Joan of the Sword Hand

"Never mind – go on – tell the tale!" cried Helene, who was listening breathlessly.

"We thought it our duty to accompany the Duchess Joan," said Boris, deftly enough; "where the king is, there is the court!"

And at this point the two captains saluted very dutifully and respectfully, like machines moved by one spring.

"Well said for once, thou overly long one," growled Jorian under his breath.

"Go on!" commanded Helene.

"The young man's mother came near and threw a cloak across his naked body. Then Jorian and I unbound him and chafed his limbs, first removing the gag from his mouth; but so tightly had the cords been bound about him that for long he could not stand upright. Then, from the royal pavilion, where she had been brought for cruel sport to see the death, the Princess Margaret came running – "

"Oh, wickedness!" cried Helene, "to make her look on at her lover's death!"

"She came furiously, though a dainty princess, thrusting strong men aside. 'Way there!' she cried, 'on your lives make way! I will go to him. I am the Princess Margaret. Give me a dagger and I will prick me a way.'"

"And, by Saint Stephen the holy martyr – if she did not snatch a bodkin from the belt of a tailor in the High Street and with it open up her way as featly as though she were handling a Cossack lance."

"And what happened when she got to him – when she found her husband?" cried Helene, her eyes sparkling. And she put out a hand to touch her own, just to be sure that he was there.

"Truth, a very wondrous thing happened!" said Jorian, whose fingers also had been twitching, "a mightily wondrous thing. Thus it was – "

"Hold your tongue, sausage-bag!" growled Boris, very low; "who tells this tale, you or I?"

"Get on, then," answered in like fashion Captain Jorian, "you are as long-winded and wheezy as a smith's bellows!"

"Yes, a strange thing it was. I was standing by Maurice von Lynar, undoing the cord from his neck. His mother was chafing an arm. The Lady Joan was bending to speak softly to him, for she had dismounted from her horse, when, all in the snapping of a twig, the Princess Margaret came bursting through the ring which Jorian and the Kernsbergers were keeping with their lance-butts. She thrust us all aside. By my faith, me she sent spinning like the young Prince's top there!"

"God save his Excellency!" quoth Jorian, not to be left out entirely.

"Silence!" cried Helene, with an imperious stamp of her little foot; "and do you, Boris, tell the tale without comparisons. What happened then?"

"Only the boy's mother kept her ground! She went on chafing his arm without so much as raising her eyes."

"Did the Princess serve Joan of the Sword Hand as she served you?" interposed Hugo.

"Marry, worse!" cried Boris, growing excited for the first time. "She thrust her aside like a kitchen wench, and our lady took it as meekly as – as – "

"Go on! Did I not tell you to spare us your comparatives?" cried Helene the Princess, letting her broidery slip to the ground in her consuming interest.

"Well," said Boris, quickly sobered, "it was in truth a mighty quaint thing to see. The Princess Margaret took the young man in her arms and caught him to her. The Lady Theresa kept hold of his wrist. They looked at each other a moment without speech, eye countering eye like knights at a – "

"Go on!" the Princess thundered, if indeed a silvern voice can be said to thunder.

"'Give him up to me! He is mine!' cried the Princess.

"'He is mine!' answered very haughtily the lady of the Isle Rugen – 'Who are you?' 'And you?' cried both at once, flinging their heads back, but never for a moment letting go with their hands. The youth, being dazed, said nothing, nor so much as moved.

"'I am his mother!' said the Lady Theresa, speaking first.

"'I am his wife!' said the Princess.

"Then the woman who had borne the young man gave him into his wife's arms without a word, and the Princess gathered him to her bosom and crooned over him, that being her right. But his mother stepped back among the crowd and drew the hood of her cloak over her head that no man might look upon her face."

"Bravo!" cried Helene, clapping her hands, "it was her right!"

"Little one," said her husband, pointing to the boy on the terrace beneath, who was lashing a toy horse of wood with all his baby might, "I wonder if you will think so when another woman takes him from you!"

The Princess Helene caught her breath sharply.

"That would be different!" she said, "yes, very different!"

"Ah!" said Hugo the Prince, her husband.

CHAPTER XLVI

THE FEAR THAT IS IN LOVE

Thus the climax came about in the twinkling of an eye, but the universal turmoil and wild jubilation in which Prince Louis's power and government were swept away had really been preparing for years, though the end fell sharp as the thunderclap that breaks the weather after a season of parching heat.

For all that the trouble was only deferred, not removed. The cruel death of Maurice von Lynar had been rendered impossible by the opportune arrival of Prince Conrad and the sudden revolution which the sight of his noble and beloved form, clad in armour, produced among the disgusted and impulsive Courtlanders.

Yet the arch-foe had only recoiled in order that he might the further leap. The great army of the White Czar was encamped just across the frontier, nominally on the march to Poland, but capable of being in a moment diverted upon the Princedom of Courtland. Here was a pretext of invasion ripe to Prince Ivan's hand. So he kept Louis, the dethroned and extruded prince, close beside him. He urged his father, by every tie of friendship and interest, to replace that prince upon his throne. And the Czar Paul, well knowing that the restoration of Louis meant nothing less than the incorporation of Courtland with his empire, hastened to carry out his son's advice.

In Courtland itself there was no confusion. A certain grim determination took possession of the people. They had made their choice, and they would abide by it. They had chosen Conrad to be their ruler, as he had long been their only hope; and they knew that now Louis was for ever impossible, save as a cloak for a Muscovite dominion.

It had been the first act of Conrad to summon to him all the archpriests and heads of chapels and monasteries by virtue of his office as Cardinal-Archbishop. He represented to them the imminent danger to Holy Church of yielding to the domination of the Greek heretic. Whoever might be spared, the Muscovite would assuredly make an end of them. He promised absolution from the Holy Father to all who would assist in bulwarking religion and the Church of Peter against invasion and destruction. He himself would for the time being lay aside his office and fight as a soldier in the sacred war which was before them. Every consideration must give way to that. Then he would lay the whole matter at the feet of the Holy Father in Rome.

So throughout every town and village in Courtland the war of the Faith was preached. No presbytery but became a recruiting office. Every pulpit was a trumpet proclaiming a righteous war. There was to be no salvation for any Courtlander save in defending his faith and country. It was agreed by all that there was no hope save in the blessed rule of Prince Conrad, at once worthy Prince of the Blood, Prince of Holy Church, and defender of our blessed religion. Prince Louis was a deserter and a heretic. The Pope would depose him, even as (most likely) he had cursed him already.

So, thus encouraged, the country rose behind the retiring Muscovite, and Prince Louis was conducted across the boundary of his princedom under the bitter thunder of cannon and the hiss of Courtland arrows. And the craven trembled as he listened to the shouted maledictions of his own people, and begged for a common coat, lest his archer guard should distinguish their late Prince and wing their clothyard shafts at him as he cowered a little behind Prince Ivan's shoulder.

Meanwhile Joan, casting aside with an exultant leap of the heart her intent to make of herself an obedient wife, rode back to Kernsberg in order to organise all the forces there to meet the common foe. It was to be the last fight of the Teuton Northland for freedom and faith.

The Muscovite does not go back, and if Courtland were conquered Kernsberg could not long stand. To Plassenburg (as we have seen) rode Boris and Jorian to plead for help from their Prince and Princess. Dessauer had already preceded them, and the armies, disciplined and equipped by Prince Karl, were already on the march to defend their frontiers – it might be to go farther and fight shoulder to shoulder with Courtland and Kernsberg against the common foe.

And if all this did not happen, it would not be the fault of those honest soldiers and admirable diplomatists, Captains Boris and Jorian, captains of the Palace Guard of Plassenburg.

The presence of Prince Conrad in the city of Courtland seemed to change entirely the character of the people. From being somewhat frivolous they became at once devoted to the severest military discipline. Nothing was heard but words of command and the ordered tramp of marching feet. The country barons and knights brought in their forces, and their tents, all gay with banners and fluttering pennons, stretched white along the Alla for a mile or more.

The word was on every lip, "When will they come?"

For already the Muscovite allies of Prince Louis had crossed the frontier and were moving towards Courtland, destroying everything in their track.

The day after the deliverance of the Sparhawk, Joan had announced her intention of riding on the morrow to Kernsberg. Maurice von Lynar and Von Orseln would accompany her.

"Then," cried Margaret instantly, "I will go, too!"

"The ride would be over toilsome for you," said Joan, pausing to touch her friend's hair as she looked forth from the window of the Castle of Courtland at the Sparhawk ordering about a company of stout countrymen in the courtyard beneath.

"I will go!" said Margaret wilfully. "I shall never let him out of my sight again!"

"We shall be back within the week! You will be both safer and more comfortable here!"

The Princess Margaret withdrew her head from the open window, momentarily losing sight of her husband and, in so doing, making vain her last words.

"Ah, Joan," she said reproachfully, "you are wise and strong – there is no one like you. But you do not know what it is to be married. You never were in love. How, then, can you understand the feelings of a wife?"

She looked out of the window again and waved a kerchief.

"Oh, Joan," she looked back again with a mournful countenance, "I do believe that Maurice does not love me as I love him. He never took the least notice of me when I waved to him!"

"How could he," demanded Joan, the soldier's daughter, sharply, "he was on duty?"

"Well," answered Margaret, still resentful and unconsoled, "he would not have done that before we were married! And it is only the first day we have been together, too, since – since – "

And she buried her head in her kerchief.

Joan looked at the Princess a moment with a tender smile. Then she gave a little sigh and went over to her friend. She laid her hand on her shoulder and knelt down beside her.

"Margaret," she whispered, "you used to be so brave. When I was here, and had to fight the Sparhawk's battles with Prince Wasp, you were as headstrong as any young squire desiring to win his spurs. You wished to see us fight, do you remember?"

The Princess took one corner of her white and dainty kerchief away from her eyes in order to look yet more reproachfully at her friend.

"Ah," she said, "that shows! Of course, I knew. You were not he, you see; I knew that in a moment."

Joan restrained a smile. She did not remind her friend that then she had never seen "him." The Princess Margaret went on.

"Joan," she cried suddenly, "I wish to ask you something!"

She clasped her hands with a sweet petitionary grace.

"Say on, little one!" said Joan smiling.

"There will be a battle, Joan, will there not?"

Joan of the Sword Hand nodded. She took a long breath and drew her head further back. Margaret noted the action.

"It is very well for you, Joan," she said; "I know you are more than half a man. Every one says so. And then you do not love any one, and you like fighting. But – you may laugh if you will – I am not going to let my husband fight. I want you to let him go to Plassenburg till it is over!"

Joan laughed aloud.

"And you?" she said, still smiling good-naturedly.

It was now Margaret's turn to draw herself up.

"You are not kind!" she said. "I am asking you a favour for my husband, not for myself. Of course I should accompany him! I at least am free to come and go!"

"My dear, my dear," said Joan gently, "you are at liberty to propose this to your husband! If he comes and asks me, he shall not lack permission."

"You mean he would not go to Plassenburg even if I asked him?"

"I know he would not – he, the bravest soldier, the best knight – "

There came a knocking at the door.

"Enter!" cried Joan imperiously, yet not a little glad of the interruption.

Werner von Orseln stood in the portal. Joan waited for him to speak.

"My lady," he said, "will you bid the Count von Löen leave his work and take some rest and sustenance. He thinks of nothing but his drill."

"Oh, yes, he does," cried the Princess Margaret; "how dare you say it, fellow! He thinks of me! Why, even now – "

She looked once more out of the window, a smile upon her face. Instantly she drew in her head again and sprang to her feet.

"Oh, he is gone! I cannot see him anywhere!" she cried, "and I never so much as heard them go! Joan, I am going to find him. He should not have gone away without bidding me goodbye! It was cruel!"

She flashed out of the room, and without waiting for tiring maid or coverture, she ran downstairs, dressed as she was in her light summer attire.

Joan stood a moment silent, looking after her with eyes in which flashed a tender light. Werner von Orseln smiled broadly – the dry smile of an ancient war-captain who puts no bounds to the vagaries of women. It was an experienced smile.

"'Tis well for Kernsberg, my lady," said Werner grimly, "that you are not the Princess Margaret."

"And why!" said Joan a little haughtily. For she did not like Conrad's sister to be treated lightly even by her chief captain.

"Ah, love – love," said Werner, nodding his head sententiously. "It is well, my lady, that I ever trained you up to care for none of these things. Teach a maid to fence, and her honour needs no champion. Give her sword-cunning and you keep her from making a fool of herself about the first man who crosses her path. Strengthen her wrist, teach her to lunge and parry, and you strengthen her head. But you do credit to your instructor. You have never troubled about the follies of love. Therefore are you our own Joan of the Sword Hand!"

Joan sighed another sigh, very softly this time, and her eyes, being turned away from Von Orseln, were soft and indefinitely hazy.

"Yes," she answered, "I am Joan of the Sword Hand, and I never think of these things!"

"Of course not," he cried cheerfully; "why should you? Ah, if only the Princess Margaret had had an ancient Werner von Orseln to teach her how to drill a hole in a fluttering jackanapes! Then we would have had less of this meauling apron-string business!"

"Silence," said Joan quickly. "She is here."

And the Princess came running in with joy in her face. Instinctively Werner drew back into the shadow of the window curtain, and the smile on his face grew more grimly experienced than ever.

"Oh, Joan," cried the Princess breathlessly, "he had not really gone off without bidding me goodbye. You remember I said that I could not believe it of him, and you see I was right. One cannot be mistaken about one's husband!"

"No?" said Joan interrogatively.

"Never – so long as he loves you, that is!" said Margaret, breathless with her haste; "but when you really love any one, you cannot help getting anxious about them. And then Ivan or Louis might have sent some one to carry him off again to tear him to pieces. Oh, Joan, you cannot know all I suffered. You must be patient with me. I think it was seeing him bound and about to die that has made me like this!"

"Margaret!"

Joan went quickly towards her friend, touched with compunction for her lack of sympathy, and resolved to comfort her if she could. It was true, after all, that while she and Conrad had been happy together on Isle Rugen, this girl had been suffering.

Margaret came towards her, smiling through her tears.

"But I have thought of something," she said, brightening still more; "such a splendid plan. I know Maurice would not want to go away when there was fighting – though I believe, if I had him by himself for an hour, I could persuade him even to that, for my sake."

A stifled grunt came from behind the curtains, which represented the injury done to the feelings of Werner von Orseln by such unworthy sentiments.

The Princess looked over in the direction of the sound, but could see nothing. Joan moved quietly round, so that her friend's back was towards the window, behind the curtains of which stood the war captain.

"This is my thought," the Princess went on more calmly. "Do you, Joan, send Maurice on an embassy to Plassenburg till this trouble is over. Then he will be safe. I will find means of keeping him there – "

A stifled groan of rage came from the window. Margaret turned sharply about.

"What is that?" she cried, taking hold of her skirts, as the habit of women is.

"Some one without in the courtyard," said Joan hastily; "a dog, a cat, a rat in the wainscot – anything!"

"It sounded like something," answered the Princess, "but surely not like anything! Let us look."

"Margaret," said Joan, gently taking her by the arm and walking with her towards the door, "Maurice von Lynar is a soldier and a soldier's son. You would break his heart if you took him away from his duty. He would not love you the same; you would not love him the same."

"Oh, yes, I would," said Margaret, showing signs that her sorrow might break out afresh. "I would love him more for taking care of his life for my sake!"

"You know you would not, Margaret," Joan persisted. "No woman can truly and fully love a man whom she is not proud of."

"Oh, that is before they are married!" cried the Princess indignantly. "Afterwards it is different. You find out things then – and love them all the same. But, of course, how should I expect you to help me? You have never loved; you do not understand!" And, without another word, Margaret of Courtland, who had once been so heart-free and débonnaire, went out sobbing like a fretted child. Hardly had the door closed upon her when the sound of stifled laughter broke from the window-seat. Joan indignantly drew the curtains aside and revealed Werner von Orseln shaking all over and vainly striving to govern his mirth with his hands pressed against his sides.

At sight of the face of his mistress, which was very grave, and even stern, his laughter instantly shut itself off. As it seemed, with a single movement, he raised himself to his feet and saluted. Joan stood looking at him a moment without speech.

"Your mirth is exceedingly ill-timed," she said slowly. "On a future occasion, pray remember that the Lady Margaret is a Princess and my friend. You can go! We ride out to-morrow morning at five. See that everything is arranged."

Once more Von Orseln saluted, with a face expressionless as a stone. He marched to the door, turned and saluted a third time, and with heavy footsteps descended the stairs communing with himself as he went.

"That was salt, Werner. Faith, but she gave you the back of the sword-hand that time, old kerl! Yet, 'twas most wondrous humorsome. Ha! ha! But I must not laugh – at least, not here, for if she catches me the Kernsbergers will want a new chief captain. Ha! ha! No, I will not laugh. Werner, you old fool, be quiet! God's grace, but she looked right royal! It is worth a dressing down to see her in a rage. Faith, I would rather face a regiment of Muscovites single-handed than cross our Joan in one of her tantrums!"

He was now at the outer door. Prince Conrad was dismounting. The two men saluted each other.

"Is the Duchess Joan within?" said Conrad, concealing his eagerness under the hauteur natural to a Prince.

"I have just left her!" answered the chief captain.

Without a word Conrad sprang up the steps three at a time. Werner turned about and watched the young man's firm lithe figure till it had disappeared.

"Faith of Saint Anthony!" he murmured, "I am right glad our lady cares not for love. If she did, and if you had not been a priest – well, there might have been trouble."

CHAPTER XLVII

THE BROKEN BOND

Above, in the dusky light of the upper hall, Conrad and Joan stood holding each other's hands. It was the first time they had been alone together since the day on which they had walked along the sand-dunes of Rugen.

Since then they seemed to have grown inexplicably closer together. To Joan, Conrad now seemed much more her own – the man who loved her, whom she loved – than he had been on the Island. To watch day by day for his passing in martial attire brought back the knight of the tournament whose white plume she had seen storm through the lists on the day when, a slim secretary, she had stood with beating heart and shining eyes behind the chair of Leopold von Dessauer, Ambassador of Plassenburg.

For almost five minutes they stood thus without speech; then Joan drew away her hands.

"You forget," she said smiling, "that was forbidden in the bond."

"My lady," he said, "was not the bond for Isle Rugen alone? Here we are comrades in the strife. We must save our fatherland. I have laid aside my priesthood. If I live, I shall appeal to the Holy Father to loose me wholly from my vows."

Smilingly she put his eager argument by.

"It was of another vow I spoke. I am not the Holy Father, and for this I will not give you absolution. We are comrades, it is true – that and no more! To-morrow I ride to Kernsberg, where I will muster every man, call down the shepherds from the hills, and be back with you by the Alla before the Muscovite can attack you. I, Joan of the Sword Hand, promise it!"

She stamped her foot, half in earnest and half in mockery of the sonorous name by which she was known.

"I would rather you were Joan of the Grange at Isle Rugen, and I your jerkined servitor, cleaving the wood that you might bake the bread."

"Conrad," said Joan, shaking her head wistfully, "such thoughts are not wise for you and me to harbour. I may indeed be no duchess and you no prince, but we must stand to our dignities now when the enemy threatens and the people need us. Afterwards, an it like us, we may step down together. But, indeed, I need not to argue, for I think better of you, my comrade, than to suppose you would ever imagine anything else."

"Joan," said Conrad very gravely, "do not fear for me. I have turned once for all from a career I never chose. Death alone shall turn me back this time."

"I know it," she answered; "I never doubted it. But what shall we do with this poor lovesick bride of ours?"

And she told him of her interview that morning with his sister. Conrad laughed gently, yet with sympathy; Margaret had always been his "little girl," and her very petulances were dear to him.

"It had been well if she would have consented to remain here," he said; "and yet I do not know. She is not built for rough weather, our Gretchen. We are near the enemy, and many things may happen. Our soldiers are mostly levies in Courtland, and the land has been long at peace. The burghers and country folk are willing enough, but – well, perhaps she will be better with you."

"She swears she will not go without her husband," said Joan. "Yet he ought to remain with you. I do not need him; Werner will be enough."

"Leave me Von Orseln, and do you take the young man," said Conrad; "then Margaret will go with you willingly and gladly."

"But she will want to return – that is, if Maurice comes, too."