Читать книгу The Mercenary: A Tale of The Thirty Years' War - W. J. Eccott - Страница 18

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Nigel looked ruefully at the duck.

"Stay and eat it, comrade!" said the lieutenant.

"I must leave it! One does not keep Waldstein waiting! I bequeath it to you. See that you give a good account of it."

"That I can promise you!" said the still hungry lieutenant. "At dawn, you said?"

"At dawn! And give a good look at the horses before you turn in!"

Then casting his cloak about him Nigel went out into the deepening twilight.

Nigel Charteris had once, and only once, spoken to Wallenstein face to face. For although Nigel served as a subaltern all through the great campaign, the large armies commanded by the great general operated over tracts of country often miles apart, and months elapsed between one glimpse of him and the next. Little by little, as the great game of war had come to mean something to Nigel's mind, for at the first it had seemed but a sadly confused business, it came to him that Albrecht von Waldstein was a great player. Since his experience with Count Tilly, Nigel had been able to agree that he also was no mean antagonist, but not the equal of Wallenstein. In that curious welter of the Thirty Years' War it wanted but little shaking of the dice-box for Tilly and Wallenstein to have been pitted against one another. As the dice fell, they never were so pitted, and by consequence what then might have happened is left to those skilful in conjecture, and not for us the chroniclers of what did happen.

Nigel, ushered by one servant to another, and finally by some great one to the presence of the great man, felt the awe that one does in meeting the supremely great in one's own profession; but as to his being a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, which the Emperor had made him, a Duke of Friedland, which by comparison was a mere proclamation of landed nobility, Nigel Charteris of Pencaitland in the Lothians cared little. The man was gentle by birth as he himself was. Whether he was a degree higher or lower was naught to a gentle Scot, for the Scot yields to no man in the pride of race.

The house was a great house, rather deep than wide, with gardens full of trees behind. At some time it had belonged to the King of Bohemia, but had been bestowed on one of the great nobles, and in the general disturbance of things ensuing upon the Winter King's invasion of Bohemia, Albrecht von Waldstein had bought it for a small part of its value. It was not the only instance of that faculty the exercise of which by the Jews has gained them the contemptuous names of brokers and Lombarders. In other words, Wallenstein became rich, had become rich, not because he was a great and successful general, but because the same talents which enabled him to plan and organise his armies, enabled him also to plan his own fortunes in matters of estate.

Wallenstein received Nigel in a spacious chamber, which had been an audience-chamber in older days. It was panelled with wood all round the walls, and the flat ceiling was also of wood, but painted with the royal arms of Bohemia and those of the chief vassals, much of them faded and blackened. There was a great open fireplace with a goodly fire of logs blazing in it, and at a convenient distance from it was a small table, curiously carved as to the legs, a couple of flagons of wine, and two tall goblets of fine glass curiously wrought.

In a great chair sat Wallenstein, and at the door by which Nigel entered stood two serving-men.

Nigel saluted his old commander-in-chief. Wallenstein nodded, and bade a servant bring a chair.

"You were with me in the late wars?" was his question, not in the abrupt military fashion, though there were no more words, but in a tone which bespoke a certain graciousness and a certain distance.

"I was, your Grace—lieutenant, then captain of musketeers!"

"And are now with Count Tilly? You were at Magdeburg?"

"Yes! I am now riding with despatches to the Emperor!"

This was the second time he had implied that he had the despatches to deliver, knowing in fact that he had none. He had lied boldly to Gordon, the commandant who should have been a shopkeeper, and thought nothing of it. Besides, Gordon was a Protestant. He did not like lying even by implication to Wallenstein, but he had the wish not to give the great commander an ill opinion of his capacity.

"It is well!" said Wallenstein. "I do not ask you to show them to me. But I should like to know something of Count Tilly's dispositions. I am out of harness. I am enriched and decorated with titles, and put aside. The Jesuits would like to use me as a flail to beat the Protestants, but they do not want the flail for itself, or to beat them. The flail is a passably good flail, and will not wear out yet. How many men has Count Tilly?"

"Twenty thousand foot; two thousand horse!" said Nigel promptly.

"And artillery?"

"Fifty pieces of all kinds!"

"And powder and ball and matches?"

"Sufficient store!"

"Ah!" said Wallenstein. "If Saxony and Brandenburg together make up their minds they can find work for Count Tilly. And then there is Gustavus! Who is to oppose him, and with what? Where do they say Gustavus is?"

"In Pomerania, your Grace!"

"So I have heard, and is negotiating a treaty with France! If the Protestants but knew it, they could beset Tilly and ruin the Emperor."

"But you forget the Elector Maximilian?"

"He is forgettable! He is a Jesuit, who should have been a priest, but was unhappily born a prince. He has an arm, and that arm is Pappenheim. With men enough Pappenheim could face Gustavus. But Pappenheim is with Tilly. An army can have but one head."

"When the Emperor's advisers grow frightened they will send again for your Grace!" said Nigel.

"They must pay dearly!" was Wallenstein's grim remark, with a curl of his thick lower lip. Then he asked abruptly, in a tone which suggested an amused contempt for such toys, "Do you believe in the stars?"

Had Nigel been sitting over a flagon with Hildebrand von Hohendorf instead of with Albrecht von Waldstein he would have laughed out a "No." But two experiences, the sudden apparition of Ottilie outside Hradschin, a possible delusion of the sense of sight, and the disappearance of his despatches from beneath his head in defiance of sentries and all his senses, which was no delusion, had shaken his hitherto light esteem for witchcraft, star-gazing, horoscopes, alchemy, and all the other ingenious paltering with past and future. It had been whispered too among the armies that Wallenstein had commanded that he, like many other great ones of the time, devout Catholics all, consulted necromancers, and this came to Nigel's mind. He made a cautious reply.

"I have never had my horoscope cast. Nor do I know anything of the science of the stars. It is an old belief that the stars affect the destinies of the great ones of the earth, and it would be a presumption in me, who am nobody but a poor Scots gentleman, to treat it lightly."

"Destiny? What is it?" Wallenstein asked. "Man makes his own path out of the best materials to his hand or lets others buffet him into nothingness. There is no third way. But every man who carves his own pathway would fain learn by what implements he can arrive at the summit, so that he may use them at the earliest."

"And suppose," said the other, "the end be a cannon-ball that cuts one in two, what better is a man for knowing it two years before?"

"In truth," and into the eyes of Wallenstein came a strange look, "I know not, but there is always the grim feeling that one may stumble upon a most exact presage of fatality. It draws one on."

"Then you have made some experiments, your Grace?"

"One must do something when one has too much leisure. There is a learned master, a Jew, I think, but he tells little of his origin, who is to be found sometimes at Vienna, sometimes elsewhere, who calls himself Pietro Bramante. He commended himself to me because he hates the Jesuits. He showed skill in casting my horoscope, and has on several occasions given me good intelligence. He is here now."

Nigel involuntarily made the sign of the Cross.

Wallenstein noticed it.

"He does not traffic in devils, nor meddle with holy things. But he professes great skill in the mathematics, which he says are the root of all divination. He is learned in the Cabal, the unwritten tradition of the Jews, whereby Solomon came to know the beginning, mediety, and consummation of times."

The chamberlain of the household now came in, and bowing low said, "The learned Pietro Bramante bids me to acquaint you, my lord, that the constellations are in a favourable aspect for you to enter the House of Knowledge, but that the stranger must enter also, for the orbit of his star conjoins with your lordship's."

"Come!" said Wallenstein, his eyes lighting up into a curious eagerness, curious that is, in a man of his years, and more so to a Scot such as Nigel Charteris was, for the Scots are not given to appearing eager,—even of good fortune. And if the Scot were forty-eight, which was the tale of Wallenstein's years, and he were told that some one was ready to give him good news or bad, he would say, "Weel! weel! it'll no lose in the tellin'," and never move his legs an inch faster.

"Come! Let us see what this diviner has to say!"

Nigel was in truth by no means pleased. For he was a devout Catholic, and hated alike Jews and witchcraft, and thought little of horoscopes. The stars were a good guide on a clear night crossing a moor or in a strange country. That was all. But Wallenstein had once held all the German lands in his hands, and might again. It was a waste of opportunity not to second his whimsies: and if there was nothing in divination but hocus-pocus, why, there was no harm could come of it.

So he rose to his feet and followed: and Wallenstein led him upstairs to a long gallery, and at the farther end was a curtain drawn across. Portraits of many kings and princesses were ranged along the one wall, and upon the other where the windows were not. The windows looked out upon a balcony and the balcony upon a pleasaunce, but of this, it being now night, Nigel could see little. At long intervals were lighted candles, and many unlit between. And their footfalls, soldier-like and decided, echoed by walls and ceiling, made a great noise in Nigel's ear.

So they came to the curtain and a voice bade draw, and Pietro Bramante stood there and moved not a whit. There were no candles alight near him, and all the light that was came from a copper bowl in which he burned some tow with a blue and now a green flame.

The sage began a recitation in which he made much mention of the seventh house and divers stars and constellations being in opposition or in conjunction, and of this Abracadabra Nigel made nothing. The blue and green flame played upon his naturally brownish face and it was grey, and from Wallenstein's all colour seemed to be gone; instead was his face like a parchment full of lines, all but the eyes, which glittered blackly, never losing gaze upon the sage's face. Except for the latter's utterances there was deep silence, and the three seemed to be alone, for the chamberlain had retired, having ushered them into the gallery.

Then the sage blew out the flame, and his finger faintly glowing began to be visible writing on a wall, or some flat upright surface, and the figure he made was a circle, as truly drawn an O as Messire Michelangelo Buonarrotti might have made. And the circle was of light and glowed through more strongly in one part than another.

"Behold the orbit of the life of Albrecht von Waldstein, a perfect circle. Those lines are perfect circles that make a multiple of ten. It is in every tenth year that great causes may affect them—great upliftings of Fortune, or great fatalities.

"Now regard truly this orbit of another life, which passeth through the centre of the first," and again with unerring finger he drew another curve, which may have been a section of a greater circle, or of an elliptical figure, or of a parabola, but it was a true curve, and cut the circle at its centre. "This orbit passeth through the field of Mars and ariseth beyond the plane of the first orbit, and this signifieth that it is the life of a stranger by blood and nation."

So the original glowed upon the void darkness, and the new line that came from afar and passed through the centre of the circle glowed; and yet another line Pietro Bramante drew, and this time it was an oval.

"Behold now the orbit of yet another life. It is an oval and signifieth the life of a woman. An oval hath two foci, and the one is the centre of the orbit of Albrecht von Wallenstein and the other is upon the circumference of the same circle. Now the actions of woman proceed from two foci, the heart and the intelligence, and the heart focus is upon the centre of the circle and the other focus of the mind is upon the circumference or pathway of the same circle. Wherefore I deduce that this woman, whoever she be, hath her affections firmly set upon the very essence which is the spirit of Albrecht von Wallenstein, and her intelligence is set steadfastly on the orbit of his destiny so that it may go fast or slow as she willeth.

"Now, sir!" he addressed Nigel, "what was the day and hour of your birth?"

"The year 1603. The month July. The day the 7th, and the hour 7!"

"Behold figures full of portent," said Pietro. "The year's numerals added together give ten, which is a complete number. Sixteen hundred and three is a multiple of seven. The month is the seventh month. The day is the seventh. The hour is the seventh. They are propitious times and should give a favourable horoscope. Now I will cast it, and calculate the orbit."

Pietro turned to his copper vessel, and by means which neither of his onlookers could guess the flame sprang up again, and taking a sheet of parchment he made calculations, and set down the fixed points his calculations showed. As the light burned, so the geometrical figures he had drawn before faded from sight.

The two sat silently. Nigel thus far was impressed against his will by the mathematical methods of the learned doctor. He stole a swift glance now and again at Wallenstein, who sat stiffly, absorbed in the doings. Nigel was more interested in the figures of the circle and of the ellipse as they applied to Wallenstein, for Wallenstein of all men was as little to be swayed by any feminine influence as any man. He had married twice. In both cases he had married a woman of noble birth, and of moderate, almost of great, fortune. But no one called Wallenstein uxorious or accused him of careless living in the article of women. No one had imputed to him that he had mistresses, or that either of his wives had ruled him. His face betrayed no tendency to passion. The eyes had no amorousness. As to the lips, if the lower lip spoke of the senses, it was rather of good living. The many lines upon his brow spoke of thought and ambition.

A smile or the semblance of a smile, and that sardonical, had passed across his face when the doctor had spoken of the mysterious woman who was to influence his life.

At last Pietro looked up from his calculations. There was a slight gleam in his worn eyes as of satisfaction, and he brought them his parchment.

"The line of this life, sirs, from the figures of the birth, when affected by the influences which the constellations exercise, must pass through these points," and he showed points upon the parchment marked with Greek letters. "Now if I join these points," and he did so with the point of his pen, "a curve is produced." Again he extinguished the flame of his lamp.

"Now, compare it with the curve I have just shown to you," and it was visible on the extinction of the other flame. "It is the same curve without doubt!"

Nigel was aware of some extraordinary exaltation of mind he could in no wise account for. With his colder intelligence he yet seemed incapable of resisting the belief that the conclusions of the reader of horoscopes were true, that his own path of life was in some momentous way linked up with that of Wallenstein, the idol of his professional admiration, and that now and here that part of his earthly path had begun.

"It seems," said Wallenstein, turning to Nigel, "that by all the rules of divination as practised by the learned doctors of these times, and in particular by Pietro Bramante, who has at divers times made notable experiments at the court of Vienna and elsewhere, you are one of those whose birth is fortunate, and that you are destined to cross my orbit at its zenith and its nadir, and to pass through the very centre of my intelligence for good or ill."

"You read aright, sir!" said Pietro. "It is beyond my power to say if for good or for ill."

"I would fain know," said Wallenstein, "if you are a good Catholic."

"I am!" said Nigel.

"And have no dealings with the Jesuits?"

"No! I have had no commerce with them at any time!"

"It is well!" said Wallenstein. "For the rest you are a soldier of fortune, and your greatest desire——"

"Is to become a trusted officer in your Grace's service, whenever it shall please the Emperor to recall you!" said Nigel heartily.

"Then let us read the presage as a fortunate one!" said Wallenstein, "and God speed the fulfilment of your desires! And now, most learned doctor, surely your powers of divination do not end here. You have spoken of some unknown lady or perchance some uncouth beldame, whom the stars have chosen to become a benign power in my life. Does not your art enable you to disclose at least her name? Tell me at least whether she is of a dark and melancholic disposition, or of a sanguine inclination."

Nigel could not tell from the dry passionless utterance of the speaker whether irony lay at the root of his tongue: but he was at least as eager as Wallenstein appeared to be indifferent as to the outcome. It was the difference between youth and maturity. If it had been permitted to look into the mind of that inscrutable man, one might have expected to find that on a stage where strode so many principal and, in their several parts, renowned actors, where war and high policy and ambition were the themes, Wallenstein should count as nothing the staying or speeding of his actions by any woman.

Pietro Bramante turned again to his lamp, which he relighted, and, drawing a curtain aside, the light fell upon a tall mirror of the height of a man set at such an angle that at the present it reflected nothing. At two paces from it he set a chafing-dish wherein burned glowing charcoal, and upon it sprinkled some powder from a little box of ebony; and from the dish rose up a white smoke of a sweet savour. And then Pietro recited some Latin verses, which to Nigel, unversed in such incantations, bore no meaning.

Then, before they were aware, though both gazed intently upon the smoke, the form of a majestic woman appeared to gather substance, and at length her face in all its lineaments became plain to view. The eyes gazed in a kind of ecstasy fixedly, gravely benignant, towards Wallenstein.