Joan of the Sword Hand

At sight of the face of his mistress, which was very grave, and even stern, his laughter instantly shut itself off. As it seemed, with a single movement, he raised himself to his feet and saluted. Joan stood looking at him a moment without speech.

"Your mirth is exceedingly ill-timed," she said slowly. "On a future occasion, pray remember that the Lady Margaret is a Princess and my friend. You can go! We ride out to-morrow morning at five. See that everything is arranged."

Once more Von Orseln saluted, with a face expressionless as a stone. He marched to the door, turned and saluted a third time, and with heavy footsteps descended the stairs communing with himself as he went.

"That was salt, Werner. Faith, but she gave you the back of the sword-hand that time, old kerl! Yet, 'twas most wondrous humorsome. Ha! ha! But I must not laugh—at least, not here, for if she catches me the Kernsbergers will want a new chief captain. Ha! ha! No, I will not laugh. Werner, you old fool, be quiet! God's grace, but she looked right royal! It is worth a dressing down to see her in a rage. Faith, I would rather face a regiment of Muscovites single-handed than cross our Joan in one of her tantrums!"

He was now at the outer door. Prince Conrad was dismounting. The two men saluted each other.

"Is the Duchess Joan within?" said Conrad, concealing his eagerness under the hauteur natural to a Prince.

"I have just left her!" answered the chief captain.

Without a word Conrad sprang up the steps three at a time. Werner turned about and watched the young man's firm lithe figure till it had disappeared.

"Faith of Saint Anthony!" he murmured, "I am right glad our lady cares not for love. If she did, and if you had not been a priest—well, there might have been trouble."

CHAPTER XLVII

"It was of another vow I spoke. I am not the Holy Father, and for this I will not give you absolution. We are comrades, it is true—that and no more! To-morrow I ride to Kernsberg, where I will muster every man, call down the shepherds from the hills, and be back with you by the Alla before the Muscovite can attack you. I, Joan of the Sword Hand, promise it!"

She stamped her foot, half in earnest and half in mockery of the sonorous name by which she was known.

"I would rather you were Joan of the Grange at Isle Rugen, and I your jerkined servitor, cleaving the wood that you might bake the bread."

"Conrad," said Joan, shaking her head wistfully, "such thoughts are not wise for you and me to harbour. I may indeed be no duchess and you no prince, but we must stand to our dignities now when the enemy threatens and the people need us. Afterwards, an it like us, we may step down together. But, indeed, I need not to argue, for I think better of you, my comrade, than to suppose you would ever imagine anything else."

"Joan," said Conrad very gravely, "do not fear for me. I have turned once for all from a career I never chose. Death alone shall turn me back this time."

"I know it," she answered; "I never doubted it. But what shall we do with this poor lovesick bride of ours?"

And she told him of her interview that morning with his sister. Conrad laughed gently, yet with sympathy; Margaret had always been his "little girl," and her very petulances were dear to him.

"It had been well if she would have consented to remain here," he said; "and yet I do not know. She is not built for rough weather, our Gretchen. We are near the enemy, and many things may happen. Our soldiers are mostly levies in Courtland, and the land has been long at peace. The burghers and country folk are willing enough, but—well, perhaps she will be better with you."

"She swears she will not go without her husband," said Joan. "Yet he ought to remain with you. I do not need him; Werner will be enough."

"Leave me Von Orseln, and do you take the young man," said Conrad; "then Margaret will go with you willingly and gladly."

"But she will want to return—that is, if Maurice comes, too."

"Isle Rugen?" suggested Conrad, smilingly. "Send your ten men who know the road. If they could carry off Joan of the Sword Hand, they should have no difficulty with little Margaret of Courtland."

Joan clapped her hands with pleasure and relief, all unconscious that immediately behind her Margaret had entered softly and now stood arrested by the sound of her own name.

"Oh, they will have no trouble, will they not?" she said in her own heart, and smiled. "Isle Rugen? Thank you, my very dear brother and sister. You would get rid of me, separate me from Maurice while he is fighting for your precious princedoms. What is a country in comparison with a husband? I would not care a doit which country I belonged to, so long as I had Maurice with me!"

A moment or two Conrad and Joan discussed the details of the capture, while more softly than before Margaret retired to the door. She would have slipped out altogether but that something happened just then which froze her to the spot.

A trumpet blew without—once, twice, and thrice, in short and stirring blasts. Hardly had the echoes died away when she heard her brother say, "Adieu, best-beloved! It is the signal that tells me that Prince Ivan is within a day's march of Courtland. I bid you goodbye, and if—if we should never meet again, do not forget that I loved you—loved you as none else could love!"

He held out his hand. Joan stood rooted to the spot, her lips moving, but no words coming forth. Then Margaret heard a hoarse cry break from her who had contemned love.

"I cannot let you go thus!" she cried. "I cannot keep the vow! It is too hard for me! Conrad!—I am but a weak woman after all!"

And in a moment the Princess Margaret saw Joan the cold, Joan of the Sword Hand, Joan Duchess of Kernsberg and Hohenstein, in the arms of her brother.

Whereupon, not being of set purpose an eavesdropper, Margaret went out and shut the door softly. The lovers had neither heard her come nor go. And the wife of Maurice von Lynar was smiling very sweetly as she went, but in her eyes lurked mischief.

Conrad descended the stair from the apartments of the Duchess Joan, divided between the certainty that his lips had tasted the unutterable joy and the fear lest his soul had sinned the unpardonable sin.

A moment Joan steadied herself by the window, with her hand to her breast as if to still the flying pulses of her heart. She took a step forward that she might look once more upon him ere he went. But, changing her purpose in the very act, she turned about and found herself face to face with the Princess Margaret, who was still smiling subtly.

"You have granted my request?" she said softly.

Joan commanded herself with difficulty.

"What request?" she asked, for she indeed had forgotten.

"That Maurice and I should first go with you to Kernsberg and afterwards to Plassenburg."

"Let me think—let me think—give me time!" said Joan, sinking into a chair and looking straight before her. The world was suddenly filled with whirling vapour and her brain turned with it.

"I am in the midst of troubles. I know not what to do!" she murmured.

"Ah, it was quieter at Isle Rugen, was it not?" suggested Margaret, who had not forgiven the project of kidnapping her and carrying her off from her husband.

But Joan was thinking too deeply to answer or even to notice any taunt.

"I cannot go," she murmured, thinking aloud. "I cannot ride to Kernsberg and leave him in the front of danger!"

"A woman's place is at home!" said Margaret in a low tone, maliciously quoting Joan's words.

"He must not fight this battle alone. Perhaps I shall never see him again!"

"A man must not be hampered by affection in the hour of danger!"

At this point Joan looked down upon Margaret as she might have done at a puppy that worried a stick to attract her attention.

"Do you know," she said, "that Prince Ivan and his Muscovites are within a day's march of Courtland, and that Prince Conrad has already gone forth to meet them?"

"What!" cried Margaret, "within a day's march of the city? I must go and find my husband."

"Wait!" said Joan. "I see my way. Your husband shall come hither."

She went to the door and clapped her hands. An attendant appeared, one of the faithful Kernsberg ten to whom so much had been committed upon the Isle Rugen.

"Send hither instantly Werner von Orseln, Alt Pikker, and the Count von Löen!"

She waited with the latch of the door in her hand till she heard their footsteps upon the stair. They entered together and saluted. Margaret moved instinctively nearer to her husband. Indeed, only the feeling that the moment was a critical one kept her from running at once to him. As for Maurice, he had not yet grown ashamed of his wife's open manifestations of affection.

"Gentlemen," said Joan, "the enemy is at the gate of the city. We shall need every man. Who will ride to Kernsberg and bring back succour?"

"Alt Pikker will go!" said Maurice instantly; "he is in charge of the levies!"

"The Count von Löen is young. He will ride fastest!" said the chief captain.

"Werner von Orseln, of course!" said Alt Pikker, "he is in chief command."

"What? You do not wish to go?" said Joan a little haughtily, looking from one to the other of them. It was Werner von Orseln who answered.

"Your Highness," he said respectfully, "if the enemy be so near, and a battle imminent, the man is no soldier who would willingly be absent. But we are your servants. Choose you one to go; or, if it seem good to you, more than one. Bid us go, and on our heads it shall be to escort you safely to Kernsberg and bring back reinforcements."

The Princess came closer to Joan and slipped a hand into hers. The witty wrinkle at the corner of Werner von Orseln's mouth twitched.

"Von Lynar shall go!" said Joan.

Whereat Maurice held down his head, Margaret clapped her hands, and the other two stood stolidly awaiting instructions, as became their position.

"At what hour shall I depart, my lady?" said Maurice.

"Now! So soon as you can get the horses ready?"

"But your Grace must have time to make her preparations!"

"I am not going to Kernsberg. I stay here!" said Joan, stating a fact.

Werner von Orseln was just going out of the door, jubilantly confiding to Alt Pikker that as soon as he saw the Princess put her hand in their lady's he knew they were safe. At the sound of Joan's words he was startled into crying out loudly, "What?" At the same time he faced about with the frown on his face which he wore when he corrected an irregularity in the ranks.

"I am not going to Kernsberg. I bide here!" Joan repeated calmly. "Have you anything to say to that, Chief Captain von Orseln?"

"But, my lady——"

"There are no buts in the matter. Go to your quarters and see that the arms and armour are all in good case!"

"Madam, the arms and armour are always in good case," said Werner, with dignity; "but go to Kernsberg you must. The enemy is near to the city, and your Highness might fall into their hands."

"You have heard what I have said!" Joan tapped the oaken floor with her foot.

"But, madam, let me beseech you——"

Joan turned from her chief captain impatiently and walked towards the door of her private apartments. Werner followed his mistress, with his hands a little outstretched and a look of eager entreaty on his face.

"My lady," he said, "thirty years I was the faithful servant of your father—ten I have served you. By the memory of those years, if ever I have served you faithfully—"

"My father taught you but little, if after thirty years you have not learned to obey. Go to your post!"

Werner von Orseln drew himself up and saluted. Then he wheeled about and clanked out without adding a word more.

"Faith," he confided to Alt Pikker, "the wench is her father all over again. If I had gone a step further, I swear she would have beat me with the flat of my own sword. I saw her eye full on the hilt of it."

"Faith, I too, wished that I had been better helmeted!" chuckled Alt Pikker.

"Well," said Werner, like one who makes the best of ill fortune, "we must keep the closer to her, you and I, that in the stress of battle she come not to a mischief. Yet I confess that I am not deeply sorry. I began to fear that Isle Rugen had sapped our lass's spirit. To my mind, she seemed somewhat over content to abide there."

"Ah," nodded Alt Pikker, "that is because, after all, our Joan is a woman. No one can know the secret of a woman's heart."

"And those who think they know most, know the least!" concurred the much experienced Werner.

For a moment, after the door closed upon the men, Joan and Margaret stood in silence regarding each other.

"I must go and make me ready," said Margaret, speaking like one who is thinking deeply. Joan stood still, conscious that something was about to happen, uncertain what it might be.

"I shall see you before I depart," Margaret was saying, with her hand on the latch.

Suddenly she dropped the handle of the door and ran impulsively to Joan, clasping her about the neck.

"I know!" she said, looking up into her face.

With a great leap the blood flew to Joan's neck and brow, then as slowly faded away, leaving her paler than before.

"What do you know?" she faltered; and she feared, yet desired, to hear.

"That you love him!" said Margaret very low. "I came in—I could not help it—I did not know—when Conrad was bidding you goodbye. Joan, I am so glad—so glad! Now you will understand; now you will not think me foolish any more!"

"Margaret, I am shamed for ever—it is sin!" whispered Joan, with her arms about her friend.

"It is love!" said the wife of Maurice von Lynar, with glowing eyes and pride in her voice.

"I hope I shall die in battle——"

"Joan!"

"I a wife, and love a priest—the brother of the man who is my husband! I pray God that He will take my life to atone for the sin of loving him. Yet He knows that I could neither help it nor yet hinder."

"Joan, you will yet be happy."

The Duchess shook her head.

"It were best for us both that I should die—that is what I pray for."

"May Heaven avert this thing—you know not what you say. And yet," Margaret continued in a more meditative tone, "I am not sure. If he were there with you, death itself would not be so hard; at all events, it were better than living without each other."

And the two women went into the attiring-room with arms still locked about each other's waists. And as often as their eyes encountered they lingered a little, as if tasting the sweet new knowledge which they had in common. Then those of Joan of the Sword Hand were averted and she blushed.

CHAPTER XLVIII

The Governor of the city, roused from a rare slumber, leaped on her horse and went clattering off with an escort through the unsleeping streets. When first she came the folk had cheered her as she went. But they were too jaded and saddened now.

"Our Governor, the Princess Joan!" they used to call her with pride. But for all that she found not the same devotion among these easy Courtlanders as among her hardy men of Hohenstein. To these she was indeed the Princess Joan. But to those in Castle Kernsberg she was Joan of the Sword Hand.

When at last she came to the Brandenburg gate she found before it a great gathering of the townsfolk. The city guard manned the walls, fretted with haste and falling over each other in their uncertainty. There was yet no strictness of discipline among these raw train-bands, and, instead of waiting for an officer to hail the horsemen in front, every soldier, hackbutman, and halberdier was shouting his loudest, till not a word of the reply could be heard.

But all this turmoil vanished before the first fierce gust of Joan's wrath like leaves blown away by the blasts of January.

"To your posts, every man! I will have the first man spitted with arrows who disobeys—aye, or takes more upon himself than simple obedience to orders. Let such as are officers only abide here with me. Silence beneath in the tower there."

Looking out, Joan could see a dark mass of horsemen, while above them glinted in the pale starlight a forest of spearheads.

"Whence come you, strangers?" cried Joan, in the loud, clear voice which carried so far.

"From Plassenburg we are!" came back the answer.

"Who leads you?"

"Captains Boris and Jorian, officers of the Prince's bodyguard."

"Let Captains Boris and Jorian approach and deliver their message."

"With whom are we in speech?" cried the unmistakable voice of Boris, the long man.

"With the Princess Joan of Hohenstein, Governor of the city of Courtland," said Joan firmly.

"Come on, Boris; those Courtland knaves will not shoot us now. That is the voice of Joan of the Sword Hand. There can be no treachery where she is."

"Ho, below there!" cried Joan. "Shine a light on them from the upper sally port."

The lanterns flashed out, and there, immediately below her, Joan beheld Boris and Jorian saluting as of old, with the simultaneous gesture which had grown so familiar to her during the days at Isle Rugen. She was moved to smile in spite of the soberness of the circumstances.

"What news bring you, good envoys?"

"The best of news," they said with one accord, but stopped there as if they had no more to say.

"And that news is——"

"First, we are here to fight. Pray you tell us if it is all over!"

"It is not over; would to Heaven it were!" said Joan.

"Thank God for that!" cried Boris and Jorian, with quite remarkable unanimity of piety.

"Is that all your tidings?"

"Nay, we have brought the most part of the Palace Guard with us—five hundred good lances and all hungry-bellied for victuals and all monstrously thirsty in their throats. Besides which, Prince Hugo raises Plassenburg and the Mark, and in ten days he will be on the march for Courtland."

"God send him speed! I fear me in ten days it will be over indeed," said Joan, listening for the dull recurrent thunder down towards the Alla mouth.

"What, does the Muscovite press you so hard?"

"He has thousands to our hundreds, so that he can hem us in on every side."

"Never fear," cried Boris confidently; "we will hold him in check for you till our good Hugo comes to take him on the flank."

Then Joan bade the gates be opened, and the horsemen of Plassenburg, strong men on huge horses, trampled in. She held out a hand for the captains to kiss, and sent the burgomaster to assign them billets in the town.

Then, without resting, she went to the wool market, which had been turned into a soldiers' hospital. Here she found Theresa von Lynar, going from bed to bed smoothing pillows, anointing wounded limbs, and assisting the surgeons in the care of those who had been brought back from the fatal battlefields of the Alla.

Theresa von Lynar rose to meet Joan as she entered, with all the respect due to the city's Governor. Silently the young girl beckoned her to follow, and they went out between long lines of pallets. Here and there a torch glimmered in a sconce against the wall, or a surgeon with a candle in his hand paused at a bedside. The sough of moaning came from all about, and in a distant window-bay, unseen, a man distract with fever jabbered and fought fitfully.

Never had Joan realised so nearly the reverse of war. Never had she so longed for the peace of Isle Rugen. She could govern a city. She could lead a foray. She was not afraid to ride into battle, lance in rest or sword in hand. But she owned to herself that she could not do what this woman was doing.

"Remember, when all is over I shall keep my vow!" Joan began, as they paused and looked down the long alley of stained pillows, tossing heads, and torn limbs lying very still on palliasses of straw. Without, some of the riotous youth of the city were playing martial airs on twanging instruments.

"And I also will keep mine!" responded Theresa briefly.

"I am Duchess and city Governor only till the invader is driven out," Joan continued. "Then Isle Rugen is to be mine, and your son shall sit in the seat of Henry the Lion!"

"Isle Rugen shall be yours!" answered Theresa.

"And when you are tired of Castle Kernsberg you will cross the wastes and take boat to visit me, even as at the first I came to you!" said Joan, kindling at the thought of a definite sacrifice. It seemed like an atonement for her soul's sin.

"And what of Prince Conrad!" said Theresa quietly.

Joan was silent for a space, then she answered with her eyes on the ground.

"Prince Conrad shall rule this land as is his duty—Cardinal, Archbishop, Prince he shall be; there shall be none to deny him so soon as the power of the Muscovite is broken. He will be in full alliance with Hohenstein. He will form a blood bond with Plassenburg. And when he dies, all that is his shall belong to the children of Duke Maurice and his wife Margaret!"

Theresa von Lynar stood a moment weighing Joan's words, and when she spoke it was a question that she asked.

"Where is Maurice to-night?" she asked.

"He commands the Kernsbergers in the camp. Prince Conrad has made him provost-marshal."

"And the Princess Margaret?"

"She abides in the river gate of the city, which Maurice passes often upon his rounds!"

A strange smile passed over the face of Theresa von Lynar.

"There are many kinds of love," she said; "but not after this fashion did I, that am a Dane, love Henry the Lion. Wherefore should a woman hamper a man in his wars? Sooner would I have died by his hand!"

"She loves him," said Joan, with a new sympathy. "She is a princess and wilful. Moreover, not even a woman can prophesy what love will make another woman do!"

"Aye!" retorted Theresa, "I am with you there. But to help a man, not to hinder. Let her strip herself naked that he may go forth clad. Let her fall on the sharp wayside stones that he may march to victory. Let her efface herself that no breath may sully his great name. Let her die unknown—nay, make of herself a living death—that he may increase and fill the mouths of men. That is love—the love of women as I have imagined it. But this love that takes and will not give, that hampers and sends not forth to conquer, that keeps a man within call like a dog straining upon a leash—pah! that is not the love I know!"

She turned sharply upon Joan, all her body quivering with excitement.

"No, nor yet is it your way of love, my Lady Joan!"

"I shall never be so tried, like Margaret," answered Joan, willing to change her mood. "I shall never love any man with the love of wife!"

"God forbid," said Theresa, looking at her, "that such a woman as you should die without living!"

CHAPTER XLIX

"And rightly spoke the son of the Red Axe," assented Boris; "only our good Hugo should have sent other men than you and me to command in such a campaign. We never could let well alone all the days of us."

"Save in the matter of marriage or no marriage!" smiled Boris grimly.

"A plague on all women!" growled the little fat man, his rubicund and shining face lined with unaccustomed discontent. "A plague on all women, I say! What can this Theresa von Lynar want in the Muscovite camp, that we must promise to convey her safe through the fortifications, and then put her into Prince Wasp's hands?"

"Think you that for some hatred of our Joan—you remember that night at Isle Rugen—or some purpose of her own (she loves not the Princess Margaret either), this Theresa would betray the city to the enemy?"

"Tush!" Jorian had lost his temper and answered crossly. "In that case, would she have called us in? It were easy enough to find some traitor among these Courtlanders, who, to obtain the favour of Prince Louis, would help to bring the Muscovite in. But what, if she were thrice a traitress, would cause her to fix on the two men who of all others would never turn knave and spoil-sport—no, not for a hundred vats of Rhenish bottled by Noah the year after the Flood!"

"Well," sighed his companion, "'tis well enough said, my excellent Jorian, but all this does not advance us an inch. We have promised, and at eleven o' the clock we must go. What hinders, though, that we have a bottle of Rhenish now, even though the vintage be younger than you say? Perhaps, however, the patron was more respectable!"

Thus in the hall of the men-at-arms in the Castle of Courtland spoke the two captains of Plassenburg. All this time they were busy with their attiring, Boris in especial making great play with a tortoiseshell comb among his tangled locks. Somewhat more spruce was the arraying of our twin comrades-in-arms than we have seen it. Perhaps it was the thought of the dangerous escort duty upon which they had promised to venture forth that night; perhaps——

"May we come in?" cried an arch voice from the doorway. "Ah, we have caught you! There—we knew it! So said I to my sister not an hour agone. Women may be vain as peacocks, but for prinking, dandifying vanity, commend me to a pair of foreign war-captains. My lords, have you blacked your eyelashes yet, touched up your eyebrows, scented and waxed those beautiful moustaches? Sister, can you look and live?"

And to the two soldiers, standing stiff as at attention, with their combs in their hands, enter the sisters Anna and Martha Pappenheim, more full of mischief than ever, and entirely unsubdued by the presence of the invader at their gates.

"Russ or Turk, Courtlander or Franconian, Jew, proselyte, or dweller in Mesopotamia, all is one to us. So be they are men, we will engage to tie them about our little fingers!"

"Why," cried Martha, "whence this grand toilet? We knew not that you had friends in the city. And yet they tell me you have been in Courtland before, Sir Boris?"

"Marthe," cried Anna Pappenheim, with vast pretence of indignation, "what has gotten into you, girl? Can you have forgotten that martial carriage, those limbs incomparably knit, that readiness of retort and delicate sparkle of Wendish wit, which set all the table in a roar, and yet never once brought the blush to maiden's cheek? For shame, Marthe!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed Jorian suddenly, short and sharp, as if a string had been pulled somewhere.

"Ho! ho!" thus more sonorously Boris.

Anna Pappenheim caught her skirts in her hand and spun round on her heel on pretence of looking behind her.

"Sister, what was that?" she cried, spying beneath the settles and up the wide throat of the chimney. "Methought a dog barked."

"Or a grey goose cackled!"

"Or a donkey sang!"

"Ladies," said Jorian, who, being vastly discomposed, must perforce try to speak with an affectation of being at his ease, "you are pleased to be witty."

"Heaven mend our wit or your judgment!"

"And we are right glad to be your butts. Yet have we been accounted fellows of some humour in our own country and among men——"

"Why, then, did you not stay there?" inquired Martha pointedly.

"It was not Boris and I who could not stay without," retorted Jorian, somewhat nettled, nodding towards the door of the guard-room.

"Well said!" cried frank Anna. "He had you there, Marthe. Pricked in the white! Faith, Sir Jorian pinked us both, for indeed it was we who intruded into these gentlemen's dressing-room. Our excuse is that we are tirewomen, and would fain practise our office when and where we can. Our Princess hath been wedded and needs us but once a week. Noble Wendish gentlemen, will not you engage us?"

She clasped her hands, going a step or two nearer Boris as if in appeal.

"Do, kind sirs," she said, "have pity on two poor girls who have no work to do. Think—we are orphans and far from home!"

The smiles on the faces of the war-captains broadened. "Ho! ho! Good!" burst out Boris.

"Ha! ha! Excellent!" assented Jorian, nodding, with his eyes on Martha.

Anna Pappenheim ran quickly on tip-toe round to Boris's back and peered between his shoulders. Then she ran her eyes down to his heels.

"Sister," she cried, "they do it. That dreadful noise comes from somewhere about them. I distinctly saw their jaws waggle. They must of a surety be wound up like an arbalist. Yet I cannot find the string and trigger! Do come and help me, good Marthe! If you find it, I will dance at your wedding in my stocking-feet!"

And the gay Franconian reached up and pulled a stray tag of Boris's jerkin, which hung down his back. The knot slipped, and a circlet of red and gold, ragged at the lower edges, came off in her hand, revealing the fact that Boris's noble soubreveste was no more than a fringe of broidered collar.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Jorian irrepressibly. For Boris looked mightily crestfallen to have his magnificence so rudely dealt with.

Anna von Pappenheim clapped her hands.

"I have found it," she cried. "It goes like this. You touch off the trigger of one, and the other explodes!"

Boris wheeled about with fell intent on his face. He would have caught the teasing minx in his arms, but Anna skipped round behind a chair and threatened him with her finger.

"Not till you engage us," she cried. "Hands off, there! We are to array you—not you to disarray us!"

Whereat the two gamesome Southlanders stood together in ludicrous imitation of Boris and Jorian's military stiffness, folding their hands meekly and casting their eyes downward like a pair of most ingenuous novices listening to the monitions of their Lady Superior. Then Anna's voice was heard speaking with almost incredible humility.

"Will my lord with the hook nose so great and noble deign to express a preference which of us shall be his handmaid?"

But they had ventured an inch too far. The string was effectually pulled now.

"I will have this one—she is so merry!" cried solemn Boris, seizing Anna Pappenheim about the waist.

"And I this! She pretendeth melancholy, yet has tricks like a monkey!" said Jorian, quickly following his example. The girls fended them gallantly, yet, as mayhap they desired, their case was hopeless.

"Hands off! I will not be called 'this one,'" cried Anna, though she did not struggle too vehemently.

"Nor I a monkey! Let me go, great Wend!" chimed Martha, resigning herself as soon as she had said it.

In this prosperous estate was the courtship of Franconia and Plassenburg, when some instinct drew the eyes of Jorian to the door of the officers' guard-room, which Anna had carefully left open at her entrance, in order to secure their retreat.

The Duchess Joan stood there silent and regardant.

"Boris!" cried Jorian warningly. Boris lifted his eyes from the smiling challenge upon Anna's upturned lips, which, after the manner of your war-captains, he was stooping to kiss.

Unwillingly Boris lifted his eyes. The next moment both the late envoys of Plassenburg were saluting as stiffly as if they had still been men-at-arms, while Anna and Martha, blushing divinely, were busy with their needlework in the corner, as demure as cats caught sipping cream.

Joan looked at the four for a while without speaking.

"Captains Boris and Jorian," she said sternly, "a messenger has come from Prince Conrad to say that the Muscovites press him hard. He asks for instant reinforcements. There is not a man fit for duty within the city saving your command. Will you take them to the Prince's assistance immediately? Werner von Orseln fights by his side. Maurice and my Kernsbergers are already on their way."

The countenances of the two Plassenburg captains fell as the leathern screen drops across a cathedral door through which the evening sunshine has been streaming.

"My lady, it is heartbreaking, but we cannot," said Boris dolefully. "Our Lord Prince Hugo bade us keep the city till he should arrive!"

"But I am Governor. I will keep the city," cried Joan; "the women will mount halberd and carry pike. Go to the Prince! Were Hugo of Plassenburg here he would be the first to march! Go, I order you! Go, I beseech you!"

She said the last words in so changed a tone that Boris looked at her in surprise.

But still he shook his head.

"It is certain that if Prince Hugo were here he would be the first to ride to the rescue. But Prince Hugo is not here, and my comrade and I are soldiers under orders!"

"Cowards!" flashed Joan, "I will go myself. The cripples, the halt, and the blind shall follow me. Thora of Bornheim and these maidens there, they shall follow me to the rescue of their Prince. Do you, brave men of Plassenburg, cower behind the walls while the Muscovite overwhelms all and the true Prince is slain!"

And at this her voice broke and she sobbed out, "Cowards! cowards! cowards! God preserve me from cowardly men!"

For at such times and in such a cause no woman is just. For which high Heaven be thanked!

Boris looked at Jorian. Jorian looked at Boris.

"No, madam," said Boris gravely; "your servants are no cowards. It is true that we were commanded by our master to keep his Palace Guard within the city walls, and these must stay. But we two are in some sense still Envoys Extraordinary, and not strictly of the Prince's Palace Guard. As Envoys, therefore, charged with a free commission in the interests of peace, we can without wrongdoing accompany you whither you will. Eh, Jorian?"

"Aye," quoth Jorian; "we are at her Highness's service till ten o' the clock."

"And why till ten?" asked Joan, turning to go out.

"Oh," returned Jorian, "there is guard-changing and other matters to see to. But there is time for a wealth of fighting before ten. Lead on, madam. We follow your Highness!"

CHAPTER L

To the herd of the uncouth soldiery it simply appeared as though the two war-captains of Plassenburg looked at each other. An observer on the opposite side would have noted, however, that the right eye of Jorian and the left eye of Boris simultaneously closed.

Yet when they turned their regard upon the last levy of the city of Courtland their faces were grave.

"Whence come these churchyard scourings, these skulls and crossbones set up on end?" cried Jorian in face of them all. And this saying from so stout a man made their legs wamble more than ever.

"Rotboss rascals, rogues in grain," Boris took up the tale, "faith, it makes a man scratch only to look at them! Did you ever see their marrow?"

The two captains turned away in disgust. They walked to and fro a little apart, and Boris, who loved all animals, kicked a dog that came his way. Boris was unhappy. He avoided Jorian's eye. At last he broke out.

"We cannot let our Lady Joan set forth for field with such a compost of mumpers and tun-barrels as these!" he said.

Boris confided this, as it were to the housetops. Jorian apparently did not listen. He was clicking his dagger in its sheath, but from his next word it was evident that his mind had not been inactive.

"What excuse could we make to Hugo, our Prince?" he said at last. "Scarcely did he believe us the last time. And on this occasion we have his direct orders."

"Are we not still Envoys?" queried Boris.

"Extraordinary!" twinkled Jorian, catching his comrade's idea as a bush of heather catches moorburn.

"And as Envoys of a great principality like Plassenburg—representatives of the most noble Prince and Princess in this Empire, should we not ride with retinue due and fitting? That is not taking the Palace Guard into battle. It is only affording due protection to their Excellencies' representatives."

"That sounds well enough," answered Boris doubtfully, "but will it stand probation, think you, when Hugo scowls at us from under his brows, and you see the bar of the fifteen Red Axes of the Wolfmark stand red across his forehead?"

"Tut, man, his anger is naught to that of Karl the Miller's Son. You and I have stood that. Why should we fear our quiet Hugo?"

"Aye, aye; in our day we have tried one thing and then another upon Karl and have borne up under his anger. But then Karl only cursed and used great horned words, suchlike as in his youth he had heard the waggoners use to encourage their horses up the mill brae. But Hugo—when he is angry he says nought, only the red bar comes up slowly, and as it grows dark and fiery you wish he would order you to the scaffold at once, and be done with it!"

"Well," said Jorian, "at all events, there is always our Helene. I opine, whatever we do, she will not forget old days—the night at the earth-houses belike and other things. I think we may risk it!"

"True," meditated Boris, "you say well. There is always Helene. The Little Playmate will not let our necks be stretched! Not at least for succouring a Princess in distress."

"And a woman in love?" added Jorian, who, though he followed the lead of the long man in great things, had a shrewder eye for some more intimate matters.

"Eh, what's that you say?" said Boris, turning quickly upon him. He had been regarding with interest a shackled-kneed varlet holding a halberd in his arms as if it had been a fractious bairn.

But Jorian was already addressing the company before him.

"Here, ye unbaked potsherds—dismiss, if ye know what that means. Get ye to the walls, and if ye cannot stand erect, lean against them, and hold brooms in your hands that the Muscovite may take them for muskets and you for men if he comes nigh enough. Our Lady is not Joan of the Dishclout, that such draught-house ragpickers as you should be pinned to her tail. Set bolsters stuffed with bran on the walls! Man the gates with faggots. Cleave beech billets half in two and set them athwart wooden horses for officers. But insult not the sunshine by letting your shadows fall outside the city. Break off! Dismiss! Go! Get out o' this!"

As Jorian stood before the levies and vomited his insults upon them, a gleam of joy passed across chops hitherto white like fish-bellies with the fear of death. Bleared eyes flashed with relief. And there ran a murmur through the ragged ranks which sounded like "Thank you, great captain!"

In a short quarter of an hour the drums of the Plassenburg Palace Guard had beaten to arms. From gate to gate the light sea-wind had borne the cheerful trumpet call, and when Joan returned, heartless and downcast, with half a dozen more mouldy rascals, smelling of muck-rakes and damp stable straw, she found before her more than half the horsemen of Plassenburg armed cap-a-pie in burnished steel. Whereat she could only look at Boris in astonishment.

"Your Highness," said that captain, saluting gravely, "we are only able to accompany you as Envoys Extraordinary of the Prince and Princess of Plassenburg. But as such we feel it our duty in order properly to support our state, to take with us a suitable attendance. We are sure that neither Prince Hugo nor yet his Princess Helene would wish it otherwise!"

Before Joan could reply a messenger came springing up the long narrow streets along which the disbanded levies, so vigorously contemned of Jorian, were hurrying to their places upon the walls with a detail of the Plassenburg men behind them, driving them like sheep.

Joan took the letter and opened it with a jerk.

"From High Captain von Orseln to the Princess Joan.

"Come with all speed, if you would be in time. We are hard beset. The enemy are all about us. Prince Conrad has ordered a charge!"

The face of the woman whitened as she read, but at the same moment the fingers of Joan of the Sword Hand tightened upon the hilt. She read the letter aloud. There was no comment. Boris cried an order, Jorian dropped to the rear, and the retinue of the Envoys Extraordinary swung out on the road towards the great battle.

Outnumbered and beaten back by the locust flock which spread to either side, far outflanking and sometimes completely enfolding his small army, Prince Conrad still maintained himself by good generalship and the high personal courage which stimulated his followers. The hardy Kernsbergers, both horse and foot, whom Maurice had brought up, proved the backbone of the defence. Besides which Werner von Orseln had striven by rebuke and chastening, as well as by appeals to their honour, to impart some steadiness into the Courtland ranks. But save the free knights from the landward parts, who were driven wild by the sight of the ever-spreading Muscovite desolation, there was little stamina among the burghers. They were, indeed, loud and turbulent upon occasion, but they understood but ill any concerted action. In this they differed conspicuously from their fellows of the Hansa League, or even from the clothweavers of the Netherland cities.

As Joan and the war-captains of Plassenburg came nearer they heard a low growling roar like the distant sound of the breakers on the outer shore at Isle Rugen. It rose and fell as the fitful wind bore it towards them, but it never entirely ceased.

They dashed through the fords of the Alla, the three hundred lances of the Plassenburg Guard clattering eagerly behind them. Joan led, on a black horse which Conrad had given her. The two war-captains with one mind set their steel caps more firmly on their heads, and as his steed breasted the river bank Jorian laughed aloud. Angrily Joan turned in her saddle to see what the little man was laughing at. But with quick instinct she perceived that he laughed only as the war-horse neighs when he scents the battle from afar. He was once more the born fighter of men. Jorian and his mate would never be generals, but they were the best tools any general could have.

They came nearer. A few wreaths of smoke, hanging over the yet distant field, told where Russ and Teuton met in battle array. A solemn slumberous reverberation heard at intervals split the dull general roar apart. It was the new cannon which had come from the Margraf George to help beat back the common foe. Again and again broke in upon their advance that appalling sound, which set the inward parts of men quivering. Presently they began to pass limping men hasting cityward, then fleeing and panic-stricken wretches who looked over their shoulders as if they saw steel flashing at their backs.

A camp-marshal or two was trying to stay these, beating them over the head and shoulders with the flat of their swords; but not a man of the Plassenburgers even looked towards them. Their eyes were on that distant tossing line dimly seen amid clouds of dust, and those strange wreaths of white smoke going upward from the cannons' mouths. The roar grew louder; there were gaps in the fighting line; a banner went down amid great shouting. They could see the glinting of sunshine upon armour.

"Kernsberg!" cried Joan, her sword high in the air as she set spurs in her black stallion and swept onward a good twenty yards before the rush of the horsemen of Plassenburg.

Now they began to see the arching arrow-hail, grey against the skyline like gnat swarms dancing in the dusk of summer trees. The quarrels buzzed. The great catapults, still used by the Muscovites, twanged like the breaking of viol cords.

The horses instinctively quickened their pace to take the wounded in their stride. There—there was the thickest of the fray, where the great cannon of the Margraf George thundered and were instantly wrapped in their own white pall.

Joan's quick glance about her for Conrad told her nothing of his whereabouts. But the two war-captains, more experienced, perceived that the Muscovites were already everywhere victorious. Their horsemen outflanked and overlapped the slender array of Courtland. Only about the cannon and on the far right did any seem to be making a stand.

"There!" cried Jorian, couching his lance, "there by the cannon is where we will get our bellyful of fighting."

He pointed where, amid a confusion of fighting-men, wounded and struggling horses, and the great black tubes of the Margraf's cannon, they saw the sturdy form of Werner von Orseln, grown larger through the smoke and dusty smother, bestriding the body of a fallen knight. He fought as one fights a swarm of angry bees, striking every way with a desperate courage.