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.
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 theWolf'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.
"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 SacredFehme 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."
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 thatdolove 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.
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.
***
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!