Kings-at-Arms

“This is a more difficult task than punishing the Strelitz or subduing the Cossacks,” he said, with glittering eyes. “Surely it is more pleasure, Danilovitch, to overthrow free men than to put one’s feet on the neck of serfs.”

“The Cossacks will join Karl,” remarked Mentchikoff, kindling eagerly at the Czar’s fire.

“To-morrow we return to Moscow,” said Peter, and his face was as fierce as it had been in the days after his return from his travels, when the streets of the capital had run red with the blood of the old Moscovite army, which had revolted against his foreign reforms.

He pushed back his tangled hair with his wine-stained hand.

“Send for that Livonian woman,” he said, “she amuses me.”

CHAPTER IV

All these were in the habit of Europe, Mentchikoff gorgeous in laced coat, star, cravat, and a flowing French peruke which heavily framed his long, harsh face.

Peter, though affecting the most utter simplicity himself, liked to see those about him richly clad, and his favorites vied with each other in the splendor of their appointments; nothing pleased him more than to see the man who had worked beside him at the carpenter bench at Wapping and Zaandam, clad in workman’s overall, appear in all the trappings of a French or English courtier. To-day he was in a good humor; the boyars had been compliant before his every command; his blood-thirsty vengeance on the reactionary party who had dared to raise a rebellion during his absence abroad was indeed too fresh in the minds of all for anyone to risk angering the terrible Czar.

“I will teach Russia the arts of war as I am teaching her the arts of peace,” he remarked, looking at the Duke of Croy whom he admired as a tried soldier.

The German made a suitably loyal reply, but Mentchikoff broke in with a sharp remark.

“How many years do you think it will take you, Peter Alexievitch?”

“All my life,” replied the Czar humbly.

“All your life,” smiled Croy, “and not the meanest serf in All the Russias will thank you for your labors.”

“What do you mean?” asked Peter.

Croy lifted his shoulders.

“Oh, go on with your wars and your politics and your reforms,” he said cynically. “You are a strong man—but stronger is Holy Russia!”

Peter looked at him with a certain eagerness entirely devoid of anger; though he was so haughtily autocratic with his boyars he would take even insolence from these men whom he had put in the position of his masters; for a long while Croy and his like had represented European civilization to Peter.

But Mentchikoff resented on his master’s behalf this speech made so sharply by the German.

“The Czar holds the Russias in the palm of his hand,” he said haughtily.

“Oh, la, la!” cried the Duke.

Peter smiled grimly; he was thinking of the little chapel a few yards away, from the window of which his uncle had been hurled out on to the pikes of the soldiery below, and of his own boyhood of flight, and peril, and hiding; not far away in this same fierce fortress was the Red Staircase where Ivan the Terrible had stood to watch the cross-formed comet that had predicted his own ghastly end, that staircase where, one blood-stained June, Feodor Borisvitch, strangled by the sheltsi, had been flung down, this but in revenge for another murdered Czar; the history of his predecessors might indeed teach Peter that Holy Russia was not so easily governed or so rapidly subdued.

“The House of Romanoff has had its misfortunes but also its greatness,” he said simply.

“And yet may give a lesson to the impertinent Swede,” said Mentchikoff haughtily.

“He is a great soldier,” added Croy, in his stern way.

The Czar’s face darkened; he rose abruptly, his great height overtopping all of them.

“If he throws himself against Russia, he breaks himself,” he remarked gloomily.

“He will attempt anything,” said Croy; his imagination like that of most men of action had been fired by the figure of the Northern hero, who, like another Viking, had arisen to defend his country with so much majesty and cold magnanimity.

Peter did not care to hear his General praise his enemy.

“Where is Patkul; has he not returned?” he asked briefly. “He should have been here—I want news from Livonia.”

No one knew where Patkul might be; it was not easy to travel in the vast kingdoms of the Czar, and a man might be late in obeying his sovereign’s commands, and his letters might be lost, for no other reason than the size of the country and the primitive confusions of all its services.

Peter would have liked the presence of the fiery Livonian, with his rage against Swedish tyranny and his hatred of Karl XI, who had condemned him to death for protesting against the wrongs of his countrymen, and his scorn for the present King as a haughty boy who would soon be tripped up in his giant’s stride.

But Patkul, at present with Augustus of Saxony as ambassador of Russia, had not come nor answered the summons, and Peter knew very little of what was happening in any of the Baltic provinces; he saw them in his mind as a vast confusion, and felt impatient considering how much there was to be done and how inadequate his means were; his military plans had got no further than a proposed expedition to Esthonia, to seize, if possible, that province, and to send help to Augustus in Poland, or rather to effect a juncture with him, as Peter greatly relied on the trained Saxon troops and the polished diplomacy of the Elector; General Patkul should be with the Polish army, Peter knew, but since Dahlberg had worsted him at Riga, the Livonian’s credit as a soldier had fallen in the Czar’s eyes and he wished to consult with Augustus.

He was conscious of defects in his own statecraft; the Muscovite envoys whom he kept in Stockholm to swear friendly relations with Sweden had merely angered and disgusted the severe honor of the Northern King, and the Russian manifesto, in which the most puerile reasons were given for declaring war, had been better if never published; but so far no Czar of Russia had ever published any document concerning European diplomacy; in everything Peter trod new ground and was keenly conscious of his numerous mistakes.

“I will go to Poland,” he said, his words following out his train of thought.

“You will have to defeat Sweden first, sire,” replied Croy.

“Well,” said Peter gloomily, “one can try. We march against Narva. The Swedes do not fear a winter campaign—since they are willing to fight amid the ice we must learn to do so also.”

Saying these words with a certain simplicity, he abruptly left the chamber, and, passing through a maze of gilt and painted apartments, came out on the great terrace of the Kremlin that overlooks Moscow and the bridges over the Moskva.

He felt neither excited nor elated; perhaps he knew better than either Croy or Mentchikoff the difficulty of this, his first great enterprise, for, by the measure of his own wild heart he could judge of the greatness of his rival in glory; extraordinary himself, he found it easy to credit the extraordinary in others, and just as he was prepared to open war in the depth of winter, in a Polar climate, so he believed that Karl would be ready to meet him; nothing could prevent him from carrying out his ambitions, even if he had to perform feats that in the eyes of ordinary men were madnesses, and he rightly gauged his enemy’s character to be the same in this respect.

He was glad that it was not possible to open the campaign till the winter, for he considered the added difficulty an added glory; with that sense of his own deficiency that was his truest greatness he did not intend to command his army himself, but to serve in it as a lieutenant, thereby giving the Russians a lesson in discipline and the value of training, for he was aware that his soldiers would consist of a horde of armed slaves and his officers of lawless nobles without experience or any capacity for warfare.

But here again his pride supported him; the more impossible the material, the greater the glory of creating for Russia an army that should out-rival those of Europe.

With a quiet step he walked the terrace of the fierce old palace, half-fortress, half-monastery, filled with churches and tombs, treasures and chambers, haunted by the remembrances of cruelty and bitter passions, all old, half-decayed, half-vividly splendid, dirty, holy, secret, and foul.

Peter did not greatly care for this residence of his predecessors; he preferred the little cottage that he called Marli or any of the humble houses in the Dutch style that he had built since his return from Europe; the Kremlin oppressed him; there was something in the atmosphere that seemed to drag him back into the old ways of his ancestors here; his green uniform and his foreign friends could not disguise from himself his Tartar origin, his Asiatic breeding, which everything he touched reminded him of; neither did he love Moscow with that reverent love that he knew was in the heart of most Russians; he dreamt of that other city that was to spring out of the mudbanks of the Neva and rival Paris and London.

Pausing in his walk, he turned his soft and beautiful eyes over the prospect of the barbaric city which glittered in many brilliancies under the pale, greenish sky which was fading towards the evening hour; near by, beneath the battlements, was the river, full of reflected light, but void of color; beyond the plain was covered with crowded houses, a confusion of roofs of a dull brown hue above which rose the myriad cupolas and towers of the churches, shaped like strange fruits and decorated with fantastic designs in every color and shape, only alike in this, that each had the Christian cross surmounting the Tartar crescent, memorial of the time when the Asiatic hordes had possession of Russia and had changed the churches into mosques and of Ivan Vassilivitch who raised the symbol of Christ above that of the Infidel.

These crosses were all fastened by golden chains to the cupolas, and many were hung with discs, orbs, and stars that swung and glittered with every changing wind or shifting sunbeam.

Despite the splendor of the churches there was something dull, colorless, and melancholy about this prospect.

The Kremlin (a city in itself) was also gloomy; when Peter turned from looking over the city he could see, across the sandy, weed-grown courtyard, the whole of the citadel; the golden domes rising above walls disfigured and neglected, the three old cathedrals where the Czars were crowned, married, and buried, the great tower built by Boris Godunof, and behind all the red structure of the palace and fortress.

Peter was never pleased when his glance fell on these three churches that crowded round his royal residence; they reminded him too forcibly of the position assumed by the Church.

Peter meant to deprive the Patriarch of much of his power, and to vest in himself the religious as well as the temporal prerogatives of Aristocrat of All the Russias.

He began pacing up and down the terrace again, and presently took from the skirt pocket of his uniform a little letter which he read while the evening breeze fluttered it in his hand.

It was an appeal from his sister, miserably confined in the convent of Novo-Devichi, for a slightly better treatment; she was very ill, she said, having grown too stout and being covered with ulcers, and she begged for a little air and exercise.

Peter read the appeal with unmoved serenity; Sophia had inspired the late rebellion and could never be forgiven.

“A pity,” thought Peter, “for she is clever and might have been useful to me.”

He considered that he had been extremely generous in allowing her her life; the heads of her supporters still rotted on the battlements of Moscow; his wife, Eudoxia, suspected of favoring the rebels, was enclosed in a convent with a shaven head that last day of September, in the Krasnoi Ploshtshad, Peter had executed with his own hand several of the wretched rebels already broken by torture, and had himself shaved the beards the nobility wore as a sign of their adherence to ancient custom; on the first day alone of the executions, two hundred persons had been ferociously put to death in the presence of their frantic wives and children; in the seven days’ vengeance more than a thousand had perished; the bleeding members of the rebellious Strelitz had been nailed to the bars of Sophia’s prison; every square in Moscow, every corner of the battlements of the Kremlin, had been hung with corpses.

And Sophia, who had been spared, ventured to complain of her prison!

The only effect of her letter was to make her brother resolve that if she gave any trouble during his present absence she should be strangled in the jail she found so irksome.

Tearing the paper into little pieces he cast it away, so that the fragments floated down the terrace and lodged in the broken pavement and the weed-filled terraces of the wall.

The sunset glow, pale and dim, but faintly tinged with a warm light, was now full on his smooth and rounded face with the large soft eyes and the loose curls; he looked younger than his years, an ardent boy; his thoughts had turned to his new adventure, the coming experiment of war.

He returned to his own chamber, not speaking to those whom he met on the way, walking softly through the gorgeous and dismal apartments of the Kremlin, with his hands locked behind the skirts of his coat and his head bent.

His room had a gold-domed ceiling and walls of sparkling mosaic, a holy picture set with precious stones between two pillars of gilt vermilion and Eastern carpets of silk on the floor, but the furniture was that of a camp, and the iron bedstead was covered only by the meanest blankets.

On a bright green cushion by the closed window sat Marpha, the Livonian peasant; she wore a plain white wool robe girdled with scarlet, and orange leather shoes; her head-dress had been removed and her bright opulent hair hung in heavy locks over her broad shoulders.

On the floor in front of her stood the crowns of the Russias, and she was playing with these in turn, like a child fondling toys, while on her lap was a bag of sweetmeats from which she fed herself continually, eating noisily and licking the sugar from her lips.

When the Czar entered she had in her left hand the plain gold crown of the Crimea, and before her the massive crowns of Astrakan, Kazan, Siberia, and Georgia, which pulsed with the light held and given forth by a thousand precious stones.

Peter looked at her with the eyes of love.

“Have you ever had such pretty playthings?” he asked.

Marpha glanced at him without either greed or envy in her expression.

“I would rather have an ivory comb,” she said simply, and rose with the crowns in a half-circle at her feet.

“You shall have,” answered Peter tenderly, “as many ivory combs as there are hairs in your head.”

He crossed over to her and embraced her, resting his head, with a little sigh, on her bosom; she looked down at him calmly and with a certain indulgence.

“Marpha,” he asked, “will you come to the war with me?”

“Still thinking of the war?” she replied gaily. “Have you had your supper? Will you eat here with me instead of with your boyars to-night? I have the kvas ready.”

Peter lifted his head and looked at her; the atmosphere of the room was close and foul, the air full of flies and mosquitoes; both the room and the woman were dirty; her gown was soiled, her face and hands sticky with perspiration and sugar; the taint of brandy was in her breath, and her expressionless beauty was clouded by her slovenliness. But the Czar saw none of these things; he felt as happy as he had ever felt in his life as he flung himself into one of the camp chairs, and she hastened to bring him his drink; the native spirit and fine French wine in equal parts.

He drank this, glass after glass, as the woman went into the inner room and prepared the rude supper, singing in a sweet voice and thinking of nothing much but the good, plentiful food and the fine, plentiful drink and the gay dresses and lazy days now within her reach.

And Peter, as he became inflamed with the spirit, imagined himself crushing the Swedes as he had crushed the rebellious Strelitz, and he nodded at the pale-faced ikon between the scarlet pillars, promising it an egg-shaped emerald when he should have taken Narva.

BOOK III

JOHN RHEINHOLD PATKUL

CHAPTER I

John Rheinhold Patkul, the Livonian noble who had been largely instrumental in forming the threefold secret treaty against Sweden, who had been first in the service of the Elector of Saxony and afterwards Peter’s envoy at Dresden, was now with the Muscovite army, and the report of his presence there further inflamed the cold anger of the King of Sweden, who, crossing the sea with a fine fleet of transport, was marching towards Narva six weeks after Peter had commenced the siege, regardless alike of the increasing rigors of the winter and the disparity of numbers between his own army and that of the Czar.

He had reason for his confidence, for it was in numbers only that Peter had the advantage.

A skilled general with a disciplined army would have been able to reduce the little town of Narva into ashes in a few days, perhaps hours; Peter had sat down before it six weeks in vain, while the Baron de Horn, in command of the beleaguered garrison, was able, with his few pieces of cannon, to again and again level the trenches, redoubts, and fortifications that Peter had constructed round his camp, in accordance with what he had learnt in his travels.

These rude attempts at the science of war were complete failures; 150 cannon could scarcely be fired and could never hit their objective; nearly 65,000 men remained helpless before a garrison of 1000, in a small ill-protected town.

Peter, in no way sparing himself (he still held the rank of lieutenant in his own army), spent his days going from one part of his camp to another, instructing, working, exhorting, threatening, enduring all the hardships of the terrible weather and the inadequate supplies of the badly provisioned army.

The Duke of Croy was in command; an able soldier, trained in the traditions of European warfare, he yet was incapable of controlling an army consisting largely of a horde of peasants, dressed in skins, armed with scythes, pruning knives, and officered by a haughty and ignorant nobility, who knew neither how to enforce obedience nor how to submit to discipline.

There was not one good gunner in the whole army and no one who had seen a siege before; the only passable troops were the Strelitz, decimated by Peter’s late vengeance on their reactionary spirit and only accustomed to Eastern and Asiatic methods of warfare.

Day after day Peter, dressed in the old green uniform, with a worn fur cap and mantle, smoking a Dutch clay pipe, watched, with a dogged patience, the erections of fortifications that Horn’s artillery always accurately demolished; his brooding gaze traveled over his soldiers, courageous, robust, and willing, but completely ignorant and uncontrollable, and he thought of what he had yet to do for Russia.

Easier to build his city on the marshes of the Neva than to frame out of these an army that would defeat Karl of Sweden! He became melancholy and fierce; neither Mentchikoff nor Patkul nor Croy could divert his gloomy musings; the only creature who had any power to soothe him was Marpha, the Livonian peasant, whom he had brought with him and who bloomed like a winter rose amid the rough life of the camp; she enjoyed her surroundings, could give or take a rude jest with the least of the soldiery, wait on the Czar like a foot-boy, yet be a wild Aspasia to this strange Pericles.

The King of Sweden, with about 8000 men, of which the half were cavalry, landed at Pernau in the gulf of Riga; with all the horse and about half of the foot he advanced at once on Revel, without waiting for the rest of his troops.

Peter meanwhile had left the army before Narva in charge of the Duke of Croy, and had himself hastened to Pskov to bring up a new body of 30,000 troops; his design being to enclose Karl between two armies; he had already thrown across the road from Revel to Narva 55,000 men, including his best troops, the Strelitz, 5000 of which formed an advance guard, who soon found themselves facing the first regiments of the King of Sweden’s army.

The Strelitz were so well posted among the rocks that a far fewer number than they possessed could have easily hindered the approach of a much larger army than that possessed by Karl, but the Russians, not knowing what they had to face and believing the Swedes innumerable as well as excellent, fled with little resistance. This panic communicated itself to their compatriots behind them, and in two days the Swedes had swept before them 25,000 men, taken all the Russian outposts, and appeared before the Czar’s entrenchments before Narva.

It was a black morning of dreadful cold, the last day of November, when Karl found himself before the army of Peter.

A gray sky hung heavily over the desolate landscape and seemed to press heavily on the bare trees; the Swedes were fatigued with the march from Pernau and the encounters with the Russians on the road; Karl called a halt.

A young Scotchman in his army, who had several times proved himself useful in delicate work of espionage, had managed to get ahead of the army and penetrate the Russian lines; the news he brought was considered interesting enough to cause him to be taken before the King.

He had never seen Karl XII face to face, and it was with considerable curiosity that he followed the staff officer who took him into the royal presence.

The army was taking a few hours’ repose, but no tents had been set up, and the Scotchman found Karl seated on the great roots of a huge pine tree, with him Count Piper and several generals.

He was already completely inured to hardships for which his childish training had well fitted him, and suffered from the severities of warfare perhaps less than any of his soldiers.

He was now only a few months past his eighteenth birthday, but in every respect had reached his full development; his great height and powerful figure made him conspicuous even among an army of robust and vigorous men; he had the grace of the athlete and the dignity of a king in his carriage, yet there was an awkwardness, a stiffness in his manners that might have been haughtiness or indifference or even shyness; his expression was cold and unchanging, his speech abrupt and plain; he gave no impression of youth save in the softness of his traits and the slackness of his figure.

He wore a blue uniform, tight waisted and with a full skirt, closely fastened with buttons of gilt leather up to the throat and showing no shirt, but only the plain band of the black satin cravat; an ordinary leather belt and strap supported his sword, and long gauntlet gloves reached to his elbow, his soft knee boots and his breeches were alike of leather; he wore a three-cornered black hat set well on his head, and his fair hair arranged in curls like a peruke on his shoulders.

He had a mantle of blue cloth, lined with fur, but this, despite the freezing cold, was cast on the ground beside him; his face, yet beardless and showing, notwithstanding the exposure to intemperate weather, still the bloom of extreme youth, had hardened in outline since he had begun the life of a soldier; the features were firm as a mask of stone, fresh with the warm tints of health, generous and full in line and curve; neither enthusiasm nor humor, nor pride, nor tenderness showed in his expression; his blue eyes looked out with a cold, level, and serene glance; he had the air of one dwelling in a world of his own with little care for others.

The Scotchman thought him remarkable but neither agreeable nor attractive; the King had a personality too aloof from warm and human weaknesses to command sympathy from ordinary men; he had many servants but few friends, much admiration, but little love.

“Tell me,” he said at once, as the young man was presented to him, “did you see the Czar of Muscovy?”

The Scotchman saw that the King attached much importance to this question, and was chagrined that he could not answer in the affirmative.

“Sire, the Czar has left his army to hasten up the reserves.”

“I should like to have met him in the battle,” said Karl, but without a trace of annoyance. “The reserves could have come up without him. I think he did ill to leave his post now.”

“It looks,” said one of the generals who stood beside the King, “as if he was afraid of your Majesty.”

“That is impossible,” replied Karl quietly, “for I take him to be a great man.”

“But it is true, sire,” put in the Scot, “that the Muscovites have a great terror of your Majesty; I was in their camp last night and heard them speak of you and your exploits as they might have spoken of supernatural things.”

“It needs but a poor prowess to achieve a reputation in the eyes of savages,” replied the King, still cold and unmoved. “These Russians are both ignorant and wild. How came you, sir, to escape detection?”

“I speak the German very well, sire, and passed for the servant of a German officer, of whom they have several, and their camp is in such a confusion one might almost come and go as one pleases.”

“They know nothing of war,” observed Karl, “but the Czar will teach them.”

“He seems much loved—though unjustly cruel and unwisely generous. I saw his friend, Mentchikoff, and the Livonian woman who they say has a great influence over him.”

Karl smiled, as if he was glad to hear of this weakness in his rival; there was not a woman in the whole of the Swedish army; the Scot remarked how disagreeable his smile was; it seemed to disfigure his noble face.

“Saw you this woman?” he asked.

“Yes, sire, at the door of Peter’s empty tent, making kvas, as they call the stuff they drink. She had a fur coat of uncouth cut and was all smeared with meal and honey, but in her way she is as beautiful as Aurora von Königsmarck.”

The King abruptly changed the subject as if he regretted having shown even so much interest in the affairs of his enemy.

“You learnt nothing of importance?” he asked with great indifference; he had only spoken to the spy because he wished to know if Peter was with his army; as to his own actions, he had decided what they were to be ever since he had landed at Pernau.

The Scotchman proceeded to tell him of what he had learnt of the enemy, their number, disposition, and probable plans.

Karl listened with patience, but with so cold a mien that the young man faltered in his speech; the King’s face, blank as it was of all but courageous steadfastness, overawed him and made him uneasy; he felt that he spoke to one utterly beyond his knowledge or liking; he was glad when he was dismissed.

As he went Karl rose from the tree roots, overtopping, by nearly half a head, his tallest officer; the air was still and freezing, and a few flakes of ghastly white snow began to flutter from the bitter sky.

“We should be able to attack at midday,” said the King; it was then about ten o’clock.

“Your Majesty has considered the peril?” asked General Rehnsköld. “By all accounts we must be outnumbered by a hundred to one, and they are entrenched and fortified.”

Karl stooped and took up his mantle, shaking from it the first flakes of snow that were large and hard.

“Do you doubt,” he answered, “that I, with 8000 Swedes, can pass over the bodies of 80,000 Muscovites?”

He swung the mantle round his great shoulders and then added instantly, fearful that he had seemed to boast, a thing his pride loathed: “Are you not really of my opinion, Rehnsköld? I have two great advantages—he cannot use his cavalry, and as the ground is enclosed his great numbers will be but an encumbrance. It is I who am really stronger than he, and have all the advantages.”

General Rehnsköld bowed his head in assent; there was not one of the staff officers behind him who did not consider the young King’s action rash to madness.

Karl saw this; for their opinion he cared nothing; but he greatly disliked to be suspected of bravado; his was not the unconscious modesty of a man who knows not he is great nor that his actions are remarkable, but the conscious austerity of one who is aware he is extraordinary and wishes to be acclaimed, but not by his own tongue.

“If I defeat the Czar here, Cracow and Varsovia are open to me,” he said, turning his blue eyes on the quiet faces of his officers.

Again General Rehnsköld bowed.

“I am entirely of your Majesty’s opinion.”

“At least you submit very gracefully, General,” replied Karl, with his ugly smile.

He turned away and Count Piper followed him.

“He will be as hard and obstinate as his father,” remarked an officer, shivering under his fur, for the cold was of Polar intensity.

“Eight thousand men against eighty thousand!” exclaimed another. “He thinks to rival Leonidas or one of his saga heroes.”

“Gentlemen,” said Rehnsköld, “I think he will do it.”

The King and Count Piper mounted and cantered along the lines of the resting army; Karl had taken no deliberations and held no councils. He considered that there was nothing to do but to give the order to attack; after a brief survey of his men he would be back with his staff under the great pine.

Count Piper, who was not a soldier but a true patriot, glanced several times at what the black hat and full fair curls allowed him to see of the King’s face.

He had been very eager to urge him into a defensive war, but he had never dreamed of these reckless projects, this complete absorption in war for war’s sake; he secretly suspected that all the cold but deep passion of the King’s nature was concentrated, not on the desire to better Sweden, but on the design of making for himself the reputation of an invincible captain; the main object of the war was achieved in the restoration of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp to his dominions; but Karl had never said a word of returning to Stockholm, even for a visit, and the last advices from the Council of Regency in the capital he had thrust in his pocket without reading, and he had embarked on this desperate winter campaign, with no purpose that Count Piper could see but that of making the world stare.

“As long as these mad exploits are successful——” thought the statesman, “but his first failure will cost us all Gustavas Vasa gained!” He could not resist the endeavor to rouse Karl from his passive hardness.

“When your Majesty has beaten the Czar of Muscovy, will you be content?”

“There is still Augustus,” replied the King; he glanced up at the snow-filled air. “Look, the storm is blowing towards the enemy, we shall have it at our backs, they in their eyes—did I not say I was fortunate?”

Count Piper shivered; the weather was black and bitter enough to freeze a man’s soul; he wished Karl’s ardor for glory had stopped short of battle in midwinter at a latitude of 30 degrees Polar, with odds of a hundred to one.

“You are cold?” asked Karl. “I like the snow. I wish Peter was with his men. Surely he will return from Pskov.”

His blue eyes cast a bright glance over the precise ranks of his perfectly disciplined soldiers; men who had prayers twice a day and lived like athletes in training.

“I had an item of news from Stockholm when last I heard,” said the Count, as they turned their horses’ heads. “Viktoria Falkenberg is dead. It seems that she had long concealed a fatal complaint.”

The King’s expressionless face did not alter; he was skilfully guiding his horse over the rough ground, already white with snow.

“The signal for the charge,” he remarked, “will be two shots—the passwords—‘God with us.’”

A darkness enclosed the world with the soft descent of the snow; the flakes hung in the folds of the King’s mantle and in his curls; his hat was covered; the ground was frozen, the tops of the gaunt pines hidden in the whirling storm; the rigid ranks of Sweden showed a darkness amid the dark; facing them were the black gaping cannon of the vast army of the Czar; even beneath their fur caftans the Russians were numb; Marpha, wrapped in skins and wools, stared at a picture of St. Nicholas Mentchikoff had thrust into her hands, but she was not praying but thinking of the absent Czar; she wished he was back in the dirty tent where she could minister to him and prepare him for the fight.

“I wonder if he is afraid of that boy?” she thought, then suddenly crouched low as the sound of the Swedish cannon scattered the storm; Karl and his eight thousand were hurling themselves on the ranks of Muscovy; Marpha crept to the tent door and looked out, but the snow swirled in and blinded her; again the cannon and distant shouts; she sat huddled and silent, hating her lover for not being there.

CHAPTER II

Augustus flushed, but smiled and slightly raised his eyebrows, glancing at the third occupant of the chamber which was the best parlor of the best house in Birsen. This gentleman was John Rheinhold Patkul, the prime author of the league against Sweden, at first in the employment of Saxony, now in the service of Peter whom he continued to represent at Dresden.

He looked at the Czar now with a glance of affection and spoke quietly.

“I am sure that your Majesty will completely revenge Narva.”

“Thank you, General Patkul,” said Peter sullenly, “but whatever you or any other man believe, I am sure I shall humble that haughty boy.”

He put his elbows on the corner of the black oak table near which he sat and supported his face in his brown hands.

The persons of these three men were in great contrast, and it was plain that some extraordinary event outside their own volition or inclination had brought them together. Peter wore his shabby green uniform, cracked and old top-boots, a sword and belt like those of a common soldier, his own tumbled short and dusky curls, only his linen was fine and clean where it showed above the high buttoned coat; for the rest he might have been a trooper, disordered after a day’s march.

Augustus, who sat in a great chair with arms near the log fire, was a man of a physical strength famous throughout Europe; he was as tall as the Czar and far more powerfully made, the splendid Karl would have appeared a stripling beside him for he was now in the prime of his manhood; a magnificent prince like the hero of a fairy-tale to the eye, for he was extremely good-looking in a pleasing, conventional fashion, gracious, easy in manner, full of fire and chivalry, and elegant as any courtier of Louis XIV; his court was considered next to that of Versailles for brilliancy, extravagance, and elegance, and he had made Dresden nearly as fashionable as Paris.

He also wore riding costume, but in complete contrast to the habiliments of the Czar; a mantle of dark blue silk, lined with black fur, was flung back on his shoulders and fastened across the breast with gold clasps; his coat was of fine deep crimson cloth gallooned with silver; his rich laces, fastened with a black bow at the throat, fell over a white satin waistcoat heavily embroidered in colored silks; his close knee-boots were of the softest leather, his spurs gilt, his sword and baldrick very handsome and tasseled; his kindly, charming face was framed in the rich curls of a long peruke, and on the chair beside him were his huge gauntlet gloves, his black hat with long white plumes and his gold-headed riding-crop.

He looked both disinterested and slightly ill at ease, though his air was one of perfect courtesy, and he seemed to pay more attention to the Livonian nobleman than to the Muscovite Czar—finding the former more to his ideas of civilization.

This man, who had already played such a considerable but more or less secret part in the politics of Northern Europe, and who now defied Karl XII with his sword as he had defied Karl XI with his eloquence, was still young, but of an appearance ordinary compared to that of the two princes.

He was fair, of medium height, with blunt features and earnest gray eyes, an expression enthusiastic and serious; he wore the uniform of a Saxon General, and his peruke was tied with a black ribbon; his personality was sincere and attractive, and to any who knew his history there was round him the fascination of lost causes and forlorn hopes, the romance of the fanatic and the patriot, for Patkul had only lived with the one object of rescuing his country from the tyranny of Sweden.

He had been elected as spokesman to put the wrongs of Livonia before Karl XI; that stern monarch had received him graciously.

“You have spoken for your country like a brave man, and I respect you for it,” he had said, but the next day Patkul had been arrested on a charge of treason; he had broken prison and escaped abroad, and from then had been the steady enemy of Karl XI and his son.

To Augustus he had been of infinite value, and he had only left the court of Dresden because his single-mindedness, his haughty spirit, and ardent purpose had accorded ill with the frivolous atmosphere, bed-chamber plots, and petty intrigues of the Elector’s court; in Peter he had found a more congenial master, but a sentimental tie still bound him to Dresden; he was betrothed to a good and beautiful Saxon lady, Mdle. D’Einsiedel.

The sincerity and simplicity of this love affair was in contrast to the fashion of the moment; Augustus was slightly cynical and Peter did not understand, but Patkul was not greatly concerned in these princes’ opinion of his private concern; they were to him but instruments to free Livonia and humble Sweden, though for Peter Alexis he felt a certain affection, for the Czar was also struggling with a gigantic, perhaps hopeless, task.

Augustus glanced with some disgust at the somber figure of Peter; the moods and melancholies of the wild, diseased Muscovite were very repellent to the healthy, ease-loving Saxon; secretly he cursed the alliance with Russia (though he was too good-natured to blame its author, Patkul), and wished that he had found some less dangerous excuse for keeping his standing army.

However, he had to force on his reluctant and somewhat lazy mind that he was in a perilous position; Karl had defeated Denmark (who no longer counted as a member of the league) and defeated Russia, and there could be little doubt that the stern and haughty young conqueror would now turn his arms against Poland; the King-Elector saw no ally and no chance of support save in the Czar.

The treaty of Altona kept England and Holland tacitly at least on the side of Sweden, and Augustus had never been looked upon well by France, whose princes he had defeated in the candidature for the Polish throne.

His defensive measures must be taken in concert with Peter; a defeated man, certainly, but one of immense resources and genius.

“While we talk, Sweden will act,” he said, with a slightly quizzical smile, his good humor after all carrying the day in the struggle with his irritation against the mood of the incomprehensible Peter; he rose, very gorgeous and making the room look mean. “Let us have our dinner,” he added, “and then come to some serious conversation.”

“Which has been too long delayed, sire,” remarked General Patkul quietly; already the meeting between kings and ministers was several days old, and nothing had taken place but mutual compliments and mutual entertainments in which all had joined from Peter and Augustus to the meanest secretary in their train; Patkul, the only man who had kept quite aloof, was probably the only man in Birsen now completely sober; it was the reaction from debauch that had plunged Peter into melancholy, and Augustus was heavy-headed and heavy-eyed.

“Too long delayed,” he agreed smoothly. “Karl will not spend much longer before Narva—why, having achieved his end, he cannot go home——”

Peter looked up.

“Achieved his end?” he questioned.

“Has he not got back Holstein-Gottorp and checked the invasion into his Baltic provinces?”

“And you think that was his end!” exclaimed the Czar contemptuously. “No, he wishes to dethrone you and me.”

Augustus laughed at this abrupt statement.

“A second Alexander? Not in these times, sire,” he replied. “Not even a vain boy would dream of world conquest now—especially after the lessons of Ryswick; what Louis could not accomplish Karl will hardly attempt.”

“I think that he will,” said Peter, measuring the Swede’s spirit by his own.

He was seconded by the Livonian.

“I think that you are right, sire; there is no end to what Karl will attempt—perhaps no end to what he will achieve. I think his Saxon Majesty can hardly conceive the type, hard, cold, justly cruel and justly generous—a man without mercy for himself or others, austere, awkward, without grace or charm, yet underneath half-mad with pride, with obstinacy, with the old Viking blood lust, the old Berserker fury against those who oppose him.”

Patkul spoke with a feeling that pleased Peter, always intensely interested in anything to do with his rival.

“He is reputed virtuous,” said the Czar.

“Virtuous!” exclaimed Patkul, with a flush in his blond face. “Yes—he has prayers twice a day in his camp, and his soldiers do not take a slice of bread that they do not pay for; he lives the life of a Spartan and a monk, for it is his vanity to be considered above the weaknesses of mankind, but he would see Sweden go to perdition sooner than forgo one of his mad schemes or sacrifice one leaf from the laurels of his barren victories!”

“You speak from your knowledge of his father,” said Augustus.

“From my knowledge of the race, sir. Karl XI thought something of the good of his people, and embarked on no useless conquests, but the type was the same—a man of granite. He killed his Queen with his hardness. I think that he never said a kind word, all his days, to anyone.”

“And no woman was ever found to soften him?” asked Augustus, who was trained in the traditions of Versailles.

“Never. They say that this man is the same,” replied Patkul. “He prefers to govern his passions rather than to risk female domination and has resolved never to look on a fair face.”

“I will send him Marpha,” said Peter gravely. “She would twine round the heart of a saint.”

At the thought of such an ambassadress being sent to bewitch the haughty young conqueror with her crude charms, and the spectacle of the Czar’s entire belief in the illiterate camp follower with her rude speech and neglected person who so offended the fastidious taste of the Saxon, Augustus could not repress a smile of contempt.

Peter perceived it and rose; little flames of wrath sparkled in his full brown eyes.

“Well, send him Aurora von Königsmarck,” he cried violently.

Augustus was utterly taken aback; he had never so been spoken to nor surrounded by other than refinement and elegance; to even hear the name of Aurora on the lips of Peter was a profanation, but to listen to her, one of the admired women of Europe, the Montespan of his Versailles, coupled, in this odious connection, with the Livonian peasant, raised by the mad caprice of Peter, made him put his hand to his sword.

“Well,” said the Czar, with dangerous softness, “why not your woman as well as mine?”

Patkul intervened.

“Leave the names of women, sire,” he said quickly and with some authority. “The King of Sweden is not, in any case, to be outwitted that way.”

Augustus recovered his composure by reminding himself that he had to deal with a man almost wholly a savage.

“At least you will leave the name of the Countess von Königsmarck, sir,” he said coldly.

Peter laughed with rude contempt; he had no respect for any woman, and the brilliant Aurora who ruled the superb court of Dresden was no better in his mind than Marpha, who stirred the kvas and drank brandy in his dirty hut or tent.

Augustus did not like this laugh and spoke again, to avoid a quarrel.

“Surely it is time we joined Mentchikoff for dinner,” and he glanced patiently at the cold winter day beyond the window.

“You are very fond of your dinner,” said Peter, who turned from the French cooking provided by Augustus to devour half-cooked greasy meat and parboiled vegetables soaked in vinegar.

The King-Elector, perfectly master of himself, turned easily to Patkul.

“General,” he said, “escort His Majesty to the dining-hall.”

And with that he left the room, gathering up gracefully his hat, gloves, and whip.

“He is a silly fribble and a besotted rake,” said Peter angrily, as the door closed.

“He has a fine army, sire,” replied Patkul quietly; he was used to managing both these men, so utterly different and both so necessary to his great schemes.

“Yes,” admitted the Czar sullenly, with envy in his eyes.

“The sort of army that is needful to defeat Sweden—come here, sire,” he beckoned Peter to the window and pointed out, in the courtyard of the modest house, the Saxon guard who had been appointed to attend on Peter during his residence at Birsen. “Are they not splendid fellows? And those passing, of the Brandenbourg regiment—and Augustus has thousands of such men.”

Peter’s haggard eyes lit with professional enthusiasm.

“I will have men like that, Patkul.”

“Meanwhile it is useful to tolerate the Elector, sire.”

“And choke myself with his French sauces, and grimace with him over his compliments.”

“Well,” said Patkul gravely, “I think your Majesties have some tastes in common; you have been drunk together for three days on end, and that should have promoted some fellow-feeling.”

The Czar gave no answer and Prince Mentchikoff entered the room; he was dressed magnificently, and in tolerable imitation of the Saxon nobility; the peasant had acquired Western polish more easily than the Czar.

Peter greeted him affectionately, taking his face between his hands and kissing him; it was the first time he had seen him that day for Mentchikoff had been sleeping off the effects of last night’s orgy.

Patkul left the two Russians together, and hastened after Augustus who was already seated at table with several of his ministers and officers.

“You wish yourself back at Dresden, no?” he greeted the Livonian pleasantly.

“Sire,” replied Patkul, “I should not care to be back at Dresden thinking that this meeting had been fruitless.”

“You are right,” said Augustus, gravely, “and the sooner we finish this treaty the sooner we can return,” and his eyes shone, as he thought of his Aurora.

Patkul completed the treaty that day; the Czar was to send into Poland 50,000 men to learn to become soldiers, and, in the space of two years, to pay to the Czar 3,000,000 rix-dollars; Augustus was to levy from neighboring princes 50,000 trained German troops to send into Russia; this treaty, that seemed to lay the foundation for the greatness of the Czar and the ruin of Sweden, once completed, Patkul would have made instant preparations to put it into force; but Augustus, despite the attractions of his gorgeous darling and his fears for the safety of his kingdom, joined Peter in a week-long debauch.

Meanwhile Sweden, breaking camp at Narva, marched on Riga, and Patkul, unable to endure the idle orgies, obtained permission to join the Saxon troops under Courlande and Steinau, who were defending the passage of the Dwina against the conqueror.

CHAPTER III

“Tell me about it,” coaxed Aurora, leaning forward so that her beautiful head peered over the gilt edge of the settee. “Tell me what it is like to be in love—in love!—in that way?”

“I am sorry for you that you do not know. Countess,” smiled Hélène D’Einsiedel, still amusing herself with the bird and not looking round.

Aurora von Königsmarck studied her with a curiosity that was not entirely without malice and envy.

The young girl (she was hardly more than seventeen) made a beautiful picture in her full rose-colored dress, seated on rose-colored cushions, with rainbow-hued silk ribbons at her slender waist, and in her loosely dressed pale hair, silk flowers; forget-me-nots and roses were amid the fine laces on her open bosom, pearls in her ears and round her throat; her delicate features shone fair with youth and health, grace and breed; she was wealthy, noble, nurtured in a corrupt and brilliant court, and she had consented to bestow her hand on a man who was no more than a political adventurer; native of a country supposed half-savage and with no particular attractions of person or manner, John Rheinhold Patkul had never been popular with the courtiers of Augustus, but he had inspired this girl with an intense devotion that no opposition could shake.

She continued with undisturbed grace to feed the parrot; behind her was a tapestry of a woodland scene, gray-green in color, which formed the background to her pale beauty which was in piquant contrast to the negro with his scarlet suit and sky-blue turban and the harsh colors of the bird.

“Well, child,” said Aurora at length, “if you will not talk——! You will marry your Livonian, and go to live in his wild country and forget about me.”

The girl looked at the sugar lying in her pink palm; Aurora had always been her friend, to some extent her patroness, but she did not care to talk to her of General Patkul.

“Obstinate!” continued the Countess. “You will not even distract me from my bad news. Augustus is sick. And the fight by Riga goes ill for us.”

“Ah!” Mdle. D’Einsiedel turned her brown eyes now.

“I thought I should move you,” remarked Aurora maliciously. “Have you not heard, then, from your idol?”

Patkul, with Courlande and Steinau, was disputing the sandy reaches of the Dwina against the advancing troops of Karl XII; it was the first shock of the opening of the young conqueror’s second campaign.

“I have not heard for several days,” replied the girl in a low voice, “but why should I grieve or trouble? The cause is a sacred one, and I feel sure that God will protect it.”

Aurora smiled at these trite words which betrayed the touching confidence of youth in the continuance of happiness; she saw that the girl was so wrapt in the splendor of a first and noble passion that she could not think of misfortune as a possible thing. The Countess sighed and pulled at her waist ribbons with restless fingers; all romance had long left her life; her outlook was that of the brilliant adventuress concerned only to keep the splendid position she had attained by talent and beauty.

By now she had forgotten if she ever had loved Augustus, the handsome, generous, good-humored Prince whose favor had made her great; he was simply her world, the thing by which she must stand or fall; his ruin would be her ruin, utterly; she was grateful enough and loyal enough to scorn the thought of leaving him if he was defeated and brought to disaster, but she could not view with calm the prospect of losing her position as mistress of the second most brilliant court in Europe, and all the pleasures and honors she now enjoyed as a famous beauty and a clever and powerful woman. She was of a noble Swedish family with a wild and tragic history; the names of her two brothers had long held a horrid renown; Philip von Königsmarck had been the lover of Dorothea of Zell, the Elector of Hanover’s wife, and, betrayed by a woman’s jealousy, had been caught and horribly murdered as he left the Electress; the other brother had been concerned in the brutal assassination of a wealthy Englishman whose wife the young adventurer hoped to marry; his accomplices were taken and hanged and he had fled, to perish miserably and obscurely in battle.

These tragedies had not been without their effect on Aurora; she found the echo of them in her own wild heart; she had wept with passionate indignation for Philip and scorned the other for a fool.

As for herself she meant to be neither the victim of passion nor of folly, but in every way to avoid disaster; her impetuous spirit was governed by a cool brain; she was intelligent in large matters, clever in small ones, intensely conscious of being an extraordinary woman, not vain of her beauty nor her wit nor her charm, but aware of the value of these things, how men could be led by them, and the power they might purchase.

She had no evil qualities; her most sincere emotion was her passionate love for her beautiful little son, Maurice; perhaps a sense of stifled discontent lay deep hidden in her heart, mingled with the adventurer’s secret longing for haven and security; this she never admitted even to herself, but sometimes it colored her behavior, as now when she was inclined to be spiteful with the young and rather silly girl absorbed in the magic of a great love.

“She really would leave everything for him,” thought the Countess; she wondered what it must be to feel like that; the creature was so shy and reserved about it too.

Aurora had herself, purely as a matter of course, tried to bring Patkul to her feet when he had first come to the Dresden Court; neither her fidelity to Augustus nor the native coldness of her disposition prevented her from endeavoring to subjugate every notable man who crossed her path; that the Livonian had been ice to her and flame to Hélène D’Einsiedel did not add to the good-humor with which she viewed this romantic, old-fashioned love affair.

Vanity apart, her good sense condemned the type of man who could prefer a stupid girl, endowed only with the passing prettiness of youth, to a woman like herself.

She was extremely lovely, vivid in coloring for the North, bright brown eyes, soft brown hair, graceful from crown to heel, every movement charming, every look and gesture radiant with beauty.

“Why are you angry with me, Countess?” asked the girl suddenly, tossing down the sugar on to the rose-colored cushions.

“How did you know I was angry?”

“Oh, la, you look as if you would like to beat me!”

Aurora suddenly moved and clasped her long hands round her knees.

“I suppose I envied you,” she said, in one of her careless generous impulses. “You have something I have never had.”

Hélène did not quite understand.

“Little silly!” laughed Aurora. “Do you not know that I am incapable of loving any man as you love your Patkul?”

“You pretend very well,” said Hélène, with a demureness that might have hid a touch of malice.

Aurora was silent; yes, she could pretend very well, she had often marveled at that herself, often been genuinely amazed at the strength and sincerity of the emotion she could raise in others and her own lack of response; she would have liked to have felt, if only for half an hour, any adoration for any man equal to that this girl felt for General Patkul; she knew that such an emotion would have been entirely in opposition with all her plans and schemes, but in her avid desire for life and knowledge, she would have given much for the curiosity of the experience.

However, she put the thought out of her mind, moved quickly, and glanced again at the letter from Augustus.

She was vexed that he was too ill to take the command of his armies in person, the more so as she guessed this illness to be consequent on his debauches with the Czar at Birsen; Peter to her was a monster, she could not forgive in Augustus the weakness that made him the companion of his ally’s vulgar orgies.

“Yes, ’twere better to be a man now, free on horseback,” she said. “This waiting amid one’s toys is an ugly part of a woman’s life”—she paused, then added quickly, “it must be hateful to belong to a man who is defeated.”

Hélène gazed at her with startled eyes.

“You do not think that Saxony will be defeated, Countess?”

“He has been defeated already,” replied Aurora. “And do you think he has very much chance? The savage Muscovite is no use—every battle will be a Narva for him. Denmark is silenced—and the King of Sweden is great.”

Mdle. D’Einsiedel forgot her negro and her parrot.

“He is a cruel tyrant—a bitter oppressor!” she exclaimed; her pale little face looked sharp with anger, “he fights for the lust of conquest—a heartless, fierce man.”

“So speaks the betrothed of Patkul,” answered Aurora. “You are too bitter against this man to judge him. He is a hero. And young and splendid, a Viking, child.”

“This is not the age for Vikings,” said Hélène coldly, “he is like his father. Patkul has told me of them—hard and cruel—how I loathe cruelty.”

Tears shone in her soft eyes and her lips quivered; she was thinking that it was just possible Patkul might one day be in the power of this same cruelty.

“Nay, he is just and even generous; you heard how, after Narva, he gave all the Russian officers their liberty, detaining only M. de Croy, to whom he paid full honor—and the modesty of his dispatches! ’Tis said that with his own hand he struck out his praises and put in those of the Czar.”

“’Tis his vanity,” said Hélène scornfully, “he wishes to impress the world—see if he is kind to his peasants—to his women-folk—see if he has ever thought of the justice of Livonia’s wish for liberty—he blindly continues his father’s tyrannies.”

Aurora checked her with a light laugh.

“That is none of it women’s business. Augustus is the best-natured person in the world, but I doubt if he knows much of his peasantry in either Saxony or Poland!” and she laughed again at the thought.

“He would be a better prince if he did,” said Hélène, with a sternness strange in one of her youth and frivolous appearance. “Patkul says the day will surely come when all the peoples will rise up and cast down their rulers.”

“Patkul is a fanatic and a visionary—a rebel also. Karl is his King. I am a Swede. Hélène, I have no sympathy with these revolting Livonians.”

Hélène glanced at the vivid lovely face of the Countess and her eyes narrowed.

“The Elector would not care to hear you speak so of Sweden,” she remarked.

“The Elector expects no hypocrisy from me,” replied Aurora haughtily. “I am not his wife. He knows that a man like Karl would attract a woman like me—I have told him I should like to meet him.”

She had, in truth, heard of the austere life and cold manners of the young conqueror whose name was now so famous in Europe, and she had imagined herself subduing him with her charm; she could not resist picturing herself as the Cleopatra to this immaculate Cæsar; Augustus had been amazed with anger at the Czar’s crude suggestion that the famous beauty should be used to beguile their enemy, but the woman herself had long toyed with the idea; it would be a wonderful triumph and, she believed in her heart, an easy one. Karl was only a boy, after all, and had probably never been tempted; it was impossible that he intended to be absorbed for ever in schemes of military aggrandizement and glory; and she had never failed yet. “Perhaps I could do more in half an hour than your Patkul has done in a lifetime,” she said suddenly.

“Oh, would you speak for Livonia?” asked Hélène, then quickly and with a blush, “but no, Patkul would not like that.”

“Let him rely on his sword and his virtue,” said Aurora haughtily. “Saxony may require my services.”

“He would not wish that you should sue to Sweden for him!” exclaimed Hélène.

Aurora rose.

“Wait till King Karl has overrun Poland and is at the gates of Dresden.”

She clasped her hands behind her head, shaking down her bright hair that was undressed, and gazing fixedly at her reflection in a circular mirror framed with gilt balls that hung above the couch.