The Red Axe Part 27

"Well," cried the Prince, "what reward do you desire?"

"Now for the Field-Marshal's wand!" said the Councillor near to me, under his breath.

"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Jorian.

The Prince looked at Boris.

"And you?" he said.

"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Boris, without moving a muscle.

"G.o.d Bacchus!" cried the Prince, "you will empty my cellars between you, and I shall not have a sober archer for a month. But you shall have it. Go!"

Jorian and Boris saluted with a wink to each other as they wheeled, which said, as plain as monk's script or plainer, "Good!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE PRINCE'S COMPACT

In spite of all drawbacks and difficulties (and I had my share of them) I loved Pla.s.senburg. And especially I loved the Prince. The son, so they said, of a miller in the valley of the Almer, he had entered the guard of the last Prince of Pla.s.senburg, much as I had now entered his own service. Prince Dietrich had taken a fancy to him, and advanced him so rapidly that, after the disastrous war with Duke Casimir of the Mark and the death of the last legitimate Prince, Karl, the miller's son, having set himself to reorganize the army, succeeded so well that it was not long before he found himself the source of all authority in Pla.s.senburg.

Thereafter he gave to the decimated and heartless land adequate defences and complete safety against foreign foes, together with security for life and property, under equal laws, within its own borders. So, in time, no man saying him nay, Karl Miller's Son became the Prince of Pla.s.senburg, and his seat was more secure upon his throne than that of any legitimate prince for a thousand miles all round about.

After the quarrel with Von Reuss, the Prince, for reasons of his own, favored me with a great deal of his society. He was often graciously pleased to talk concerning his early difficulties.

"When I was an understrapper," he was wont to say, "the land was overswarmed and eaten up by officialdom. I could not see the good meat wasted upon crawlers. 'Get to work,' said I, 'or ye shall neither eat nor crawl!'

"'We must eat--to beg we are not ashamed, to steal is the right of our n.o.ble Ritterdom,' the crawlers replied.

"'So,' said I, '_bitte_--as to that we shall see!'

"Then I made me a fine gallows, builded like that outside Paris, which I had seen once when on an emba.s.sy for Prince Dietrich. It was like a castle, with walls twelve feet thick, and on the beams of it room for a hundred or more to swing, each with his six feet of clearance, all comfortable, and no complaints.

"Then came the crawlers and asked me what this fine thing was for.

"'For the sacred Ritterdom of Pla.s.senburg!' answered I, 'if it will not cease to burn houses and to ravish and carry off honest men's wives and daughters.'

"'But you must catch us!' quoth Crawlerdom. 'Walls fourteen feet thick!'

said they.

"'Content,' cried I; 'there is the more fun in catching you. Only the end is the same--that is to say, my new, well-ventilated castle out there on the heath, fine girdles and neck-pieces and anklets of iron, and six feet of clearance for each of you to swing in.'

"So they went back to their castles, and robbed and ravished and rieved, even as did their fathers for a thousand years, thinking no evil. But I took my soldiers, whom in seven years' service I had taught to obey orders-two foot of clearance did well enough for the disobedient among them, not being either ritters or men of mark. And I, Karl the Miller's brat, as at that time they called me in contempt, borrowed cannon-- great lumbering things--from my friend the Margrave George, down there to the south. A great work we had dragging them up to Pla.s.senburg by rope and chain and laboring plough oxen. We shot them off before the fourteen-feet walls. Then arose various clouds of dust, shriekings, surrenderings, crying of 'Forgive us, great Prince, we never meant to do it,' followed, as I had said, by the six-feet clearances. But these in time I had to reduce to four--so great became the compet.i.tion for places in my new Schloss Mullerssohn.

"But 'Once done, well done--done forever!' is my motto. So since that time the winds have mostly blown through my Schloss untainted, and the sons of Ritterdom, magnanimous captains and honest bailies of quiet bailiwicks, are my very good friends and faithful officers."

Prince Karl the Miller's Son was silent a moment.

"But I am still looking out for another man with a head-piece to come after me. I have no son, and if I had, the chances are ten to one that he would be either a milksop or a flittermouse painted blue. Milksops I hate, and send to the monkeries. I can endure flittermice painted blue, but they must wear petticoats--and pretty petticoats too. Have you observed those of the Princess?" said he, abruptly changing the subject.

"The Princess's flittermice?" I faltered, not well knowing what I said, for he had turned roughly and suddenly upon me.

"Aye, marry, you may say it! But I meant the Princess's wilicoats!"

"No," said I, as curtly as I could, for the subject had its obvious limitations.

"Ah, they are pretty ones," said Karl, "I a.s.sure you. She has at least an undeniable taste in lace and cambric. They say in other lands--not in this--though I would not hinder them if they did--that she wears the under-garments of men and rules the state. But I think not so. The Princess is a better Queen than wife, a better woman than either."

On this subject also I had nothing to say which I dared venture to the husband of the Lady Ysolinde.

"She read my horoscope," said I, weakly, searching for something in the corners of my brain to change the subject.

"How so?" said the Prince, quickly.

"First in a crystal and then in a pool of ink," I replied.

"It was a good horoscope and of a fortunate ending?"

"On the whole--yes!" said I; "though there was much in it that I could not understand."

"Like enow!" laughed the Prince; "I warrant she could not understand it herself! It is ever the way of the ink-pool folk."

Then ensued a silence between us.

Prince Karl remained long with his head resting on his hand. He looked critically at the twisted stem of his winegla.s.s, twirling it between his thick fingers.

"The Princess loves you!" he said, at last, looking shrewdly at me from beneath his gray brows.

It was spoken half as a question and half as information.

"Loves me?" stammered I, the blood sucking back to my heart and leaving my head light and tingling.

The Prince nodded calmly.

"So they say!" said he.

"My Lord, it is a thing impossible!" cried I, earnestly. "I am but a poor lad--and she has been kind to me. But of love no word has been spoken.

Besides--"

And I stopped.

"Out with it, man!" said the Prince, more like, as it seemed to me, a comrade inviting a confidence than a great Prince speaking to a newly made officer.

"Well, I--I love the Little Playmate."