The Red Axe Part 37

"Tush!" she said, impetuously; "you speak things empty, vain, the rattling of knuckle-bones in a bladder--not live words at all. Think you I have never listened to true men? Do not I, Ysolinde of Pla.s.senburg, know the sound of words that have the heart behind them? I have heard you speak such yourself. Do not insult me then with plat.i.tudes, nor try to divert me with the piping of children in the market-place. I will not dance to them, nor yet, like a foolish kitchen-wench, smile at the jingling of your trinketry."

"Your Highness--" I began again.

She waved her hand as if putting a light thing away.

"I was a woman to you before you knew that I was a Princess," she said; "you need not forget that I am a woman still, cursed with the plate-mail of rank added to the weariness and inaction of a woman's breaking heart."

I grew acutely conscious that I was not distinguishing myself in this interview. So I dashed again at the wall, and this time, for a moment at least, overbore interruption.

"Ysolinde, my dear lady," I said to her, "you are the Prince's and my good master's wife. And if I have stood aloof, it is that I wished that he should have the companionship which one day I desire to find for myself--and also that I might always have the right to look straight into my master's eyes."

"Now you talk like a silly prating priestling," she said. "You are both mighty careful of your honesty, your virtue, your companionship--your precious master and you. But you do not think what it is to starve a woman's heart, to bid her find her level among broiderers of bannerets and st.i.tchers in tapestry. Ah! if the particular G.o.d who happened to be at the digging of us out of the happier pit of oblivion had only made me a man, I, at least, should neither have been a straitlaced Jackanapes nor yet a prating, callow-bearded wiseacre."

"And am I either?" said I, weakly enough.

"You are in danger of becoming both," she said, promptly. "Once I saw better things in you. I thought I had won me a friend, and that for once I might put my anchor down. My husband neglects me, so much cannot have escaped your eagle eye. He is twice my age, and he thinks more of you, more of Councillor Von Dessauer, more of his horse than of me, Ysolinde of Pla.s.senburg. And I was made to be loved and to love. How much of either, think you, have I ever known? The true lot of a woman shut to me, the sweet love of man and woman wiled from me, even the communion of the spirit forbidden. I might as lief carry a wizened nut-kernel within my brain-pan as a thinking soul, for all that any one cares. I am a woman of another age stranded on the sh.o.r.es of a time made only for men. I am the woman priests talk against, or perhaps rather the witch-woman Lilith on the outside of Eden's wall. Or I may be the woman of a time yet to come, when she who is man's mate shall not be only a gay-decked bird to sit on his wrist, tethered with a leash and called back to her master with a silver lure."

These things I had never listened to before, nor, indeed, thought of.

Nevertheless, though I could not answer her, I felt in my heart that she was wrong, and that a woman has always power over men, being stronger than all ideals, philosophies, kingdoms--aye, even our holy religion itself.

"After all," I said, piqued a little at her tone, as men are wont to be at that which they do not understand, "my Lady Ysolinde, wherefore should you not tell these things to the Prince, your husband, and not to me, that am neither your husband nor your lover?"

"And if you had been both?" she interjected, a little breathlessly.

"Then, my lady," I replied, stirred by her persistence, "you would have obeyed me and served me just as you say. Or else I should have broken your spirit as a man is broken on the wheel."

It was a prideful saying, and one informed with all ignorance and conceit. Yet the Lady Ysolinde gave a long sigh.

"Ah, that would have been sweet, too," she said. "You are the one man I should have delighted to call master, to have done your bidding. That had been a thing different indeed! But you love me not. You love a chit, a chitterling--a pretty thing that can but peep and mutter, whose heart's depths I have sounded with my finger-nail, and whose babyish vanity I have tickled with a straw."

This was enough and too much.

"Madam," said I, "the clear stars are not fouled by throwing filth at them, nor yet the Lady Helene--whom I do acknowledge that with all my heart I love--by the speaking of any ill words. You do but wrong yourself, most n.o.ble lady. For your heart tells you other things, both of the maid I love and of me that am her true servant, and, if I might, your true friend."

The Princess reached out her hand, looking, not with anger, but rather wistfully at me, like a mother at a son who goes to his death with blasphemy on his lips.

"Forgive me," she said, gently. "I would not at the last have you go forth thinking ill of me. Indeed, you think all too well, and make me do things that are better than mine intent, because I know that you expect them of me. I have done many ill and cruel things in my poor life, simply from idleness and the empty, unsatisfied heart. If you had loved me or taught me or driven me, I might have tried better things. Perhaps in the end, for great love's sake, I may yet do one worthy deed that shall blot out all the rest. Farewell!"

And without another spoken word she moved away, and left me in the green pleasaunces of the garden, with my heart riven this way and that, scarce knowing what I did or where I stood.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

CAPTAIN KARL MILLER'S SON

Black, blank, chill, confining night shut us in as Leopold Dessauer and I rode out of Pla.s.senburg. Our horses had been made ready for us at the little water-gate in the lower garden. Fain would I have taken also Jorian and Boris, but on this occasion the fewer the safer. For to enter Thorn was to go with lighted matches into a powder-magazine.

The rushes in the river rustled dry and cold along the brink. The leaves of the linden-trees chuckled overhead, rubbing their palms together spitefully. There was mockery of our foolhardy enterprise in the soft whispering sough of the water, as I heard it lapper beneath the ferry-boat that lay ready to cross to the other side. Old Hans, the Prince's ferryman, snored in his boat. Above in the women's chambers a light went to and fro. I judged that it was in the bower of the Lady Ysolinde. But not a string of my heart moved. For pity is so weak and love so strong that all my nature was now on the strain forward towards Helene and the Wolfsberg, like an eager hound that pulls at the unslipped leash.

"My love! my love!" I cried in my heart, "I am coming to you, I am going out to find you! Though I give my life for it, I shall at least see and touch you ere I die."

For during these last days my love had grown greatly upon me, being of that kind which gathers within a man, banks up, fills out his crevices, and he know it not. In the Wolfmark there are oft, in the heart of the limestone, caverns where the water sleeps deep and cool, while above, on the thin, rocky crust, the sun beats and the very lizards die for lack of moisture. It was only now that I had broken up the crust of my nature and found the caverns under, where love was abiding all undreamed of, deep, and eternal as the sea. It is a great thing and a beautiful to meet love for the first time face to face, not to nod to only as to an acquaintance, and to know how great and masterful he is; to say, "Love, I am yours. Do with me that which seemeth good to you. I was strong--now in your hands am I become weak. I was proud--now am I glad to be humble and kneel, waiting your word. You have made life and death the same thing to me, for the sake of the Beloved. I am ready to take either from your hands!"

But enough! We were riding out of the dark pleasaunces of the palace, the leaves were rustling and the sedges blowing. That was what began it, carrying away my thoughts.

Dessauer rode behind me, letting his horse follow mine, nose to tail.

For, being used to the visitation of the city outposts, I knew the ground thoroughly.

At every hundred yards we were halted, and I answered. For I had posted the men myself, making sure that Pla.s.senburg should not again be taken by surprise. On the other hand, I had determined that the spoiler should now be made despoiled, and that the foul den of the Wolf should be cleansed as by fire.

Then, like the breaking up of the Baltic ice in spring, the thought ran through me--my father and the maid of the Red Tower, what of them?

Why, at the very first (so I told myself), I should set a guard of the best troops in Pla.s.senburg about the Red Tower, and carry them all--Helene, my father, and old Hanne--to a safe place till Prince Karl and I had made an end. With our stark veterans swarming in Thorn, that would easily be done. And so the plan abode to be altered, broidered, and recast in the imagination of my heart.

We were soon out on the darksome, unguarded road, and after that I steered chiefly by the lights of the palace behind me, Dessauer saying no word, but riding like a man-at-arms close behind me.

We had reached the crown of the green hill over whose slopes the path to the Wolf markwinds--the path by which, doubtless, Helene had travelled the night of the duel.

As I came to the summit, mounting the steepest part slowly, I was aware of a figure dark against the sky, no more apparent than a blacker patch of night where all was dark. It was in shape as of a horseman sitting his steed on the crest of the hill.

Instantly I drew my pistol, in which I had become expert.

"Your name and business?" cried I to the shape on the hill-side. For, indeed, none had any right to be abroad so near the city of Pla.s.senburg, armed cap-a-pie, at that time of the night. And for a moment the thought flashed upon me that the tales we had heard might after all be true, and the armies of the Wolfmark nearer than we dreamed of.

"Hugo--Von Dessauer!" quoth right jovially to my ear a voice well known and ever dear to me, the voice of my master, the Prince Karl.

"The Prince!" cried I. "My lord, what do you here? This is stark madness--you, who should be within the walls of the palace, with the guards watching three deep about you. What would come to the State of Pla.s.senburg if it wanted you?"

"Oh," said he, lightly, falling in beside us in the most natural fashion, "you and Von Dessauer in dual control would be a singular improvement on the present head of the State. You, Hugo, would keep the soldiers to their work, and Von Dessauer could look n.o.bly after the treasury."

"But who would command us and be a gracious and beloved master to us?"

said I. "My Prince, we must instantly return and put you in safety!"

"Indeed, that will you not. By G.o.d's truth, if I am not to come all the way to the city of Thorn with you, I will at least convoy you to the edges of the Mark. It is so dull, dragging out month by month at ease within the castle, and not nearly so much fun as it used to be when I was a poor captain of a free company under the old Prince. Young rattling blades like Dessauer and yourself make no allowance for the distractions of an aged and gouty Prince."

Within myself I felt some amus.e.m.e.nt stir. It was almost exactly what the Princess, his wife, had alleged as a reason for her wanderings. I could not help marvelling why these two had not long ere this found out their great affinity to each other. But now I see that this very likeness of nature was the first cause of their lack of agreement. Like may, indeed, draw to like, as the saw hath it. But in the things of love like and like agree not well together. Fair desires dark, stout and stark desire slender, slow desires quick, severe desires gay (though this often secretly). And so the world goes on, and in another generation, sprung from these desirings, once more dark desireth fair and fair dark.

There I am at it again. Oh, but I, Hugo Gottfried, am the wise man when I set out on my disquisitions. I could new-make all the saws of the world, set instances to them, and never breathe myself.

"Nay," said the Prince, "all is safe set within and without, thanks to my brave commander and wise Chancellor, and these other matters can e'en bide till I go back to them. Consider that I am but a captain of horse going a-wooing and needing to talk gayly for good comradeship by the road. Call me honest Captain Miller's Son."

So Captain Miller's Son rode with Herr Doctor Schmidt and his servant Johann. And a merry time the three of us had till we arrived at the borders of the Mark.

Now I have not time nor yet s.p.a.ce (though a great deal of inclination) to tell of the wondrous pranks we played--of the broad-haunched countrywomen we rallied (or rather whom Captain Miller's Son rallied, and who, truth to tell, mostly gave as good as they got, or better, to that soldier's huge delight), the stout yeoman families into whose midst we went, and their opinion of the Prince. Of the last I have a good tale to tell. "A good man and a kindly," so the man said; "he has given us safe horse, fat cow, and a quiet life. But yet the old was good too. The true race to reign is ever the anointed Prince."