The Red Axe Part 32

"Aye to that!" quoth the Prince, heartily.

"Have I ever asked fee or reward for aught I have tried to do?"

"Nay," he said; "but you have gotten some of both without asking."

"Will you grant me the first boon I have asked of you since you became Prince and Master to Hugo Gottfried?"

"I will grant it, if it be not to separate us as friend and friend," said my master at once.

It was like the n.o.ble Prince thus to speak of our relation. I took his hand in mine to kiss it, but this he would not permit.

"Shake hands like a man," he said, "or else kiss me upon the cheek. My hand is for young, blue-painted flittermice to kiss, for whose souls'

good it is to put their lips to the hand that has s.h.i.+fted the meal-bags."

And with that Prince Karl embraced me heartily, and kissed me on both cheeks.

"Now for this request of yours!" said he, looking expectantly at me.

"It is this," I answered him directly: "Give me a district to govern, a tower to dwell in, and Helene to be my wife."

"Nay, but these are three things, and you stipulated but for one. Choose one!" he said.

"Then give me Helene to wife!" I cried, instantly.

"Spoken like a lover," said the good Prince. "You shall have her if I have the giving of her, which I beg leave to doubt. Something tells me that much water will run under the bridges ere that wedding comes to pa.s.s. But so far as it concerns me the thing is done. Yet remember, I have never been one wisely to marry, nor yet to give in marriage."

He smiled a dry, humorsome smile--the smile of a shrewd miller casting up his thirlage upon the mill door when he sees the fields of his parish ripe to the harvest.

"I wonder why, with her crystals and her ink-pools, the Princess hath not foreseen this. By the blue robe of Mary, there will be proceedings when she does know. I think I shall straightway go a-hunting in the mountains with my friend the Margrave!"

He considered a moment longer, and took a deep draught of Rhenish.

"Then the matter of a second," continued the Prince; "he is to fight, of course?"

"No," said I; "princ.i.p.als only."

"I wonder," said the Prince, meditatively, "if there be anything in that.

It is not our Pla.s.senburg custom between two young men, well surrounded with brisk lads. Three seconds, and three to meet them point to point, was more our ancient way."

"It was specially arranged at the request of the Count you Reuss," I told the Prince.

"If there is to be no fighting of seconds, what do you say to old Dessauer? He was a pretty blade in my time, and has all the etiquette and chivalry of the business at his finger-ends. Also he likes you."

"At any rate, he is ever railing upon me with that sharp tongue of his!" said I.

"But did you ever hear him rail upon any of these young men that lean on rails and roll their eyes under ladies' windows?" said the Prince.

"Old Leopold Dessauer is even now no weakling. I warrant he could draw a good sword yet upon occasion. Anything more lovely than his riposte I never saw."

The Prince got upon his feet with the difficulty of a man naturally heavy of body, who takes all his exercise upon horseback.

"Page!" he cried. "My compliments to High State's Councillor Dessauer, and ask him to come to me here. You will find him, I think, in the library."

So to the palace sped the boy; and presently, walking stiffly, but with great dignity, came the old man down to us.

"How about the ancestors, the n.o.ble men my predecessors?" cried the Prince, when he saw him; "have you found aught to link the miller of Chemnitz with the Princes of Pla.s.senburg?"

The Councillor smiled, and shook his head gravely.

"Nothing beyond that bit of metal which hangs by your side, Prince Karl,"

said Dessauer, pointing to his Highness's sword.

The Prince looked down at the strong, unadorned hilt thoughtfully and sighed.

"I would I had another to transmit this sword to, as well as the power to wield it, when I take my place as usurper in the histories of the Princes of Pla.s.senburg."

"I trust your Highness may long be spared to us," replied Dessauer, gravely; "but, Prince Karl, in default of an heir to your body (of which there is yet no reason to despair), wherefore may not your Highness devise the realm back to the ancient line?"

"The line of Dietrich is extinct," said the Prince, booking up sharply.

"So says Duke Casimir, hoping to succeed to your shoes, when he could not to your helmet and your sword. But I have my suspicions and my beliefs. There is more in the parchments of yonder library than has yet seen the light."

Suddenly the Prince recollected me, standing patiently by.

"But we waste time, Dessauer; we can speak of ancestors and successors anon. I and Hugo Gottfried want you to take up your ancient role. Do you mind how you snicked Axelstein, and clipped Duke Casimir of his little finger at the back of the barn, when we were all lads at the Kaiser's first diet at Augsburg?"

Old Dessauer smiled, well pleased enough at the excellence of the Prince's memory.

"I have seen worse cuts," he said; "Casimir has never rightly liked me since. And had the Black Riders caught me, over to his dogs I should have gone without so much as a belt upon me. He would have kept them without food for a week on purpose to make a clean job of my poor scarecrow pickings."

"And now this young spark," said the Prince, "for the sake of a lady's eyes, desires to do your Augsburg deed over again with Duke Casimir's nephew. So we must give him a man with quarterings on his s.h.i.+eld to go along with him."

"I am too old and stiff," said Dessauer, shaking his head mournfully, yet with obvious desire in the itching fingers of his sword-hand; "let him seek out one of the brisk young kerls that are drumming at the blade-play all the time down there in the square by the guard-rooms."

"Nay, it is to be princ.i.p.als only; there is to be no fighting of seconds.

The Count has specially desired that there shall be none," said the Prince; "therefore, go with the lad, Dessauer."

"No fighting of seconds!" cried the Councillor, in astonishment, holding up his hands. And I think the old swordsman seemed a little disappointed.

"Well, I will go and see the lad well through, and warrant that he gets fair-play among these wolves of the Mark."

"Faith, when it comes to that, he is as rough-pelted a wolf of the Mark as any of them!" laughed the Prince.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE WOLVES OF THE MARK