Albrecht

She was not without a secret anger that Albrecht gave no sign of seeing how his guest was striving to steal away the heart of his wife. She set her teeth with vexation that no token indicated that the baron was even aware of the peril in which his happiness stood. She said to herself that there could be little love where one saw only such indifference. Her clear cheek flushed hotly as the thought came that it might after all be indifference rather than blindness which made her husband so calm. She recalled that while he wooed her he had found the kisses of Elsa to his liking, and the doubt whether he were not one of the men whose affection goes as lightly as it comes, pierced her heart. The very suspicion made her hot with rage.

Yet surely Albrecht had declared that the caress of no other woman could evermore be sweet to him; it was only that he was sunk into this mire of religious musing in which Father Christopher encouraged him. She half hated the old priest at the thought. She wondered how far it would be possible for Count Stephen to carry his wooing before the wrath of Albrecht would break out. The question affected her almost as if she already felt the caress of the lover. She became suddenly so keenly conscious of the presence of the count behind her that she glanced back as if in fear. Then she reined in her palfrey so that her damsel Fastrade, who rode discreetly in the rear, might overtake her.

For a time she paced forward demurely, feeling the sidelong glances of the count upon her like a hand, and with difficulty restraining the impulse to look up and meet his burning eyes. She knew well that he watched her as a fowler might watch a bird that is fluttering ever nearer the snare; and every moment it became harder for her to maintain her calm. Suddenly the impulse seized her to dash wildly forward along the woodland way.

"Come, Fastrade!" she called imperatively.

She struck her palfrey sharply, and onward she flew, her damsel following as well as she might. She felt as if she were escaping from danger; the wood seemed full of beings in league with Count Stephen; she even seemed to hear wicked whispers in her ears, so clear that she could have sworn that they were pronounced by unseen lips; some presence tried to hold her back, and only the need of escape made her forget for the moment to be afraid; for a brief time a wild exhilaration thrilled her blood, as if in leaving Count Stephen behind in the beech wood she were overcoming the unseen powers of evil and freeing herself from temptation.

"Ride, Fastrade!" she called backward over her shoulder, conscious in the brief glance behind that the plume of the count was still to be seen as he galloped easily after them. "Ride! faster, faster!"

The falcon fluttered against her breast, almost thrown from her wrist by the swiftness of her pace; her heart fluttered beneath, half in fear and half in a dangerously delicious confusion. The very air, soft and perfumed, languorous and enervating, seemed to melt her resolution and to help to overcome her. She held up her arm, and shook her falcon until he reeled again, tossing his hooded head so that his bell rang right merrily. She broke into wild laughter, and along the green arches of the wood she heard the soft voices of the unseen ones laugh with her; but she no longer felt as if she were combating the powers about her; she did but jest with them and they with her. She trembled without fearing and yet without knowing why.

"On, Fastrade!" she cried still. "Faster, faster!"

Suddenly, as she looked through the beech-tree boles, which here began to grow more sparsely, as the riders approached the meadow where they were to throw off the falcons, Erna saw two figures. Her first thought was that they were creatures of the wood, but in a moment more she saw that it was her husband riding with Herr von Zimmern. The sight sobered her instantly. She reined in her palfrey so abruptly that Fastrade, who had much ado to keep up with her mistress, hardly now escaped dashing against her. Erna could not divine why Albrecht should be here when she supposed him to be at home. Her first fearful thought, which the guiltiness of her mind conjured up, was that he had come to play the spy upon her and the count; but the openness with which he allowed himself to be seen, and the grave courtesy with which he saluted her as she rode by, showed her that this was not the object of his ride. Albrecht did not attempt to join her, but rode into the wood so quickly that neither of Erna's companions saw him, albeit had Fastrade been less occupied with her palfrey, thrown into confusion by the suddenness with which he had been checked, she might have perceived the baron.

Although Erna could not in the least determine why Albrecht was there, the sight of him had instantly subdued her wild mood. She became quiet and thoughtful, and for all the afternoon while they flew their hawks, she watched almost in silence; so that the count jested upon her soberness.

"Didst thou, then, see a ghost in the wood?" he demanded; "or was it that thou hast ridden across the track of the Wild Huntsman? Certain it is that something has come to thee since thou fleddest from me to ride on with thy damsel. Thou art too beautiful to be trusted in the forest without a knight beside thee; sooner or later is a kobold sure to capture thee if thou ridest thus recklessly."

Something in his tone angered the Lady of Rittenberg. Since the hour when she had thoughtlessly put into his hand the scroll of Ovid with its pictures of such wickedness that a modest dame might by no means give them unto the gaze of another, and which she blushed to see when she examined the parchment more closely afterward, it had seemed to Erna that Count Stephen accosted her with a freedom which he had not carried of old. She turned from him now, and bent her regard upon the jess of her falcon, as if she were making sure that it were secure, as the bird rested upon her wrist after having struck down a brace of ducks.

"Nay," the count continued, laughing and speaking in a tone which was of itself like a caress, "and thou takest to being angry with me, Mistress Cousin, I am indeed undone. It is but that the light of thy beauty hath so dazzled thy slave that I know not what I say, and so in sooth may unwitting offend thee."

"Now thou art minded to jest and to mock me," Erna returned, instantly relenting. "I am not angry. Why should I be? Only that it is perhaps not customary for the guest to praise the beauty of his hostess as thou hast of late fallen into the fashion of doing."

"No," the count answered gravely, and with a look into her eyes that she could not meet unabashed; "but then it is not often that the guest so truly and so heartily loveth his hostess."

"It hath a savor as if thou wouldst flout at my poor face," she continued, making her countenance as if she heard not his bold words; "and surely it is not seemly that one should mock his hostess."

"Of a truth, fair cousin," Count Stephen began eagerly, "I —

"Hush!" she cried softly, her manner changing. Then aloud she said, moving nearer to the spot where stood Fastrade: "Have we not a brave quarry to-day? I have never seen the hawks do better."

The day was well worn when the train started to return to the castle, and in the beech wood the shadows were gathering so that one could see but dimly there; and it might be that when Erna turned her head as she rode through a leafy covert and spoke as if to Fastrade, she in truth believed her damsel to be behind her, albeit the ambling of the maiden's palfrey was little enough like to the trampling of the stallion upon which Count Stephen rode, so near that the nose of his steed was all but touching the haunches of Erna's. And yet before she turned the countess hesitated and flushed there in the shadow, and her voice as she spoke the name of her damsel had in it a tremor which could hardly have been there had she in all verity spoken for the ears of Fastrade.

Count Stephen pressed his horse forward so that their steeds were abreast in the narrow way.

"Nay, it is I," he said, so close that as he leaned toward her in the dusk she felt his breath hot upon her cheek.

She reined her palfrey away from him, but it seemed to her as if something unseen thrust itself in her way so that she could not escape. It came upon her that the wood-folk were in league with her cousin, and her terror made her turn again toward Count Stephen, although she shook the reins of her palfrey to urge him forward. But the path was too narrow for two horses to run together in it, and Count Stephen kept his steed close beside her own. Her falcon she had given to Rupert, who rode far behind, and it occurred to her now that had she but kept it with her she might have let it escape and so produced an excitement by means of which to be freed from her entanglement.

"Dearest!" breathed the count at her ear; and the passion of his voice stirred her pulses with fiery dread.

She felt as if she were suffocating; she longed to flee, and yet she longed also to stay. Some resistless fascination seemed to overpower her, and without speaking she rode by her lover's side for the space of a falcon's plunge at his quarry. Then Count Stephen half threw himself from his horse to hers, cast his strong arm about her, and kissed her.

The touch of his lips broke the spell which passion and opportunity had been weaving about her. She tore herself out of his embrace with a vehemence which nearly threw him from his saddle, and struck her palfrey with all her force. Before he recovered his seat she was fleeing down the forest path with all her speed, panting and weeping, and urging her palfrey with voice and with whip toward the castle.

XXI

HOW ALBRECHT AND HERR FREDERICH TALKED IN THE WOOD

Hardly had the hawking-party set out that day, when Herr von Zimmern, with a smile of cruel craft upon his face, went limping in search of Baron Albrecht. He found him with Father Christopher, and between the two lay upon the oaken table a scroll of parchment in which they had been reading.

"Pardon me that I disturb your studies," Herr Frederich said, with the air of one who strives to seem humble in his demeanor; "but I would that the Lord Baron come forth and ride with me. I have that to show which it were well for him to see."

"What is it, and whither should we ride?" the knight asked, looking up calmly; while Von Zimmern noted with amusement and mingled anger that into the face of Father Christopher there stole an expression of dismay.

"You are more cautious than of old, when it booted not whither we rode so be it that our steeds were good and the quarry fair," the cripple responded with a discordant laugh. "For to-day trust me in the old fashion, and come without question."

"The old fashion is no more possible," Albrecht answered; "but nevertheless I will go with thee, if it be only that the occasion may serve for the saying of certain words that must sooner or later be spoken between us."

Von Zimmern looked at the baron in some surprise, but returned no other answer than a profound bow which seemed mocking in its excessive deference. He waited a moment while the other laid aside the parchment and prepared to accompany him, the priest all the while looking as if he had it in his desire to prevent this sally from the castle did he but know how to accomplish his wish. Herr von Zimmern found it not easy to accustom himself to this new Albrecht who had been developed out of the kobold lad whom he had trained and shaped at his will, and of whose simple wits it had been so easy to get the better by a little human guile. He had for long years foreseen the time when Albrecht should gain a human soul, and for this he had schemed; but now that the thing was accomplished he was confused by the result. Albrecht with a soul was not the being that Herr Frederich had expected him to be, and the fact continually filled the cripple with a baffled sense of confusion.

Together Albrecht and his companion got to horse, and without further speech they rode down the hill and into the shadow of the forest. The instant the shadow of the pines fell upon him Albrecht knew that there were evil influences abroad that day. He caught a glimpse among the tree boles of the shadowy form of a kobold, and he heard in the air the whispers of beings to which his sight was growing dim as he became more human. He looked at his companion questioningly, as if he suspected the truth; but Herr Frederich held his face under control, and did not betray the feverish glee which burned within him. Herr Frederich was secretly full of malicious triumph. He had gathered from the burning looks of Count Stephen when that morning the cripple had brought tidings of the quarry to be had in the meadow and from the ambiguous speech of the lord of Schaffhausen, that to-day was the lover determined to bring his wooing to a climax; and he had promise that opportunity should not be lacking, since the kobolds of the forest, urged on by Von Zimmern and angry at the desertion of their brotherhood by Albrecht, had given pledge to bring Erna and her lover together alone in the wood.

Herr Frederich had brought Albrecht forth from the castle to follow on the track of the hunters, feeling sure that the wood-folk would contrive opportunity, and that Count Stephen would not be loath or slow to avail himself of it to press his passion; and it was with the surety of being able to show to Albrecht his wife listening to the vows of another, perhaps even clasped in her lover's arms, that the malicious cripple led the way through the forest.

So still in silence they rode, until they did in truth come upon the hawking-party, as hath been told. When Herr Frederich beheld how the damsel Fastrade rode in advance with her mistress while the Count followed, as it at that moment happened, he muttered under his breath a curse bitter and deep.

"Now they have beheld us!" he exclaimed in vexation; and involuntarily he turned his horse toward the deeper shades behind the spot where they rode.

Albrecht followed the other as he wheeled, and rode after until they were out of sight of the hawking-party. Then he drew rein.

"Hold thee still there!" he commanded.

Herr Frederich, with a sudden thrill of rage and no less of terror, checked his horse, feeling that his quarry had escaped him. He sat glaring at the baron with eyes from which blazed the hate he would no longer take the trouble to conceal.

"Thinkest thou," Albrecht said in a voice so perfectly calm and self-controlled that it stung his hearer like the lash of a whip, "that I am so dull as not to understand that thou hast brought me forth into the forest to play the spy?"

"You were brought here," Herr Frederich answered furiously, "to see how your lady and her lover – "

No more could he say, for Albrecht with a sharp thrust of the spurs made his horse leap forward, and caught the other by the throat. For an instant, as the two confronted each other with blazing eyes, it seemed that the death-hour of the cripple had surely come. Then the strong fingers of Albrecht loosened their hold, an expression of regret softened the splendid rage in his face, and Herr Frederich wrenched himself free from the grasp that was strangling him.

Albrecht reined his horse backward.

"Beware that thou dost not provoke me too far," he said. "I was prepared for the foul thing that thou wast minded to say, but I will not listen to the name of my lady from thy lips. Dost thou think, forsooth, that I am so besotted that I have not seen that thou wast minded to play a part too foul for one to name it, and to bring about my dishonor in mine own house to the intent that I should be – Nay, to what intent thou best knowest. I had fortified myself to the end that to-day for the last time I should bear with thee patiently, but if thou takest the name of my wife upon thy lips, I will not answer for my forbearance."

Herr Frederich, panting and dishevelled, leaned upon the pommel of his saddle and regarded his companion with looks of burning ferocity.

"I did but try," he sneered, "to warn you in time, that you might save yourself from – "

The threatening look which gathered blackly upon the brow of Albrecht warned him to be more guarded in his speech, and he broke off abruptly, leaving the rest unspoken.

"The faithful service of the best part of my life," he went on, endeavoring to cover his anger with a show of wounded zeal and faithful affection, "counts for nothing with you, and it is not strange that this endeavor to serve you should bring to me only abuse. It was to do you a service that I adventured the rage of Count von Rittenberg, and – "

Albrecht put up his hand with a gesture which once more cut the speaker short.

"Why is it," he asked, "that thou hast gone about to do me harm? What cause hast thou to hate me? If I was not over-thoughtful of thee in the old days, I was at least never cruel, and I took care that thou shouldst fare as well as might be. Thou wert set next to myself, and never did I let that one of those under my hand should so much as speak to thee lightly."

Herr Frederich threw the reins down upon the neck of his steed, and with folded arms he sat confronting Albrecht. The supreme hour of his life had come. Now at last would he pour forth all the wrath that for long years had been festering in his soul. There was not more a need of prudence, of concealment, of a cloak with which to hide the intents of his heart. He labored only how to frame his speech so that it should sting and burn Albrecht to the very soul, like the lightning shafts, or the poisoned spear of the Wild Huntsman that leaves an incurable wound at its lightest touch. He glanced about with an instinctive, cowardly desire to see whither he could flee if the other's rage should overleap all bounds, and he muttered a spell to summon the sprites of the wood.

"Ah, thou art, then, in league with the folk of the forest?" Albrecht said, hearing him. "Couldst thou not trust thine own powers for evil, that thou hast called upon them to help thee?"

The cripple gave no heed to the interruption. He was lost in the fierceness of his feelings. He was determined that of the bitter joy of this moment he would lose nothing through craven fear. He cast all prudence to the wind.

"It is true," he began, in a tone which was at first low, but which increased as he went on, and the fierceness of his anger burst out more and more, as a fire that is opened to the wind blazes higher and higher, "that you had me treated well at the hands of the wild crew at Neiderwasser, since, forsooth, I was too valuable a thing to be lightly handled. If your underlings were forced to treat me with respect, were they ever allowed to forget that I was an underling also; I, who had been born a man and a freeholder? Oh, the fool of a kobold, that thinks himself able to understand men because, forsooth, he hath stolen a soul through his wife! Why do I hate you? You who kept me in thralldom among creatures no better than the wild beasts save that they speak and go upright! You, whose father stole me from freedom, from home, from the wife that belonged to me only, and from the children that were helpless without me! Why do I hate you? God's wounds, I had much cause to love you!"

His bitter laughter rang through the forest. Albrecht shuddered, but he drew nearer to the cripple, and Herr Frederich saw in his face an expression of compassion. The fierceness of Von Zimmern's rage was increased twofold that he could excite in the knight only pity and not the anger which he longed to provoke.

"Fool of a kobold!" he cried again, his voice rising ever higher till the hollows of the wood rang with it; "do you know why I taught you to long for a human soul, and why I spared no pains to fit you for the part you had to play to gain one, so that you should by no means fail? It was because till you had a soul my vengeance could have no hold upon you! It was that I was not content to hurt you for the short life which would have been yours in the forest; I would bring on you a punishment that should be eternal! When you were a lad I could scarcely keep my hands from tearing and maiming you, and I should have laughed had your accursed kobold father rent me limb from limb for doing it; but I waited for a better vengeance! The only thing that is wanting to my content now is that your father cannot know how I have paid my debt to his son."

He seemed to have gone mad, and Albrecht shuddered and crossed himself at the sight of fury so demoniacal. The cripple shivered and trembled with excitement; the tears gathered in his eyes, and the foam specked his lips. The knight's own eyes were dim, as he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the other's arm.

"I have indeed much for which to ask thy forgiveness," Albrecht said; "but I was, as thou hast said, only a kobold, and what could I know better than the rest of my race, save what thou didst teach me? Meseemeth that if thou hadst but cumbered somewhat to teach me mercy in my callow youth, all soulless as I was I might perchance have learned somewhat of it."

"Oh, without doubt!" retorted Von Zimmern scornfully, as he shook off the hand which lay pleadingly upon his arm; "but that was reason enough why I should not teach. I was willing to suffer if thereby I could the better compass my revenge in the end."

"And yet," interposed Albrecht, inquiringly, "when my marriage was about to take place, thou didst all but prevent it when thou gavest to the countess a ring by which she might know kobolds from men?"

"Yea," Herr Frederich replied, grinding his teeth; "for a moment the thought of your present bliss was too much for me. I saw you look on your bride with longing and delight, and I thought of mine from whom I had been stolen. To see you so blest was a trial too great for even my patience; and for a moment I was so weak that had you not interfered, I had spoiled all, and cheated myself of the vengeance wrought out by all those years of waiting and suffering. I thank you for that!"

There was silence in the wood for a moment while the two confronted each other with piercing eyes. Overhead the wind soughed in the pine tops, and to the mind of Von Zimmern the sound brought the memory of the many long, weary days and nights he had listened to this wail in the tree-tops of the Neiderwasser valley. A new frown of hate came over his black face.

"Year after year," he burst out, "I pined in that cursed slavery, and longed and longed for those I had left behind; and you offered me nixies, and promised that I should be free to return to my own when I had married you to a mortal wife."

"And that promise was kept," Albrecht responded.

"Kept!" the other echoed with fierce scorn. "You kept it when all that I loved was gone. You set me free to seek a row of graves; to carry my miserable, broken body about the world alone. God's blood!" he went on, dashing the spurs into the bleeding flanks of his steed and still reining the animal back with a strong hand; "at the grave of my wife I took new oaths of vengeance, and I hastened back to keep them. It was not hard! The folk of the wood were eager to help me by bringing the count and the lady alone together in the forest, and he already had the work of winning – "

"Silence!" broke in Albrecht, in a voice of thunder.

The wild excitement of Herr Frederich was infecting him also, despite all his efforts at self-control. His cheeks were flushed, and he breathed deeply and pantingly between his teeth. The cripple was not slow to perceive these signs of growing passion, and he fanned the flame with new taunts and deeper reproaches.

"Fool of a kobold!" he cried out yet again; "to think you could play with a soul and be safe! Was it then like a boar-spear with which your hand could have its own will? Oh, the wise wood-creature!"

He broke into shrill laughter and bitter, till all the forest resounded; and among the dark recesses of the pines it seemed that unseen lips joined in the evil peal of wicked scorn and merriment.

"Now," he cried, and in his voice was a new ring of triumph, "our kobold hath ruined not alone his own soul, lightly gotten and quickly lost, but hers which could by no means be satisfied with such a brutish, half-human thing as her husband. It is not a marvel that she must needs turn toward a human lover after – "

The knight sprang upon him with a face distorted with rage and jealousy, and caught the cripple by the throat. He dragged him from the saddle, and Herr Frederich was as helpless in the grasp of those powerful hands as if he were in the clutch of a lion. Albrecht dashed him to the earth. His head was grazed by a stone, and for an instant everything swam before his eyes. The thick-growing ferns closed over him like the waves of the sea, and then they were parted by the face of Albrecht, who stooped toward him.