Joan of the Sword Hand

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XVII

  WOMAN'S WILFULNESS

  Joan rode on, silent, a furlong before her men.

  Behind her sulked Maurice von Lynar. Had any been there to note, theirfaces were now strangely alike in feature, and yet more curiously unlikein expression. Joan gazed forward into the distance like a soul dead andabout to be reborn, planning a new life. Maurice von Lynar looked morelike a naughty schoolboy whom some tyrant Fate, rod-wielding, hascompelled to obey against his will.

  Yet, in spite of expression, it was Maurice von Lynar who was planningthe future. Joan's heart was yet too sore. Her tree of life had, as itwere, been cut off close to the ground. She could not go back to the oldso soon after her blissful year of dreams. There was to be no new lifefor her. She could not take up the old. But Maurice--his thoughts wereall for the Princess Margaret, of the ripple of her golden hair, of herpretty wilful words and ways, of that dimple on her chin, and, aboveall, of her threat to seek him out if--but it was not possible that shecould mean that. And yet she looked as though she might make good herwords. Was it possible? He posed himself with this question, and forhalf an hour rode on oblivious of all else.

  "Eh?" he said at last, half conscious that some one had been speaking tohim from an infinite distance. "Eh? Did you speak, Captain von Orseln?"

  Von Orseln grunted out a little laugh, almost silently, indeed, andexpressed more by a heave of his shoulders than by any alteration of hisfeatures.

  "Speak, indeed? As if I had not been speaking these five minutes. Wellnigh had I stuck my poignard in your ribs to teach you to mind yoursuperior officer. What think you of this business?"

  "Think?" the Sparhawk's disappointment burst out. "Think? Why, 'tis pastall thinking. Courtland is shut to us for twenty years."

  "Well," laughed Von Orseln, "who cares for that? Castle Kernsberg isgood enough for me, so we can hold it."

  "Hold it?" cried Maurice, with a kind of joy in his face; "do you thinkthey will come after us?"

  Von Orseln nodded approval of his spirit.

  "Yes, little man, yes," he said; "if you have been fretting to come toblows with the Courtlanders you are in good case to be satisfied. Iwould we had only these lumpish Baltic jacks to fear."

  Even as they talked Castle Kernsberg floated up like a cloud before themabove the blue and misty plain, long before they could distinguish thewalls and hundred gables of the town beneath.

  But no word spoke Joan till that purple shadow had taken shape asstately stone and lime, and she could discern her own red lion flyingabreast of the banner of Louis of Courtland upon the topmost pinnacle ofthe round tower.

  Then on a little mound without the town she halted and faced about. VonOrseln halted the troop with a backward wave of the hand.

  "Men of Hohenstein," said the Duchess, in a clear, far-reaching alto,"you have followed me, asking no word of why or wherefore. I have toldyou nothing, yet is an explanation due to you."

  There came the sound as of a hoarse unanimous muttering among thesoldiers. Joan looked at Von Orseln as a sign for him to interpret it.

  "They say that they are Joan of the Sword Hand's men, and that they willdisembowl any man who wants to know what it may please you to keepsecret."

  "Aye, or question by so much as one lifted eyebrow aught that it mayplease your Highness to do," added Captain Peter Balta, from the rightof the first troop.

  "I said that our Duchess could never live in such a dog's hole as theirCourtland," quoth George the Hussite, who, before he took service withHenry the Lion, had been a heretic preacher. "In Bohemia, now, where thepines grow----"

  "Hold your prate, all of you," growled Von Orseln, "or you will findwhere hemp grows, and why! My lady," he added, altering his voice as heturned to her, "be assured, no dog in Kernsberg will bark aninterrogative at you. Shall our young Duchess Joan be wived and beddedlike some little burgheress that sells laces and tape all day long onthe Axel-strasse? Shall the daughter of Henry the Lion be at thecommandment of any Bor-Russian boor, an it like her not? Shall she get aburr in her throat with breathing the raw fogs of the Baltic? Not aword, most gracious lady! Explain nothing. Extenuate nothing. It is thewill of Joan of the Sword Hand--that is enough; and, by the word ofWerner von Orseln, it shall be enough!"

  "It is the will of Joan of the Sword Hand! It is enough!" repeated thefour hundred lances, like a class that learns a lesson by rote.

  A lump rose in Joan's throat as she tried to shape into words thethoughts that surged within. She felt strangely weak. Her pride was notthe same as of old, for the heart of a woman had grown up within her--aheart of flesh. Surely that could not be a tear in her eye? No; the windblew shrewdly out of the west, to which they were riding. Von Orselnnoted the struggle and took up his parable once more.

  "The pact is carried out. The lands united--the will of Henry the Liondone! What more? Shall the free Princess be the huswife of a yellowBaltic dwarf? When we go into the town and they ask us, we will say butthis, 'Our Lady misliked the fashion of his beard!' That will be reasongood and broad and deep, sufficient alike for grey-haired carl andprattling bairn!"

  "I thank you, noble gentlemen," said Joan. "Now, as you say, let us rideinto Kernsberg."

  "And pull down that flag!" cried Maurice, pointing to the blackCourtland Eagle which flew so steadily beside the coronated lion ofKernsberg and Hohenstein.

  "And pray, sir, why?" quoth Joan of the Sword Hand. "Am I not alsoPrincess of Courtland?"

  * * * * *

  From woman's wilfulness all things somehow have their beginning. Yet ofherself she is content with few things (so that she have what shewants), somewhat Spartan in fare if let alone, and no dinner-eatinganimal. Wine, tobacco, caviare, Strasburg goose-liver--Epicurus'schoicest gifts to men of this world--are contemned by womankind. Left totheir own devices, they prefer a drench of sweet mead or hydromel lacedwith water, or even of late the China brew that filters in black bricksthrough the country of the Muscovite. Nevertheless, to woman's wantingsmay be traced all restraints and judgments, from the sword flaming everyway about Eden-gate to the last merchant declared bankrupt and "dyvour"upon the exchange flags of Hamburg town. Eve did not eat the apple whenshe got it. She hasted to give it away. She only wanted it because ithad been forbidden.

  So also Joan of Hohenstein desired to go down with Dessauer that shemight look upon the man betrothed to her from birth. She went. Shelooked, and, as the tale tells, within her there grew a heart of flesh.Then, when the stroke fell, that heart uprose in quick, intemperaterevolt. And what might have issued in the dull compliance of a princesswhose life was settled for her, became the imperious revolt of a womanagainst an intolerable and loathsome impossibility.

  So in her castle of Kernsberg Joan waited. But not idly. All day longand every day Maurice von Lynar rode on her service. The hillmengathered to his word, and in the courtyard the stormy voices of Georgethe Hussite and Peter Balta were never hushed. The shepherds from thehills went to and fro, marching and countermarching, wheeling andcharging, porting musket and thrusting pike, till all Kernsberg waslittle better than a barracks, and the maidens sat wet-eyed at theirknitting by the fire and thought, "Well for Her to please herself whomshe shall marry--but how about us, with never a lad in the town towhistle us out in the gloaming, or to thumb a pebble against thewindow-lattice from the deep edges of the ripening corn?"

  But there were two, at least, within the realm of the Duchess Joan whoknew no drawbacks to their joy, who rubbed palm on palm and nudged eachother for pure gladness. These (it is sad to say) were the military_attaches_ of the neighbouring peaceful State of Plassenburg. Yet theyhad been specially cautioned by their Prince Hugo, in the presence ofhis wife Helene, the hereditary Princess, that they were most carefullyto avoid all international complications. They were on no account totake sides in any quarrel. Above all they must do nothing prejudicial tothe peace, neutrality, and universal amity of the State and Princedom ofPlassenburg. Such were these instructions.<
br />
  They promised faithfully.

  But, their names being Captains Boris and Jorian, they now rubbed theirhands and nudged each other. They ought to have been in their chamber inthe Castle of Kernsberg, busily concocting despatches to their masterand mistress, giving an account of these momentous events.

  Instead, how is it that we find them lying on that spur of theJaegernbergen which overlooks the passes of Alla, watching the gatheringof the great storm which in the course of days must break over thedomains of the Duchess Joan--who had refused and slighted her weddedhusband, Louis, Prince of Courtland?

  Being both powerfully resourceful men, long lean Boris and rotund Jorianhad found a way out of the apparent difficulty. There had come withthem from Plassenburg a commission written upon an entire square ofsheepskin by a secretary and sealed with the seal of Leopold vonDessauer, High Councillor of the United Princedom and Duchy, bearingthat "In the name of Hugo and Helene our well-loved lieges CaptainsBoris and Jorian are empowered to act and treat," and so forth. Thismomentous deed was tied about the middle with a red string, andpresented withal so courtly and respectable an appearance to theuncritical eyes of the ex-men-at-arms themselves, that they felt almostanything excusable which they might do in its name.

  Before leaving Kernsberg, therefore, Boris placed this great red-waistedparchment roll in his bed, leaning it angle-wise against his pillow.Jorian tossed a spare dagger with the arms of Plassenburg beside it.

  "There--let the civil power and the military for once lie downtogether!" he said. "We delegate our authority to these two during ourabsence!"

  To the silent Plassenburgers who had accompanied them, and who now kepttheir door with unswerving attention, Boris explained himself briefly.

  "Remember," he said, "when you are asked, that the envoys of Plassenburgare ill--ill of a dangerous and most contagious disease. Also, they areasleep. They must on no account be waked. The windows must be keptdarkened. It is a great pity. You are desolated. You understand. Thefirst time I have more money than I can spend you shall have ten marks!"

  The men-at-arms understood, which was no wonder, for Boris generallycontrived to make himself very clear. But they thought within them thattheir chances of financial benefit from their captain's conditionalgenerosity were worth about one sole stiver.

  So these two, being now free fighting-men, as it were, soldiers offortune, lay waiting on the slopes of the Jaegernbergen, talking over thesituation.

  "A man surely has a right to his own wife!" said Jorian, taking for thesake of argument the conventional side.

  "_Narren-possen_, Jorian!" cried Boris, raising his voice to theindignation point. "Clotted nonsense! Who is going to keep a man's wifefor him if he cannot do it himself? And he a prince, and within his owncity and fortress, too. She boxed his ears, they say, and rode away,telling him that if he wanted her he might come and take her! A prettyspirit, i' faith! Too good for such a dried stockfish of the Baltic,with not so much soul as a speckled flounder on his own mud-flats!Faith! if I were a marrying man, I would run off with the lass myself.She ought at least to be a soldier's wife."

  "The trouble is that so far she feels no necessity to be any one'swife," said Jorian, shifting his ground.

  "That also is nonsense," said Boris, who, spite his defence of Joan,held the usual masculine views. "Every woman wishes to marry, if she canonly have first choice."

  "There they come!" whispered Jorian, whose eyes had never wandered fromthe long wavering lines of willow and alder which marked the courses ofthe sluggish streams flowing east toward the Alla.

  Boris rose to his feet and looked long beneath his hand. Very far awaythere was a sort of white tremulousness in the atmosphere which after awhile began to give off little luminous glints and sparkles, as the seadoes when a shaft of moonlight touches it through a dark canopy ofcloud.

  Then there arose from the level green plain first one tall column ofdense black smoke and then another, till as far as they could see to theleft the plain was full of them.

  "God's truth!" cried Jorian, "they are burning the farms and herds'houses. I thought they had been Christians in Courtland. But these aremore like Duke Casimir's devil's tricks."

  Boris did not immediately answer. His eyes were busy seeing, his brainsetting in order.

  "I tell you what," he said at last, in a tone of intense interest,"these are no fires lighted by Courtlanders. The heavy Baltic knightscould never ride so fast nor spread so wide. The Muscovite is out! Theseare Cossack fires. Bravo, Jorian! we shall yet have our Hugo here withhis axe! He will never suffer the Bear so near his borders."

  "Let us go down," said Jorian, "or we shall miss some of the fun. In twogood hours they will be at the fords of the Alla!"

  So they looked to their arms and went down.

  "What do you here? Go back!" shouted Werner von Orseln, who with his menlay waiting behind the floodbanks of the Alla. "This is not yourquarrel! Go back, Plassenburgers!"

  "We have for the time being demitted our office," Boris exclaimed. "Theenvoys of Plassenburg are at home in bed, sick of a most sanguinaryfever. We offer you our swords as free fighting-men and good Teuts. TheMuscovites are over yonder. Lord, to think that I have lived toforty-eight and never yet killed even one bearded Russ!"

  "You may mend that record shortly, to all appearance, if you have luck!"said Von Orseln grimly. "And this gentleman here," he added, looking atJorian, "is he also in bed, sick?"

  "My sword is at your service," said the round one, "though I shouldprefer a musketoon, if it is all the same to you. It will be somethingto do till these firebrands come within arm's length of us."

  "I have here two which are very much at your service, if you know how touse them!" said Werner.

  The men-at-arms laughed.

  "We know their tricks better than those of our sweethearts!" they said,"and those we know well!"

  "Here they be, then," said Von Orseln. "I sent a couple of men spurringto warn my Lady Joan, and I bade them leave their muskets and bandolierstill they came back, that they might ride the lighter to and fromKernsberg."

  Boris and Jorian took the spare pieces with a glow of gratitude, whichwas, however, very considerably modified when they discovered the statein which their former owners had kept them.

  "Dirty Wendish pigs," they said (which was their favourite malediction,though they themselves were Wend of the Wends). "Were they but an hourin our camp they should ride the wooden horse with these very musketstied to their soles to keep them firmly down. Faugh!"

  And Jorian withdrew his finger from the muzzle, black as soot with thegrease of uncleansed powder.

  Looking up, they saw that the priest with the little army of Kernsbergwas praying fervently (after the Hussite manner, without book) for thesafety of the State and person of their lady Duchess, and that the menwere listening bareheaded beneath the green slope of the water-dyke.

  "Go on cleaning," said Boris; "this is some heretic function, and mightsap our morality. We are volunteers, at any rate, as well as the best ofgood Catholics. We do not need unlicensed prayers. If you have quitedone with that rag stick, lend it to me, Jorian!"