Joan of the Sword Hand

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER V

  JOHANN THE SECRETARY

  Ten miles outside the boundary of the little hill state of Kernsberg,the embassage of Plassenburg was met by another cavalcade bearingadditional instructions from the Princess Helene. The leader was aslender youth of middle height, the accuracy of whose form gave evidenceof much agility. He was dark-skinned, of an olive complexion, and withclosely cropped black hair which curled crisply about his small head.His eyes were dark and fine, looking straightly and boldly out upon allcomers.

  With him, as chiefs of his escort, were those two silent men Jorian andBoris, who had, as it was reported, ridden to Plassenburg forinstructions. None of those who followed Dessauer had ever before seteyes upon this youth, who came with fresh despatches, and, inconsequence, great was the consternation and many the surmises as to whohe might be who stood so high in favour with the Prince and Princess.

  But his very first words made the matter clear.

  "Your Excellency," he said to the Ambassador, "I bring you the mostrecent instructions from their Highnesses Hugo and Helene ofPlassenburg. They sojourn for the time being in the city of Thorn, wherethey build a new palace for themselves. I was brought from Hamburg to beone of the master-builders. I have skill in plans, and I bring you thesefor your approval and in order to go over the rates of cost with you,as Treasurer of Plassenburg and the Wolfsmark."

  Dessauer took, with every token of deference, the sheaf of papers socarefully enwrapt and sealed with the seal of Plassenburg.

  "I thank you for your diligence, good master architect," he said; "Ishall peruse these at my leisure, and, I doubt not, call upon youfrequently for explanations."

  The young man rode on at his side, modestly waiting to be questioned.

  "What is your name, sir?" asked Dessauer, so that all the escort mighthear.

  "I am called Johann Pyrmont," said the youth promptly, and with engagingfrankness; "my father is a Hamburg merchant, trading to the Spanishports for oil and wine, but I follow him not. I had ever a turn fordrawing and the art of design!"

  "Also for having your own way, as is common with the young," said theAmbassador, smiling shrewdly. "So, against your father's will, youapprenticed yourself to an architect?"

  The young man bowed.

  "Nay, sir," he said, "but my good father could deny me nothing on whichI had set my mind."

  "Not he," muttered Dessauer under his breath; "no, nor any one elseeither!"

  So, bridle by jingling bridle, they rode on over the interminable plaintill Kernsberg, with its noble crown of towers, became first grey andafterwards pale blue in the utmost distance. Then, like a tall ship atsea, it sank altogether out of sight. And still they rode on through themarshy hollows, round innumerable little wildfowl-haunted lakelets, andso over the sandy, rolling dunes to the city of Courtland, where wasabiding the Prince of that rich and noble principality.

  It had been a favourite scheme of dead princes of Courtland to unite totheir fat acres and populous mercantile cities the hardy mountaineersand pastoral uplands of Kernsberg. But though Wilna and Courtland wereinfinitely more populous, the Eagle's Nest was ill to pull down, andhitherto the best laid plans for their union had invariably fallenthrough. But there had come to Joan's father, Henry called the Lion, andthe late Prince Michael of Courtland a better thought. One had adaughter, the other a son. Neither was burdened with any law ofsuccession, Salic or other. They held their domains by the free tenureof the sword. They could leave their powers to whomsoever they would,not even the Emperor having the right to say, "What doest thou?" So withthat frank carelessness of the private feelings of the individual whichhas ever distinguished great politicians, they decreed that, as acondition of succession, their male and female heirs should marry eachother.

  This bond of Heritage-brotherhood, as it was called, had received thesanction of the Emperor in full Diet, and now it wanted only that theDuchess Joan of Hohenstein should be of age, in order that the provincesmight at last be united and the long wars of highland and lowland makean end.

  The scheme had taken everything into consideration except the privatecharacter of the persons principally affected, Prince Louis of Courtlandand the young Duchess Joan.

  As they came nearer to the ancient city of Courtland, it spread like ametropolis before the eyes of the embassy of the Prince and Princess ofPlassenburg. The city stretched from the rock whereon thefortress-palace was built, along a windy, irregular ridge. Innumerablecrow-stepped gables were set at right angles to the street. The towersof the minster rose against the sky at the lower end, and far to thesouthward the palace of the Cardinal Archbishop cast peaked shadows fromits many towers, walled and cinctured like a city within a city.

  It was a far-seen town this of Courtland, populous, prosperous,defenced. Its clear and broad river was navigable for any craft of thetime, and already it threatened to equal if not to outstrip inimportance the free cities of the Hanseatic League--so far, at least,as the trade of the Baltic was concerned.

  Courtland had long been considered too strong to be attacked, save fromthe Polish border, while the adhesion of Kernsberg, and the drafting ofthe Duchess's hardy fighting mountaineers into the lowland armies wouldrender the princedom safe for many generations.

  Pity it was that plans so far-reaching and purposes so politic should bedependent upon the whims of a girl!

  But then it is just such whims that make the world interesting.

  * * * * *

  It was the last day of the famous tournament of the Black Eagle in theprincely city of Courtland. Prince Louis had sent out an escort to bringin the travellers and conduct them with honour to the seats reserved forthem. The Ambassador and High Councillor of Plassenburg must be receivedwith all observance. He had, he gave notice, brought a secretary withhim. For so the young architect was now styled, in order to give him anofficial position in the mission.

  The Prince had also sent a request that, as this was the day upon whichall combatants wore plain armour and jousted unknown, for that timebeing the Ambassador should accept other escort and excuse him coming toreceive him in person. They would meet at dinner on the morrow, in thegreat hall of the palace.

  The city was arrayed in flaming banners, some streaming high from thelofty towers of the cathedral, while others (in streets into which thewind came only in puffs) more languidly and luxuriously unfoldedthemselves, as the Black Eagle on its ground of white everywhere tookthe air. All over the city a galaxy of lighter silk and bunting,pennons, bannerettes, parti-coloured streamers of the national coloursdanced becking and bowing from window and roof-tree.

  Yet there was a curious silence too in the streets, as they rode towardsthe lists of the Black Eagle, and when at last they came within hearingof the hum of the thousands gathered there, they understood why the cityhad seemed so unwontedly deserted. The Courtlanders surrounded the greatoval space of the lists in clustered myriads, and their eyes were bentinwards. It was the crisis of the great _melee_. Scarcely an eye in allthat assembly was turned towards the strangers, who passed quiteunobserved to their reserved places in the Prince's empty box. Only hissister Margaret, throned on high as Queen of Beauty, looked down uponthem with interest, seeing that they were men who came, and that one atleast was young.

  It was a gay and changeful scene. In the brilliant daylight of the listsa hundred knights charged and recharged. Those who had been unhorseddrew their swords and attacked with fury others of the enemy in likecase. The air resounded with the clashing of steel on steel.

  Fifty knights with white plumes on their helmets had charged fiftywearing black, and the combat still raged. The shouts of the people rangin the ears of the ambassador of Plassenburg and his secretary, as theyseated themselves and looked down upon the tide of combat over theflower-draped balustrades of their box.

  "The blacks have it!" said Dessauer after regarding the _melee_ withinterest. "We have come in time to see the end of the fray. Would thatwe had also seen the shock!" />
  And indeed the Blacks seemed to have carried all before them. They weremostly bigger and stronger built men, knights of the landward provinces,and their horses, great solid-boned Saxon chargers, had by sheer weightborne their way through the lighter ranks of the Baltic knights on thewhite horses.

  Not more than half a dozen of these were now in saddle, and all over thefield were to be seen black knights receiving the submission of knightswhose broken spears and tarnished plumes showed that they had succumbedin the charge to superior weight of metal. For, so soon as a knightyielded, his steed became the property of his victorious foe, and hehimself was either carried or limped as best he could to the pavilion ofhis party, there to remove his armour and send it also to the victor--towhom, in literal fact, belonged the spoils.

  Of the half-dozen white knights who still kept up the struggle, oneshone pre-eminent for dashing valour. His charger surged hither andthither through the crowd, his spear was victorious and unbroken, andthe boldest opponent thought it politic to turn aside out of his path.Set upon by more than a score of riders, he still managed to evade them,and even when all his side had submitted and he alone remained--at theend of the lists to which he had been driven, he made him ready for afinal charge into the scarce broken array of his foes, of whom more thantwenty remained still on horseback in the field.

  But though his spear struck true in the middle of his immediateantagonist's shield and his opponent went down, it availed the bravewhite knight nothing. For at the same moment half a score of lancesstruck him on the shield, on the breastplate, on the vizor bars of hishelmet, and he fell heavily to the earth. Nevertheless, scarcely had hetouched the ground when he was again on his feet. Sword in hand, hestood for a moment unscathed and undaunted, while his foes, momentarilydisordered by the energy of the charge, reined in their steeds ere theycould return to the attack.

  "Oh, well ridden!" "Greatly done!" "A most noble knight!" These were theexclamations which came from all parts of the crowd which surged aboutthe barriers on this great day.

  "I would that I were down beside him with a sword in my hand also!" saidthe young architect, Master Johann Pyrmont, secretary of the embassageof Plassenburg.

  "'Tis well you are where you are, madcap, sitting by an old man's side,instead of fighting by that of a young one," growled Dessauer. "Elsethen, indeed, the bent would be on fire."

  But at this moment the Princess Margaret, sister of the reigning Prince,rose in her place and threw down the truncheon, which in such casesstops the combat.

  "The black knights have won," so she gave her verdict, "but there is noneed to humiliate or injure a knight who has fought so well against somany. Let the white knight come hither--though he be of the losing side.His is the reward of highest honour. Give him a steed, that he may comeand receive the meed of bravest in the tourney!"

  The knights of the black were manifestly a little disappointed thatafter their victory one of their opponents should be selected forhonour. But there was no appeal from the decision of the Queen of Loveand Beauty. For that day she reigned alone, without council or dietimperial.

  The black riders had therefore to be contented with their generalvictory, which, indeed, was indisputable enough.

  The white knight came near and said something in a low voice, unheard bythe general crowd, to the Princess.

  "I insist," she said aloud; "you must unhelm, that all may see the faceof him who has won the prize."

  Whereat the knight bowed and undid his helmet. A closely-croppedfair-haired head was revealed, the features clearly chiselled and yet ofa grave and massive beauty, the head of a marble emperor.

  "My brother--you!" cried Margaret of Courtland in astonishment.

  The voice of the Princess had also something of disappointment in it.Clearly she had wished for some other to receive the honour, and theevent did not please her. But it was otherwise with the populace.

  "The young Prince! The young Prince!" cried the people, surgingimpetuously about the barriers. "Glory to the noble house of Courtlandand to the brave Prince."

  The Ambassador looked curiously at his secretary. That youth wasstanding with eyes brilliant as those of a man in fever. His face hadpaled even under its dusky tan. His lips quivered. He straightenedhimself up as brave and generous men do when they see a deed of braverydone by another, or like a woman who sees the man she loves publiclyhonoured.

  "The Prince!" said Johann Pyrmont, in a voice hoarse and broken; "it isthe Prince himself."

  And on his high seat the State's Councillor, Leopold von Dessauer,smiled well pleased.

  "This turns out better than I had expected," he muttered. "God Himselffavours the drunkard and the madcap. Only wise men suffer for theirsins--aye, and often for those of other people as well."