Читать книгу The Red Axe - S. R. Crockett - Страница 25

Master Gerard, however, did not seem to be aware of her presence, for he continued his catechism steadily.

"You mocked at their terrors, did you not, and told them that you, who had seen the teeth of the Duke's hounds, had nothing to fear from the bare gums of the White Wolf?"

"I knew that they but played," I answered, "and that I had little to fear."

For with Ysolinde von Sturm watching me with her eyes I could not for very shame's sake make myself great.

"You told them more than that," the girl cried, suddenly flashing on me a look keen as the light on a sword when it comes home from the cutler. "You told them that you too desired a freer commonwealth!"

"I did," said I, flushing quickly, for I had thought to keep my thumb on that.

Nevertheless I was not going back on my spoken word, even in the presence of Duke Casimir's inquisitor. Besides which I judged that my father had influence enough to bring me out scathless.

"That is well and bravely said!" he replied, smiling with thin lips which in all their constant writhings showed no vestige of teeth within; "but the sentiment itself is somewhat strange in the son of the Red Axe and the future Executioner of Justice in the Wolfmark."

Then for the first time I permitted my eyes to rest on the lithe figure of the girl in the doorway. Methought she inclined her head a little forward to catch my answer as if it had been a matter of interest to her.

"I am indeed son of the Red Axe," said I, "but my own head would underlie it rather than that I should ever be Hereditary Justicer of the Mark."

A smile that was meant for me passed over the girl's face and momently sweetened her lips. She straightened her body and set a hand more easily to her waist. A certain kindness dwelt in her emerald eyes.

"Never be Duke's Justicer!" cried Master Gerard, looking up with his hand on a skull. "This is unheard of! Are not you the only son of Gottfried Gottfried, right hand of Duke Casimir, highest in favor with his Grace? And within two years, according to the law of the headsman, must you not also don the Red and the Black and stand at the Duke's left hand, as your father at his right, when he sits in judgment?"

I bowed my head for answer.

"Even so," said I; "but long before that time I shall be either in a far country waging the wars of another lord, or in a country yet farther—that to which the men of my race have directed so many untimeously."

"Have you at all thought of the land or the lord to whom you would transfer your allegiance?" said Gerard von Sturm, carelessly rapping with his fingers on the bare white of the skull before him.

"I have not," I replied as easily.

He looked down a moment, and drew his black robe thoughtfully over his knee as if turning the matter over in his mind. "What think you of Plassenburg and the service of Prince Karl?" he said at last.

"The place is too near and the man a usurper," I replied, brusquely.

"I am not so sure," Master Gerard mused, slowly, "that it might not be advantageous to bide near home. Duke Casimir is mortal, after all—long and prosperously may he live!" (Here he inclined his head piously, while naming his master.) "But who knows how long he may be spared to reign over a loving people. And after that, why, there may be more usurpers. For by the name 'usurper' the ignorant mostly mean men of the strong heart and sure brain, who can hold that which they have with one hand and reach out for more with the other."

While he spoke thus he looked at me with his green eyes half closed.

"But," said I, calmly enough, though my heart beat fast, "I am but a lad untried. I may never rise beyond a private soldier. I may be killed at the first assault of my virgin campaign."

Master Gerard looked up quickly. He beckoned to his daughter. For though by no faintest gesture had he betrayed his knowledge of her presence, he had yet clearly known it all the time.

"Ysolinde," he said, "bring hither thy crystal!"

The maid disappeared and presently returned with a ball in her hand of some substance which looked like misty glass.

"I have been looking in it already," she said, "ever since Hugo Gottfried came out of the Red Tower."

Her voice was soft and even, with the same sough in it as of the wind among poplar-trees which I had heard in the rustle of her silken dress as she came up the stair.

"And what," asked her father, "have you seen in the crystal, child of my heart?"

He looked up at me with some little shamefacedness, or so I imagined.

"I am a dry old man of the law," he went on, "dusty of heart as these black books up yonder—books not of magic but of fact, of crime and pain and penalty. But this my daughter Ysolinde, wise from a child, solaces herself with the white, innocent magic, such as helps man and brings him nearer that which is unseen."

The maid knelt by her father's knee, and held the crystal ball in the hollow of her hands against the sable of his velvet robe. She passed one hand swiftly twice or thrice over her brow, as though to clear away some cobwebs, gossamer thin, that had folded themselves across her vision. Then, in the same wistful, wind-soft voice, she began to speak. And as she spoke all that I had loved and known began to pass from before me. I forgot my father. I forgot the Red Tower. I forgot (God forgive me, yet help it I could not!) the little Princess Playmate and her sweetest eyes. I forgot all else save this lithe, serpentine maiden with the massive crown of burned and tawny gold upon her head.

"I see," she began, "a long street and many men struggling on it—the Wolf of the Wolfmark, the Eagle of Plassenburg are face to face. I see Red Karl the Prince. The young Wolf has the better of it. He bites his lip and drives hard. The Prince is down. He is wounded. He is like to die. The Wolf will drive all to destruction.

"But see—" she sighed, and paused the while as if that which she saw next touched her—"from the swelter in the rear comes a young soldier. He has lost his helmet. I see his head. It is a fair head with crisp curls. He has a sword in his hand and he lays well about him. He cuts a way to the Prince—he bestrides his body.

"Give way there, scullions, that I may see more!" she cried, impetuously, and waved her hand before her eyes, which were fixed expressionless on the crystal. "I see him again. Well done, young soldier! Valiantly laid on. It is great sword-play. Bravo! The Wolf is down. The Eagle of Plassenburg is up—I can see no more!"

And suddenly she dropped the ball, which would have rolled off her father's knee had he not caught it as it fell.

Ysolinde kept her head on Master Gerard's lap for a long minute, as if, after the vision of the crystal, she could not bear the common light nor speak of meaner things. Then, without once looking at me, she rose, gathered her skirts in her hand, and glided out of the doorway in which she had stood.

When she was quite gone her father reached a bony hand across to me.

"That is a great fate which she has read for you—never have I seen her so moved, nor yet her vision so clear and unmistakable. Surely the sooner you seek the service of the Prince of Plassenburg the better."

"But," said I, "how do I know that he will accept me? He may not wish to retain in his service the son of the Red Axe of the Wolf mark."

Master von Sturm smiled subtly at me.

"I cannot tell," he said, "why it is that I have an interest in you. But I desire to see you other than that which you are. I have, strange as it may seem in one of such humble degree here in the city of Thorn, whom all may consult without fee or reward, a certain influence and place in the councils of the reigning Prince of Plassenburg. If, therefore, you will take service with him, I can give you such an introduction as will guarantee you a place, not as man-at-arms, but as officer, so that your way may lie before you clear from the first. Also in this promotion you shall have a good sufficient reason to give those who may accuse you of changing your service."

I could not answer him for gladness. The hope seemed so unbelievable—the fortune too grateful to be true. I was overcome, and, as I guess, showed it in my face. For twice I essayed to speak and could not.

So that Master Gerard rose and glided over to me, patting me kindly enough on the shoulders and bidding me take courage, saying that he loved to see modesty in this untoward generation, in which there was little virtue and no gratitude at all.

So I grasped him by the hand and kissed his thin, bony fingers.

"Bide ye, bide ye," he said; "one day I may kiss yours an you be active. The wide spaces of Destiny lie before you, though I shall not live to see it. But you must bestir you, for I am an old man, and have not far to travel now to the place from which one leaps off into the dark."

He conducted me to the door of his chamber and gave me his hand again with the same inscrutable smile on his thin face, and his skull-cap pushed farther back than ever over the flat, ophidian brow.

"When you have all things ready," he said, "come to me for the letter of introduction, and also for that which may obtain you a worthy outfit for your journeying to Plassenburg. Or, if you are already Sir Proud-Heart, you can repay me one day, with usury if you will. I care not to stand on observances with you, nor desire that you should feel any obligation to a feeble old man."

"I am not proud," I said, "and my sense of obligation is already greater than ever I can hope to discharge."

"I thank you, my lad," he said. "Often have I wished for a son of the flesh like you as you passed the window with your companions—but go, go!"

And with his hand he pushed me out upon the stair-head and shut the door.

For a space I knew not where I stood. For what with the turmoil of my thoughts and the myriad of impressions, hopes, fears, visions, regrets to leave the Red Tower, the city of Thorn, the hope of seeing again that high-poised head of burned gold of the Lady Ysolinde, I paused stock-still, moidered and dazed, till a light hand touched me on the shoulder and the soft, even voice spoke in my ear.

"Master Hugo," said the Lady Ysolinde, bending kindly to me, "I am glad, very glad—aye, though you have made my head ache" (here she nodded blamefully and laid her hand upon her heart as if that ached too)—"it is the best of fortunes, and sure to come true. Because have I seen it at six o'clock of a Thursday in the time of full moon."

"Come hither," she said, beckoning me; "we shall try another way of it yet, in spite of the headache. It may be that there is more that concerns you for me to see in the ink-pool."

With this she took my hand and almost pulled me down the stairs by force. As we went I saw the wild head and staring eyeballs of Jan the Lubber Fiend peering at us. He was lying on the back staircase, prone on his stomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it, and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down the stair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red ears actually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight of the Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end of that smile.

"Lubber Jan," said she, "go and sit in the yard. The servants will be complaining of thee again, that they cannot come up the staircase, even as they did before."

"Then, if I do," mumbled the monster, "will you look out of window at least once in each hour, between every stroke of the clock. Else will Jan not stop in the yard, but come within to feast his eyes on thee."

"Yes, Jan," she said, smiling with a gentle complaisance which made me like her somewhat better than before, "I will look out at least once in the hour."

And turning a little she smiled again at me, still holding me by the hand. The Lubber Fiend pulled his forelock, and reaching downward his head, as if he had the power of stretching out his neck like an arm, he kissed the cold pavement where her foot had rested a moment before. Then he rather retracted himself, serpentwise, then betook him in Christian fashion down the stair, and we heard him move out amid a babel of servatorial recriminations into the outer yard.

"A poor innocent," said the Lady Ysolinde; "one that worships me, as you see. He is so great of stature and so uncouth that the children persecute him, and some day he may do one of them an injury. Years ago I rescued him from an evil pack of them and brought him hither. So that is the reason why he cleaves to me."

"An excellent reason, my lady," said I, "for any to cleave to you."

"Ah," she said, wistfully, "only fools think of Ysolinde in the city of Thorn. Some are afraid and pass by, and the rest are as the dogs that lick the garbage in the streets. Here I have no friends, save my father only, and here or elsewhere I have never had any that truly loved me."

"But you are young—you are fair," I answered. "Many must come seeking your favor." Thus did I begin lumpishly enough to comfort her. But at my first words she snatched her fingers away angrily, and then in a moment relented.

"You mean well," she said, giving her hand back to me again, "but it is not pity Ysolinde needs nor yet desires. But that is no matter. Come in hither and see what may abide for you in the depths of the black pool."

At the curtained doorway she turned and looked me in the eyes.

"If you were as other young men it would be easy for you to misjudge me. This is mine own work-chamber, and I bid you come into it, having seen you but an hour ago. Yet never a man save my father only hath set his foot in it before. Inquire carefully of your companions in the city of Thorn, and if any make pretension to acquaintance with the Lady Ysolinde of the White Gate strike him in the face and call him liar, for the sake of the favor I have shown you and the vision I saw concerning you in the crystal."

I stooped and kissed her hand, which was burning hot—a thin little hand, with long, supple fingers which bent in one's grasp.

"The man who would pretend to such a thing is dead even as he speaks," said I; and I meant it fully.

"I thank you—it is well," she answered, leading me in. "I only desired that you should not misjudge me."

"That could I never do if I would," I made her answer. "Here my every thought is reverence as in the oratory of a saint."

She smiled a strange smile.

"Mayhap that is rather more than I desire," she said. "Say rather in the maiden bower of a woman who knows well whom she may trust."

Again I kissed her hand for the correction. And, as I remembered afterwards, it was at that hour that the little Princess Playmate was used to look within my chamber to see that all was ready for me.

And, had I known it, even that night she stooped over and kissed the pillow where my head was to lie.

"Dear love!" she was used to say.

Alas that I heard it not then!