Joan of the Sword Hand
Page 31
CHAPTER XXX
LOVE'S CLEAR EYE
"And now," cried Princess Margaret, clapping her hands togetherimpulsively, "now at last I shall hear everything. Why you went away,and who gave you up, and about the fighting. Ugh! the traitors, tobetray you after all! I would have their heads off--and all to savetheir wretched town and the lives of some score of fat burghers!"
So far the Princess Margaret had never once looked at the Sparhawk inhis borrowed plumage, as he stood uneasily enough by the fireplace ofthe summer palace, leaning an elbow on the mantelshelf. But now sheturned quickly to her guest.
"Oh, I love you!" she cried, running to Maurice and throwing her armsabout her false sister-in-law in an impulsive little hug. "I think youare so brave. Is my hair sadly tangled? Tell me truly, Joan. The windhath tumbled it about mine eyes. Not that it matters--with you!"
She said the last words with a little sigh.
Then the Princess Margaret tripped across the polished floor to adressing-table which had been set out in the angle between the twowindows. She turned the combs and brushes over with a contumelious hand.
"Where is your hand-glass?" she cried. "Do not tell me that you havenever looked in it since you came to Courtland, or that you can put upwith that squinting falsifier up there." She pointed to the oval-framedVenetian mirror which was hung opposite her. "It twists your face allawry, this way and that, like a monkey cracking a nut. 'Twas well enoughfor our good Conrad, but the Princess Joan is another matter."
"I have never even looked in either!" said the Sparhawk.
Some subtle difference in tone of voice caused the Princess to stop herwork of patting into temporary docility her fair clustering ringlets,winding them about her fingers and rearranging to greater advantage thelittle golden combs which held her sadly rebellious tresses in place.She looked keenly at the Sparhawk, standing with both her shapely armsat the back of her head and holding a long ivory pin with a head ofbright green malachite between her small white teeth.
"Your voice is hoarse--somehow you are different," she said, taking thepin from her lips and slipping it through the rebellious plaits with aswift vindictive motion.
"I have caught a cold riding into the city," quoth the Sparhawk hastily,blushing uneasily under her eyes. But for the time being his disguisewas safe. Already Margaret of Courtland was thinking of something else.
"Tell me," she began, going to the window and gazing pensively out uponthe green white-flecked pour of the Alla, swirling under the beams ofthe Summer Palace, "how many of your suite have followed you hither?"
"Only Alt Pikker, my second captain!" said the Sparhawk.
Again the tones of his voice seemed to touch her woman's ear with somesubtile perplexity even in the midst of her abstraction. Margaret turnedher eyes again upon Maurice, and kept them there till he shivered in theflowing, golden-belted dress of velvet which sat so handsomely upon hissplendid figure.
"And your chief captain, Von Orseln?" The Princess seemed to bemeditating again, her thoughts far from the rush of the Alla beneathand from the throat voice of the false Princess before her.
"Von Orseln has gone to the Baltic Edge to raise on my behalf the folkof the marshes!" answered the Sparhawk warily.
"Then there was----" the Princess hesitated, and her own voice grew atrifle lower--"the young man who came hither as Dessauer'ssecretary--what of him? The Count von Loeen, if I mistake not--that washis name?"
"He is a traitor!"
The Princess turned quickly.
"Nay," she said, "you do not think so. Your voice is kind when you speakof him. Besides, I am sure he is no traitor. Where is he?"
"He is in the place where he most wishes to be--with the woman heloves!"
The light died out of the bright face of the Princess Margaret at theanswer, even as a dun snow-cloud wipes the sunshine off a landscape.
"The woman he loves?" she stammered, as if she could not have heardaright.
"Aye," said the false bride, loosening her cloak and casting it behindher. "I swear it. He is with the woman he loves."
But in his heart the Sparhawk was saying, "Steady, Master Maurice vonLynar--or all will be out in five minutes."
The Princess Margaret walked determinedly from the window to thefireplace. She was not so tall by half a head as her guest, but to theeyes of the Sparhawk she towered above him like a young poplar tree. Heshrank from her searching glance.
The Princess laid her hand upon the sleeve of the velvet gown. A flushof anger crimsoned her fair face.
"Ah!" she cried, "I see it all now, madam the Princess. You love theCount and you think to blind me. This is the reason of your riding offwith him on your wedding day. I saw you go by his side. You sent CountMaurice to bring to you the four hundred lances of Kernsberg. It was forhis sake that you left my brother Prince Louis at the church door. Likedraws to like, they say, and your eyes even now are as like as peas tothose of the Count von Loeen."
And this, indeed, could the Sparhawk in no wise deny. The Princess wenther angry way.
"There have been many lies told," she cried, raising the pitch of hervoice, "but I am not blind. I can see through them. I am a woman and cangauge a woman's pretext. You yourself are in love with the Count vonLoeen, and yet you tell me that he is with the woman he loves. Bah! heloves you--you, his mistress--next, that is, to his selfish self-seekingself. If he is with the woman he loves, as you say, tell me her name!"
There came a knocking at the door.
"Who is there?" demanded imperiously the Princess Margaret.
"The Prince of Muscovy, to present his duty to the Princess ofCourtland!"
"I do not wish to see him--I will not see him!" said the Sparhawkhastily, who felt that one inquisitor at a time was as much as he couldhope to deal with.
"Enter!" said the Princess Margaret haughtily.
The Prince opened the door and stood on the threshold bowing to theladies.
"Well?" queried Margaret of Courtland, without further acknowledgment ofhis salutation than the slightest and chillest nod.
"My service to both, noble Princesses," the answer came with suavedeference. "The Prince Louis sent me to beg of his noble spouse, thePrincess Joan, that she would deign to receive him."
"Tell Louis that the Princess will receive him at her own time. He oughtto have better manners than to trouble a lady yet weary from a longjourney. And as for you, Prince Ivan, you have our leave to go!"
Whilst Margaret was speaking the Prince had fixed his piercing eyes uponthe Sparhawk, as if already he had penetrated his secret. But becausehe was a man Maurice sustained the searching gaze with haughtyindifference. The Prince of Muscovy turned upon the Princess Margaretwith a bright smile.
"All this makes an ill lesson for you, my fair betrothed," he said,bowing to her; "but--there will be no riding home once we have you inMoscow!"
"True, I shall not need to return, for I shall never ride thither!"retorted the Princess. "Moreover, I would have you remember that I amnot your betrothed. The Prince Louis is your betrothed, if you have anyin Courtland. You can carry him to Moscow an you will, and comfort eachother there."
"That also I may do some day, madam!" flashed Prince Wasp, stirred toquick irritation. "But in the meantime, Princess Joan, does it pleaseyou to signify when you will receive your husband?"
"No! no! no!" whispered the Sparhawk in great perturbation.
The Princess Margaret pointed to the door.
"Go!" she said. "I myself will signify to my brother when he can waitupon the Princess."
"My Lady Margaret," the Muscovite purred in answer, "think you it iswise thus to encourage rebellion in the most sacred relations of life?"
The Princess Margaret trilled into merriest laughter and reached back ahand to take Joan's fingers in hers protectingly.
"The homily of the most reverend churchman, Prince Ivan of Muscovy, uponmatrimony; Judas condemning treachery, Satan rebuking sin, were nothingto this!"
With all his faults t
he Prince had humour, the humour of a torture scenein some painted monkish Inferno.
"Agreed," he said, smiling; "and what does the Princess Margaretprotecting that pale shrinking flower, Joan of the Sword Hand, remindyou of?"
"That the room of Prince Ivan is more welcome to ladies than hiscompany!" retorted Margaret of Courtland, still holding the Sparhawk'shand between both of hers, and keeping her angry eyes and petulantflower face indignantly upon the intruder.
Had Prince Ivan been looking at her companion at that moment he mighthave penetrated the disguise, so tender and devoted a light of lovedwelt on the Sparhawk's countenance and beaconed from his eyes. But heonly bowed deferentially and withdrew. Margaret and the Sparhawk wereleft once more alone.
The two stood thus while the brisk footsteps of Prince Wasp thinned outdown the corridor. Then Margaret turned swiftly upon her tall companionand, still keeping her hand, she pulled Maurice over to the window. Thenin the fuller light she scanned the Sparhawk's features with a kindlingeye and paling lips.
"God in heaven!" she palpitated, holding him at a greater distance, "youare not the Lady Joan; you are--you are----"
"The man who loves you!" said the Sparhawk, who was very pale.
"The Count von Loeen. Oh! Maurice, why did you risk it?" she gasped."They will kill you, tear you to pieces without remorse, when they findout. And it is a thing that cannot be kept secret. Why did you do it?"
"For your sake, beloved," said the Sparhawk, coming nearer to her; "tolook once more on your face--to behold once, if no more, the lips thatkissed me in the dark by the river brink!"
"But--but--you may forfeit your life!"
"And a thousand lives!" cried the Sparhawk, nervously pulling at hiswoman's dress as if ashamed that he must wear it at such a time. "Lifewithout you is naught to Maurice von Lynar!"
A glow of conscious happiness rose warm and pink upon the cheeks of thePrincess Margaret.
"Besides," added Maurice, "the captains of Kernsberg considered thatthus alone could their mistress be saved."
The glow paled a little.
"What! by sacrificing you? But perhaps you did it for her sake, and notwholly, as you say, for mine!"
There was no such thought in her heart, but she wished to hear him denyit.
"Nay, my one lady," he answered; "I was, indeed, more than ready to cometo Courtland, but it was because of the hope that surged through myheart, as flame leaps through tow, that I should see you and hear yourvoice!"
The Princess held out her hands impulsively and then retracted them assuddenly.
"Now, we must not waste time," she said; "I must save you. They wouldslay you on the least suspicion. But I will match them. Would to Godthat Conrad were here. To him I could speak. I could trust him. He wouldhelp us. Let me see! Let me see!"
She bent her head and walked slowly to the window. Like every trueCourtlander she thought best when she could watch the swirl of the greenAlla against its banks. The Sparhawk took a step as if to follow, butinstead stood still where he was, drinking in her proud and girlishbeauty. To the eye of any spy they were no more than two noble ladieswho had quarrelled, the smaller and slighter of whom had turned her backupon the taller!
They were in the same position still, and the white foam-fleck whichMargaret was following with her eyes had not vanished from her sight,when the door of the summer palace was rudely thrown open and an officerannounced in a loud and strident tone, "The Prince Louis to visit hisPrincess!"