Читать книгу The Red Axe - S. R. Crockett - Страница 20

"Who waits at the bar with you, brother?" said a voice which, though disguised, carried with it a suggestion of Michael Texel.

The announcement was made by the officer who brought me in.

"'Tis one Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, hereditary executioner to the tyrant."

I could hear the thrill of interest which pervaded the assembly at the announcement. And for the first time I thought almost well of the honorable office to which I had been born.

"And what do you here, son of the Red Axe, in the place of the Sacred

Fehme of the White Wolf?"

The question was the first addressed directly to me.

"I came," said I, as straightforwardly and simply as I could, "with Michael Texel, because he asked me to come. And also because I heard that there was good ale to be had for the drinking at the White Swan of Thorn, where we are now met."

A low moan of horror went about the assembly at the frivolity of my answer, which plainly was not what had been expected.

"Daring mocker!" cried a stern voice, "you speak as one unacquainted with the dread power of the White Wolf, which has within her grasp the keys of life and death—and has suckled great empires at her dugs. Beware, tempt not the All-powerful to exercise her right of axe and cord!"

"I do not tempt any," answered I, boldly enough—yet with no credit to myself, for I could have laughed aloud at all this hollow pretence, having been brought up within the range of that which was no mockery. "I am willing to become a loyal member of the Society of the White Wolf for the furtherance of any honest purpose. All things, I admit, are not well within the body politic. Let us, in the city of Thorn, strive after the same rights as are possessed by the Free Cities of the North. If that be your object, the son of the Red Axe is with you—with you to the death, if need be. But for God's sake let us take off these masks and set ourselves down to the tankard and the good brown bread with less mummery—a sham of which others have the reality."

"Peace, vain, ignorant fly!" cried the same speaker, one with a young voice, which he was trying, as I thought, to make grave and old; "terror must first strike your heart, or you cannot sit down with the Society of the White Wolf. You stand convicted of blasphemy against this our ancient and honorable institution—blasphemy which must be suddenly and terribly punished. Hugo Gottfried, I command you—make your head ready for the striker. Bare the neck and bow the knee!"

But I stood as erect as I could, though I felt hands laid upon my shoulders and the breathing of many close about me.

"Knights and gentlemen," said I, "I am not afraid to die, if need be. But ere you do your will upon me, I would fain tell you a tale and give you a warning. Here I am one among many. I am also of your opinion, if your opinion be against tyranny. But for God's sake seek it as wise men and not as posturing knaves. As for Michael Texel—"

"Name not the mortal names of men in this place of the White Wolf!" said the same grave voice.

At which I laughed a little.

"If you will tell me what to say instead in the language of the immortals, I will call my friend by that name. Till then Michael Texel, I say—"

I was pulled by force down upon my knees.

"Your pleasure, gentlemen," said I, as coolly as I might; "you may do with me as you will, but give me at least leave to speak. Your meetings here at the White Swan are known to the Red Axe, my father, and therefore to the Duke Casimir."

A low groan filled the wide hall. I could feel that my words touched them on the raw.

"Also this very night I saw one of your noblest members tremble with alarm—for the Society, not for himself, I warrant—when Gottfried Gottfried spake lightly of your meetings here as of a thing well known. I am not afraid of my life. In the sight of my father I went forth from the Red Tower in the company of Michael Texel. He knew of your place of meeting. And well I wot that if I am not within the precincts of the Red Tower by midnight, the officers of Duke Casimir and his Judgment Hall will come knocking at these doors of yours. I ask you, are you ready to open?"

"Rash mortal!" said the voice again to me, "you mistake the White Wolf if you think that she or her children are afraid of any tyrant or of his officers. You yourself shall die, as has been appointed. For none may speak lightly of the White Wolf and live to tell the tale!"

"So be it," I replied, calmly; "but first let me recount to you the story of Hans Pulitz. Not for the hiding of a belt of gold, as men say, was he condemned. But because he had plotted against the life of the Duke and of his minister of justice, the Red Axe. Would you know what happened? I will tell you briefly:

"Ten men, accounted strong, held Hans Pulitz. Ten men could scarce lead him through the court-yard to the chair on which sat Duke Casimir. I saw him judged. Was he not of the White Wolf? Did the White Wolf save him? Have her teeth ravened for those that condemned him? Or have you that are of that noble society kept close in your halls and played out your puppet shows, while poor Hans, who was faithful to you to the end, went—whither?"

A sough of angry whispering filled the room, rising presently into a roar of indignation.

"Traitor! Murderer! Spy!" they cried.

"Nay," said I, "'fore God, Hugo Gottfried was more sorry for the poor deceived slave than any here. For, in the presence of the Duke, I cried out against the horror. But being no more than a boy, I was stricken to silence by the hand of a man-at-arms. Then I saw Hans Pulitz cast loose. I saw him seized by one man—even by the Red Axe—raised high in the air, and flung over the barriers among the ravening and leaping blood-hounds. I heard the hideous noises that followed—the yells of a man fighting for his life in a place of fiends. I shut my ears with my hands, yet could I not shut out that clangor of hell. I shut my eyes, closer than you have shut them for me now. I fled, I knew not where, terror pursuing me. And yet I saw, and do now see, the Duke sitting with crossed hands as if at prayers, and the Red Axe standing motionless before the men-at-arms, pointing with one hand to the Duke's vengeance! Shall I tell you now why I am not afraid?"

After hearing these words it was small wonder that they cried yet more against me.

"Death to the traitor—bloody death—like that which he has rejoiced in!"

"Nay, my friends," said I, "it was because of the death of Hans Pulitz and that of others that I would strengthen the hands of liberty and make an end of tyranny. But not, an' it please you, with child's plays and the cast-off garmentry of tyrants. What can you do to me in the Inn of the Swan that can equal the end of poor Hans Pulitz—of whom they found neither bone nor hair, took up no fragment of skin or nail, save the golden chain only, tooth-scarred and beslavered, which he wore about his waist. And the belt you may see for yourselves any day if you give me your company within the Red Tower."

Now, as may well be understood, if the Society of the White Wolf was angry before, it was both angry and frightened now, which is a thing infinitely more dangerous.

"Let him die straightway! Let the taunting blasphemer die!" they cried.

And again, for the third time, the hollow voice pronounced my doom.

"It is well," I shouted amid the din. "It is thrice well. But look ye to it. By the morrow's morn there shall not be one of you in your beds—aye, and those whose heads are rolled in the dust shall count yourselves the fortunate ones. For they at least will escape the fate of poor Hans Pulitz."

Now sorely do I wonder, at this distance of time, that they did not slay me in good earnest. But I have learned from that night in the Inn of the Swan that when defiance has to be made, it is ever best to deal in no half-measures. And, besides, coming from the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg, their precious Society of the White Wolf, with its mummery and flummery, filled me with a hot contempt.

"Kneel down!" cried the judge; "lay your head on the block! It has often been wet with the blood of traitors, never with that of a blacker traitor than Hugo Gottfried!"

So with that those about me thrust me forward and forced my head down. I was obliged to clasp the block with both my hands. As I did so I felt it well all over. Then I laughed aloud, with a laugh that must have appeared strange and mad to them.

For this their mock tribunal could not deceive one who had been brought up within the hum of judges of life and death, and with a father who as his daily business propounded the Greater and Lesser Questions. And their precious block, as smooth as sawn and polished timber, with never a notch from side to side, could not take in Hugo Gottfried, who had made a playmate and a printed book of the worn blocks of a hundred executions—to whom each separate chip made by the Red Axe had been a text for Gottfried Gottfried to expatiate upon concerning his own prowess and that of his fathers.

Nevertheless, it certainly gave me a strange turn when ice-cold steel was laid across my neck-bone. It burned like fire, turning my very marrow to water, and for the first time I wished myself well out of it. But only for a moment.

For there came a loud rattling of arms without, a thunderous and insistent knocking at the door, which disturbed the assembly.

"Open, in the name of the Duke!" cried, clamorously, many fierce voices without. I heard the rush and scuffle of a multitude of feet. The hands that had held me abruptly loosened their grip, and I was free. I raised my bound wrists to my brow and tried to push the bandage back. But it was firmly tied, and it was but dimly that I saw the hall of the White Wolf filled with the armed men of the Duke's body-guard, boisterously laughing, with their hands on their sides, or kicking over the mock throne covered with white cloth, the coils of rope, the axes of painted wood, and the other properties of this very faint-hearted Fehmgericht.

"But what have we here?" they cried, when they came upon me, bound and helpless, with the bandage only half pushed off my eyes.

"Heave him up on his pins, and let us look at him," quoth a burly guardsman. "I trust he is no one of any account. I want not to see another such job done on a poor scheming knave like that last, when the Duke Casimir settled accounts with Hans Pulitz!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed his companion; "a rare jest, i' faith; 'tis the son of our own Red Axe—a prisoner of the White Wolf and ready for the edge. We came not a moment too soon, youngster. What do you here?"

"Why," said I, "it chanced that I spoke slightingly of their precious nonsense of a White Wolf. But they dared not do me harm. They were all more frightened than a giggling maiden is of the dark, when no man is with her."

Then I saw my father at the end of the hall. He came towards me, clad in his black Tribunal costume.

"Well," he said, quaintly, like one that has a jest with himself which he will not tell, "have you had enough of marching hand-in-glove with treason? I wot this mummery of the White Wolf will serve you for some time."

I was proceeding to tell him all that had passed, but he patted me on the shoulder.

"I heard it all, lad, and you did well enough—save for your windiness about liberty and the Free Cities—which, as I see it, are by far the worst tyrannies. But, after all, you spoke as became a Gottfried, and one day, I doubt not, you shall worthily learn the secrets, bear the burden, and enlarge the honors of the fourteen Red Axes of the Wolfmark."