Joan of the Sword Hand

And with these words Werner von Orseln took his sword by the point and offered the hilt to his mistress.

Joan of the Sword Hand shook with mingled passion and helplessness, and her eyes were dark and troublous.

"Put up your blade," she said, striking aside the hilt with her hand; "if you have not deserved death, no more have I deserved this! But you said that the design was not yours. Who, then, has dared to plot against the liberty of Joan of Hohenstein?"

"I would I could claim the honour," said Werner the chief captain; "but truly the matter came from Maurice von Lynar the Dane. It is to his mother, who after the death of her brother, the Count von Lynar, continued to dwell in a secret strength on the Baltic shore, that we are conducting your Grace!"

"Maurice von Lynar?" exclaimed Joan, astonished. "He remains in Castle Kernsberg, then?"

"Aye," said Werner, relieved by her tone, "he will take your place when danger comes. In morning twilight or at dusk he makes none so ill a Lady Duchess, and, i' faith, his 'sword hand' is brisk enough. If the town be taken, better that he than you be found in Castle Kernsberg. Is the thing not well invented, my lady?"

Werner looked up hopefully. He thought he had pleaded his cause well.

"Traitor! Supplanter!" cried Joan indignantly; "this Dane in my place! I will hang him from the highest window in the Castle of Kernsberg if ever I win back to mine own again!"

"My lady," said Werner, gently and respectfully, "your servant Von Lynar bade me tell you that he would as faithfully and loyally take your place now as he did on a former occasion!"

"Ah," said Joan, smiling wanly with a quick change of mood, "I hope he will be more ready to give up his privileges on this occasion than on that!"

She was thinking of the Princess Margaret and the heritage of trouble upon which, as the Count von Löen, she had caused the Sparhawk to enter.

Then a new thought seemed to strike her.

"But my nurse and my women – how can he keep the imposture secret? He may pass before the stupid eyes of men. But they – "

"If your Highness will recollect, they have been sent out of harm's way into Plassenburg. There is not a woman born of woman in all the Castle of Kernsberg!"

"Yes," mused Joan, "I have indeed been fairly cozened. I gave that order also by the Dane's advice. Well, let him have his run. We will reeve him a firm collar of hemp at the end of it, and maybe for Werner von Orseln also, as a traitor alike to his bread and his mistress. Till then I hope you will both enjoy playing your parts."

The chief captain bowed.

"I am content, my lady," he said respectfully.

"Now, good jailers all," cried Joan, "lead on. I will follow. Or would you prefer to carry me with you handcuffed and chained? I will go with you in whatsoever fashion seemeth good to my masters!"

She paused and looked round the little goatherd's hut.

"Only," she said, nodding her head, "I warn you I will take my own time and manner of coming back!"

There was a deep silence as the men drew their belts tighter and prepared to mount and depart.

"About that time, Jorian," whispered Boris as they went out, "you and I will be better in Plassenburg than within the bounds of Kernsberg – for our health's sake and our sweethearts', that is!"

"Good!" said Jorian, dropping the bars of his visor; "but for all that she is a glorious wench, and looks her bravest when she is angry!"

CHAPTER XXI

ISLE RUGEN

They had travelled for six hours through high arched pines, their fallen needles making a carpet green and springy underfoot. Then succeeded oaks, stricken a little at top with the frosts of years. Alternating with these came marshy tracts where alder and white birch gleamed from the banks of shallow runnels and the margins of black peaty lakes. Anon the broom and the gorse began to flourish sparsely above wide sand-hills, heaved this way and that like the waves of a mountainous sea.

The party was approaching that no-man's-land which stretches for upwards of a hundred miles along the southern shores of the Baltic. It is a land of vast brackish backwaters connected with the outer sea by devious channels often half silted up, but still feeling the pulse of the outer green water in the winds which blow over the sandy "bills," bars, and spits, and bring with them sweet scents of heather and wild thyme, and, most of all, of the southernwood which grows wild on the scantily pastured braes.

It was at that time a beautiful but lonely country – the 'batable land of half a dozen princedoms, its only inhabitant a stray hunter setting up his gipsy booth of wattled boughs, heaping with stones a rude fireplace, or fixing a tripod over it whereon a pottinger was presently a-swing, in some sunny curve of the shore.

At eventide of the third day of their journeying the party came to a great morass. Black decaying trunks of trees stood up at various angles, often bristling with dead branches like chevaux-de-frise. The horses picked their path warily through this tangle, the rotten sticks yielding as readily and silently as wet mud beneath their hoofs. Finally all dismounted except Joan, while Werner von Orseln, with a rough map in his hand, traced out the way. Pools of stagnant black water had to be evaded, treacherous yellow sands tested, bridges constructed of the firmer logs, till all suddenly they came out upon a fairylike little half-moon of sand and tiny shells.

Here was a large flat-bottomed boat, drawn up against the shore. In the stern a strange figure was seated, a man, tall and angular, clad in jerkin and trunks of brown tanned leather, cross-gartered hose of grey cloth, and home-made shoon of hide with the hair outside. He wore a black skull cap, and his head had the strange, uncanny look of a wild animal. It was not at the first glance nor yet at the second that Boris and Jorian found out the cause of this curious appearance.

Meanwhile Werner von Orseln was putting into his hand some pledge or sign which he scrutinised carefully, when Jorian suddenly gripped his companion's arm.

"Look," he whispered, "he's got no ears!"

"Nor any tongue!" responded Boris, staring with all his eyes at the prodigy.

And, indeed, the strange man was pointing to his mouth with the index finger of his right hand and signing that they were to follow him into the boat which had been waiting for them.

Joan of the Sword Hand had never spoken since she knew that her men were taking her to a place of safety. Nor did her face show any trace of emotion now that Werner von Orseln, approaching cap in hand, humbly begged her to permit him to conduct her to the boat.

But the Duchess leapt from her horse, and without accepting his hand she stepped from the little pier of stone beside which the boat lay. Then walking firmly from seat to seat she reached the stern, where she sat down without seeming to have glanced at any of the company.

Werner von Orseln then motioned Captains Boris and Jorian to take their places in the bow, and having bared his head he seated himself beside his mistress. The wordless earless man took the oars and pushed off. The boat slid over a little belt of still water through a wilderness of tall reeds. Then all suddenly the wavelets lapped crisp and clean beneath her bottom, and the wide levels of a lake opened out before them. The ten men left on the shore set about building a fire and making shelters of brushwood, as if they expected to stay here some time.

The tiny harbour was fenced in on every side with an unbroken wall of lofty green pines. The lower part of their trunks shot up tall and straight and opened long vistas into the black depths of the forest. The sun was setting and threw slant rays far underneath, touching with gold the rank marish growths, and reddening the mouldering boles of the fallen pines.

The boat passed almost noiselessly along, the strange man rowing strongly and the boat drawing steadily away across the widest part of the still inland sea. As they thus coasted along the gloomy shores the sun went down and darkness came upon them at a bound. Then at the far end of the long tunnel, which an hour agone had been sunny glades, they saw strange flickering lights dancing and vanishing, waving and leaping upward – will-o'-the-wisps kindled doubtless from the stagnant boglands and the rotting vegetation of that ancient northern forest.

The breeze freshened. The water clappered louder under the boat's quarter. Breaths born of the wide sea unfiltered through forest dankness visited more keenly the nostrils of the voyagers. They heard ahead of them the distant roar of breakers. Now and then there came a long and gradual roll underneath their quarter, quite distinct from the little chopping waves of the fresh-water haff, as the surface of the mere heaved itself in a great slope of water upon which the boat swung sideways.

After a space tall trees again shot up overhead, and with a quick turn the boat passed between walls of trembling reeds that rustled against the oars like silk, emerged on a black circle of water, and then, gliding smoothly forward, took ground in the blank dark.

As the broad keel grated on the sand, the Wordless Man leapt out, and, standing on the shore, put his hands to his mouth and emitted a long shout like a blast blown on a conch shell. Again and again that melancholy ululation, with never a consonantal sound to break it, went forth into the night. Yet it was so modulated that it had obviously a meaning for some one, and to put the matter beyond a doubt it was answered by three shrill whistles from behind the rampart of trees.

Joan sat still in the boat where she had placed herself. She asked no question, and even these strange experiences did not alter her resolution.

Presently a light gleamed uncertainly through the trees, now lost behind brushwood and again breaking waveringly out.

A tall figure moved forward with a step quick and firm. It was that of a woman who carried a swinging lantern in her hand, from which wheeling lights gleamed through a score of variously coloured little plates of horn. She wore about her shoulders a great crimson cloak which masked her shape. A hood of the same material, attached at the back of the neck to the cloak, concealed her head and dropped about her face, partially hiding her features.

Standing still on a little wooden pier she held the lantern high, so that the light fell directly on those in the boat, and their faces looked strangely white in that illumined circle, surrounded as it was by a pent-house of tense blackness – black pines, black water, black sky.

"Follow me!" said the woman, in a deep rich voice – a voice whose tones thrilled those who heard them to their hearts, so full and low were some of the notes.

Joan of the Sword Hand rose to her feet.

"I am the Duchess of Hohenstein, and I do not leave this boat till I know in what place I am, and who this may be that cries 'Follow!' to the daughter of Henry the Lion!"

The tall woman turned without bowing and looked at the girl.

"I am the mother of Maurice von Lynar, and this is the Isle Rugen!" she said simply, as if the answer were all sufficient.

CHAPTER XXII

THE HOUSE ON THE DUNES

The woman in the crimson cloak waited for Joan to be assisted from the boat, and then, without a word of greeting, led the way up a little sanded path to a gate which opened in a high stone wall. Through this she admitted her guests, whereupon they found themselves in an enclosure with towers and battlements rising dimly all round. It was planted with fragrant bushes and fruit trees whose leaves brushed pleasantly against their faces as they walked in single file following their guide.

Then came a long grey building, another door, small and creaking heavily on unaccustomed hinges, a sudden burst of light, and lo! the wanderers found themselves within a lighted hall, wherein were many stands of arms and armour, mingled with skins of wild animals, wide-spreading many-tined antlers, and other records of the chase.

The woman who had been their guide now set down her lantern and allowed the hood of her cloak to slide from her head. Werner and his two male companions the captains of Plassenburg, fell back a little at the apparition. They had expected to see some hag or crone, fit companion of their wordless guide.

Instead, a woman stood before them, not girlish certainly, nor yet in the first bloom of her youth, but glorious even among fair women by reason of the very ripeness of her beauty. Her hair shone full auburn with shadows of heavy burnt-gold upon its coils. It clustered about the broad low brow in a few simple locks, then, sweeping back round her head in loose natural waves, it was caught in a broad flat coil at the back, giving a certain statuesque and classic dignity to her head.

The mother of that young paladin, their Sparhawk? It seemed impossible. This woman was too youthful, too fair, too bountiful in her gracious beauty to be the mother of such a tense young yew-bow as Maurice von Lynar.

Yet she had said it, and women do not lie (affirmatively) about such a matter. So, indeed, at heart thought Werner von Orseln.

"My lady Joan," she said, in the same thrilling voice, "my son has sent me word that till a certain great danger is overpast you are to abide with me here on the Isle Rugen. I live alone, save for this one man, dumb Max Ulrich, long since cruelly maimed at the hands of his enemies. I can offer you no suite of attendants beyond those you bring with you. Our safety depends on the secrecy of our abode, as for many years my own life has done. I ask you, therefore, to respect our privacy, as also to impose the same upon your soldiers."

The Duchess Joan bowed slightly.

"As you doubtless know, I have not come hither of my own free will," she answered haughtily; "but I thank you, madam, for your hospitality. Rest assured that the amenity of your dwelling shall not be endangered by me!"

The two looked at each other with that unyielding "at-arm's-length" eyeshot which signifies instinctive antipathy between women of strong wills.

Then with a large gesture the elder indicated the way up the broad staircase, and throwing her own cloak completely off she caught it across her arm as it dropped, and so followed Joan out of sight.

Werner von Orseln stood looking after them a little bewildered. But the more experienced Boris and Jorian exchanged significant glances with each other.

Then Boris shook his head at Jorian, and Jorian shook his head at Boris. And for once they did not designate the outlook by their favourite adjective.

Nevertheless, instinct was so strong that, as soon as the women had withdrawn themselves upstairs, the three captains seized the lantern and started towards the door to make the round of the defences. The Wordless Man accompanied them unasked. The square enclosure in which they found themselves seemed liker an old fortified farmhouse or grange than a regular castle, though the walls were thick as those of any fortress, being loopholed for musketry, and (in those days of bombards few and heavy) capable of standing a siege in good earnest against a small army.

The doors were of thick oak crossed in all directions with strengthening iron. The three captains examined every barred window with keen professional curiosity, and, coming to another staircase in a distant part of the house, Von Orseln intimated to the dumb man that they wished to examine it. In rapid pantomime he indicated to them that there was an ascending flight of steps leading round and round a tower till a platform was reached, from which (gazing out under his hand and making with his finger the shape of battlements) he gave them to understand that an extensive prospect was to be enjoyed.

With an inward resolve to ascend that stair and look upon that prospect at an early hour on the morrow, the three captains returned through the hall into a long dining-room vaulted above with beams of solid oak. Curtains were drawn close all about the walls. In the recesses were many stands of arms of good and recent construction, and opening a cupboard with the freedom of a man-at-arms, Boris saw ramrods, powder and shot horns arranged in order, as neatly as though he had done it himself, than which no better could be said.

In a little while the sound of footsteps descending the nearer staircase was heard. The Wordless Man moved to the door and held it open as Joan came in with a proud high look on her face. She was still pale, partly with travel and partly from the seething indignant angers of her heart. Von Lynar's mother entered immediately after her guest, and it needed nothing more subtle than Werner von Orseln's masculine acumen to discern that no word had been spoken between them while they were alone.

With a queenly gesture the hostess motioned her guest to the place of honour at her right hand, and indicated that the three soldiers were to take their places at the other side of the table. Werner von Orseln moved automatically to obey, but Jorian and Boris were already at the sideboard, dusting platters and making them ready to serve the meal.

"I thank you, madam," said Jorian. "Were we here as envoys of our master, Prince Hugo of Plassenburg, we would gladly and proudly sit at meat with you. But we are volunteers, and have all our lives been men-at-arms. We will therefore assist this good gentleman to serve, an it please you to permit us!"

The lady bowed slightly and for the first time smiled.

"You have, then, accompanied the Lady Duchess hither for pleasure, gentlemen? I fear Isle Rugen is a poor place for that!" she said, looking across at them.

"Aye and no!" said Jorian; "Kernsberg is, indeed, no fit dwelling-place for great ladies just now. The Duchess Joan will indeed be safer here than elsewhere till the Muscovites have gone home, and the hill-folk of Hohenstein have only the Courtlanders to deal with. All the same, we could have wished to have been permitted to speak with the Muscovite in the gate!"

"My son remains in Castle Kernsberg?" she asked, with an upward inflection, an indescribable softness at the same time overspreading her face, and a warmth coming into the grey eyes which showed what this woman might be to those whom she really loved.

"He keeps the Castle, indeed – in his mistress's absence and mine," said Werner. "He will make a good soldier. Our lady has already made him Count von Löen, that he may be the equal of those who care for such titles."

A strange flash as of remembrance and emotion passed over the face of their hostess.

"And your own title, my lord?" she asked after a little pause.

"I am plain Werner von Orseln, free ritter and faithful servant of my mistress the Duchess Joan, as I was also of her father, Henry the Lion of Hohenstein!"

He bowed as he spoke and continued, "I do not love titles, and, indeed, they would be wasted on an ancient grizzle-pate like me. But your son is young, and deserves this fortune, madam. He will doubtless do great honour to my lady's favour."

The eyes of the elder lady turned inquiringly to those of Joan.

"I have now no faithful servants," said the young Duchess at last, breaking her cold silence; "I have only traitors and jailers about me."

With that she became once more silent. A painful restraint fell upon the three who sat at table, and though their hostess and Werner von Orseln partook of the fish and brawn and fruit which their three servitors set before them in silver platters, it was but sparingly and without appetite.

All were glad when the meal was over and they could rise from the table. As soon as possible Boris and Jorian got outside into the long passage which led to the kitchen.

"Ha!" cried Boris, "I declare I would have burst if I had stayed in there another quarter hour! It was solemn as serving Karl the Great and his longbeards in their cellar under the Hartz. I wonder if they are going to keep it up all the time after this fashion!"

"And this is pleasure," rejoined Jorian gloomily; "not even a good rousing fight on the way. And then – why, prayers for the dead are cheerful as dance-gardens in July to that festal board. Good Lord! give me the Lady Ysolinde and the gnomes we fought so long ago at Erdberg. This stiff sword-handed Joan of theirs freezes a man's internals like Baltic ice."

"Jorian," said Boris, solemnly lowering his voice to a whisper, "if that Courtland fellow had known what we know, he would have been none so eager to get her home to bed and board!"

"Ice will melt – even Baltic ice!" said Jorian sententiously.

"Yes, but greybeard Louis of Courtland is not the man to do the melting!" retorted Boris.

"But I know who could!" said Jorian, nodding his head with an air of immense sagacity.

Boris went on cutting brawn upon a wooden platter with a swift and careful hand. The old servitor moved noiselessly about behind them, with feet that made no more noise than those of a cat walking on velvet.

"Who?" said Boris, shortly.

The door of the kitchen opened slightly and the tall woman stood a moment with the latch in her hand, ready to enter.

"Our Sparhawk could melt the Baltic ice!" said Jorian, and winked at Boris with his left eye in a sly manner.

Whereupon Boris dropped his knife and, seizing Jorian by the shoulders, he thrust him down upon a broad stool.

Then he dragged the platter of brawn before him and dumped the mustard pot beside it upon the deal table with a resounding clap.

"There!" he cried, "fill your silly mouth with that, Fatsides! 'Tis all you are good for. I have stood a deal of fine larded ignorance from you in my time, but nothing like this. You will be saying next that my Lady Duchess is taking a fancy to you!"

"She might do worse!" said Jorian philosophically, as he stirred the mustard with his knife and looked about for the ale tankard.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE FACE THAT LOOKED INTO JOAN'S

The chamber to which the Duchess Joan was conducted by her hostess had evidently been carefully prepared for her reception. It was a large low room, with a vaulted roof of carven wood. The work was of great merit and evidently old. The devices upon it were mostly coats-of-arms, which originally had been gilded and painted in heraldic colours, though neglect through long generations had tarnished the gold leaf and caused the colours to peel off in places. Here and there, however, were shields of more recent design, but in every case the motto and scutcheon of these had been defaced. At both ends of the room were windows, through whose stained glass Joan peered without result into blank darkness. Then she opened a little square of panes just large enough to put her head through 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 the ground, as a moaning and sobbing wind drew inward and whispered to them of 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 a brazen rod. A Roman Breviary lay open on a velvet-covered table before the crucifix. Joan lifted it up and her eyes fell on the words: "By a woman he overcame. By a woman he was overcome. A woman was once his weapon. A woman is now become the instrument of his defeat. He findeth that the weak vessel cannot be broken."

"Nor shall it!" said Joan, looking at the cross before her; "by the strength of Mary the Mother, the weak vessel shall not be broken!"

She turned her about and examined with interest the rest of the room which for many days was to be her own. The bed was low and wide, with sheets of fine linen folded back, and over all a richly embroidered coverlet. At the further end of the chamber was a fireplace, with a projecting hood of enamelled brick, looking fresh and new amid so much that was centuries old. Oaken panels covered the walls, opening mostly into deep cupboards. The girl tried one or two of these. They proved to be unlocked and were filled with ancient parchments, giving forth a faintly aromatic smell, but without a particle of dust upon their leaves. The cleanliness of everything within the chamber had been scrupulously attended to.

For a full hour Joan walked the chamber with her hands clasped behind her back, thinking how she was to return to her well-beloved Kernsberg. Her pride was slowly abating, and with it her anger against those faithful servants who had risked her favour to convey her beyond the reach of danger. But none the less she was resolved to go back. This conflict must not take place without her. If Kernsberg were captured, and Maurice von Lynar found personating his mistress, he would surely be put to death. If he fell into Muscovite hands that death would be by torture.