Now, because there is still so much to tell, and so little time and space to tell it in, I must go forward rapidly. In these dull times of grouting peace, when men become like penned pigs, waking up only at feeding-time, they have no knowledge of how swiftly life went when every day brought a new living friend or a new dead enemy, when love and hate awakened fresh and fresh with each morrow's sun—and when I was young.
Perhaps that last is the true reason. But when the Baltic norther snorts without, and mine ancient thigh-wound twinges down where my hand rests, naturally I have no better resource than to fall to the goose-quill. And lo! long ere I am done with the first page, and have the ink no more than half-way to the roots of my hair, I am again in the midst of the ringing hoofs of the foray. I hear the merry dinting of steel on steel; the sullenchug-chugof the wheels of Foul Peg, the Margrave's great cannon, which more than once he lent our Prince; the oaths of the men-at-arms shouldering her up, apostrophizing most indecently her fat haunches, and the next moment getting tossed aside like ninepins by her unexpected lurches. Ah, the times that were when I was young!
I see these gallants about our later courts—Lord help them, sons of mine own, too, some of them—year in and year out, crossing their legs and staring at the gilded points of their shoon. All are grown so tame—none now to ride a-questing in the Baltic forest for border brigands —indeed, there be no brigands to quest for.
But I forget. Time was when I looked love, and I too had shoon, aye, with golden tips to match the armor of honor which the Prince gave me after I had led my first regiment to victory—even as the Lady Ysolinde had said. And noble shoes of price they were.
And I could make love, too, when I had the chance. But, nevertheless, not more than one day in six—spending the rest in the new training of my men, the perfecting of their equipment, the choosing of their horses, and the providing for their stores.
God wot—it was a good time. I mind me the year when the Prince fell out with Duke Casimir, and we played over again the old tricks with him.
Never was I gladder of any quest than that to ride within sight of the Red Tower, and wave the blue and yellow of my master under the very ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and almost within hearing of the inhuman howling of its blood-hounds.
"Singe his beard!" said my master. And with a hundred riders I did it too. For though the burghers clattered to their gates, I rode to the very walls of the Wolfsberg, which for bravado I summoned to surrender. And the best of it was that no man knew me. For I had grown soldierlike and strong, and was most unlike the lad who had ridden away so meekly and almost in tears out of the gate of that very Wolfsberg.
Of my father, thank God, I saw nothing—though I doubt not he observed my troop. For doubtless he would be with his master—aged now, soured, and prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of the assassin's bullet in every wind.
And, save when an honest burgher was slain by the Black Riders, the beasts of the kennels were fed on diet more ordinary than of old.
So we rode back with our prisoners, and as much plunder as we could screw out of old Burgomeister Texel and his citizens by threats of sacking the city—a deed which I was main sorry for afterwards, in the light of that which happened at a later day. But I knew not the future then, and it was as well. For the guilders paid nobly for the new-fashioned ordnance which stood us in such good stead that autumn, when we had sterner work in hand than singeing the gray beard of Duke Casimir.
Within Schloss Plassenburg things went on much as usual. Perhaps I was lax in my wooing—I cannot tell; I loved sincerely enough, of a certainty. Nor, after this, was I backward in telling Helene of it, and sometimes she would love me well enough, and then again she would not. So that I could not tell what she would be at.
Looking back upon everything now, I see clearly how that the rankling secret thorn was the accursed understanding with the Prince, that for his peace's sake I was to abide friendly with the Princess and let her try her fool experiments on me. Which she did, God wot, innocently enough—that is, for all the harm they did me. But, nevertheless, without knowing it, I kept the Little Playmate with a sore and aching heart for many and many a day.
But I made nothing of it—thinking, like a careless, ill-deserving soldier-lover, eager for success and dazzled with ambition, chiefly of my profession, of how to win battles and take fortresses against the surrounding princelings, our Karl's enemies, till one day I found Helene with her cheeks wet and her pretty lips bitten till the blood had come.
"What is't, little one? Tell me!" said I, going to her and putting my arm about her, as indeed I had some right to do, if no more than the right of having carried her up into the Red Tower in her white gown so long ago.
But she wrested herself determinedly out of my hold, saying: "Do not touch me, sir. 'Tis all your fault!"
"What is my fault, dear lass?" said I. "Tell me, and I will instantly amend it."
"Oh!" she cried, casting her hands out from her in bitter complaint, "there is nothing so meanly selfish as a man! He will say tender things—aye, and do them, too, when it liketh him. He can be, oh, so devoted and so full of his eternal affections. He is dying all for love! And then, soon as he passes out of the door he ties his sword-knot and points his mustache to his liking, and lo! there is no more of him. He goes and straightway forgets till it shall please his High Mightiness to call again. Oh! and we—we women, poor things, must stand about with our mouths open, like mossy carp in a pond, and struggle and push for such crumbs of comfort as he will deign to throw us from the full larder of his self-satisfaction!"
This was a most mighty speech for the Little Playmate, and took me entirely by surprise. For mostly she was still enough and quiet enough in her ways and speakings.
"'Tis true, sweetheart, that some men are like that," I replied, gently, "but not Hugo Gottfried, surely. When did you ever find me unkind, unthankful, unfaithful? When went I ever away and left you alone?"
"Oh, you did—you did," she cried, the tears starting from her lovely eyes, "or I should never have been insulted—treated lightly, spoken to as a staled thing of courts and camps!"
And Helene sank down beside the garden wall in an abandonment of sorrow—so that my heart grew hot and angry at the cause of her grief, to me then unknown.
I knelt down beside her and touched her lightly on one rounded, heaving shoulder.
"Dearest," said I, "I knew nothing of this. Tell me who has insulted you. As God is in His heaven, I will have my sword in his heart or nightfall, were it the Prince himself! Tell me, and by the Lord of the Innocents, I will make him eat cold steel and drink his own blood therewith!"
"Oh, it was my own fault—I know I should not have met him—let him speak to me in the garden. But you were so cold to me, Hugo. And then I thought—I thought that the Woman was taking you away from me. Also she sent me out to be—to be in his path!"
"In whose path, I bid you tell me, and what woman?"
Though the latter I knew well enough.
"The Princess," she answered, "and the Count von Reuss. To-day he spoke to me of love, and spoke it hatefully, shamefully, when the Princess had bidden me go and carry her message to him. But it was with me that he desired to meet. And I—at first many days ago—I walked by his side and listened, for then he spoke courteously and like a gentleman. For you were on the high terrace, and I wished you to see. I thought—I hoped—"
And the little one broke off with tears.
"I know, I know!" cried I, contritely; "I am a blind, doting fool. In this Prince's court I thought no more of such dangers than when I had you safe and innocent, my Playmate of the Red Tower. But what did or said Von Reuss?"
"Truly he did naught, but only spoke—things for which I would have smitten him to death had I possessed a dagger. I bade him begone. And he swore he would execute his purpose yet in spite of every town's Executioner in the Empire."
"Ah, will he?" said I, a calm chill of hatred settling about my heart."I, Hugo Gottfried, will execute him, if I have to send for my father'sRed Axe to do it with—singed and scented monkey that he is."
"Nay," said Helene, "then I wish I had not told you. Perhaps he will not meddle with me again, and if you cross him he may slay thee. Remember, I have no friend here but you, Hugo!"
"Count von Reuss slay me! I could eat him up without salt or savory—a weak reed, a kerl without backbone save of buckram; why, I will shake him this day like a rat between my hands!"
So I spoke in my anger, hot with myself that I had let the LittlePlaymate suffer these things, and resolved that neither Prince norPrincess would stand between me and my love a moment longer.
But in all lands it takes more than Say-so to budge the stubborn wheels of circumstance.
I meant to go directly to the Prince in his chamber and tell him that from this time forth Helene and I had resolved to battle out our lives together. But it chanced that I passed through the higher terrace on my way to the lower—a bosky place of woods, where the Prince loved to linger in of a summer afternoon, drowsing there to the singing of birds and the falling of waters. For our Karl had tastes quite beyond sour black Casimir, with his church-yard glooms and raw-bone terrors.
On the upper terrace I found Von Reuss, lolling against the parapet with other blue flittermice, his peers—he himself no flittermouse, indeed, but of the true Casimir vampire breed, horrid of tooth, nocturnal, desirous of lusts and blood.
At sight of him I went straight at mine enemy, as if I had been leading a charge.
"Sir," said I, "you are a base rascal. You have insulted the Lady Helene, maid of honor to the Princess, the adopted child of my father. Her wrongs are mine. You will do me the honor of crossing weapons with me!"
"I have not learned the art of the axe," said he, turning about, listlessly. "You expect too much, Sir Executioner!"
I wasted no more words upon him, for I had not sought him to barter insults, but to force him to meet me where I could have my anger out upon him, and avenge the tears in the eyes of my Little Playmate.
Von Reuss was drawing a glove of yellow dressed kid through his hand as he spoke. This I plucked from his fingers ere he was aware, and struck him soundly on either cheek with it before flinging it crumpled up in his face.
"Now will you fight, or must I strike you with my open hand?"
Then I saw the look of his uncle stand hell-clear in his eyes. But he was not frightened, this one, only darkly and unscrupulously vengeful.
"Foul toad's spawn, now I will have your blood!" he cried, tugging at his sword.
"We cannot fight here," said I, "within sight of the palace windows. But to-night at sundown, or to-morrow at dawn, I am at your service."
"Let it be to-night, on the common at the back of the Hirschgasse—one second, and the fighting only between principals."
Very readily I agreed to that, or anything, and then, with a wave of my hat, I went off, cudgelling my brain whom I should ask to be my second. Jorian, who was now an officer, I should have liked better than any other. But, being of the people myself, it was necessary that I should have some one of weight and standing to meet the nephew of the Duke of the Wolfmark and his friend.
Moodily pacing down the glade, which led from the second terrace and the pleasaunce, I almost overran the Prince himself. He was seated under a tree, a parchment of troubadours' songs lay by him, illuminated (to judge by the woeful pictures) by no decent monkish or clerkly hand. He had a bottle of Rhenish at hand, and looked the same hearty, hard-headed, ironic soldier he ever was, and yet, what is more strange, every inch of him a Prince.
"Whither away, young Sir Amorous," he cried, pretending great indignation at my absent-mindedness, "head among the clouds or intent as ever on the damosels? Conning madrigals for lovers' lutes, mayhap? And all the while taking no more heed of God's honest princes than if they existed only for trampling under your feet."
I asked his pardon—but indeed I had not come so nigh him as that.
"I am to fight in a private quarrel," said I, "and, truth to tell, I sorely want a second, and was pondering whom to ask."
The Prince sighed.
"Ah, lad," he said, "once I had wished no better than to stand up at your side myself. I was not a Prince then though; and again, these laws—these too strict laws of mine! But what is the matter of your duel, and with whom?"
"Well," said I, "I have slapped Count von Reuss's chafts with his own glove, in the midst of his friends, on the upper terrace."
'Tis possible I may be mistaken, I suppose, but I did think then, and still do think, that I saw evident tokens of pleasure on the face of the Prince.
"And the cause—"
I hesitated, blushing temple-high, I dare say, in spite of the growth of my mustaches.
"A woman, then!" cried the Prince. Then, more low, he added, "Not the—?"
He would have said the Princess, for he paused, in his turn, with a graver look on his face.
So I hastened with my explanation.
"He insulted the young Lady Helene, maid of honor to the Princess, who is to me as a sister, having been brought up with me in one house. Her honor is my honor, both by this tie, and because, as you know, we have long loved each other. Therefore will I fight Count von Reuss to the death, and a good cause enough."
The Prince whistled—an unprincely habit, but then all millers' lads whistle at their work. So Prince Karl whistled as he meditated.
"I see further into this matter than that—if indeed you love this maid.There be other things to be thought upon than vengeance upon Von Reuss!Does the Princess know of this?"
"Suspect she may," said I; "know she cannot. It was only half an hour ago that I knew myself."
"Ha," said he, musingly, with his beard in his hand, "it hath gone no further than that. Were it not, if possible, better to conceal the cause yet a while that our compact may go on? It were surely easy enough to invent an excuse for the quarrel."
"Prince," answered I, earnestly, "this bargain of ours hath gone on over long already, in that it hath brought a true maid's honor and happiness in question. And a maid also whom I am bound to love. I will ask you this, have I been a good soldier and servant to you or not?"
"Aye to that!" quoth the Prince, heartily.
"Have I ever asked fee or reward for aught I have tried to do?"
"Nay," he said; "but you have gotten some of both without asking."
"Will you grant me the first boon I have asked of you since you becamePrince and Master to Hugo Gottfried?"
"I will grant it, if it be not to separate us as friend and friend," said my master at once.
It was like the noble Prince thus to speak of our relation. I took his hand in mine to kiss it, but this he would not permit.
"Shake hands like a man," he said, "or else kiss me upon the cheek. My hand is for young, blue-painted flittermice to kiss, for whose souls' good it is to put their lips to the hand that has shifted the meal-bags."
And with that Prince Karl embraced me heartily, and kissed me on both cheeks.
"Now for this request of yours!" said he, looking expectantly at me.
"It is this," I answered him directly: "Give me a district to govern, a tower to dwell in, and Helene to be my wife."
"Nay, but these are three things, and you stipulated but for one. Choose one!" he said.
"Then give me Helene to wife!" I cried, instantly.
"Spoken like a lover," said the good Prince. "You shall have her if I have the giving of her, which I beg leave to doubt. Something tells me that much water will run under the bridges ere that wedding comes to pass. But so far as it concerns me the thing is done. Yet remember, I have never been one wisely to marry, nor yet to give in marriage."
He smiled a dry, humorsome smile—the smile of a shrewd miller casting up his thirlage upon the mill door when he sees the fields of his parish ripe to the harvest.
"I wonder why, with her crystals and her ink-pools, the Princess hath not foreseen this. By the blue robe of Mary, there will be proceedings when she does know. I think I shall straightway go a-hunting in the mountains with my friend the Margrave!"
He considered a moment longer, and took a deep draught of Rhenish.
"Then the matter of a second," continued the Prince; "he is to fight, of course?"
"No," said I; "principals only."
"I wonder," said the Prince, meditatively, "if there be anything in that. It is not our Plassenburg custom between two young men, well surrounded with brisk lads. Three seconds, and three to meet them point to point, was more our ancient way."
"It was specially arranged at the request of the Count you Reuss," I told the Prince.
"If there is to be no fighting of seconds, what do you say to old Dessauer? He was a pretty blade in my time, and has all the etiquette and chivalry of the business at his finger-ends. Also he likes you."
"At any rate, he is ever railing upon me with that sharp tongue of his!" said I.
"But did you ever hear him rail upon any of these young men that lean on rails and roll their eyes under ladies' windows?" said the Prince. "Old Leopold Dessauer is even now no weakling. I warrant he could draw a good sword yet upon occasion. Anything more lovely than his riposte I never saw."
The Prince got upon his feet with the difficulty of a man naturally heavy of body, who takes all his exercise upon horseback.
"Page!" he cried. "My compliments to High State's Councillor Dessauer, and ask him to come to me here. You will find him, I think, in the library."
So to the palace sped the boy; and presently, walking stiffly, but with great dignity, came the old man down to us.
"How about the ancestors, the noble men my predecessors?" cried thePrince, when he saw him; "have you found aught to link the miller ofChemnitz with the Princes of Plassenburg?"
The Councillor smiled, and shook his head gravely.
"Nothing beyond that bit of metal which hangs by your side, Prince Karl," said Dessauer, pointing to his Highness's sword.
The Prince looked down at the strong, unadorned hilt thoughtfully and sighed.
"I would I had another to transmit this sword to, as well as the power to wield it, when I take my place as usurper in the histories of the Princes of Plassenburg."
"I trust your Highness may long be spared to us," replied Dessauer, gravely; "but, Prince Karl, in default of an heir to your body (of which there is yet no reason to despair), wherefore may not your Highness devise the realm back to the ancient line?"
"The line of Dietrich is extinct," said the Prince, booking up sharply.
"So says Duke Casimir, hoping to succeed to your shoes, when he could not to your helmet and your sword. But I have my suspicions and my beliefs. There is more in the parchments of yonder library than has yet seen the light."
Suddenly the Prince recollected me, standing patiently by.
"But we waste time, Dessauer; we can speak of ancestors and successors anon. I and Hugo Gottfried want you to take up your ancient role. Do you mind how you snicked Axelstein, and clipped Duke Casimir of his little finger at the back of the barn, when we were all lads at the Kaiser's first diet at Augsburg?"
Old Dessauer smiled, well pleased enough at the excellence of thePrince's memory.
"I have seen worse cuts," he said; "Casimir has never rightly liked me since. And had the Black Riders caught me, over to his dogs I should have gone without so much as a belt upon me. He would have kept them without food for a week on purpose to make a clean job of my poor scarecrow pickings."
"And now this young spark," said the Prince, "for the sake of a lady's eyes, desires to do your Augsburg deed over again with Duke Casimir's nephew. So we must give him a man with quarterings on his shield to go along with him."
"I am too old and stiff," said Dessauer, shaking his head mournfully, yet with obvious desire in the itching fingers of his sword-hand; "let him seek out one of the brisk young kerls that are drumming at the blade-play all the time down there in the square by the guard-rooms."
"Nay, it is to be principals only; there is to be no fighting of seconds.The Count has specially desired that there shall be none," said thePrince; "therefore, go with the lad, Dessauer."
"No fighting of seconds!" cried the Councillor, in astonishment, holding up his hands. And I think the old swordsman seemed a little disappointed. "Well, I will go and see the lad well through, and warrant that he gets fair-play among these wolves of the Mark."
"Faith, when it comes to that, he is as rough-pelted a wolf of the Mark as any of them!" laughed the Prince.
The Hirschgasse is a little inn across the river, well known to the wilder blades of Plassenburg. There they go to be outside the authority of the city magistrates, to make rendezvous with maids more complaisant than maidenly, to fight their duels, and generally to do those things without remark which otherwise bring them under the eye of the Miller's Son, as they one and all call (behind his back) the reigning Prince of Plassenburg.
It was on the stroke of seven, and as fine an evening as ever failed to touch the soul of sinful man with a sense of its beauty, that I set out to fight the nephew of Duke Casimir. I had indeed ridden far and fast, and withal kept my head since I left the Red Tower a poor homeless wanderer, otherwise I had scarce found myself going out with High Councillor Leopold von Dessauer as my second to fight my late master's heir, the proximate Duke of the Wolfmark.
What was my surprise to find the old man attired in the appropriate costume for such an occasion, a close-fitting suit of dark gray, of ancient cut indeed, and without the fashionable slashes and scallops, but both correct and practicable, either for the sword-play or the proper ordering of it in others.
Von Dessauer laughed a little dry laugh when I congratulated him on the youthfulness of his appearance. Indeed, he seemed little grateful for my felicitations. And if it had not been for the rheumatism which he had inherited from his father's campaigns on the tented field, and the weakness which came from his own in other fields, he would yet have proved as fit for the play of fence as any youngster of them all. So, at least, he averred. And to-night the wind was southerly, and his old hurts irked him not. Faith he was almost minded to try a ruffle with the cocks of the Mark on his own account.
"Mind you," he said, "guard low. The attack of the Mark ever comes from the right leg, half-way to the knee. But I forgot—what use is it to tell you, that are born of the Mark, and have learned sword-cunning in their schools?"
As we left the castle I looked about and secretly kissed a hand to that high window, where was the chamber of my Little Playmate, whose cause I was going out so gladly to champion.
Dessauer and I went quickly down through the lanes which led to the river edge where the ferry was, and more than once with the comer of my eye I seemed to see a man in a cloak and sword stealing after us. But as the sight of a man so attired going secretly in the direction of the Hirschgasse was no uncommon one, I did not pay any particular attention.
We crossed over in the large flat-boat which plied constantly between the banks before our fine new bridge was built. We found our enemies on the ground before us, and they seemed more than a little surprised when they perceived who my second was. For as we came up the bank I saw them go close and whisper together like men who hastily alter their plans at the last moment.
I presented my second in form.
"The High Councillor Leopold von Dessauer, Knight of the Empire!" said I, proudly enough.
Then the Count presented his, as the custom then was among us of the North:
"His Excellency Friedrich, Count of Cannstadt, Hereditary Cup-bearer of the Wolfmark."
Count Cannstadt was an impecunious old-young man, who, chiefly owing to accumulated gaming-debts and a disagreement with Duke Casimir concerning the payment of certain rents and duties, had sought the shelter of the Castle of Plassenburg—a refuge which the generous Prince Karl extended to all exiles who were not proven criminals.
The seconds bowed first to each other, and then to their opposing principals. In those days, duels were mostly fought with the combatants' own swords. And now Von Dessauer took my blade, and, going forward courteously, handed the hilt to Count Cannstadt, receiving that of Von Reuss in return. The seconds then compared the lengths, and found almost half an inch in favor of my opponent. Which being declared, and I offering no objection, the discrepancy was allowed and the swords returned us to fall to.
And this without further parley we did.
I was no ways afraid of my opponent. For though a pretty enough, tricky fighter, he had little practical experience. Also he had quite failed to strengthen himself by daily custom, and especially by practice at outrauce, with an enemy keen to run you through in front of you, and the necessity of keeping a wary eye on half a dozen other conflicts on either hand, as has constantly to be done in war.
The place where we fought was on a level green platform a little way above the roofs of the inn of the Hirschgasse, where many a similar conflict has been fought, and on which many a good fellow has lain, panting like a grassed trout, with the gasps growing slower and deadlier, while his opponent wiped his blade on the trampled herbage, and the seconds looked on with folded arms. There were many bushes and rocks about, and the place was very secluded to be so near a great city.
At first I did not trouble myself much, nor attempt to force the fighting. I was content to hold Von Reuss in play, and defend myself till the hunger edge of his attack was dulled. For I saw on his face a look of vicious confidence that surprised me, considering his inexperience, and he lunged with a venom and resolution which, to my mind, betokened a determination to kill at all hazards.
I knew, however, that presently he must overreach himself, so of set purpose I kept my blade short, and let him approach nearer. Immediately he began to press, thinking that he had me at his mercy. We had fought our way round to a spot on the upper side of the plateau, where for a moment Von Reuss had a momentary benefit from the nature of the ground. Here I felt that he gathered himself together, and, presently, as I had supposed he would, he centred his energy in a determined thrust at my left breast. This was well enough timed, for my guard had been short and a little high on purpose to lead him on, and now it took me all my time to turn his point aside. I saw the steel shoot past, grazing my left arm. Then with so long a recovery, and the loss of balance from lunging downhill, he was at my mercy.
As I did not wish to kill him I chose my spot almost at my leisure, and pinked him two inches below the spring of the neck and close to the collar-bone, which was running the thing as fine as I could allow myself.
What was my surprise to see my sword-blade arch itself as if it had stricken a stone wall, and to hear the unmistakable ring of steel meeting steel.
"Treachery!" cried Von Dessauer and I together; "you are villains both.He is wearing a shirt of mail!"
And the old man rushed forward with his sword bare in his hand and all a-tremble with indignation.
I heard the shrill "purl" of a silver call, and, turning me about, there was the gambler Cannstadt with a whistle at his lips. I dared not turn my head, for I had still to guard myself against the traitor Von Reuss's attack, but with the tail of my eye I could see two or three men rise from behind bushes and rocks, and come running as fast as they could towards us. Then I knew that Dessauer and I were doomed men unless something turned up that we wotted not of. For with an old man, and one so stiff as the High Councillor, for my only ally, it was impossible for me to hold my own against more than double our numbers.
Nevertheless, Von Dessauer attacked Cannstadt with surprising fury and determination, anger glittering in his eye, and resolution to punish treachery lending vigor to his thrust. I had not time to observe his method save unconsciously, for I had to change my position momentarily that I might take the points of the two men who came down the hill at speed, sword in hand.
But all this foul play among high-born folk gave me a kind of mortal sickness. To die in battle is one thing, but over against the very roofs of your home to find yourself brought to death's door by murderous treachery is quite another.
At this moment there came news of a diversion. From below was heard the crying of a stormy voice.
"Halt! I command you! Halt!"
And wheeling sufficiently to see, I observed through the twilight the figure of a stout man, who came leaping heavily up the hill towards us, waving a sword as he came. Well, thought I, the more there are of them the quicker it will be over, and the more credit for us in keeping up our end so long. Better die in a good fight than live with a bad conscience.
With which admirable reflection I sent my sword through Von Reuss's sword-arm, in the fleshy part, severing the muscle and causing him to drop his blade. I had him then at my mercy, and experienced a great desire to push my blade down his throat, for a treacherous cowardly hound as he had proved himself to me. But instead of this I had to turn towards the other two who came at the charge down the hill and were now close upon us.
I had just time to leap aside from the first and let him overrun himself when he shot almost upon the sword of the thick-set man, who came up the hill shouting to us to stop. The second man I engaged, and a stanch blade I found him, though fighting for as dirty a cause as ever man crossed swords in.
"Halt!" came the voice of command again—the voice I knew so well—"in the name of the State I bid you cease!"
It was the voice of Karl, Prince of Plassenburg.
"We must take the rough with the smooth now. We must kill them, every one, like stanch men of the Mark!" cried Von Reuss. "There is no safety for any of us else." And in a moment we were at it, the Prince furiously assaulting the second of the bravoes who came down the hill. More coolly than I had given him credit for, Von Reuss stuffed a silken kerchief into the hole in his shoulder, and repossessed himself of his weapon in his other hand.
It was the briskest kind of a bicker that ensued for a little while there on the bosky, broomy hill-side in the evening light. Ah, Dessauer was down at last and Cannstadt at his throat! I went about with a whirl, leaving my own man for the moment, and rushed upon the Count's false second. He turned to receive me, but not quite quick enough, for I got him two inches below where I had pinked his principal's ring-mail, and that made all the difference. Cannstadt did not immediately drop his sword. But his limbs weakened, and he fell forward without a sound.
Then as I looked about, there was the Prince manfully crossing swords with two, and the cowardly Von Reuss creeping up with his sword shortened in his left hand with intent to slay him from behind.
Whereat I gave a furious cry of anguish, that I should have been the means of bringing my noble master into such peril. The Prince Karl had at the same moment some intuition of the treacherous foe behind him, for he leaped aside with more agility than I had ever seen him display before on foot, and Von Reuss was too sorely wounded to follow.
Presently I was at my first bravo again, and the Prince being left with but one, Von Reuss took the opportunity to slip away over the hill.
The rest of the conflict was not long a-settling. There were loud voices from the stream beneath. The combat had been observed, and half a score of the Prince's guard were already swimming, wading, and leaping into small boats in their haste to be first to our assistance.
But we did not need their aid. I passed my blade through and through my assailant, almost at the same moment that the Prince spiked his man so directly in the throat, so that the red point stood out in the hollow of his neck behind.
Both went down simultaneously, and there was Von Reuss on horseback, just disappearing over the ridge. Prince Karl wiped his brow.
"What devil's traitors!" he cried. "Poor Dessauer, I wonder what he has gotten? Let us go to him."
We went across the plateau together, and knelt by the side of the old man. At first I could not find the wound, though there was blood enough upon his face and fencing-habit. But presently I discovered that his scalp had been cut from above the eye backwards to the crown of his head—a shallow, ploughing scratch, no more, though it had effectually stunned the old man.
Even as I held him in my arms, he came to and looked about him.
"Are they all dead?" he said, feeling about for his sword.
"You were nearly dead, dearest of friends," said my master. "But be content. You have done very well for so young a fighter. An you behave yourself, and keep from such brawling in the future, I declare I will give you a company!"
Dessauer smiled.
"All dead?" he asked, trying still to look about him.
"Your man is dead, or the next thing to it, two other rascals grievously wounded, and the scoundrel Von Reuss fled, as well he might. But my archers are already on his track."
Up the hill came Jorian and Boris leading the rout.
"Is the Prince safe?" cried Jorian.
"The Prince is safe," said Karl, answering for himself.
"Good!" chorussed Jorian, Boris, and all the archers together.
"Catch me that man on horseback there!" cried the Prince. "Take him or kill him, but if you can help it do not let him escape. He is the Count von Reuss, and a double traitor."
"Good!" cried the pair, and set off after him, all dripping as they were from their abrupt passage of the river.
We carried Dessauer back to the boat with the utmost tenderness, the Prince walking by his side, and oft-times taking his hand. I followed behind them, more than a little sad to think that my troubles should have caused so good and true a man so dangerous a wound. For though in a young man the scalp-wound would have healed in a week, in a man of the High Councillor's age and delicacy of constitution it might have the most serious effects.
But Dessauer himself made light of it.
"I needed a leech to bleed me," he said. "I was coward enough to put off the kindly surgery, and here our young friend has provided me one without cost. His last operation, too, and so no fee to pay. I am a fortunate man."
We came to the gate of the Palace of Plassenburg.
My Lady Princess met us, pale and obviously anxious, with lips compressed and a strange cold glitter in her emerald eyes.
"So strange a thing has happened!" she began.
"No stranger than hath happened to us," cried the Prince.
"Why, what hath happened to you?" she demanded, quickly.
"Your fine Von Reuss has proved himself a traitor. He fought a duel with Hugo here all tricked in chain-armor, and when found out he whistled his rascals from the covert to slay us. But we bested him, and he is over the hill, with Jorian and Boris hot after his heel."
"And he hath not gone alone!" said the Princess, and her eyes were brilliant with excitement.
"Not gone alone?" said the Prince. "What do you know about this black work?"
"Because Helene, my maid of honor, hath fled to join him," she said, looking anxiously at us, like one who perils much upon a throw of the dice.
I laughed aloud. So certain was I of the utter impossibility of the thing, that I laughed a laugh of scorn. And I saw the sound of my voice jar the Lady Ysolinde like a blow on the face.
"You do not believe!" she said, standing straight before me.
"I do not believe—I know!" answered I, curtly enough.
"Nevertheless the thing is true," she said, with a curious, pleading expression, as if she had been charged with wrong-doing and were clearing herself, though none had accused her by word or look.
"It is most true," the Princess went on. "She fled from the palace an hour before sundown. She was seen mounting a horse belonging to Von Reuss at the Wolfmark gate, with two of his men in attendance upon her. She is known to have received a note by the hand of an unknown messenger an hour before."
I did not wait for the permission of the Princess, but tore up the women's staircase to Helene's room, where I found nothing out of place—not so much as a fold of lace. After a hurried look round I was about to leave the room when a crumpled scrap of paper, half hidden by a curtain, caught my eye.
I stooped and picked it up. It was written in an unknown and probably disguised hand—a hand cumbersome and unclerkly:
"Come to me. Meet me at the Red Tower. I need you."
There was no more; the signature was torn away, and if the letter were genuine it was more than enough. But no thought of its truth nor of the falseness of Helene so much as crossed my mind.
To tell the truth, it struck me from the first that the Lady Ysolinde might have placed the letter there herself. So I said nothing about it when I descended.
The Prince met me half-way up the stairs.
"Well?" he questioned, bending his thick brows upon me.
"She is gone, certainly," said I; "where or how I do not yet know. But with your permission I will pursue and find out."
"Or, I presume, without my permission?" said the Prince.
I nodded, for it was vain to pretend otherwise—foolish, too, with such a master.
"Go, then, and God be with you!" he said. "It is a fine thing to believe in love."
And in ten minutes I was riding towards the Wolfsberg.
As I went past the great four-square gibbet which had made an end of Ritterdom in Plassenburg, I noted that there was a gathering of the hooded folk—the carrion crows. And lo! there before me, already comfortably a-swing, were our late foes, the two bravoes, and in the middle the dead Cannstadt tucked up beside them, for all his five hundred years of ancestry—stamped traitor and coward by the Miller's Son, who minded none of these things, but understood a true man when he met him.
I pounded along my way, and for the first ten miles did well, but there my horse stumbled and broke a leg in a wretched mole-run widened by the winter rains. In mercy I had to kill the poor beast, and there I was left without other means of conveyance than my own feet.
It was a long night as I pushed onward through the mire. For presently it had come on to rain—a thick, dank rain, which wetted through all covering, yet fell soft as caressing on the skin.
I took shelter at last in a farm-house with honest folk, who right willingly sat up all night about the fire, snoring on chairs and hard settles that I might have their single sleeping-chamber, where, under strings of onions and odorous dried herbs, I rested well enough. For I was dead tired with the excitement and anxiety of the day—and at such times one often sleeps best.
On the morrow I got another horse, but the brute, heavy-footed from the plough, was so slow that, save for the look of the thing, I might just as well have been afoot.
Nevertheless I pushed towards the town of Thorn, hearing and seeing naught of my dear Playmate, though, as you may well imagine, I asked at every wayside place.
It was at the entering in of the strange country of the brick-dust that I met Jorian and Boris. They were riding excellent horses, unblown, and in good condition—the which, when I asked how they came by such noble steeds, they said that a man gave them to them.
"Jorian," said I, sharply, "where have you been?"
"To the city of Thorn," said he, more briskly than was his wont, so thatI knew he had tidings to communicate.
"Saw you the Lady Helene?" I asked, eagerly, of them.
He shook his head, yet pleasantly.
"Nay," said he, "I saw her not. The Red Tower is not a healthy place for men of Plassenburg, nor yet the White Gate and the house of Master Gerard von Sturm. But Mistress Helene is in safety, so much Boris and I are assured of."
"Not with Von Reuss?" cried I, fear thrilling sudden in my voice that he had stolen her and now held her in captivity.
Boris held up his hand as a signal that I must not hurry his companion, who was clearly doing his best.
"She is with Gottfried Gottfried, the old man, your father, and is safe."
"Did she go to them of her own free will, or did my father send for her?"I went on, for much depended upon that question.
"Nay," answered Jorian, "that I know not. But certainly she is with him, and safe. The Count, too, is with his uncle, and they say also safe—under lock and key."
"Good!" quoth Boris.
"Let us all three go back to Plassenburg forthwith!" cried I.
"Good!" chorussed both of them together, unanimously slapping their thighs. "Choose one of our horses. He was a good man who gave us them. We wish we had known. We should have asked him for another when we were about it."
Nevertheless, I rode back to Plassenburg on the farmer's beast, sadly enough, yet somewhat contented. For Helene was with my father, and far safer, as I judged, than in the palace chambers of Plassenburg, and within striking distance of the Lady Ysolinde. And in that I judged not wrong, though the future seemed for a while to belie my confidence.
The Chancellor Leopold von Dessauer, High Councillor of the Prince, with his head still bound up, was pacing the sparred gallery outside the private apartments of his master. It was in the heats of the late summer, before the ripening of the orchard fruits had had time to culminate, or the russet to come out slowly upon the apples, like a blush upon a woman's soft, dusky cheek.
The High Councillor was in a bad humor. For he had been kept waiting, and that by a man of no account. At last a forester in a uniform of dark green, with the Prince's bugle and sparrow-hawk in silver everywhere about him, made his appearance at the foot of the gallery, and stood waiting Dessauer's summons with his plumed hat of soft cloth in his hand.
"Hither, man!" cried the High Councillor, sharply. "What has kept you?Why were you not here half an hour ago? If this be the way you keep thePrince's forests, no wonder there are many deer taken by reiving rascalsand the forest laws daily broken."
"High Mightiness," said the man, humbly, looking down, "it was my daughter—she would not give up the necklace. She hath had it for her own since she was a child, and she would not deliver it, though I threatened her with your well-born anger."
"And have you got it with you? Surely you and she have not dared to keep it!" began the Chancellor, with gathering fury on his eyebrow.
"Yea, truly, truly, an you will have patience, my Lord, I have it here,"-said the man, drawing a necklace of golden bars curiously arranged from his leathern wallet; and, kneeling on his knee, he presented it to the Chancellor.
"How did you prevail with the maid?" he asked, as soon as he had it in hand—"you used no constraint or force, I hope?"
"Nay, sir," said the man, "for my wife being dead and my daughter marriageable, she keeps house for me; and having a sweetheart betrothed a year ago she hath been laying aside plenishing gear and women's dainty gewgaws. So these I took one by one, beginning with a mirror of polished brass, and made as if I would dash them in pieces if she discovered not where the chain of gold was hid."
"And she revealed it?" said Dessauer.
"Aye," said the man, "but none so willingly, as you might suppose. I hadSaint Peter's own trouble to get it from her. Indeed, I prayed to theHoly Apostle to aid me."
"What had Saint Peter to do with it?" said the Councillor, pausing and looking humorsomely at the man, like an ascetic sparrow with his head at one side.
"Because our Holy Saint Peter is the only saint who understands the trouble men have with the contrariness of women."
"Why so?" cried the Chancellor, rubbing his hand with a curious pleasure at the colloquy.
"Because he only among the Apostles was a married man and had experience of a mother-in-law."
"Art a wise forester. Where got you that wisdom?"
"Why," said the man, modestly, "partly by nature, partly because I also have been married, and so have graduated in the wars."
"It is the same thing," said the Chancellor, "according to your own telling."
"Aye, sir," quoth the man, "but yet the young fellows will take no warning. 'It is better to marry than to burn,' said the other Apostle. But methinks he knew nothing about it, being no better than a bachelor, or he would have amended it, 'It is better to burn than to marryandburn.'"
"Ha! art also a theologe, Sir Woodman?" cried Dessauer. "But enough; this touches on the Inquisition and the Holy Office. Let us despatch."
All this time the High Councillor had been gazing by fits and starts at the links of the necklace, turning it about and viewing it from every-angle. It was composed of short bars of gold laid horizontally three and three together, and bound together with short chains of gold. And on each of the bars there was engraven a crest. Letters also were on the bars, cut in plain deep script.
"Now tell your tale and tell it briefly—that is, if brevity be in you, which I doubt," said Dessauer.
"As I said before," quoth the forester, "I was in the wars; I mean not only in the wars with womenkind, but also with mankind. And among other things I remember the night of the Duke Casimir's famous ride, when he took Plassenburg, because there was scarce a sober man within the walls."
"And his Highness the Prince Karl away on Baltic side with his men, else had Casimir never set foot within the city!" cried the High Chancellor.
"Ah, like enow," said the woodman, "I ken naught of that. But this I do know, Plassenburg was taken with much slaughter and grievous loss of goodly gear. They captivated many noble prisoners also, and, because I slept in the stables, they took me to help lead the horses. Yet I was not ill-treated, save that I had to keep pace with the horsemen upon my feet. But I saw the Prince—"
"Which Prince? Speak plainly," said the High Councillor, gruffly.
"Why, the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg of Plassenburg," said the man. "He, as your well-born Wisdom remembers, was then the only Prince in these parts—a good man, and born of the noblest, though not of the capacity of his present Highness the Prince Karl."
"Proceed somewhat faster. Yon move as slowly as one of your own forest oxen at the wood-hauling," cried the well-born Councillor in a testy tone.
"We were long in riding over to Thorn—two days and nights upon the way. It was a terrible time, and all the while those condemned beasts of the Wolfmark, Casimir's Black Riders, driving us with their spears like prick-goads, till our backs were all bleeding, gentle and simple alike. So at midnight of the third day we came to the city of Thorn, and up through the streets to the Wolfsberg. There was no gladness in the town, such as there would have been in our city had there been news of a victory, or even of some hundreds of the enemy's horses well driven. For then as now the town hated its Duke. And so they were all silent.
"Then in the darkness we came to the castle, and the word was: 'Dismount, and to the shambles!' Me and my like they meddled not with, but only the great ones. And it was then, as I told you, that I saw Prince Dietrich with the little maid in his arms. I had carried her part of the way for him, and faithfully delivered her up again, feeding her with the choicest meats I could obtain when she could eat. But she was tired, mostly, and would not look at food. So for this he gave me her necklace from about her pretty neck. But the rest of her noble golden gear, the belt and the clasps, were upon the maid when the headsman of Thorn delivered her to one that stood near by. So, being almost asleep with weariness and exhausted with terror, they carried her away, and I saw the maid no more.
"But the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg was beheaded within the hour, and, as is their hellish custom, his body was thrown to the Duke's blood-hounds that were clamoring all the time behind their fence.
"God help us—such a disaster that night was for Plassenburg! Will thePrince never set about wiping away the disgrace?"
"Aye, that he will!" cried the High Chancellor, suddenly bursting into a fury, strangely unlike him. "He will wash it away in the blood of Duke Casimir and all his evil brood—the Wolves of the Mark truly are they named. And the Wolfsberg shall go up in flaming fire to heaven, so that the ashes of it shall be cast abroad to make the Mark yet grayer and more desolate—like the fell of the beasts that dwelt within it."
"Amen! Let it come quick, say I—that I may see it before I die!" cried the forester, bowing low before the Chancellor.
"This grows past all bearing," cried the Prince one morning, when he had summoned into his hall the Chancellor Dessauer and myself. For, though the Prince was still wont to command in person in any important action, and in the general policy of his realm took counsel with none, yet it had somehow come about that we, the old man and the young, had been constituted an informal council of two which was liable to be summoned at any moment, whenever the Prince was weary or troubled.
He struck one clinched hand into the palm of the other before he spoke again.
"Duke Casimir is either in his dotage, or his riders have gotten out of hand since Hugo and you drove the young wolf over to help the old. Both are likely enough, with a people praying for deliverance and yearning for their Duke's death. A bare board and an empty treasury may render a new course of plunder necessary abroad, in order to keep his Dukedom from toppling about his ears at home. After all, 'tis natural enough. But I had thought that he would have had enough of sense to let the borders of Plassenburg alone so long as its Prince lived."
"And what, my lord, has befallen?" asked the High Councillor.
"Why," cried the Prince, "the Black Riders of the Wolfmark are out again, and have left their ancient trail behind them in slain men and frantic women—and on our borders, too, among our kindly husbandmen, our honest, sunburnt peasants. Bitterly shall Casimir Ironteeth rue the day that he meddled with Karl Miller's Son."
"Your Highness," I said, "this is indeed madness. We have but to collect our forces, choose a time, and, lo! we are within the town of Thorn! Once there, we would be welcomed by man, woman, and child. We could then besiege the Wolfsberg, and in three days make an end."
"Aye, that is it," said the Prince, grimly; "you have hit it, Hugo. Wewillmake an end."
"Also, my Prince," I went on, boldly, "so ye give me leave and approve of my design, I will go alone to the town of Thorn, and bring you back word of their power and dispositions. Save the Count von Reuss, there is none who could now recognize me within the city walls."
"What think ye, Dessauer?" said the Prince, looking over at the HighChancellor.
"I think well," said he, a little doubtfully; "but would it not be better that two should go than that one should adventure alone into the wolf's den ?"
"Surely it were better to keep the matter between our three selves," the Prince made answer; "not even the Princess must know of our attempt. Keep a candle flame within the hollow of your palm, and though the wind blow the sparks will not fly far."
"I will go with the lad, Prince Karl," said the Chancellor, firmly. "In my youth I had some practice as a leech. I am acquainted with the art of healing. I could travel either as a doctor of healing, as a travelling philosopher seeking disputation with the scholars of each country, or, perhaps best of all, in mine own quality of a doctor of law. And in any case this young man might with all safety be my pupil or servant, whichever best liketh him."
"Servant, then," said I, "for the art of disputation I have hitherto chiefly undertaken with my fists and side-irons. And as to surgery, I am more practised in the giving of wounds than in the healing of them."
The Prince leaned his head upon his hand. He thought carefully over our proposal, taking up point after point, resolving difficulty after difficulty in his mind, as was his wont.
"How long would you be away?" he asked, looking up at us.
"Ten days, Prince," said I. "Give us but ten days and we will return."
"I will give you eight, and if ye are not home again on the eve of the last, as sure as I am Karl Miller's Son, the army of Plassenburg will be thundering on the walls of Thorn seeking for a wandering Chancellor and a lost Hugo Gottfried!"
And so it was arranged. We of the Prince's staff were indeed in great need of such a mission, for we had heard nothing from Thorn or the Wolfmark during many months; no tidings, at all events, that could be relied upon. For the cutting up of our frontiers by new raids, and the severance of all relations between us and the dwellers in the Wolfmark, through fear of reprisals, caused us to hear little news but such as was manifest lies.
As thus: Duke Casimir was collecting a great army, magnificent with cannon and munitions of war. He was shut up tight in the Wolfsberg, not daring to show his face to his own citizens. He would appear some fine day before the Palace of Plassenburg and slay every man of us. He was in a madman's cell, and Otho von Reuss was Duke of the Mark in his place.
These were only a few of the stories which were brought to regale us daily. And since there was no certainty anywhere, we were all in the dark concerning the military matters which it behooved us greatly to be acquainted with. Therefore I was honestly eager for my master's sake to undertake the perilous journey. But to tell the whole truth, the fact that I had not had a word from the Little Playmate, not so much as a line of script nor a verbal message since her disappearance, made me more eager to go than the high politics of a dozen provinces.
Since the duel, and the final declaring of my love for Helene, I had seen but little of the Princess. Indeed, I kept out of her way, so far at least as I could. And the Lady Ysolinde remained mostly in her own domains—to which, of late, I had been less and less invited. Nevertheless, when we met, she was more than kind to me—gentle, forbearing, pathetic almost in bearing and demeanor, like as a woman wronged, slighted, misconstrued.
Also there was sent to my quarters a new banner for my following, broidered and blazoned in yellow and blue, a saddle-cloth of silk for my horse, fine as a woman's robe, with a crowned Y faint and small in the corner, lettered in straw-colored gold. No man could help being touched by such kindly thought, which, after all, is more than mere liberality.
Yet I saw a sight upon her stairs one night which awoke me with a sudden start to the fact that we had one to reckon with in our journeying to the city of Thorn whom we had not as yet taken into consideration.
For it chanced that I was passing up to the Prince's apartments by the quicker way, through corridors and by stairs to which he had given me private access. And there, upon the steps leading to the Lady Ysolinde's rooms, I saw the decent servitor of Master Gerard stand waiting. He stared as hard at me as I did at him. But whereas his smooth, silent, secret face remained with me, and I knew him at a glance, it was, I judged, clean impossible that he could know the beardless stripling in the mustached leader of soldiers, walking well-accustomed and unafraid through palaces.
The man had a letter in his hand, and I saw him deliver it to a maid who came to the dividing curtain to take it.
So there was later news from the city of Thorn within the Palace of Plassenburg than we of the Prince's council of three possessed. Should I tell our Karl of this encounter? I thought it might be safer not. Because the Prince was the last man to attempt to obtain aught from his wife by compulsion, and any question, direct or indirect, might only put her upon her guard.
If I let him into the secret, the Prince would be most likely to stride straight into the Princess's rooms with the brusque words: "Gottfried has seen a letter come to you from your father—what were its contents?"
And that would not suit us at all.
So, rightly or wrongly, I kept the matter from my master, speaking of it only to Dessauer. And if aught befel from my reticence, it was at least I myself who bore the burden, and, in the final event, paid the penalty.