Joan of the Sword Hand

To them entered the Sparhawk, a settled frown of gloom upon his brow, and the hunger which he shared equally with the others already sharpening the falcon hook of his nose and whitening his thin nostrils.

At sight of him the three heads drew apart, and Alt Pikker began to speak of the stars that were rising in the eastern dusk.

"The dog-star is white," he said didactically. "In my schooldays I used to read in the Latin tongue that it was red!"

But by their interest in such a matter the Sparhawk knew that they had been speaking of far other things than stars before he burst open the door. For little George the Hussite pulled his pandour moustaches and muttered, "A plague on the dog-star and the foul Latin tongue. They are only fit for the gabble of fat-fed monks. Moreover, you do not see it now, at any rate. For me, I would I were back under the Bohemian pinetrees, where the very wine smacks of resin, and where there is a sheep (your own or another's, it matters not greatly) tied at every true Hussite's door."

"What is this?" cried the Sparhawk. "Do not deceive me. You were none of you talking of stars when I came up the stairs. For I heard Peter Balta's voice say, 'By Heaven! it must come to it, and soon!' And you Hussite George, answered him, 'Six days will settle it.' What do you keep from me? Out with it? Speak up, like three good little men!"

It was Alt Pikker who first found words to answer.

"We spoke indeed of the stars, and said it was six days till the moon should be gone, and that the time would then be ripe for a sally by the—by the—Plassenburg Gate!"

"Pshaw!" cried the Sparhawk. "Lie to your father confessor, not to me. I am not a purblind fool. I have ears, long enough, it is true, but at least they answer to hear withal. You spoke of the wells, I tell you; I saw your heads move apart as I entered; and then, forsooth, that dotard Alt Pikker (who ran away in his youth from a monk's cloister-school with the nun that taught them stocking-mending) must needs furbish up some scraps of Latin and begin to prate about dog-stars red and dog-stars white. Faugh! Open your mouths like men, set truthful hearts behind them, and let me hear the worst!"

Nevertheless the three captains of Kernsberg were silent awhile, for heaviness was upon their souls. Then Peter Balta blurted out, "God help us! There is but ten days more provender in the city, the river is turned, and the wells are almost dried up!"

After this the Sparhawk sat awhile on the low window seat, watching the twinkling fires of the Muscovites and listening to the hum of the town beneath the Castle—all now sullen and subdued, no merry hucksters chaffering about the church porches, no loitering lads and lasses linking arms and bartering kisses in the dusky corners of the linen market, no clattering of hammers in the armourers' bazaar—a muffled buzzing only, as of men talking low to themselves of bitter memories and yet dismaller expectations.

"I have it!" said the Sparhawk at last, his eyes on the misty plain of night, with its twinkling pin-points of fire which were the watch-fires of the enemy.

The three men stirred a little to indicate attention, but did not speak.

"Listen," he said, "and do not interrupt. You must deliver me up. I am the cause of war—I, the Duchess Joan. Hear you? I have a husband who makes war upon me because I contemn his bed and board. He has summoned the Muscovite to help him to woo me. Well, if I am to be given up, it is for us to stipulate that the armies be withdrawn, first beyond the Alla, and then as far as Courtland. I will go with them; they will not find me out—at least, not till they are back in their own land."

"What matter?" cried Balta. "They would return as soon as they discovered the cheat."

"Let us sink or swim together," said Hussite George. "We want no talk of surrender!"

But grey dry Alt Pikker said nothing, weighing all with a judicial mind.

"No, they would not come back," said the Sparhawk; "or, at worst, we would have time—that is, you would have time—to revictual Kernsberg, to fill the tanks and reservoirs, to summon in the hillmen. They would soon learn that there had been no Joan within the city but the one they had carried back with them to Courtland. Plassenburg, slow to move, would have time to bring up its men to protect its borders from the Muscovite. All good chances are possible if only I am out of the way. Surrender me—but by private treaty, and not till you have seen them safe across the fords of the Alla!"

"Nay, God's truth;" cried the three, "that we will not do! They would kill you by slow torture as soon as they found out that they had been tricked."

"Well," said the Sparhawk slowly, "but by that time they would have been tricked."

Then Alt Pikker spoke in his turn.

"Men," he said, "this Dane is a man—a better than any of us. There is wisdom in what he says. Ye have heard in church how priests preach concerning One who died for the people. Here is one ready to die—if no better may be—for the people!"

"And for our Duchess Joan!" said the Sparhawk, taking his hat from his head at the name of his mistress.

"Our Lady Joan! Aye, that is it!" said the old man. "We would all gladly die in battle for our lady. We have done more—we have risked our own honour and her favour in order to convey her away from these dangers. Let the boy be given up; and that he go not alone without fit attendance, I will go with him as his chamberlain."

The other two men, Peter Balta and George the Hussite, did not answer for a space, but sat pondering Alt Pikker's counsel. It was George the Hussite who took up the parable.

"I do not see why you, Alt Pikker, and you, Maurice the Dane, should hold such a pother about what you are ready to do for our Lady Joan. So are we all every whit as ready and willing as you can be; and I think, if any are to be given up, we ought to draw lots for who it shall be. You fancy yourselves overmuch, both of you!"

The Sparhawk laughed.

"Great tun-barrelled dolt," he said, clapping Peter on the back, "how sweet and convincing it would be to see you, or that canting ale-faced knave George there, dressed up in the girdle-brace and steel corset of Joan of the Sword Hand! And how would you do as to your beard? Are you smooth as an egg on both cheeks as I am? It would be rare to have a Duchess Joan with an inch of blue-black stubble on her chin by the time she neared the gates of Courtland! Nay, lads, whoever stays—I must go. In this matter of brides I have qualities (how I got them I know not) that the best of you cannot lay claim to. Do you draw lots with Alt Pikker there, an you will, as to who shall accompany me, but leave this present Joan of the Sword Hand to settle her own little differences with him who is her husband by the blessing of Holy Church."

And he threw up his heels upon the table and plaited his knees one above the other.

Then it was Alt Pikker's time.

"Peter Balta, and you, George the Heretic, listen," he cried, vehemently emphasising the points on the palm of his hand. "You, Peter, have a wife that loves you—so, at least, we understand—and your Marion, how would she fare in this hard world without you? Have you laid by a stocking-foot full of gold? Does it hang inside your chimney? I trow not. Well, you at least must bide and earn your pay, for Marion's sake. I have neither kith nor kin, neither sweetheart nor wife, covenanted or uncovenanted. And for you, George, you are a heretic, and if they burn you alive or let out the red sap at your neck, you will go straight to hell-fire. Think of it, George! I, on the other hand, am a true man, and after a paltry year or two in purgatory (just for the experience) will enter straightway into the bosom of patriarchs and apostles, along with our Holy Father the Pope, and our elder brothers the Cardinals Borgia and Delia Rovere!"

"You talk a deal of nothings with your mouth," said George the Hussite. "It is true that I hold not, as you do, that every dishclout in a church is the holy veil, and every old snag of wood with a nail in't a veritable piece of the true cross. But I would have you know that I can do as much for my lady as any one of you—nay, and more, too, Alt Pikker. For a good Hussite is afraid neither of purgatory nor yet of hell-fire, because, if he should chance to die, he will go, without troubling either, straight to the abode of the martyrs and confessors who have been judged worthy to withstand and to conquer."

"And as to what you said concerning Marion," nodded Peter Balta truculently, "she is a soldier's wife and would cut her pretty throat rather than stand in the way of a man's advancement!"

"Specially knowing that so pretty a wench as she is could get a better husband to-morrow an it liked her!" commented Alt Pikker drily.

"Well," cried the Sparhawk, "still your quarrel, gentlemen. At all events, the thing is settled. The only question is when? How many days' water is there in the wells?"

Said Peter Balta, "I will go and see."

CHAPTER XXIX

Moreover, above all, Prince Louis wanted that proud wench, his wife. Without her as his prisoner, he dared not go back to his capital city. He had sworn an oath before the people. For the rest, Kernsberg itself could wait. Without a head it would soon fall in, and, besides, he flattered himself that he would so sway and influence the Duchess, when once he had her safe in his palace by the mouth of Alla, that she would repent her folly, and at no distant day sit knee by knee with him on his throne of state in the audience hall when the suitors came to plead concerning the law.

And even his guest Prince Ivan was complaisant, standing behind Louis's chair and smiling subtly to himself.

"Brother of mine," he would say, "I came to help you to your wife. It is your own affair how you take her and what you do with her when you get her. For me, as soon as you have her safe within the summer palace, and have given me, according to promise, my heart's desire your sister Margaret, so soon will I depart for Moscow. My father, indeed, sends daily posts praying my instant despatch, for he only waits my return to launch a host upon his enemy the King of Polognia."

And Prince Louis, reaching over the arm of his chair, patted his friend's small sweet-scented hand, and thanked him for his most unselfish and generous assistance.

Thus the leaguer of Hohenstein attained its object. Prince Louis had not, it is true, stormed the heights of Kernsberg as he had sworn to do. He had, in fact, left behind him to the traitors who delivered their Duchess a large portion of his stores and munitions of war. Nevertheless, he returned proud in heart to his capital city. For in the midst of his most faithful body of cavalry rode the young Duchess Joan, Princess of Courtland, on a white Neapolitan barb, with reins that jingled like silver bells and rosettes of ribbon on the bosses of her harness.

The beautiful prisoner appeared, as was natural, somewhat wan and anxious. She was clad in a close-fitting gown of pale blue, with inch-wide broidering of gold, laced in front, and with a train which drooped almost to the ground. Over this a cloak of deeper blue was worn, with a hood in which the dark, proud head of the Princess nestled half hidden and half revealed. The folk who crowded to see her go by took this for coquetry. She rode with only the one councillor by her who had dared to share her captivity—one Alt Pikker, a favourite veteran of her little army, and the master-swordsman (they said) who had instructed her in the use of arms.

No indignity had been offered to her. Indeed, as great honour was done her as was possible in the circumstances. Prince Louis had approached and led her by the hand to the steed which awaited her at the fords of the Alla. The soldiers of Courtland elevated their spears and the trumpets of both hosts brayed a salute. Then, without a word spoken, her husband had bowed and withdrawn as a gentleman should. Prince Ivan then approached, and on one knee begged the privilege of kissing her fair hand.

The traitors of Kernsberg, who had bartered their mistress for several tuns of Rhenish, could not meet her eye, but stood gloomily apart with faces sad and downcast, and from within the town came the sound of women weeping. Only George the Hussite stood by with a smile on his face and his thumbs stuck in his waistband.

The captive Princess spoke not at all, as was indeed natural and fitting. A woman conquered does not easily forgive those who have humbled her pride. She talked little even to Alt Pikker, and then only apart. The nearest guide, who had been chosen because of his knowledge of German, could not hear a murmur. With bowed head and eyes that dwelt steadily on the undulating mane of her white barb, Joan swayed her graceful body and compressed her lips like one captured but in nowise vanquished. And the soldiers of the army of Courtland (those of them who were married) whispered one to another, noting her demeanour, "Our good Prince is but at the beginning of his troubles; for, by Brunhild, did you ever see such a wench? They say she can engage any two fencers of her army at one time!"

"Her eye itself is like a rapier thrust," whispered another. "Just now I went near her to look, and she arched an eyebrow at me, no more—and lo! I went cold at my marrow as if I felt the blue steel stand out at my backbone."

"It is the hunger and the anger that have done it," said another; "and, indeed, small wonder! She looked not so pale when I saw her ride along Courtland Street that day to the Dom—the day she was to be married. Then her eyes did not pierce you through, but instead they shone with their own proper light and were very gracious."

"A strange wench, a most strange wench," responded the first, "so soon to change her mind."

"Ha!" laughed his companion, "little do you know if you say so! She is a woman—small doubt of that! Besides, is she not a princess? and wherefore should our Prince's wife not change her mind?"

They entered Courtland, and the flags flew gaily as on the day of wedding. The drums beat, and the populace drank from spigots that foamed red wine. Then Louis the Prince came, with hat in hand, and begged that the Princess Joan would graciously allow him to ride beside her through the streets. He spoke respectfully, and Joan could only bow her head in acquiescence.

Thus they came to the courtyard of the palace, the people shouting behind them. There, on the steps, gowned in white and gold, with bare head overrun with ringlets, stood the Princess Margaret among her women. And at sight of her the heart of the false Princess gave a mighty bound, as Joan of the Sword Hand drew her hood closer about her face and tried to remember in what fashion a lady dismounted from her horse.

"My lady," said Prince Louis, standing hat in hand before her barb, "I commit you to the care of my sister, the Princess Margaret, knowing the ancient friendship that there is between you two. She will speak for me, knowing all my will, and being also herself shortly contracted in marriage to my good friend, Prince Ivan of Muscovy. Open your hearts to each other, I pray you, and be assured that no evil or indignity shall befall one whom I admire as the fairest of women and honour as my wedded wife!"

Joan made no answer, but leaped from her horse without waiting for the hand of Alt Pikker, which many thought strange. In another moment the arms of the Princess Margaret were about her neck, and that impulsive Princess was kissing her heartily on cheek and lips, talking all the while through her tears.

"Quick! Let us get in from all these staring stupid men. You are to lodge in my palace so long as it lists you. My brother hath promised it. Where are your women?"

"I have no women," said Joan, in a low voice, blushing meanwhile; "they would not accompany a poor betrayed prisoner from Kernsberg to a prison cell!"

"Prison cell, indeed! You will find that I have a very comfortable dungeon ready for you! Come—my maidens will assist you. Hasten—pray do make haste!" cried the impetuous little lady, her arm close about the tall Joan.

"I thank you," said the false bride, with some reluctance, "but I am well accustomed to wait on myself."

"Indeed, I do not wonder," cried the ready Princess; "maids are vexatious creatures, well called 'tirewomen.' But come—see the beautiful rooms I have chosen for you! Make haste and take off your cloak, and then I will come to you; I am fairly dying to talk. Ah, why did you not tell me that day? That was ill done. I would have ridden so gladly with you. It was a glorious thing to do, and has made you famous all over the world, they say. I have been thinking ever since what I can do to be upsides with you and make them talk about me. I will give them a surprise one day that shall be great as yours. But perhaps I may not wait till I am married to do it."

And she took her friend by the hand and with a light-hearted skipping motion convoyed her to her summer palace, kissed her again at the door, and shut her in with another imperious adjuration to be speedy.

"I will give you a quarter of an hour," she cried, as she lingered a moment; "then I will come to hear all your story, every word."

Then the false Princess staggered rather than walked to a chair, for brain and eye were reeling.

"God wot," she murmured; "strange things to hear, indeed! Sweet lady, you little know how strange! This is ten thousand times a straiter place to be in than when I played the Count von Löen. Ah, women, women, what you bring a poor innocent man to!"

So, without unhooking her cloak or even throwing back the hood, this sadly bewildered bride sat down and tried to select any hopeful line of action out of the whirling chaos of her thoughts. And even as she sat there a knock came sharply at the door.

CHAPTER XXX

"Where is your hand-glass?" she cried. "Do not tell me that you have never looked in it since you came to Courtland, or that you can put up with that squinting falsifier up there." She pointed to the oval-framed Venetian mirror which was hung opposite her. "It twists your face all awry, this way and that, like a monkey cracking a nut. 'Twas well enough for our good Conrad, but the Princess Joan is another matter."

"I have never even looked in either!" said the Sparhawk.

Some subtle difference in tone of voice caused the Princess to stop her work of patting into temporary docility her fair clustering ringlets, winding them about her fingers and rearranging to greater advantage the little golden combs which held her sadly rebellious tresses in place. She looked keenly at the Sparhawk, standing with both her shapely arms at the back of her head and holding a long ivory pin with a head of bright green malachite between her small white teeth.

"Your voice is hoarse—somehow you are different," she said, taking the pin from her lips and slipping it through the rebellious plaits with a swift vindictive motion.

"I have caught a cold riding into the city," quoth the Sparhawk hastily, blushing uneasily under her eyes. But for the time being his disguise was safe. Already Margaret of Courtland was thinking of something else.

"Tell me," she began, going to the window and gazing pensively out upon the green white-flecked pour of the Alla, swirling under the beams of the Summer Palace, "how many of your suite have followed you hither?"

"Only Alt Pikker, my second captain!" said the Sparhawk.

Again the tones of his voice seemed to touch her woman's ear with some subtile perplexity even in the midst of her abstraction. Margaret turned her eyes again upon Maurice, and kept them there till he shivered in the flowing, golden-belted dress of velvet which sat so handsomely upon his splendid figure.

"And your chief captain, Von Orseln?" The Princess seemed to be meditating again, her thoughts far from the rush of the Alla beneath and from the throat voice of the false Princess before her.

"Von Orseln has gone to the Baltic Edge to raise on my behalf the folk of the marshes!" answered the Sparhawk warily.

"Then there was——" the Princess hesitated, and her own voice grew a trifle lower—"the young man who came hither as Dessauer's secretary—what of him? The Count von Löen, if I mistake not—that was his name?"

"He is a traitor!"

The Princess turned quickly.

"Nay," she said, "you do not think so. Your voice is kind when you speak of him. Besides, I am sure he is no traitor. Where is he?"

"He is in the place where he most wishes to be—with the woman he loves!"

The light died out of the bright face of the Princess Margaret at the answer, even as a dun snow-cloud wipes the sunshine off a landscape.

"The woman he loves?" she stammered, as if she could not have heard aright.

"Aye," said the false bride, loosening her cloak and casting it behind her. "I swear it. He is with the woman he loves."

But in his heart the Sparhawk was saying, "Steady, Master Maurice von Lynar—or all will be out in five minutes."

The Princess Margaret walked determinedly from the window to the fireplace. She was not so tall by half a head as her guest, but to the eyes of the Sparhawk she towered above him like a young poplar tree. He shrank from her searching glance.

The Princess laid her hand upon the sleeve of the velvet gown. A flush of anger crimsoned her fair face.

"Ah!" she cried, "I see it all now, madam the Princess. You love the Count and you think to blind me. This is the reason of your riding off with him on your wedding day. I saw you go by his side. You sent Count Maurice to bring to you the four hundred lances of Kernsberg. It was for his sake that you left my brother Prince Louis at the church door. Like draws to like, they say, and your eyes even now are as like as peas to those of the Count von Löen."

And this, indeed, could the Sparhawk in no wise deny. The Princess went her angry way.

"There have been many lies told," she cried, raising the pitch of her voice, "but I am not blind. I can see through them. I am a woman and can gauge a woman's pretext. You yourself are in love with the Count von Löen, and yet you tell me that he is with the woman he loves. Bah! he loves you—you, his mistress—next, that is, to his selfish self-seeking self. If he is with the woman he loves, as you say, tell me her name!"

There came a knocking at the door.

"Who is there?" demanded imperiously the Princess Margaret.

"The Prince of Muscovy, to present his duty to the Princess of Courtland!"

"I do not wish to see him—I will not see him!" said the Sparhawk hastily, who felt that one inquisitor at a time was as much as he could hope to deal with.

"Enter!" said the Princess Margaret haughtily.

The Prince opened the door and stood on the threshold bowing to the ladies.

"Well?" queried Margaret of Courtland, without further acknowledgment of his salutation than the slightest and chillest nod.

"My service to both, noble Princesses," the answer came with suave deference. "The Prince Louis sent me to beg of his noble spouse, the Princess Joan, that she would deign to receive him."

"Tell Louis that the Princess will receive him at her own time. He ought to have better manners than to trouble a lady yet weary from a long journey. And as for you, Prince Ivan, you have our leave to go!"

Whilst Margaret was speaking the Prince had fixed his piercing eyes upon the Sparhawk, as if already he had penetrated his secret. But because he was a man Maurice sustained the searching gaze with haughty indifference. The Prince of Muscovy turned upon the Princess Margaret with a bright smile.

"All this makes an ill lesson for you, my fair betrothed," he said, bowing to her; "but—there will be no riding home once we have you in Moscow!"

"True, I shall not need to return, for I shall never ride thither!" retorted the Princess. "Moreover, I would have you remember that I am not your betrothed. The Prince Louis is your betrothed, if you have any in Courtland. You can carry him to Moscow an you will, and comfort each other there."

"That also I may do some day, madam!" flashed Prince Wasp, stirred to quick irritation. "But in the meantime, Princess Joan, does it please you to signify when you will receive your husband?"

"No! no! no!" whispered the Sparhawk in great perturbation.

The Princess Margaret pointed to the door.

"Go!" she said. "I myself will signify to my brother when he can wait upon the Princess."

"My Lady Margaret," the Muscovite purred in answer, "think you it is wise thus to encourage rebellion in the most sacred relations of life?"

The Princess Margaret trilled into merriest laughter and reached back a hand to take Joan's fingers in hers protectingly.

"The homily of the most reverend churchman, Prince Ivan of Muscovy, upon matrimony; Judas condemning treachery, Satan rebuking sin, were nothing to this!"

With all his faults the Prince had humour, the humour of a torture scene in some painted monkish Inferno.

"Agreed," he said, smiling; "and what does the Princess Margaret protecting that pale shrinking flower, Joan of the Sword Hand, remind you of?"

"That the room of Prince Ivan is more welcome to ladies than his company!" retorted Margaret of Courtland, still holding the Sparhawk's hand between both of hers, and keeping her angry eyes and petulant flower face indignantly upon the intruder.

Had Prince Ivan been looking at her companion at that moment he might have penetrated the disguise, so tender and devoted a light of love dwelt on the Sparhawk's countenance and beaconed from his eyes. But he only bowed deferentially and withdrew. Margaret and the Sparhawk were left once more alone.

The two stood thus while the brisk footsteps of Prince Wasp thinned out down the corridor. Then Margaret turned swiftly upon her tall companion and, still keeping her hand, she pulled Maurice over to the window. Then in the fuller light she scanned the Sparhawk's features with a kindling eye and paling lips.

"God in heaven!" she palpitated, holding him at a greater distance, "you are not the Lady Joan; you are—you are——"

"The man who loves you!" said the Sparhawk, who was very pale.

"The Count von Löen. Oh! Maurice, why did you risk it?" she gasped. "They will kill you, tear you to pieces without remorse, when they find out. And it is a thing that cannot be kept secret. Why did you do it?"

"For your sake, beloved," said the Sparhawk, coming nearer to her; "to look once more on your face—to behold once, if no more, the lips that kissed me in the dark by the river brink!"

"But—but—you may forfeit your life!"

"And a thousand lives!" cried the Sparhawk, nervously pulling at his woman's dress as if ashamed that he must wear it at such a time. "Life without you is naught to Maurice von Lynar!"

A glow of conscious happiness rose warm and pink upon the cheeks of the Princess Margaret.

"Besides," added Maurice, "the captains of Kernsberg considered that thus alone could their mistress be saved."

The glow paled a little.

"What! by sacrificing you? But perhaps you did it for her sake, and not wholly, as you say, for mine!"

There was no such thought in her heart, but she wished to hear him deny it.

"Nay, my one lady," he answered; "I was, indeed, more than ready to come to Courtland, but it was because of the hope that surged through my heart, as flame leaps through tow, that I should see you and hear your voice!"

The Princess held out her hands impulsively and then retracted them as suddenly.

"Now, we must not waste time," she said; "I must save you. They would slay you on the least suspicion. But I will match them. Would to God that Conrad were here. To him I could speak. I could trust him. He would help us. Let me see! Let me see!"

She bent her head and walked slowly to the window. Like every true Courtlander she thought best when she could watch the swirl of the green Alla against its banks. The Sparhawk took a step as if to follow, but instead stood still where he was, drinking in her proud and girlish beauty. To the eye of any spy they were no more than two noble ladies who had quarrelled, the smaller and slighter of whom had turned her back upon the taller!

They were in the same position still, and the white foam-fleck which Margaret was following with her eyes had not vanished from her sight, when the door of the summer palace was rudely thrown open and an officer announced in a loud and strident tone, "The Prince Louis to visit his Princess!"

CHAPTER XXXI

"A pretty spirit—a true Courtland spirit," he said mockingly. "I had the same within my heart when I was young. Conrad hath it now—priest though he be. Nevertheless, he is off to Rome to kiss the Pope's toe. By my faith, Gretchen lass, you show a very pretty spirit!"

He wheeled about and looked towards the false Joan, who was standing gripping nails into palms by the chimney-mantel.

"And you, my lady," he said, "you have had your turn of rebellion. But once is enough. You are conquered now. You are a wedded wife. Your place is with your husband. You sleep in my palace to-night!"

"If I do," muttered the Sparhawk, "I know who will wake in hell to-morrow!"

"My brother Louis," cried the Princess Margaret, running up to him and taking his arm coaxingly, "do not be so hasty with two poor women. Neither of us desire aught but to do your will. But give us time. Spare us, for you are strong. 'A woman's way is the wind's way'—you know our Courtland proverb. You cannot harness the Northern Lights to your chariot-wheels. Woo us—coax us—aye, even deceive us; but do not force us. Louis, Louis, I thought you were wise, and yet I see that you know not the alphabet of love. Here is your lady. Have you ever said a loving word to her, bent the knee, kissed her hand—which, being persisted in, is the true way to kiss the mouth?"

("If he does either," growled the Sparhawk, "my sword will kiss his midriff!")

Prince Louis smiled. He was not used to women's flatteries, and in his present state of exaltation the cajoleries of the Princess suited his mood. He swelled with self-importance, puffing his cheeks and twirling his grey moustache upwards with the finger and thumb of his left hand.

"I know more of women than you think, sister," he made answer. "I have had experiences—in my youth, that is; I am no puppet princeling. By Saint Mark! once on a day I strutted it with the boldest; and to-day—well, now that I have humbled this proud madam and brought her to my own city, why, I will show you that I am no Wendish boor. I can sue a lady's favour as courteously as any man—and, Margaret, if you will promise me to be a good girl and get you ready to be married to-morrow, I promise you that Louis of Courtland will solicit his lady's favour with all grace and observance."

"Gladly will I be married to-morrow," said the Princess, caressing her brother's sleeve—"that is, if I cannot be married to-day!" she added under her breath.

But she paused a few moments as if embarrassed.

Then she went on.

"Brother Louis, I have spoken with my sister here—your wife, the Lady Joan. She hath a scruple concerning matrimony. She would have it resolved before she hath speech with you again. Permit our good Father Clement to advise with her."

"Father Clement—our Conrad's tutor, why he more than another?"

"Well, do you not understand? He is old," pleaded Margaret, "and there are things one can say easiest to an old man. You understand, brother Louis."

The Prince nodded, well pleased. This was pleasant. His mentor, Prince Wasp, did not usually flatter him. Rather he made him chafe on a tight rein.

"And if I send Father Clement to you, chit," he said patting his sister's softly rounded cheek, "will he both persuade you and ease the scruples of my Lady Joan? I am as delicate and understanding as any man. I will not drive a woman when she desires to be led. But led or driven she must be. For to my will she must come at last."

"I knew it, I knew it!" she cried joyously. "Again you are mine own Louis, my dear sweet brother! When will Father Clement come?"

"As soon as he can be sent for," the Prince answered. "He will come directly here to the Summer Palace. And till then you two fair maids can abide together. Princess, my wife, I kiss your noble hand. Margaret, your cheek. Till to-morrow—till to-morrow!"

He went out with an awkward attempt at airy grace curiously grafted on his usually saturnine manners. The door closed behind him. Margaret of Courtland listened a moment with bated breath and finger on lip. A shouted order reached her ear from beneath. Then came the tramp of disciplined feet, and again they heard only the swirl of the Alla fretting about the piles of the Summer Palace.

Then, quickly dropping her lover's fingers, Margaret took hold of her own dress at either side daintily and circled about the Sparhawk in a light-tripping dance.

"Ah, Louis—we will be so good and bidable—to-morrow. To-morrow you will see me a loving and obedient wife. To-morrow I will wed Prince Wasp. Meantime—to-day you and I, Maurice, will consult Father Clement, mine ancient confessor, who will do anything I ask him. To-day we will dance—put your arm about my waist—firmly—so! There, we will dance at a wedding to-day, you and I. For in that brave velvet robe you shall be married!"

"What?" cried the Sparhawk, stopping suddenly. His impulsive sweetheart caught him again into the dance as she swept by in her impetuous career.

"Yes," she nodded, minueting before him. "It is as I say—you are to be married all over again. And when you ride off I will ride with you—no slipping your marriage engagements this time, good sir. I know your Kernsberg manners now. You will not find me so slack as my brother!"

"Margaret!" cried the Sparhawk. And with one bound he had her against his breast.

"Oh!" she cried, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, as she submitted to his embrace, "I don't love you half as much in that dress. Why, it is like kissing another girl at the convent. Ugh, the cats!"

She was not permitted to say any more. The Alla was heard very clearly in the Summer Palace as it swept the too swift moments with it away towards the sea which is oblivion. Then after a time, and a time and half a time, the Princess Margaret slowly emerged.

"No," she said retrospectively, "it is not like the convent, after all—not a bit."

"Affection is ever seemly, especially between great ladies—also unusual!" said a bass voice, speaking grave and kindly behind them.

The Sparhawk turned quickly round, the crimson rushing instant to his cheek.

"Father—dear Father Clement!" cried Margaret, running to the noble old man who stood by the door and kneeling down for his blessing. He gave it simply and benignantly, and laid his hand a moment on the rippling masses of her fair hair. Then he turned his eyes upon the Sparhawk.

The confusion of his beautiful penitent, the flush which mounted to her neck even as she kneeled, added to a certain level defiance in the glance of her taller companion, told him almost at a glance that which had been so carefully concealed. For the Father was a man of much experience. A man who hears a dozen confessions every day of his life through a wicket in a box grows accustomed to distinguishing the finer differences of sex. His glance travelled back and forth, from the Sparhawk to Margaret, and from Margaret to the Sparhawk.

"Ah!" he said at last, for all comment.

The Princess rose to her feet and approached the priest.

"My Father," she said swiftly, "this is not the Lady Joan, my brother's wife, but a youth marvellously like her, who hath offered himself in her place that she might escape——"

"Nay," said the Sparhawk, "it was to see you once again, Lady Margaret, that I came to Courtland!"

"Hush! you must not interrupt," she went on, putting him aside with her hand. "He is the Count von Löen, a lord of Kernsberg. And I love him. We want you to marry us now, dear Father—now, without a moment's delay; for if you do not, they will kill him, and I shall have to marry Prince Wasp!"

She clasped her hands about his arm.

"Will you?" she said, looking up beseechingly at him.

The Princess Margaret was a lady who knew her mind and so bent other minds to her own.

The Father stood smiling a little down upon her, more with his eyes than with his lips.

"They will kill him and marry you, if I do. And, moreover, pray tell me, little one, what will they do to me?" he said.

"Father, they would not dare to meddle with you. Your office—your sanctity—Holy Mother Church herself would protect you. If Conrad were here, he would do it for me. I am sure he would marry us. I could tell him everything. But he is far, far away, on his knees at the shrine of Holy Saint Peter, most like."

"And you, young masquerader," said Father Clement, turning to the Sparhawk, "what say you to all this? Is this your wish, as well as that of the Princess Margaret? I must know all before I consent to put my old neck into the halter!"

"I will do whatever the Princess wishes. Her will is mine."

"Do not make a virtue of that, young man," said the priest smiling; "the will of the Princess is also that of most people with whom she comes in contact. Submission is no distinction where our Lady Margaret is concerned. Why, ever since she was so high" (he indicated with his hand), "I declare the minx hath set her own penances and dictated her own absolutions."

"You have indeed been a sweet confessor," murmured Margaret of Courtland, still clasping the Father's arm and looking up fondly into his face. "And you will do as I ask you this once. I will not ask for such a long time again."

The priest laughed a short laugh.

"Nay, if I do marry you to this gentleman, I hope it will serve for a while. I cannot marry Princesses of the Empire to carnival mummers more than once a week!"

A quick frown formed on the brow of Maurice von Lynar. He took a step nearer. The priest put up his hand, with the palm outspread in a sort of counterfeit alarm.

"Nay, I know not if it will last even a week if bride and groom are both so much of the same temper. Gently, good sir, gently and softly. I must go carefully myself. I am bringing my grey hairs unpleasantly near the gallows. I must consider my duty, and you must respect my office."

The Sparhawk dropped on one knee and bent his head.

"Ah, that is better," said the priest, making the sign of benediction above the clustered raven locks. "Rise, sir, I would speak with you a moment apart. My Lady Margaret, will you please to walk on the terrace there while I confer with—the Lady Joan upon obedience, according to the commandment of the Prince."

As he spoke the last words he made a little movement towards the corridor with his hand, at the same moment elevating his voice. The Princess caught his meaning and, before either of her companions could stop her, she tiptoed to the door, set her hand softly to the latch, and suddenly flung it open. Prince Louis stood without, with head bowed to listen.

The Princess shrilled into a little peal of laughter.

"Brother Louis!" she cried, clapping her hands, "we have caught you. You must restrain your youthful, your too ardent affections. Your bride is about to confess. This is no time for mandolins and serenades. You should have tried those beneath her windows in Kernsberg. They might have wooed her better than arbalist and mangonel."

The Prince glared at his débonnaire sister as if he could have slain her on the spot.

"I returned," he said formally, speaking to the disguised Maurice, "to inform the Princess that her rooms in the main palace were ready for her whenever she deigns to occupy them."

"I thank you, Prince Louis," returned the false Princess, bowing. In his character of a woman betrayed and led prisoner the Sparhawk was sparing of his words—and for other reasons as well.

"Come, brother, your arm," said the Princess. "You and I must not intrude. We will leave the good Father and his fair penitent. Will you walk with me on the terrace? I, on my part, will listen to your lover's confessions and give you plenary absolution—even for listening at keyholes. Come, dear brother, come!"

And with one gay glance shot backward at the Sparhawk, half over her shoulder, the Lady Margaret took the unwilling arm of her brother and swept out. Verily, as Father Clement had said, she was a royal minx.

CHAPTER XXXII

"Father, I am a servant to the Duchess Joan of Hohenstein and Kernsberg. Maurice von Lynar is my name."

"And pray, how came you so like the Duchess that you can pass muster for her?"

"That I know not. It is an affair upon which I was not consulted. But, indeed, I do it but poorly, and succeed only with those who know her little, and who are in addition men without observation. Both the Princess and yourself saw through me easily enough, and I am in fear every moment I am near Prince Ivan."

"How came the Princess to love you?"

"Well, for one thing, I loved her. For another, I told her so!"

"The points are well taken, but of themselves insufficient," smiled the priest. "So also have others better equipped by fortune to win her favour than you. What else?"

Then, with a certain shamefaced and sulky pride, the Sparhawk told Father Clement all the tale of the mission of the Duchess Joan of Courtland, of the liking the Princess had taken to that lady in her secretary's attire, of the kiss exchanged upon the dark river's bank, the fragrant memory of which had drawn him back to Courtland against his will. And the priest listened like a man of many counsels who knows that the strangest things are the truest, and that the naked truth is always incredible.

"It is a pretty tangle you have made between you," said Father Clement when Maurice finished. "I know not how you could more completely have twisted the skein. Every one is somebody else, and the devil is hard upon the hindmost—or Prince Ivan, which is apparently the same thing."

The priest now withdrew in his turn to where he could watch the Alla curving its back a little in mid-stream as the summer floods rushed seaward from the hills. To true Courtland folk its very bubbles brought counsel as they floated down towards the Baltic.

"Let me see! Let me see!" he murmured, stroking his chin.

Then after a long pause he turned again to the Sparhawk.

"You are of sufficient fortune to maintain the Princess as becomes her rank?"

"I am not a rich man," answered Von Lynar, "but by the grace of the Duchess Joan neither am I a poor one. She hath bestowed on me one of her father's titles, with lands to match."

"So," said the priest; "but will Prince Louis and the Muscovites give you leave to enjoy them?"

"The estates are on the borders of Plassenburg," said Maurice, "and I think the Prince of Plassenburg for his own security will provide against any Muscovite invasion."

"Princes are but princes, though I grant you the Executioner's Son is a good one," answered the priest. "Well, better to marry than to burn, sayeth Holy Writ. It is touch and go, in any event. I will marry you and thereafter betake me to the Abbey of Wolgast, where dwells my very good friend the Abbot Tobias. For old sake's sake he will keep me safe there till this thing blows over."

"With my heart I thank you, my Father," said the Sparhawk, kneeling.

"Nay, do not thank me. Rather thank the pretty insistency of your mistress. Yet it is only bringing you both one step nearer destruction. Walking upon egg-shells is child's play to this. But I never could refuse your sweetheart either a comfit or an absolution all my days. To my shame as a servant of God I say it. I will go and call her in."

He went to the door with a curious smile on his face. He opened it, and there, close by the threshold, was the Princess Margaret, her eyes full of a bright mischief.

"Yes, I was listening," she cried, shaking her head defiantly. "I do not care. So would you, Father, if you had been a woman and in love——"

"God forbid!" said Father Clement, crossing himself.

"You may well make sure of heavenly happiness, my Father, for you will never know what the happiness of earth is!" cried Margaret. "I would rather be a woman and in love, than—than the Pope himself and sit in the chair of St. Peter."

"My daughter, do not be irreverent."

"Father Clement, were you ever in love? No, of course you cannot tell me; but I think you must have been. Your eyes are kind when you look at us. You are going to do what we wish—I know you are. I heard you say so to Maurice. Now begin."

"You speak as if the Holy Sacrament of matrimony were no more than saying 'Abracadabra' over a toadstool to cure warts," said the priest, smiling. "Consider your danger, the evil case in which you will put me when the thing is discovered——"

"I will consider anything, dear Father, if you will only make haste," said the Princess, with a smiling natural vivacity that killed any verbal disrespect.

"Nay, madcap, be patient. We must have a witness whose head sits on his shoulders beyond the risk of Prince Louis's halter or Prince Ivan's Muscovite dagger. What say you to the High Councillor of Plassenburg, Von Dessauer? He is here on an embassy."

The Princess clapped her hands.

"Yes, yes. He will do it. He will keep our secret. He also likes pretty girls."

"Also?" queried Father Clement, with a grave and demure countenance.

"Yes, Father, you know you do——"

"It is a thing most strictly forbidden by Holy Church that in fulfilling the duties of sacred office one should be swayed by any merely human considerations," began the priest, the wrinkles puckering about his eyes, though his lips continued grave.

"Oh, please, save the homily till after sacrament, dear Father!" cried the Princess. "You know you like me, and that you cannot help it."

The priest lifted up his hand and glanced upward, as if deprecating the anger of Heaven.

"Alas, it is too true!" he said, and dropped his hand again swiftly to his side.

"I will go and summon Dessauer myself," she went on. "I will run so quick. I cannot bear to wait."

"Abide ye—abide ye, my daughter," said Father Clement; "let us do even this folly decently and in order. The day is far spent. Let us wait till darkness comes. Then when you are rested—and" (he looked towards the Sparhawk) "the Lady Joan also—I will return with High Councillor Dessauer, who, without observance or suspicion, may pay his respects to the Princesses upon their arrival."

"But, Father, I cannot wait," cried the impetuous bride. "Something might happen long before then. My brother might come. Prince Wasp might find out. The Palace itself might fall—and then I should never be married at all!"

And the very impulsive and high-strung daughter of the reigning house of Courtland put a kerchief to her eyes and tapped the floor with the silken point of her slipper.

The holy Father looked at her a moment and turned his eyes to Maurice von Lynar. Then he shook his head gravely at that proximate bridegroom as one who would say, "If you be neither hanged nor yet burnt here in Courtland—if you get safely out of this with your bride—why, then, Heaven have mercy on your soul!"

CHAPTER XXXIII

Again there came footsteps, quicker and lighter this time; then the crisp rustle of silken skirts, a warm breath of scented air, and the door was closed again. No knocking this time. It was some one who entered as of right.

Then the Princess Margaret, with clasped hands and parted lips, stood still and watched the slumber of the man she loved. Though she knew it not, it was one of the crucial moments in the chronicle of love. If a woman's heart melts from tolerant friendship to a kind of motherhood at the sight of a man asleep; if something draws tight about her heart like the strings of an old-fashioned purse; if there is a pulse beating where no pulse should be, a pleasurable lump in the throat, then it is come—the not-to-be-denied, the long-expected, the inevitable. It is a simple test, and one not always to be applied (as it were) without a doctor's prescription; but, when fairly tried, it is infallible. If a woman is happier listening to a man's quiet breathing than she has ever been hearkening to any other's flattery, it is no longer an affair—it is a passion.

The Princess Margaret sat down by the couch of Maurice von Lynar, and, after this manner of which I have told, her heart was moved within her. As she bent a little over the youth and looked into his sleeping face, the likeness to Joan the Duchess came out more strongly than ever, emerging almost startlingly, as a race stamp stands out on the features of the dead. She bent her head still nearer the slightly parted lips. Then she drew back.

"No," she murmured, smiling at her intent, "I will not—at least, not now. I will wait till I hear them coming."

She stole her hand under the cloak which covered the sleeper till her cool fingers rested on Maurice's hand. He stirred a little, and his lips moved. Then his eyelids quivered to the lifting. But they did not rise. The ear of the Princess was very near them now.

"Margaret!" she heard him say, and as the low whisper reached her she sat erect in her chair with a happy sigh. So wonderful is love and so utterly indifferent to time or place, to circumstance or reason.

The Alla also sighed a sigh to think that their hour would pass so swiftly. So Margaret of Courtland, princess and lover, sat contentedly by the pillow of him who had once been a prisoner in the dungeon of Castle Kernsberg.

But in the palace of the Prince of Courtland time ran even more swiftly than the Alla beneath its walls.

Margaret caught a faint sound far away—footsteps, firm footfalls of men who paced slowly together. And as these came nearer, she could distinguish, mixed with them, the sharp tapping of one who leans upon a staff. She did not hesitate a moment now. She bent down upon the sleeper. Her arm glided under his neck. Her lips met his.

"Maurice," she whispered, "wake, dearest. They are coming."

"Margaret!" he would have answered—but could not.

The greetings were soon over. The tale had already been told to Von Dessauer by Father Clement. The pair stood up under the golden glow of the swinging silver lamps. It was a strange scene. For surely never was marriage more wonderfully celebrated on earth than this of two fair maidens (for so they still appeared) taking hands at the bidding of God's priest and vowing the solemn vows, in the presence of a prince's chancellor, to live only for each other in all the world.

Maurice, tall and dark, a red mantle thrown back from his shoulders, confined at the waist and falling again to the feet, stood holding Margaret's hand, while she, younger and slighter, her skin creamily white, her cheek rose-flushed, her eyes brilliant as with fever, watched Father Clement as if she feared he would omit some essential of the service.