Thenext few days passed at Halberstadt in transforming the mass of fugitives into the semblance of an army. Cavalry and infantry were re-mustered under their regimental standards, where a nucleus existed in the shape of an old regiment. Where there was none, a new one was formed. All found an entry on some roster. The defences of the city were improved in all possible ways and provisions were got in. The little general busied himself in sending messages to all the imperial garrisons within reach to concentrate at a spot named, by the river Weser, and it was from this source that he expected to collect another army rather than from any fresh enlistments. Tilly with a bite and a sup would gladly have passed on. He fretted under the inaction which his numerous wounds made absolutely necessary: the more so that as yet he had no certain knowledge of the trend of the plans of his great adversary. Sometimes he talked as though he had done with war. These were the days when his wounds did not look like healing. Nigel knew the old war-dog well enough to ask, "Who shall succeed?" That stiffened the Count von Tzerclaës quickly enough.He was one of those men who do not breed successors.
But by the first days of October it was announced and confirmed that Gustavus had turned to march westward, and that the Elector of Saxony was to march upon Prague. Tilly's plans soon took a definite shape. He, too, would march westward, but along the plains of Lower Saxony into Brunswick, then towards the Rhine, gathering garrisons as he went, till he could turn and meet Gustavus with a force sufficient to annihilate him.
Nigel's rough-riders became the nucleus of a regiment, which was given to Hildebrand von Hohendorf, and he himself was again chosen by Tilly for a confidential journey to the Emperor. This time nothing was committed to writing save the commendations General Tilly thought fit to make of Nigel's conduct in the battle and during the retreat. Tilly's plans for the future conduct of the campaign, and such requests as he had to make, were carefully committed to Nigel's memory. A small escort was given him, for the task of getting from Halberstadt to Vienna without falling into the arms of Gustavus's rearguard, or some of the widely-spread Saxon contingents moving, as doubtless many of them would be doing, eastward, was one requiring great vigilance, skill, and, above all, speed, and numbers would have availed less than nothing. His plan was to make his way as straightly as possible to the nearest point of the Bavarian border, and once across that, the roads to Vienna were for the present likely to be free from Swede and Saxon alike.
The only document he carried, in addition to Count Tilly's letter to the Emperor, was the extraordinary letter from Wallenstein taken from the dead Count von Teschen. This the Archduchess Stephanie had returned to him privately, with these few words inscribed upon the inside of the paper that enveloped them—
"The ardour of a great loyalty createth a cloud of smoke, seen through which other men's actions may be distorted out of the natural semblance of beauty. So doth the ardour of a great love."
"The ardour of a great loyalty createth a cloud of smoke, seen through which other men's actions may be distorted out of the natural semblance of beauty. So doth the ardour of a great love."
Pondering over this, Nigel set out.
As to the Archduchess Stephanie, no sooner was Nigel set out than she began to feel a great restlessness, which manifested itself in very desultory marches, to the wearying of her ladies, up and down in the palace, with occasional forays out into the city and along the ramparts, in the course of which she pursued the officers of high rank with puzzling questions as to the possible course of the war.
"But it is impossible, your Highness, to give a guess!" said a grave and stout general officer. "When we know what force we have to dispose of——"
"Yes! Yes!" said the impatient princess. "But still, what do you think?"
"No one can say, your Highness!"
Her Highness left him to growl at his fellow-officers at the extraordinary habit of woman, even lovely woman, even a Habsburger, to ask questions which did not admit of an answer, and in any case did not concern her. Then she attacked the next she met with similar results.
She even dared to beard the old general in his quarters, beginning with sympathetic inquiries after his wounds. The old general, taciturn and not over gracious by force of habit, unbent a little to the Emperor's daughter.
"Give me time, your Highness, and I shall beat the Swede."
"How?"
"Look you, your Highness! The farther the Swede marches from the Baltic the longer must be his chain of garrisons in his rear, for if he once sustain a great defeathe must retreat. By the time he reaches the Rhine his army of Swedes must be greatly diminished, and his force consist largely of German Protestants, recruited as he goes."
"And do not Protestants fight as well as Catholics?"
"When they are trained and disciplined!"
"And where willyouget trained soldiers?"
"From the Imperial garrisons! Then there are the Spaniards in the Rhenish Palatinate, the best infantry in the world."
"And if Richelieu launches the French soldiers at them?"
"It would be the devil!" Count Tilly became very thoughtful. "It is not to be expected that a Catholic power would give aid to the Swedes. Was it not Richelieu who turned the scales against Wallenstein at Ratisbon?"
"But," objected the princess, "what did that prove? Did it not result in the dispersal of Wallenstein's army, and the weakening of the Catholic power, of the Imperial power?"
"I am not politician, your Highness! I hate cardinals and politicians equally. I am a soldier. If I have a moderate measure of fortune, and Pappenheim does not make any more blunders, it is odds but we beat the Swede, Richelieu or no Richelieu."
The Archduchess showed by her manner that she thought otherwise.
"There is Saxony! There is Brandenburg! There is Weimar!"
"Confound them all!" growled Count Tilly, who had done nothing else but look at the astonishing problem he proposed to face, and he at present tied by the leg with a mere eight or ten battalions under his banner. "And," this was an after-thought born of sheer impatience,"your Highness, there is a lady who calls herself Ottilie von Thüringen, who takes a great interest in the Lutheran cause."
"Indeed!" said the Archduchess.
"She was taken prisoner at Magdeburg and sent under escort of Colonel Charteris to Erfurt! I saw her and had some words with her."
"Yes?" said the Archduchess.
"She bore a singular likeness to your Highness! I was wondering if you had any relative of that name!"
"I have never heard of one!" said the Archduchess.
"A mere coincidence, doubtless!" said the general.
"By the way, Count, I am thinking of leaving Halberstadt."
"Leaving Halberstadt! Does your Highness propose to ride with me to raise an army?"
"I might be of less use elsewhere!" she said, smiling, to tease the old general, whose dislike of petticoats was well known.
"Where is elsewhere?"
"Vienna!"
"And how do you propose to get there?"
"You can lend me an escort?"
"Impossible! You would want six battalions to fight off the rearguard of Gustavus, or the left wing of the Saxons."
"But you have just let Colonel Charteris go with a mere handful!"
"He will ride the faster! Colonel Charteris is a soldier, and the very devil for getting into trouble and out of it."
"But the Emperor's daughter?"
"Your Highness, were you the daughter of twenty emperors it would still be impossible."
"You think that I should not arrive at Vienna in safety!"
"Except as a prisoner. But your Highness came hither of your own choice."
"Assuredly! I intend to leave it of my own choice too."
Count Tilly tugged at his long moustaches in despair. "Princess!" And in addition to all his other cares! There was really only one princess, but she appeared to him by reason of her self-will to be at least half a dozen. She still stood there gazing at him out of those wonderful dancing black eyes. ("Confound her eyes," Tilly said to himself.)
"Perhaps Gustavus or John George might give me a safe-conduct if I required it."
"There are more unlikely things, your Highness! Particularly if your Highness made your request in person!"
"They could not be more obdurate than Count Tilly!"
"At the present time, your Highness, they are in better posture to afford courtesies than I am to spare men."
Her Highness pouted and went in search of her uncle, the Bishop. She thought to win him over before Count Tilly had seen him.
But her uncle Leopold, now that it seemed as if the tide of war was to sweep away from Halberstadt, was not willing to part with his niece. Even a Bishop of the Holy Roman Church, vowed to celibacy as he was, was not indifferent to ties of familial affection, and Stephanie's beauty and youth and intelligence were all living and pleasant things, not to be lightly set aside.
"You are as safe here, Stephanie, as in Vienna!".
"But I am not afraid! I would rather be where my father is!"
"But you came here to avoid marrying Maximilian or going into a nunnery, which was it?"
"Both, uncle. But Maximilian will be too busy for marrying for a long time to come. He has to find an army and beat Gustavus."
"In the next place, you can't get to Vienna!"
"Hardly without an escort! But you could persuade Count Tilly to give me a hundred men and two officers."
"It seems to me that Count Tilly would as soon go himself as part with half a company."
"He does not seem very willing, but I am relying on your persuasion, uncle."
"It is evident, Stephanie, that you cannot go at once. In a week or two more men may have come in. In a week or two the roads may be clear of the enemy. Promise me, dear niece, that you will defer the matter for ten days. You cannot grudge your old uncle ten days of your pleasant company!" The Bishop looked affectionately at her.
"For ten days longer, then, my uncle! Then escort or no escort, I must go."
"I will see what can be done!" said the Bishop.
The restlessness of the Archduchess was by no means allayed. For in her mind events were singing "Wallenstein." Now or never, surely, did the portents point to Wallenstein. Where was the Emperor going to lay his hands on a weapon to defend himself even against Saxony? The Saxons were about to pour down into Bohemia. And after that Vienna lay defenceless.
As to Wallenstein's letter to Gustavus, so far from regarding it as evidence of treachery or of ingratitude, at the least she saw in it only design, design to lure Gustavus on to his own destruction by making him think that the greatest army-leader in all German lands was willing to serve him.
The Archduchess told herself that the desire to see Wallenstein, to know his plans, to further them, wasat the root of her eagerness to depart. At Vienna she felt sure that in this crisis she would be strong enough to fight Father Lamormain on his own territory, and bring about the recall of the hero of her political dreams.
The Archduchess repeated it to herself with an unnecessary insistence that bespoke questions arising within. When a woman acts from a single strong motive, the motive becomes less something perceived in the mind than felt in the heart, something that makes no room for gainsaying.
Whereas there was Nigel, this Scots colonel, this soldier without a fortune, who was so full of this thing, this vaporous thing, loyalty. Colonel Charteris had not been brought up at court, still less any court in Europe. He had not acquired the ethics of the petty warfare that went on within every court, nor the still more elastic code of right and wrong as applied to the rivalries between court and court, nor a sympathy for the uncloaked knavery that dictated the moves in the game of treaties and alliances and attacks, provoked or unprovoked, that went on between the powers of France, of the United Provinces, of Spain, of Italy. To her all these things had been familiar. This soldier from the north country had seemed astounded that Wallenstein could act as he to all appearances had done. He had shown indignation, which not even her own royal presence had quelled. What a fiery soul beneath how noble a surface of manhood! She pictured him again and again with something of admiration, and admiration led her on, Archduchess as she was, to ask which was the more commendable, the spirit of loyalty which was Nigel's, or the spirit of entirely personal ambition which she herself was fanning in Wallenstein. This question she answered by a subterfuge that loyalty was commendable in Nigel, the more so that nothingengaged him to it but his precious pay, but that personal ambition was the crown and essence of Wallenstein, and in him entirely laudable.
As to her ability to reach Vienna, the Archduchess had no doubt. Whether she had an escort of six, or sixty, or six thousand, her daring and resolute mind would convey her body there in safety. Of that she was confident. A supremely beautiful woman, of high rank, possessed of money and of such resources of speech and intelligence as hers, would in the end defeat the Saxon, Swede, or Brandenburger who should endeavour to stay her path. The real danger of the journey lay more in ignorant soldiery or lawless freebooters than in generals or politicians. For this and this only she would continue to press for an escort.
FatherLamormain had sent for Nigel. This in itself was a relief from the daily dispiriting round. Nothing could have been duller than the court of Vienna six weeks or more after Breitenfeld. The news which, despite a disunited Germany in arms, came with frequency to Father Lamormain through his far-reaching Jesuit agencies as well as by the military messengers, was to the effect that Gustavus was besieging Würzburg, and that the Elector of Saxony, John George, having recovered Leipzig, was now clearing his province of Lusatia of the Imperial troops, sent there under Rudolf von Tiefbach, before he set out to the conquest of Bohemia.
Nigel himself was fretting. For by this time Tilly had gathered an army and had reached the Rhine. Nigel would fain have been with him. He found employment in Vienna helping to enrol and drill the troops that were being enlisted with a view to resisting the threatened invasion of Bohemia by the Saxon Elector, but men came in slowly. And over every one and every action brooded a spirit of depression. The outlook since the crushing defeat of Breitenfeld was not a pleasant one. There was a vague belief that Tilly on the Rhine, Pappenheim, who had managed to reach Westphalia and raise men there, the Spaniards in Lorraine and the Rhenish Palatinate, and Maximilian in Bavaria, would in some way or other be too much for Gustavus. But there was no good news.
"How goes the recruiting, colonel?"
"Slowly! There is no spring in it, Father!"
"Ah! How many men do you think we shall have to meet John George?"
"That depends on Bohemia!"
"And Bohemia means?"
"Wallenstein!"
"I notice," said Father Lamormain, "that you do not pronounce the name in the same tone of admiration you once used to?"
"It is, I suppose, Father, that my eyes have been opened since I first came to Vienna!"
"You have sent many faithful reports of his unfaith, of his encouragement of Protestant princes, even of his offers to serve Gustavus! And you think that if your belief is true, he is unworthy!"
"I should say vile!" Nigel broke in.
"Yet upon him rests the possibility of resistance in Bohemia?"
"He lives in state in Prague, so they say, with a court and a multitude of retainers. His name is still something to draw men!"
"And what do you say if I tell you that the Grand Turk meditates an invasion of Hungary?"
"You must make your peace with Saxony!"
"The Emperor has sent orders to Rudolf von Tiefbach to withdraw from Lusatia."
"Saxony will look upon that as a sign of weakness rather than amity, and will invade us the quicker."
"So I think!" said the Father with a sigh. "But the Emperor would have it so."
"When you spoke of Wallenstein as you did just now,"he went on, "you showed that you did not understand Wallenstein's point of view." The Jesuit spoke in a contemplative, persuasive way.
"I cannot understand disloyalty!" Nigel interposed.
"But is it? This man was a Bohemian at a time when Bohemia was not even an appanage of the House of Austria. He offered to raise an army to assist the Catholic cause. He was successful. Wallenstein became great in name, in riches, with a great army marching to his orders, began to regard himself as one of the princes of Europe, one of the greatest. The Catholic League dismissed him. This was a great shock to his pride, but not to his riches or to his name. He still considered himself a prince, owning no hereditary allegiance to the Habsburgs, none, in fact, to any man, free to offer his services, his alliance, where he would. His plan has been to fan the wind of Protestantism, not because he loves it, but in order that he might raise the whirlwind of a gigantic war!"
"Yes?" Nigel was eagerly attentive.
"Then Gustavus came. Hesse, Saxony, all assisted in the incantation! Tilly failed, Pappenheim failed! It is incredible how they failed."
Nigel said merely—
"Tilly failed because he departed from his original plan, and Pappenheim was out-fought. One mistake in a big battle is too many!"
"There is yet much that may happen. But we have still Saxony to deal with, and now the Grand Turk."
"It is possible that the Emperor might need Wallenstein again."
The Jesuit paused here and looked in a quizzical way at Nigel.
Nigel flushed. He could not understand FatherLamormain talking in this way, as if he was the defender of Wallenstein against obloquy, when a few months before the same Father Lamormain, in company with Maximilian, was resolutely opposed to Wallenstein, even against the Emperor's inclination.
"It is difficult to believe that the Emperor would not rather die on the battlefield at the head of a faithful few than submit to such a course!"
"I believe," said the Jesuit, "that you would ride in the last charge by his side, as the old paladins did at Roncesvaux." His eyes roved over Nigel approvingly. He recognised the goodness of the metal from which with his own hammer he was striking the sparks. He was older, and his enthusiasm and his resolution were deeper down, not less there than Nigel's.
"But the war is of more importance than the Emperor, or than Wallenstein!"
Nigel looked puzzled.
"I came into the world not to bring peace but a sword," said the Father, crossing himself.
"You mean?" asked Nigel.
"The war that the Church has waged through all ages and will always wage! It is not by heroic deaths of Emperors, but by the steady perennial application of means to ends that she wins her way. It is more to her ultimate purpose and advantage to maintain the Habsburgs on the throne, to preserve their pomp and power, than to let them court certain destruction in order to add one more glittering legend to the roll of military saints!"
"I begin to see something of your meaning!" said Nigel. "Then Wallenstein is only an instrument that Holy Church intends to use?"
"Precisely!" said Father Lamormain, bringing his lipstogether firmly, as if he could have added something further and had swiftly decided against it.
"And with what lure will you attract him?" asked Nigel.
"That we have yet to discover! He may decline altogether."
"No, Father. The man that has once commanded armies, not being a king, can never willingly lay down his baton to become a grazier of oxen, unless he be too old to march even in a litter."
"I am a man of peace, you know!" said the Jesuit.
"But you will never lay down your baton till you die!" said Nigel with understanding. Beneath the suavity werefinesseand a high intelligence, but below all was the measureless strength of purpose and zeal for the cause that was of the essence of his life. Nigel saw this as in a glass darkly. That to this quiet Jesuit men and women and their personal emotions, their loves, their ambitions, their humiliations, were as nothing but tools to be used, or pipes to be played upon, Nigel did not as yet even suspect—or perchance, had he suspected, might have craved leave to follow Tilly, where hard knocks were plentiful and blood ran freely, to take part in a visible strife and with open foes, men of like manner to himself.
"If you meanthis!" said the Father gravely, lifting his crucifix from his breast to his lips. "No! Nor then! He will find work for my soul! But now," he went on in a changed voice, "I sent for you to send you on an errand. You are to be the tempter of Wallenstein."
"Surely you can choose a legate of more credit and authority than me!"
"Possibly, but not one more likely to elicit Wallenstein's candour."
"And how will he receive an ambassador of my humble station? Will he not rather deem it anotheraffront, and throw his weight wholly into the opposite scale?"
"As to rank, the Emperor is pleased with your behaviour as a regimental commander, and your courage and conduct in the battle and the retreat from Breitenfeld. Your patent as major-general is being made out. Wallenstein may appear cold. He may appear haughty, but you will let him understand that you are but the forerunner. You will explain that the Emperor is desirous of knowing first, whether His Grace the Duke of Friedland would be willing, should the occasion arise, to raise another army to oppose first Saxony, then Gustavus, on the part of the Empire, and in the second place, what conditions His Grace would expect to be fulfilled, and what powers must be included in his patent. Once the general extent of his demands are known a negotiation may be set on foot through channels which will safeguard his dignity."
The interview proceeded at some length, Father Lamormain laying down with great precision the details of the points on which Nigel was to touch.
"You will go to Prague ostensibly in command of reinforcements for the garrison, and to report to the Emperor the state of the defences of that city. In the ordinary course you will naturally beg the favour of being received by the Duke, and so gain his private ear."
"Having learned all you can, you will return with all speed, for events are moving quickly."
"I can but do my best," Nigel said in conclusion, "and that best may be poor. Meantime I crave the Emperor's patience, and the opportunity afterwards to gain his further favour in some military employment, for to tell the truth, Father, this embassy work is not suited to my bent. Though I can but thank the Emperor veryheartily for the honour he does me in reposing so much of his confidence in me."
So the interview ended as it had begun with a benediction, and the next day saw Nigel and a considerable body of troops, with a full complement of officers, set out for Prague.
Thebest inn at Znaim was a solidly built and roomy and uncomfortable place. Znaim is on the road from Vienna to Prague, and is actually in the Mark of Mähren, neither in Austria nor Bohemia. Whether that was a reason why His Grace the Duke of Friedland should have affrighted, as much as overjoyed, the host of the Golden Fleece by his presence it is not possible to say, but he was there with an attendance of two gentlemen and six men-servants, not counting horse-boys. As he told no one why he was going to Znaim, or whether he was passing beyond Znaim, no one could satisfy the curiosity of the host, who having been warned by courier, had caused a large upper room to be swept, laid down a rug or two bought from a Hungarian trader, who had bought them from a Turk, and set a fire of logs roaring in the chimney by way of banishing the November damp.
The great man had arrived at midday, dined with his gentlemen, who had afterwards set off on some journey to the southward. Left alone, his men-servants dismissed for the time being, the Duke amused himself by making plans and calculations on sheets of paper, also by walking to and fro, and peering out of the misty casement. Theinnkeeper took it into his head that the Duke was expecting some one.
And in the late afternoon, just as the Duke had called for candles, the door opened and the man-servant announced "the Countess Ottilie von Thüringen."
From a hood of deep blue velvet edged with sable, a slight colour in her cheeks from the wind, the mysterious eyes looked out expectant and almost timid, if timidity had not been almost a stranger to the woman to whom they belonged.
The grave cold face of Wallenstein relaxed into a smile of welcome. He bowed and kissed her hand.
"So you are on your way, Countess Ottilie! 'Tis a long while since we met."
"Six months! Albrecht! Six months of inglorious rust!" There was an undertone of reproach, very faint, perhaps scarcely meant. She was a woman.
The brow of Wallenstein resumed its furrows.
"You at least have not rusted," he said. "Quicksilver could rust as soon. You have been busy, my confederate. But indeed I have not been exactly idle. And we may say truthfully that our efforts have succeeded."
"In so far that Protestant Germany is aroused from end to end by the torch of Gustavus, and that the Catholic League was never so downcast as now."
"You say rightly that Gustavus applied the torch, but it is we who have gathered the dry faggots together and spread them on the common hearth!"
"Then you are pleased with me, Albrecht!" The wistfulness in her tone was quite apparent. For a moment the great lady was merged into the woman seeking approval from the man who sat upon the throne of her admiration.
"You are wonderful as well as beautiful!" said the Duke, not as a lover says these things, but with the airof the connoisseur of minds, deeply surprised that he has discovered a masterpiece where he looked merely for an ordinary work of art.
She coloured at his words and smiled. They pleased her, glibly as they ran off his tongue, but with a lover's ardour to waft them into air how much more would they have pleased her!
"Yes!" She went on as if following out another thought. "Events are moving fast towards the point we aimed at, your recall."
"My recall? Yes! Six months ago I was dreaming of recall."
In an instant she leaned forward anxiously to ask—
"Of what then do you now think if not of recall? To what end are you planning? Towards what have I planned and journeyed and striven?"
Wallenstein felt the annoyance that all self-centred men feel at making others partners in their plans. But he showed nothing of it as he answered—
"Of a confederacy of all German states on the basis of complete religious liberty! It is of that I am thinking."
She threw back her hood and opened her cloak. Then she asked with an amused air—
"And for this it is necessary todrive the Habsburgs over the Alps?"
Something very like a gleam of impatience, if not of anger, shot into his eyes.
"Could such a confederacy take place and the Emperor Ferdinand consent?" he asked.
"No! Nor could it take place while the Order of Jesus exists."
"That also must go!" He showed plainly how indifferent it was. "But how did you learn so much of my intentions?"
"The dead gave up what the living had not sufficienttrust to reveal!" she said with some air of being hurt.
"So von Teschen is dead! At Breitenfeld?"
She nodded.
"He was a useful servant, but too rash! Still, I am sorry to have lost him!"
"Was it altogether worthy of Albrecht von Waldstein to wait the issue of a battle, and then to send congratulations to the victor?" The voice of Ottilie von Thüringen conveyed sorrow. Her eyes, wide open, searched the Duke's face, which showed nothing.
"It is the handle of the sword I seek, not the point. There is nothing worthy or unworthy. Without a command I cannot sway a single state! I must begin by taking the sword by the handle."
"Your Grace seems to have forgotten the tenor of the compact made with a Habsburger, a rebel, but still a Habsburger. Let me remind you of it. The objective was the restoration of your Grace to the command of the armies of the Emperor, or of the Catholic League. To do this it was necessary to encourage the Protestant powers to attack, and the greater the danger to the Empire, the more sure would be your restoration. That accomplished, the sword once more in your hand, you were to demand the throne of Bohemia."
"And who says that my purpose does not hold?"
"Albrecht von Waldstein seems to say it. He talks of confederacies, of driving out the Habsburgs. He who aspires to sit beside a Habsburg upon a throne must first be worthy of her, and not diminish her worth in lowering the lustre of her family and her name!"
The splendid voice rang out with the pride and command of a great princess, rebuking a too aspiring courtier.
Wallenstein bowed to the utterance as to the throneitself, but raising his head again and throwing back his wide shoulders replied—
"I have not forgotten, Ottilie! But the Habsburg princess that would sit beside Wallenstein upon the throne of Bohemia derives her title from him. It is not Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, a joining of two monarchies. I confess that Europe holds but one princess, and that a Habsburger, who can be an equal mate by reason of her intelligence, her beauty, and her race, for Wallenstein, but she must learn that what he does is right. Forgive me if I set the matter out too harshly. No man ever played a greater game for greater stakes under auspices more divine; but Wallenstein must play it."
The eyes of the Countess Ottilie flashed in the light of the candles and the firelight as she turned her head to answer him.
But her answer died upon her lips, for the man-servant knocked and entered.
"A general officer from Vienna passing by with troops for Prague craves audience, your Grace!"
The Countess Ottilie resumed her hood and sat down again by the fire. Wallenstein, anticipating no long interruption, understood that she would contrive to remain incognita while he admitted this stranger to a short audience.
Nigel Charteris entered.
As he came forward into the full light the Duke of Friedland started perceptibly.
"It is an omen! The circle, the oval, and the arc once more!" he muttered.
"Ah! Major-General! Soyourstar mounts! Whilstmineflickers in a far-off sky."
"I had thought to have found your Grace alone, Duke!" said Nigel, casting a glance at the hooded lady.
"She is like yourself and myself a chance traveller to Znaim. I know her. She is a friend before whom one may speak freely. What of the war?"
Nigel told briefly what was known in Vienna, what he guessed that Wallenstein already knew.
The lady spread out her long slender fingers to the fire. Nigel saw them without regarding them. He could not see her face, nor was he concerned to try. She was Wallenstein's affair.
Nigel did not wish to let the occasion slip, nor to lay too much stress upon it.
"In short," he said, after his recital of the position as a soldier understood it to explain to a soldier, "the affairs of the Emperor are in a serious plight, and he looks round for aid."
"Is not His Holiness the Pope sending him an army, or at least an aid?" asked Wallenstein.
"It is said that His Holiness has too much to occupy his troops in Italy," said Nigel. "Meantime Saxony is getting ready for the march."
"The winter will stop him!" said Wallenstein.
"He is like to winter in Prague!" said Nigel.
The lady by the fireplace may have shivered, or shrugged her shoulders in the least. A thought came to him that his prophecy might have gone home to the Duke more truly than he knew. It was at Prague that Wallenstein maintained a princely house. He must, in the event of the Saxons attacking Prague, submit to their dominance, a thing unpleasant and inconsonant with Wallenstein's character, or remove his household before their approach, or make an alliance with them and so cut himself entirely adrift from the Empire, or raise troops for the Emperor and defend the town. In any event out of the four he must make up his mind and act soon.
"To whom then does the Emperor look to save him from his enemies?"
"There is but one, your Grace, and that the Duke of Friedland!"
Again the lady at the hearth held out her fingers idly to the blaze, and Nigel's eyes following the action saw the red glow of the blood between them, and this time he marked their slenderness.
"The Emperor must needs bid high!" said the Duke. "And soon! The posture of affairs is not what it was. There must be no more talk of edicts! The time has come when there can be no more Catholic States and Protestant States but German States! If the Emperor becomes strong again through his armies, it can only be in order to be able to treat on a more equal footing. But what possible price can he offer me to forego my private peace, my ease, the enjoyment of my revenues, and submit to the harassments of raising an army? I speak not yet of a supreme command. Cæsar made war against the Gauls because he needed money before he could gratify his ambition. I do not need money."
Nigel noticed that the lady's head gave an impatient toss, as who should say, "What ails the man?"
"You do not covet the honour of the supreme command, and of driving Saxony back to his frontiers and the Swede across the Baltic?" Nigel said in genuine amazement.
"For what? To become again a private gentleman?"
"There would be the Turks next, who are even now talking of invading Hungary."
"More toil! More glory, if you like, or perhaps death in the course of the task. And again to what end if successful?"
"The great soldiers have never looked to the end whenthey began their campaigns," Nigel replied, glowing; "but none of them has ever rested of his own will while great victories were yet to be won."
"The Emperor would scarce like to endow me with such powers as I should demand before I listened to him. There is but one Wallenstein. When the Emperor chooses to send his request in language plain and manifest, offering to confer such absolute power to raise him an army as I consider my least due, I will consider it. Till then I lift no finger, not even if the Saxons thunder at the doors of Prague. Tilly has failed. Pappenheim has failed, Maximilian will fail."
The lady at the hearth put up her long fingers to adjust the hood more closely to her head. This time Nigel saw them. He knew them. But were they Ottilie's or Stephanie's? The cloak? Where had he seen that? His heart beat faster. For an instant he forgot Wallenstein, the Emperor, the whole of his mission in the presence, the hidden presence, of Ottilie.
He sprang to her side. A curious cold smile lit up the face of Wallenstein.
"Ottilie!" Nigel exclaimed.
She threw back her hood, rose, faced him, held out her hands—
"Ottilie is no more! I am Stephanie!"
"No more?" Nigel murmured with quivering lips. "No more?"
"Stephanie was Ottilie when she followed the star of Wallenstein, worshipped his ambition and wrought as she did even to this day for his success. But no longer! She is satisfied. She could be one with the lofty spirit of a Cæsar but not with the bargaining, bartering craft of merchant Wallenstein, who asks what reward he shallreceive at the very hand that opens the gate of the Palace of Glory."
"I go to Vienna, Colonel Charteris, you to Prague. God speed you back again! Now if you will see me to my carriage I need no longer be a hindrance to the chaffering!"
It may be imagined what confusion this outburst, spoken in calm level tones, icy with suppressed passion, stirred in Nigel's mind. The pressure of her hands, the first look into his eyes, had told him that what he had ravished from a not unwilling Ottilie was his from Stephanie, Archduchess though she was, when time and season were more propitious; and the blood beat into his face.
He bowed over her hands and went towards the door to give the order to the servants.
Then the Archduchess turned to Wallenstein—
"Adieu, Duke! Our astrologer's figure holds another meaning than the one we gave it. Bid him be more exact, and take into account what he has forgotten, the beatings of our hearts, ... of those of us that have hearts!"
Wallenstein bowed low. His face showed nothing of what he felt.
"Adieu, your Highness! There is perhaps more in the spirit of Wallenstein than the merchant, more than the politician, more than the soldier. I give your Highness thanks for all your furtherance, while I deplore the rupture of the alliance, from which it is your Highness's pleasure to withdraw. Adieu!"
Nigel returned as the last word was spoken, and Wallenstein proceeded—
"Adieu also, General Charteris! My best wishes go with you! If His Imperial Majesty should inquire, youhave my authority to tell him in what state of mind you have found me, and nothing of what Her Highness has indiscreetly disclosed. I know that in all things I can rely upon your discretion."
Nigel gave him the assurance, and after a parting salutation led the Archduchess to her coach.
Theutter hopelessness of the affair was the first sane reflection that approached the gate of Nigel's mind as he journeyed on to Prague after the Archduchess had set out for Vienna. They would meet again. Yes, it was in the minds of both. They were only at the beginning. They would both go on. They had made no pledge to go on; but having exchanged looks, clasped hands no more, he had gone northward and she southward, and Nigel's first sane reflection, after the first glow of the supreme exaltation of spirit we call love had passed, was that in some way or other that journeying apart would be symbolical of their lives. He asked himself what would happen if some stranger from over seas, not being a prince of the blood, should in the Court of King Charles fall into a like passion for an English princess, were any old enough. He had no doubts upon the subject. The amorous fool would be despatched in haste to his native land. The princess would be dealt with by appointing a company of noble gaolers and a residence from which egress would be difficult, until a husband of the right hue of blood could be purchased for her, and there would be an end of youthful escapades. And Nigel knew that he in his own country would have approved. The Habsburgswere, if anything, prouder than the Stuarts. What then could he, a Scot, a plain gentleman, who by a series of strokes of fortune had risen in the Imperial service to be a major-general, expect? Dismissal! And the Archduchess? The Elector or a convent. As yet, Nigel reflected, and this was after the first sane reflection set out above, as yet the secret, that secret that was more delicious, more thrilling than any in the world to them, lay in their own hearts.
He would cherish it. She would cherish it. In time to come they would make plans, wild hazardous resolutions. Would they find the courage to carry them out? He could answer for himself. Her history, as far as he knew it, answered for her. She had an equal courage, a haughty daring, a mind full of resource, and eyes that could stir him to any deed.
So he rode on to Prague and disposed his troops in the garrison and went round the defences with the commander of the garrison, making suggestions, sage and otherwise, and incidentally learned how unpopular the Emperor was: how he had quartered troops on Protestant hamlets, and enforced mass, torn lands from Protestant hands and handed them to Catholics, or those who said they were. The commandant was not hopeful as to the front they would present to Saxony. All Nigel could offer was vague encouragement that something was in the wind that would put a different complexion on the affairs of the Empire.
Then having accomplished his errand he returned to Vienna and found Father Lamormain eager to hear the result of the interview with Wallenstein.
This Nigel reported in a very few words, which Father Lamormain summed up by saying—
"You inferred, Colonel Charteris, that the Duke is willing to treat on conditions!"
"On conditions which he will impose himself!"
"And these are?"
"That the war is to be waged or not, as the necessity to redress the balance of power dictates, and that the settlement shall be on the basis of entire religious freedom for the Empire."
"That is the hardest condition! But we must needs bow to the tempest. Time will bring its own opportunities afterwards. And the next?"
"That all appointments of officers, from the highest downwards, shall be in the Duke's gift without the need of reference to Vienna."
"The Duke would be the fountain of honour, and every captain his sworn vassal. That is also a hard condition and smacks of Cæsarism!" the Jesuit commented. "Freedom he asks and power absolute while he exercises his functions, but for reward, what reward does he crave?"
"None that he spoke of to me!"
"Ah!" said the Jesuit reflectively. "We are bidden to distrust the Greeks and people bearing gifts. I am also inclined to look a little further when a man is willing to undergo great toil and asks nothing."
"There will be the spoil of the cities and the ransom of the prisoners!" said Nigel.
"The spoil of Stockholm?" the Jesuit inquired with a smile. "Now as to yourself, General. Will you stay here and take your chance of a command under Wallenstein, or join Tilly?"
"I would be where there is work to do!" said Nigel. "And Wallenstein may not name me!"
"You would have made a good regular had you been trained early," said the Father approvingly. "But some day woman will come into your life and divide it into the camps of love and duty."
For an instant a flush came into Nigel's cheeks and passed. Had she not come sooner than the Jesuit expected?
The interview ended, Nigel proffered a formal request to the War Department to be allowed to join General Tilly. As the permission did not depend upon the War Department so much as upon the Emperor, not upon the Emperor so much as Father Lamormain, still a few days elapsed before he could set out. Couriers were expected. Negotiations had been begun with Wallenstein with as much ceremony as if he had been a crowned head.
To any man less genuinely a man of action, this compulsory and to himself excusable dawdling in the very neighbourhood of the Archduchess, would have been a delightful interlude between the stern acts of war. Such a man would have had the capacity for idleness in some measure, and some knowledge how to enjoy it rather than employ it. He would, far more quickly than Nigel, have found a way to enjoy it, and to enjoy it in company with some beloved fair, or perhaps with several.
Nigel's love was a possession. The Archduchess, mysterious combination of Stephanie and Ottilie, had the whole of his heart for her encampment. There was no little citadel or outward tower which her forces did not occupy. But as yet the exaltation of his love did not manifest itself in any outward signs. He neither talked more, as many lovers do, nor was more silent, as some are wont to be, nor manifested exceeding nor profuse gentleness, a manner unbecoming in a soldier. If any at Vienna had known him well, they might have thought him more self-contained than usual. He felt that he must needs keep a close-knitted grip upon himself, for he told himself that, if he should come within arm's length of the object of his worship, his will would be as the green withes that bound Samson, and his lips would incontinently profane the image of the goddess, as they had once before done when she had appeared under the humbler of her guises. That the Archduchess, on her side, might be as fully and completely woman as he was man, did not realise itself to him. It was not possible that it should. So that he did not picture her as beating her wings against the palace cage, whose wires were the servant spies, stifling or trying to stifle in her generous heart the desire to give of her womanhood with lavishness to him whom her imagination had crowned and enthroned in a vision of perfect man.
But where lover and beloved are within a bowshot length, and both are thirsty to gaze the one upon the other, both eager to exchange the story of their moods, surely the god Cupid will find a way to bring about their meeting.
And Love, who laughs at locksmiths, employed one. One noon, as he returned from some of his military duties, Nigel found an apprentice locksmith awaiting him in his quarters, whose grimy hand drew from his leathern apron a key bright from its new forging and chasing by the tools. Nigel, being asked by the lad if it pleased him, replied with the wonderful presence of mind Dan Cupid gives, that it pleased him well. It was the duplicate of the key of that orchard close within the gardens of the palace.
The place was no longer in doubt. Where Colonel Charteris had been received in jocund May by the Archduchess, Nigel would meet Stephanie in hoar December. And the hour? Love dictated that the first hour of dusk was the first possible, and the first possible was the one of which Love must avail himself.
To gain access to the gardens by night it was necessary to reach them by one of the doors which led from one of the lower corridors of the palace into the orangery,and by one of those of the orangery into the garden terrace.
That afternoon Nigel spent an hour not unprofitably in the orangery examining the trees, learning their history from the gardeners, and where the keys hung by which one might let one's self out into the terrace.
By this time his face and figure were too well known to the pages or the domestics of the palace to excite remark, and he easily contrived an errand to one of the officers on guard in the palace, which made it reasonable for him to be seen passing along the corridor in question and returning. But on his return he took the left hand into the orangery instead of the right into the courtyard, and an instant sufficed for him to find the key and let himself out on to the terrace.
By what means the other conspirator would reach the rendezvous he did not know, but from the rambling building of the palace many doors led into the gardens. Few of them showed any trace of usage, but one no doubt led to the private apartments of the Archduchess.
Once more the moon befriended him, but this time she seemed to Nigel to be like himself, or perhaps more justly like his mistress. For, fitfully gleaming, now wholly to be seen, now half in shadow, now again wholly lost, the moon seemed to scurry from one clot of cloud, ragged and grey and wintry, to another hiding-place still more opaque, and always scurrying. Nigel knew well it was the wind in the upper air that drove the clouds across her face, but the image pleased him as he went by purposely circuitous ways towards the orchard close, his key securely in his pocket, his cloak wrapped round him, his hat pulled down well across his brows, his sword in its place at his side.
There was nothing languorous about this night, nothing effeminate but the moon. But in chill December, as insoft breathing June, an assignation with a maid is as fruitful of lovers' walks and the exercise of lovers' patience.
So he drew near to the orchard close, and paused in the shadows before he set key to lock.
Now that he was so near he felt more of love's awe. He wondered if it had been some rustic maiden—Elspeth Reinheit, for example—he would have felt it. But of Elspeth Reinheit he had never felt in such a way. Many maidens in many places had cast questioning, subtly troubling, glances at him, and always till he had seen her, whom he had deemed Ottilie the mysterious, their glances had fallen from him like spent arrows from a buckler. She alone was above all different in kind, a creature of a lone world where he was a hardy adventurer. He was a new Pizarro penetrating a deserted temple of the Incas, and finding a solitary priestess whose lofty mien and more than human beauty forbade him to desecrate the sanctuary, while she chanted in an unknown tongue songs of infinite allurement.
He thrust the key into the lock.
Thelock yielded. The door opened. But the walk was bare as far as the fitful moonlight showed. He strode forward almost as if he feared an ambush, though at this part of the garden the short bare trees and standards made but the cover of a spider's-web tracery, through which one sees what is beyond. Only towards the middle of the orchard was there a spot where several walks met, and this was nearly surrounded by evergreen bushes and laurel and holly. This alone loomed blackly in front of him. Towards this he strode. And even as he gained the entrance a tall figure of a woman, cloaked and hooded, emerged from the encompassing dusk, and coming nearer, revealed itself as that of the Archduchess.
Dimly Nigel divined that she wore the deep blue velvet and sable furs which he had seen aforetime. More clearly he distinguished in the depths of the hood the dancing of those lustrous eyes, the pouting red lips of that royal mouth, the pallor of the cheeks.
He took her hand to kiss, but she bent forward with a look of enticement.
"Nay! tall captain!" she said. "We need not use the fashion of the courts. It was not so you kissed Ottilie, or so she told me."
But nevertheless she tendered but her cheek, in token, as he understood it, that she had but surrendered the furthest outworks. That vain imagining of his, that to be within arm's length of her was to throw the reins upon the neck of passion and let it gallop, had vanished when he put the key in the lock.
Woman the queen, woman the giver and the withholder, leaned graciously towards him by reason of the love that had descended upon her, abasing her to him, exalting him to her, banishing all thrusting rebellious swashbuckling imaginations from the presence. Tumultuous his thoughts sprang towards speech, but little could he find but an almost breathless—
"Stephanie! Of all living men to choose me for your lover?"
"Nay! tall captain!" Craftily she had ranged herself beside him and rested her hand upon his shoulder, looking up into his eyes with her face of roguish wooer. "Nay! tall captain! You had already taken my sister-half, Ottilie, by assault, and it is not seeming that an Archduchess should be bussed by more than one bold fellow, so I even proffer my cheek to the same smiter for honour's sake."
The tone of raillery set him at his ease. He felt that beneath it beat the true womanly heart. And over him stole a great, a measureless content.
He took her left hand in his, and holding so much of her closely to his side, they began to walk here and there about the orchard by first one and then another of its many paths.
"It is amazing that I did not guess your riddle before, my love," he said.
"Count Tilly guessed it at Magdeburg!" she said. "But he feigned not to, thinking doubtless it would be as well my madcap freaks should not come to the Emperor through him."
"But you put on a different seeming! The voice was like, but the language of Ottilie was different, smacked of the country lady. The face of Ottilie was like that of the Archduchess, but the manner and bearing were less haughty and less assured."
"But the truth was that you saw me in distant places and in changed circumstances, so that you were prone to think of me as two distinct women."
"And now tell me the meaning of this masquerade! It was for Wallenstein! I am sure of that! You were in love with Wallenstein?"
"Never! You are going to be my first lover and my last!" Her tone was deep and serious. There was something of presage, of mystery, a hint of doom.
"I was taken, as a girl will be, with the glamour that glowed about his name, as he rose from step to step by great leaps of success. It was the star of Wallenstein that I followed. I dreamed of being caught up into its orbit, and, moving, throned above the nations in its company, sharing and contributing to its brightness."
"And Wallenstein? Did he know?"
"Wallenstein knew that I was favouring his party and his plans. He knew that I was willing to run terrible risks, as I have done, to forward his aims. But Wallenstein is a merchant, not a prince, a politician, not a man! The glamour became more transparent as time went on, and when I met you, Nigel, it was as if a wind from the hills swept over the plain, sweeping away the mists of morning and leaving everything clear and visible. For you showed yourself a man. You were not old and full of wiles like Father Lamormain or Maximilian. You were not like a mere courtier, as so many that I have known are, ready to agree to this and that and everything. You withstood me, thwarted me, outplayed me."
"Not always, Stephanie! There was a castle called the Wartburg!"
At this reminiscence the Archduchess flushed beneath her hood, which Nigel did not see. But he felt the sly pinch that accompanied her cry.
"Speak not of it! You took more away with you than you brought!" The hood was turned up towards him now, and he could look down into the depths of those translucent womanly eyes, brimming with the tenderness of first love, more magical than which is nothing of human tenderness.
"And I," said Nigel, "had never loved woman till I saw you in the Pastor's house at Magdeburg. It was as if a bee had stung me. I felt the sharp prick, told myself it was naught. But the poison worked. At Erfurt, when I knew it was you that had wept in the cathedral, and we stood by the bridge looking at the rivers and the stars and heard you speak of love, I recognised the pain again, I knew the longing that had set in, but also, knowing that you spoke not of me, again I brushed the thought aside. But never for long...." Something seemed to come into his mind.... He paused awhile, the Archduchess hanging upon his next words, savouring the essence of what had gone before....
"Who stole my despatches?"
"The same hand that restored them! Speak not of them!"
"I wondered if I had awakened what would have happened!"
"A woman's wit——"
"Would have been little proof against a man's sword-thrust in the dark," said Nigel sternly.
"I will not run such a risk again," she said with humility, "unless it be to save you!"
"Foolish princess!" he rejoined, and held her suddenly in his arms. "You are bewitched! And so am I." This time there was no pretence of offering a cheek. It was a fortunate dark shadow in which they stood, and lips levied toll of lips, and were not satisfied with the rate of customs. Heart beat to heart and beat the more, but Nigel's reverence for her, for all he held her so closely, was as high as her greatness of soul.
"It is enough, tall captain, and yet not enough. But our plans! We have already spent a foolish hour and made no plans."
Her warning tumbled Nigel headlong out of his tower to an ungrateful earth. Plans to what end?
"Oh, Stephanie! My princess! To-morrow or the next day or the next I must set out for Tilly's army. A plan to see you, to hold you, what need I but this key and your sweet graciousness?"
"Once to meet you in my orchard close! Once was easy and possible. But do you think we could meet twice and not be spied upon. I know the palace of Vienna and its ways as you can never know them. Spies of Father Lamormain, hirelings of Maximilian's, hirelings of France and Spain."
"And your love is a great and precious jewel," said Nigel, "too great, too precious to be jeopardised."
"If you would wear it and me forever," ... she murmured, "we must hide it now, peeping at it now and then in secret, till the time is ripe to run the great risk of our lives and proclaim it in the ears of the court and of Europe. Whether it will be a convent or death for me, or death for you and me, for I would die rather than wed Maximilian, or life for both of us, is hidden behind the shadows as the dark encircles us now. But we must not barter our chances for any trifling joy——"
"It is no trifling joy, Stephanie! This, save the mark, is heaven to hold you to my heart."
"Oh! Nigel! Nigel!" she sighed. "Your love is the love of a man that comes and goes in gusts, roaring like the wind, gentle as the breeze, and then it is gone till it awakens again. I say not you are inconstant, but you do not fear, as woman does, the hour of emptiness when there is no lover, no husband."
"By Heaven! I am no inconstant, Stephanie! I can bide my time, and if I lose not my life in these wars, surely there shall be a roof-tree in bonnie Scotland waiting us."
"To-morrow, all being well, the Archduchess shall send for Colonel Charteris to the Long Gallery, but for a brief talk of the affairs of state. The following evening I shall try to meet you here at the same time to say farewell. But remember how we may be beset, and use a double caution. Look for a way into the gardens by another avenue than the palace. Now I leave you! Do not follow! Wait a full half-hour! Make sure you are not spied upon! Make a wide circuit to the orangery and have a glib excuse if you are met. Good-night."
For a brief half-hour Nigel waited, exploring the orchard close. There were two other gates, by one of which the Archduchess had beaten her retreat. No sign of any lurking spy made itself apparent. This time Cæsar's daughter had escaped suspicion, and the lovers had their precious hour of interlude.
Nigel's mind was more at rest after he had made the circuit of the place and sounded every shadow by the aid of the fitful moon. More than ever alive to the privilege of her love, he was equally alive to the danger that she ran. Histories and mysteries of the courts of Italy, of Spain, of France, sprang to life in his mind, things read, or heard in the guard-room, or handed down in fearsome stories of the hearth at home. The fairy princess had been folded in his arms, had breathed kisses of mortal joyupon his lips, had gone. If she were not a fairy princess, then a thousand unknown dangers threatened them. He could guess Maximilian as one very possible architect of evil; only Maximilian was just then preparing to defend Bavaria, and could know nothing if the very wind shouted "Nigel and Stephanie." Father Lamormain was another, nearer home, absolutely inexorable in working out his plans. At present in ignorance of this princely indiscretion he was friendly towards Nigel, but let him gain an inkling and Nigel felt that their projects of happiness would be thwarted by means impossible for himself and her to foresee and to avoid.
As he turned the key in the lock and took one farewell look of that wintry orchard before closing the gate behind him his mind was full of joy; and as the gate closed joy fled before foreboding.