all with the iron crown." + +There, at last, was mine enemy at the turn of the stair, rushing +furiously upon me, sword in hand. + +"Traitor!" he cried, and his sword was almost at my breast, so +fast he came. + +"Murderer!" I shouted. + +And almost ere I was aware the Red Axe flashed as it swept full circle +with scarce a pause, but it took the head of a man with it on its way. + +Otho von Reuss was crowned. Helene, the Little Playmate, was avenged. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + +THE LADY YSOLINDE SAVES HER SOUL + + +The Duke's body sank down upon that of the soldier, still further +blocking the passage. And as for his head, I know not where that went to. +But the rush of his followers was utterly checked by the barrier of dead. +With a wild cry, "The Duke is dead! Duke Otho is slain!" they rushed down +and out of the Red Tower, eager at once to escape unharmed, and to carry +to their companions in the Wolfsberg the startling news. + +Nevertheless, I cleared my arm, wiped my axe, and again stood ready. + +"Come!" I cried--"come all of you. You desire to kill me? Well, I am +still waiting!" + +But not a man answered. The stairway was clear, save of the headless +dead. And then, sudden as summer thunder, through the dumb and empty +silence, I heard clear and loud the clanging of the hammers of Prince +Karl upon the gates of Thorn. + +At that I felt that I must roar aloud in my fierce joy. I shouted angrily +for more and more assailants to come up the stair, that I might kill them +all. I yearned to be first at the gate, to see the men whom I had led +break their way in to deliver the city. I, more than any other, had +brought them there. I had trained them for that work. Best of all, across +the stairway beneath me lay dead Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark, beheaded by +the Red Axe of his own Justicer. + +"Husband! Hugo! Are you wounded?" said a voice behind me, a voice +which in a moment recalled me from my bloody imaginings and baresark +fury of fighting. + +"Helene!" I cried. + +She approached, and would have thrown her arms about me. But I held out +my hand to keep her off. + +"Not now, child," I said; "touch me not. I am unwounded, but wet!" + +And so I was, wet with that which had spouted from the neck of Otho von +Reuss, as his trunk stood a moment headless in the stairway ere it fell +prone--a hideous thing to see. + +"Come, Helene," I said, "we must away. There is other work for your +husband to-night. You I will place with the Bishop Peter. But my place is +with the men of Plassenburg and with Karl, my noble Prince." + +And I took her by the hand to lead her out. + +"Not that way!" she cried, shrinking back. + +For the bodies of the two slain men lay there. And the stairs ran red +from step to step in red drips and lappering pools. + +So I bethought me of what we should do, and ran forthwith for my father's +cord, with which he was used to bind the malefactors upon the wheel. + +"Come, Helene," said I, and straightway fastened the rope to the iron bar +from which I had made so many descents to the pavement in the old days of +the White Wolves. + +I let myself down, and there in the angle of the tower wall, I waited to +catch my wife. She delayed somewhat, and I could not think wherefore. + +But at last she came, bringing the Red Axe in her hand. + +"Go not weaponless!" she said, and I reached up and took from her hand +that which had already served me so well. The Red Axe had done its work +now, and she was grateful. + +Then full lightly she descended to my side, and we went down the streets +of Thorn, which were filled with hurrying burgesses, all with weapons in +their hands, rushing to discover the cause of the clamor. I took Helene +hastily to the palace of the Bishop. And when I arrived there I saw Peter +himself with his head out of a window. + +"I come to claim your protection for my wife!" I cried. + +He came down immediately with an attendant. + +"Fear not," I said, "you will never be called in question for this kindly +deed. The Duke Otho is slain, and the army of Prince Karl of Plassenburg +is already at the gates." + +"The Duke is dead!" he gasped. "Who slew him?" + +"Who but the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark should slay a traitor?" +said I, smiling at his astonishment. And I held up the Red Axe, on which +there was now no crystal-clear rim of shining steel. All was crimson from +haft to edge--red as blood. + +"Here, for an hour, Helene, little wife, I must leave you!" I said. +But now she sobbed and clung to me as she had not done before, even in +the dungeon. + +"Stay with me," she said. "I need you, Hugo!" + +I took her by the hand. + +"Little one," I whispered, as tenderly as I could, "I would not be +worthily your husband if I went not to meet those who are fighting to +save us all this night. They have come from far to deliver us. I were +false and recreant if I went not to their assistance." + +"I know--I know," she said. "Go!" + +And with that she gave a hand to the good Bishop and went quietly within, +with no more than a smile over her shoulder, like a watery April +sun-glint. + +Then I betook me with all speed to the Weiss Thor, where I judged the +chief struggle would take place. And as I came I heard the rattle of +shot and the jarring thunder of the forehammers. The soldiers without +shouted, and the men within more feebly replied. + +I came in sight of the gate. There on my left hand was the house of +Master Gerard von Sturm. + +A fire was still flickering upon the tower of it. + +Without I could hear the cheering and clamoring of the besiegers. But the +gates remained obstinately shut. They were stronger than the Prince had +anticipated. + +As _I_ stood, uncertain what to do, I saw a slim white figure, the figure +of a woman, flash across the open space towards the gate. The men who +defended the gate towers were all upon the top of the wall. Before any +could stop her she had thrown herself upon the wheel by which the bars +were unfastened, and with a few turns had drawn them as deftly as evil +Duke Casimir had been wont to remove the teeth of the rich Hebrew folk +when he wanted supplies. + +The White Gate slowly opened upon creaking hinges. The faces of the +soldiers of Plassenburg were seen without, the weapons gleamed in their +hands as they came on shouting fiercely. The guards of the Duke rushed +forward to close the gate. But the woman had clamped the wheel and stood +holding the bar. + +It was the Lady Ysolinde. She saw me as the soldiers of Duke Otho closed +threateningly upon her. She waved her hand to me almost happily. + +"_I have saved my soul, Hugo Gottfried_!" she cried. "_I have saved +my soul_!" + +At that moment a soldier of the Black Riders struck her fiercely with his +lance. I saw the white bosom of her dress redden as he plucked his weapon +to him again. I was in time to catch her in my arms as the soldiers of +Plassenburg, with Prince Karl at their head, came through the White Gate +like a spring-tide, carrying all before them. + +The Prince stayed at his wife's side. + +"Ysolinde!" cried the Prince, aghast, bending over her--not heeding, nor +indeed, as I think, even seeing me. + +"Karl!" she said, looking gently at him, "try and forgive me all the +rest. But be glad that I opened the White Gate for yon. I, Ysolinde, your +wife, did it for your sake." + +I put her into her husband's arms. I saw at a glance that there was no +hope. She could not live many moments with that lance-thrust through +her breast. + +She looked at him again. + +"Karl--say 'Ysolinde, I love you!'" she whispered, almost shyly. + +He looked down, and a rush of unwonted tears came to the eyes of the +Prince of Plassenburg. + +"Ysolinde, I love you!" he made answer, in a broken voice. + +She smiled, and then looked over his shoulder up at me. + +_"Hugo Gottfried, have I not saved my soul?"_ she cried. + +And so passed. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG + + +There was, however, deadly work yet before the men of Plassenburg. We +found, indeed, that the townsfolk were with us almost to a man. Their +guild train-bands gathered and mustered at their halls. The guards at the +city gates fraternally turned their arms to the ground. + +"The Prince will restore your ancient liberties!" I cried. And the people +shouted. "Prince Karl of Plassenburg and our ancient liberties!" + +Then we made our way up the street by different routes to the Wolfsberg. +There was little fighting till we arrived under those vast and gloomy +walls. The Black Riders had disappeared within. Those worst tools of grim +tyranny had early withdrawn themselves, knowing that small mercy would be +shown them by the people if once the Wolfsberg were taken. But the common +soldiers of the fighting rank, sons and brothers of the women of Thorn, +tore off the badge of the bloody Dukes and with loud shouts marched with +us as comrades. + +But when we came before the walls, and with sound of trumpet and loud +shouts summoned the Wolfsberg to surrender, a discharge of musketry from +the walls, and the determined faces of a multitude of defenders showed us +conclusively that all was not yet over. + +It was no use wasting men in attacking the great pile of buildings +with the force at our disposal. We had men in plenty, but for +breeching we needed the cannon left behind by these swift forces, +which, marching day and night, had arrived in the very nick of time +before the walls of Thorn. + +Nevertheless, it was not the fate of the Wolfsberg to be taken by Lazy +Peg and her compeers. + +These ponderous pieces of ordnance were presently being dragged through +the swamps and over the brick-dust barrens of the borderlands, and it +might be three or four days before they could arrive to aid us. There was +nothing, therefore, to do but to sit down and wait, drawing a cincture +that not a mouse could creep through about the cliffs of the Wolfsberg. + +But deep within the heart of the old Red Tower there was one stronger +than Lazy Peg fighting for us. + +"Fire! Fire!" cried the people in the streets. "The Wolfsberg is on +fire!" And so, surely, it was. The flames burst out from the windows +of the Red Tower and were rapidly carried by a dry fanning northerly +wind along the wooden workshops and kennels to the main building, +where the Hall of Judgment was soon blazing like a torch. The +defenders seemed paralyzed by this misadventure. Some ran to the +castle well. Some threw themselves desperately from the walls, others +crowded to the gates, and through the bars besought our Prince's +pledge that mercy would be shown them. + +Then the crowd without were ill to deal with, for they cried aloud, "No +mercy to the murderers! Show us our Saint Helena!" + +Then it was that I leaped once more upon the scaffold, which had seen +such a sight the day before, and cried, "Duke Otho is dead! I, Hugo +Gottfried, slew him with this Red Axe. Prince Karl is come to save you, +and to give you back your ancient liberties. Your Saint Helena is my +wife, and is safe under the protection of Bishop Peter." + +But though they cheered at my words they would not cease from crying, +"Show us Saint Helena, and if she bid us we will have mercy on the wolves +of the Wolfsberg!" + +So it was necessary for Helene to be brought and to show herself to them, +for the sake of the poor souls sore driven and in jeopardy 'twixt the +fire and the knives. + +"Have mercy on the poor folk!" she cried, when they had done shouting +because of her safety. "At worst, they are but misguided, ignorant men!" + +By this time the doors of the Wolfsberg were thrown open from within, and +the men crowded out, casting down their arms in heaps on either side the +gate. They were then marched, under charge of the soldiers of +Plassenburg, to various strongholds which were pointed out by the +Burgomeister and the chiefs of the guilds. The fortified halls of the +trades were filled with them. By daybreak the whole of Thorn was in our +hands, while the gray barrens of the Wolfmark were lit for leagues by the +flaming Wolfsberg, which, on its craggy height, vomited fire and sparks +into the blackness of night. + +And the reek of this great burning hung for days after in the heavens. +Thus was an end made to the iniquities of the house of the Black Duke +Casimir and the Red Duke Otho. And the last Duke mixed his ashes with +that of the fatal Tower. For on the morrow there remained only the +blackened walls and glowing skeleton beams of all that mighty +palace--which, indeed, has never been rebuilt. For the people of Thorn, +under the mild and equitable rule which followed, erected a great +memorial church upon the spot--as may be seen to this day, a landmark +from far to witness if I have lied in the tale which has been told. + +So the Prince Karl gave back to Thorn its liberties, as he had promised. +But the regality of the Dukedom he kept for himself, and he took the +Wolfmark and made it part of his dominions, till, as he had formerly +undertaken, the broom-bush kept the cow throughout the length and breadth +of Plassenburg and the Mark. + +It was a noble home-coming when we returned to Plassenburg--victorious +and famous; but also there was mourning deep and solemn for the Princess +Ysolinde, who by her sacrifice had wrought such great things for the arms +of Plassenburg, and had died in the moment of victory. + +Then, when after the stately funeral of the dead Princess we returned +back to the palace, it was the Prince's pleasure that Helene and myself +should ride on either hand of him through the city. + +And when we were announced in the court, and the councillors of state +stood about, my wife was named by her true name, "Helena, Princess of +Plassenburg!" + +Whereat the courtiers opened their mouths and widened their +eyes--thinking, perhaps, that that ancient wizard, Chancellor Leopold von +Dessauer had suddenly gone mad. + +But when the representatives of the cities of the Princedom, and the +delegates from Thorn and the Mark, had been received with due honor, the +Prince bade his Chancellor recount all he had learned from my father, and +all that he had discovered in the archives of Plassenburg. + +Then, when Dessauer had finished, Karl the Prince arose. + +"I am," he said, "a plain, brusque man. And speech was never my +stronghold. But this I say. When Karl the Miller's Son goes the way of +King's son and beggar's son, it is his will that Helene, legitimate +Princess of Plassenburg, shall reign over you. And also that her husband, +Hugo, who, as you know, won her from dreadful death, shall stand by her +right hand." + +Then the nobles and great lords, fearing the Prince, and perhaps also +envying a little the man who was the Prince's general of his armies, +shouted amain: + +"We swear to obey the Princess Helena!" + +Whereat uprose the Little Playmate, very princess-like and full of sweet +regal dignity. + +"I thank you, noble Prince," she said. "I am glad that I can claim so +honorable a name and lineage; but I had rather be no Princess, nor +anything else than that which my husband hath made me--the wife of the +captain-general of the armies of Karl, the only true and noble Prince of +Plassenburg!" + +Then the Prince rose and clasped her in his arms, kissing her fondly on +both cheeks. + +"Fear not," he said, "dear and loyal lady. If you live to be the +Princess, your goodman shall be the Prince. Never shall the gray mare +flaunt it first, in Plassenburg!" + +And he gave us each a hand, and conducted us to a pair of seats which had +been set level with his on the platform of the Council-chamber of the +Princedom. + +The Prince Karl lived many days after the winning of the Wolfmark and the +ending of the ducal Wolves. But he gave less and less care to the +regalities, leaving them even more completely to me, sitting mostly in +the pleasaunce by the river-side, or in the far-regarding room which had +been the Lady Ysolinde's. + +Also he never looked again on the face of a woman--except as it might +be to bid them good-day--save on that of my wife, Helene, who, as you +who know her may guess, waxed but the sweeter and the fairer as the +years went by. + +And the blessing of children came to us, and in this thing the Prince +Karl was even happier than we. + +One day, however, it chanced that he was seated in full Council, and +right noble he looked. I had just handed him a paper to sign. But he +looked neither at me nor yet at the paper. His eyes were fixed on the +locked doors of the privy bedchamber, through which only those of +princely blood might come. + +He stared so long at it that to recall him I put my hand on his sleeve +and said, "Prince, the Council waits your pleasure!" + +Bat he heard me not, his eyes being fixed on the door. + +"Your pardon, my lords and knights," he said, at last, fighting a little +stiffly with his utterance, "but it seemed that I saw the Princess, my +wife, come through the door, clad in white, and beckon me with her hand. +I must go to her, my lords; I think she waits for me. The Prince Hugo +will take my place at the Council." + +And the old man took a step from the high seat. But at the foot of the +throne he stumbled and fell into my arms. + +He said but one word after that, with his eyes still fixed on the +bolted door. + +"_Ysolinde_!" + +And so the Prince Karl and his wife were united at last. + +Since then we have lived long, the Little Playmate and I; but never have +we been other than comrades and friends--lovers also, which is the best +of all. And so (an the good God please) we shall abide till the end +comes. And in the gloaming we two also shall see the beckoning finger +from beyond the bolted door and turn our feet homeward, passing the +bourne of the new life hand in hand--and undismayed. + + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Red Axe, by Samuel Rutherford Crockett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED AXE *** + +***** This file should be named 12191.txt or 12191.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/9/12191/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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