The Mercenary Part 36

The lady at the hearth put up her long fingers to adjust the hood more closely to her head. This time Nigel saw them. He knew them. But were they Ottilie's or Stephanie's? The cloak? Where had he seen that? His heart beat faster. For an instant he forgot Wallenstein, the Emperor, the whole of his mission in the presence, the hidden presence, of Ottilie.

He sprang to her side. A curious cold smile lit up the face of Wallenstein.

"Ottilie!" Nigel exclaimed.

She threw back her hood, rose, faced him, held out her hands--

"Ottilie is no more! I am Stephanie!"

"No more?" Nigel murmured with quivering lips. "No more?"

"Stephanie was Ottilie when she followed the star of Wallenstein, worshipped his ambition and wrought as she did even to this day for his success. But no longer! She is satisfied. She could be one with the lofty spirit of a Caesar but not with the bargaining, bartering craft of merchant Wallenstein, who asks what reward he shall receive at the very hand that opens the gate of the Palace of Glory."

"I go to Vienna, Colonel Charteris, you to Prague. G.o.d speed you back again! Now if you will see me to my carriage I need no longer be a hindrance to the chaffering!"

It may be imagined what confusion this outburst, spoken in calm level tones, icy with suppressed pa.s.sion, stirred in Nigel's mind. The pressure of her hands, the first look into his eyes, had told him that what he had ravished from a not unwilling Ottilie was his from Stephanie, Archd.u.c.h.ess though she was, when time and season were more propitious; and the blood beat into his face.

He bowed over her hands and went towards the door to give the order to the servants.

Then the Archd.u.c.h.ess turned to Wallenstein--

"Adieu, Duke! Our astrologer's figure holds another meaning than the one we gave it. Bid him be more exact, and take into account what he has forgotten, the beatings of our hearts, ... of those of us that have hearts!"

Wallenstein bowed low. His face showed nothing of what he felt.

"Adieu, your Highness! There is perhaps more in the spirit of Wallenstein than the merchant, more than the politician, more than the soldier. I give your Highness thanks for all your furtherance, while I deplore the rupture of the alliance, from which it is your Highness's pleasure to withdraw. Adieu!"

Nigel returned as the last word was spoken, and Wallenstein proceeded--

"Adieu also, General Charteris! My best wishes go with you! If His Imperial Majesty should inquire, you have my authority to tell him in what state of mind you have found me, and nothing of what Her Highness has indiscreetly disclosed. I know that in all things I can rely upon your discretion."

Nigel gave him the a.s.surance, and after a parting salutation led the Archd.u.c.h.ess to her coach.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

LOVE AND A LOCKSMITH.

The utter hopelessness of the affair was the first sane reflection that approached the gate of Nigel's mind as he journeyed on to Prague after the Archd.u.c.h.ess had set out for Vienna. They would meet again. Yes, it was in the minds of both. They were only at the beginning. They would both go on. They had made no pledge to go on; but having exchanged looks, clasped hands no more, he had gone northward and she southward, and Nigel's first sane reflection, after the first glow of the supreme exaltation of spirit we call love had pa.s.sed, was that in some way or other that journeying apart would be symbolical of their lives. He asked himself what would happen if some stranger from over seas, not being a prince of the blood, should in the Court of King Charles fall into a like pa.s.sion for an English princess, were any old enough. He had no doubts upon the subject. The amorous fool would be despatched in haste to his native land. The princess would be dealt with by appointing a company of n.o.ble gaolers and a residence from which egress would be difficult, until a husband of the right hue of blood could be purchased for her, and there would be an end of youthful escapades. And Nigel knew that he in his own country would have approved. The Habsburgs were, if anything, prouder than the Stuarts. What then could he, a Scot, a plain gentleman, who by a series of strokes of fortune had risen in the Imperial service to be a major-general, expect? Dismissal! And the Archd.u.c.h.ess? The Elector or a convent. As yet, Nigel reflected, and this was after the first sane reflection set out above, as yet the secret, that secret that was more delicious, more thrilling than any in the world to them, lay in their own hearts.

He would cherish it. She would cherish it. In time to come they would make plans, wild hazardous resolutions. Would they find the courage to carry them out? He could answer for himself. Her history, as far as he knew it, answered for her. She had an equal courage, a haughty daring, a mind full of resource, and eyes that could stir him to any deed.

So he rode on to Prague and disposed his troops in the garrison and went round the defences with the commander of the garrison, making suggestions, sage and otherwise, and incidentally learned how unpopular the Emperor was: how he had quartered troops on Protestant hamlets, and enforced ma.s.s, torn lands from Protestant hands and handed them to Catholics, or those who said they were. The commandant was not hopeful as to the front they would present to Saxony. All Nigel could offer was vague encouragement that something was in the wind that would put a different complexion on the affairs of the Empire.

Then having accomplished his errand he returned to Vienna and found Father Lamormain eager to hear the result of the interview with Wallenstein.

This Nigel reported in a very few words, which Father Lamormain summed up by saying--

"You inferred, Colonel Charteris, that the Duke is willing to treat on conditions!"

"On conditions which he will impose himself!"

"And these are?"

"That the war is to be waged or not, as the necessity to redress the balance of power dictates, and that the settlement shall be on the basis of entire religious freedom for the Empire."

"That is the hardest condition! But we must needs bow to the tempest.

Time will bring its own opportunities afterwards. And the next?"

"That all appointments of officers, from the highest downwards, shall be in the Duke's gift without the need of reference to Vienna."

"The Duke would be the fountain of honour, and every captain his sworn va.s.sal. That is also a hard condition and smacks of Caesarism!" the Jesuit commented. "Freedom he asks and power absolute while he exercises his functions, but for reward, what reward does he crave?"

"None that he spoke of to me!"

"Ah!" said the Jesuit reflectively. "We are bidden to distrust the Greeks and people bearing gifts. I am also inclined to look a little further when a man is willing to undergo great toil and asks nothing."

"There will be the spoil of the cities and the ransom of the prisoners!"

said Nigel.

"The spoil of Stockholm?" the Jesuit inquired with a smile. "Now as to yourself, General. Will you stay here and take your chance of a command under Wallenstein, or join Tilly?"

"I would be where there is work to do!" said Nigel. "And Wallenstein may not name me!"

"You would have made a good regular had you been trained early," said the Father approvingly. "But some day woman will come into your life and divide it into the camps of love and duty."

For an instant a flush came into Nigel's cheeks and pa.s.sed. Had she not come sooner than the Jesuit expected?

The interview ended, Nigel proffered a formal request to the War Department to be allowed to join General Tilly. As the permission did not depend upon the War Department so much as upon the Emperor, not upon the Emperor so much as Father Lamormain, still a few days elapsed before he could set out. Couriers were expected. Negotiations had been begun with Wallenstein with as much ceremony as if he had been a crowned head.

To any man less genuinely a man of action, this compulsory and to himself excusable dawdling in the very neighbourhood of the Archd.u.c.h.ess, would have been a delightful interlude between the stern acts of war.

Such a man would have had the capacity for idleness in some measure, and some knowledge how to enjoy it rather than employ it. He would, far more quickly than Nigel, have found a way to enjoy it, and to enjoy it in company with some beloved fair, or perhaps with several.

Nigel's love was a possession. The Archd.u.c.h.ess, mysterious combination of Stephanie and Ottilie, had the whole of his heart for her encampment.

There was no little citadel or outward tower which her forces did not occupy. But as yet the exaltation of his love did not manifest itself in any outward signs. He neither talked more, as many lovers do, nor was more silent, as some are wont to be, nor manifested exceeding nor profuse gentleness, a manner unbecoming in a soldier. If any at Vienna had known him well, they might have thought him more self-contained than usual. He felt that he must needs keep a close-knitted grip upon himself, for he told himself that, if he should come within arm's length of the object of his worship, his will would be as the green withes that bound Samson, and his lips would incontinently profane the image of the G.o.ddess, as they had once before done when she had appeared under the humbler of her guises. That the Archd.u.c.h.ess, on her side, might be as fully and completely woman as he was man, did not realise itself to him.

It was not possible that it should. So that he did not picture her as beating her wings against the palace cage, whose wires were the servant spies, stifling or trying to stifle in her generous heart the desire to give of her womanhood with lavishness to him whom her imagination had crowned and enthroned in a vision of perfect man.

But where lover and beloved are within a bowshot length, and both are thirsty to gaze the one upon the other, both eager to exchange the story of their moods, surely the G.o.d Cupid will find a way to bring about their meeting.

And Love, who laughs at locksmiths, employed one. One noon, as he returned from some of his military duties, Nigel found an apprentice locksmith awaiting him in his quarters, whose grimy hand drew from his leathern ap.r.o.n a key bright from its new forging and chasing by the tools. Nigel, being asked by the lad if it pleased him, replied with the wonderful presence of mind Dan Cupid gives, that it pleased him well. It was the duplicate of the key of that orchard close within the gardens of the palace.

The place was no longer in doubt. Where Colonel Charteris had been received in jocund May by the Archd.u.c.h.ess, Nigel would meet Stephanie in h.o.a.r December. And the hour? Love dictated that the first hour of dusk was the first possible, and the first possible was the one of which Love must avail himself.

To gain access to the gardens by night it was necessary to reach them by one of the doors which led from one of the lower corridors of the palace into the orangery, and by one of those of the orangery into the garden terrace.

That afternoon Nigel spent an hour not unprofitably in the orangery examining the trees, learning their history from the gardeners, and where the keys hung by which one might let one's self out into the terrace.