Joan of the Sword Hand

"The Princes are sitting their horses, watching. Bravo, that was well done. We came near to seeing the colour of the Muscovite brains that time. One of the wild horses spread his hoofs on either side of Prince Ivan's head!"

"God send him a better aim next time! Tell on, Peter! Aye, get on, good Peter!"

"The Princes have gone up into their balcony. They are laughing and talking as if it were a raree-show!"

"What of him, good Peter? How takes he all this?"

"What of whom?" queried Peter, who, like all great talkers, was rapidly growing testy under questioning.

"There is but one 'he' to-day, man. The young lad, the Princess Margaret's sweetheart."

"They have brought him down from the cart. The Cossacks are close about him. They have put all the Courtland men far back."

"Aye, aye; they dare not trust them. Oh, for an hour of Prince Conrad! If we of the city trades had but a leader, this shame should not blot our name throughout all Christendom! What now, Peter?"

"The Muscovites are binding the lad to a wooden frame like the empty lintels of a door. He stands erect, his hands in the corners above, and his feet in the corners below. They have stripped him to the waist."

"Hold me higher up, Jan the smith! I would see this out, that you may tell your children and your children's children. Aye – ah, so it is. It is true. Sainted Virgin! I can see his body white in the sunshine. It shines slender as a peeled willow wand."

Then the woman who had wept began again. Her wailing angered the people.

"He is like my son – save him! He is the very make and image of my Kaspar. Slender as a young willow, supple as an ash, eyes like the berries of the sloe-thorn. Give me a sword! Give an old woman a sword, and I will deliver him myself, for my Kaspar's sake. God's grace – Is there never a man amongst you?"

And as her voice rose into a shriek there ran through all the multitude the strange shiver of fear with which a great crowd expects a horror. A hush fell broad and equal as dew out of a clear sky. A mighty silence lay on all the folk. Peter Altmaar's lips moved, but no sound came from them. For now Maurice was set on high, so that all could see for themselves. White against the sky of noon, making the cross of Saint Andrew within the oblong framework to which he was lashed, they could discern the slim body of the young man who was about to be torn in sunder. The executioners held him up thus a minute or two for a spectacle, and then, their arrangements completed, they lowered that living crucifix till it lay flat upon its little platform, with the limbs extended stark and tense towards the heels of the wild plunging horses of the Ukraine.

Then again the voice of Peter Altmaar was heard, now ringing false like an untuned fiddle. "They are welding the manacles upon his ankles and wrists. Listen to the strokes of the hammer."

And in the hush which followed, faintly and musically they could hear iron ring on iron, like anvil strokes in some village smithy heard in the hush of a summer's afternoon.

"Blessed Virgin! they are casting loose the horses! A Cossack with a cruel whip stands by each to lash him to fury! They are slipping the platform from under him. God in heaven! What is this?"

Hitherto the eyes of the great multitude, which on three sides surrounded the place of execution, had been turned inward. But now with one accord they were gazing, not on the terrible preparations which were coming so near their bloody consummation, but over the green tree-studded Alla meads towards a group of horsemen who were approaching at a swift hand-gallop.

Whereupon immediately Peter, the lank giant, was in greater request than ever.

"What do they look at, good Peter – tell us quickly? Will the horses not pull? Will the irons not hold? Have the ropes broken? Is it a miracle? Is it a rescue? Thunder-weather, man! Do not stand and gape. Speak – tell us what you see, or we will prod you behind with our daggers!"

"Half a dozen riding fast towards the Princes' stand, and holding up their hands – nay, there are a dozen. The Princes are standing up to look. The men have stopped casting loose the wild horses. The man on the frame is lying very still, but the chains from his ankles and arms are not yet fastened to the traces."

"Go on, Peter! How slow you are, Peter! Stupid Peter!"

"There is a woman among those who ride – no, two of them! They are getting near the skirts of the crowd. Men are shouting and throwing up their hands in the air. I cannot tell what for. The soldiers have their hats on the tops of their pikes. They, too, are shouting!"

As Peter paused the confused noise of a multitude crying out, every man for himself, was borne across the crowd on the wind. As when a great stone is cast into a little hill-set tarn, and the wavelet runs round, swamping the margin's pebbles and swaying the reeds, so there ran a shiver, and then a mighty tidal wave of excitement through all that ring which surrounded the crucified man, the deadly platform, and the tethered horses.

Men shouted sympathetically without knowing why, and the noise they made was half a suppressed groan, so eager were they to take part in that which should be done next. They thrust their womenkind behind them, shouldering their way into the thick of the press that they might see the more clearly. Instinctively every weaponed man fingered that which he chanced to carry. Yet none in all that mighty assembly had the least conception of what was really about to happen.

By this time there was no more need of Peter Altmaar. The ring was rapidly closing now all about, save upon the meadow side, where a lane was kept open. Through this living alley came a knight and a lady – the latter in riding habit and broad velvet cap, the knight with his visor up, but armed from head to foot, a dozen squires and men-at-arms following in a compact little cloud; and as they came they were greeted with the enthusiastic acclaim of all that mighty concourse.

About them eddied the people, overflowing and sweeping away the Cossacks, carrying the Courtland archers with them in a mad frenzy of fraternisation. In the stand above Prince Louis could be seen shrilling commands, yet dumb show was all he could achieve, so universal the clamour beneath him. But the Princess Margaret heard the shouting and her heart leaped.

"Prince Conrad – our own Prince Conrad, he has come back, our true Prince? We knew he was no priest! Courtland for ever! Down with Louis of the craven heart! Down with the Muscovite! The young man shall not die! The Princess shall have her sweetheart!"

And as soon as the cavalcade had come within the square the living wave broke black over all. The riders could not dismount, so thick the press. The halters of the wild horses were cut, and right speedily they made a way for themselves, the people falling back and closing again so soon as they had passed out across the plain with necks arched to their knees and a wild flourish of unanimous hoofs.

Then the cries began again. Swords and bare fists were shaken at the grand stand, where, white as death, Prince Louis still kept his place.

"Prince Conrad and the Lady Joan!"

"Kill the Muscovite, the torturer!"

"Death to Prince Louis, the traitor and coward!"

"We will save the lad alive!"

About the centre platform whereon the living cross was extended the crush grew first oppressive and then dangerous.

"Back there – you are killing him! Back, I say!"

Then strong men took staves and halberts out of the hands of dazed soldiermen, and by force of brawny arms and sharp pricking steel pressed the people back breast high. The smiths who had riveted the wristlets and ankle-rings were already busy with their files. The lashings were cast loose from the frames. A hundred palms chafed the white swollen limbs. A burgher back in the crowd slipped his cloak. It was passed overhead on a thousand eager hands and thrown across the young man's body.

At last all was done, and dazed and blinded, but unshaken in his soul, Maurice von Lynar stood totteringly upon his feet.

"Lift him up! Lift him up! Let us see him! If he be dead, we will slay Prince Louis and crucify the Muscovite in his place!"

"Bah!" another would cry, "Louis is no longer ruler! Conrad is the true Prince!"

"Down with the Russ, the Cossack! Where are they? Pursue them! Kill them!"

So ran the fierce shouts, and as the rescuers raised the Sparhawk high on their plaited hands that all men might see, on the far skirts of the crowd Ivan of Muscovy, with a bitter smile on his face, gathered together his scattered horsemen. One by one they had struggled out of the press while all men's eyes were fixed upon the vivid centrepiece of that mighty whirlpool.

"Set Prince Louis in your midst and ride for your lives!" he cried. "To the frontier, where bides the army of the Czar!"

With a flash of pennons and a tossing of horses' heads they obeyed, but Prince Ivan himself paused upon the top of a little swelling rise and looked back towards the Alla bank.

The delivered prisoner was being held high upon men's arms. The burgher's cloak was wrapped about him like a royal robe.

Prince Ivan gnashed his teeth in impotent anger.

"It is your day. Make the most of it," he muttered. "In three weeks I will come back! And then, by Michael the Archangel, I will crucify one of you at every street corner and cross-road through all the land of Courtland! And that which I would have done to my lady's lover shall not be named beside that which I shall yet do to those who rescued him!"

And he turned and rode after his men, in the midst of whom was Prince Louis, his head twisted in fear and apprehension over his shoulder, and his slack hands scarce able to hold the reins.

After this manner was the Sparhawk brought out from the jaws of death, and thus came Joan of the Sword Hand the second time to Courtland.

But the end was not yet.

CHAPTER XLV