Then began my father to tell the story slowly, with many a pause and interruption, now searching for words, now racked with pain, all of which I need not imitate, and shall leave out. But the substance of his tale was to this effect:
"After you had left us, the Dukedom went from bad to worse—no peace, no rest, no money. Duke Casimir took less and less of my advice, but, on the contrary, began again his old horrors—plundering, killing, living by terror and in terror. He threatened Torgau. He attacked Plassenburg. He stirred up hornets' nests everywhere. At home he made himself the common mark for every assassin.
"Then suddenly came his nephew back, and almost immediately he grew great in favor with him. Uncle and nephew drank together. They paraded the terraces arm in arm. I was never more sent for save to do my duty. Otho von Reuss rode abroad at the head of the Black Horsemen.
"But, at the same time, to my great joy, arrived the Little Playmate back to me. She was safer with me, she said. So that, having her, I needed naught else. She came with good news of you, making the journey not alone, for two men of the Princess's retinue brought her to the city gates."
"The Princess!" I cried; "aye, I thought so. I judged that it was thePrincess who sent her back."
Dessauer motioned with his hand. He saw that it was dangerous to throw my father off the track. And, indeed, this was proven at once, for my unfortunate interruption set my father's mind to wandering, till finally I had to drop certain drops of the red liquid on his tongue. These, indeed, had a marvellous effect upon him. He sat up instantly, his eyes flashing the old light, and began to speak rapidly and to clear purport, even as he used to do in the old days when Duke Casimir would come striding across the yard at all hours of the night and day to consult his Justicer.
"What was I telling?" he went on. "Yes, I remember, of the home-coming of Helene under honorable escort. And she was beautiful—but all her race were beautiful, all the women of them, at any rate. But that is another matter.
"So things went well enough with us till, as she went across the yard one day to meet me at the door of the hall as I came out, who should see her but the Count Otho von Reuss. And she turned from him like a queen and took hold of my arm, clasping it strongly. Then he gazed fixedly at us both, and his look was the evil-doer's look. Oh, I know it. Who knows that look, if not I? And so we passed within. But my Helene was quivering and much afraid, nestling to me—aye, to me, old Gottfried Gottfried, like a frightened dove.
"After this she went not out into the court-yard or city any more, save with me by her side, and Otho von Reuss lingered about, watching like a wolf about the sheepfold. For, as I say, he was in high favor with Duke Casimir, and had already equal place with him on the bed of justice.
"Then there came a night, lightning peeping and blazing, alternate blue and ghastly white—God's face and the devil's time about staring in at the lattice. I lay alone in my chamber. But I was not asleep. As you know, I do not often sleep. But I lay awake and thought and thought. The lightning showed me faces I had not seen for thirty years, and forms I remembered, black against eternity. But all at once, in a certain after-clap of silence that followed the roaring thunder, I heard a voice call to me.
"'My father—my father" it cried.
"It was like a soul in danger calling on God.
"I rose and went, clad as I was in the red of mine office (for that day I had done the final grace more than once); even so, I ran down the stairs to the room of my little Helene.
"The lightning showed me my lamb crouched in the corner, her lips open, white, squared with horror, her arms extended, as though to push some monstrous thing away. A black shape, whose, I could not tell, I saw bending over her. Then came blackness of darkness again. And again my Helene's voice. Ah, God, I can hear it now, calling pitifully, like a woman hanging over hell and losing hold: 'Father—my father!'
"'I am here!' I cried, loudly, even as on the scaffold I cry the doom for which the malefactors die.
"And the room lit up with a flame, white as the face of God as He passed by on Mount Sinai, flash on continuous flash. And there before me, with a countenance like a demon's, stood Otho von Reuss."
I uttered a hoarse cry, but Dessauer again checked me. My father went on:
"Otho von Reuss it was—he saw me in my red apparel, and cried aloud with mighty fear. If God had given me mine axe in my hand—well, Duke or no Duke, he had cried no more. But even as he turned and fled from the room I seized him about the waist, and, opening the window with my other hand, I cast him forth. And as he went down backward, clutching at nothing, God looked again out of the skylights of heaven, and showed me the face of the devil, even as Michael saw it when he hurled him shrieking into the nether pit.
"Then I went back and took in my arms my one ewe lamb.
"Many days (so they brought me word) Otho lay at the point of death, and Duke Casimir came not near me nor yet sent for me. But by that very circumstance I knew Otho had not revealed how his accident had befallen. Yet he but bided his time. And as he grew well, Duke Casimir grew ill. He waxed more and more like an armored ghost, and one day he came here and sat on the bed as in old times.
"'I know my friends now,' he said, 'good Red Axe of mine, friend of many years. I have had mine eyes blinded, but this morning there has come a mighty clearness, and from this day forth you and I shall stand face to face and see eye to eye again, as in the days of old!'
"Then being athirst, he asked for something to drink. Which, when our sweet Helene had brought, he patted her cheek. 'A maid too good for a court—one among a thousand, a fair one !' he said; and passed away down the stairs, walking with his old steady tread.
"But even at the steps of the Hall of Justice he stumbled and fell. They carried him in, and there in the robing chamber he lay unconscious for a week, and then died without speech.
"When he was dead, and ere he had been embalmed, there arose a clamor, first among the followers of Otho von Reuss, and after that among those of the Wolfsberg who expected that they would be favored by the new Duke. It was first whispered, and then cried aloud, that the death of Duke Casimir had been compassed by witchcraft and potions.
"Cunningly and with subtlety was spread the report how my daughter and I had worked upon Duke Casimir. How he had gone to our house, drunken a draught, and then died ere he could come to his own chamber. But as for me, I went on my way and heeded them not. For just then the plague, which had stricken the Duke first, stalked athwart the city unchecked, and all through it this Helene of ours was as the angel of God, coming and going by night and day among the streets and lanes of the town. And the common folk almost worshipped her. And so do unto this day.
"Now perhaps I did not heed this babble as I ought to have done. But there came one night—how long ago I have forgotten—and with it a clamor in the court-yard. The Black Riders, the worst of them, fiends incarnate that Otho had of late gathered about him, thundered upon us without, and presently burst in the door.
"I met them with mine axe at the stair-head, and for the better part of an hour I kept them at a distance. And some died and some were dismembered. For at that business I am not a man to make mistakes. Then came Otho limping from his fall and shot me with a bolt from behind his men. And so over my body as I lay at the stair-head they took my love and left me here to die. And the new Duke will not kill me, for he desires that I shall see her agony ere my own life is taken. For that alone the fiend keeps me in life!
"And that," said my father, feebly, "is all."
But just as he seemed to ebb away a wild fear startled him.
"No," he cried, "there is yet something more. Hugo, Hugo, keep me here a little! Hold me that my mind may not wander away among the racking-wheels and the faces mopping and mowing. I have something yet to tell."
I held him up while Dessauer poured a drop or two of the potent liquid into his mouth. As before, it instantly revived him. The color came back to his cheeks.
"Quick, Hugo, lad!" he cried; "give me that black box which sits behind the block." I brought it, and from this he extracted a small key, which he gave me.
"Unlock the panel you see there in the wall," he said.
I looked, but could find none.
"The oaken knob!" he cried, sharply, as to a clumsy servitor.
I could only see a rough knob in the wood-work, a little worm-eaten, and in the centre one hole a little larger than the rest.
"Put in the key!" commanded my father, making as if he would come out of bed and hasten me himself.
I thrust in the key, indeed, but with no more faith than if I had been bidden to put it into a mouse-hole.
Nevertheless, it turned easy as thinking, and a little door swung open, cunningly fitted. Here were dresses, books, parchments huddled together.
"Bring all these to me," he said.
And I brought them carefully in my arms and laid them on the bed.
The eye of old Dessauer fell on something among them and was instantly fascinated. It was a woman's waist-belt of thick bars of gold laid three and three, with crests and letters all over it.
The Chancellor put his hand forward for it, and my father allowed him to take it, following him, however, with a questioning eye.
Then Dessauer put his hand into his bosom and drew out a chain of gold—the necklace of the woodman, in-deed—and laid the two side by side. He uttered a shrill cry as he did so.
"The belt of the lost Princess!" he cried; "the little Princess ofPlassenburg!"
And, laying them one above the other, each group of six bars read thus:
[Illustration: o o o H o o o H o o o H o o o | | | o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o The Necklace | | | o o o L o o o L o o o L o o o
o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o | | | o o o N o o o N o o o N o o o The Belt | | | o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o]
With delight on his face, like that of a mathematician when his calculations work out truly, Dessauer reached over his hand for the papers also, but my father stayed him.
"Who may you be that has a chain to match mine?" he asked, with his mighty hand on Dessauer's wrist.
"I am the State's Chancellor of Plassenburg, and it needed but this to show me our true Princess."
"Here, then," said my father, "is more and better."
And he handed him the papers.
"It meets! It meets!" cried Dessauer, enthusiastically, as he glanced them over. "It is complete. It would stand probation in the Dict of the Emperor."
"But yet all that will not prevent Helene Gottfried dying at the stake!" cried my father, sadly, and fell back unconscious on his bed.
* * * * *
We spent this heaviest of nights at the palace of Bishop Peter—Dessauer with the prelate—I, praise to the holy pyx, in the kitchen with the serving men and maids. Peter of the Pigs was there, but no more eager to fight. The lay brother who had gone with the letter, and the conductor who had run away from the dread door of the Hall of Justice, had returned, and had spread a favorable report of our courage.
Certainly the house of Peter the Bishop might be a poor one and scantily provendered, but there was little sign of it that night. For if the master went fasting and his guests lived on pulse (as they said in Thorn), certainly not so Bishop Peter's servants.
For there were pasties of larks, with sauce of butter and herbs, most excellent and toothsome. There were rabbits from the sand-hills, and pigeons from the towers of the minster. The clear chill Rhenish vied with the more generous wine of Burgundy and the red juice of Assmanhauser. For me, as was natural, I ate little. I spoke not at all. But I looked so dangerous with my swarthy face and desperate eye, I dare say, also I was so well armed, that the roysterers left me severely alone.
But I drank—Lord, what did I not drink that night! I poured down my gullet all and sundry that was given me. And to render these Bishop's thralls their dues, there was no lack and no inhospitality. But the strange thing of it was that, though I am a man more than ordinarily temperate, that night I poured the Rhenish into me like water down a cistern-pipe and felt it not. God forgive me, I wanted to make me drunken and forgetful, and lo! the dog's swill would not bite.
So I cursed their drink, and asked if they had no Lyons Water-of-Life, stark and mordant, or social Hollands, or indeed anything that was not mere compound of whey and dirty water. Whereat they wondered, and held me thereafter in great respect as a good companion and approven worthy drinker.
Then they brought me of the strong spirit of Dantzig, with curious little flakes of gold dancing in it. It was raw and strong, and at first I had good hopes of it. But I drank the Dautzig like spring-water, all there was of it, and though it had a taste singularly displeasing to me, it took no more effect than so much warm barley-brew for the palates of babes. Upon this I had great glory. For the card-players and the dicers actually left their games and gazed open-jawed to see me drink. And I sat there and expounded the Levitical law and the wheels of the Prophet Ezekiel, the law of succession to the empire, and also the apostolic succession—all with surprising clearness and cogency of reasoning. So that before I had finished they required of me whether it was I or my master who was sent for to dispute before His Sovereign mightiness the Emperor.
Then I told them that the things I knew (that is, which the Hollands had put into my head) were but the commonest chamber-sweepings of my master's learning, which I had picked up as I rode at his elbow. And this bred a mighty wondering what manner of man he might be who was so wise. And I think, if I had gone on, Dessauer and I might both have found ourselves in the Bishop's prison, on suspicion of being the devil and one of his ministrants.
But suddenly, as with a kind of recoil or back stroke, all that I had drunken must have come upon me. The clearness of vision went from me like a candle that is blown out. I know not what happened after, save that I found myself upon my truckle-bed, with my leathern money-pouch clasped in my hand with surprising tightness, as if I had been mortally afraid that some one would mistake my poor satchel for his own pocket.
So in time the morrow came, and by all rules I ought to have had a racking headache. For I saw many of those that had been with me the night before pale of countenance and eating handfuls of baker's salt. So I judged that their anxiety and the turmoil of their hearts had not burned their liquor up, as had been the case with me.
Now it is small wonder that all my soul cried out for oblivion till I should be able to do something for the Beloved—break her prison, hasten the troops from Plassenburg, or in some way save my love.
Hardly had I looked out of the main door that morning, desiring no more than to pass away the time till the trial should begin again, before I saw the Lubber Fiend, smirking and becking across the way. He had squatted himself down on the side of the street opposite, looking over at the Bishop's palace.
He pointed at me with his finger.
"Your complexion runs down," he said. "I know you. But go to the spring there by the stable, wash your face, and I shall know you better."
This was fair perdition and nothing less. For one may stay the tongue of a scoundrel with money, or the expectation of it, until opportunity arrive to stop it with steel or prison masonry. But who shall curb or halter the tongue of a fool?
Then, swift as one that sees his face in a glass, I bethought me of a plan.
"See," I said, "do you desire gold, Sir Lubber Fiend?"
He wagged his great head and shook his cabbage-leaf ears till they made currents in the heavy air, to signify that he loved the touch of the yellow metal.
"See then, Lubber," said I, "you shall have ten of these now, and ten more afterwards, if you will carry a letter to the Prince at Plassenburg, or meet him on the way."
"Not possible," said he, shaking his head sadly; "my little Missie has come to Thorn."
"But," said I, "little Missie would desire it; take letter to the Prince, good Jan, then Missie will be happy."
"Would she let poor Jan Lubberchen kiss her hand, think you?" he asked, looking up at me.
"Aye," said I; "kiss her cheek maybe!"
He danced excitedly from side to side.
"Jan will run—Jan will run all the way!" he cried.
So I pulled out a scrap of parchment and wrote a hasty message to the Prince, asking him, for the love of God and us, to set every soldier in Plassenburg on the march for Thorn, and to come on ahead himself with such a flying column as he could gather. No more I added, because I knew that my good master would need no more.
Then I went down with my messenger to the Weiss Thor, and with great fear and pulsation of the midriff I saw the idiot pass the house of Master Gerard. Then, at the outer gate, I gave him his ten golden coins, and watched him trot away briskly on the green winding road to Plassenburg.
"Mind," he called back to me, "Jan is to kiss her cheek if Jan takes letter to the Prince!"
And I promised it him without wincing. For by this time lying had no more effect upon me than dram-drinking.
The Bed of Justice was set by eight of the morning. For they were ever early astir in the city of Thorn, though, like most early risers, they did little enough afterwards all day.
With a sadly beating heart, I accompanied Dessauer in the same guise as on the previous day. The crowd was even greater in and about the Hall of Judgment. And when the Duke had taken his seat and his tools set themselves down on either side, they brought in the Little Playmate.
She was dressed all in white, clean and spotless, in spite of prison usage. She glanced just once about her, right and left, high and low, as if seeking for a face she could not see, and from thenceforth she looked down on the ground.
The argument as to torture had been concluded on the day before, and it had been held inadmissible—not because of any kindly thought for the prisoner, but because, according to the laws of the Wolfmark, in the absence of the Hereditary Executioner, there was no one legally capable of inflicting it.
Then came the evidence.
The first witness against the Little Playmate was old Hanne. She was brought in by a cowled monk of dark and sinister appearance—in fact, as my heart leaped to observe, I saw that she was accompanied by Friar Laurence—he who had taught me my learning in the old days, and who even then had watched the Little Playmate with no friendly eyes.
As she passed the judges I saw the deadly fear mount to agony on the face of old Hanne. The look in her eyes of physical pain suffered and overpassed was the same which I had often seen in the wars after the surgeon has done his horrid work. That same look I saw now on the face of Hanne. So I knew that somewhere in the dark recesses under the Hall of Judgment the Extreme Question had been put to her, and to all appearance answered according to the liking of the persecutors, though they dared not torture so notable a public prisoner as Helene.
I saw a look of satisfied vindictiveness pass over the brutal features ofDuke Otho. He changed his position and whispered to his colleagues.
It was Master Gerard von Sturm who rose to put the questions to the witness. And as he did so, I heard the steady sough of talk among the people rise mutteringly in a low growl of anger and contempt. The Duke's lictors struck right and left among the crowd, as men bent forward with fierce hate in their voices, lowing like oxen, as if to clear their lungs of a weight of contempt.
It was not thus in the old days, when there was no people's arbiter in all the Wolfmark so famous or so popular as Master Gerard of the Weiss Thor.
"What is the reason of that turmoil?" said I to my neighbor.
"This is the man who was her first accuser. Why, he dares not go outside his house without a guard of the Duke's riders," said the man, picking at his finger-nail with his teeth, as if it were a bone and he did not think much of its savoriness.
"You have already confessed," said the advocate to old Hanne, when they had propped up the poor wreck of skin and bone, "and you do now confess that this maid and yourself have ofttimes had converse with the Enemy of Souls?"
A spasm passed across the face of the witness, and a low sound proceeded from her mouth, which might have been an affirmative answer, but which sounded to me much more like a moan of pain.
"And you confess that she consulted you concerning the best means of killing the Duke Casimir—by means of a draught to be administered to him when he should, as was his custom, visit his Hereditary Justicer?"
"There was indeed a draught spoken of between us, noble sir," stammered the old woman, "but it was not for the Duke Casimir, nor yet for—for any evil purpose."
I saw the Friar Laurence incline his head a little forward and whisper inHanne's ear from his place behind her.
At the words she clasped her hands and fell on the floor, grovelling: "I will say aught that you bid me, kind sir. I cannot bear it again. I cannot go back to that place. I am too old to be tormented. I will bear what testimony your excellencies desire."
"We wish only that you should tell the truth as you have already done of your own free will in your pre-examination," said Master Gerard, "the notes of which are before me. Was it not to kill the Duke Casimir that this draught was compounded?"
The old woman hesitated. Friar Laurence stooped again.
"Yes!" she cried; "God forgive me—yes!"
An evil look of triumph sat on the face of Otho von Reuss. I think he felt sure of his victim now.
"That is enough," said Master Gerard. "Take the old woman back to her cell."
"Oh no, great Lord!" she cried, "not there! You promised that if I said it I was to be let go free. Kill me, but do not send me back!"
The Duke moved his hand, and the old woman was led shrieking below.
Then came Friar Laurence, who testified that he had often seen old Hanne instructing the young woman who was now a prisoner in the art of drugs, in the preparation of images carven in dough—and it might be also in clay—things well known in the art of witchery.
Further, he had been with the Duke Casimir at the last, and the Duke had declared that he had partaken of a draught in the house of Gottfried Gottfried, and immediately thereafter had been taken ill.
There was not much else of matter in the Friar's evidence, but the most deep and vindictive malice against the prisoner was evident in every word and gesture.
Then Master Gerard rose to address the judges. His venerable appearance was enhanced by the sternly severe look on his face. He looked an accusing angel from the pit, swart of skin and with eyes of flame. He was tall and bent of figure, with the serpent-browed head set deep between hunched shoulders like those of a moulting vulture. He grasped his bundle of papers and rose to make his final speech.
The judges settled themselves to closer attention. The hush of listening folk broadened to the utmost limits of the great hall. At a whisper or a cough a hundred threatening faces were turned in the direction of the sound, so strained was the attention of the people and such the fear of the eloquence of this most famous pleader in all Germany. In these days when learning has reached so great a pitch, and is so general that in a largish city there may be as many as a thousand people who can read and write, of course there are many eloquent men. But in those days it was not so, and Grerard von Sturm was counted the one Golden Mouth of the Wolfmark.
And this in brief was the matter of his speech. The manner and the persuasive grace I cannot attempt to give:
"It has at all times been a received opinion of the wise that witchcraft is a thing truly practised—by which such women as the Witch of Endor in Holy Writ were able to call dead men out of their deep graves grown with grass; or, as in that famous case of Demarchaus, who, having by the advice of such a woman tasted the flesh of a sacrificed child, was immediately turned into a wolf.
"Further, the testimony-of Scripture is clear: 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'; and, again, as sayeth the Wise Man, 'Thou hast hated them, 0 God, because with enchantments they did horrible works.'
"Now, men may by conspicuous bravery guard their lives against assault by the sword of the enemy, against the spear of the invader that cometh over the wall, even against the knife of the assassin. But who shall be able to keep out witchcraft? It moveth in the motes of the mid-day sun. It comes stealing into the room on the pale beams of the moon. Witchcraft rides in the hurtling blast, and shrieks in the gust which shakes the roof and blows awry the candle in the hall.
"Enchantment can summon Azazeli, the Lord of Flesh and Blood, called in another place the Lord of the Desert, by whose spiriting of the elements even the pure water of the spring or the juice of the purple grape may become noxious as the brew of the serpent's poison-bag.
"Of such a sort was the ill-doing of this woman. For her own hellish purposes she desired and compassed the death of the most noble Duke Casimir. There may be those who try to discover a motive for such an act. But in this they do foolishly. For to those who have studied of this matter, as I have done, it is well known that enchanters and witches ever attack those who are the greatest, the noblest, and the most envied—not hoping for any good to result to themselves, but out of pure malice and envy, being prompted by the devil in order that the great and noble should be destroyed out of the land. Well was it spoken then, 'Ye shall not suffer a witch to live!'
"And if any plead hereafter of this evil-doer's youth, of her beauty, I call you to witness that the Evil One ever makes his best implement of the fairest metal. As the aged crone, her teacher and accomplice, hath confessed, this Helene was for long a plotter of dark deeds. By the trust of Duke Casimir in her maiden's innocence he was betrayed to death. That one so fair and evil should be turned loose on the world to begin anew her enchantments, and, like a pestilence, to creep into good men's houses, is a thing not to be thought of. Is she to go forth breathing death upon the faces of the young children, to sit squat, like hideous toad, sucking the blood of the new-born infant, or distilling poison-drops to put into the draughts of strong men which shall run like molten iron through their veins till they go mad?
"Hear me, judges, I bid you again remember the word: 'Ye shall not suffer a witch to live.' And in the name of the great unbroken law of the Wolfmark, which I hold in my hand, I conclude by claiming the pains of death to pass upon the witch-woman who by her deed sent forth untimely the spirit of the most noble Duke Casimir, Lord of the city of Thorn and Duke of the Wolfmark."
The pleader sat down, calmly as he had risen, and the judges conferred together as though they were on the point of delivering their verdict. There had been no sound of applause as Master Gerard had spoken—a hushed attention only, and then the muffled thunder of the great audience relaxing its attention and of men turning to whispered discussion among themselves.
"Prisoner," said Duke Otho, "have you any to speak for you? Or do you desire to make any answer to the things which have been urged against you?"
Then, thrilling me to my soul, arose the voice of Helene. Clear and sweet and girlish, without hurry or fear, yet with an innocence which might have touched the hardest heart, the maiden upon trial for her life said a simple word or two in her defence.
"I have no one to speak for me. I have nothing to say, save that which I have said so often, that before God, who knows all things, I am innocent of thought, word, or deed against any man, and most of all against Duke Casimir of the Wolfsberg."
And as she spoke the multitude was stirred, and voices broke out here and there:
"No witch!" "She is innocent!" "The guilty are among the judges!" "SaintHelena!" "If she die we will avenge her!"
And though the lictors struck furiously every way, they could not settle the tumult, and ever the mass of folk swayed more wildly to and fro. Nor do I know what might have happened at that moment but for a cry that arose in front of the throng.
"The Stranger! The Great Doctor! The Wise Man! Hear him! He is going to speak for her!"
And there, standing by the place of pleading, with his foot on the first step, I saw Dessauer, in his black doctorial gown, leaning reverently upon a long staff.
He made a courteous salutation to Duke Otho upon the high seat.
"I am a stranger, most noble Duke," he began, "and as such have no standing in this your High Court of Justice. But there is a certain courtesy extended to doctors of the law—the right of speech in great trials—in many of the lands to which I have adventured in the search of wisdom. I am encouraged by my friend, the most venerable prelate, Bishop Peter, to ask your forbearance while I say a word on behalf of the prisoner, in reply to that learned and most celebrated jurisconsult, Master Gerard von Sturm, who, in support of his cause, has spoken things so apt and eloquent. This is my desire ere judgment be passed. For in a multitude of councils there is wisdom."
He was silent, and looked at the Duke and his tool, Michael Texel.
They conferred together in whispers, and at first seemed on the point of refusing. But the folk began to sway so dangerously, and the voice of their muttering sank till it became a growl, as of a caged wild beast which has broken all bars save the last, and which only waits an opportunity to put forth its strength in order to shiver that also.
"You are heartily welcome, most learned doctor," said Duke Otho, sullenly. "We would desire to hear you briefly concerning this matter."
"I shall assuredly be brief, my noble lord—most brief," said Dessauer. "I am a stranger, and must therefore speak by the great principles of equity which underlie all law and all evidence, rather than according to the statutes of the province over which you are the distinguished ruler.
"The crime of witchcraft is indeed a heinous one, if so be that it can be proven—not by the compelled confession of crazed and tortured crones, but by the clear light of reason. Now there is no evidence that I have heard against this young girl which might not be urged with equal justice against every cup-bearer in the Castle of the Wolfsberg.
"The Duke Casimir died indeed after having partaken of the wine. But so may a man at any time by the visitation of God, by the stroke which, from the void air, falleth suddenly upon the heart of man. No poison has been found on or about the girl. No evil has been alleged against her, save that which has been compelled (as all must have seen) by torture, and the fear of torture, from the palsied and reluctant lips of a frantic hag."
"Hear him! Great is the Stranger!" cried the folk in the hall. And the shouting of the guards commanding silence could scarce be heard for the roar of the populace. It was some time before the speech of Dessauer was again audible.
Ho was beginning to speak again, but Duke Otho, without rising, called out rudely and angrily:
"Speak to the reason of the judges and not to the passions of the mob!"
"I do indeed speak from the reason to the reason," said Dessauer, calmly; "for in this matter there is no true averment, even of witchcraft, but only of the administration of poison—which ought to be proven by the ordinary means of producing some portion of the drug, both in the possession of the criminal and from the body of the murdered man. This has not been done. There has been no evidence, save, as I have shown, such as may be easily compelled or suborned. If this maid be condemned, there is no one of you with a wife, a daughter, a sweetheart, who may not have her burned or beheaded on just as little evidence—if she have a single enemy in all the city seeking for the sake of malice or thwarted lust to compass her destruction.
"Moreover, it indeed matters little for the argument that this damsel is fair to the eye. Save in so far as she is more the object of desire, and that when the greed of the lustful eye is balked" (here he paused and looked fixedly between his knees), "disappointment oft in such a heart turns to deadly poison. And so that which was desired is the more bitterly hated, and revenge awakes to destroy.
"But if beauty matters little, character matters greatly. And what, by common consent, has been known in the city concerning this maid?
"I ask not you, Duke Otho, who have lived apart in your castle or in far lands, a stranger to the city like myself. But I ask the people among whom, during all these; past months of the plague, she has dwelt. Is she not known among them as Saint Helena?"
"Aye," cried the people, "Saint Helena, indeed—our savior when there was none to help! God save Saint Helena!"
Dessauer waved his hand for silence.
"Did she not go among you from house to house, carrying, not the poison-cup, but the healing draught? Was not her hand soft on the brow of the dying, comfortable about the neck of the bereaved? Day and night, whose fingers reverently wrapped up the poor dead bodies of your beloved? Who quieted your babes in her arms, fed thorn, nursed them, healed them, buried them—wore herself to a shadow for your sakes ?"
"Saint Helena!" they cried; "Saint Helena, the angel of the Red Tower!"
"Aye," said Dessauer, in tones like thunder, "hear their voices! There are a thousand witnesses in this house untortured, unsuborned. I tell you, the guilt of innocent blood will lie on you, great Duke—on you counsellors of evil things, if you condemn this maid. Your throne, Duke Otho, shall totter and fall, and your life's sun shall set in a sea of blood!"
He sat down calm and fearless as the Duke raged to Michael Texel, as I think, desiring that the fearless pleader could be seized on the instant, and punished for his insolence. But as the folk shouted in the hall, and the thunder of cheering came in through the open windows from the great concourse without, Michael Texel calmed his master, urging upon him that the temper of the people was for the present too dangerous. And also, doubtless, that they could easily compass their ends by other means.
I saw Texel despatch a messenger to the lictors who stood on either side of Helene. The body-guard of the Duke stood closer about her as the Duke Otho himself stood up to read the sentence.
I saw that the form of it had been written out upon a paper. Doubtless, therefore, all had been prearranged, so that neither evidence nor eloquence could possibly have had any effect upon it.
"We, the Court of the Wolfmark, find the prisoner, Helene, called Gottfried, guilty of witchcraft, and especially of compassing and causing the death of our predecessor, the most noble Duke Casimir, and we do hereby adjudge that, on the morning of Sunday presently following, Helene Gottfried shall be executed upon the common scaffold by the axe of the executioner. Of our clemency is this sentence delivered, instead of the torture and the burning alive at the stake which it was within our power to command. This is done in consideration of the youth of the criminal, and as the first exercise of our ducal prerogative of high mercy."
With an angry roar the people closed in.
"Take her!" they cried; "rescue her out of their hands!"
And there was a fierce rush, in which the outer barriers were snapped like straw. But the lictors had pulled down the trap-door on the instant, and the people surged fiercely over the spot where a moment before Helene had stood. Before them were the levelled pikes and burning matches of the Duke's guard.
"Have at them!" was still the cry. "Kill the wolves! Tear them to pieces!"
But the mob was undisciplined, and the steady advance of the soldiers soon cleared the hall. Nevertheless the streets without continued angry and throbbing with incipient rebellion. Duke Otho could scarce win scathless across the court-yard to his own apartments. Tiles from the nearest roofs were cast upon the heads of his escort. The streets were impassable with angry men shaking their fists at every courier and soldier of the Duke. Women hung sobbing out of the windows, and all the city of Thorn lamented with uncomforted tears because of the cruel condemnation of their Saint of the plague, Helena, the maiden of the Red Tower.
I rushed out into the street, distract and insensate with grief and madness. I found the city seething with sullen unrest—not yet openly hostile to the powers that abode in the Castle of the Wolfsberg—too long cowed and down-trodden for that, but angry with the anger which one day would of a certainty break out and be pitiless.
The Black Horsemen of the Duke pricked a way with their lances here and there through the people, driving them into the narrow lanes, in jets and spurts of fleeing humanity, only once more to reunite as soon as the Hussars of Death had passed. Pikemen cried "Make way!" and the regular guard of the city paraded in strong companies.
A soldier wantonly thrust me in the back with his spear, and I sprang towards him fiercely, glad to strike home at something. But as quickly a man of the crowd pulled me back.
"Be wise!" he said; "not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of all these women and children. The Black Riders seek only an excuse to sweep the city from end to end with the besom of fire and blood."
Then came my master out of the Hall of Judgment, his head hanging dejectedly down. As soon as he was observed the people crowded about, shaking him by the hand, thanking him for that which he had done for their maid, their holy Saint Helena of the plague.
"We will not suffer her to be put to death, not even if they of theWolfsberg raze our city to the ground!"
"Make way there!" cried the Black Horsemen—"way, in the name ofDuke Otho!"
"Who is Duke Otho?" cried a voice. "We do not know Duke Otho."
"He is not crowned yet! Why should he take so much upon him?" shouted another.
"We are free burgesses of Thorn, and no man's bond-slaves!" said a third. Such were the shouts that hurtled through the streets and were bandied fiercely from man to man, betraying in tone more than in word the intensity of the hatred which existed between the ducal towers of the Wolfsberg and the city which lay beneath them.
In my boyish days I had laughed at the assemblies of the Swan—the White Wolves and Free Companies. But, perhaps, those who had thus played at revolt were wiser than I. For of a surety these associations were yielding their fruits now in a harvest of hate against the gloomy pile that had so long dominated the town, choked its liberties, and shut it off from the new, free, thriving world of the northern seaboard commonwealths to which of right it belonged.
So soon as Dessauer and I were alone in my master's room at Bishop Peter's I tried to stammer some sort of thanks, but I could do no more than hold out a hand to him. The old man clasped it.
"It was wholly useless from the first," he said; "they had their purpose fixed and their course laid out, so that there was no turning of them. All was a mockery, so clear that even the ignorant men of the streets were not deceived. Accusation, evidence, pleadings, condemnation, sentence—all were ready before the maid was taken; aye, and, I think, before Duke Casimir was dead.
"Also there is no court in the Wolfmark higher than the mockery we have seen to-day. The arms of the soldiers of Plassenburg are our only court of appeal."
"It is two days before they can come," I answered. "I fear me all will be over before then."
"Be not so sure," said Dessauer. "There is at present no Justicer in the Mark capable of carrying out the sentence, so long as your father lies on his bed of mortal weakness."
"Duke Otho will not let that stand in his way—or I am the more deceived," said I, with a heavy heart.
At this moment there came an interruption. I heard a loud argument outside in the court-yard.
"Tell me what you want with the servant of the most learned Doctor!" cried a voice.
"That is his business, and mine—not yours, rusty son of a stable-sweeper!" was the answer.
I went out immediately, and there, facing each other in a position of mutual defiance, I saw Peter of the Pigs and the decent legal domestic of Master Gerard von Sturm.
"Get out of my wind, old Muck-to-the-Eyes!" said the servitor, offensively; "you poison the good, wholesome air that is needed for men's breath."
"Go back to your murderer of the saints," responded Peter of the Pigs, valiantly. "Your master and you will swing in effigy to-night in every street in Thorn. Some day before long you will both swing in the body—if a hair of this angel's head be harmed."
"I must see this learned Doctor's servant!" persisted the man of law, avoiding the personal question.
"Here he is," said I; "and now what would you with him?"
"I am sent to invite you to come to the Weiss Thor immediately, on business which deeply concerns you."
"That is not enough for me," said I. "Who sends for me?"
"Let me come in out of the hearing of this moon-faced idiot," said he, pointing contumeliously to Peter of the Pigs, "and I will tell you. I am not bidden to proclaim my business in the market sties and city cattlepens!"
"You do well, Parchment Knave," cried Peter; "for it is such black business that if you proclaimed a syllable of it there you would be torn to pieces of honest folk. Thank God there are still some such in the world!"
"Aye, many," quoth the servitor, "and we all know they are to be found in the dwellings of priestlings!"
I walked with the man to the gate, for I did not care to take him to where Dessauer was sitting. I feared that it might be some ill news from the Lubber Fiend, who, though I had seen him clear of the gate, might very well have returned and told my message to Master Gerard.
"Well," said I, brusquely, for I had no love for the Sir RustyRespectable, "out with it—who sends you?"
"It is not my master," answered the man, "but one other."
"What other?" said I.
"The one," he said, cunningly, "with whom on a former occasion you rode out at the White Gate."
Then I saw that he knew me.
"The Princess—" I began.
"Hush," he said, touching my arm; "that is not a word to be whispered in the streets of Thorn—the Lady Ysolinde is at her father's house, and would see you—on a matter of life or death—so she bade me tell you."
"I will go with you," I said, instantly.
"Nay," he said, smirking secretly, "not now, but at nine of the clock, when the city ways shall be dark, you must come—you know the road. And then you two can confer together safely, and eke, an it please you, jocosely, when Master Gerard will be safe in his study, with the lamp lit."
I went back to Dessauer, who during my absence had kept his head in his hand, as if deeply absorbed in thought.
"The Princess is in Thorn!" said I, as a startling piece of news.
"Ah, the Princess!" he muttered, abstractedly; "truly she is thePrincess, but yet that will not advantage her a whit."
I saw that he was thinking of our little Helene.
"Nay," I said, taking him by the arm to secure his attention, as indeed about this time I had often to do. "I mean the Lady Ysolinde, the wife of our good Prince."
"In Thorn?" said Dessauer. "Ah, I am little surprised. Twice when I was speaking to-day I saw a face I knew well look through a lattice in the wall at me. But being intent upon my words I did not think of it, nor indeed recognize it till it had disappeared. Now the picture comes back to me curiously clear. It was the face of the Princess Ysolinde."
"I am to see her at nine o'clock to-night in the house of theWeiss Thor."
"Do not go, I pray you!" he said; "it is certainly a trap."
"Go I must, and will," I replied; "for it may be to the good of our maiden. I will risk all for that!"
"I dare say," said he; "so should I, if I saw any advantage, such as indeed I hoped for to-day. But if I be not mistaken, our Princess is deep in this plot."
"And why?" said I. "Helene never harmed her."
"Helene is your betrothed wife, is she not?" he said. He asked as if he did not know.
"Surely!" said I.
"Well!" he replied, sententiously, and so went out.
At nine I was at the door of the dark, silent house by the Weiss Thor. I sounded the knocker loudly, and with the end of the reverberations I heard a foot come through the long passages. The panel behind slid noiselessly in its grooves, and I was conscious that a pair of eyes looked out at me.
"You are the servant of the strange Doctor?" said the voice of the servitor, Sir Respectable.
"That I am, as by this time you may have seen!" answered I, for I was in no mood of mere politeness. I was venturing my life in the house of mine enemy, and, at least, it would be no harm if I put a bold face on the matter.
He opened the door, and again the same curious perfume was wafted down the passages—something that I had never felt either in the Wolfsberg nor yet even in the women's chambers of the Palace of Plassenburg.
At the door of the little room in which she had first received me so long ago, the Lady Ysolinde was waiting for me.
She did not shut the door till Sir Respectable had betaken him down again to his own place. Then quite frankly and undisguisedly she took my hand, like one who had come to the end of make-believe.
"I knew you to-day in your disguise," she said; "it is an excellent one, and might deceive all save a woman who loves. Ah, you start. It might deceive the woman you love, but not the woman that loves you. I am not the Princess to-night; I am Ysolinde, the Woman. I have no restraints, no conventions, no laws, no religions to-night—save the law of a woman's need and the religion of a woman's passion."
I stood before her, scarce knowing what to say.
"Sit down," she said; "it is a long story, and yet I will not weary you,Hugo—so much I promise you."
I made answer to her, still standing up.
"To-night, my lady, after what you know, you will not be surprised that I can think of only one thing. You know that to-day—"
"I know," she said, cutting me short, as if she did not wish to listen to that which I might say next; "I know—I was present in the Judgment Hall."
"Then, being Master Gerard's daughter, you knew also the sentence before it was pronounced!" I said, bitterly, being certain as that I lived that the paper from which the Duke Otho read had been penned at this very house of the Weiss Thor in which I now sat.
Ysolinde reached a slender hand to me, as was often her wont instead of speech.
"Be patient to-night," she said; "I am trying hard to do that which is best—for myself first, as a woman must in a woman's affairs. But, as God sees me, for others also! You are a man, but I pray you think with fairness of the fight I, a lonely, unloved woman, have to fight."
"Will they carry out the terrible sentence?" said I, eagerly. For I judged that she must be in her father's counsels.
"Be patient," she said; "we will come to that presently."
Ysolinde sat silent a while, and when I would have spoken further she moved her hand a little impatiently aside, in sign that I was not to interrupt. Yet even this was not done in her old imperious manner, but rather sadly and with a certain wistful gentleness which went to my heart.
When she spoke again it was in the same even voice with which she had formerly told my fortune in that very room.
"That which I have to say to you is a thing strange—as it may seem unwomanly. But then, I did not ask God to make me a woman, and certainly he did not make me as other women. I have never had a true mate, never won the love which God owes to every man and woman He brings into the world.
"Then I mot you, not by any seeking of mine. Next, equally against my will, I loved you. Nay, do not start to-night. It is as well to put the matter plainly."
"You did notloveme," said I; "you were but kind to me, the unworthy son of the Executioner of Thorn. Out of your good heart you did it."
I acknowledge that I spoke like a paltering knave, but in truth knew not what to say.
"I loved you—yes, and I love you!" she said, serenely, as though my words had been the twittering of a bird on the roof. "And I am not ashamed. There was indeed no reason for my folly—no beauty, no desirableness in you. But—I loved you. Pass! Let it be. We will begin from there. You loved, or thought you loved, a maid—your Little Playmate. Pshaw, you loved her not! Or not as I count love. I was proud, accustomed to command, and, besides, a Prince's wife. The last, doubtless, should have held me apart. Yet my Princessdom was but as straw bands cast into the fire to bind the flame. As for you, Hugo Gottfried, you were in love with your success, your future, and, most of all, with your confident, insolently dullard self."
She smiled bitterly, and, because the thing she spoke was partly true, I had still nothing to answer her.
"Hugo Gottfried," she said, "try to remember if, when we rode to Plassenburg in the pleasant weather of that old spring, you loved this girl whom now you love?"
"Aye," said I, "loved her then, even as I love her now."
"You lie," she answered, calmly, not like one in anger, but as one who makes a necessary correction, "you loved her not. You were ready to love me—glad, too, that I should love you. And since you knew not then of my rank, it was not done for the sake of any advancement in Plassenburg."
I felt again the great disadvantage I was under in speaking to the Lady Ysolinde. I never had a word to say but she could put three to it. My best speeches sounded empty, selfish, vain beside hers. And so was it ever. By deeds alone could I vanquish her, and perhaps by a certain dogged masculine persistence.
"Princess," I said to her, "you have asked me to meet you here. It is not of the past, nor yet of likings, imaginings, recriminations that I must speak. My love, my sister, my playmate, bound to me by a thousand ancient tendernesses, lies in prison in this city of Thorn, under sentence of a cruel death. Will you help me to release her? I think that with your father, and therefore with you, is the power to open her prison doors!"
"And what is there then for me?" cried the Lady Ysolinde, instantly, bending her head forward, her emerald eyes so great and clear that their shining seemed to cover all her face as a wave covers a rock at flood-tide.
"What for me?" she repeated, in the silence which followed.
"For you," said I, "the gladness to have saved an innocent life."
"Tush!" she cried, with a gesture of extravagant contempt. "You mistake; I am no good-deeds monger, to give my bread and butter to the next beggar-lass. I tell you I am the woman who came first out of the womb of Mother-earth. I will yield only that which is snatched from me. What is mine is more mine than another's, because I would suffer, dare, sin, defy a world of men and women in order to keep it, to possess it, to have it all alone to myself!"
"But," I answered, "who am I, that so great a lady should love me? What am I to you, Princess, more than another?"
"ThatI know not!" she answered, swiftly. "Only God knows that. Perhaps my curse, my punishment. My husband is a far better, truer, nobler man than you, Hugo. I know it; but what of that, when I love him not? Love goes not by the rungs in a ladder, stands not with the most noble on the highest step, is not bestowed, like the rewards in a child's school, to the most deserving. I love you, Hugo Gottfried, it is true. But I wish a thousand times that I did not. Nevertheless—I do! Therefore make your reckoning with that, and put aside puling shams and whimpering subterfuges."
This set me all on edge, and I asked a question.
"What, then, do you propose? Where, shall this comedy end?"
"End!" she said—"end! Aye, of course, men must ever look to an end. Women are content with a continuance. That you should love me and keep on loving me, that is all I want!"
"But," I began, "I love—"
"Ah, do not say it!" she cried, pitifully, clasping her hands with a certain swift appeal in her voice—"do not say it! For God's sake, for the sake of innocent blood, do not say that you love me not!"
She paused a moment, and grew more pensive as she looked stilly and solemnly at me.
"I will tell you the end that I see; only be patient and answer not before I have done. I have seen a vision—thrice have I seen it. Karl of Plassenburg, my husband, shall die. I have seen the Black Cloak thrice envelop him. It is the sign. No man hath ever escaped that omen—aye, and if I choose, it shall wrap him about speedily. More, I have seen you sit on the throne of Plassenburg and of the Mark, with a Princess by your side. It isnotonly my fancy. Even as in the old time I read your present fortune, so, for good or ill, this thing also is coming to you."
She never took her eyes from my face.
"Now listen well and be slow to speak. The Princedom and the power shall both fall to me when my husband dies. There are none other hands capable. So also is it arranged in his will. Here"—she broke off suddenly, as with a gesture of infinite surrender she thrust out her white hands towards me—"here is my kingdom and me. Take us both, for we are yours—yours—yours!"
I took her hands gently in mine and kissed them.
"Lady, Lady Ysolinde," I said, "you honor me, you overwhelm me, I know not what to say. But think! The Prince is well, full of health and the hope of years. This thought of yours is but a vision, a delusion—how can we speak of the thing that is not?"
"I wait your answer," she said, leaving her hands still in mine, but now, as it were, on sufferance. Then, indeed, I was torn between the love that I had in my heart for my dear and the need of pleasing the Lady Ysolinde—between the truth and my desire to save Helene. Almost it was in my heart to declare that I loved the Lady Ysolinde, and to promise that I should do all she asked. But though, when need hath been, I have lied back and forth in my time, and thought no shame, something stuck in my throat now; and I felt that if I denied my love, who lay prison-bound that night, I should never come within the mercy of God, but be forever alien and outcast from any commonwealth of honorable men.
"I cannot, Lady Ysolinde," I answered, at last. "The love of the maid hath so grown into my heart that I cannot root it out at a word. It is here, and it fills all my life!"
Again she interrupted me.
"See," she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, "they tell me this your Helene is an angel of mercy to the sick. If she is spared she will be content to give her life to works of good intent among the poor. This cannot be life and death to her as it is to me. Her love is not as the love of a woman like Ysolinde. It is not for any one man to possess in monopoly. Though you may deceive yourself and think that it will be fixed and centred on you. But she will never love you as I love you. See, I would knee to you, pray to you on my knees, make myself a suppliant—I, Ysolinde that am a princess! With you, Hugo, I have no pride, no shame. I would take your love by violence, as a strong man surpriseth and taketh the heart of a maid."
She was now all trembling and distract, her lips red, her eyes bright, her hands clasped and trembling as they were strained palm to palm.
"Lady Ysolinde, I would that this were not so," I began.
A new quick spasm passed over her face. I think it came across her that my heart was wavering. "God knows that I, Hugo Gottfried, am not worth all this!"
"Nay," she said, with a kind of joy in her voice and in her eyes, "that matters not. Ysolinde of Plassenburg is as a child that must have its toy or die. Worthiness has no more to do with love than creeds and dogmas. Love me—Hugo—love me even a little. Put me not away. I will be so true, so willing. I will run your errands, wait on you, stand behind you in battle, in council lead you to fame and great glory. For you, Hugo, I will watch the faces of others, detect your enemies, unite your well-wishers, mark the failing favor of your friends. What heart so strong, what eye so keen as mine—for the greater the love the sharper the eye to mark, prevent, countermine. And this maid, so cold and icy, so full of good works and the abounding fame of saintliness, let her live for the healing of the people, for the love of God and man both, and it liketh her. She shall be abbess of our greatest convent. She shall indeed be the Saint Helena of the North. Even now I will save her from death and give her refuge. I promise it. I have the power in my hands. Only do you, Hugo Gottfried, give me your love, your life, yourself!"
She was standing before me now, and had her arms about my neck. I felt them quiver upon my shoulders. Her eyes looked directly up into mine, and whether they were the eyes of an angel or of a tempting fiend I could not tell. Very lovely, at any rate, they were, and might have tempted even Saint Anthony to sin.
"Ysolinde," I said, at last, "it is small wonder that I am strongly moved; you have offered me great things to-night. I feel my heart very humble and unworthy. I deserve not your love. I am but a man, a soldier, dull and slow. Were it not for one man and one woman it should be as you say. But Karl of Plassenburg is my good master, my loyal friend. Helene is my true love. I beseech you put this thought from you, dear lady, and be once more my true Princess, I your liege subject—faithful, full of reverence and devotion till life shall end!"
As I spoke she drew herself away from me. My hand had unconsciously rested on her hair, for at first she had leaned her head towards me. When I had finished she took my hand by the wrist and gripped it as if she would choke a snake ere she dropped it at arm's-length. I knew that our interview was at an end.
"Go!" she commanded, pointing to the door. "One day you shall know how precious is the love you have so lightly cast aside. In a dark, dread hour, you, Hugo Gottfried, shall sue as a suppliant. And I shall deny you. There shall come a day when you shall abase yourself—even as you have seen Ysolinde the Princess abase herself to Hugo, the son of the Red Axe of the Wolf mark. Go, I tell you! Go—ere I slay you with my knife!"
And she flashed a keen double-edged blade from some recess of her silken serpentine dress.
"My lady, hear me," I pleaded. "Out of the depths of my heart I protest to you—"
"Bah!" she cried, with a sudden uprising of tigerish fierceness in her eyes, quick and chill as the glitter of her steel. "Go, I tell you, ere I be tempted to strike!Your heart!Why, man, there is nothing in your heart but empty words out of monks' copy-books and proverbs dry and rotten as last year's leaves. Ye have seen me abased. By the lords of hell, I will abase you, Executioner's son! Aye, and you yourself, Hugo Gottfried, shall work out in flowing blood and bitter tears the doom of the pale trembling girl for whom you have rejected and despised Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg!"