CHAPTER XXXVI
YSOLINDE'S FAREWELL
The next morning early, as I went about making my dispositions, andputting men of trust in positions fit for them--for the Prince has givenme the command of all the soldiers within the city--the Lady Ysolindecame to me upon the terrace.
"Walk with me a while," she said, "in the lower garden. It is a quietplace, and I would speak with you."
It was a command that I dared not refuse to obey, yet my greatest enemywould not accuse me that I went lightly or willingly to such a tryst.
The Lady Ysolinde passed on daintily and proudly before me, and Ifollowed, more like a condemned criminal lamping heavily to the scaffoldthan a lad of mettle accompanying a fair lady to a rendezvous of her ownasking under the greenwood-tree.
But I need not have feared. The Princess's mood was mild, and I saw herin a humor in which I had never seen her before.
She moved before me over the grass, with her head a little turned up tothe skies, as though appealing out of her innocence to the Beings who satbehind and sorted out the hearts of men and women.
At a great weeping-elm, under which was a seat, she turned. It formed awide canopy of shade, grateful and cool. For the breezes stirred underthe leaves, and the river moved beneath with a pleasant, meditativehush of sound.
"Hugo Gottfried, once you were my friend," she began; "what have I donethat you should be my friend no more? Tell me plainly. I liked you whenas a lad, the son of the Red Axe, you had come to my father's house aboutsome boyish freak. I have not done ill by you since that day. And nowthat you are a leader of men and of rank and honor here in my husband'scountry of Plassenburg, I would be your well-wisher still. I am consciousof no reason for my having forfeited your liking. But that I would knowfor certain--and now."
As she threw back her head and let her clear emerald eyes rest upon me, Inever saw woman born of woman look more innocent. Indeed, in these daysof mistrust, it is innocence under suspicion which usually looks mostguilty, knowing what is expected of it.
"Lady Ysolinde," I made answer, "you try me hard and sore. You put me byforce in the wrong. You do me indeed great honor, as you have ever doneall these years. In reverence and high respect I shall ever hold you forall that you have done--for your kindness to me and to Helene, the orphangirl who came from our father's roof with me. I know no reason why thereshould be any break in our friendship--nor shall there be, if you willpardon my folly and--"
"Tush!" she said, impetuously; "you speak things empty, vain, therattling of knuckle-bones in a bladder--not live words at all. Think youI have never listened to true men? Do not I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg,know the sound of words that have the heart behind them? I have heard youspeak such yourself. Do not insult me then with platitudes, nor try todivert me with the piping of children in the market-place. I will notdance to them, nor yet, like a foolish kitchen-wench, smile at thejingling of your trinketry."
"Your Highness--" I began again.
She waved her hand as if putting a light thing away.
"I was a woman to you before you knew that I was a Princess," she said;"you need not forget that I am a woman still, cursed with the plate-mailof rank added to the weariness and inaction of a woman's breaking heart."
I grew acutely conscious that I was not distinguishing myself in thisinterview. So I dashed again at the wall, and this time, for a moment atleast, overbore interruption.
"Ysolinde, my dear lady," I said to her, "you are the Prince's and mygood master's wife. And if I have stood aloof, it is that I wished thathe should have the companionship which one day I desire to find formyself--and also that I might always have the right to look straight intomy master's eyes."
"Now you talk like a silly prating priestling," she said. "You are bothmighty careful of your honesty, your virtue, your companionship--yourprecious master and you. But you do not think what it is to starve awoman's heart, to bid her find her level among broiderers of banneretsand stitchers in tapestry. Ah! if the particular God who happened to beat the digging of us out of the happier pit of oblivion had only made mea man, I, at least, should neither have been a straitlaced Jackanapes noryet a prating, callow-bearded wiseacre."
"And am I either?" said I, weakly enough.
"You are in danger of becoming both," she said, promptly. "Once I sawbetter things in you. I thought I had won me a friend, and that for onceI might put my anchor down. My husband neglects me, so much cannot haveescaped your eagle eye. He is twice my age, and he thinks more of you,more of Councillor Von Dessauer, more of his horse than of me, Ysolindeof Plassenburg. And I was made to be loved and to love. How much ofeither, think you, have I ever known? The true lot of a woman shut to me,the sweet love of man and woman wiled from me, even the communion of thespirit forbidden. I might as lief carry a wizened nut-kernel within mybrain-pan as a thinking soul, for all that any one cares. I am a woman ofanother age stranded on the shores of a time made only for men. I am thewoman priests talk against, or perhaps rather the witch-woman Lilith onthe outside of Eden's wall. Or I may be the woman of a time yet to come,when she who is man's mate shall not be only a gay-decked bird to sit onhis wrist, tethered with a leash and called back to her master with asilver lure."
These things I had never listened to before, nor, indeed, thought of.Nevertheless, though I could not answer her, I felt in my heart thatshe was wrong, and that a woman has always power over men, beingstronger than all ideals, philosophies, kingdoms--aye, even our holyreligion itself.
"After all," I said, piqued a little at her tone, as men are wont to beat that which they do not understand, "my Lady Ysolinde, wherefore shouldyou not tell these things to the Prince, your husband, and not to me,that am neither your husband nor your lover?"
"And if you had been both?" she interjected, a little breathlessly.
"Then, my lady," I replied, stirred by her persistence, "you would haveobeyed me and served me just as you say. Or else I should have brokenyour spirit as a man is broken on the wheel."
It was a prideful saying, and one informed with all ignorance andconceit. Yet the Lady Ysolinde gave a long sigh.
"Ah, that would have been sweet, too," she said. "You are the one man Ishould have delighted to call master, to have done your bidding. That hadbeen a thing different indeed! But you love me not. You love a chit, achitterling--a pretty thing that can but peep and mutter, whoseheart's depths I have sounded with my finger-nail, and whose babyishvanity I have tickled with a straw."
This was enough and too much.
"Madam," said I, "the clear stars are not fouled by throwing filth atthem, nor yet the Lady Helene--whom I do acknowledge that with all myheart I love--by the speaking of any ill words. You do but wrongyourself, most noble lady. For your heart tells you other things, both ofthe maid I love and of me that am her true servant, and, if I might, yourtrue friend."
The Princess reached out her hand, looking, not with anger, but ratherwistfully at me, like a mother at a son who goes to his death withblasphemy on his lips.
"Forgive me," she said, gently. "I would not at the last have you goforth thinking ill of me. Indeed, you think all too well, and make me dothings that are better than mine intent, because I know that you expectthem of me. I have done many ill and cruel things in my poor life, simplyfrom idleness and the empty, unsatisfied heart. If you had loved me ortaught me or driven me, I might have tried better things. Perhaps in theend, for great love's sake, I may yet do one worthy deed that shall blotout all the rest. Farewell!"
And without another spoken word she moved away, and left me in the greenpleasaunces of the garden, with my heart riven this way and that, scarceknowing what I did or where I stood.
The Red Axe Page 35