Joan of the Sword Hand

It was on the tip of Margaret's tongue to cry out with wild words even as she had done at the door at the river parlour. But the thought of Maurice, of the torture and the death, silenced her. She lifted her eyes, and there, at the top of the steps, were the dignitaries of the cathedral waiting to lead the solemn procession.

"I will go!" she said.

And at her words the Prince Ivan smiled under his thin moustache.

She laid her hand on her brother's arm and began the ascent of the long flight of stairs. But even as she did so, behind her there broke a wave of sound – the crying of many people, confused and multitudinous like the warning which runs along a crowded thoroughfare when a wild charger escaped from bonds threshes along with frantic flying harness. Then came the clatter of horses' hoofs, the clang of doors shut in haste as decent burghers got them in out of harm's way! And lo! at the foot of the steps, clad from head to foot in a cloak, the sick Princess Joan, she whom the Black Death had stricken, leaped from her foaming steed, and drawing sword followed fiercely up the stairway after the marriage procession. The Cossacks of the Muscovite guard looked at each other, not knowing whether to stand in her way or no.

"The Princess Joan!" they said from one to the other.

"Joan of the Sword Hand!" whispered the burghers of Courtland. "The disease has gone to her brain. Look at the madness in her eye!"

And their lips parted a little as is the wont of those who, having come to view a comedy, find themselves unexpectedly in the midst of high tragedy.

"Hold, there!" the pursuer shouted, as she set foot on the lowest step.

"Lord! Surely that is no woman's voice!" whispered the people who stood nearest, and their lower jaws dropped a little further in sheer wonderment.

The Princes turned on the threshold of the cathedral, with Margaret still between them, the belly of the church black behind them, and the processional priests first halting and then peering over each other's shoulders in their eagerness to see.

Up the wide steps of the Dom flew the tall woman in the flowing cloak. Her face was pallid as death, but her eyes were brilliant and her lips red. At the sight of the naked sword Prince Ivan plucked the blade from his side and Louis shrank a little behind his sister.

"Treason!" he faltered. "What is this? Is it sudden madness or the frenzy of the Black Death?"

"The Princess Margaret cannot be married!" cried the seeming Princess. "To me, Margaret! I will slay the man who lays a hand on you!"

Obedient to that word, Margaret of Courtland broke from between her brother and Prince Ivan and ran to the tall woman, laying her brow on her breast. The Prince of Muscovy continued calm and immovable.

"And why?" he asked in a tone full of contempt. "Why cannot the Princess Margaret be married?"

"Because," said the woman in the long cloak, fingering a string at her neck, "she is married already. I am her husband!"

The long blue cloak fell to the ground, and the Sparhawk, clad in close-fitting squire's dress, stood before their astonished eyes.

A long low murmur, gathering and sinking, surged about the square. Prince Louis gasped. Margaret clung to her lover's arm, and for the space of a score of seconds the whole world stopped breathing.

Prince Ivan twisted his moustache as if he would pull it out by the roots.

"So," he said, "the Princess is married, is she? And you are her husband? 'Whom God hath joined' – and the rest of it. Well, we shall see, we shall see!"

He spoke gently, meditatively, almost caressingly.

"Yes," cried the Sparhawk defiantly, "we were married yesterday by Father Clement, the Prince's chaplain, in the presence of the most noble Leopold von Dessauer, High Councillor of Plassenburg!"

"And my wife – the Princess Joan, where is she?" gasped Prince Louis, so greatly bewildered that he had not yet begun to be angry.

Ivan of Muscovy put out his hand.

"Gently, friend," he said; "I will unmask this play-acting springald. This is not your wife, not the woman you wedded and fought for, not the Lady Joan of Hohenstein, but some baseborn brother, who, having her face, hath played her part, in order to mock and cheat and deceive us both!"

He turned again to Maurice von Lynar.

"I think we have met before, Sir Masquer," he said with his usual suave courtesy; "I have, therefore, a double debt to pay. Hither!" He beckoned to the guards who lined the approaches. "I presume, sir, so true a courtier will not brawl before ladies. You recognise that you are in our power. Your sword, sir!"

The Sparhawk looked all about the crowded square. Then he snapped his sword over his knee and threw the pieces down on the stone steps.

"You are right; I will not fight vainly here," he said. "I know well it is useless. But" – he raised his voice – "be it known to all men that my name is Maurice, Count von Löen, and that the Princess Margaret is my lawfully wedded wife. She cannot then marry Ivan of Muscovy!"

The Prince laughed easily and spread his hand with gentle deprecation, as the guards seized the Sparhawk and forced him a little space away from the clinging hands of the Princess.

"I am an easy man," he said gently, as he clicked his dagger to and fro in its sheath. "When I like a woman, I would as lief marry her widow as maid!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE RETURN OF THE BRIDE

"Prince Louis," continued Ivan, turning to the Prince, "we are keeping these holy men needlessly, as well as disappointing the good folk of Courtland of their spectacle. There is no need that we should stand here any longer. We have matters to discuss with this gentleman and – his wife. Have I your leave to bring them together in the Palace? We may have something to say to them more at leisure."

But the Prince of Courtland made no answer. His late fears of the Black Death, the astonishing turn affairs had taken, the discovery that his wife was not his wife, the slowly percolating thought that his invasion of Kernsberg, his victories there, and his triumphal re-entry into his capital, had all been in vain, united with his absorbing fear of ridicule to deprive him of speech. He moved his hand angrily and began to descend the stairs towards the waiting horses.

Prince Ivan turned towards Maurice von Lynar.

"You will come with me to the Palace under escort of these gentlemen of my staff," he said, with smiling equality of courtesy; "there is no need to discuss intimate family affairs before half the rabble of Courtland."

He bowed to Maurice as if he had been inviting him to a feast. Maurice looked about the crowded square, and over the pennons of the Cossacks. He knew there was no hope either in flight or in resistance. All the approaches to the square had been filled up with armed men.

"I will follow!" he answered briefly.

The Prince swept his plumed hat to the ground.

"Nay," he said; "lead, not follow. You must go with your wife. The Prince of Muscovy does not precede a lady, a princess, – and a bride!"

So it came about that Margaret, after all, descended the cathedral steps on her husband's arm.

And as the cavalcade rode back to the Palace the Princess was in the midst between the Sparhawk and Prince Wasp, Louis of Courtland pacing moodily ahead, his bridle reins loose upon his horse's neck, his chin sunk on his breast, while the rabble cried ever, "Largesse! largesse!" and ran before them casting brightly coloured silken scarves in the way.

Then Prince Ivan, summoning his almoner to his side, took from him a bag of coin. He dipped his fingers deeply in and scattered the coins with a free hand, crying loudly, "To the health and long life of the Princess Margaret and her husband! Health and riches and offspring!"

And the mob taking the word from him shouted all along the narrow streets, "To the Princess and her husband!"

But from the hooded dormers of the city, from the lofty gable spy-holes, from the narrow windows of Baltic staircase-towers the good wives of Courtland looked down to see the great folk pass. And their comment was not that of the rabble. "Married, is she?" they said among themselves. "Well, God bless her comely face! It minds me of my own wedding. But, by my faith, I looked more at my Fritz than she doth at the Muscovite. I declare all her eyes are for that handsome lad who rides at her left elbow – "

"Nay, he is not handsome – look at his face. It is as white as a new-washen clout hung on a drying line. Who can he be?"

"Minds me o' the Prince's wife, the proud lady that flouted him, mightily he doth – I should not wonder if he were her brother."

"Yes, by my faith, dame – hast hit it! So he doth. And here was I racking my brains to think where I had seen him before, and then, after all, I never had seen him before!"

"A miracle it is, gossip, and right pale he looks! Yet I should not wonder if our Margaret loves him the most. Her eyes seek to him. Women among the great are not like us. They say they never like their own husbands the best. What wouldst thou do, good neighbour Bette, if I loved your Hans better than mine own stupid old Fritz! Pull the strings off my cap, dame, sayst thou? That shows thee no great lady. For if thou wast of the great, thou wouldst no more than wave thy hand and say, 'A good riddance and a heartsome change!' – and with that begin to make love to the next young lad that came by with his thumbs in his armholes and a feather in his cap!"