The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER X

  THE LUBBER FIEND

  At five of the clock I lifted the great wolf's-head knocker of shiningbrass which frowned above the door of Master Gerard von Sturm in the portof the Weiss Thor. Hardly had I let it fall again when a small wicket,apparently about two feet above my head, opened, and a huge round headwith enormous ears at either side peeped out. So vast was the head and sosmall the aperture that one of the lateral wings of the chubby facecaught on the sill, and the owner brought it away successfully with ajerk and a perfectly good-humored and audible "flip."

  "Who are you, and what do you want?" said a wide-gashed mouth, which,with a squat, flattened-out nose and two merry little twinkling eyes,completed this wonderful apparition.

  The words were in themselves somewhat rude. On paper I observe that theyhave an appearance almost truculent. But spoken as the thing framed inthe window-sill said them, they were equal to a song of Brudershaft andan episcopal benediction rolled in one.

  "I am Hugo Gottfried of the Red Tower, come to see Master Gerard," Ireplied. "Who may you be that asks so boldly?"

  "I'll give you a stalk of rhubarb to suck if you can guess," was theunexpected answer.

  As I had never in my life seen anything in the least like the prodigy, itwas clearly impossible for me to earn the tart succulence of the summervegetable on such easy terms.

  "I should say," I replied, "if the guess savor not of insolence, that onemight be forgiven for mistaking you for the Fool of the Family!"

  The grin expanded till it wellnigh circumnavigated the vast head. Itseemed first of all to make straight for the ears on either side. Then,quite suddenly, finding these obstacles insurmountable, it dodgedunderneath them, and the scared observer could almost imagine its twoends meeting with a click somewhere in the wilderness at the back of thatunseen hemisphere of hairy thatch.

  "Pinked in the white, first time--no trial shot!" cried the object in thedoorway, cheerily. "I am the Fool of the Family. But not the only one!"

  At this moment something happened behind--what, I could not make outfor some time. The head abruptly disappeared. There was a noise as offloor-rugs being vigorously beaten, the door opened, and the mostextraordinary figure was shot out into the street. The head which I hadseen certainly came first, but so lengthy a body followed that it seemeda vain thing to expect legs in addition. Yet, finally, two appeared, eachof which would have made a decent body of itself, and went whirlingacross the street till the whole monstrosity came violently intocollision with the walls of the house opposite, which seemed to rock toits very foundations under the assault.

  A decent serving-man, in a semi-doctorial livery of black cloth, with alarge white collar laid far over his shoulders, and cuffs of the sameupon his wrists, stood in the open doorway and smiled apologetically atthe visitor. He was rather red in the face and panted with his exertions.

  "I ask your pardon, young sir," he said. "That fool, Jan Lubber Fiend,will ever be at his tricks. 'Tis my young mistress that encourages him,more is the pity! For poor serving-men are held responsible for hisknavish on-goings. Why, I had just set him cross-legged in the yard witha basket of pease to shell, seeing how he grows as much as a foot in thenight--or near by. But so soon as my back is turned he will be foreveranswering the door and peeping out into the street to gather the mongrelboys about him. 'Tis a most foul Lubber Fiend to keep about an honesthouse, plaguing decent folks withal!"

  By this time the great oaf had come back to the door of the house, andnow stood alternately rubbing his elbow and rear, with an expressionludicrously penitent, at once puzzled and kindly.

  "Ah, come in with you, will you?" said the man. "Certes, were it not forMistress Ysolinde, I would set on the little imps of the street to nipyou to pieces and eat you raw."

  The angry serving-man held the door as wide as possible and stood aside,whereat the Lubber Fiend tucked his head so far down that it seemed todisappear into the cavity of his chest, and scurried along the passagebent almost double. As he passed the door he drew all the latter part ofhis body together, exactly like a dog that fears a kick in the by-going.The respectable man-servant stirred not a muscle, but the gesture told atale of the discipline of the house by the White Gate at times whenvisitors were not being admitted by the main door, and when MistressYsolinde, favorer of the Fool Lubber Fiend, was not so closely at hand.

  It was a grand house, too, the finest I had ever seen, with hangings ofarras everywhere, many and parti-colored--red hunters who hunted, greenforesters who shot, puff-cheeked boys blowing on hunting-horns; a housewith mysterious vistas, glimpses into dim-lit rooms, wafts of perfume,lamps that were not extinguished even in the daytime, burning farwithin. All in mighty striking contrast to the bare stark strength of ourRed Tower on the Wolfsberg with its walls fourteen feet thick.

  As I followed the serving-man through the halls and stairways my feetfell without noise on carpets never woven in our bare-floored Germany,nor yet in England, where they still strew rushes, even (so they say) inthe very dining-rooms of the great--surely a most barbarous andunwholesome country. Nevertheless, carpets of wondrous hue were here inthe house of Master Gerard, scarlet and blue, and so thick of ply thatthe foot sank into them as if reluctant ever to rise again.

  As I came to the landing place at the head of the stairway, one passedhastily before me and above me, with a sough and a rustle like the windamong tall poplar trees on the canal edges.

  I looked up, and lo! a girl, not beautiful, but, as it were, ratherstrange and fascinating. She was lithe like a serpent and undulated inher walk. Her dress was sea-green silk of a rare loom, and clung closelyabout her. It had scales upon it of dull gold, which gave back alustrous under-gleam of coppery red as she moved. She had a pale, eagerface, lined with precision enough, but filled more with passion thanwomanly charm. Her eyes were emerald and beautiful, as the sea is whenyou look down upon it from a height and the white sand shines up throughthe clear depths.

  Such was Ysolinde, daughter of Gerard von Sturm, favorer of Lubber Fiendsand creator of this strange paradise through which she glided like aspangled Orient serpent.

  As I made my way humbly enough across to Master Gerard's room hisdaughter did not speak to me, only followed me boldly, and yet, as itseemed to me, somewhat wistfully too, with her sea-green eyes. And as thedoor was closing upon me I saw her beckon the serving-man.

  But I, on the inner side of the door, and with Master Gerard von Sturmbefore me, had enough to do to tell my tale and answer his questionswithout troubling my head about green-eyed girls.

  Master Gerard was as remarkable looking to the full as his daughter, withthe same luminously green eyes. But the orbs which in the maid shone assteadily clear as the depths of the sea, in the father glitteredopalescent where he sat in the dusk, like the eyes of Grimalkin corneredby dogs in some gloomy angle of the Wolfsberg wall.

  As soon as I had set eyes on him I knew that I had to do with a man--notwith a walking show like my Lord Duke Casimir. It struck me that for goodor evil Master Gerard could carry through his intent to the bitter end,and that in council he would smile when he saw my father change his blackvesture of trial for the red of beheading.

  The Doctor Gerard was little seen in the streets of Thorn. Many citizenshad never so much as set eyes on him. Nevertheless his hand was ineverything. Some said he was a Jew, chiefly because none knew rightlywhat he was or whence he had come. Thirty years had gone by since he hadsuddenly appeared one day in the noble old house by the Weiss Thor, fromwhich Graetz the wizard and his wife had been burned out by the fury ofthe populace. Twenty years of artistic labor had made this place what itnow was. And the little impish maid who used to break unexpectedly uponthe workmen of Thorn from behind doors, or who clapped hands upon theirshoulders in dusky recesses, scaring them out of their wits withsuggestions of witch-masters long dead and damned, had grown into thismaid of the sea-green eyes and silken draperies.

  "A good-day to you, Hugo Gottfried!" said Master Gerard, quietly
, lookingat me keenly across the table. He wore a skull-cap on his closely croppedhead. One or two betraying locks of gray appeared under it in front, butdid not conceal a flat forehead, which ran back at such an angle that,with the luminous eyes beneath it, it gave him the look of a serpentrearing his yellow head a little back in act to strike. This was a lookhis daughter had also. But in her the gesture was tempered by thefree-playing curves of a beautiful throat and the forward thrust of arounded chin--advantages not possessed by the angular anatomy and bonyjaw of the famous doctor of law.

  Master Gerard, clad in a long robe of black velvet from head to heel, satbending his fingers gracefully together and looking at me. His head wasthrown back, I have said, and the lights of the colored windows strikingon his gray hair and black skull-cap, caused him to look much more likesome lean ascetic ecclesiastic and prince of the church than the chieflawyer of the ancient capital of the Wolfmark.

  "You were present at this child's play yester-eve in the hostel of theWhite Swan?" he asked, boring into me with his uncomfortable,triangular eyes.

  "Aye, truly," said I, "and much they made of me!"

  For since my father said that I was accounted a hero in this house, I haddetermined not to hide away my deeds in my leathern scrip. I had hadenough practice in playing at modesty in the Tower of the Red Axe.

  Master Gerard shook his shoulders as though he would have made me believethat he laughed.

  "You were over many for thorn, I hear great silly fellows--childrenplaying with fire yet afraid to burn themselves. Why, since ten thismorning I have had them all here--stout burgomeister's sons, slim scionsof the Burghershaft, moist-eyed corporation children, each more anxiousthan another to prove that he had nothing to do with any treason. He hadbut called in at the White Swan for a draught of Frederika's famous stoneale, and so--well, he found himself somehow in the rear, and, allagainst his will, was dragged into the Lair of the White Wolf!"

  He looked at me quietly, without speaking, for a while.

  "And you, Master Hugo, did you go thither to distinguish yourself bybreaking up their child's folly, or, like the others, to taste thestone ale?"

  It was a question I had not expected. But it was best to be very plainwith Master Gerard.

  "I went," I replied, "along with Michael Texel, because he asked me. Iknew not in the least what I was to see, but I was ready for anything."

  "And you acquitted yourself on the whole extremely well," he nodded; "soat least they are all very ready to say, hoping, I doubt not, for yourgood offices with the Duke when it comes to their turn. You flouted themright manfully and defied their mystery, they told me."

  At this moment I became conscious that a door opposite me was open andthe curtain drawn a little way back. There, in the half-light, I sawMistress Ysolinde listening. She leaned her head aside as though it hadbeen heavy with its weight of locks of burned gold. She pillowed hercheek against the door-post, and let her dreamy sea-green eyes rest uponme. And the look that was in them gave me a sense of pleasure strange andacute, as well as a restless uneasiness and vague desire to escape outunder the blue sky, and mingle with the throng of every-day men on thestreets of the city.

  ***

  CHAPTER XI

  THE VISION IS THE CRYSTAL

  Master Gerard, however, did not seem to be aware of her presence, for hecontinued his catechism steadily.

  "You mocked at their terrors, did you not, and told them that you, whohad seen the teeth of the Duke's hounds, had nothing to fear from thebare gums of the White Wolf?"

  "I knew that they but played," I answered, "and that I had little tofear."

  For with Ysolinde von Sturm watching me with her eyes I could not forvery shame's sake make myself great.

  "You told them more than that," the girl cried, suddenly flashing on me alook keen as the light on a sword when it comes home from the cutler."You told them that you too desired a freer commonwealth!"

  "I did," said I, flushing quickly, for I had thought to keep mythumb on that.

  Nevertheless I was not going back on my spoken word, even in the presenceof Duke Casimir's inquisitor. Besides which I judged that my father hadinfluence enough to bring me out scathless.

  "That is well and bravely said!" he replied, smiling with thin lips whichin all their constant writhings showed no vestige of teeth within; "butthe sentiment itself is somewhat strange in the son of the Red Axe andthe future Executioner of Justice in the Wolfmark."

  Then for the first time I permitted my eyes to rest on the lithe figureof the girl in the doorway. Methought she inclined her head a littleforward to catch my answer as if it had been a matter of interest to her.

  "I am indeed son of the Red Axe," said I, "but my own head would underlieit rather than that I should ever be Hereditary Justicer of the Mark."

  A smile that was meant for me passed over the girl's face and momentlysweetened her lips. She straightened her body and set a hand more easilyto her waist. A certain kindness dwelt in her emerald eyes.

  "Never be Duke's Justicer!" cried Master Gerard, looking up with his handon a skull. "This is unheard of! Are not you the only son of GottfriedGottfried, right hand of Duke Casimir, highest in favor with his Grace?And within two years, according to the law of the headsman, must you notalso don the Red and the Black and stand at the Duke's left hand, as yourfather at his right, when he sits in judgment?"

  I bowed my head for answer.

  "Even so," said I; "but long before that time I shall be either in a farcountry waging the wars of another lord, or in a country yetfarther--that to which the men of my race have directed so manyuntimeously."

  "Have you at all thought of the land or the lord to whom you wouldtransfer your allegiance?" said Gerard von Sturm, carelessly rapping withhis fingers on the bare white of the skull before him.

  "I have not," I replied as easily.

  He looked down a moment, and drew his black robe thoughtfully over hisknee as if turning the matter over in his mind. "What think you ofPlassenburg and the service of Prince Karl?" he said at last.

  "The place is too near and the man a usurper," I replied, brusquely.

  "I am not so sure," Master Gerard mused, slowly, "that it might not beadvantageous to bide near home. Duke Casimir is mortal, after all--longand prosperously may he live!" (Here he inclined his head piously, whilenaming his master.) "But who knows how long he may be spared to reignover a loving people. And after that, why, there may be more usurpers.For by the name 'usurper' the ignorant mostly mean men of the strongheart and sure brain, who can hold that which they have with one hand andreach out for more with the other."

  While he spoke thus he looked at me with his green eyes half closed.

  "But," said I, calmly enough, though my heart beat fast, "I am but a laduntried. I may never rise beyond a private soldier. I may be killed atthe first assault of my virgin campaign."

  Master Gerard looked up quickly. He beckoned to his daughter. For thoughby no faintest gesture had he betrayed his knowledge of her presence, hehad yet clearly known it all the time.

  "Ysolinde," he said, "bring hither thy crystal!"

  The maid disappeared and presently returned with a ball in her hand ofsome substance which looked like misty glass.

  "I have been looking in it already," she said, "ever since Hugo Gottfriedcame out of the Red Tower."

  Her voice was soft and even, with the same sough in it as of the windamong poplar-trees which I had heard in the rustle of her silken dress asshe came up the stair.

  "And what," asked her father, "have you seen in the crystal, child ofmy heart?"

  He looked up at me with some little shamefacedness, or so I imagined.

  "I am a dry old man of the law," he went on, "dusty of heart as theseblack books up yonder--books not of magic but of fact, of crime and painand penalty. But this my daughter Ysolinde, wise from a child, solacesherself with the white, innocent magic, such as helps man and brings himnearer that which is unseen."

  The maid knelt by
her father's knee, and held the crystal ball in thehollow of her hands against the sable of his velvet robe. She passed onehand swiftly twice or thrice over her brow, as though to clear away somecobwebs, gossamer thin, that had folded themselves across her vision.Then, in the same wistful, wind-soft voice, she began to speak. And asshe spoke all that I had loved and known began to pass from before me. Iforgot my father. I forgot the Red Tower. I forgot (God forgive me, yethelp it I could not!) the little Princess Playmate and her sweetest eyes.I forgot all else save this lithe, serpentine maiden with the massivecrown of burned and tawny gold upon her head.

  "I see," she began, "a long street and many men struggling on it--theWolf of the Wolfmark, the Eagle of Plassenburg are face to face. I seeRed Karl the Prince. The young Wolf has the better of it. He bites hislip and drives hard. The Prince is down. He is wounded. He is like todie. The Wolf will drive all to destruction.

  "But see--" she sighed, and paused the while as if that which she sawnext touched her--"from the swelter in the rear comes a young soldier. Hehas lost his helmet. I see his head. It is a fair head with crisp curls.He has a sword in his hand and he lays well about him. He cuts a way tothe Prince--he bestrides his body.

  "Give way there, scullions, that I may see more!" she cried, impetuously,and waved her hand before her eyes, which were fixed expressionless onthe crystal. "I see him again. Well done, young soldier! Valiantly laidon. It is great sword-play. Bravo! The Wolf is down. The Eagle ofPlassenburg is up--I can see no more!"

  And suddenly she dropped the ball, which would have rolled off herfather's knee had he not caught it as it fell.

  Ysolinde kept her head on Master Gerard's lap for a long minute, as if,after the vision of the crystal, she could not bear the common light norspeak of meaner things. Then, without once looking at me, she rose,gathered her skirts in her hand, and glided out of the doorway in whichshe had stood.

  When she was quite gone her father reached a bony hand across to me.

  "That is a great fate which she has read for you--never have I seen herso moved, nor yet her vision so clear and unmistakable. Surely the sooneryou seek the service of the Prince of Plassenburg the better."

  "But," said I, "how do I know that he will accept me? He may not wish toretain in his service the son of the Red Axe of the Wolf mark."

  Master von Sturm smiled subtly at me.

  "I cannot tell," he said, "why it is that I have an interest in you. ButI desire to see you other than that which you are. I have, strange as itmay seem in one of such humble degree here in the city of Thorn, whom allmay consult without fee or reward, a certain influence and place in thecouncils of the reigning Prince of Plassenburg. If, therefore, you willtake service with him, I can give you such an introduction as willguarantee you a place, not as man-at-arms, but as officer, so that yourway may lie before you clear from the first. Also in this promotion youshall have a good sufficient reason to give those who may accuse you ofchanging your service."

  I could not answer him for gladness. The hope seemed so unbelievable--thefortune too grateful to be true. I was overcome, and, as I guess, showedit in my face. For twice I essayed to speak and could not.

  So that Master Gerard rose and glided over to me, patting me kindlyenough on the shoulders and bidding me take courage, saying that he lovedto see modesty in this untoward generation, in which there was littlevirtue and no gratitude at all.

  So I grasped him by the hand and kissed his thin, bony fingers.

  "Bide ye, bide ye," he said; "one day I may kiss yours an you be active.The wide spaces of Destiny lie before you, though I shall not live to seeit. But you must bestir you, for I am an old man, and have not far totravel now to the place from which one leaps off into the dark."

  He conducted me to the door of his chamber and gave me his hand againwith the same inscrutable smile on his thin face, and his skull-cappushed farther back than ever over the flat, ophidian brow.

  "When you have all things ready," he said, "come to me for the letter ofintroduction, and also for that which may obtain you a worthy outfit foryour journeying to Plassenburg. Or, if you are already Sir Proud-Heart,you can repay me one day, with usury if you will. I care not to stand onobservances with you, nor desire that you should feel any obligation to afeeble old man."

  "I am not proud," I said, "and my sense of obligation is already greaterthan ever I can hope to discharge."

  "I thank you, my lad," he said. "Often have I wished for ason of the flesh like you as you passed the window with yourcompanions--but go, go!"

  And with his hand he pushed me out upon the stair-head and shut the door.

  For a space I knew not where I stood. For what with the turmoil of mythoughts and the myriad of impressions, hopes, fears, visions, regrets toleave the Red Tower, the city of Thorn, the hope of seeing again thathigh-poised head of burned gold of the Lady Ysolinde, I pausedstock-still, moidered and dazed, till a light hand touched me on theshoulder and the soft, even voice spoke in my ear.

  "Master Hugo," said the Lady Ysolinde, bending kindly to me, "I am glad,very glad--aye, though you have made my head ache" (here she noddedblamefully and laid her hand upon her heart as if that ached too)--"it isthe best of fortunes, and sure to come true. Because have I seen it atsix o'clock of a Thursday in the time of full moon."

  "Come hither," she said, beckoning me; "we shall try another way of ityet, in spite of the headache. It may be that there is more that concernsyou for me to see in the ink-pool."

  With this she took my hand and almost pulled me down the stairs by force.As we went I saw the wild head and staring eyeballs of Jan the LubberFiend peering at us. He was lying on the back staircase, prone on hisstomach, apparently extending from top to bottom down the swirl of it,and with his chin poised on the topmost step. But as we came down thestair the head seemed to be wholly detached from any body. The red earsactually flapped with mirthful pleasure and anticipation at the sight ofthe Lady Ysolinde, and no man could see both the beginning and end ofthat smile.

  "Lubber Jan," said she, "go and sit in the yard. The servants will becomplaining of thee again, that they cannot come up the staircase, evenas they did before."

  "Then, if I do," mumbled the monster, "will you look out of window atleast once in each hour, between every stroke of the clock. Else will Jannot stop in the yard, but come within to feast his eyes on thee."

  "Yes, Jan," she said, smiling with a gentle complaisance which made melike her somewhat better than before, "I will look out at least once inthe hour."

  And turning a little she smiled again at me, still holding me by thehand. The Lubber Fiend pulled his forelock, and reaching downward hishead, as if he had the power of stretching out his neck like an arm, hekissed the cold pavement where her foot had rested a moment before. Thenhe rather retracted himself, serpentwise, then betook him in Christianfashion down the stair, and we heard him move out amid a babel ofservatorial recriminations into the outer yard.

  "A poor innocent," said the Lady Ysolinde; "one that worships me, as yousee. He is so great of stature and so uncouth that the children persecutehim, and some day he may do one of them an injury. Years ago I rescuedhim from an evil pack of them and brought him hither. So that is thereason why he cleaves to me."

  "An excellent reason, my lady," said I, "for any to cleave to you."

  "Ah," she said, wistfully, "only fools think of Ysolinde in the city ofThorn. Some are afraid and pass by, and the rest are as the dogs thatlick the garbage in the streets. Here I have no friends, save my fatheronly, and here or elsewhere I have never had any that truly loved me."

  "But you are young--you are fair," I answered. "Many must come seekingyour favor." Thus did I begin lumpishly enough to comfort her. But atmy first words she snatched her fingers away angrily, and then in amoment relented.

  "You mean well," she said, giving her hand back to me again, "but it isnot pity Ysolinde needs nor yet desires. But that is no matter. Come inhither and see what may abide for you in the depths of the black po
ol."

  At the curtained doorway she turned and looked me in the eyes.

  "If you were as other young men it would be easy for you to misjudgeme. This is mine own work-chamber, and I bid you come into it, havingseen you but an hour ago. Yet never a man save my father only hath sethis foot in it before. Inquire carefully of your companions in the cityof Thorn, and if any make pretension to acquaintance with the LadyYsolinde of the White Gate strike him in the face and call him liar,for the sake of the favor I have shown you and the vision I sawconcerning you in the crystal."

  I stooped and kissed her hand, which was burning hot--a thin little hand,with long, supple fingers which bent in one's grasp.

  "The man who would pretend to such a thing is dead even as he speaks,"said I; and I meant it fully.

  "I thank you--it is well," she answered, leading me in. "I only desiredthat you should not misjudge me."

  "That could I never do if I would," I made her answer. "Here my everythought is reverence as in the oratory of a saint."

  She smiled a strange smile.

  "Mayhap that is rather more than I desire," she said. "Say rather in themaiden bower of a woman who knows well whom she may trust."

  Again I kissed her hand for the correction. And, as I rememberedafterwards, it was at that hour that the little Princess Playmate wasused to look within my chamber to see that all was ready for me.

  And, had I known it, even that night she stooped over and kissed thepillow where my head was to lie.

  "Dear love!" she was used to say.

  Alas that I heard it not then!