Joan of the Sword Hand
Page 24
CHAPTER XXIII
THE FACE THAT LOOKED INTO JOAN'S
The chamber to which the Duchess Joan was conducted by her hostess hadevidently been carefully prepared for her reception. It was a large lowroom, with a vaulted roof of carven wood. The work was of great meritand evidently old. The devices upon it were mostly coats-of-arms, whichoriginally had been gilded and painted in heraldic colours, thoughneglect through long generations had tarnished the gold leaf and causedthe colours to peel off in places. Here and there, however, were shieldsof more recent design, but in every case the motto and scutcheon ofthese had been defaced. At both ends of the room were windows, throughwhose stained glass Joan peered without result into blank darkness. Thenshe opened a little square of panes just large enough to put her headthrough and saw a walk of lofty poplars silhouetted against the sky,dark towers of leaves all a-rustle and a-shiver from the zenith to theground, as a moaning and sobbing wind drew inward and whispered to themof the coming storm.
Then Joan shut the window and looked about her. A table with a little_prie-Dieu_ stood in the corner, screened by a curtain which ran on abrazen rod. A Roman Breviary lay open on a velvet-covered table beforethe crucifix. Joan lifted it up and her eyes fell on the words: "_By awoman he overcame. By a woman he was overcome. A woman was once hisweapon. A woman is now become the instrument of his defeat. He findeththat the weak vessel cannot be broken._"
"Nor shall it!" said Joan, looking at the cross before her; "by thestrength of Mary the Mother, the weak vessel shall not be broken!"
She turned her about and examined with interest the rest of the roomwhich for many days was to be her own. The bed was low and wide, withsheets of fine linen folded back, and over all a richly embroideredcoverlet. At the further end of the chamber was a fireplace, with aprojecting hood of enamelled brick, looking fresh and new amid so muchthat was centuries old. Oaken panels covered the walls, opening mostlyinto deep cupboards. The girl tried one or two of these. They proved tobe unlocked and were filled with ancient parchments, giving forth afaintly aromatic smell, but without a particle of dust upon theirleaves. The cleanliness of everything within the chamber had beenscrupulously attended to.
For a full hour Joan walked the chamber with her hands clasped behindher back, thinking how she was to return to her well-beloved Kernsberg.Her pride was slowly abating, and with it her anger against thosefaithful servants who had risked her favour to convey her beyond thereach of danger. But none the less she was resolved to go back. Thisconflict must not take place without her. If Kernsberg were captured,and Maurice von Lynar found personating his mistress, he would surely beput to death. If he fell into Muscovite hands that death would be bytorture.
At all hazards she would return. And to this problem she turned herthoughts, knitting her brows and working her fingers nervously througheach other.
She had it. There was a way. She would wait till the morrow and in themeantime--sleep.
As she stooped to blow out the last candle, a motto on the stem caughther eye. It ran round the massive silver base of the candelabra in thethick Gothic characters of a hundred years before. Joan took the candleout of its socket and read the inscription word by word--
"DA PACEM, DOMINE, IN DIEBUS NOSTRIS."
It was her own scroll, the motto of the reigning dukes of Hohenstein--astrange one, doubtless, to be that of a fighting race, but,nevertheless, her father's and her own.
Joan held the candle in her hand a long time, looking at it, heedless ofthe wax that dripped on the floor.
What did her father's motto, the device of her house, upon this Balticisland, far from the highlands of Kernsberg? Had these wastes oncebelonged to men of her race? And this woman, who so regally played themistress of this strange heritage, who was she? And what was the secretof the residence of one in this wilderness who, by her manner, might inher time have queened it in royal courts?
And as Joan of Hohenstein blew out the candle she mused in her heartconcerning these things.
* * * * *
The Duchess Joan slept soundly, her dark boyish head pillowed on thefull rounded curves of an arm thrown behind her. On the littlevelvet-covered table beside the bed lay her belt and its dependentsword, a faithful companion in its sheath of plain black leather. Underthe pillow, and within instant reach of her right hand, was her father'sdagger. With it, they said, Henry the Lion had more than once removed anenemy who stood in his way, or more honourably given the _coup de grace_to a would-be assassin.
Without, the mood of the night had changed. The sky, which had hithertobeen of favourable aspect, save for the green light in the north as theyrowed across the waters of the Haff, was now overflowed by thin wisps ofcloud tacking up against the wind. Towards the sea a steely blue smotherhad settled down along the horizon, while the thunder growled nearerlike a roll of drums beaten continuously. The wind, however, was notregular, but came in little puffs and bursts, now warm, now cold, fromevery point of the compass.
But still Joan slept on, being tired with her journey.
In their chamber in the wing which looks towards the north the threecaptains lay wrapped in their several mantles, Jorian and Borisanswering each other nasally, in alternate trumpet blasts, like Alpcalling to Alp. Werner von Orseln alone could not sleep, and after hehad sworn and kicked his noisy companions in the ribs till he was wearyof the task, he rose and went to the window to cast open the lattice.The air within felt thick and hot. He fumbled long at the catch, and inthe unwholesome silence of the strange house the chief captain seemed tohear muffled feet going to and fro on the floor above him. But of thishe thought little. For strange places were familiar to him, and anysense of danger made but an added spice in his cup of life.
At last he worried the catch loose, the lattice pane fell sagginginwards on its double hinge of skin. As Werner set his face to theopening quick flashes of summer lightning flamed alternately white andlilac across the horizon, and he felt the keen spit of hailstones in hisface, driving level like so many musket balls when the infantry fires byplatoons.
* * * * *
Above, in the vaulted chamber, Joan turned over on her bed, murmuringuneasily in her sleep. A white face, which for a quarter of an hour hadbeen bent down to her dark head as it lay on the pillow, was suddenlyretracted into the blackness at the girl's slight movement.
Again, apparently reassured, the shadowy visage approached as the youngDuchess lay without further motion. Without the storm broke in a burstof appalling fury. The pale blue forks of the lightning flamed justoutside the casement in flash on continuous flash. The thunder shook thehouse like an earthquake.
Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, Joan's eyes opened, and she foundherself looking with bewilderment into a face that bent down upon her,a white face which somehow seemed to hang suspended in the dark aboveher. The features were lit up by the pulsing lightning which shone inthe wild eyes and glittered on a knife-blade about the handle of whichwere clenched the tense white fingers of a hand equally detached.
A quick icy thrill chilled the girl's marrow, darting like a spearthrough her body. But Joan of Hohenstein was the true seed of Henry theLion. In a moment her right hand had grasped the sword beside herpillow. Her left, shooting upward, closed on the arm which held thethreatening steel. At the same time she flung herself forward, and withthe roaring turmoils of the storm dinning in her ears she grappledsomething that withstood her in the interspace of darkness that hadfollowed the flashes. Joan's spring had been that of the couchant youngwild cat. Almost without rising from her bed she had projected herselfupon her enemy. Her left hand grasped the wrist so tightly that theblade fell to the ground, whereupon Joan of the Sword Hand shifted hergrasp upwards fiercely till she felt her fingers sink deep in the softcurves of a woman's throat.
Then a shriek, long and terrible, inhuman and threatening, rang throughthe house. A light began to burn yellow and steady through the cracks ofthe chamber door, not
pulsing and blue like the lightning without.Presently, as Joan overbore her assailant upon the floor, the dooropened, and glancing upwards she saw the Wordless Man stand on thethreshold, a candle in one hand and a naked sword in the other.
The terrible cry which had rung in her ears had been his. At sight ofhim Joan unclasped her fingers from the throat of the woman and roseslowly to her feet. The old man rushed forward and knelt beside theprostrate body of his mistress.
At the same moment there came the sound of quick footsteps running upthe stairway. The door flew open and Werner von Orseln burst in, alsosword in hand.
"What is the meaning of this?" he shouted. "Who has dared to harm mylady?"
Joan did not answer, but remained standing tall and straight by thehooded mantel of the fireplace. As was her custom, before lying down shehad clad herself in a loose gown of white silk which on all her journeysshe carried in a roll at her saddle-bow.
She pointed to the mother of Maurice von Lynar, who lay on the floor,still unconscious, with the dumb man kneeling over her, chafing herhands and murmuring unintelligible tendernesses, like a mother crooningover a sick child.
But the face of the chief captain grew stern and terrible as he saw onthe floor a knife of curious design. He stooped and lifted it. It was aDanish _tolle knife_, the edge a little curved outward and keen as arazor.