Joan of the Sword Hand

CHAPTER LI

THERESA'S TREACHERY

That night the whole city of Courtland cowered in fear before its triumphant enemy. At the nearest posts the Muscovites were in great strength, and the sight of their burnings fretted the souls of the citizens on guard. Some came near enough to cry insults up to the defenders.

"You would not have your own true Prince. Now ye shall have ours. We will see how you like the exchange!"

This was the cry of some renegade Courtlander, or of a Muscovite learned (as ofttimes they are) in the speech of the West.

But within the walls and at the gates the men of Kernsberg and Hohenstein rubbed their hands and nudged each other.

"Brisk lads," one said, "let us make our wills and send them by pigeon post. I am leaving Gretchen my Book of Prayers, my Lives of the Saints, my rosary, and my belt pounced with golden eye-holes – "

"Methinks that last will do thy Gretchen most service," said his companion, "since the others have gone to the vintner's long ago!"

"Thou art the greater knave to say so," retorted his companion; "and if by God's grace we come safe out of this I will break thy head for thy roguery!"

The Muscovites had dragged the captured cannon in front of the Plassenburg Gate, and now they fired occasionally, mostly great balls of quarried stone, but afterward, as the day wore later, any piece of metal or rock they could find. And the crash of wooden galleries and stone machicolations followed, together with the scuttling of the Courtland levies from the post of danger. A few of the younger citizens, indeed, were staunch, but for the most part the Plassenburgers and Kernsbergers were left to bite their lips and confide to each other what their Prince Hugo or their Joan of the Hand Sword would have done to bring such cowards to reason and right discipline.

"An it were not for our own borders and that brave priest-prince, no shaveling he," they said, "faith, such curs were best left to the Muscovite. The plet and the knout were made for such as they!"

"Not so," said he who had maligned Gretchen; "the Courtlanders are yea-for-soothing knaves, truly; but they are Germans, and need only to know they must, to be brave enough. One or two of our Karl's hostelries, with thirteen lodgings on either side, every guest upright and a-swing by the neck – these would make of the Courtlanders as good soldiers as thyself, Hans Finck!"

But at that moment came Captain Boris by and rebuked them sharply for the loudness of their speech. It was approaching ten of the clock. Boris and Jorian had already visited all the posts, and were now ready to make their venture with Theresa von Lynar.

"No fools like old fools!" grumbled Jorian sententiously, as he buckled on his carinated breastplate, that could shed aside bolts, quarrels, and even bullets from powder guns as the prow of a vessel sheds the waves to either side in a good northerly wind.

"'Tis you should know," retorted Boris, "being both old and a fool."

"A man is known by the company he keeps!" answered Jorian, adjusting the lining of his steel cap, which was somewhat in disarray after the battle of the morning.

"Ah!" sighed his companion. "I would that I had the choosing of the company I am to keep this night!"

"And I!" assented Jorian, looking solemn for once as he thought of pretty Martha Pappenheim.

"Well, we do it from a good motive," said Boris; "that is one comfort. And if we lose our lives, Prince Conrad will order many masses (they will need to be very many) for your soul's peace and good quittance from purgatory!"

"Humph!" said Jorian, as if he did not see much comfort in that, "I would rather have a box on the ear from Martha Pappenheim than all the matins of all the priests that ever sung laud!"

"Canst have that and welcome – if her sister will do as well!" cried Anna, as the two men went out into the long passage. And she suited the deed to the word.

"Oh! I have hurt my hand against that hard helmet. It serves me right for listening! Marthe!" – she looked about for her sister before turning to the soldiers – "see, I have hurt my hand," she added.

Then she made the tears well up in her eyes by an art of the tongue in the throat she had.

"Kiss it well, Marthe!" she said, looking up at her sister as she came along the passage swinging a lantern as carelessly as if there were not a Muscovite in the world.

But Boris forestalled the newcomer and caught up the small white hand in the soft leathern grip of his palm where the ring-mail stopped.

"I will do that better than any sister!" he said.

"That, indeed, you cannot; for only the kiss of love can make a hurt better!"

Anna glanced up at him with wet eyes, a little maid full of innocence and simplicity. Most certainly she was all unconscious of the danger in which she was putting herself.

"Well, then, I love you!" said Boris, who did his wooing plainly.

And did not kiss her hand.

Meanwhile the others had wandered to the end of the passage and now stood at the turnpike staircase, the light of Martha Pappenheim's lantern making a dim haze of light about them.

Anna looked at Boris as often as she could.

"You really love me?" she questioned. "No, you cannot; you have known me too brief a time. Besides, this is no time to speak of love, with the enemy at the gates!"

"Tush!" said Boris, with the roughness which Anna had looked for in vain among all the youth of Courtland. "I tell you, girl, it is the time. You and I are no Courtlanders, God be thanked! In a little while I shall ride back to Plassenburg, which is a place where men live. I shall not go alone. You, little Anna, shall come, too!"

"You are not deceiving me?" she murmured, looking up upon occasion. "There is none at Plassenburg whom you love at all?"

"I have never loved any woman but you!" said Boris, settling his conscience by adding mentally, "though I may have thought I did when I told them so."

"Nor I any man!" said Anna, softly meditative, making, however, a similar addition.

Thus Greek met Greek, and both were very happy in the belief that their own was the only mental reservation.

"But you are going out?" pouted Anna, after a while. "Why cannot you stay in the Castle to-night?"

"To-night of all nights it is impossible," said Boris. "We must make the rounds and see that the gates are guarded. The safety of the city is in our hands."

"You are sure that you will not run into any danger!" said Anna anxiously. She remembered a certain precariousness of tenure among some of her previous – mental reservations. There was Fritz Wünch, who had laughed at the red beard of a Prussian baron; Wilhelm of Bautzen, who went once too often on a foray with his uncle, Fighting Max of Castelnau —

For answer the staunch war-captain kissed her, and the girl clung to her lover, this time in real tears. Martha's candle had gone out, and the two had perforce to go down the stair in the dark. They reached the foot at last.

"None of them were quite like him," she owned that night to her sister. "He takes you up as if he would break you in his arms. And he could, too. It is good to feel!"

"Jorian also is just like that – so satisfactory!" answered Martha. Which shows the use Jorian must have made of his time at the stairhead, and why Martha Pappenheim's light went out.

"He swears he has never loved any woman before."

"Jorian does just the same."

"I suppose we must never tell them – "

"Marthe – if you should dare, I will – Besides, you were just as bad!"

"Anna, as if I would dream of such a thing!"

And the two innocents fell into each other's arms and embraced after the manner of women, each in her own heart thinking how much she preferred "the way of a man with a maid" – at least that form of it cultivated by stout war-captains of Plassenburg.

Without, Boris and Jorian trampled along through a furious gusting of Baltic rain, which came in driving sheets from the north and splashed its thumb-board drops equally upon the red roofs of Courtland, the tented Muscovites drinking victory, and upon the dead men lying afield. Worse still, it fell on many wounded, and to such even the thrust of the thievish camp-follower's tolle-knife was merciful. Never could monks more fitly have chanted, "Blessed are the dead!" than concerning those who lay stiff and unconscious on the field where they had fought, to whose ears the Alla sang in vain.

Attired in her cloak of blue, with the hood pulled low over her face, Theresa von Lynar was waiting for Boris and Jorian at the door of the market-hospital.

"I thank you for your fidelity," she said quickly. "I have sore need of you. I put a great secret into your hands. I could not ask one of the followers of Prince Conrad, nor yet a soldier of the Duchess Joan, lest when that is done which shall be done to-night the Prince or the Duchess should be held blameworthy, having most to gain or lose thereto. But you are of Plassenburg and will bear me witness!"

Boris and Jorian silently signified their obedience and readiness to serve her. Then she gave them their instructions.

"You will conduct me past the city guards, out through the gates, and take me towards the camp of the Prince of Muscovy. There you will leave me, and I shall be met by one who in like manner will lead me through the enemy's posts."

"And when will you return, my Lady Theresa? We shall wait for you!"

"Thank you, gentlemen. You need not wait. I shall not return!"

"Not return?" cried Jorian and Boris together, greatly astonished.

"No," said Theresa very slowly and quietly, her eyes set on the darkness. "Hear ye, Captains of Plassenburg – I will give you my mind. You are trusty men, and can, as I have proved, hold your own counsel."

Boris and Jorian nodded. There was no difficulty about that.

"Good!" they said together as of old.

As they grew older it became more and more easy to be silent. Silence had always been easier to them than speech, and the habit clave to them even when they were in love.

"Listen, then," Theresa went on. "You know, and I know, that unless quick succour come, the city is doomed. You are men and soldiers, and whether ye make an end amid the din of battle, or escape for this time, is a matter wherewith ye do not trouble your minds till the time comes. But for me, be it known to you that I am the widow of Henry the Lion of Kernsberg. My son Maurice is the true heir to the Dukedom. Yet, being bound by an oath sworn to the man who made me his wife, I have never claimed the throne for him. But now Joan his sister knows, and out of her great heart she swears that she will give up the Duchy to him. If, therefore, the city is taken, the Muscovite will slay my son, slay him by their hellish tortures, as they have sworn to do for the despite he put upon Prince Ivan. And his wife, the Princess Margaret, will die of grief when they carry her to Moscow to make a bride out of a widow. Joan will be a prisoner, Conrad either dead or a priest, and Kernsberg, the heritage of Henry the Lion, a fief of the Czar. There is no help in any. Your Prince would succour, but it takes time to raise the country, and long ere he can cross the frontier the Russian will have worked his will in Courtland. Now I see a way – a woman's way. And if I fall in the doing of it, well – I but go to meet him for the sake of whose children I freely give my life. In this bear me witness."

"Madam," said Boris, gravely, "we are but plain soldiers. We pretend not to understand the great matters of State of which you speak. But rest assured that we will serve you with our lives, bear true witness, and in all things obey your word implicitly."

Without difficulty they passed through the streets and warded gates. Werner von Orseln, indeed, tramping the inner rounds, cried "Whither away?" Then, seeing the lady cloaked between them, he added after his manner, "By my faith, you Plassenburgers beat the world. Hang me to a gooseberry bush if I do not tell Anna Pappenheim of it ere to-morrow's sunset. As I know, she will forgive inconstancy only in herself!"

They plunged into the darkness of the outer night. As soon as they were beyond the gates the wind drave past them hissing level. The black trees roared overhead. At first in the swirl of the storm the three could see nothing; but gradually the watchfires of the Muscovite came out thicksown like stars along the rising grounds on both sides of the Alla. Boris strode on ahead, peering anxiously into the night, and a little behind Jorian gave Theresa his hand over the rough and uneven ground. A pair of ranging stragglers, vultures that accompany the advance of all great armies, came near and examined the party, but retreated promptly as they caught the glint of the firelight upon the armour of the war-captains. Presently they began to descend into the valley, the iron-shod feet of the men clinking upon the stones. Theresa walked silently, steeped in thought, laying a hand on arm or shoulder as she had occasion. Suddenly tall Boris stopped dead and with a sweep of his arm halted the others.

"There!" he whispered, pointing upward.

And against the glow thrown from behind a ridge they could see a pair of Cossacks riding to and fro ceaselessly, dark against the ruddy sky.

"Gott, would that I had my arbalist! I could put gimlet holes in these knaves!" whispered Jorian over Boris's shoulder.

"Hush!" muttered Boris; "it is lucky for Martha Pappenheim that you left it at home!"

"Captains Boris and Jorian," Theresa was speaking with quietness, raising her voice just enough to make herself heard over the roar of the wind overhead, for the nook in which they presently found themselves was sheltered, "I bid you adieu – it may be farewell. You have done nobly and like two valiant captains who were fit to war with Henry the Lion. I thank you. You will bear me faithful witness in the things of which I have spoken to you. Take this ring from me, not in recompense, but in memory. It is a bauble worth any lady's acceptance. And you this dagger." She took two from within her mantle, and gave one to Jorian. "It is good steel and will not fail you. The fellow of it I will keep!"

She motioned them backward with her hand.

"Abide there among the bushes till you see a man come out to meet me. Then depart, and till you have good reason keep the last secret of Theresa, wife of Henry the Lion, Duke of Kernsberg and Hohenstein!"

Boris and Jorian bowed themselves as low as the straitness of their armour would permit.

"We thank you, madam," they said; "as you have commanded, so will we do!"

And as they had been bidden they withdrew into a clump of willow and alder whose leaves clashed together and snapped like whips in the wind.

"Yonder woman is braver than you or I, Jorian," said Boris, as crouching they watched her climb the ridge. "Which of us would do as much for any on the earth?"

"After all, it is for her son. If you had children, who can say – ?"

"Whether I may have children or no concerns you not," returned Boris, who seemed unaccountably ruffled. "I only know that I would not throw away my life for a baker's dozen of them!"

Upon the skyline Theresa von Lynar stood a moment looking backward to make sure that her late escort was hidden. Then she took a whistle from her gown and blew upon it shrilly in a lull of the storm. At the sound the war-captains could see the Cossacks drop their lances and pause in their unwearying ride. They appeared to listen eagerly, and upon the whistle being repeated one of them threw up a hand. Then between them and on foot the watchers saw another man stand, a dark shadow against the watchfires. The sentinels leaned down to speak with him, and then, lifting their lances, they permitted him to pass between them. He was a tall man, clad in a long caftan which flapped about his feet, a sheepskin posteen or winter jacket, and a round cap of fur, high-crowned and flat-topped, upon his head.

He came straight towards Theresa as if he expected a visitor.

The two men in hiding saw him take her hand as a host might that of an honoured guest, kiss it reverently, and then lead her up the little hill to where the sentinels waited motionless on their horses. So soon as the pair had passed within the lines, their figures and the Cossack salute momentarily silhouetted against the watchfires, the twin horsemen resumed their monotonous ride.

By this time Jorian's head was above the bushes and his eyes stood well nigh out of his head.

"Down, fool!" growled Boris, taking him by the legs and pulling him flat; "the Cossacks will see you!"

"Boris," gasped Jorian, who had descended so rapidly that the fall and the weight of his plate had driven the wind out of him, "I know that fellow. I have seen him before. It is Prince Wasp's physician, Alexis the Deacon. I remember him in Courtland when first we came thither!"

"Well, and what of that?" grunted Boris, staring at the little detached tongues of willow-leaf flame which were blown upward from the Muscovite watchfires.

"What of that, man?" retorted Boris. "Why, only this. We have been duped. She was a traitress, after all. This has been planned a long while."

"Traitress or saint, it is none of our business," said Boris grimly. "We had better get ourselves within the walls of Courtland, and say nothing to any of this night's work!"

"At any rate," added the long man as an afterthought, "I have the ring. It will be a rare gift for Anna."

Jorian looked ruefully at his dagger, holding it between the rustling alder leaves, so as to catch the light from the watchfires. The red glow fell on a jewel in the hilt.

"'Tis a pretty toy enough, but how can I give that to Marthe? It is not a fit keepsake for a lady!"

"Well," said Boris, suddenly appeased, "I will swop you for it. I am not so sure that my pretty spitfire would not rather have it than any ring I could give her. Shall we exchange?"

"But we promised to keep them as souvenirs?" urged Jorian, whose conscience smote him slightly. "One does not tell lies to a lady – at least where one can help it."

"It depends upon the lady!" said Boris practically. "You can tell your Marthe the truth. I will please myself with Anna. Hand over the dagger."

So wholly devoid of sentiment are war-captains when they deal with keepsakes.

CHAPTER LII

THE MARGRAF'S POWDER CHESTS

It was indeed Alexis the Deacon who met the Lady Theresa. And the matter had been arranged, just as Boris said. Alexis the Deacon, a wise man of many disguises, remained in Courtland after the abrupt departure of Prince Ivan. Theresa had found him in the hospital, where, sheltered by a curtain, she heard him talk with a dying man – the son of a Greek merchant domiciled in Courtland, whose talent for languages and quick intelligence had induced Prince Conrad to place him on his immediate staff of officers.

"I bid you reveal to me the plans and intents of the Prince," Theresa heard Alexis say, "otherwise I cannot give you absolution. I am priest as well as doctor."

At this the young Greek groaned and turned aside his head, for he loved the Prince. Nevertheless, he spoke into the ear of the physician all he knew, and as reward received a sleeping draught, which induced the sleep from which none waken.

And afterwards Theresa had spoken also.

So it was this same Alexis – spy, priest, surgeon, assassin, and chief confidant of Ivan Prince of Muscovy – who, in front of the watchfires, bent over the hand of Theresa von Lynar on that stormy night which succeeded the crowning victory of the Russian arms in Courtland.

"This way, madam. Fear not. The Prince is eagerly awaiting you – both Princes, indeed," Alexis said, as he led her into the camp through lines of lighted tents and curious eyes looking at them from the darkness. "Only tell them all that you have to tell, and, trust me, there shall be no bounds to the gratitude of the Prince, or of Alexis the Deacon, his most humble servant."

Theresa thought of what this boundless gratitude had obtained for the young Greek, and smiled. They came to an open space before a lighted pavilion. Before the door stood a pair of officers trying in vain to shield their gay attire under scanty shoulder cloaks from the hurtling inclemency of the night. Their ready swords, however, barred the way.

"To see the Prince – his Highness expects us," said Alexis, without any salute. And with no further objection the two officers stood aside, staring eagerly and curiously however under the hood of the lady's cloak whom Alexis brought so late to the tent of their master.

"Ha!" muttered one of them confidentially as the pair passed within, "I often wondered what kept our Ivan so long in Courtland. It was more than his wooing of the Princess Margaret, I will wager!"

"Curse the wet!" growled his fellow, turning away. He felt that it was no time for speculative scandal.

Theresa and her conductor stood within the tent of the commander of the Muscovite army. The glow of light, though it came only from candles set within lanterns of horn, was great enough to be dazzling to her eyes. She found herself in the immediate presence of Prince Ivan, who rose with his usual lithe grace to greet her. An older man, with a grey pinched face, sat listlessly with his elbow on the small camp table. He leaned his forehead on his palm, and looked down. Behind, in the half dark of the tent, a low wide divan with cushions was revealed, and all the upper end of the tent was filled up with a huge and shadowy pile of kegs and boxes, only half concealed behind a curtain.

"I bid you welcome, my lady," said Prince Ivan, taking her hand. "Surely never did ally come welcomer than you to our camp to-night. My servant Alexis has told me of your goodwill – both towards ourselves and to Prince Louis." (He indicated the silent sitting figure with a little movement of his hand sufficiently contemptuous.) "Let us hear your news, and then will we find you such lodging and welcome as may be among rough soldiers and in a camp of war."

As he was speaking Theresa von Lynar loosened her long cloak of blue, its straight folds dank and heavy with the rains. The eyes of the Prince of Muscovy grew wider. Hitherto this woman had been to him but a common traitress, possessed of great secrets, doubtless to be flattered a little, and then – afterwards – thrown aside. Now he stood gazing at her his hands resting easily on the table, his body a little bent. As she revealed herself to him the pupils of his eyes dilated, and amber gleams seemed to shoot across the irises. He thought he had never seen so beautiful a woman. As he stood there, sharpening his features and moistening his lips, Prince Ivan looked exceedingly like a beast of prey looking out of his hole upon a quarry which comes of its own accord within reach of his claws.

But in a moment he had recovered himself, and came forward with renewed reverence.

"Madam," he said, bowing low, "will you be pleased to sit down? You are wet and tired."

He went to the flap of the pavilion and pushed aside the dripping flap.

"Alexis!" he cried, "call up my people. Bid them bring a brazier, and tell these lazy fellows to serve supper in half an hour on peril of their heads!"

He returned and stood before Theresa, who had sunk back as if fatigued on an ottoman covered with thick furs. Her feet nestled in the bearskins which covered the floor. The Prince looked anxiously down.

"Pardon me, your shoes are wet," he said. "We are but Muscovite boors, but we know how to make ladies comfortable. Permit me!"

And before Theresa could murmur a negative the Prince had knelt down and was unloosing the latchets of her shoes.

"A moment!" he said, as he sprang again to his feet with the lithe alertness which distinguished him. Prince Ivan ran to a corner where, with the brusque hand of a master, he had tossed a score of priceless furs to the ground. He rose again and came towards Theresa with a flash of something scarlet in his hand.