The Red Axe Part 31

"Oh, it was my own fault--I know I should not have met him--let him speak to me in the garden. But you were so cold to me, Hugo. And then I thought--I thought that the Woman was taking you away from me. Also she sent me out to be--to be in his path!"

"In whose path, I bid you tell me, and what woman?"

Though the latter I knew well enough.

"The Princess," she answered, "and the Count von Reuss. To-day he spoke to me of love, and spoke it hatefully, shamefully, when the Princess had bidden me go and carry her message to him. But it was with me that he desired to meet. And I--at first many days ago--I walked by his side and listened, for then he spoke courteously and like a gentleman. For you were on the high terrace, and I wished you to see. I thought--I hoped--"

And the little one broke off with tears.

"I know, I know!" cried I, contritely; "I am a blind, doting fool. In this Prince's court I thought no more of such dangers than when I had you safe and innocent, my Playmate of the Red Tower. But what did or said Von Reuss?"

"Truly he did naught, but only spoke--things for which I would have smitten him to death had I possessed a dagger. I bade him begone. And he swore he would execute his purpose yet in spite of every town's Executioner in the Empire."

"Ah, will he?" said I, a calm chill of hatred settling about my heart.

"I, Hugo Gottfried, will execute him, if I have to send for my father's Red Axe to do it with--singed and scented monkey that he is."

"Nay," said Helene, "then I wish I had not told you. Perhaps he will not meddle with me again, and if you cross him he may slay thee. Remember, I have no friend here but you, Hugo!"

"Count von Reuss slay me! I could eat him up without salt or savory--a weak reed, a kerl without backbone save of buckram; why, I will shake him this day like a rat between my hands!"

So I spoke in my anger, hot with myself that I had let the Little Playmate suffer these things, and resolved that neither Prince nor Princess would stand between me and my love a moment longer.

But in all lands it takes more than Say-so to budge the stubborn wheels of circ.u.mstance.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

I FIND A SECOND

I meant to go directly to the Prince in his chamber and tell him that from this time forth Helene and I had resolved to battle out our lives together. But it chanced that I pa.s.sed through the higher terrace on my way to the lower--a bosky place of woods, where the Prince loved to linger in of a summer afternoon, drowsing there to the singing of birds and the falling of waters. For our Karl had tastes quite beyond sour black Casimir, with his church-yard glooms and raw-bone terrors.

On the upper terrace I found Von Reuss, lolling against the parapet with other blue flittermice, his peers--he himself no flittermouse, indeed, but of the true Casimir vampire breed, horrid of tooth, nocturnal, desirous of l.u.s.ts and blood.

At sight of him I went straight at mine enemy, as if I had been leading a charge.

"Sir," said I, "you are a base rascal. You have insulted the Lady Helene, maid of honor to the Princess, the adopted child of my father. Her wrongs are mine. You will do me the honor of crossing weapons with me!"

"I have not learned the art of the axe," said he, turning about, listlessly. "You expect too much, Sir Executioner!"

I wasted no more words upon him, for I had not sought him to barter insults, but to force him to meet me where I could have my anger out upon him, and avenge the tears in the eyes of my Little Playmate.

Von Reuss was drawing a glove of yellow dressed kid through his hand as he spoke. This I plucked from his fingers ere he was aware, and struck him soundly on either cheek with it before flinging it crumpled up in his face.

"Now will you fight, or must I strike you with my open hand?"

Then I saw the look of his uncle stand h.e.l.l-clear in his eyes. But he was not frightened, this one, only darkly and unscrupulously vengeful.

"Foul toad's sp.a.w.n, now I will have your blood!" he cried, tugging at his sword.

"We cannot fight here," said I, "within sight of the palace windows. But to-night at sundown, or to-morrow at dawn, I am at your service."

"Let it be to-night, on the common at the back of the Hirschga.s.se--one second, and the fighting only between princ.i.p.als."

Very readily I agreed to that, or anything, and then, with a wave of my hat, I went off, cudgelling my brain whom I should ask to be my second.

Jorian, who was now an officer, I should have liked better than any other. But, being of the people myself, it was necessary that I should have some one of weight and standing to meet the nephew of the Duke of the Wolfmark and his friend.

Moodily pacing down the glade, which led from the second terrace and the pleasaunce, I almost overran the Prince himself. He was seated under a tree, a parchment of troubadours' songs lay by him, illuminated (to judge by the woeful pictures) by no decent monkish or clerkly hand. He had a bottle of Rhenish at hand, and looked the same hearty, hard-headed, ironic soldier he ever was, and yet, what is more strange, every inch of him a Prince.

"Whither away, young Sir Amorous," he cried, pretending great indignation at my absent-mindedness, "head among the clouds or intent as ever on the damosels? Conning madrigals for lovers' lutes, mayhap? And all the while taking no more heed of G.o.d's honest princes than if they existed only for trampling under your feet."

I asked his pardon--but indeed I had not come so nigh him as that.

"I am to fight in a private quarrel," said I, "and, truth to tell, I sorely want a second, and was pondering whom to ask."

The Prince sighed.

"Ah, lad," he said, "once I had wished no better than to stand up at your side myself. I was not a Prince then though; and again, these laws--these too strict laws of mine! But what is the matter of your duel, and with whom?"

"Well," said I, "I have slapped Count von Reuss's chafts with his own glove, in the midst of his friends, on the upper terrace."

'Tis possible I may be mistaken, I suppose, but I did think then, and still do think, that I saw evident tokens of pleasure on the face of the Prince.

"And the cause--"

I hesitated, blus.h.i.+ng temple-high, I dare say, in spite of the growth of my mustaches.

"A woman, then!" cried the Prince. Then, more low, he added, "Not the--?"

He would have said the Princess, for he paused, in his turn, with a graver look on his face.

So I hastened with my explanation.

"He insulted the young Lady Helene, maid of honor to the Princess, who is to me as a sister, having been brought up with me in one house. Her honor is my honor, both by this tie, and because, as you know, we have long loved each other. Therefore will I fight Count von Reuss to the death, and a good cause enough."

The Prince whistled--an unprincely habit, but then all millers' lads whistle at their work. So Prince Karl whistled as he meditated.

"I see further into this matter than that--if indeed you love this maid.

There be other things to be thought upon than vengeance upon Von Reuss!

Does the Princess know of this?"

"Suspect she may," said I; "know she cannot. It was only half an hour ago that I knew myself."

"Ha," said he, musingly, with his beard in his hand, "it hath gone no further than that. Were it not, if possible, better to conceal the cause yet a while that our compact may go on? It were surely easy enough to invent an excuse for the quarrel."

"Prince," answered I, earnestly, "this bargain of ours hath gone on over long already, in that it hath brought a true maid's honor and happiness in question. And a maid also whom I am bound to love. I will ask you this, have I been a good soldier and servant to you or not?"