Читать книгу 21 MYSTERY & ROMANCE NOVELS - Robert Barr - Страница 69

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The Countess Tekla spent the greater portion of her time waiting upon her aunt, who, never having known a true friend in her life before, clung to the girl with a pathetic insistence, unhappy if Tekla was out of her sight. The natural positions of the two seemed reversed; the elder woman leaning dependently on the younger, and looking to her for protection, as a child looks to its mother. When Tekla was busy in the courtyard garden her aunt would sit on the balcony and watch her every movement with a dumb, tender affection that was most touching. The elder rarely spoke, and never smiled except when Tekla looked up to her with a smile on her own pretty lips.

Rodolph often wished the aunt were not quite so much the shadow of the niece, but there was such love between the two women that he never ventured to suggest to Tekla his hope that he might be permitted now and then to enjoy her companionship unshared. He worked with her in the garden, and often said that he expected to make horticulture his occupation when the siege was over, so expert had he become under the charming instruction of his fair teacher.

When winter intervened, and the spring came again, Rodolph jokingly suggested that they should plant grain instead of flowers, as there was still no sign that the Archbishops were becoming tired of their undertaking. The second winter passed, and a second spring found the living line around the castle still intact, thus Rodolph's former jest began to take a grimmer meaning, for provisions were indeed running low, and the two years' supply, which seemed at first almost inexhaustible, was now coming to an end, yet not a pound of wheat or a gallon of wine had succeeded in getting through the cordon drawn by the stubborn Archbishops. Rodolph had counted on a quarrel between the two commanders ere this, but there was no indication of dissension in the opposing camp. The bitter persistence of the siege he laid to the account of the Archbishop of Treves, and in this he was right. There was, however, one grain of consolation in its continuance; so long as the armies of the Archbishops were encircling Thuron, they were out of mischief elsewhere, and the rest of Germany was at peace. Rodolph could not help thinking that if it came to a fight the troops would hardly be as warlike as they had shown themselves two years before, when the siege began, for the sound of revelry came up each night from the camp, and the idle men were industriously drinking their thousand gallons of wine each day, which tended more to hilarity than discipline. Nevertheless, they held tightly to the castle, and there was no relaxing of the lines that surrounded it. On several occasions attempts were made to get through by one or other belonging to the garrison, but in each case without success. The deserters were turned back, the officers refusing even to make prisoners of them.

Meanwhile the Emperor periodically received news from the capital, and was compelled also to listen to long-winded mythical accounts of his own bravery in the East, which did much credit to the fictional power of the romancer in Frankfort who put the stories together. When at last it was reported to him that the army centred in Frankfort, and at other points within easy call of the capital, was fit to cope successfully with all opposition, the Emperor resolved to quit the castle by stealth if possible, and if that proved impracticable, to send word when next the monk came, telling Brunfels to lead the army in person up the Moselle and raise the siege of Thuron. His hope, however, was to get away from the castle and himself give the command to the Archbishops to cease their warfare.

But another matter occupied his mind, almost to the exclusion of the great affairs of state, which should perhaps have had his undivided attention, because of their paramount importance. This interest held him a willing prisoner in Thuron, and it may be some excuse for his inaction—for his reluctance in showing himself a real and not a nominal Emperor—that he was less than thirty years of age. Before he quitted Thuron, therefore, he desired to know whether the Countess Tekla regarded him as a dear friend or a dearer lover. It was his right to come at the head of his army and demand the girl, for even if she had, when sorely pressed, rebelled against being bestowed upon an equal in rank and wealth in the person of Count Bertrich, yet, whatever her personal inclinations might be, she could not deny the suit of the Emperor, were he as ugly as Calaban, as old as Methuselah, and as wicked as Beelzebub. Such a refusal would have been unheard of under the feudal law, and would certainly not have been allowed by the upholders of it. But Rodolph was in the mind to keep all prerogatives of his position for other purposes, and trust to his own qualities in pursuing the course that Cupid had marked out for him. If the girl cared nothing for him as Lord Rodolph, he would not ask her to bestow her affection upon the Emperor.

The moon was shining brightly over the Moselle valley when he determined to escape from the castle, and as he had resolved to take the archer and Conrad with him, not only as a bodyguard, but in order that there might be less demand on the almost empty larder of the castle, he had to wait for a night when the moon was obscured, or until it grew older and rose later. It would be impossible for the three of them to get away when night was as light as day; indeed experience had proved the futility of even one attempting to quit the stronghold; but the Emperor was imbued with the belief that he could succeed where others had failed. The archer had formulated a plan for their escape in conjunction with his friend Roger Kent, who was now on guard at a portion of the line in the Thaurand valley after midnight, and although Surrey had had as yet no chance of consulting his friend, he surmised there would be little difficulty in persuading him to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear up the valley for a few minutes to accommodate an old comrade.

Things were at this pass when, one afternoon, Rodolph was with the Countess Tekla in the garden while the girl's aunt sat on the balcony watching them.

"My Lady," said Rodolph, in a low voice, "I have serious complaint to make of you."

"Of me, my Lord," asked the girl, in surprise, glancing swiftly up at him.

"Yes, Countess. While we have each, even to Count Heinrich himself, taken turns in keeping watch and ward on the battlements, you have never shouldered pike and marched up and down the promenade. Yet is there reason for that. Your doing so would attract rather than repel the enemy, so perhaps we were wise in allowing you to work in the garden instead. Still, you should at least encourage those on guard, and as this promises to be a beautiful night, and as I pace the battlements until the stroke of twelve, I beg of you to come upon the parapet soon after our evening meal and bear me company for an hour or so. I make it a question of duty, if I cannot persuade you else."

"I am not one to shirk from duty," said the Countess, brightly, "so upon that basis will I assist you to repel the invaders. Besides, I wish to see the valley bathed in the moonlight, and have long desired to venture on the battlements, and would have done so before now had not my uncle forbidden it. But that was long since, and perhaps he apprehends no danger at this time."

"The ramparts are as safe as the quietest street in Frankfort, and I do assure you that the valley in the moonlight is most lovely and well worth gazing upon. I may, then, look forward to your coming?"

"Yes, unless my uncle or aunt object."

"They will not object, especially if you do not ask their permission, which I beg you not to do. Just make the venture, and I will guarantee that no one will have aught to say against your presence on the platform of the west wall."

And thus it came about that the Countess Tekla, with a fleecy white scarf thrown over her fair head, reaching down to her waist, looking as if it had been woven from the moonbeams themselves, walked on the stone terrace that night with Lord Rodolph of Hapsburg, and then was the time, had the Archbishops been looking for a favourable opportunity of attack, to charge upon the fortress, for never since the world began was watch so carelessly kept in ancient stronghold, as when these two young people guarded grim Castle Thuron.

"This reminds me of another night," said Rodolph. "The moon shone as brightly, and the river flowed on as peacefully under its mild radiance. Does your recollection join with mine?"

"Yes. It was the night we left Treves."

"Together."

Tekla looked up at him, then gently murmured a repetition of the word.

"It was an idyllic voyage," he continued, "whose remembrance lingers as does the fragrance of a precious flower. Its dangers seem to have faded away, and only the charm remains. The recollection of it is like a beautiful dream: a vision of Heaven rather than an actuality of earth."

The Countess Tekla paused in her walk, and clasping her hands over her breast, gazed up the valley at the winding ribbon of silver far below, the glamour and soft witchery of the moonlight in the lustre of her eyes.

"There can be nothing more beautiful in the world than the Moselle," she said, slowly.

"It is indeed an enchanted river, but that night it looked upon a beauty superior to its own."

"I shall not pretend ignorance of your meaning, my Lord, and so take the compliment to myself, undeserving of it though I may be. But my treatment of you then was, I fear, a sad blemish on whatever of beauty I may possess. I see you now standing on the rock by the margin of the stream, to which my petulance and suspicion unwarrantably banished you. I often think of my injustice, pain mingling with pleasure in the remembrance, which is unaccountable, for I should dwell on the incident with regret only, yet it passes my comprehension that I experience felicity in conning it over. You looked like an indignant god of the Moselle, standing there silent in the moonlight, and even although I deeply distrusted you then—you must remember I had not seen you until that moment—I felt as if I were a culprit, refusing to pay just toll as I floated on the river you guarded."

"Ah, Countess, payment deferred makes heavy demand when time for settlement ultimately comes. The river god now asks for toll, with two years' interest, compounded and compounded, due."

"Alas!" cried the Countess, arching her eyebrows, and spreading out her empty hands, accompanying the word with a little nervous laugh, "I fear I am bankrupt. Should this siege succeed, as it seems like to do——"

"What siege, my Lady?"

"The siege of Castle Thuron," she answered, looking sideways at him. "Is there another?"

"I had another in my mind at the moment. I trust that it too will be successful, or rather that it will be successful and the Archbishops' effort fail. But if Thuron falls, what then, my Lady?"

"Then am I bankrupt, for my lands will be confiscated and other grievous things may happen. With lands and castles gone, how can I pay the river god his fee, even were he generous to forego his rightful interest, twice or thrice compounded?"

"The gods, my Lady, traffic not in castles nor in lands. Were these tendered, free of fee or vassalage, your river god would value them no more than the lump of rock he stood upon, and would proclaim to all the Moselle valley his charge was still unsatisfied."

"Then he is no god, but a Frankfort usurer."

"That he is indeed, my Lady; rapacious, exacting, demanding that to which he has no rightful claim, yet still demanding. And worse than any mortgage broker, because he knows no debt has been incurred, but the reverse, for such slight service as he rendered was a pleasure to him, and he knew himself deeply the debtor in that it was accepted of him. And yet, my Lady, this confessed cozening knave implores recompense so far above his merits, that there is this to say in his behalf: his tongue, more modest than his thoughts, hesitates to formulate in words his arrogant petition. I stand here landless and castleless, but I hope a gentleman, and if any man question that I am as noble as the Archbishop himself I will dispute his contention with my sword; brushing aside all thought of the possessions that may come to you or to me, are you content, my Lady Tekla, to place your hand in my empty palm and say, 'Rodolph, I take you for my future husband'?"

He stood with both hands outstretched, and she a little distance from him, her head bowed, once venturing to dart a swift glance at him, again scrutinising the silent stones lying in the moonlight at her feet. Then suddenly she placed both her hands in his, and cried breathlessly:

"Rodolph, Rodolph, it were a foolish bargain for you, and I cannot have it so. Wait, wait a little, till I know whether I have what should be mine; whether I am to be as poor as any village maiden in Alken yonder; then ask me, Rodolph. In either case ask me then, and I will answer you."

"No, Tekla, answer me now—now."

"You are young, Rodolph. Oh, why must I be wise for two?—your way is to make, and I must not retard your career. You join a tottering house: my only relative cannot hold his own with his single sword. I feel disaster hovering over us, and yet so shallow a maid am I, that I came joyously forth to be with you on this promenade, unheeding of impending calamity. Think what you do, my Lord: the powerful Archbishops are your enemies, and there is no kin of mine to befriend you. Wait, wait, wait."

"I have already waited—for two years have I waited; I want my answer now, Tekla."

"No, no. This madness is of the moonlight. They say the moon, when it shines brightly—our talk of the river spirits has made us blind to practical things, and so I seem to be myself one of the Rhine maidens who lure men on to destruction. I will not be the Lorelei of the Moselle. Let me go, my Lord: I should not have come here to the battlements in the moonlight, for reason has fled from us. You shall not blight your noble career for one so ill-fated as I. See what I have already done. My uncle besieged this two years, and now certain of defeat. You imprisoned here when you should have been making your way in the East, or in Germany, where, with your bravery, your name would have rung throughout the land. I will not embroil you with the Archbishops, and perhaps with the Emperor himself. Go forth, Lord Rodolph, from this doomed house, and come to me, if you still wish, when I shall not retard you."

"My career I shall look to with satisfied mind and heart, if first I have assurance from you that all is well with my love. I have no fears for my future. I willingly stayed my career at a single sight of you, for I came to Treves to see the Archbishop, and not to look upon the Countess Tekla. It seems to me amazing that there ever was a time when I had to say to my comrade, 'Who is she?' yet such was indeed the case, for when I should have been gazing at Arnold von Isenberg, my thoughts and glances were all for the lady who rode by his side. My being in the skiff was no accident, as you thought, but the result of careful planning, with a craft worthy of Arnold himself. I came here willingly, eagerly, and not through inadvertence, and Thuron never held so complacent a prisoner, nor one who so welcomed captivity as I, less held by its adamantine walls than by your silken bondage, if my glad restraint merit so harsh a name. Tekla, I love you at dawn, at mid-day, in darkness, or in moonlight; all's one to me. How is it with you, my lady of the silver light?"

"Oh, with me, with me, Rodolph, what need to answer that which all may see so plainly? What need for you to ask, when every glance that fell from my eyes upon you must have betrayed me? Oh, my knight of the water-lapped rock, I loved you ever since first I saw you standing there, flinging your abandoned sword at my feet, for the protection of one so cruel and unjust. And now must my foolish fondness drag you down with me into the torrent that may overwhelm us both? Rodolph, Rodolph, I cry to you beware, for I cannot protest longer, and am so selfish that, for your love, I would defy fate; so ungenerous that while my lips warn you my heart hopes you will not heed. Oh, Rodolph, I have loved you since the world began."

The young man, suddenly releasing her imprisoned hands, clasped the girl unresisting to him and on her trembling dewy lips pressed, long and tenderly, their first kiss; she, with a deep sigh, closing her eyes, and resigning herself to his tenderness. For him, no less than for her, the moment was supreme, and it seemed as if the world had faded from them and they stood alone in delirious space together. The tent of the Archbishops, precursor of the great Cathedral, shone white in the moonlight, looking in calm unconsciousness at the plans of its august builders crumbling to pieces, through the action of a man and woman.