Joan of the Sword Hand

The charging squadrons of Plassenburg divided to pass right and left of the cannon. Joan first of all, with her sword lifted and crying not Kernsberg now, but "Conrad! Conrad!" drave straight into the heart of the Cossack swarm. At the trampling of the horses' feet the Muscovites lifted their eyes. They had been too intent to kill to waste a thought on any possible succour.

Joan felt herself strike right and left. Her heart was crazed within her so that she set spurs to her steed and rode him forward, plunging and furious. Then a blowing wisp of white plume was swept aside, and through a helmet (broken as a nut shell is cracked and falls apart) Joan saw the fair head of her Prince. A trickle of blood wetted a clinging curl on his forehead and stole down his pale cheek. Werner von Orseln, begrimed and drunken with battle, bestrode the body of Prince Conrad. His defiance rose above the din of battle.

"Come on, cowards of the North! Taste good German steel! To me, Kernsberg! To me, Hohenstein! Curs of Courtland, would ye desert your Prince? Curses on you all, swart hounds of the Baltic! Let me out of this and never a dog of you shall ever bite bread again!"

And so, foaming in his battle anger, the ancient war-captain would have stricken down his mistress. For he saw all things red and his heart was bitter within him.

With all the power that was in her, right and left Joan smote to clear her way to Conrad, praying that if she could not save him she might at least die with him.

But by this time Captains Boris and Jorian, leaving their horsemen to ride at the second line, had wheeled and now came thrusting their lances freely into Cossack backs. These last, finding themselves thus taken in the rear, turned and fled.

"Hey, Werner, good lad, do not slay your comrades! Down blade, old Thirsty. Hast thou not drunken enough blood this morning?" So cried the war-captains as Werner dashed the blood and tears out of his eyes.

"Back! back!" he cried, as soon as he knew with whom he had to do. "Go back! Conrad is slain or hath a broken head. They were lashing at him as he lay to kill him outright? Ah, viper, would you sting?" (He thrust a wounded Muscovite through as he was crawling nearer to Conrad with a broad knife in his hand.) "These beaten curs of Courtlanders broke at the first attack. Get him to horse! Quick, I say. My Lady Joan, what do you do in this place?"

For even while he spoke Joan had dismounted and was holding Conrad's head on her lap. With the soft white kerchief which she wore on her helm as a favour she wiped the wound on his scalp. It was long, but did not appear to be very deep.

As Werner stood astonished, gazing at his mistress, Boris summoned the trumpeter who had wheeled with him.

"Sound the recall!" he bade him. And in a moment clear notes rang out.

"He is not dead! Lift him up, you two!" Joan cried suddenly. "No, I will take him on my steed. It is the strongest, and I the lightest. I alone will bear him in."

And before any could speak she sprang into the saddle without assistance with all her old lightness of action, most like that of a lithe lad who chases the colts in his father's croft that he may ride them bareback.

So Werner von Orseln lifted the head and Boris the feet, bearing him tenderly that they might set him upon Joan's horse. And so firm was her seat (for she rode as the Maid rode into Orleans with Dunois on one side and Gilles de Rais on the other), that she did not even quiver as she received the weight. The noble black looked round once, and then, as if understanding the thing that was required of him, he gentled himself and began to pace slow and stately towards the city. On either side walked tall Boris and sturdy Werner, who steadied the unconscious Prince with the palms of their hands.

Meanwhile the Palace Guard, with Jorian at its head, defended the slow retreat, while on the flanks Maurice and his staunch Kernsbergers checked the victorious advance of the Muscovites. Yet the disaster was complete. They left the dead, they left the camp, they left the munitions of war. They abandoned the Margraf's cannon and all his great store of powder. And there were many that wept and some that only ground teeth and cursed as they fell back, and heard the wailing of the women and saw the fear whitening on the faces they loved.

Only the Kernsbergers bit their lips and watched the eye of Maurice, by whose side a slim page in chain-mail had ridden all day with visor down. And the men of the Palace Guard prayed for Prince Hugo to come.

As for Joan, she cared nothing for victory or defeat, loss or gain, because that the man she loved leaned on her breast, bleeding and very still.

Yet with great gentleness she gave him down into loving hands, and afterwards stood marble-pale beside the couch while Theresa von Lynar unlaced his armour and washed his wounds. Then, nerving herself to see him suffer, she murmured over to herself, once, twice, and a hundred times, "God help me to do so and more also to those who have wrought this—specially to Louis of Courtland and Ivan of Muscovy."

"Abide ye, little one—be patient. Vengeance will come to both!" said Theresa. "I, who do not promise lightly, promise it you!"

And she laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. Never before had the Duchess Joan been called "little one!" Yet for all her brave deeds she laid her head on Theresa's shoulder, murmuring, "Save him—save him! I cannot bear to lose him. Pray for him and me!"

Theresa kissed her brow.

"Ah," she said, "the prayers of such as Theresa von Lynar would avail little. Yet she may be a weapon in the hand of the God of vengeance. Is it not written that they that take the sword shall perish by the sword?"

But already Joan had forgotten vengeance. For now the surgeons of Courtland stood about, and she murmured, "Must he die? Tell me, will he die?"

And as the wise men silently shook their heads, the crying of the victorious Muscovites could be heard outside the wall.

Then ensued a long silence, through which broke a gust of iron-throated laughter. It was the roar of the Margraf's captured cannon firing the salvo of victory.

CHAPTER LI

The Muscovites had dragged the captured cannon in front of the Plassenburg Gate, and now they fired occasionally, mostly great balls of quarried stone, but afterward, as the day wore later, any piece of metal or rock they could find. And the crash of wooden galleries and stone machicolations followed, together with the scuttling of the Courtland levies from the post of danger. A few of the younger citizens, indeed, were staunch, but for the most part the Plassenburgers and Kernsbergers were left to bite their lips and confide to each other what their Prince Hugo or their Joan of the Hand Sword would have done to bring such cowards to reason and right discipline.

"An it were not for our own borders and that brave priest-prince, no shaveling he," they said, "faith, such curs were best left to the Muscovite. The plet and the knout were made for such as they!"

"Not so," said he who had maligned Gretchen; "the Courtlanders are yea-for-soothing knaves, truly; but they are Germans, and need only to know they must, to be brave enough. One or two of our Karl's hostelries, with thirteen lodgings on either side, every guest upright and a-swing by the neck—these would make of the Courtlanders as good soldiers as thyself, Hans Finck!"

But at that moment came Captain Boris by and rebuked them sharply for the loudness of their speech. It was approaching ten of the clock. Boris and Jorian had already visited all the posts, and were now ready to make their venture with Theresa von Lynar.

"No fools like old fools!" grumbled Jorian sententiously, as he buckled on his carinated breastplate, that could shed aside bolts, quarrels, and even bullets from powder guns as the prow of a vessel sheds the waves to either side in a good northerly wind.

"'Tis you should know," retorted Boris, "being both old and a fool."

"A man is known by the company he keeps!" answered Jorian, adjusting the lining of his steel cap, which was somewhat in disarray after the battle of the morning.

"Ah!" sighed his companion. "I would that I had the choosing of the company I am to keep this night!"

"And I!" assented Jorian, looking solemn for once as he thought of pretty Martha Pappenheim.

"Well, we do it from a good motive," said Boris; "that is one comfort. And if we lose our lives, Prince Conrad will order many masses (they will need to be very many) for your soul's peace and good quittance from purgatory!"

"Humph!" said Jorian, as if he did not see much comfort in that, "I would rather have a box on the ear from Martha Pappenheim than all the matins of all the priests that ever sung laud!"

"Canst have that and welcome—if her sister will do as well!" cried Anna, as the two men went out into the long passage. And she suited the deed to the word.

"Oh! I have hurt my hand against that hard helmet. It serves me right for listening! Marthe!"—she looked about for her sister before turning to the soldiers—"see, I have hurt my hand," she added.

Then she made the tears well up in her eyes by an art of the tongue in the throat she had.

"Kiss it well, Marthe!" she said, looking up at her sister as she came along the passage swinging a lantern as carelessly as if there were not a Muscovite in the world.

But Boris forestalled the newcomer and caught up the small white hand in the soft leathern grip of his palm where the ring-mail stopped.

"I will do that better than any sister!" he said.

"That, indeed, you cannot; for only the kiss of love can make a hurt better!"

Anna glanced up at him with wet eyes, a little maid full of innocence and simplicity. Most certainly she was all unconscious of the danger in which she was putting herself.

"Well, then, I love you!" said Boris, who did his wooing plainly.

And did not kiss her hand.

Meanwhile the others had wandered to the end of the passage and now stood at the turnpike staircase, the light of Martha Pappenheim's lantern making a dim haze of light about them.

Anna looked at Boris as often as she could.

"You really love me?" she questioned. "No, you cannot; you have known me too brief a time. Besides, this is no time to speak of love, with the enemy at the gates!"

"Tush!" said Boris, with the roughness which Anna had looked for in vain among all the youth of Courtland. "I tell you, girl, it is the time. You and I are no Courtlanders, God be thanked! In a little while I shall ride back to Plassenburg, which is a place where men live. I shall not go alone. You, little Anna, shall come, too!"

"You are not deceiving me?" she murmured, looking up upon occasion. "There is none at Plassenburg whom you love at all?"

"I have never loved any woman but you!" said Boris, settling his conscience by adding mentally, "though I may have thought I did when I told them so."

"Nor I any man!" said Anna, softly meditative, making, however, a similar addition.

Thus Greek met Greek, and both were very happy in the belief that their own was the only mental reservation.

"But you are going out?" pouted Anna, after a while. "Why cannot you stay in the Castle to-night?"

"To-night of all nights it is impossible," said Boris. "We must make the rounds and see that the gates are guarded. The safety of the city is in our hands."

"You are sure that you will not run into any danger!" said Anna anxiously. She remembered a certain precariousness of tenure among some of her previous—mental reservations. There was Fritz Wünch, who had laughed at the red beard of a Prussian baron; Wilhelm of Bautzen, who went once too often on a foray with his uncle, Fighting Max of Castelnau——

For answer the staunch war-captain kissed her, and the girl clung to her lover, this time in real tears. Martha's candle had gone out, and the two had perforce to go down the stair in the dark. They reached the foot at last.

"None of them were quite like him," she owned that night to her sister. "He takes you up as if he would break you in his arms. And he could, too. It is good to feel!"

"Jorian also is just like that—so satisfactory!" answered Martha. Which shows the use Jorian must have made of his time at the stairhead, and why Martha Pappenheim's light went out.

"He swears he has never loved any woman before."

"Jorian does just the same."

"I suppose we must never tell them——"

"Marthe—if you should dare, I will—— Besides, you were just as bad!"

"Anna, as if I would dream of such a thing!"

And the two innocents fell into each other's arms and embraced after the manner of women, each in her own heart thinking how much she preferred "the way of a man with a maid"—at least that form of it cultivated by stout war-captains of Plassenburg.

Without, Boris and Jorian trampled along through a furious gusting of Baltic rain, which came in driving sheets from the north and splashed its thumb-board drops equally upon the red roofs of Courtland, the tented Muscovites drinking victory, and upon the dead men lying afield. Worse still, it fell on many wounded, and to such even the thrust of the thievish camp-follower's tolle-knife was merciful. Never could monks more fitly have chanted, "Blessed are the dead!" than concerning those who lay stiff and unconscious on the field where they had fought, to whose ears the Alla sang in vain.

Attired in her cloak of blue, with the hood pulled low over her face, Theresa von Lynar was waiting for Boris and Jorian at the door of the market-hospital.

"I thank you for your fidelity," she said quickly. "I have sore need of you. I put a great secret into your hands. I could not ask one of the followers of Prince Conrad, nor yet a soldier of the Duchess Joan, lest when that is done which shall be done to-night the Prince or the Duchess should be held blameworthy, having most to gain or lose thereto. But you are of Plassenburg and will bear me witness!"

Boris and Jorian silently signified their obedience and readiness to serve her. Then she gave them their instructions.

"You will conduct me past the city guards, out through the gates, and take me towards the camp of the Prince of Muscovy. There you will leave me, and I shall be met by one who in like manner will lead me through the enemy's posts."

"And when will you return, my Lady Theresa? We shall wait for you!"

"Thank you, gentlemen. You need not wait. I shall not return!"

"Not return?" cried Jorian and Boris together, greatly astonished.

"No," said Theresa very slowly and quietly, her eyes set on the darkness. "Hear ye, Captains of Plassenburg—I will give you my mind. You are trusty men, and can, as I have proved, hold your own counsel."

Boris and Jorian nodded. There was no difficulty about that.

"Good!" they said together as of old.

As they grew older it became more and more easy to be silent. Silence had always been easier to them than speech, and the habit clave to them even when they were in love.

"Listen, then," Theresa went on. "You know, and I know, that unless quick succour come, the city is doomed. You are men and soldiers, and whether ye make an end amid the din of battle, or escape for this time, is a matter wherewith ye do not trouble your minds till the time comes. But for me, be it known to you that I am the widow of Henry the Lion of Kernsberg. My son Maurice is the true heir to the Dukedom. Yet, being bound by an oath sworn to the man who made me his wife, I have never claimed the throne for him. But now Joan his sister knows, and out of her great heart she swears that she will give up the Duchy to him. If, therefore, the city is taken, the Muscovite will slay my son, slay him by their hellish tortures, as they have sworn to do for the despite he put upon Prince Ivan. And his wife, the Princess Margaret, will die of grief when they carry her to Moscow to make a bride out of a widow. Joan will be a prisoner, Conrad either dead or a priest, and Kernsberg, the heritage of Henry the Lion, a fief of the Czar. There is no help in any. Your Prince would succour, but it takes time to raise the country, and long ere he can cross the frontier the Russian will have worked his will in Courtland. Now I see a way—a woman's way. And if I fall in the doing of it, well—I but go to meet him for the sake of whose children I freely give my life. In this bear me witness."

"Madam," said Boris, gravely, "we are but plain soldiers. We pretend not to understand the great matters of State of which you speak. But rest assured that we will serve you with our lives, bear true witness, and in all things obey your word implicitly."

Without difficulty they passed through the streets and warded gates. Werner von Orseln, indeed, tramping the inner rounds, cried "Whither away?" Then, seeing the lady cloaked between them, he added after his manner, "By my faith, you Plassenburgers beat the world. Hang me to a gooseberry bush if I do not tell Anna Pappenheim of it ere to-morrow's sunset. As I know, she will forgive inconstancy only in herself!"

They plunged into the darkness of the outer night. As soon as they were beyond the gates the wind drave past them hissing level. The black trees roared overhead. At first in the swirl of the storm the three could see nothing; but gradually the watchfires of the Muscovite came out thicksown like stars along the rising grounds on both sides of the Alla. Boris strode on ahead, peering anxiously into the night, and a little behind Jorian gave Theresa his hand over the rough and uneven ground. A pair of ranging stragglers, vultures that accompany the advance of all great armies, came near and examined the party, but retreated promptly as they caught the glint of the firelight upon the armour of the war-captains. Presently they began to descend into the valley, the iron-shod feet of the men clinking upon the stones. Theresa walked silently, steeped in thought, laying a hand on arm or shoulder as she had occasion. Suddenly tall Boris stopped dead and with a sweep of his arm halted the others.

"There!" he whispered, pointing upward.

And against the glow thrown from behind a ridge they could see a pair of Cossacks riding to and fro ceaselessly, dark against the ruddy sky.

"Gott, would that I had my arbalist! I could put gimlet holes in these knaves!" whispered Jorian over Boris's shoulder.

"Hush!" muttered Boris; "it is lucky for Martha Pappenheim that you left it at home!"

"Captains Boris and Jorian," Theresa was speaking with quietness, raising her voice just enough to make herself heard over the roar of the wind overhead, for the nook in which they presently found themselves was sheltered, "I bid you adieu—it may be farewell. You have done nobly and like two valiant captains who were fit to war with Henry the Lion. I thank you. You will bear me faithful witness in the things of which I have spoken to you. Take this ring from me, not in recompense, but in memory. It is a bauble worth any lady's acceptance. And you this dagger." She took two from within her mantle, and gave one to Jorian. "It is good steel and will not fail you. The fellow of it I will keep!"

She motioned them backward with her hand.

"Abide there among the bushes till you see a man come out to meet me. Then depart, and till you have good reason keep the last secret of Theresa, wife of Henry the Lion, Duke of Kernsberg and Hohenstein!"

Boris and Jorian bowed themselves as low as the straitness of their armour would permit.

"We thank you, madam," they said; "as you have commanded, so will we do!"

And as they had been bidden they withdrew into a clump of willow and alder whose leaves clashed together and snapped like whips in the wind.

"Yonder woman is braver than you or I, Jorian," said Boris, as crouching they watched her climb the ridge. "Which of us would do as much for any on the earth?"

"After all, it is for her son. If you had children, who can say——?"

"Whether I may have children or no concerns you not," returned Boris, who seemed unaccountably ruffled. "I only know that I would not throw away my life for a baker's dozen of them!"

Upon the skyline Theresa von Lynar stood a moment looking backward to make sure that her late escort was hidden. Then she took a whistle from her gown and blew upon it shrilly in a lull of the storm. At the sound the war-captains could see the Cossacks drop their lances and pause in their unwearying ride. They appeared to listen eagerly, and upon the whistle being repeated one of them threw up a hand. Then between them and on foot the watchers saw another man stand, a dark shadow against the watchfires. The sentinels leaned down to speak with him, and then, lifting their lances, they permitted him to pass between them. He was a tall man, clad in a long caftan which flapped about his feet, a sheepskin posteen or winter jacket, and a round cap of fur, high-crowned and flat-topped, upon his head.

He came straight towards Theresa as if he expected a visitor.

The two men in hiding saw him take her hand as a host might that of an honoured guest, kiss it reverently, and then lead her up the little hill to where the sentinels waited motionless on their horses. So soon as the pair had passed within the lines, their figures and the Cossack salute momentarily silhouetted against the watchfires, the twin horsemen resumed their monotonous ride.

By this time Jorian's head was above the bushes and his eyes stood well nigh out of his head.

"Down, fool!" growled Boris, taking him by the legs and pulling him flat; "the Cossacks will see you!"

"Boris," gasped Jorian, who had descended so rapidly that the fall and the weight of his plate had driven the wind out of him, "I know that fellow. I have seen him before. It is Prince Wasp's physician, Alexis the Deacon. I remember him in Courtland when first we came thither!"

"Well, and what of that?" grunted Boris, staring at the little detached tongues of willow-leaf flame which were blown upward from the Muscovite watchfires.

"What of that, man?" retorted Boris. "Why, only this. We have been duped. She was a traitress, after all. This has been planned a long while."

"Traitress or saint, it is none of our business," said Boris grimly. "We had better get ourselves within the walls of Courtland, and say nothing to any of this night's work!"

"At any rate," added the long man as an afterthought, "I have the ring. It will be a rare gift for Anna."

Jorian looked ruefully at his dagger, holding it between the rustling alder leaves, so as to catch the light from the watchfires. The red glow fell on a jewel in the hilt.

"'Tis a pretty toy enough, but how can I give that to Marthe? It is not a fit keepsake for a lady!"

"Well," said Boris, suddenly appeased, "I will swop you for it. I am not so sure that my pretty spitfire would not rather have it than any ring I could give her. Shall we exchange?"

"But we promised to keep them as souvenirs?" urged Jorian, whose conscience smote him slightly. "One does not tell lies to a lady—at least where one can help it."

"It depends upon the lady!" said Boris practically. "You can tell your Marthe the truth. I will please myself with Anna. Hand over the dagger."

So wholly devoid of sentiment are war-captains when they deal with keepsakes.

CHAPTER LII

"This way, madam. Fear not. The Prince is eagerly awaiting you—both Princes, indeed," Alexis said, as he led her into the camp through lines of lighted tents and curious eyes looking at them from the darkness. "Only tell them all that you have to tell, and, trust me, there shall be no bounds to the gratitude of the Prince, or of Alexis the Deacon, his most humble servant."

Theresa thought of what this boundless gratitude had obtained for the young Greek, and smiled. They came to an open space before a lighted pavilion. Before the door stood a pair of officers trying in vain to shield their gay attire under scanty shoulder cloaks from the hurtling inclemency of the night. Their ready swords, however, barred the way.

"To see the Prince—his Highness expects us," said Alexis, without any salute. And with no further objection the two officers stood aside, staring eagerly and curiously however under the hood of the lady's cloak whom Alexis brought so late to the tent of their master.

"Ha!" muttered one of them confidentially as the pair passed within, "I often wondered what kept our Ivan so long in Courtland. It was more than his wooing of the Princess Margaret, I will wager!"

"Curse the wet!" growled his fellow, turning away. He felt that it was no time for speculative scandal.

Theresa and her conductor stood within the tent of the commander of the Muscovite army. The glow of light, though it came only from candles set within lanterns of horn, was great enough to be dazzling to her eyes. She found herself in the immediate presence of Prince Ivan, who rose with his usual lithe grace to greet her. An older man, with a grey pinched face, sat listlessly with his elbow on the small camp table. He leaned his forehead on his palm, and looked down. Behind, in the half dark of the tent, a low wide divan with cushions was revealed, and all the upper end of the tent was filled up with a huge and shadowy pile of kegs and boxes, only half concealed behind a curtain.

"I bid you welcome, my lady," said Prince Ivan, taking her hand. "Surely never did ally come welcomer than you to our camp to-night. My servant Alexis has told me of your goodwill—both towards ourselves and to Prince Louis." (He indicated the silent sitting figure with a little movement of his hand sufficiently contemptuous.) "Let us hear your news, and then will we find you such lodging and welcome as may be among rough soldiers and in a camp of war."

As he was speaking Theresa von Lynar loosened her long cloak of blue, its straight folds dank and heavy with the rains. The eyes of the Prince of Muscovy grew wider. Hitherto this woman had been to him but a common traitress, possessed of great secrets, doubtless to be flattered a little, and then—afterwards—thrown aside. Now he stood gazing at her his hands resting easily on the table, his body a little bent. As she revealed herself to him the pupils of his eyes dilated, and amber gleams seemed to shoot across the irises. He thought he had never seen so beautiful a woman. As he stood there, sharpening his features and moistening his lips, Prince Ivan looked exceedingly like a beast of prey looking out of his hole upon a quarry which comes of its own accord within reach of his claws.

But in a moment he had recovered himself, and came forward with renewed reverence.

"Madam," he said, bowing low, "will you be pleased to sit down? You are wet and tired."

He went to the flap of the pavilion and pushed aside the dripping flap.

"Alexis!" he cried, "call up my people. Bid them bring a brazier, and tell these lazy fellows to serve supper in half an hour on peril of their heads!"

He returned and stood before Theresa, who had sunk back as if fatigued on an ottoman covered with thick furs. Her feet nestled in the bearskins which covered the floor. The Prince looked anxiously down.

"Pardon me, your shoes are wet," he said. "We are but Muscovite boors, but we know how to make ladies comfortable. Permit me!"

And before Theresa could murmur a negative the Prince had knelt down and was unloosing the latchets of her shoes.

"A moment!" he said, as he sprang again to his feet with the lithe alertness which distinguished him. Prince Ivan ran to a corner where, with the brusque hand of a master, he had tossed a score of priceless furs to the ground. He rose again and came towards Theresa with a flash of something scarlet in his hand.

"You will pardon us, madam," he said, "you are our guest—the sole lady in our camp. I lay it upon your good nature to forgive our rude makeshifts."

And again Prince Ivan knelt. He encased Theresa's feet in dainty Oriental slippers, small as her own, and placed them delicately and respectfully on the couch.

"There, that is better!" he said, standing over her tenderly.

"I thank you, Prince." She answered the action more than the words, smiling upon him with her large graciousness; "I am not worthy of so great favour."

"My lady," said the Prince, "it is a proverb of our house that though one day Muscovy shall rule the world, a woman will always rule Muscovy. I am as my fathers were!"

Theresa did not answer. She only smiled at the Prince, leaning a little further back and resting her head easily upon the palm of her hand. The servitors brought in more lamps, which they slung along the ridge-pole of the roof, and these shedding down a mellow light enhanced the ripe splendour of Theresa's beauty.

Prince Ivan acknowledged to himself that he had spoken the truth when he said that he had never seen a woman so beautiful. Margaret?—ah, Margaret was well enough; Margaret was a princess, a political necessity, but this woman was of a nobler fashion, after a mode more truly Russ. And the Prince of Muscovy, who loved his fruit with the least touch of over-ripeness, would not admit to himself that this woman was one hour past the prime of her glorious beauty. And indeed there was much to be said for this judgment.

Theresa's splendid head was set against the dusky skins. Her rich hair of Venice gold, escaping a little from the massy carefulness of its ordered coils, had been blown into wet curls that clung closely to her white neck and tendrilled about her broad low brow. The warmth of the tent and the soft luxury of the rich rugs had brought a flush of red to a cheek which yet tingled with the volleying of the Baltic raindrops.

"Alexis never told me this woman was so beautiful," he said to himself. "Who is she? She cannot be of Courtland. Such a marvel could not have been hidden from me during all my stay there!"

So he addressed himself to making the discovery.

"My lady," he said, "you are our guest. Will you deign to tell us how more formally we may address you? You are no Courtlander, as all may see!"

"I am a Dane," she answered smiling; "I am called the Lady Theresa. For the present let that suffice. I am venturing much to come to you thus! My father and brothers built a castle upon the Baltic shore on land that has been the inheritance of my mother. Then came the reivers of Kernsberg and burned the castle to the ground. They burned it with fire from cellar to roof-tree. And they slackened the fire with the blood of my nearest kindred!"

As she spoke Theresa's eyes glittered and altered. The Prince read easily the meaning of that excitement. How was he to know all that lay behind?

"And so," he said, "you have no good-will to the Princess Joan of Hohenstein—and Courtland. Or to any of her favourers?" he added after a pause.

At the name the grey-headed man, who had been sitting unmoved by the table with his elbow on the board, raised a strangely wizened face to Theresa's.

"What"—he said, in broken accents, stammering in his speech and grappling with the words as if, like a wrestler at a fair, he must throw each one severally—"what—who has a word to say against the Lady Joan, Princess of Courtland? Whoso wrongs her has me to reckon with—aye, were it my brother Ivan himself!"

"Not I, certainly, my good Louis," answered Ivan easily. "I would not wrong the lady by word or deed for all Germany from Bor-Russia to the Rhine-fall!"

He turned to Alexis the Deacon, who was at his elbow.

"Fill up his cup—remember what I bade you!" he said sharply in an undertone.

"His cup is full, he will drink no more. He pushes it from him!" answered Alexis in the same half-whisper. But neither, as it seemed, took any particular pains to prevent their words carrying to the ear of Prince Louis. And, indeed, they had rightly judged. For swiftly as it had come the momentary flash of manhood died out on the meagre face. The arm upon which he had leaned swerved limply aside, and the grey beard fell helplessly forward upon the table.

"So much domestic affection is somewhat belated," said Prince Ivan, regarding Louis of Courtland with disgust. "Look at him! Who can wonder at the lady's taste? He is a pretty Prince of a great province. But if he live he will do well enough to fill a chair and hold a golden rod. Take him away, Alexis!"

"Nay," said Theresa, with quick alarm, "let him stay. There are many things to speak of. We may need to consult Prince Louis later."

"I fear the Prince will not be of great use to us," smiled Prince Ivan. "If only I had known, I would have conserved his princely senses more carefully. But for heads like his the light wine of our country is dangerously strong."

He glanced about the pavilion. The servants had not yet retired.

"Convey his Highness to the rear, and lay him upon the powder barrels!" He indicated with his hand the array of boxes and kegs piled in the dusk of the tent. The servitors did as they were told; they lifted Prince Louis and would have carried him to that grim couch, but, struck with some peculiarity, Alexis the Deacon suddenly bent over his lax body and thrust his hand into the bosom of his princely habit, now tarnished thick with wine stains and spilled meats.

"Excellency," he said, turning to his master, "the Prince is dead! His heart does not beat. It is the stroke! I warned you it would come!"

Prince Ivan strode hastily towards the body of Louis of Courtland.

"Surely not?" he cried, in seeming astonishment. "This may prove very inconvenient. Yet, after all, what does it matter? With your assistance, madam, the city is ours. And then, what matters dead prince or living prince? A garrison in every fort, a squadron of good Cossacks pricking across every plain, a tax-collector in every village—these are the best securities of princedom. But this is like our good Louis. He never did anything at a right time all his life."

Theresa stood on the other side of the dead man as the servitors lowered him for the inspection of their lord. The weary wrinkled face had been smoothed as with the passage of a hand. Only the left corner of the mouth was drawn down, but not so much as to be disfiguring.

"I am glad he spoke kindly of his wife at the last," she murmured. And she added to herself, "This falls out well—it relieves me of a necessity."

"Spoken like a woman!" cried Prince Ivan, looking admiringly at her. "Pray forgive my bitter speech, and remember that I have borne long with this man!"

He turned to the servitors and directed them with a motion of his hand towards the back of the pavilion.

"Drop the curtain," he said.

And as the silken folds rustled heavily down the curtain fell upon the career and regality of Louis, Prince of Courtland, hereditary Defender of the Holy See.

The men did not bear him far. They placed him upon the boxes of the powder for the Margraf's cannon, which for safety and dryness Ivan had bade them bring to his own pavilion. The dead man lay in the dark, open-eyed, staring at the circling shadows as the servitors moved athwart the supper table, at which a woman sat eating and drinking with her enemy.

Theresa von Lynar sat directly opposite the Prince of Muscovy. The board sparkled with mellow lights reflected from many lanterns. The servitors had departed. Only the measured tread of the sentinels was heard without. They were alone.

And then Theresa spoke. Very fully she told what she had learned of the defences of the place, which gates were guarded by the Kernsbergers, which by the men of Plassenburg, which by the remnants of the broken army of Courtland. She spoke in a hushed voice, the Prince sipping and nodding as he looked into her eyes. She gave the passwords of the inner and outer defences, the numbers of the defenders at each gate, the plans for bringing provisions up the Alla—indeed, everything that a besieging general needs to know.

And so soon as she had told the passwords the Prince asked her to pardon him a moment. He struck a silver bell and with scarce a moment's delay Alexis entered.

"Go," said the Prince; "send one of our fellows familiar with the speech of Courtland into the city by the Plassenburg Gate. The passwords are 'Henry the Lion' at the outer gate and 'Remember' at the inner port. Let the man be dressed in the habit of a countryman, and carry with him some wine and provend. Follow him and report immediately."

While the Prince was speaking he had never taken his eyes off Theresa von Lynar, though he had appeared to be regarding Alexis the Deacon. Theresa did not blanch. Not a muscle of her face quivered. And within his Muscovite heart, full of treachery as an egg of meat, Prince Ivan said, "She is no traitress, this dame; but a simpleton with all her beauty. The woman is speaking the truth."

And Theresa was speaking the truth. She had expected some such test and was prepared; but she only told the defenders' plans to one man; and as for the passwords, she had arranged with Boris that at the earliest dawn they were to be changed and the forces redistributed.

While these two waited for the return of Alexis, the Prince encouraged Theresa to speak of her wrongs. He watched with approbation the sparkle of her eye as he spoke of Joan of the Sword Hand. He noted how she shut down her lips when Henry the Lion was mentioned, how her voice shook as she recounted the cruel end of her kin.

Though at ordinary times most sober, the Prince now added cup to cup, and like a Muscovite he grew more bitter as the wine mounted to his head. He leaned forward and laid his hand upon his companion's white wrist. Theresa quivered a little, but did not take it away. The Prince was becoming confidential.

"Yes," he said, leaning towards her, "you have suffered great wrongs, and do well to hate with the hate that craves vengeance. But even you shall be satisfied. To-morrow and to-morrow's to-morrow you and I shall have out our hearts' desire upon our enemies. Yes, for many days. Sweet—sweet it shall be—sweet, and very slow; for I, too, have wrongs, as you shall hear."

"Truly, I did well to come to you!" said Theresa, giving her hand willingly into his. He clasped her fingers and would have kissed her but for the table between.

"You speak truth." He hissed the words bitterly. "Indeed, you did better than well. I also have wrongs, and Ivan of Muscovy will show you a Muscovite vengeance.

"This Prince Conrad of theirs baulked me of my revenge and drove me from the city. Him will I take and burn at the stake in his priest's robes, as if he were saying mass—or, better still, in the red of the cardinal's habit with his hat upon his head. And ere he dies he shall see his paramour carried to her funeral. For I will give you the life of the woman for whose sake he thwarted Ivan of Muscovy. If you will it, no hand but yours shall have the shedding of the blood of your house's enemy. Is not this your vengeance already sweet in prospect?"

"It is sweet indeed!" answered Theresa.

"Your Highness!" said the voice of Alexis at the tent door, "am I permitted to speak?"

"Speak on!" cried Ivan, without relaxing his clasp upon the hand of Theresa von Lynar. Indeed, momentarily it became a grip.

"The man went safely through at the Plassenburg Gate. The passwords were correct. The man who challenged spoke with a Kernsberg accent!"

The Prince's grasp relaxed.

"It is well," he said. "Now go to the captains and tell them to be in their posts about the city according to the plan—the main assault to be delivered by the gate of the sea. At dawn I will be with you! Go! Above all, do not forget the passwords—first 'Henry the Lion!' then 'Remember!'"

Alexis the Deacon saluted and went.

The Prince rose and came about the table nearer to Theresa von Lynar. She drew her breath quickly and checked it as sharply with a kind of sob. Her left hand went down to her side as naturally as a nun's to her rosary. But it was no rosary her fingers touched. The action steadied her, and she threw back her head and smiled up at her companion debonairly as though she had no care in the world.

Theresa repeated the passwords slowly and audibly.

"'Henry the Lion!' 'Remember!' Ah!" (she broke off with a laugh) "I am not likely to forget." Ivan laid his hand on her shoulder, glad to see her so resolute.

"All in good time," he said, sitting down on a stool at her feet and taking her hand—her right hand. The other he did not see. Then he spoke confidentially.

"One other revenge I have which I shall keep till the last. It shall be as sweet to me as yours to you. I shall draw it out lingeringly that I may drain all its sweetness. It concerns the upstart springald whom the Princess Margaret had the bad taste to prefer to me. Not that I cared a jot for the Princess. My taste is far other" (here he looked up tenderly); "but the Princess I must wed, as maid or widow I care not. I take her provinces, not herself; and these must be mine by right of fief and succession as well as by right of conquest. The way is clear. That piece of carrion which men called by a prince's name was carried out a while ago. Conrad the priest, who is a man, shall die like a man. And I, Ivan, and Holy Russia shall enter in. By the right of Margaret, sole heir of Courtland, city and province shall be mine; Kernsberg shall be mine; Hohenstein shall be mine. Then mayhap I will try a fall for Plassenburg and the Mark with the Executioner's Son and his little housewife. But sweeter than all shall be my revenge upon the man I hate—upon him who took his betrothed wife from Ivan of Muscovy."

"Ah," said Theresa von Lynar, "it will indeed be sweet! And what shall be your worthy and terrible revenge?"

"I have thought of it long—I have turned it over, this and that have I thought—of the smearing with honey and the anthill, of trepanning and the worms on the brain—but I have fixed at last upon something that will make the ears of the world tingle——"

He leaned forward and whispered into the ear of Theresa von Lynar the terrible death he had prepared for her only son. She nodded calmly as she listened, but a wonderful joy lit up the woman's face.

"I am glad I came hither," she murmured, "it is worth it all."

Prince Ivan took her hand in both of his and pressed it fondly.

"And you shall be gladder yet," he said, "my Lady Theresa. I have something to say. I had not thought that there lived in the world any woman so like-minded, even as I knew not that there lived any woman so beautiful. Together you and I might rule the world. Shall it be together?"

"But, Prince Ivan," she interposed quickly, but still smiling, "what is this? I thought you were set on wedding the Princess Margaret. You were to make her first widow and then wife."

"Theresa," he said, looking amorously up at her, "I marry for a kingdom. But I wed the woman who is my mate. It is our custom. I must give the left hand, it is true, but with it the heart, my Theresa!"

He was on his knees before her now, still clasping her fingers.

"You consent?" he said, with triumph already in his tone.

"I do not say you nay!" she answered, with a sigh.

He kissed her hand and rose to his feet. He would have taken her in his arms, but a noise in the pavilion disturbed him. He went quickly to the curtain and peeped through.

"It is nothing," he said, "only the men come to fetch the powder for the Margraf's cannon. But the night speeds apace. In an hour we assault."

With an eager look on his face he came nearer to her.

"Theresa," he said, "a soldier's wooing must needs be brisk and speedy. Yours and mine yet swifter. Our revenge beckons us on. Do you abide here till I return—with those good friends whose names we have mentioned. But now, ere I go forth, pledge me but once your love. This is our true betrothal. Say, 'I love you, Ivan!' that I may keep it in my heart till my return!"

Again he would have taken her in his arms, but Theresa turned quickly, finger on lip. She looked anxiously towards the back of the tent where lay the dead prince. "Hush! I hear something!" she said.

Then she smiled upon him—a sudden radiance like sunshine through rain-clouds.

"Come with me—I am afraid of the dark!" she said, almost like a child. For great is the guile of woman when her all is at stake.

Theresa von Lynar opened the latch of a horn lantern which dangled at a pole and took the taper in her left. She gave her right hand with a certain gesture of surrender to Prince Ivan.

"Come!" she said, and led him within the inner pavilion. A dim light sifted through the open flap by which the men had gone out with their load of powder. Day was breaking and a broad crimson bar lay across the path of the yet unrisen sun. Theresa and Prince Ivan stood beside the dead. He had been roughly thrown down on the pile of boxes which contained the powder manufactured by the Margraf's alchemists according to the famous receipt of Bertholdus Schwartz. The lid of the largest chest stood open, as if the men were returning for yet another burden.

"Quick!" she said, "here in the presence of the dead, I will whisper it here, here and not elsewhere."

She brought him close to her with the gentle compulsion of her hand till he stood in a little angle where the red light of the dawn shone on his dark handsome face. Then she put an arm strong as a wrestler's about him, pinioning him where he stood. Yet the gracious smile on the woman's lips held him acquiescent and content.

She bent her head.

"Listen," she said, "this have I never done for any man before—no, not so much as this! And for you will I do much more. Prince Ivan, you speak true—death alone must part you and me. You ask me for a love pledge. I will give it. Ivan of Muscovy, you have plotted death and torture—the death of the innocent. Listen! I am the wife of Henry of Kernsberg, the mother of the young man Maurice von Lynar whom you would slay by horrid devices. Prince, truly you and I shall die together—and the time is now!"

Vehemently for his life struggled Prince Ivan, twisting like a serpent, and crying, "Help! Help! Treachery! Witch, let me go, or I will stab you where you stand." Once his hand touched his dagger. But before he could draw it there came a sound of rushing feet. The forms of many men stumbled up out of the gleaming blood-red of the dawn.

Then Theresa von Lynar laughed aloud as she held him helpless in her grasp.

"The password, Prince—do not forget the password! You will need it to-night at both inner and outer guard! I, Theresa, have not forgotten. It is 'Henry the Lion! Remember!'"