Joan of the Sword Hand Part 44

Also, when the falling seas, combing the pebbly beaches with foamy teeth, rattled the wet shingle, Joan would ofttimes wake from sleep and lie staring wide-eyed at the cas.e.m.e.nt. Black reproach of self brooded upon her spirit, as if a foul bird of night had fluttered through the open window and settled upon her breast. The poor folk of Kernsberg--her fatherland invaded and desolate, the Sparhawk, the man who ought to have been the ruler she was not worthy to be, the leader in war, the lawgiver in peace--these reproachful shapes filled her mind so that sleep fled and she lay pondering plans of escape and deliverance.

But of one thing she never thought--of the cathedral of Courtland and the husband to whose face she had but once lifted her eyes.

The sun looked through between the red cloud bars. These he soon left behind, turning them from fiery islands to banks of fleecy wool. The shadows shot swiftly westward and then began slowly to shorten. In his chamber Prince Conrad rose and went to the window. A rose-coloured light lay along the sea horizon, darting between the dark pine stems and trans.m.u.ting the bare sand-dunes into dreamy marvels, till they touched the heart like glimpses of a lost Eden seen in dreams. The black bird of night flapped its way behind the belting trees. There was not such a thing as a ghostly rat to gnaw unseen the heart of man. The blue dome of sky overhead was better than the holy shrine of Peter across the tawny flood of Tiber, and Isle Rugen more to be desired than the seven-hilled city itself. Yea, better than lifted chalice and wafted incense, Joan's hand in his----

And Conrad the lover turned from the window with a defiant heart.

At her cas.e.m.e.nt, which opened to the east, stood at the same moment the young d.u.c.h.ess of Hohenstein. Her lips were parted and the mystery of the new day dwelt in her eyes like the memory of a benediction. Southward lay the world, striving, warring, sinning, repenting, elevating the Host, slaying the living, and burying the dead. But between her and that world stretched a wide water not to be crossed, a fixed gulf not to be pa.s.sed over. It was the new day, and there beneath her was the strip of silver sand where he and she had walked yestereven, when the moon was full and the wavelets of that sheltered sea crisped in silver at their feet.

An hour afterwards these two met and gave each other a hand silently.

Then, facing the sunrise, they walked eastward along the sh.o.r.e, while from the dusk of the garden gate Theresa von Lynar watched them with a sad smile upon her face.

"She is learning the lesson even as I learned it," she murmured, unconsciously thinking aloud. "Well, that which the father taught it is meet that the daughter should learn. Let her eat the fruit, the bitter fruit of love--even as I have eaten it!"

She watched a little longer, standing there with the pruning-knife in her hand. She saw Conrad turn towards Joan as they descended a little dell among the eastern sand-hills. And though she could not see, she knew that two hands met, and that they stood still for a moment, ere their feet climbed the opposite slope of dew-drenched sand. A swift sob took her unexpectedly by the throat.

"And yet," she said, "were all to do over, would not Theresa von Lynar again learn that lesson from Alpha to Omega, eat the Dead Sea fruit to its bitterest kernel, in order that once more the bud might open and love's flower be hers?"

Theresa von Lynar at her garden door spoke truth. For even then among the sand-hills the bud was opening, though the year was on the wane and the winter nigh.

"Happy Isle Rugen!" said Joan, drawing a breath like a sigh. "Why were we born to princedoms, Conrad, you and I?"

"I at least was not," answered her companion. "Dumb Max's jerkin of blue fits me better than any robe royal."

They stood on the highest part of the island. Joan was leaning on the crumbling wall of an ancient fort, which, being set on a promontory from which the pinetrees drew back a little, formed at once a place of observation and a point objective for their walks. She turned at his words and looked at him. Conrad, indeed, never looked better or more princely than in that rough jerkin of blue, together with the corded forester's breeches and knitted hose which he had borrowed from Theresa's dumb servitor.

"Conrad," said Joan, suddenly standing erect and looking directly at the young man, "if I were to tell you that I had resolved never to return to Kernsberg, but to remain here on Isle Rugen, what would you answer?"

"I should ask to be your companion--or, if not, your bailiff!" said the Prince-Bishop promptly.

"That would be to forget your holy office!"

A certain gentle sadness pa.s.sed over the features of the young man.

"I leave many things undone for the sake of mine office," he said; "but the canons of the Church do not forbid poverty, or yet manual labour."

"But you have told me a hundred times," urged Joan, smiling in spite of herself, "that necessity and not choice made you a Churchman. Does that necessity no longer exist?"

"Nay," answered Conrad readily as before; "but smaller necessities yield to greater?"

"And the greater?"

"Why," he answered, "what say you to the tempest that drove me hither--the thews and stout hearts of Werner von Orseln and his men, not to speak of Captains Boris and Jorian there? Are they not sufficient reasons for my remaining here?"

He paused as if he had more to say.

"Well?" said Joan, and waited for him to continue.

"There is something else," he said. "It is--it is--that I cannot bear to leave you! G.o.d knows I could not leave you if I would!"

Joan of Hohenstein started. The words had been spoken in a low tone, yet with suppressed vehemence, as though driven from the young man's lips against his will. But there was no mistaking their purport. Yet they were spoken so hopelessly, and withal so gently, that she could not be angry.

"Conrad--Conrad," she murmured reproachfully, "I thought I could have trusted you. You promised never again to forget what we must both remember!"

"In so thinking you did well," he replied; "you may trust me to the end.

But the privilege of speech and testimony is not denied even to the criminal upon the scaffold."

A wave of pity pa.s.sed over Joan. A month before she would have withdrawn herself in hot anger. But Isle Rugen had gentled all her ways. The peace of that ancient fortalice, the wash of its ambient waters, the very lack of incident, the sense of the mysteries of tragic life which surrounded her on all sides, the deep thoughts she had been thinking alone with herself, the companionship of this man whom she loved--all these had wrought a new spirit in Joan of the Sword Hand. Women who cannot be pitiful are but half women. They have never yet entered upon their inheritance. But now Joan was coming to her own again. For to pity of Theresa von Lynar she was adding pity for Conrad of Courtland and--Joan of Hohenstein.

"Speak," she said very gently. "Do not be afraid; tell me all that is in your heart."

Joan was not disinclined to hear any words that the young man might speak. She believed that she could listen unmoved even to his most pa.s.sionate declarations of love. Like the wise physician, she would listen, understand, prescribe--and administer the remedy.

But the pines of Isle Rugen stood between this woman and the girl who had ridden away so proudly from the doors of the Kernsberg minster at the head of her four hundred lances. Besides, she had not forgotten the tournament and the slim secretary who had once stood before this man in the river parlour of the Summer Palace.

Then Conrad spoke in a low voice, very distinct and even in its modulation.

"Joan," he said, "once on a time I dreamed of being loved--dreamed that among all the world of women there might be one woman for me. Such things must come when deep sleep falleth upon a young man. Waking I put them from me, even as I put arms and warfare aside. I believed that I had conquered the l.u.s.t of the eye. Now I know that I can never again be true priest, never serve the altar with a clean heart.

"Listen, my Lady Joan! I love you--there is no use in hiding it.

Doubtless you yourself have already seen it. I love you so greatly that vows, promises, priesthoods, cardinalates are no more to me than the crying of the seabirds out yonder. Let a worthier than I receive and hold them. They are not for a weak and sinful man. My bishopric let another take. I would rather be your groom, your servitor, your lacquey, than reign on the Seven Hills and sit in Holy Peter's chair!"

Joan leaned against the crumbling battlement, and the words of Conrad were very sweet in her ear. They filled her with pity, while at the same time her heart was strong within her. None had dared to speak such things to her before in all her life, and she was a woman. The Princess Margaret, had she loved a man as Joan did this man, would have given back vow for vow, renunciation for renunciation, and, it might be, have bartered kiss for kiss.

But Joan of the Sword Hand was never stronger, never more serene, never surer of herself than when she listened to the words she loved best to hear, from the lips of the man whom of all others she desired to speak them. At first she had been looking out upon the sea, but now she permitted her eyes to rest with a great kindliness upon the young man.

Even as he spoke Conrad divined the thing that was in her heart.

"Mark you," he said, "do me the justice to remember that I ask for nothing. I expect nothing. I hope for nothing in return. I thought once that I could love Divine things wholly. Now I know that my heart is too earthly. But instead I love the n.o.blest and most gracious woman in all the world. And I love her, too, with a love not wholly unworthy of her."

"You do me overmuch honour," said Joan quietly. "I, too, am weak and sinful. Or how else would I, your brother's wife, listen to such words from any man--least of all from you?"

"Nay," said Conrad; "you only listen out of your great pitifulness. But I am no worthy priest. I will not take upon me the yet greater things for which I am so manifestly unfitted. I will not sully the holy garments with my earthliness. Conrad of Courtland, Bishop and Cardinal, died out there among the breakers.

"He will never go to Rome, never kneel at the tombs of the Apostles.

From this day forth he is a servitor, a servant of servants in the train of the d.u.c.h.ess Joan. Save those with us here, our hostess and the three captains (who for your sake will hold their peace), none know that Conrad of Courtland escaped the waters that swallowed up his companions.

They and you will keep the secret. This shaven crown will speedily thatch itself again, a beard grow upon these shaveling cheeks. A dash of walnut juice, and who will guess that under the tan of Conrad the serf there is concealed a prince of Holy Church?"

He paused, almost smiling. The picture of his renunciation had grown real to him even as he spoke. But Joan did not smile. She waited a s.p.a.ce to see if he had aught further to say. But he was silent, waiting for her answer.

"Conrad," she said very gently, "that I have listened to you, and that I have not been angry, may be deadly sin for us both. Yet I cannot be angry. G.o.d forgive me! I have tried and I cannot be angry. And why should I? Even as I lay a babe in the cradle, I was wedded. If a woman must suffer, she ought at least to be permitted to choose the instrument of her torture."

"It is verity," he replied; "you are no more true wife than I am true priest."

"Yet because you have dispensed holy bread, and I knelt before the altar as a bride, we must keep faith, you and I. We are bound by our n.o.bility.

If we sin, let it be the greater and rarer sin--the sin of the spirit only. Conrad, I love you. Nay, stand still where you are and listen to me--to me, Joan, your brother's wife. For I, too, once for all will clear my soul. I loved you long ere your eyes fell on me. I came as Dessauer's secretary to the city of Courtland. I determined to see the man I was to wed. I saw the prince--my prince as I thought--storm through the lists on his white horse. I saw him bare his head and receive the crown of victory. I stood before him, ashamed yet glad, hosed and doubleted like a boy, in the Summer Pavilion. I heard his gracious words. I loved my prince, who so soon was to be wholly mine.

The months slipped past, and I was ever the gladder the faster they sped. The woman stirred within the stripling girl. In half a year, in twenty weeks--in five--in one--in a day--an hour, I would put my hand, my life, myself into his keeping! Then came the glad tumult of the rejoicing folk, the hush of the crowded cathedral. I said, 'Oh, not yet--I will not lift my eyes to my prince until----' We stopped. I lifted my eyes. And lo! the prince was not my prince!"