by Andre Norton
“I marked you!”
“You did—and then groveled on the ground for your steel, that sword you did not have the strength to hold. However, you have taken lessons since. From my old master. I understand you spent some time seeking him out to learn all my weaknesses, to perfect your own counter to them. You want me, don't you, Von Werthern? Even though you want your wife, you want me more—Me. Not to turn over to your jackals and be dragged back to prison—but to bring down yourself—is that not the truth of it?”
For the third time silence, complete. I saw Kasper make a gesture with a hand. His lips shaped a whisper which even I, as close as I was, could only half catch.
“They have moved around now, sir. Best for this man of yours to take his place at the back. The windows are shuttered. Let him bar the door. It has the old squint slit above.”
Kristopher must have heard also, he waited for no word from the Colonel but whirled and made for the back. Fenwick paid no attention to that withdrawal. Instead he stood very close to the window, his whole stance that of one waiting something which he willed to happen with every fiber of his taut body.
I moistened my lips. From what I heard I thought that I guessed his purpose. He was trying to get Konrad von Werthern to meet him in a duel. But what weapon did he have? Only that rust-spotted sword he had found in the ruins—nothing which would be a real defense. Such action was the greatest folly—or was he merely working so upon the other's pride to win us time?
He made another gesture, this time toward his right—to where a fireplace, now empty for this season, covered a good third of the wall. Above it the light picked out what hung there—a pair of scabbarded crossed swords—no, sabers! Kasper edged away from the window crack, the Colonel, slipping closer to take his place, set down his shotgun and quickly freed both the blades from the coverings which remained fast to the wall.
“Well, Von Werthern—do you wish to see the result of your instruction?” the Colonel called out as the forester rejoined him, the blades in one hand.
Was he utterly without any caution? I sucked in a breath and moved swiftly to catch at the Colonel's arm.
“You can't do it! He will let them fire upon you, or do it himself the minute you show yourself.” I made no effort to keep my voice down, as had the others, and it carried. For, out of the dark came Konrad's answer, even as the Colonel freed himself from me with a quick twist of arm.
“Better listen to your whore, Fenwick. She has little confidence in you—”
It was not the name he gave me which aroused the flash of rage in me, I expected no less from him. I raised my voice again, cutting across the spiteful derision in his call:
“No confidence in your honor, rather. You have none worth the naming—”
Perhaps it was that retort which accomplished just the opposite of what I had intended. I could see through the slit of the window now, as clearly as the men I stood beside: Into the circle of the lantern light did come Konrad von Werthern. He had already thrown aside his hat, if he had worn one, and the light flickered over a tight tunic of green, a uniform jacket I did not remember having seen him wear before.
“I am waiting, Fenwick.” He brought up a bare saber, executing a flamboyant salute, his eyes narrowed as he watched the door of our refuge. That he would honor the rules for any such meeting was impossible, I believed. Again I tried to catch the Colonel's arm, but he moved quickly out of my reach, looked to the forester, who nodded slightly.
‘Tes, sir,” the latter said in a low voice. “I hear them—the owls gather.”
I had been so intent upon the exchange between the Colonel and our enemy that I had not been aware of something else. Now, in a small moment of silence, I did hear a mournful cry and then a second, sounding through the night.
“They will take him—as they have the others,” Kasper spoke with no small satisfaction. “Jakob must have met the night patrol at the spring meadow. We have been plagued with poachers recently—”
“No!” The Colonel shook his head. “This is between the two of us. Handle his men as you wish, he is my meat.” He had taken the sabers, swung each in turn, selected one. Now he gestured and Kasper withdrew the bar of the door.
The forester took up a second lantern and, holding his shotgun in the crook of one arm, carried the light with the other hand as he went out to plant the lantern on the top of a cart so the space before the door was illuminated now from two directions. Fenwick followed, the bared saber in his hand.
As Von Werthern had, he raised the blade in salute. I saw the Baron glance at the woods quickly. I waited, my hands pressed hard against my breast, for a shot to sound, for Fenwick to fall, having been reckless enough to play his enemy's game. But there came no shot. Dared I depend upon the forester's belief that his men, slipping through the night woods, had immobilized the force Konrad had brought? It would seem that for the present Von Werthern had no support.
However, he did not withdraw as I had expected him to do. Rather, he thrust his saber point down in the earth with enough force to hold the blade upright while he sought the fastenings of his tight uniform jacket and shrugged that off, casting it behind him. Fenwick made no such preparations. Kasper whistled softly and his whistle was answered from at least six points.
I could not read the expression which flitted momentarily over Konrad's self-satisfied face at those answers. He must have known then that any trap he had planned was sprung uselessly. He retrieved his weapon and they fronted each other.
My legs were suddenly weak. I found myself with one hand on either side of the door, my nails digging into the old wood to steady me. I could not retreat now any more than either of the two men.
I know nothing of the skill of a swordsman, but there was a grim, cruel grace in their movements. Sometimes they circled each other, then came together in a fast flurry of thrusts and parries, like the figures of a stately but deadly dance. I saw a line of red grow along the Colonel's upper arm, soaking through the sleeve, heard Konrad's small crow of triumph. Yet the wound, be it painful, or a mere scratch, seemed to offer little handicap to Fenwick.
There was now a steady flurry of attack and defense. I could hear their panting, the stamp of their feet as they moved. Then—
Konrad gave a queer, choked cry. There was steel driven deep into the upper part of his chest. He staggered back a pace or so, so quickly that he took the saber with him. The Colonel's arm had fallen to his side, the whole upper part of his sleeve now sodden with blood which spun out in a flurry of drops as he tried to reach once more for the hilt of the saber.
There was a terrible look on the Baron's face as he wavered on his feet in the full light of one of the lanterns. His mouth became an ugly scar, his eyes held such hot hatred as a devil might show. Paying no attention to his wound, to the blade which was so deeply buried in his flesh, he appeared to draw to him strength enough to come forward again, his purpose plain to read. He was bringing death—
Maybe I screamed, I do not know. Was it that cry which brought his eyes up, around to me? One step—another—Fenwick made no attempt to fall back. He had clasped one hand over his wound, his face impassive as he watched.
“Damn you—!” Was that said to me, or to Fenwick? I would never know. Konrad readied for a fatal thrust at his enemy and—fell forward to his knees.
“No! No!” He denied his weakness, his failure, yet still crumpled limply forward on his face.
We sat about the table in Kasper Kapplemann's lodge. I had tried to tend Fenwick's wound, a slash which had continued to dribble blood until Truda pushed me aside and took over that task with more competence than I possessed at that moment. The Colonel's face was pale beneath the black bush of his dust-streaked beard, and he exhaled the fumes of the brandy Kasper had produced, but he would not hear to any rest.
I tried to keep my thoughts away from the form swathed and tied into a cloak which lay on a farm cart outside. Come light and that and the now disarmed men who had followed Von Werthern would
be escorted to the river, seen across it and back to Hesse-Dohna by Kasper's foresters.
Though there still might be pursuit, we had gained some time in which to put ourselves well ahead. Since the Colonel could not use the right hand of the arm now resting across his chest in a sling, I had had to school my trembling fingers to write out three papers which now lay before me on the table. One was of my own indicting, and whether it would win me complete freedom from the past I did not know, but I was the easier for the writing of it. For on that page I made formal assignment of any bequest which my grandfather had seen fit to give me to the new Elector.
The other two were of Fenwick's composition. One was his resignation from the service of Hesse-Dohna. The other was to the Gräf von Mannichen, detailing all which had happened here and that Kasper and his men had had no part in it, save to defend their master's property from unlawful invasion.
Had I really been a wife in name? That fact no longer mattered—I was now safe from any such bonds. There was still the faint stain of pink about my ring finger and it was a little tender to the touch. That unlucky ring had played a second part in the action which had overtaken us here. For Von Werthern, questing after us, had secured it from the trader and been sharp enough to foresee the direction of our flight. This we learned from questioning his second-in-command, a sinister-looking fellow whom Truda recognized as the same coachman who had supposedly driven us on our honeymoon.
I had no grief for the man who lay out there in the cart. From the first I had found him distasteful, while the brutality which had been unleashed upon me on that night when he had tried to force the right to the treasure from me had made me hate as well as fear him. Only his fury had been so useless. I had not ever wanted what my grandfather left. He and the Gräfin could have shared it for all of me. Because they would never believe that anyone could turn so aside from greed, one was dead—and I would probably never know the fate of the other.
That I was safe out of the murky currents that the past had drawn around me was all that mattered. A vast weariness settled on me as I folded the papers, sealed them with wax Truda dripped carefully from a candle, and impressed the Colonel's two with the ring he gave me. For my own I brought out of hiding the iron butterflies. Perhaps no one in Hesse-Dohna would know or recognize their significance, but as a matter of identification I set the impression onto the wax of my document. Two were to be sent by messenger to Axelburg. I wished the new Elector the joy of what was in the tower he could now claim as his own. To me it had been ill-omened indeed.
Kasper escorted us to the Gräf's castle, for castle it was. There the staff made much of us. A surgeon was summoned to look to the Colonel's wound and I slept away two days—at least I can remember very little of that time, though I awoke once or twice, drank what was offered me, only to lapse once more into a blessed dark in which there were no dreams, only peace.
Though Truda labored later with various preparations she knew, the stain on my hair faded very little, so that when I at last aroused into a measure of intelligence again, I fronted quite another person in the mirror of the guest chamber I had been given.
The housekeeper raided the wardrobe of her mistress, in spite of my protests—pointing out that I certainly could not go on in the peasant dress, torn and grimed as that had become. So she set a maid to altering two gowns, provided underlinen, and refused any pay—though I vowed that the Gräfin von Mannichen (for whom I left a letter of mingled apology for the liberities taken with her clothes, and thanks for all the courtesy shown us) would in time receive such a gift as would please her.
On the fourth day after we had arrived so secretly and dramatically in Hanover, the Colonel declared he was ready to travel, though I mistrusted the return of his strength. We were to go as directly as possible to Hamburg and there take ship for Britain—since he was determined to make sure of his funds before he tried his luck overseas.
We had spent very little time together after we had reached the castle. I had visited his room at intervals to see how he did, but never alone. We were back once more among the proprieties, and I think that the housekeeper suspected the worst of our relationship. Men must have talked and undoubtedly the words Konrad had used were not forgotten, nor could I hope that they had gone unrepeated among the staff.
When we set out we had the loan of a coach as far as the nearest town where we could hire some equipage of our own. My gold was proving all that I thought it might be—a saver. Thus we made the journey across Hanover. I spent hours in the coach, sharing one seat with the Colonel, Truda across from us, Kristopher riding with the coachman. Thus conversation was of a most general character. There was no return to that day when we had tramped the road and I found it so easy to talk of my home, though I could not take all the blame for Fenwick's downfall, his exile from the country which he had served so well, I could not entirely rid myself of a feeling of guilt. Certainly it was my involvement which had led to that lantern-lit duel-ground and the fact that he not only bore a new healing scar on his body, but that he had to kill a man. I felt very shy and constrained, and he looked as brooding and preoccupied as he had at the very start of our acquaintance.
We reached Hamburg at last without incident. There I was able to claim more funds from one of the merchants with whom my grandmother had had dealings and who, luckily enough, had once visited our manor and so knew me to be who I claimed I was. Truda and I spent some days in shopping, though, as she had warned me, the styles offered were sadly out of date when compared to those of the nobility. But their very dowdiness was a pleasure to me, for I could not always throw off the suspicion that some very long arm of the law from Hesse-Dohria might not extend even here.
My grandmother's friend found us a ship, bound indeed for the port of London, and flying the British flag, under which the Colonel, at least, could claim some small freedom, for he had cousins who had settled in England. So, on a bright and sunny morning we gathered on board, Truda bustling about to see our baggage safely below, ordering Kristopher hither and yon with the pride of a new wife. For that, too, had come about in Hamburg and I had given her a dowry which had left her speechless—for a while.
I turned my back upon the stern of the ship, stood looking out into what was our future. Yet I was not so unaware of what went on about me that I did not know when he came to join me. His scrubby beard had gone, he was dressed again as a gentleman, but not in the bravery of a uniform. His arm was no longer in a sling, though he favored that shoulder a little, as I had witnessed. Now he, too, was looking forward, I saw, as I stole a glance at him from under the rim of a plain straw bonnet which lacked any pretense of fashion.
“A fair wind, a fine day—” he commented.
However, neither wind nor day meant anything to me then. I had gathered up all my courage to face this moment because I had to. I must know.
“You will go on—to Maryland?” A very bald question which held nothing really of what was in my mind—or my heart—for now I knew I had a heart at last, though what it held—I could not be sure—not yet.
I had his full attention at last. Just as his habitually stern face had taken on new lines that time he had laughed when we met in the secret ways of Wallen-stein, so did it change now—though it was not laughter which moved him. I gave a little gasp, though in such an open place he did no more than take my hand in his. But the very grip of his fingers was such an enfolding one that he might well have drawn me boldly into his arms and held me so—in peace, yet waking to feelings I once secretly believed never did really exist.
“Is that what you wish?”
I lifted my head to meet honestly the searching gaze he was giving me.
“You need not ask that.”
“No,” he agreed. “I do not.”
“Come.” I drew him by the hand which held mine, so we came to the rail of the ship.
Then I brought my left hand from beneath my light shawl. I shook out the handkerchief I had clasped therein, loosing its burden to spira
l out and down, falling into the lap of the waves, swallowed up forever. It was part of the life of others, now both dead, both in their time unhappy. I wanted none of that unhappiness to touch what I had found. I do not think mine was then a selfish wish.
The iron butterflies so made their flight into the past forever. His hand tightened on mine and I welcomed its jealous force, its steadiness. Then he did laugh.
“He got his will after all—”
“Who—what—?” I was confused.
“The Elector. He did have a husband selected for you—”
“Konrad!” I was angry to think of his dragging the past into this moment of release and happiness.
“No—me. That was why he sent me to fetch you in the beginning. He could not escape the training of his own caste—an arranged marriage for his granddaughter—one he had sponsored. I could not refuse to go, but—”
“But you determined to have none of me?”
He looked then a little embarrassed before he smiled.
“Would you have taken to such a suggestion then yourself, my lady?”
I did not see fit to answer that. Instead I had another question:
“Are you still duty bound, sir?”
“My name is Pryor. And there is nothing dutiful in this.” He had me suddenly in his arms and I learned the excitement and awe-changing power of a kiss.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.