The Red Axe Part 29

"And what, High-Councillor Dessauer, is my blind peril?"

"I will tell you, Hugo," he said; "not that you will believe or alter a hair. A man may do many things in this world, but one thing he cannot do.

He cannot kiss the fingers of a Princess--dainty fingers, too, separating finger from finger--and kiss also the Princess's maid of honor on the mouth. The combination is certainly entertaining, but like the Friar's powder it is somewhat explosive."

"And how," asked I, "may you know all that ?"

The old man nodded his head sagely.

"Neither by ink-pool nor yet by scrying! All the same, I know. Moreover, your peril is not a blind peril only, but a blind man's peril. Ye must choose, and that quickly, little son--fingers or lips."

I heard the rustle of a skirt down the stair. It was the light, springing tread of the one I loved first and best, last and only.

"By the twelve G.o.ds, lips!" cried I, and made for the door.

And I heard the chuckling laughter of High-Chancellor Dessauer behind me as I followed Helene down the stairs. It sounded like the decanting of mellow wine, long hidden in darksome cellars, and now, in the flower of its age, bringing to the light the smiling of ancient vineyards and the shining of forgotten suns.

I found Helene arrived before me in the rose-garden. She did not turn round as I came, though she heard me well enough. Instead she walked on, plucking at a marguerite.

"Loves me--loves me _not_!" she said, bearing upon the last word with triumphant accent, as she continued to dismantle the poor flower.

And flashing round upon me with the solitary petal in her hand, she presented it with a low bow, in elfish mockery of the manner of the court exquisite.

"Ah, true flower!" she said, apostrophizing the bare stalk, "a flower cannot lie. It has not a glozing tongue. It cannot change back and forth.

The sun shines. It turns towards the sun. The sun leaves the skies. It shuts itself up and waits his return. Ah,-true flower, dear flower, how unlike a man you are!"

"Helene," said I, "you have learned conceits from the catch-books. You quarrel by rote. Were I as eager to answer me, I might say: 'Ah, false flower, you grow out of the foulness underneath. You give your fragrance to all without discretion--a common lover, prodigal of favors, fit only to be torn to shreds by pretty, spiteful fingers, and to die at last with a lie in your mouth. Again I say--false flower!'"

"You can turn the corners, Sir Juggler, with the cup and ball of words,"

answered Helene. "So much they have already taught you in a court. But there is one thing that your fine-feathered tutors have not taught you--to make love to two women in one house and hide it from both of them. Hot and cold may not come too near each other. They will mix and make lukewarm of both."

A wise observation, and one that I wished I had made myself.

"May the devil take all princes and princesses!" I began, as I had done to the Prince himself.

Helene shook her head.

"Hugo," she said, "I was but a simpleton when I came hither, and knew nothing. Now I am wise, and I know!"

She touched her forehead with her finger, just where the curls were softest and prettiest.

"Oh, you have learned to be thrice more beautiful than ever you were!" I said, impetuously.

"So I am often told," answered she, calmly.

"Who dared tell you ?" cried I, quick as fire, laying my hand on my sword.

"The false common flowers by the wayside tell me!" said Helene, pertly.

"Let them beware, or I will take their heads off for rank weeds!"

I answered.

For at that time, in the Court of Pla.s.senburg, we talked in figures and romance words. We had indeed become so familiar with the mode that we could use no other, even in times of earnestness. So that a man would go to be hanged or married with a quipsome conceit on his lips.

"I think, Sir Ja.n.u.s Double-tongue," she said, "that you would not be the worse of a little medicine of your own concocting."

And with that she swept her skirts daintily about and tripped down in to the pleasaunce of flowers, to make which the Prince Karl had brought a skilled gardener all the way from France.

I prowled about the higher terrace, moodily watching the sky and thinking on the morrow's weather. And by-and-by I saw one come forth from among the cropped Dutch hedges, and stride across to where Helene walked with something white in her hand. I could see her again picking a flower to pieces, and methought I could hear the words. My jealous fancy conjured up the ending, "Loves me not--loves me! Loves me not!"

She turned even as she had done to me. The newcomer was that sneering Court fop, the Count von Reuss, Duke Casimir's nephew--still in hiding from the wrath of his uncle. For at that time hardly any court in Germany was without one or two of these hangers-on, and a bad, reckless, ill-contriving breed they were at Pla.s.senburg, as doubtless elsewhere.

Then grew my heart hard and bitter, and yet, in a moment afterwards, was again only wistful and sad.

"She had been safer," thought I, "in the old Red Tower than playing flower fancies with such a man!"

For I had seen the very devil look out of his eye--which indeed it did as often as he cast it on a fair woman. In especial, I longed to throttle him each time he turned to watch Helene as she went by. And here she was walking with him, and talking pleasantly too, in the rose garden of the palace.

"Ah, devil take all princes and princesses!" said I. This one, it is true, was only a count, and disinherited. But I felt that the thing was the Prince's doing, and that it was for the sake of the covenant he had made with me that I was compelled to put up with such a toad as Von Reuss crawling and besliming the fair garden of my love.

It was an evening without clouds--everything shining clear after rain, the scent of the flowers rising like incense so full and sweet that you could almost see it. The unnumbered birds were every one awake, responsive and emulous. The deep silence of midsummer was broken up. It was like another spring.

The Princess Ysolinde came out to take the air. She was wrapped in her gown of sea-green silk, with sparkles of dull copper upon it. The dress fitted her like a snake's skin, and glittered like it too as she swayed her lithe body in walking.

"Ha, Hugo," she said, "I thought I should find you here!"

I did not say that if another had been kinder she might have found me elsewhere and otherwise employed. I had at least the discretion to leave things as they were. For the time to speak plainly was not yet.

She took my arm, and we paced up and down.

"Princess--" I began.

"Ysolinde!" corrected she, softly.

It was an old and unsettled contention between us.

"Well then, Ysolinde, to-morrow must I ride to fight the men of mine own country of the Wolfmark. I like not the duty. But since it must be, for the sake of the brave Prince, it shall be well done."

"You do not say 'For your sake, Ysolinde'?" she answered, pensively.

"No," I said, bluntly, "'for the Prince's sake.'"

"You would do all things for the Prince's sake--nothing for mine!" said the Princess, withdrawing her hand.

"On the contrary, Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "I do all things for your sake. Save for the sake of your good-will, I should now be elsewhere."

Which was true enough. I should have been in the garden pleasaunce beneath, and probably with my sword out, arguing the case with Von Reuss.

But she pressed my arm, for she understood that I had delayed a day from my duty for her sake. So touched at heart was Ysolinde that she slipped her hand down from my arm and took my hand instead, flirting a corner of her shawl cleverly over both, to hide the fact from the men-at-arms--as Helene could not have done to save her life. But every maid of honor who pa.s.sed noted and knew, lifting eyebrows at one another, I doubt not, as soon as we pa.s.sed, which thing made me feel like a fool and blush hotly.