Kings-at-Arms

She drew from behind the silver lace on her bosom a golden locket which she opened, and showed no portrait, but a fragment of blood-stained rag.

“That I cut from above his heart the day they brought him home,” she said. “It is all I care for in the world. I—I have suffered so much that it is as if I had died. That is why, sire, I can speak to you so coldly now.”

The King looked at her calmly; by contrast with her own words she herself appeared insignificant, his fancy for her, which she might have formed into the strongest passion his cold nature was capable of, had died on the instant before the images her words had evoked.

No one had ever spoken to him directly with strength and sincerity; the sneers of his grandmother he had always despised and everyone else had been his inferior, not daring to tell him plainly that which men thought of him and his actions.

Never before either had he been so degraded as to-day when he had returned to the palace intoxicated and shown himself so before women, and in the revulsion of shame and disgust that he felt the words that this lady had dared to speak to him made the deeper impression.

He looked at her with respect and a slight amazement; she seemed thin and pale and artificial in her gorgeous stiff gown, very different from the heroines of his beloved sagas—yet she had shown qualities that were admirable in his eyes.

“Enough,” he said suddenly. “I think I have done with childish things. I have had my dreams—maybe some of them I can realize. I thank you, Madame, for your timely speech.”

He offered her no compliment nor courtesy and his expression, as he gazed at her, was hard, but she believed that she had accomplished her purpose and she did not care how soon he forgot her; she had very truly done with the emotions of love and vanity.

“I thank you for your attention,” she replied gently. “I have, sire, no more to say.”

With a little curtsey she left him; he did not give a sigh to her going, but turned with brusque eagerness to study the map of North Europe that hung above Count Piper’s desk; with intent blue eyes and a steady finger he traced the positions of those provinces his three enemies wished to wrest from Sweden.

CHAPTER IV

In every way he was equipped to play a great part in history; his father, a stern, just, and haughty prince, had educated him with great care and wisdom; his natural gifts for languages and mathematics had been developed by training and diligence; he was proficient in history and geography, well-versed in the lives of the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome whose example suited his temperament, and familiar with the sagas of Scandinavia, the only form of any art that had ever moved him; his understanding was beyond the common, and he had not as yet displayed any vice or weakness likely to obscure his fine qualities, beyond this indolent absorption in rude sports that he had shown since he came to the throne; he was neither cruel and given to abuse of power nor was he liable to the weakness of being led by flatterers. His notice of Viktoria Falkenberg was the first attention that he had ever accorded a woman.

He seemed to be without affection and without passion; to his father he had shown the only obedience he had ever displayed to a human being; his mother he had despised, for he had early observed how slight a value his father had set upon her gentleness and how harshly he had treated her; his feelings towards his sisters were the same, the old Queen he could only tolerate by ignoring. Count Piper, the one man to whom he had shown special favor, he liked but was not fond of, nor had he any warm feelings towards his country which he admired only inasmuch as it was his own.

He was conscious only of the desire to dominate, to be without a rival as he was without a master; and, now that the words of Viktoria Falkenberg had taken root in his mind, to be great, to master kings, and nations, and peoples, and stride over them to fresh conquests; the reinstatement of his brother-in-law, Sweden’s ancient ally, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, in his dominions, was a good excuse for him to enter the arena of European politics where his fellow-monarchs considered him too young to play any part.

The true greatness of his strange character showed in his haughty resolve to conquer himself before ever he attempted to overcome his enemies.

He decided to be the one King without weakness or vices, and as easily as he took off his soiled garments of the chase he cast from him the vulgar amusements and rude diversions that had hitherto occupied his leisure.

The evening of the day that Viktoria Falkenberg had spoken to him he joined the Queen at her supper table.

His two sisters were present and the husband of the eldest, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.

Karl took his place at the head of the table; he was now absolutely sober and extremely cold in his demeanor; his disordered clothes of the morning had been changed for garments of black velvet and a muslin cravat fastened by a white pearl; his bright and waving hair was confined by a broad black ribbon save the foremost locks which fell over his shoulders; in this grave style of dressing, with his great height and noble person, he appeared much older than his years.

The Queen, who had, as usual, a bitter speech ready for him, snapped her lips together after she had glanced at his face; when he was master of himself she was afraid of him; he gave her a by no means friendly glance and his beautiful eyes traveled to the harassed countenance of his brother-in-law and the quiet faces of his sisters; the Queen, who was watching him shrewdly and with no predisposition in his favor, noticed that now more than ever before he dominated his company; the women, Count Piper, the young Duke all seemed pale and incomplete, like people cut out of paper, compared to his calm and overwhelming personality.

He did not sit down, but, pouring out a glass of wine, raised it almost to the level of his lips.

“Madame,” he said, addressing the Queen, “I must ask your pardon for my great discourtesy and boorishness to-day. I do ask it. I ask these gentlewomen to forgive me some insolences. I was not sober. That will never happen again.”

He paused for a second; there was no flush in his face, his eyes looked as hard as sapphires; he never glanced to where Viktoria Falkenberg sat beside the Duchess of Gottorp.

“I drink your health, Madame,” he continued, bowing towards the old Queen, “and I drink it in the last wine I shall ever taste.”

He emptied his glass and set it down quietly. “And now forgive me my absence,” he said. “I have much to attend to. Count, will you wait upon me later?”

Without pausing for a reply he left the room.

The Queen wiped her lips in a certain grim satisfaction.

“Well,” she remarked, “he is capable of keeping his word.”

Count Piper glanced at the downcast and weary face of Viktoria Falkenberg; she sat next to him and spoke, under the little murmur of talk that had arisen since the King’s departure.

“He will do, your master,” she said, “he is quite heartless, quite just, and inhumanly strong.”

“You spoke to him?”

She raised her eyes.

“Our interview was not what you think. We have really no interest in each other.”

Count Piper could not pretend to understand her; nor did he really care to explore the intricacies of feminine sentiment and feminine intrigue; if Viktoria Falkenberg was not going to influence King Karl she ceased to in the least concern Count Piper.

“His Majesty will help Gottorp, you think?” asked the Duchess.

“I think so,” said Count Piper.

He hastened his dinner that he might rejoin the King, who was already, he knew, in his cabinet.

And there he found him, standing by the window through which the long Northern twilight fell into the narrow apartment; his arms were locked over the back of a high chair and he leant forward, in the attitude of one dreaming.

Though he was so splendid in his magnificent youth there was something in his demeanor more terrifying than lovable, and his proud noble face was marred by the ugly smile that curved his full lips.

As soon as the Count entered he spoke, without raising his head.

“I shall go to war,” he said, and his voice that was always expressionless had a hard ring in its clear quality. “I shall return Gottorp to his duchy and I shall engage Denmark. Saxony must be brought from the throne of Poland, and from these I menace this Emperor of Muscovy—this Czar of the Russias.”

“I believe,” replied Count Piper, with perfect sincerity, “that your Majesty can do these things.”

“I believe that I can,” said Karl. “The most dangerous of my foes is Russia. He affects to be a mighty man, does he not?”

It was plain that this greatness of the Czar rankled with him; it was almost as if he had a personal hatred of this political enemy of his country whom he had never seen; this was the only person towards whom he had ever evinced the faintest anger or jealousy.

“The Czar is great,” replied the Count, “but your Majesty might be greater.”

“I would like to break him!” exclaimed the young man looking up. With that startling flash in the darkening blue of his eyes, he looked more human, more moved than Count Piper had ever known him. “’Tis a savage, a Tartar ... and he defies me ... wants my provinces ... mine, by God ... you have seen me drunk to-day, you will not see that again ... we will see if the Czar drunk can match me sober ... and Poland with his Aurora.... I will have no women, Count.”

He seemed greatly moved by a deep and restrained emotion.

“You owe something to one woman,” thought Count Piper, “if she has wrought this change of mind in you.”

And he wondered what Viktoria Falkenberg had said.

“Russia does not think that anyone is likely to oppose him,” continued Karl. “Is it not so? He believes that there is no man in Europe would face him and his savages.”

“He certainly thinks,” replied the minister, “that your Majesty will be easily despoiled. ’Tis a man with many noble qualities who seeks to bring his country forward in an honorable manner in Europe—yet unscrupulous and fierce—a barbarian teaching civilization to others—but,” he added, “before your Majesty thinks of Russia, there is Denmark.”

“I attend the council to-morrow,” said Karl, “and in a week’s time I hope to leave Sweden. The Dutch and English will help us—at least indirectly. I think it is not to King William’s interest that I should be overwhelmed. I mean to make a feint on Copenhagen and compel Denmark to a peace.”

“The Danish fleet protects Spaelland, sire,” said Count Piper quickly.

“But I have looked at the map,” replied the King, “and I see that one might pass through the Eastern Sound.”

“Which is not held to be navigable, sire.”

Karl did not seem to pay much attention to this remark.

“King Frederick is older than I, by ten years,” he said, reflectively. “Do you think that he is a great man, Count?”

“He is popular in Denmark, sire.”

“I am vexed,” added Karl, “that I let him take Gottorp—but,” he paused, then seemed to resolve to say no more on that subject. “England and the Netherlands will stand by us?” he asked.

“They certainly will not wish to see Denmark in possession of the commerce of the North, nor the Czar of Russia overspread his dominions. I believe we could count on the junction with the Anglo-Dutch fleet.”

“And Poland marches on Livonia,” said the King. “I hear his Saxon soldiers are very fine troops.”

“One thing has just come to my ears, sire—Patkul is with Poland.”

The King’s face hardened instantly at mention of this man who had led the Livonian revolts that had disturbed his father’s reign and whose intrigues had broken out again on his own accession; Patkul had been the only jarring note in the last years in Sweden; and rebellion was a hideous sin in the King’s rigid code of honor.

“When I make peace with Poland,” he said, “I shall bid him send back to me the traitor Patkul.”

Count Piper looked at him curiously; the certainty of his speech, the confidence of his bearing were amazing things, for they were entirely free from braggart vanity or youthful swagger.

The King saw his minister’s glance and slightly flushed.

“Perhaps,” he said quickly, “I seem vainglorious in my speech, but I was not thinking of myself, but of Sweden—Sweden could do great things, do you not think so, Count?”

It was like an attempt to conciliate, and the minister could not forbear a smile.

“Under such a King as you will be, sire,” he replied sincerely.

“Well,” said Karl, with his strange simplicity, “I do not see that it should be very difficult to defeat these three Kings.”

The next day he made his appearance at the council board in a mood different from any in which he had appeared there before.

The councilors had been used to seeing him with his feet on the table and his hands in his pockets, lolling and yawning; now he came erect and composed among them, and in a few words announced his intention of making war on Denmark, Poland, and Russia.

This swift facing of their enemies was not what the council had been expecting; they had already begun to consider the advisability of negotiations with the three sovereigns who were taking advantage of the youth of their King.

But Karl’s words left no doubt as to his intention and his spirit.

“Sirs,” he said, “I have resolved to never make an unjust war, but never to finish a just one save by the conquest of my enemies. My decision is taken—I shall attack him who first—who has declared himself against me, and when I have vanquished him I shall hope to inspire some fear in the others.”

That same evening he heard that the Saxon troops of the King of Poland, the regiments of Brandenbourg, Wolfenbüttel, and Hesse-Cassel were marching to the assistance of the King of Denmark, who after having taken Gottorp was besieging the town of Tönning in Holstein.

Against these were sent 8000 Swedes, some troops from Hanover and Zell, and three Dutch regiments, Holland, as well as England, having taken up arms against Denmark on the excuse of her having broken the Treaty of Altona.

In the early days of April, King Karl took private leave of his family (a cold farewell of his sisters and the Queen), and, accompanied by Count Piper, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and General Rehnsköld, left his capital for the port of Karlskrona, where he embarked on his flagship “The King Karl,” which was mounted with 120 pieces of cannon, and at the head of forty-three ships set sail for Copenhagen, on his first campaign.

As the shores of Sweden were receding behind them Count Piper told the King that he had heard that Viktoria Falkenberg was very ill; he had wondered that Karl had not remarked her absence from attendance on his sister.

“Ah, Viktoria Falkenberg,” said the King thoughtfully. He offered no comment, and that was the last time he ever spoke her name.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

Save during the brief loveliness of the summer there was little beauty in these marshy woods; neither birds nor animals seemed to inhabit them and the stillness and the vastness added to the melancholy of the solitude.

Marli was a two-storied house with a tiled roof, a door with plain steps and a window above with a balcony.

It had no defined garden but stood solitary in the woods; it was not far from the swamps where the Czar had resolved to build his new capital, nor from the spot where his favorite Mentchikoff was raising a superb palace, but it had, despite the bright flowers and the sunshine, an air of solitude that was dreary.

There was no sign of cultivation round the lake, and the wild flowers grew up to the very door, bending over the shallow steps; the yellow plaster front of the house was stained with damp and the windows were without curtains, the shutters being all fastened back. The door stood open and there was no sign of servants or of any domestic work being in progress.

At the edge of the lake and looking up at the house was a man whose appearance and attire were in entire contrast to his surroundings.

He was tall and stoutly built, with dark hair and eyes and an expression of some fierceness, his locks were cut short into his neck, and he was attired in native Russian costume untouched by European fashion.

His long coat of fine gold-colored silk brocade, shot with blue and red flowers, was open on a vest of fine muslin, fastened with sapphire buttons, and belted above the full skirt with scarlet leather.

His full breeches of pale blue velvet were gathered into high vermilion leather boots, much polished and soft.

He carried a short sword of Oriental design, the hilt studded with tourmaline and rose quartz, and wore a close cap of scarlet silk round which was twisted a fine gold chain which held in place a buckle of diamonds that clasped a long white osprey. After looking at the little house thoughtfully this personage went slowly round the lake and in at the open door.

The two front rooms were closed; the newcomer went to the back and looked into the kitchen; it was here very hot, for the cooking stove was lit and several dishes stood on it from which exhaled an odor of onions, cabbages, and rancid grease.

On a side table stood pots and pans and dishes containing fish under vinegar and salted gherkins, also some jams and jellies and a few fine spoons of silver gilt; flies and mosquitoes buzzed over everything; all was dirty; the floor and the stove filthy with dropped grease and spillings of food.

A Tartar servant with a flat yellow face was watching the cooking; he wore a soiled blue blouse and trousers; his throat and chest were bare and the perspiration rolled from under his oily hair.

He regarded the newcomer with a look of complete stupidity and turned his gaze again to his cooking.

He appeared to be no more impressed by the gentleman’s brilliancy than the gentleman was by his dirt and disorder. Only, as that person was leaving the kitchen, the taciturn servant vouchsafed a warning.

“If you come with unpleasant news, Danilovitch Mentchikoff, you had better keep them for a while.”

“He is in a bad humor?” asked the Prince quickly.

“He was drinking all night,” replied the Tartar. “And now he seems to be in a melancholy. What am I to do about the dinner, Danilovitch Mentchikoff? He will not bear me in the room—and as for you, he will beat you like a dog.”

“Well, when he has beaten me, we will have dinner,” replied the Prince, and he turned away and went upstairs.

He entered the front bedroom which was that with the balcony over the door; a good-sized chamber very plainly furnished with a low bed, a table, a few chairs, and one or two half-open boxes filled with clothes.

The pale melancholy light streamed in uninterrupted through the curtainless window and lit every crevice of the apartment.

Above the bed was an ikon of the Saviour, very dark and indistinct and adorned with plates of silver; two candles in sticks of violet jasper stood on a shelf beneath this; on the stove was the unfinished model of a ship in wood; these were the only remarkable objects that the room contained.

The one occupant was a young man who sat in a low chair by the stove, and who was intent on carving with a small knife a large fir cone.

Peter Alexievitch, Emperor of Muscovy and Czar of all the Russias, was at this time twenty-eight years of age, and it was not long since he had been recalled by rebellion at home from that extraordinary journey in disguise round Europe whereby he had sought to learn the various means by which nations secure prosperity and greatness, that he might instruct his subjects; he had since gained some glory by a victory over the Turks, but his present league with Poland and Denmark against Sweden was his first real entry into war and politics, the first attempt to put into practise the schemes by which he sought to render his vast Empire secure and mighty.

He did not look up as Prince Mentchikoff entered, but continued, with ostentatious disregard of a presence he was certainly aware of, to chip at the pine cone.

His friend, standing inside the door, eyed him with some apprehension.

The Czar’s appearance was as remarkable as his character and his history.

Unlike the Prince, he wore European clothes, a shirt of very fine linen, much ruffled, faded green cloth breeches, white cotton stockings and leathern shoes, and over all a full dressing-gown of brown wool which was tied round his waist by a cord.

Even as he sat so, doubled up on a low chair, it was noticeable that he was of gigantic height, and slender and graceful in his proportions; the hands that were busy with his minute work were slim and elegant, his head was of a noble shape and covered with smooth short curls of a dusky brown color; his face, of an Asiatic type, was singularly beautiful, though already marred by passion and vice.

The short blunt features were finely formed, the dark eyes, large, lustrous, and full of sweetness, eagerness, and ardor, the complexion of a warm brown, darkened by exposure to sun and wind; a close mustache outlined the full lips; for the rest he was well shaven, and there was something both robust and boyish in the smooth contours of his face.

He was extremely attractive and gave the impression of being simple and lovable to an almost childish degree; his complexion, naturally so smooth and clear, was now rather pale, the eyes heavy and stained beneath; the hand that held the knife very slightly shook.

Mentchikoff noticed a dirty glass full of flies on the floor beside him and a number of bottles, mostly empty, scattered about, a strong smell of brandy being in the air.

“I come, as you bade me, to dine with your Majesty,” said the favorite.

Peter did not even look round; he took a pinch of clay from a board on top of the stove and began to model it on to the fir cone.

The Prince was vexed by this reception; he had begun to think he could do what he liked with the Czar, who had raised him from the position of a pastry cook’s lad to that of greatest noble in all the Russias.

“Well, Peter Alexievitch,” he said drily, “there is some news that you must hear. But I would keep it till after dinner.”

Peter turned now; one side of his face twitched in a slight convulsion.

“Why did not this news come to me?” he asked sullenly.

Mentchikoff saw that whatever his potations had been he was now sober, and went warily accordingly; the Czar sober was not so easy as the Czar drunk.

“Who dares to come to your Majesty when you are withdrawn into your solitude? Therefore the dispatches from Moscow were brought to me.”

“Is it bad news?” asked the Czar gloomily; he turned again to his work, and began coloring the clay with his finger dipped in rough pigment which he had arranged on the same board as the clay.

“Well,” said Mentchikoff, “I certainly think that your Majesty should be at Moscow.”

And irritated at his reception he seated himself near the window with an air of impatience.

“I will not go to Moscow,” said the Czar, in a tone of suppressed violence. “I wish to be here—this is where I will build my city and my fort. Why cannot I be alone here? I care nothing for your news.”

“Well, then,” replied Mentchikoff exasperated, “it will not destroy your appetite, Peter Alexievitch. The King of Sweden has defeated Denmark, taken back Holstein-Gottorp, and signed a victorious peace.”

Peter stared.

“The King of Sweden!” he ejaculated.

“Yes, that boy who was to be so easily despoiled. Europe remembers nothing like it. In fifteen days he has ended the campaign.”

The Czar’s face was a ghastly color.

“This is greatness,” he said.

With the mechanical movement of one who has received a shock he continued his work, staring at the clay he continued to mold and color.

“Eighteen years old,” added Mentchikoff, “and his first campaign.”

“Tell me about it,” said Peter, in an agitated and humbled manner.

“Do you really want to hear?” asked the Prince in some surprise; he had known the Czar to have messengers of ill-tidings knouted.

“I want to hear,” replied Peter, without looking up.

“Well, the Swedes made a descent on Copenhagen and joined the Anglo-Dutch fleet by Spaelland—they sailed through the Eastern Channel of the Sound, a thing not before thought possible—and then they landed and attacked Copenhagen by land.”

“The King led them?”

“The King led them—he was the first to land, and waded with the water to his waist and his sword in his hand—under the musket fire of the Danes, you perceive. There was a short engagement in which the Swedes were completely victorious, and Copenhagen lay at their mercy.”

“Where was King Frederick?” asked Peter.

“I do not know—still besieging Tönning, I suppose—at least he sent to negotiate.”

“To negotiate!” cried the Czar, looking round.

“Sire—the Baltic Sea was covered with the Swedish ships, King Karl master of Seeland, Copenhagen beseeching mercy—but our young hero must do the magnanimous—he fought not for conquest, he said, but justice. In brief, there was a congress called at Tarrenthal and there is a peace to be signed this month.”

“And what are the terms?”

Mentchikoff shrugged his shoulders.

“Sweden wants nothing for himself—Gottorp is to get his indemnity and his Duchy, and Denmark is never to meddle again against Sweden.”

Peter was silent a moment he was still very pale and one side of his face twitched convulsively.

“What news from Poland?” he asked at length.

“There were those dispatches yesterday, but you would not listen to them.”

“Tell them to me now.”

“Augustus has raised the siege of Riga.”

“Why?” demanded the Czar, trembling all over.

“The excuse is that the town is full of Dutch merchandise and Poland would not offend Holland. The truth is that Augustus could not take the town.”

“Curse Augustus and curse Frederick,” said the Czar heavily.

He put down the little toy he was making and clasped his head in his hands.

“So of all the enemies of this young man there remains but yourself, Peter Alexievitch.”

The Czar was silent; he could have imagined no greater blow than this appearance of a rival to his glory in Northern Europe, a man ten years younger than himself who had already achieved what he never had.

How often had not Peter dreamed of dictating terms to a conquered city and setting conditions of peace to vanquished Kings, of seeing a great many obey his commands and thousands of fine soldiers march behind him to conquest; all things that this youth had experienced in a few days, while he, Peter, had been indulging himself in a sullen retirement broken only by those drunken debauches with which he sought to cure the terrible melancholy that periodically assailed him.

A bitter scorn of himself, a bitter envy of the King of Sweden, a wild yearning to be other than he was, settled on him like the mantle of despair.

“Tell me what this young man is like,” he asked, in a muffled voice; his curiosity as to what was admirable and good and great was insatiable; even now it dominated his emotion.

Prince Mentchikoff did not know much; this young hero, whose name was now in everyone’s mouth, was a new figure in Europe.

“He is very austere and prides himself on his justice, they say, and his army is so disciplined that they are at prayers twice a day, and they pay for all they take and do not despoil the dead. But this young man must be ambitious—he will lose his head.”

“You know nothing about it, Danilovitch,” replied Peter, “they are brave and cold, the Swedes. And this boy was well-trained and taught,” he added enviously.

“Well,” said the Prince, “he is something to be reckoned with—and I hear from Stockholm that he is angry with the four envoys you have sent. He thinks that when you are at war you should drop the pretense of peace—he is of a rigid honor.”

“Oh!” said Peter.

He glanced up at the toy he had made; it represented an old woman in cap and shawl, the cone being her skirt and the upper part being cunningly fashioned of clay.

“That is what I can do,” he added fiercely.

The Prince swung on his heel with some impatience. “You should be in Moscow,” he declared. “Will you wait till the Swede is over the frontier?”

The Czar did not reply.

“The Saxons have left Livonia,” continued Mentchikoff goadingly. “Patkul has proved a poor statesman and the treaty of Préobrapenskoè a failure—you can go on building Cronstadt and St. Petersburg, for this war is over.”

The Czar gave his friend an ugly look; his hands trembled on his knees.

“Do you think that this boy has vanquished me?” he cried.

“I think that he may, Peter Alexievitch.”

The Czar sprang to his feet.

“Faithless, insolent, and foolish!” he shrieked, in an instant at the height of passion. “Where did you find the courage to presume on my kindness! Have you forgotten that I am Peter!”

The Prince stood passive, only holding up his hands to protect his face; the Czar grappled with him and flung him down; Mentchikoff prostrated himself at his master’s feet, face downwards on the dirty floor.

Peter was not mollified by this submission; he took off his belt and beat the shoulders of the favorite until the gay brocade was torn to ribbons.

He ceased as suddenly as he had begun, and staggered out into the head of the stairs, dragging his shirt open at the throat.

The Tartar servant was coming up with dishes on a tray; Peter gave one glance at the food then tipped it all out of the man’s hands so that cabbage, soup, and fish rolled down the stairs; then he gave a great cry that seemed like a shout for air and fell backwards; a little foam flecked his lips and his eyes turned in his head.

The Prince and the Tartar with the air of men doing a usual thing, dragged and pushed him somehow to his bed.

CHAPTER II

There were some elements of greatness also in Danilovitch Mentchikoff; he shared not only the Czar’s views, but some of his capacity for carrying them out; he had been his companion in the labors of the dockyards of Amsterdam and Wapping, as well as in the barbaric splendors of Russia; he also had seen and judged that Western civilization that the Czar burned to emulate; he also dreamed the same dreams of the future greatness and glory of his country, and to this cause was eager to devote his strength and his intellect.

Some personal ambition colored his attitude; Peter had raised him from cook-boy to page, from page to noble, friend, minister; he was already wealthy, honored, feared, but though he might be an insolent tyrant to all the world, to the man who had raised him he was absolutely submissive, even abject in his love and admiration.

Peter, whose nature was warm and affectionate, loved this creature of his own making, to whom he allowed liberties never permitted to the most powerful of his boyars, but he had more often than once made Mentchikoff the victim of his insane furies in a manner that had nearly cost him his life; but the servant had never uttered a sound of complaint, and, when the outburst was over, had never failed to drag himself, bruised and bleeding and faint, to lick the boots and kiss the hand of the man who had chastised him.

He now was watching the Czar with some anxiety; he had been vexed for the last few weeks because Peter had made no steps in the campaign against Sweden, but, seized with one of his attacks of melancholy, had retired to Marli to brood over the plans of Cronstadt and St. Petersburg and drink himself into fits of false gayety that were followed by black and dangerous depression.

And now the blow had fallen; a new captain had arisen who in a few days had forced Denmark into peace; Poland was retiring from Riga; a young, vigorous King who had shown himself possessed of resolution and martial genius, with a perfectly equipped, trained, and victorious army behind him, was free to turn his attention to the third enemy who had so wantonly provoked him.

Mentchikoff’s long dark and rather haggard face was shadowed with anxiety.

Not only did he wish his master’s political and military schemes to fructify, he wished the Czar to be personally great and without rival in this greatness.

He was concerned that Russia should have Livonia and a port on the Baltic, he had concurred in the plans laid down by Patkul, but he was still more concerned that Peter Alexievitch should shine resplendent, without a rival, in the Northern firmament.

Already he hated Karl of Sweden, who had the advantage in education, tradition, and breed; who was controlled, humane, just, and honorable—with none of these things could even the blind devotion of Mentchikoff credit Peter—and who had the added interest of his extreme youth and the justice of his quarrels; a young warrior, stern, outraged, fighting only those who had attacked him, conquering easily, and, with a haughty generosity, claiming no benefits from his victory, but only the restoration of his friend to what was rightfully his—this was a figure on heroic lines and one sure to appeal to the imaginations of men.

And how would the world account Peter by contrast?

A half-savage monarch of an almost wholly Eastern realm, never yet taken seriously into the reckoning in the affairs of Europe, one who had taken eccentric means to learn the means of civilizing his people and who yet was notoriously incapable of controlling his own meanest passions, one who had been guilty of fierce cruelty and bitter revenge and excesses beyond ordinary debauchery—how did such a one show beside the cold, fast, calm, and mighty figure of the young King of Sweden?

Mentchikoff was jealous for his hero, who to him was the greatest man on earth; Peter’s faults were not faults to him; he came of a people long used to cruelty in their rulers, it was in his blood and in his training to submit to tyranny, but he had been the Czar’s companion in his journey through Europe and he had seen, with his strong native shrewdness and perception, the qualities admired and respected by civilized peoples, and he knew exactly where Peter failed to reach the standard of the West—it was one to which he could not attain himself, but that did not prevent him from keenly observing his master’s failure. He still passionately dreamed of seeing the Czar a King after the fashion of the Kings of France and England, and had been one with him in every effort to attain this end; so complete was the devotion and abnegation of Danilovitch Mentchikoff that his life was one with his master’s life, his glory and ambition one with the glory and ambition of Peter Alexievitch. And the Czar’s moods, melancholies, and passions, that went so far to hinder his glorious schemes and tarnish his brilliant qualities, caused the keenest pangs to the fiercely loyal heart of his servant.

And now there was this new hero to reckon with; a man such as Peter was not and never could be.

The long figure at which the Prince gazed with his small brilliant eyes stirred on the rude bed; Peter dropped the arm that shielded his eyes and stared before him.

He also had his thoughts of Karl of Sweden; they were as intense and bitter as those of Danilovitch Mentchikoff.

He was conscious of his own greatness, conscious of his own failings, and overwhelmed by the task which destiny and his own will had laid on his shoulders.

He was the master of a continent, the undisputed lord of millions of human beings, enveloped in a grandeur almost mythical, possessed of a power almost godlike; better for him if he had been content with this, satisfied as his ancestors had been satisfied by an enclosed splendor, instead of being tortured by dreams of making Russia what she had never been, what she perhaps never could be.

All the sciences, the arts, the trades and commerces that had been the result of such slow and painful growth in Europe, he hoped in one generation to implant in the sterile soil of a nation almost wholly savage from the point of view of the West.

A great capital must be built, a great port made, a trained army raised, a navy built, trade established, people educated in commerce and handicrafts—marshes drained, forests cleared, swamps turned into profitable ground—his people must learn the utmost resources of their country and how to turn them to account.

The beautiful arts of other countries must be introduced and made to flourish; all that was wonderful, fair, or great must find a home in Russia.

Such were the dreams of Peter; his breed, his tradition, his character were against these dreams.

Half an Asiatic, his type was largely Eastern, his outlook wholly so; he was nearer Timour Beg than Louis XIV, despite his admiration of this latter ideal of kingship.

He had admired Europe and copied Europe and envied Europe—he had little in common with Europe.

His story was one of a violence and terror difficult to find in the annals of any country but this, full of dark splendor, of flights, revolts, dangers, imprisonments; the brother who had shared his throne had disappeared to a mysterious death, the sister who had been his regent was languishing in a close prison; he was separated from his wife, his one son was sickly, almost witless.

In his blood lurked horrible diseases; his brother had been an idiot, tortured by convulsions, his sister was afflicted by dropsy and ulcers, he himself had been given to epilepsy since childhood; unbridled passions, unlimited power, unchecked lusts had tainted his whole race with a mental unbalance akin to insanity; melancholy, nightmare horrors of glooms and broodings, wild extravagance of thought and action were in his heritage.

Heavier burdens even than the scepter of all the Russias had come from his forefathers to Peter Alexievitch; clouding and torturing his brain and body were the dread shadows of mortal maladies, the black form of madness. No one knew his sufferings; he himself was ignorant of their cause and terrified at their power; only alcohol could allay them, and then the payment exacted was horrible as death in agonies.

The dark horrors of delirium, the monstrous fancies of fever, the tortuous labyrinths of the underground ways by which the borderland of delusions, dreams, hallucinations, and unbidden imaginings leads to the utter starless abyss of insanity were often more real to Peter than the strenuous world in which he lived; shadows from realms that he tried to deny the existence of, ghastly gleams from hells at which his soul dared not glance, clouded and colored his thoughts and his actions.

A continent was at his feet and he had undertaken a task as tremendous as any man had yet put his hand to—but even this was not sufficient to distract him from the terrors of the unseen and the unheard who haunted those foul, secret places where his soul was doomed to wander.

He was weak now after his fit and there was a dullness on his spirit almost akin to peace; he was frowning, and his beautiful eyes were well stained with blood, but his glance sought with a certain gratitude the cool peace of the green beyond the square window, and he was glad of the quiet, watchful presence of his friend.

“Danilovitch,” he said, in a low voice, “I must get back to Moscow,” then “If Cronstadt were built and I had a navy, I would batter this boy by sea.”

He sat up slowly, a languid, graceful figure in the soiled dressing-gown; he had bitten his tongue when he fell and his mouth was still marked with blood; a few tiny spots of red were on the front of the fine cambric shirt; his forehead was damp with perspiration and the soft glossy curls hung in wild disorder; yet his face, so round in the contours still, with a certain bloom and freshness, attractive, gentle in expression, was the face of a youth, sensitive and dreamy.

Prince Mentchikoff did not answer; he was not yet sure of his master’s mood and feared to say something that might irritate him.

“And if I had an army I could batter him by land,” added Peter, with a hard smile.

“Your Majesty has an army,” ventured Mentchikoff.

“Has it ever been tried in battle?” demanded the Czar grimly. “Is there anyone in the whole of Russia who knows anything of the art of war?”

“It is for you to teach them,” ventured the Prince.

“There is much I have to teach Russia,” remarked the Czar.

He stood up, to the full of his great height, and pushed back his hair impatiently with both damp hands.

“Is this how I get my Baltic port?” he cried scornfully. “Is this how I wrest a province from Sweden? I should have been in Moscow months ago.”

“God knows you should, Peter Alexievitch,” said Mentchikoff mournfully.

“But I had to labor with my hands, Danilovitch, there is no other cure for these infernal torments. I must make things, and be near the sea.”

The Prince knew that Peter alluded to the black melancholy fits to which he was subject and made no reply.

“This boy now,” continued the Czar, in a quieter tone, “he would be sober? Not chased by phantoms or mocked by the infernal ones, eh, Danilovitch?”

“A cold Norseman,” replied Mentchikoff. “They say that for this campaign at least, his life has been austere.”

“That is it,” replied Peter, with an eagerness that was almost wistful, “an austere life—to train the body, to eat bread and drink water, to sleep on the ground, to live as the meanest foot soldier—and I could do it—if he, why not I?”

Then, in a sudden fit of gloom, he added:

“I have no troops worth naming beyond the Strelitz and the Germans—savages, peasants, this King will laugh at me—and Riga is lost and Tönning? Curse both the Saxon and the Dane.”

He spoke wearily, without passion; Mentchikoff rose and touched him gently, with an infinite tenderness, on the arm.

“Come, Peter Alexievitch,” he said softly, “come out and look at the sea.”

He had never known when a glimpse even of the ocean had failed to soothe the Czar.

Peter did not reply, and Mentchikoff deftly drew off the dressing-gown and put on an old green coat of European cut that hung over a chair; the Czar silently permitted the change.

The Prince fetched a bowl of water and helped him bathe his face, a comb and smoothed out the tangled hair, performing these menial tasks with an unconscious joy in the doing of them and a tender love for the person whom he served that was touching to behold in one so stern featured and haughty as Danilovitch Mentchikoff.

Peter did not speak; he seemed in an apathy that chilled his faculties like the languor of a mortal illness; he suffered his friend to lead him from the house and showed neither dissent or assent.

It was now fading to the cool of the evening; the sky was translucent and almost colorless against the motionless forms of the trees that had not yet lost the freshness of early summer; the lake was placid beneath the borders of bright grasses and trails of wild flowers that flung themselves in lightly woven wreaths over the tiny wavelets that spent themselves against the banks.

In the distance a nightingale made the silence of the wood tremble with the intermittent rehearsal of his sharp, sweet song.

The two fine figures, the servant so splendid, the master so humble in attire, the King leaning on his minister with a sad and fatigued air, passed the little clearing round the house and through the first trees of the wood until they came to a spot where, through a break in the forest, was a view of low swamps and the distant sea which had the pale splendor of a tourmaline in the light of the sunset.

Peter sighed, with a long shiver of relief; his very muscles seemed to relax; his was the panting satisfaction of one who is fevered, and, after much delay in heat and pain, finds a cup of cool fragrant water at his lips.

The air was of a keen freshness and ocean salt; it seemed to be wafted, pure and strong, from the distant shores of some dreamland beyond the verge of the pale confining sea; the perfect silence seemed charged with a sense of vitality, of the joy of life, of nature; the song of the hidden bird, that now and then sharply broke the stillness, was like a chant of calm triumph in the eternal majesty of nature’s solitudes and untouched places; there was now no melancholy in this loneliness; a tender magic filled the marvelous hour of the twilight and something more than mortal was abroad in the gathering dusk.

The young Czar felt his lassitude fall from him; new energy shot through him like a flame touching his heart; once again all seemed possible; the grandeur of his manhood, the splendor of his rulership, again became palpable things; the nightmares fled leaving a sane world about him; the Swede no longer seemed a thing to so greatly fear or envy.

He was Czar of All the Russias, and a strong man in his youth.

With a laugh he pressed his friend’s arm, and Mentchikoff laughed also, knowing his master cured for a while.

“Shall we trouble for that Northern boy, we who are Peter?” demanded the Czar, holding up his head and staring at the sea; he spoke thickly, for his tongue had swollen where he had bitten it, but the unhealthy pallor had left his face and his eyes had the calm of a healthy man.

“Come and have supper, now that your melancholy is over,” said Mentchikoff, in a happy voice, “and I will show you a gay creature who will make you glad.”

“Until it is dark I will stay under the trees,” replied Peter, “and I shall not drink to-night.”

CHAPTER III

He had a long walk to the palace of Mentchikoff, which was situate almost at the mouth of the Neva, and on the opposite shore to where the fort of Cronstadt was being raised; but the exercise pleased him and he would not go to Marli for a horse, or a light, or a servant, but strode alone through the gloomy dusk, without hat or cloak.

There was nothing new to Peter in this experience, though it was a remarkable one for the Czar of All the Russias; he had wandered through Europe alone, and poorly clad. When he reached the gardens that Mentchikoff was laying out, it was already completely dark, for the cold stars gave no glow, and Peter was guided only by the lights that shone through the open windows of the palace on to the parterres of brilliant flowers and the high hedges of clipped hornbeam; some one was playing the bailaika; the thin music sounded sadly in the empty gardens; Peter slowly went in at the principal entrance, the door of which stood wide.

The first floor of the palace was finished and furnished in a gorgeous style that was a mingling of the West and the East, of Europe and Russia.

The hall was hung with arras sent from France, and lit by Dutch lanterns that had come from the prows of ships.

The room that Peter entered had vermilion walls, vases of purple jasper on malachite stands, and Chinese furniture of ebony inlaid with ivory; on top of the great enamel stove was a beautiful ormolu clock which was not going; lengths of French silks and Eastern damasks covered the couches of which there were several, and a silver branched candlestick of Italian workmanship held seven candles that were the sole light of the room.

This stood on a long table of gray marble mounted in heavy gilt, which occupied the center of the apartment.

In one corner was an ornate black cabinet set with various colored stones, in another a beautiful Dutch bureau in oak; the tops of these were crowded with goblets, boxes, bottles, and trays of silver, gold, enamel, and glass, some heavily encrusted with precious stones. Near the window which was curtained with cut velvet in orange and blue, hung an ikon, one mass of carved silver and rubies, and still hung with the Easter offerings of wreaths of wax fruit.

The air had been scented by the burning of pastilles, and a faint bluish smoke still obscured the atmosphere.

The whole effect was one of brilliant and crowded confusion, tasteless and barbaric; to Peter it was very splendid; a feeling of pleasure touched him that his favorite should have such a magnificent house.

“Danilovitch!” he called and went up to the table, and stood there, resting his hands on the gilt edge.

The twinkling notes of the bailaika stopped, and, from an inner door that Peter had not hitherto perceived, a woman entered carrying the little instrument.

They looked at each other across the candle light.

She was as tall as he, and beautiful, with a robust and splendid beauty; her carriage was magnificent; she wore a robe of crimson satin with an overdress of scarlet, stiff with gold embroidery, that reached the floor and stood out about her, only being open at the sides; a square plate of gold set with rubies shone at her breast, hung by rope on rope of twisted pearls her dark brown hair fell on her shoulders, from under the stiff Russian headdress of gold satin studded with turquoise, and to her feet behind, depended a long white gauze veil. Her fair, bold face, firm and beautiful in line and color, and sweet and pleasant in expression, was turned full towards the Czar.

He, in his worn green coat, disordered appointments, and tired bearing, was in a contrast almost sad with the room and the woman.

“You must be the Czar,” she said; she put down the bailaika and came towards him, moving lightly on gold-shod feet.

“I am Peter Alexievitch,” he replied, “and you?”

“My name is Marpha,” she said simply. “I hardly know who I am.”

“A Russian?” he asked, for her speech was strange, as if she used a tongue with which she was not familiar.

She shook her head.

“A Livonian, sire—a Lutheran—I do not know who my parents were,” she added, anticipating his next questions, “nor why Prince Mentchikoff should bring me here.”

“Why,” said Peter, “you are the person he spoke of who could cure me of my melancholy.”

She again shook her head.

“No, it could not be I—I am only a servant—in my best clothes”—she laughed gaily, glancing at her attire. “I have never been so fine before, but to-night Danilovitch Mentchikoff ordered me to dress so!”

The Czar was interested in her; she had an air of extraordinary vitality, of serene courage, and generous good-nature; she gave out an atmosphere of pleasant warmth and kindliness, of enthusiasm and joy of life, more remarkable than her beauty; Mentchikoff’s vivacity and high spirits had always been his greatest attraction for Peter, but this girl’s calm happiness and aspect of radiant health were more potent than the favorite’s gay humor in their effect on the Czar’s somber mood.

“Why are you melancholy?” she asked, with a straight look from her large clear gray eyes. “The Czar of Holy Russia, and sad?”

Her glance seemed to have a certain pity for his marred and weary comeliness; it was as if she were the Empress and he the peasant, so splendid and composed was she, so shabby and downcast was Peter.

“I have something to make me sad, Marpha,” he said.

“And many things to make you happy,” she replied simply, “but you great men are never gay. There is supper to-night in the pavilion. Will you come and I will pour your wine?”

“No,” said Peter, “I shall not drink to-night.”

Remembrances of the cloudy horrors of the day darkened his face; he glanced round the gaudy room with the restlessness of a creature finding itself suddenly caged.

“I will go into the garden,” he said; then abruptly, “You are a Livonian. Do you know anything of your King—Karl of Sweden?”

He paused in the open window, looking at her keenly, and ready to break into anger at whatever answer she might make.

But Marpha’s simple sweetness was too strong for his suspicious anger; she defeated him by the sheer frankness of her reply.

“I know nothing of him,” she said, “and what can he matter to such as the Czar of Holy Russia?”

Peter glanced at her, baffled; his vanity was soothed by this ignorant creature’s perfect faith; his pride began to rise against this dread and envy of the threatening figure of the unknown young King.

“Yes, I am the Czar,” he said sullenly, “and I can put a million men into the field for his every thousand, and if they are not as good soldiers I can knout them into being so.”

With that he turned into the garden, and his tall figure was immediately lost in the darkness filled with the sound of the waving sumach boughs.

Marpha gazed thoughtfully at the open window; her hands that were white and smooth, but thick and strong, the hands of a peasant, played with her heavy jeweled breastplate.

Prince Mentchikoff entered from the hall where he had been waiting behind the open door.

“Has he gone?” he whispered.

“Into the garden,” said Marpha.

“What do you think of him?” asked Mentchikoff eagerly.

“He is comely,” replied the girl.

Mentchikoff laughed.

“He is the greatest man in the world.”

“Ah, yes, the Czar of All the Russias.”

“Not that only—he is a hero and a genius,” said Mentchikoff, with passionate enthusiasm. “He is creating a new Russia.”

“I understand none of these things,” replied Marpha. “The world seems to me very well as it is—but I like Peter Alexievitch.”

“Then—if you can—make him happy—keep him cheerful,” said Mentchikoff; “in many ways his life is barren.”

The girl looked at him with those clear eyes that were full of an almost startling sincerity and truth.

“Then you are tired of me, Danilovitch Mentchikoff, and wish to hand me to your master?”

He returned her look frankly; both were of the same class, one by talent, the other by beauty elevated to these surroundings of royal luxury; she had been little better than a camp follower and he was from the gutter; neither was disguised to the other by their present splendor and the pomp of their surroundings; both held their positions by the frail tenure of another person’s favor—he by that of the Czar, she by his; for the powerful Prince was, after all, but a dependent on the favor of Peter, as the peasant girl was dependent on the caprice of Mentchikoff.

The two adventurers looked at each other keenly and there was a laugh between them; hers was wholly indifferent, perhaps heartless, his was gay and confident, for she cared for no creature but herself, nor ever would, while his least thought and meanest action was ennobled by his love for his master.

“I am not tired of you, Marpha,” said Mentchikoff, “and never shall be. I think you are a wonderful woman. I think you might help the Czar where I fail—as now when he is in his melancholy—and when he is drunk, and when he is ill.”

“I do not like sick people,” said the Livonian slowly.

“You have enough health and vitality to be able to share it,” replied Mentchikoff sharply.

She drew up her superb body that so proudly bore the heavy ornate trappings, and turning her beautiful head slowly, looked out into the darkness of the garden.

“We speak of the Czar of Holy Russia,” added the Prince, with some offense at her indifference.

“We speak of a dangerous man,” she replied, with that shrewdness that had already earned for her Mentchikoff’s respect. “I do not wish to be raised up to be dashed down. He can be cruel, and he has all the power. Let me keep out of the way of Peter Alexievitch.”

“You said that you liked him,” said Mentchikoff sternly; he had been hoping more than he admitted to himself from this second influence on Peter, that was to have been like a doubling of his own.

“I like him, but I am afraid of him,” she answered concisely. “He has many devils. I saw them peep out of his eyes. Keep me for yourself, Danilovitch Mentchikoff, for you are a peaceful man.”

The Prince replied violently: “If you will not please Peter Alexievitch, you shall not please me”—and passing her roughly, followed his master out into the murmuring darkness of the garden.

Marpha colored, and her serene pleasant face was overcast.

She had been quite content with her lazy life of ease and admiration, which had been like Paradise after the hardships of her earlier years, and she was sorry that Mentchikoff, for whom she felt a placid affection, had put her in the Czar’s path, for she was without ambition, fond of ease and comfort, and entirely uninterested in statecraft and politics; she could not write her own name, and was in every way entirely ignorant save in the natural arts of reading men and managing them; she would rather have been left in peace, and this though the dark sad face of Peter attracted her as she had never before been attracted.

With a little sigh she turned to her own apartment to take off the garment whose splendor rather constrained her, and put on the peasant costume that she usually wore.

In the pavilion Peter and Mentchikoff were discussing the coming campaign, the Czar showing a sudden fervent interest in those events that he had refused hitherto to even glance at; he would not drink, but turned half a glass of wine out on the table, and dipping his finger in it, proceeded to draw a rough map of the scene of the King of Sweden’s operations on the green marble.

His knowledge of the country was accurate; he correctly placed Copenhagen, King Frederick at Tönning, Augustus of Saxony falling back before Riga and the victorious forces of Sweden.

Then he drew a swift line through Poland towards Narva.

“There he will fall on Russia, Danilovitch.”

“Here we can meet him,” replied Mentchikoff.

Peter frowned; his dark head with the full short curls was bent low over the stains of wine on the malachite table; carved wooden dishes with birds’ heads, full of fruit, beakers of pierced steel and horn, had been pushed aside by the sweep of his right arm; the light of the candles fixed to the white walls of the pavilion shone on his stooping figure, and the harsh, earnest face and brilliant caftan of Mentchikoff.

Peter, staring at the smears of red on the green, was seeing those vast disputed provinces that he coveted, Ingermanland and Karelia ceded to Sweden nearly 100 years ago, Livonia and Esthonia lost by Poland to the same power in 1660; the possession of these lands would secure that Baltic port which had been the dream of Ivan IV, and which was so passionately desired by this first Czar who had beheld and loved the sea; the first ruler of Russia who had aspired to seize the trade with Asia and open up sea-going commerce. He had believed that the boy King of Sweden would be utterly incapable of defending his provinces, and that his secret league with Denmark and Poland would be easily and successfully pursued to a victorious conclusion.

Now Denmark had fallen out of the fight and Poland was a wavering ally; but Peter still put some faith in Augustus, because of the trained Saxon soldiery.

So he remained for a while, staring at that crude map, his swift mind filled out with all detail; then he suddenly smeared the wine spillings together with his open hand and looked up at Mentchikoff, who was regarding him eagerly.