CHAPTER III
JOAN DRAWS FIRST BLOOD
The word of command came full and strong fromthe open doorway of the hall.
Hans Trenck came instantly to the salute with the ball in his hand. Hehad no difficulty in lifting it now. In fact, he did not seem able tolet it down. Every man in the hall except the two captains ofPlassenburg had risen to his feet and stood as if carved in marble.
For there in the doorway, her slim figure erect and exceedinglycommanding, and her beautiful eyes shining with indignation, stood theDuchess Joan of Hohenstein.
"Joan of the Sword Hand!" said Jorian, enraptured. "Gott, what a wench!"
In stern silence she advanced into the hall, every man standing fixed atattention.
"Good discipline!" said Boris.
"Shut your mouth!" responded Jorian.
"Keep your hand so, Hans Trenck," said their mistress; "give me yoursword, Werner! You shall see whether I am called Joan of the Sword Handfor naught. You would torture prisoners, would you, after what I havesaid? Hold up, I say, Hans Trenck!"
And so, no man saying her nay, the girl took the shining blade and, witha preliminary swish through the air and a balancing shake to feel theelastic return, she looked at the poor knave fixed before her in thecentre of the hall with his wrist strained to hold the prisoner's ballaloft at the stretch of his arm. What wonder if it wavered like abranch in an uncertain wind?
"Steady there!" said Joan.
And she drew back her arm for the stroke.
The young Dane, who, since her entrance, had looked at nothing save theradiant beauty of the figure before him, now cried out, "For Heaven'ssake, lady, do not soil the skirts of your dress with his villain blood.He but obeyed his orders. Let me be set free, and I will fight him orany man in the castle. And if I am beaten, let them torture me till I amcarrion fit only to be thrown into the castle ditch."
The Duchess paused and leaned on the sword, holding it point to thefloor.
"By whose orders was this thing done?" she demanded.
The lad was silent. He disdained to tell tales even on his enemies. Washe not a gentleman and a Dane?
"By mine, my lady!" said Werner von Orseln, a deep flush upon his manlybrow.
The girl looked severely at him. She seemed to waver. "Good, then!" shesaid, "the Dane shall fight Werner for his life. Loose him and chafe hiswrists. Ho! there--bring a dozen swords from the armoury!"
The flush was now rising to the boy's cheek.
"I thank you, Duchess," he said. "I ask no more than this."
"Faith, the Sparhawk is not tamed yet," said Boris; "we shall see bettersport ere all be done!"
"Hold thy peace," growled Jorian, "and look."
* * * * *
"Out into the light!" cried the young Duchess Joan, pointing the waywith Werner's sword, which she still held in her hand. And going firstshe went forth from the hall of the soldiery, down the broad stairs, andsoon through a low-arched door with a sculptured coat-of-arms over it,out into the quadrangle of the courtyard.
"And now we will see this prisoner of ours, this cock of the Danishmarches, make good his words. That, surely, is better sport than todrop caltrops upon the toes of manacled men."
Werner followed unwillingly and with deep flush of shame upon his brow.
"My lady," he said, going up to his mistress, "I do not need to prove mycourage after I have served Kernsberg and Hohenstein for thirty-eightyears--or well-nigh twice the years you have lived--fought for you andyour father and shed my blood in a score of pitched battles, to saynothing of forays. Of course I will fight, but surely this youngcockerel might be satisfied to have his comb cut by younger hands."
"Was yours the order concerning the dropping of the ball?" asked theDuchess Joan.
The grey-headed soldier nodded grimly.
"I gave the order," he said briefly.
"Then by St. Ursula and her boneyard, you must stand to it!" cried thisfiery young woman. "Else will I drub you with the flat of your ownsword!"
Werner bowed with a slightly ironic smile on his grizzled face.
"As your ladyship wills," he said; "I do not give you half obedience. Ifyou say that I am to get down on my knees and play cat's cradle with theKernsberg bairns, I will do it!"
Joan of the Sword here looked calmly at him with a certain austerity inher glance.
"Why, of course you would!" she said simply.
Meanwhile the lad had been freed from his bonds and stood with a swordin his hand suppling himself for the work before him with quick littleguards and feints and attacks. There was a proud look in his eyes, andas his glance left the Duchess and roved round the circle of his foes,it flashed full, bold, and defiant.
Werner turned to a palish lean Bohemian who stood a little apart.
"Peter Balta," he said, "will you be my second? Agreed! And who willcare for my honourable opponent?"
"Do not trouble yourself--that will arrange itself!" said Joan to herchief captain.
With that she flashed lightfoot into one of the low doors which led intothe flanking turrets of the quadrangle, and in a tierce of seconds shewas out again, in a forester's dress of green doublet and broad pleatedkirtle that came to her knee.
"I myself," she said, challenging them with her eyes, "will be thisyoung man's second, in this place where he has so many enemies and nofriends."
As the forester in green and the prisoner stood up together, the guardsmurmured in astonishment at the likeness between them.
"Had this Dane and our Joan been brother and sister, they could not havefavoured each other more," they said.
A deep blush rose to the youth's swarthy face.
"I am not worthy," he said, and kept his eyes upon the lithe figure ofthe girl in its array of well-fitting velvet. "I cannot thank you!" hesaid again.
"Tut," she answered, "worthy--unworthy--thank--unthank--what avail theseupon the mountains of Kernsberg and in the Castle of Joan of the SwordHand? A good heart, a merry fight, a quick death! These are more to thepurpose than many thanks and compliments. Peter Balta, are you secondingWerner? Come hither. Let us try the swords, you and I. Will not thesetwo serve? Guard! Well smitten! There, enough. What, you are touched onthe sword arm? Faith, man, for the moment I forgot that it was not youand I who were to drum. This tickling of steel goes to my head like wineand I am bound to forget. I am sorry--but, after all, a day or two in asling will put your arm to rights again, Peter. These are good swords.Now then, Maurice von Lynar--Werner. At the salute! Ready! Fall to!"
The burly figure of the Captain Werner von Orseln and the slim arrowyswiftness of Maurice the Dane were opposed in the clear shadow of thequadrangle, where neither had any advantage of light, and the swords oftheir seconds kept them at proper distance according to the fightingrules of the time.
"I give the Sparhawk five minutes," said Boris to Jorian, after thefirst parry. It was little more than formal and gave no token of whatwas to follow. Yet for full twenty minutes Werner von Orseln, the oldestsworder of all the north, from the marshes of Wilna to the hills ofSilesia, could do nothing but stand on the defensive, so fierce andincessant were the attacks of the young Dane.
But Werner did not give back. He stood his ground, warily, steadfastly,with a half smile on his face, a wall of quick steel in front of him,and the point of his adversary's blade ever missing him an inch at thisside, and coming an inch short upon that other. The Dane kept assteadily to the attack, and made his points as much by his remarkablenimbleness upon his feet as by the lightning rapidity of his sword-play.
"The Kernsberger is playing with him!" said Boris, under his breath.
Jorian nodded. He had no breath to waste.
"But he is not going to kill him. He has not the Death in his eye!"Boris spoke with judgment, for so it proved. Werner lifted an eyebrowfor the fraction of a second towards his mistress. And then at the endof the next rally his sword just touched his young adversary on theshoulder and the blood answere
d the thrust, staining the whiteunderdoublet of the Dane.
Then Werner threw down his sword and held out his hand.
"A well-fought rally," he said; "let us be friends. We need lads of suchmetal to ride the forays from the hills of Kernsberg. I am sorry Ibaited you, Sparhawk!"
"A good fight clears all scores!" replied the youth, smiling in histurn.
"Bring a bandage for his shoulder, Peter Balta!" cried Joan. "Mine wasthe cleaner stroke which went so near your great muscle, but Werner's issomewhat the deeper. You can keep each other company at the dice-boxthese next days. And, as I warrant neither of you has a Luebeck guilderto bless yourself with, you can e'en play for love till you wear out thepips with throwing."
"Then I am not to go back to the dungeon?" said the lad, one reason ofwhose wounding had been that he also lifted his eyes for a moment tothose of his second.
"To prison--no," said Joan; "you are one of us now. We have blooded you.Do you take service with me?"
"I have no choice--your father left me none!" the lad replied, quicklyaltering his phrase. "Castle Lynar is no more. My grandfather, myfather, and my uncles are all dead, and there is small service in goingback to Denmark, where there are more than enough of hungry gentlemenwith no wealth but their swords and no living but their gentility. Ifyou will let me serve in the ranks, Duchess Joan, I shall be wellcontent!"
"I also," said Joan heartily. "We are all free in Kernsberg, even if weare not all equal. We will try you in the ranks first. Go to the men'squarters. George the Hussite, I deliver him to you. See that he does notget into any more quarrels till his arm is better, and curb my rascals'tongues as far as you can. Remember who meddles with the principal mustreckon with the second."
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