The Red Axe Part 5

And great lumps of bone they were, knotted as if a smith had made them in the rough with a welding hammer and had forgotten to reduce them with the file afterwards. At that time I was thoroughly ashamed of my knees.

But no matter for them now. Duke Casimir pa.s.sed in and shut the door.

"Gottfried," I heard him say, "I am a dead man!"

These words from the great Duke Casimir startled me, and though I knew well enough that Michael Texel, the Burgomeister's son, was waiting for me by the corner of the Jew's Port, I decided that, as I might never hear Duke Casimir declare his secretest soul again, I should even bide where I was; and that was in the crevice of the wall among the old clothes, which gave off such a faint, musty, sleepy smell I could scarcely keep awake.

But the Duke's next words effectually roused me.

"A dead man!" repeated Casimir. "I have not a friend in all the realm of the Mark besides yourself. And there is none of all that take my bounty or eat my bread that is sorry for me. See here," he said, querulously, "twice have I been stricken at to-day--once a tile fell from a roof and dinted the crown of my helmet, and the second time a young man struck at my breast with a dagger."

"Did he wound you, Duke Casimir?" asked my father, speaking for the first time, but in a strangely easy and equal voice, not with the distance and deference which he showed to his lord in public.

"Nay, Gottfried," replied Duke Casimir; "but he bruised my s.h.i.+rt of mail into my breast."

And I heard plainly enough the clinking of the rings of chain-armor as the Duke showed his hurt to my father. Presently I heard his voice again.

"And the Bishop has touched me in a new place," he said. "He declares that he will lay his interdict upon me and my people--ill enough to hold in hand as they are even now. When that is done they will rise in rebellion. My very men-at-arms and knights I cannot depend upon--only upon you and the Black Riders."

"In the matter of the Bishop's interdict, or in other matters, do you mean that you can trust my counsel, Duke Casimir?" asked my father.

"'Tis in the burial of the dead that the shoe will pinch first with these burghers of Thorn and among our soldiers at the Wolfsberg. For ma.s.s, indeed, they care not a dove's dropping--but that the corpse should be carried to a dog's grave, that they cannot away with. Red Axe, I tell you we shall have the State of the Mark about our ears in the slipping of a hound's leash--and as for me, I know not what I shall do."

"Listen, and I will counsel you, Duke Casimir! Care you not though the east wind brought Bishop Peters whirling over the Mark, as many as the January snowflakes that come to us from Muscovy. I, Gottfried Gottfried, tell you what to do. In every parish of the Mark there is a parson. Every clerk of them hath a Presbytery, in which he dwells with those that are abiding with him. Bid you the soldiers that are obedient to you to carry all the corpses of the dead to the Presbytery, and leave them there under guard. Then let us see whether or no the parsons will give them burial.

What think you of the counsel, Duke Casimir?"

I could hear the Duke rise and pace across the floor to where my father sat on his bed. And by the silence I knew that the two men were shaking hands.

"Red Axe," said the Duke, much moved, "of a truth you are a great man--none like you in the Dukedom. These beard-wagging, chain-jingling gentry I have small notion of. And would you but accept it, I would give you to-morrow the collar of gold which befits the Chancellor of the Mark.

None deserves to wear it so well as thou."

My father laughed a low scornful laugh.

"Because I bid you teach the parsons their own religion, am I to be made Chancellor of the Mark? A great gray wolf out of the forest were as suitable a Chancellor of the Mark as Gottfried Gottfried, the fourteenth hereditary Red Axe of Thorn!"

Then I heard him reach over his bed for something. I stole out of the hole in the wall and crouched down till my eyes rested at the great latchet hole through which the tang of leather to lift the bolt ordinarily goes. I could see my father sitting on his bed and the Red Axe lying across his knees. He took it in hand, dangling it like an infant. He caressed it as he spoke, and ran his thumb lovingly along the s.h.i.+ning edge.

"Ah," he said, "my beauty, 'tis you and not your master they should make High Chancellor of this realm. 'Tis you that have held the power of life and death, and laid the spirit of rebellion any time these twenty years.

And well indeed wouldst thou look with a red robe about thee" (here he reached for a cloak that swung from the rafters contiguous to his hand); "a n.o.ble presence wouldst thou be in a tun-bellied robe and a collar of s.h.i.+ning gold! Bravely, great State's Chancellor of the Wolfmark, wouldst thou then lead the processions and preside at the diets of justice--as indeed thou dost mostly as it is."

And he made the Red Axe bow like a puppet in his hands as he swept the cloak of red out behind the handle.

I could see Duke Casimir now. He had drawn up a stool and sat opposite my father, with his elbows on his knees. One hand was stroking the side of his head, and his haughtiness had all fallen from him like a forgotten overmantle. He looked another man from the cruel, relentless Prince who had ridden so sternly at the head of his men-at-arms and looked so callously on at the death of men and the yet more bitter agony of women.

He stared at the floor, absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, while my father regarded him with his eyes as though he had been a lad in his 'prenticing who needed encouragement to persevere.

"Duke," he said, steadily, "you have borne the rule many years, and I have stood behind you. Have I ever advised you wrong? Make peace with the young man, your nephew; he is now only the Count von Reuss, but one day he will be Duke Otho. And if he be rightly guided he may be a brave ruler yet. But if not, and he gather in his hand the various seditions and confused turbulences in the Dukedom, why, a worse thing may befall."

"You advise me," said the Duke, lifting his head and looking at his Justicer, "to recall my nephew and risk all that threatened us ere he fled to the Prince of Pla.s.senburg--Karl, the Miller's Son."

Gottfried Gottfried continued to run his thumb to and fro along the edge of the Red Axe.

"Even so," he replied, without raising his head; "give him the command of the Black Riders of the Guard, who, as it is, adore him. Let him try his 'prentice hand on Bamberg and Reichenan. And if he offend, why, then it will be time to apply for further advice to this chancellor in the Red Robe, whose face so s.h.i.+nes with wisdom."

The Duke rose.

"Well, on your head be it!" he said.

"Nay," said my father, "I but advise, it is for you to decide, my Lord.

If Duke Casimir sees a better way of it, why, then the words of his servant are but as the tunes that the east wind whistles through the key-hole."

And at the mention of key-holes I imagined that I saw my father's eyes rest on the latchet crevice. So I bethought me that it was time for me to be retiring to bed. To my room, therefore, I went straightway, tiptoeing on the points of my hose. And with ears c.o.c.ked I heard my father attend the Duke to the door, and on across the yard, lest any night-wandering traitor should take a fancy to make a hole in the back of Duke Casimir of the Wolfmark.

Presently came my father in again, and I heard his foot climb steadily up to my room. The door opened, and never was I in so deep a sleep. He turned down the coverlet to see that I was undressed--but that I had seen to. Whereat he departed fully satisfied.

Nevertheless this interview left me with a great feeling of insecurity.

If the Duke Casimir were thus full of fears, doubts, misgivings, whence came the fierce and cruel courage with which he dominated his liege burghers and hara.s.sed the country round about for a hundred leagues? The cunning of a weak man? Say, rather, the contrivance of a strong servant to hide the frailty of a weak master.

Then first it was that I saw that my father Gottfried Gottfried was the true ruler of the Wolfmark, and that the man who had carried me on his shoulders and played with the little Helene was--at least, so long as Duke Casimir lived--the greatest man in all the Dukedom and first Councillor of State, whether the matter were one of peasant or Kaiser.

CHAPTER VII

I BECOME A TRAITOR

Much was I flattered, and very naturally so, when Michael Texel made so manifest a work about pleasing me and having me for his comrade. For though I was now nineteen, he was five years my senior, and his father, being both Burgomeister and Chief Brewer, was of the first consideration in the town of Thorn.

"Hugo," said Michael Texel, "there be many lads in the city that are well, and well enough, but none of them please me like you. It may be that your keeping so greatly to yourself has made you pa.s.sing thoughtful for your age. And whereas these street-corner sc.r.a.ps of rascaldom care for nothing but the pleasing of pothouse Gretchens, we that are men think of the concerns of the State, and make us ready for the great things that shall one day come to pa.s.s in Thorn and the Wolfmark."

I nodded my head as if I knew all about it. But, indeed, in my heart, I too preferred the way of the other lads--as the favor of maids, and other lighter matters. But since one so great and distinguished as Michael Texel declared that such things were but useless gauds, unworthy of thought, I considered that I had better keep my tongue tight-reined as to my own desires.

I shall now tell the manner of my introduction to the famous society of the White Wolf.

From the very first time that ever I saw him, Michael Texel had much to say about a certain wondrous league of the young men of Thorn and the Wolfmark. He told me how that every man with a heart in him was enrolled among them: the sons of the rich and great, like himself; the sons of the folk of no account (like myself, doubtless); the soldiers of the Duke--nay, it was whispered very low in my ear, that even the young Count Otho von Reuss, the Duke's nephew and heir, had taken high rank in the society.

I asked Michael what were the declared objects of the a.s.sociation.

"See," he cried, grandly, with a wave of his hand, "this city of Thorn.

It lies there under the Wolfsberg. With a few cannon like Paul Grete, the Margrave's treasure, Duke Casimir could lay our houses in ruins.

Therefore, in the meantime, let us not break out against Duke Casimir.

But one day there will come an end to the tyrant Duke. Tiles will not always break harmless on helmets, nor the point of steel always be turned aside by links of chain-armor. As I say, an hour will come for Casimir as for other malefactors. And then--why, there is the young Otho. And he has sworn the vows of the White Wolf to make of Thorn a free city with a Stadtholder--one with power and justice, chosen freely by the people, as in other Baltic cities. Is there a man of us that has not been plundered?--a maid that does not go in fear of her honor while Casimir reigns? Shall this thing be? Not surely forever. The White Wolf shall see to it. She has many children, and they are all dear to her. Let the Duke Casimir take his count with that!"

So, as was natural, I became after that more than ever eager to join this most notable league of the White Wolf.

One night I had sat late talking to the Little Playmate, who was now growing a great maid and a beautiful--none like her, so far as I could see, in all the city of Thorn--a circ.u.mstance which made me more ready to be of Michael Texel's opinion with regard to any flighty and irresponsible courting of the maids of the town. For had I not the fairest and the best of them all at home close by me? On this night of which I speak it was almost bedtime when I heard a knocking at the outer port, and went to open the wicket.