Joan of the Sword Hand

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE RED LION FLIES AT KERNSBERG

  And meanwhile right haughtily flew the red lion upon the citadel ofKernsberg. Never had the Lady Duchess, Joan of the Sword Hand, approvenherself so brave and determined. In her forester's dress of greenvelvet, with the links of chain body-armour glinting beneath its frogsand taches, she went everywhere on foot. At all times of the day she wasto be seen at the half-moons wherein the cannon were fixed, or onhorseback scouring the defenced posts along the city wall. She seemed toknow neither fear nor fatigue, and the noise of cheering followed herabout the little hill city like her shadow.

  Three only there were who knew the truth--Peter Balta, Alt Pikker, andGeorge the Hussite. And when the guards were set, the lamps lit, and thebars drawn, a stupid faithful Hohensteiner set on watch at the turnpikefoot with command to let none pass upon his life--then at last the litheyoung Sparhawk would undo his belt with huge refreshful gusting of airinto his lungs, amid the scarcely subdued laughter of the captains ofthe host.

  "Lord Peter of the Keys!" Von Lynar would cry, "what it is to unbuttonand untruss! 'Tis very well to admire it in our pretty Joan, but 'forethe Lord, I would give a thousand crowns if she were not so slender. Itcuts a man in two to get within such a girdle. Only Prince Wasp couldmake a shift to fit it. Give me a goblet of ale, fellows."

  "Nay, lad--mead! Mead of ten years alone must thou have, and littleenough of that! Ale will make thee fat as mast-fed pigs."

  "Or stay," amended George the Hussite; "mead is not comely drink for amaid--I will get thee a little canary and water, scented withmillefleurs and rosemary."

  "Check your fooling and help to unlace me, all of you," quoth theSparhawk. "Now there is but a silken cord betwixt me and Paradise. Butit prisons me like iron bars. Ah, there"--he blew a great breath,filling and emptying his lungs with huge content--"I wonder why we menbreathe with our stomachs and women with their chests?"

  "Know you not that much?" cried Alt Pikker. "'Tis because a man's lifeis in his stomach; and as for women, most part have neither heart,stomach, nor bowels of mercy--and so breathe with whatever it likeththem!"

  "No ribaldry in a lady's presence, or in a trice thou shalt have none ofthese, either!" quoth the false Joan; "help me off with thisthrice-accursed chain-mail. I am pocked from head to heel like a Swissmercenary late come from Venice. Every ring in this foul devil's jerkinis imprinted an inch deep on my hide, and itches worse than a hundredbeggars at a church door. Ah! better, better. Yet not well! I hadthought our Joan of the Sword Hand a strapping wench, but now a hop-poleis an abbot to her when one comes to wear her _carapace_ and_justaucorps_!"

  "How went matters to-day on your side?" he went on, speaking to Balta,all the while chafing the calves of his legs and rubbing his pinchedfeet, having first enwrapped himself in a great loose mantle of red andgold which erstwhile had belonged to Henry the Lion.

  "On the whole, not ill," said Peter Balta. "The Muscovites, indeed,drove in our outposts, but could not come nearer than a bowshot from thenorthern gate, we galled them so with our culverins and bombardels."

  "Duke George's famous Fat Peg herself could not have done better thanour little leathern vixens," said Alt Pikker, rubbing his grey badger'sbrush contentedly. "Gott, if we had only provender and water we mightkeep them out of the city for ever! But in a week they will certainlyhave cut off our river and sent it down the new channel, and the wellsare not enough for half the citizens, to say nothing of the cattle andhorses. This is a great fuss to make about a graceless young jackanapesof a Jutlander like you, Master Maurice von Lynar, Count vonLoeen--wedded wife of his Highness Prince Louis of Courtland. Ha! ha!ha!"

  "I would have you know, sirrah," cried the Sparhawk, "that if you do nottreat me as your liege lady ought to be treated, I will order you to thedeepest dungeon beneath the castle moat! Come and kiss my hand thisinstant, both of you!"

  "Promise not to box our ears, and we will," said Alt Pikker and Georgethe Hussite together.

  "Well, I will let you off this time," said Maurice royally, stretchinghis limbs luxuriously and putting one hosened foot on the mantel-shelfas high as his head. "Heigh-ho! I wonder how long it will last, and whenwe must surrender."

  "Prince Louis must send his Muscovites back beyond the Alla first, andthen we will speak with him concerning giving him up his wife!" quothPeter Balta.

  "I wonder what the craven loon will do with her when he gets her," saidAlt Pikker. "You must not surrender in your girdle-brace and ring-mail,my liege lady, or you will have to sleep with them on. It would not beseemly to have to call up half a dozen lusty men-at-arms to help untrussher ladyship the Princess of Courtland!"

  "Perhaps your goodman will kiss you upon the threshold of the palace asa token of reconciliation!" cackled Hussite George.

  "If he does, I will rip him up!" growled Maurice, aghast at thesuggestion. "But there is no doubt that at the best I shall be betweenthe thills when they get me once safe in Courtland. To ride the woodenhorse all day were a pleasure to it!"

  But presently his face lighted up and he murmured some words tohimself--

  "Yet, after all, there is always the Princess Margaret there. I canconfide in her when the worst comes. She will help me in my need--and,what is better still, she may even kiss me!"

  And, spite of gloomy anticipations, his ears tingled with happyexpectancy, when he thought of opportunities of intimate speech with thelady of his heart.

  * * * * *

  Nevertheless, in the face of brave words and braver deeds, provisionswaxed scarce and dear in Castle Kernsberg, and in the town below womengrew gaunt and hollow-cheeked. Then the children acquired eyes thatseemed to stand out of hollow purple sockets. Last of all, the stoutburghers grew thin. And all three began to dream of the days when thegood farm-folk of the blackened country down below them, where now stoodthe leafy lodges of the Muscovites and the white tents of theCourtlanders, used to come into Kernsberg to market, the greatsolemn-eyed oxen drawing carts full of country sausages, and brown mealfresh ground from the mill to bake the wholesome bread--or better stillwhen the stout market women brought in the lappered milk and the butterand curds. So the starving folk dreamed and dreamed and woke, and criedout curses on them that had waked them, saying, "Plague take the handsthat pulled me back to this gutter-dog's life! For I was just a-sittingdown to dinner with a haunch of venison for company, and such a lordlytrout, buttered, with green sauce all over him, a loaf of white bread,crisp and crusty, at my elbow, and--Holy Saint Matthew!--such a nobleflagon of Rhenish, holding ten pints at the least."

  About this time the Sparhawk began to take counsel with himself, and theissue of his meditations the historian must now relate.

  It was in the outer chamber of the Duchess Joan, which looks to thenorth, that the three captains usually sat--burly Peter Balta,stiff-haired, dry-faced, keen-eyed--Alt Pikker, lean and leathery, thelife humour within him all gone to fighting juice, his limbs mere boneand muscle, a certain acrid and caustic wit keeping the corners of hislips on the wicker, and, a little back from these two, George theHussite, a smaller man, very solemn even when he was making otherslaugh, but nevertheless with a proud high look, a stiff upper lip, and amoustache so huge that he could tie the ends behind his head on a windyday.

  These three had been speaking together at the wide, low window fromwhich one can see the tight little red-roofed town of Kernsberg and thegreen Kernswater lying like a bright many-looped ribbon at the foot ofthe hills.

  To them entered the Sparhawk, a settled frown of gloom upon his brow,and the hunger which he shared equally with the others alreadysharpening the falcon hook of his nose and whitening his thin nostrils.

  At sight of him the three heads drew apart, and Alt Pikker began tospeak of the stars that were rising in the eastern dusk.

  "The dog-star is white," he said didactically. "In my schooldays I usedto read in the Latin tongue that it was red!"

  But by their interest in s
uch a matter the Sparhawk knew that they hadbeen speaking of far other things than stars before he burst open thedoor. For little George the Hussite pulled his pandour moustaches andmuttered, "A plague on the dog-star and the foul Latin tongue. They areonly fit for the gabble of fat-fed monks. Moreover, you do not see itnow, at any rate. For me, I would I were back under the Bohemianpinetrees, where the very wine smacks of resin, and where there is asheep (your own or another's, it matters not greatly) tied at every trueHussite's door."

  "These three had been speaking together." [_Page 186_]]

  "What is this?" cried the Sparhawk. "Do not deceive me. You were none ofyou talking of stars when I came up the stairs. For I heard PeterBalta's voice say, 'By Heaven! it must come to it, and soon!' And youHussite George, answered him, 'Six days will settle it.' What do youkeep from me? Out with it? Speak up, like three good little men!"

  It was Alt Pikker who first found words to answer.

  "We spoke indeed of the stars, and said it was six days till the moonshould be gone, and that the time would then be ripe for a sally bythe--by the--Plassenburg Gate!"

  "Pshaw!" cried the Sparhawk. "Lie to your father confessor, not to me. Iam not a purblind fool. I have ears, long enough, it is true, but atleast they answer to hear withal. You spoke of the wells, I tell you; Isaw your heads move apart as I entered; and then, forsooth, that dotardAlt Pikker (who ran away in his youth from a monk's cloister-school withthe nun that taught them stocking-mending) must needs furbish up somescraps of Latin and begin to prate about dog-stars red and dog-starswhite. Faugh! Open your mouths like men, set truthful hearts behindthem, and let me hear the worst!"

  Nevertheless the three captains of Kernsberg were silent awhile, forheaviness was upon their souls. Then Peter Balta blurted out, "God helpus! There is but ten days more provender in the city, the river isturned, and the wells are almost dried up!"

  After this the Sparhawk sat awhile on the low window seat, watching thetwinkling fires of the Muscovites and listening to the hum of the townbeneath the Castle--all now sullen and subdued, no merry hucksterschaffering about the church porches, no loitering lads and lasseslinking arms and bartering kisses in the dusky corners of the linenmarket, no clattering of hammers in the armourers' bazaar--a muffledbuzzing only, as of men talking low to themselves of bitter memories andyet dismaller expectations.

  "I have it!" said the Sparhawk at last, his eyes on the misty plain ofnight, with its twinkling pin-points of fire which were the watch-firesof the enemy.

  The three men stirred a little to indicate attention, but did not speak.

  "Listen," he said, "and do not interrupt. You must deliver me up. I amthe cause of war--I, the Duchess Joan. Hear you? I have a husband whomakes war upon me because I contemn his bed and board. He has summonedthe Muscovite to help him to woo me. Well, if I am to be given up, it isfor us to stipulate that the armies be withdrawn, first beyond the Alla,and then as far as Courtland. I will go with them; they will not find meout--at least, not till they are back in their own land."

  "What matter?" cried Balta. "They would return as soon as theydiscovered the cheat."

  "Let us sink or swim together," said Hussite George. "We want no talk ofsurrender!"

  But grey dry Alt Pikker said nothing, weighing all with a judicial mind.

  "No, they would not come back," said the Sparhawk; "or, at worst, wewould have time--that is, you would have time--to revictual Kernsberg,to fill the tanks and reservoirs, to summon in the hillmen. They wouldsoon learn that there had been no Joan within the city but the one theyhad carried back with them to Courtland. Plassenburg, slow to move,would have time to bring up its men to protect its borders from theMuscovite. All good chances are possible if only I am out of the way.Surrender me--but by private treaty, and not till you have seen themsafe across the fords of the Alla!"

  "Nay, God's truth;" cried the three, "that we will not do! They wouldkill you by slow torture as soon as they found out that they had beentricked."

  "Well," said the Sparhawk slowly, "but by that time they _would_ havebeen tricked."

  Then Alt Pikker spoke in his turn.

  "Men," he said, "this Dane is a man--a better than any of us. There iswisdom in what he says. Ye have heard in church how priests preachconcerning One who died for the people. Here is one ready to die--if nobetter may be--for the people!"

  "And for our Duchess Joan!" said the Sparhawk, taking his hat from hishead at the name of his mistress.

  "Our Lady Joan! Aye, that is it!" said the old man. "We would all gladlydie in battle for our lady. We have done more--we have risked our ownhonour and her favour in order to convey her away from these dangers.Let the boy be given up; and that he go not alone without fitattendance, I will go with him as his chamberlain."

  The other two men, Peter Balta and George the Hussite, did not answerfor a space, but sat pondering Alt Pikker's counsel. It was George theHussite who took up the parable.

  "I do not see why you, Alt Pikker, and you, Maurice the Dane, shouldhold such a pother about what you are ready to do for our Lady Joan. Soare we all every whit as ready and willing as you can be; and I think,if any are to be given up, we ought to draw lots for who it shall be.You fancy yourselves overmuch, both of you!"

  The Sparhawk laughed.

  "Great tun-barrelled dolt," he said, clapping Peter on the back, "howsweet and convincing it would be to see you, or that canting ale-facedknave George there, dressed up in the girdle-brace and steel corset ofJoan of the Sword Hand! And how would you do as to your beard? Are yousmooth as an egg on both cheeks as I am? It would be rare to have aDuchess Joan with an inch of blue-black stubble on her chin by the timeshe neared the gates of Courtland! Nay, lads, whoever stays--I must go.In this matter of brides I have qualities (how I got them I know not)that the best of you cannot lay claim to. Do you draw lots with AltPikker there, an you will, as to who shall accompany me, but leave thispresent Joan of the Sword Hand to settle her own little differences withhim who is her husband by the blessing of Holy Church."

  And he threw up his heels upon the table and plaited his knees one abovethe other.

  Then it was Alt Pikker's time.

  "Peter Balta, and you, George the Heretic, listen," he cried, vehementlyemphasising the points on the palm of his hand. "You, Peter, have a wifethat loves you--so, at least, we understand--and your Marion, how wouldshe fare in this hard world without you? Have you laid by astocking-foot full of gold? Does it hang inside your chimney? I trownot. Well, you at least must bide and earn your pay, for Marion's sake.I have neither kith nor kin, neither sweetheart nor wife, covenanted oruncovenanted. And for you, George, you are a heretic, and if they burnyou alive or let out the red sap at your neck, you will go straight tohell-fire. Think of it, George! I, on the other hand, am a true man, andafter a paltry year or two in purgatory (just for the experience) willenter straightway into the bosom of patriarchs and apostles, along withour Holy Father the Pope, and our elder brothers the Cardinals Borgiaand Delia Rovere!"

  "You talk a deal of nothings with your mouth," said George the Hussite."It is true that I hold not, as you do, that every dishclout in a churchis the holy veil, and every old snag of wood with a nail in't averitable piece of the true cross. But I would have you know that I cando as much for my lady as any one of you--nay, and more, too, AltPikker. For a good Hussite is afraid neither of purgatory nor yet ofhell-fire, because, if he should chance to die, he will go, withouttroubling either, straight to the abode of the martyrs and confessorswho have been judged worthy to withstand and to conquer."

  "And as to what you said concerning Marion," nodded Peter Baltatruculently, "she is a soldier's wife and would cut her pretty throatrather than stand in the way of a man's advancement!"

  "Specially knowing that so pretty a wench as she is could get a betterhusband to-morrow an it liked her!" commented Alt Pikker drily.

  "Well," cried the Sparhawk, "still your quarrel, gentlemen. At allevents, the thing is settled. The only question is _when_? How
manydays' water is there in the wells?"

  Said Peter Balta, "I will go and see."