The Mercenary Part 12

Being by himself, the Jesuit drew from a drawer a sheet of parchment which had evidently been folded and sealed. It was in cipher, but it may be held as certain that Father Lamormain possessed the keys of all the ciphers in use among the politicians of Europe; and this was of no surprising intricacy. His secretary had unravelled it in a few minutes.

He rang for him. He was a man of middle age, having the look of a recluse and a priest rather than a man of affairs.

"This purports to be a copy of Count Tilly's despatch which the Emperor expects?"

"Yes, Father, or rather a short summary of it. It gives you, as you see, the numbers of all his troops and the disposition of them; indications of his next movements, and some other details."

"And it accords nearly with what we know from our own sources?"

"Yes, Father!"

"It was taken from a messenger who left Eger for the north?"

"Yes, Father! The messenger was unfortunately killed!"

Father Lamormain's lips moved in silence. He was offering up a prayer for this poor adversary's soul, for this poor fellow who had come unwittingly into contact with the engine invented by Ignatius Loyola, and been broken.

"It might have been a false doc.u.ment intended to deceive Gustavus and the Protestants," said the Father again meditatively. Then he placed the parchment on one side as if for further perusal and proceeded to read over and sign a number of letters his secretary had brought him.

The secretary having gathered up the papers, said--

"You were to have audience of the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie this morning!"

"Oh yes! I remember! The time is nearly due. See that no one enters in the interim."

Even as he spoke a servant called the secretary and he returned presently, ushering in with profound bows the Archd.u.c.h.ess.

Father Lamormain had again spread out the supposed summary of Tilly's despatch before him in a good light. There was nothing else on his table but the inkstand to distract attention.

The Archd.u.c.h.ess, who was young and tall and slender with wonderful dark eyes, knelt and kissed the holy father's hand.

As a good Catholic she was bound to reverence her father's confessor.

But Father Lamormain stood for more than that. He had held the same position when she was a mere poppet, marching about with an endless company of gouvernantes and ladies, in an absurd stiff brocade dress, which trailed on the ground just as theirs did, and her little neck surrounded by a ruff, a sweet monstrous epitome of queendom. There had been court functionaries in plenty, great officers of state then as now.

But it was Father Lamormain who reigned supreme as the confidential counsellor of the family in all that pertained to the welfare of the house of Habsburg; so that every member of the family of the Emperor understood that Father Lamormain was a benevolent despot, who had always smoothed over all kinds of family troubles. Dimly too they understood that the Emperor himself, though a man by no means deficient in any particular quality of kings.h.i.+p, respected the Jesuit's advice on matters of state.

The Archd.u.c.h.ess seated herself. The secretary had withdrawn.

"I should have craved audience of your Highness in your own apartments,"

said Father Lamormain with great gentleness, "but what I had to say was for your own ears, and I wished not to excite curiosity nor to gratify it."

The Archd.u.c.h.ess inclined her head, and with just a perceptible pause said, "Your secretary?"

For answer Father Lamormain rose, opened the door by which she had entered, a thick door, over which fell a heavy curtain of leather, and pointed to a farther door, ten feet along the pa.s.sage, beyond which was the room where the secretary worked.

She saw that they were indeed cut off from human earshot, for the room, in which they were, projected, at a considerable height, beyond the walls of the main building, and had nothing to right or left.

Her eyes seemed to sweep casually over the table and incidentally over the unsealed parchment, but with indifference. "Was that to be the subject of the interview?" she asked herself.

Apparently not.

"It behoves princes," said the priest, "to strengthen their families as well by alliances as by leagues and treaties, and especially by the marriages of their sons and daughters. And whereas the son of a prince, if he be a good son, will always be a stay and support to his father's kingdom, whomsoever he marry, a daughter may, by bringing him a stout son-in-law, who is also a prince, in a measure add that princedom and its power to her father's. Contrariwise she may, if she be ill-advised or rash in her own choice, out of waywardness bring trouble to the prince her father, and no measure of help to her husband, as was the case of the Princess Elizabeth of England when she married the Elector Palatine, the Pfalsgrave, whose dominion being but petty led him into dangerous enterprises to gain others, and being too far distant from his father-in-law, the King of England, was not afforded sufficient aid in the time of his undertakings to ensure success."

"A very wise homily, Father, and a most pertinent example!" the Archd.u.c.h.ess observed. "And now the application?"

"Your Highness is of a ripe age for marriage!" said the priest gravely.

"And has been," she rejoined, "these several years, according to the custom of princes. My cousin of Spain was but sixteen when the King of England was agog for her to wed his son, who is now King Charles, and it was through no unwillingness of hers that the match fell through. But I have had the more years of freedom. I am in no mind to be tied to any beardless boy, and sit a-tapestry-sewing for the rest of my life."

The priest pursued his way without comment.

"The dangers that environ the empire make it necessary beyond the ordinary to knit our friends to it by every means in our power."

"The dangers would melt like the morning mist if the Emperor recalled Albrecht von Walstein," she said with great decision.

"It is for the Emperor to choose his captains," the priest rejoined gently. "He is a possible servant, not a friend of the Emperor. When I say 'knit our friends together,' I mean the princes, who are our peers in blood and of our faith."

The Archd.u.c.h.ess was for a moment puzzled.

"Is it of France or Spain you speak, Father?" She said it wonderingly, because she knew of no princes of or nearly her own age in either kingdom.

"Of neither, your Highness, but of those houses that are equal with your own in the right to be elected to the empire."

"There are six electors! There are three archbishops--Mainz, Koln, Trier--two are Protestants, the Palatine, the Saxon,... you cannot mean the Wittelsbacher!" The disgust that she felt showed itself unmistakably.

"Who is a greater friend to the Habsburgs than Maximilian of Bavaria?"

Father Lamormain dwelt almost affectionately on the syllables.

"Or a greater friend to your order?" the Archd.u.c.h.ess asked.

This was a sharp thrust, and showed that the lady was well aware of the terms on which Maximilian and the Jesuits stood.

Father Lamormain made a little gentle deprecating shrug.

"Let me remind your Highness that, at the last election of the Roman Emperor, Maximilian held the election in his hand, but he exercised his own vote in favour of your father. Was this not proving himself a friend to whom any grat.i.tude is due? And this was not the last or greatest of his services."

"Indeed?" said the Archd.u.c.h.ess. "What were the other services?"

"Did he not defeat, nay crush, the Palatine on the white hills of Prague?"

"It was the work of General Pappenheim, was it not?"

"The merit was his! Again I say, Pappenheim was merely his captain. The Elector Maximilian found men and money for the campaign,--money which the Emperor owes him to this day."

"It has been sufficiently bruited about," the Archd.u.c.h.ess commented.

"There is something of the Jew about your Maximilian."

"He is a most n.o.ble worthy prince," said Father Lamormain, "and he is a widower!"

"It is time he was done with wiving. He must be sixty years old." She gave a little s.h.i.+ver of disgust.