The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XII

  EYES OF EMERALD

  It was a strange little room into which the Lady Ysolinde brought me,full of quaint, changeful scents, and all ablaze with colors the like ofwhich I had never seen. For not only were rugs and mats of outlandishEastern design scattered over the floor, but there was vividly coloredglass in the small, deeply set windows. Yet that which affected me mostpowerfully was a curious, clinging, evanescent odor, which came and wentlike a breeze through an open window. I liked it at first, but after alittle it went to my head like a perfumed wine of Greece, such as the menof Venice sometimes send to our northern lands with their embassies ofmerchandise.

  Altogether, it was a strange enough apartment for the daughter of alawyer in the city of Thorn, within a mile of the bare feudal strengthsof the Red Tower and the Wolfsberg.

  All this while Ysolinde had kept my hand, a thing which at once thrilledand shamed me. For though I had never been what is called "in love" withthe Little Playmate, nor till that day had spoken a word to her my fathermight not have heard, yet hitherto she had always been first and sole inmy heart whenever I thought on the things which were to be.

  The Lady Ysolinde having brought me to her chamber, bade me sit uponan oaken folding-stool beside a table on which lay weapons of curiousdesign--crooked knives and poisoned arrows. Then she went to anivory cupboard of the Orient (or, as they are called in Holy Writ,"an ivory palace"), and opening the beautifully fitting door, shetook from it a small square bottle of red glass which she heldbetween her and the light.

  "It is well," she said, looking long and carefully at it; "it will flow."

  And coming to the table and pouring some of a shining black liquid intothe palm of her left hand, she sat down beside me on the stool and gazedsteadily into the little pool of ink.

  It was strange to me to sit thus motionless beside a beautiful woman(for such I then thought her)--so near that I could feel the warmth ofher body strike like sunshine through the silken fineness of hersea-green gown. I glanced up at her eyes. They were fixed, and, as itseemed, glazed also. But the emerald in them, usually dark as thesea-depths, had opal lights in it, and her lips moved like those of adevotee kneeling in church.

  Presently she began to speak.

  "Hugo--Hugo Gottfried, son of the Red Axe," she said, in the same hushedvoice as before, most like running water heard murmuring in a deep runnelunderground, "you will live to be a man fortunate, well-beloved. You willknow love--yes, more than one shall love you. But you will love one only.I see the woman on whom your fate depends, yet not clearly--it may be,because my desire is so great to see her face. But she is tall and moveslike a queen. She goes clad in white like a bride and her arms are heldout to you.

  "But another shall love you, and between them two there is darkness andhate, from which come bursting clouds of fire, bringing forth lightningsand angers and deadly jealousies!

  "Again I see you, great, honored, and sitting on a high seat. Thewoman whose face I cannot distinguish is beside you, clothed in arobe of purple. And, yes, she wears a crown on her head like thecoronet of a queen."

  Ysolinde withdrew her eyes gradually from the ink-pool, as if it were apain to look yet a greater to look away. Then with a quick jerk she threwup her head, and tears were standing in her eyes ready to overflow. Butthe wetness made them beautiful, like a pebble of bright colors with thedew upon it and shone on by the sunshine of the morning.

  "You hurt me," she murmured reproachfully, looking at me more like achild than ever I had seen her. She was very near to me.

  "_I_ make you suffer!" cried I, greatly astonished. "How can HugoGottfried have done this thing?"

  For it seemed impossible that a poor lad, and one alien by his birth fromthe hearts of ordinary folk, should yet have the power to make a greatlady suffer. For a great lady I knew Ysolinde to be even then, when herfather seemed to be no more in the city of Thorn than Master Gerard, thefount and treasure-house of law and composer-general of quarrels.

  But I might have known that he was no true lawyer to be so eager aboutthat last. For upon the continuance and fostering of differences thelaw-men of all nations thrive and eat their bread with honey thereto.

  As my father often said, "Better the stroke of the Red Axe than that ofthe scrivener's goose-quill. My solution is kindlier, sooner over, hurtsless, and is all the same in the end!"

  Ysolinde thought a little before she answered me.

  "No man ever made me suffer thus before," she said, "though I have seenand known many men. I am older than you, Hugo, and have travelled in manycountries, the lands from which these things came. But true love, thepain and the pleasure of it, have I never known."

  She leaned her head on her hand and her elbow on the table, turning thusto look long and intently at me. I felt oafish and awkward, as Jan LubberFiend might have done before the King. Many things I might have wished tosay and do with that slender figure and lissome waist so near me. But Iknew not how to begin. Yet I think the desire came not so much from loveor passion, but rather from a natural longing to explore those mysteriesconcerning which I had read so much after Friar Laurence had done me theservice of teaching me French. But it was well that stupidity was myfriend. For rebounding like a vain, upstart young monkey from my mood ofself-depreciation, I must needs hold it for certain that all was withinmy grasp, and that the Lady Ysolinde expected as much of me, which thingwould have wrought my downfall.

  "Yon ride soon to Plassenburg, I hear," she said, after she had looked atme a long time steadily with the emerald eyes shining upon me. Then itwas that I saw clearly that they were not the right emerald in hue somuch as of the shade of the stone aqua-marine, which is one not so rare,but a better color when it comes to the matter of maiden's eyes.

  "It is indeed true, my lady," I replied, disappointed at her words, andyet somehow infinitely relieved, "that I ride soon to Plassenburg by thefavoring of your father, who has been gracious enough to promise me hisinterest with the Prince."

  I saw her lip curl a little with scorn--the least tilt of a rose leaf towhich the sun has been unkind.

  She seemed about to speak, but presently thinking better of it,smiled instead.

  "It is like my father," she said, after a little; "but since I also gothither, you shall be of my escort. A sufficient guard accompanies me allthe way to the city, and I dare say the arrangement may serve yourconvenience as well as add to the pleasure and safety of my journeying."

  "But how will your father do without your company, Lady Ysolinde?" Iasked. For it seemed strange that father and daughter should thus partwithout reason in these disturbed times.

  She laughed more heartily than I had heard her.

  "My father has been used to missing me for months at a time, and,moreover, is well resigned also. But you do not say that you are rejoicedto be of a lady's escort in so long a travel."

  "Indeed, I am much honored and glad to have so great a favor done to me.I am but a mannerless, landward youth, to have been bred in the outercourts of a palace. But that which I do not know you will teach me, andmy faults I shall be eager to amend."

  "Pshaw!--psutt!" said Ysolinde, making a little face, "be not somock-modest. You do very well. But tell me if you have any sweetheart inthe city to leave behind you."

  Now this bold question at once reddened my face and heightened myconfusion.

  "Nay, lady," I stammered, conscious that I was blushing furiously, "I amover-young to have thought much of the things of love. I know no woman inthe city save our old house-keeper Hanne, and the Little Playmate."

  The Lady Ysolinde looked up quickly.

  "Ah, the Little Playmate!" she said, in a low voice, curiously distinctfrom that which she used when she had interpreted her visions to me. "TheLittle Playmate! That sounds as though it might be interesting. Who isthe Little Playmate?"

  "She is a maid whose folks were slain long ago by the Duke in a foray,and the little one being left, my father begged her life. And she hasbeen brought up with me
in the Red Tower."

  "How old is she now?" The Lady Ysolinde's next question leaped out likethe flash of a dagger from its sheath.

  "That," answered I, meditatively, "I know not exactly, because none couldtell how old she was when she came to us."

  "Tut," she said, impatiently tossing her head, "do not twist your answersto me--only wise men and courtiers have the skill to do that and hide it.As yet you are neither. Is she ten, or is she twenty, or is she mid-waybetwixt the two?"

  "I think she may be a matter of seventeen years of age."

  "Is she pretty?" was the next question.

  "No," said I, not knowing well what to say.

  Her face cleared as she heard that, and then, in a little, her eyes beingstill bent steadily on me, reading my very heart, it clouded over again.

  "You think her not merely pretty, then, but beautiful?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  "More beautiful than I?"

  'Fore God I denied not my love, though I own I have many a time been lesstempted, and yet have lied back and forth like a Frankfort Jew.

  "Yes," said I, "I think so."

  "You love her, then?" said the Lady Ysolinde, rising quickly to her feet;"and you told me that you loved none in this city."

  "I love her, indeed," I said. "She is my little sister. As you mean love,I do not love her. But I love her notwithstanding. All my life I havenever thought of doing anything else. And that she is beautiful, all whohave eyes in their head may see."

  This appeased her somewhat. I think it must have been looking for myfortune in the crystal and the ink-pool that made her so eager to knowall that concerned me--which none had ever been so importunate to findout before.

  "I must come and see this Little Playmate of yours," she said. "It is anill-done thing that so fair a maid should be shut up in the tower of sucha pagan castle--the Wolfsberg; it is indeed well named. Word has reachedme to-day that the Princess of Plassenburg has need of a bower maiden.Now the Princess can make her choice from many noble families. But if theLittle Playmate be as beautiful as you say, 'tis high time that sheshould not be left immured in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg. True, theDuke, like a careful man, neither makes nor mells with womankind. 'Tishis only virtue. But any questing Ritterling or roaring free companionmight bear her off."

  "I think not," said I, smiling, "so long as the Red Axe of the Mark has apolished edge and Gottfried Gottfried can send it sheer through an ox'sneck as he stands chewing the cud."

  I hardly think that I ever boasted of my father's prowess before.And, indeed, I had some skill in the axe-play myself, but only in theway of sport.

  "All one," said Ysolinde. "Your father, like great Caesar and DukeCasimir, is but mortal, and may stumble across the wooden stump some dayhimself and find his neck-bone in twain! None so wise that he can tellwhen the Silent Rider shall meet him in the wood, leading by the bridlethe pale horse whose name is Death, and beckoning him to mount and ride."

  The Lady Ysolinde paused a while, touching her lips thoughtfully withher fingers.

  "Let your Playmate come," she said. "There is room, I warrant, for herand you both at Plassenburg. You shall keep each other company whenyou have the homesickness, and on the journey she can ride with usside by side."

  Then going to the curtain she summoned the servitor who had first openedthe door for me. He bowed before the girl with infinite respect. She badehim conduct me upon my way. I will not deny that I had hoped for atenderer leave-taking. But all at once she seemed to have slipped backinto the great lady again, and to be desirous of setting me in my ownsphere and station ere I went, lest perchance I should presume overmuchupon her favors.

  Yet not altogether so. For, relenting a little as I turned to leave her,she stood holding the curtain aside for me to pass, and, as it had beenby accident, in dropping it her fingers rested a moment against mycheek. Then the heavy curtain of blue fell into its place, and I foundmyself following the eminently respectable domestic of Master Gerarddown the stairs.

  At the outer door, but before he opened it, the man put a sealed packetin my hand.

  "From Doctor Gerard von Sturm," he said, bowing respectfully, yet with acertain sense of being a party in a favor conferred.

  I thrust the letter into my inner pocket and went out into the street.The sun was still shining, yet somehow I felt that it must be anotherday, another world. The houses seemed hard and dry, the details of thearchitecture insufferably mean and insultingly familiar. I longed withall my heart to get away from Thorn into the new world which had openedto me--a world of perfumes and flowers and flower-like scents andOriental marvels, of low voices, too, and the touching of soft handsupon cheeks.

  In all the world of young men there was no greener or more simple Simonthan I, Hugo Gottfried, as, playing a tune on the pipe of my own conceit,I marched up the High Street of Thorn to the entrance gate of theWolfsberg.

  The Little Playmate was standing at the door as I approached, sweet as aJune rose. When she saw me she went into the sitting-room to show thatshe had not yet forgiven me. Though I think by this time, as was oftenthe way with Helene, she had forgotten almost what was the originalmatter of my offending.

  But I pretended to be careless and heart-free. And so--God forgiveme!--I went whistling up the steps of the Red Tower to my room withoutso much as looking within the chamber where my Little Playmate hadwithdrawn herself.

  Which thing I suffered grievously for or all was done. And an excellentdispensation of Providence it had been if I had lost my right hand, allfor making that little heart sore, or so much as one tear drop from thosedeep gray eyes.