The Mercenary Part 16

"I merely infer from this cipher!"

"But it was not impossible that the roll of Tilly's army should be known to others, within a little!"

"Your Majesty's remark would be just if the messenger had been intercepted riding from Magdeburg. But from Eger, by which the officer pa.s.sed? What then?"

"That would be to doubt the officer's fidelity. To begin with, he is a Scottish gentleman! He is of our faith! He is selected by Tilly, who has a good eye for a man."

"Then your Majesty does not wish the matter pursued in that direction."

Father Lamormain was quite pleasant about it. He went on--

"I may say that I had a little talk with this young officer this morning in the gardens, and he appears to be a gentleman of good breeding, and of an ancient family, very well mannered, and wary withal. Your Majesty would be the better judge how far he is to be trusted if he were bidden to your reception after supper to-night. For the orders your Majesty will send to Tilly will be still more secret!" The Father seemed full of the most paternal feelings towards this young man, at the same time very desirous that the young man should not prove a prodigal son.

"As to the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie," said the Emperor, "I will speak to her on the subject of Maximilian. It is an ill time to consider marriages when there is so much at stake, but our faithful Elector can scarcely be bidden to wait _at his age_!" The Emperor had then a dry kind of humour. "You may send for her, Father, on my behalf!"

Father Lamormain pocketed his letter and retired. In a short time the Archd.u.c.h.ess made her entry into her father's presence.

Her face wore the softness that is the outcome of an affectionate nature. The fine meshes of the veil of rank that fell between her and the rest of the world, obscuring the expression, were absent.

Ferdinand's eye swept over her tall gracious form as she approached, and as she bent her knee to kiss his hand. He approved, but it made no difference. He was not a prince to be swayed by womanly beauty. Some princes have spent their lives toying with women; some have made women their pastimes in the brief intervals of strenuous attention to war and to affairs; but Ferdinand was a prince of affairs in which women had no place. As a father, however, he was not wanting in affection.

"My Stephanie!" he said, when he had kissed her upon the cheek.

"Politics are a very troublous thing, and all kinds of considerations come into play. The alliances in marriage between princes and princesses are dictated by the necessities of their States rather than by any inclination of their own."

The Emperor felt, because Stephanie, sitting on a low stool at his side, had her hands upon her father's, that the blood stirred very palpably, and he knew that she listened.

"The turn of events has brought your name into question. The Elector Maximilian has put forward a project of marriage. He asks for you."

A crimson flush overspread those pale clear cheeks. So much Ferdinand saw. She kept her gaze steadily away from him.

"What do you think of it, little one?"

She turned her head and looked up at her father, her eyes widely open.

"I think it monstrous! That old man! A man who has already lived a thousand lives to make his last mumbling meal of me who am just newly come into my womanhood! Monstrous! Unspeakably monstrous!"

"He is of a ripe age, certainly, is my cousin Maximilian. He is in fact fifty-eight, as I am. But he is still full of vigour, a leader of men, a great and renowned prince, and our most trusty ally. Once at least we had been in grave jeopardy but for his counsel and for his armies. Even now we are employing his men and generals in support of our Edicts."

"To slay peaceable burghers, burn their goods, throw down their houses, ravish their daughters! Say this rather!"

"My daughter!" said Ferdinand, and his voice became cold and haughty, "you forget! As a good son of the Church I am bound to extirpate that most pernicious root of heresy from all German lands. There can be no peace till this is done."

The Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie had gauged her father's religious fanaticism and found it deep, deeper than any measuring-stick of hers. She did not sympathise with it. Like most women she was herself p.r.o.ne to the practices of religion, and in the conduct of life a pagan. She saw no benefit that could come out of the Edict of Rest.i.tution. To her mind, money, or goods, or lands were to pa.s.s out of the hands of very worthy industrious burghers to maintain lazy and often very dirty priests and monks. She thought it was barely possible, but still possible, for people to get to heaven somehow without them. The Emperor was quite satisfied that they could not. His intentions were sincere, and the Archd.u.c.h.ess knew that it was useless to pursue the attack along this line.

"The fall of Magdeburg," she said, "might bring about some sort of alliance of all the Protestant powers. Brandenburg and Saxony at least must join Gustavus. Denmark, the United Provinces, may follow."

"The more reason have we to keep hold of such friends as we have by what entertainment we may."

"Have you so little faith in Maximilian that you should judge him capable of drawing off his men when he learns that I will not wed him?"

"I have always found Maximilian loyal to the Empire. But a friends.h.i.+p such as his should be requited."

"Then let him be requited with gold or with lands, but not with me. Let him draw off his men, his Pappenheim. Then send for the man who shall sweep Gustavus back to his s.h.i.+ps, him for whom the Empire waits, him who alone can create armies at a word and lead them."

"Who _is_ this Achilles?" was the faintly ironical question of the Emperor.

"Who but Albrecht von Waldstein?" was the instant, almost triumphant, answer of the Archd.u.c.h.ess. She had risen to her feet and faced him with it, voice and gesture and eyes aglow with a conviction that betrayed an intense energy of desire behind it. The Emperor gazed at her with his pale scrutinising eyes, in which was no enthusiasm.

"My dear Stephanie," he said in his half-wearied tone, "if Wallenstein were not a man of middle age, who has married a second wife, one might almost suspect that you were enamoured of him."

She held herself erect, looking at the Emperor, but her eyes were upon a vision far beyond. She said nothing, for the Emperor had not made an end. He had dealt her this thrust of scorn. Now he a.s.sailed her with reason.

"It is a year since, on the Elector's day at Regensburg, they clamoured one and all for Wallenstein's dismissal. They urged that he was become too powerful for a subject."

"Maximilian's jealousy!" she interposed.

"Maximilian was one amongst many! I judged the advice sound. I dismissed Wallenstein. My foes were beaten down. There was no need to maintain an army of seventy thousand men in the field to nourish the ambition of a general. It is enough, Stephanie. No good can come of princesses meddling in politics. Look to it that you entreat not our cousin Maximilian slightingly, or even with less than the graciousness that becomes a princess. I am too indulgent. The affair can wait till it be considered further. You would not be the first princess of the house of Habsburg to wed without love. Therefore make no grievance of it!"

He held out his hand, which the Archd.u.c.h.ess bent over and kissed, and she left the Emperor once more alone.

CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE CIRCLE OF THE EMPEROR.

That evening Nigel was not left to eat his meal in the little _salle a manger_ adjoining his bedchamber, but was invited by the officers of the guard to join them, a compliment that was worth the paying, seeing that the officers of the guard were drawn from the oldest families in Austria and Hungary, and that a mere sub-lieutenant in the guard ranked as a regimental captain in the army, and a captain was equal to a colonel, if not higher, in the point of distinction.

Notwithstanding that he was a regimental officer bearing the rank of captain, and an outlander, a fact which emphasised another fact, that he was a soldier of fortune, or, if we prefer it, a soldier without a fortune, whereas his hosts were men of high family and fortunes who happened to be soldiers, they received him with that perfection of politeness which already characterised the Austrian n.o.bility in so far as it came into daily contact with the court. Something there was of the ceremony and grandiosity of Spain, which the intermarriages of princes and princesses had brought about, mingled with the brightness and gaiety that sprung of a northern race and northern air, and of a greater activity of body and alertness of mind.

They regarded the sack of Magdeburg as a mere incident, but sufficiently interesting to men who professed the art of war to make them put to their guest a perfect array of questions as to the tactics employed, the relative value of the weapons, and Tilly's projected movements. He had to tell at full length his adventure at Plauen, and they contrived to let him know that he was more fortunate than they in having enjoyed such experiences.

When the supper had proceeded to a pleasant length, if it were not quite so prolonged as that famous meal which Mr Howell, who was secretary to an emba.s.sy to Denmark, has related in his letters, consisting as it did of forty courses and thirty-five toasts, the Captain-General of the guard, a venerable officer, who wore the orders of half the kingdoms of Europe, suspended by gold chains and gold brooches, giving almost the similitude of a cuira.s.s, rose, and in the name of the Emperor complimented their guest on the services he had rendered and the signal bravery he had shown at the siege and the storm of Magdeburg. He ended by presenting him with a Colonel's commission under the Emperor's own hand and seal, and drank his health in the most handsome fas.h.i.+on--an example which the whole corps of officers followed with much zest and the draining of many flagons of Tokay.

Nigel was taken indeed by surprise. His blushes testified at once to his habitual modesty, and to his youth. But for the honour of his race and country he regained his self-command in a short s.p.a.ce, and made a speech of thanks which, for fluency in the German tongue and the spirit of loyalty to his chosen standard which infused it, gained him an even greater credit in the minds of his hearers. Scotland was to most of them a far-off country, and being far was esteemed uncivilised, and they marvelled that a Scottish gentleman could without effort a.s.sume the ease of manner and the air of compliment in the banqueting-hall of Vienna as well as lead an attacking party, which any officer of proper valour and skill should be able to do.

Just as the supper had concluded and the tables had been cleared for wine and the dice-box, or whatever other pastime was forward, a page arrived to tell him that the Emperor commanded his attendance at his card-party in half an hour. Nigel would perhaps have more willingly sat over his wine with these jovial gallants of the guard. But there was no choice. So that he took leave of the Captain-General and of his other hosts, some of whom had their military rounds to make, and hastened to refresh himself, and make what change in his dress he could for the ordeal of the court reception.

On reaching his bedchamber he was amazed to find it lit up with many candles, and a court suit lying upon his bed, new and of rich stuffs.

Everything he needed was there, and a barber was in attendance together with a valet to a.s.sist him to make his outward appearance worthy of the occasion.

Nigel had heard of the lavish generosity of Italian princes towards their friends. He knew of favourites both in Spain and in Britain who had been plentifully rewarded by the bestowal of public office or of pension. In France the King's cash-box, which was also the State's, was frequently opened to reward the deserving and undeserving. But it had never before happened to him that he was invited to be of the company of a prince and provided with a new court suit in the bargain. Monarchs were often unmindful of these petty but costly trivialities. But since in his own case the Emperor Ferdinand had expended so much thoughtfulness and a goodly purse of crowns on his wedding garment, Nigel was not disposed to blame him for departing from the usual rule.

It was difficult besides not to feel uncommonly elated when Fortune persisted in making him so avowedly her favourite. And if, while he was being dealt with by the barber, he did wonder how that slightly dry, tired-eyed Emperor had contrived to think two consecutive thoughts about his, Nigel's, wearing apparel, and fell back upon the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie as the possible donor, he dismissed the latter suggestion because he was not sufficiently full of conceit to credit it, and accepted the first as a very natural explanation, because his opinion of his own services unconsciously coincided with the sense of them he imputed to the Emperor. It must not be forgotten that Tokay in unstinted measure has a tendency to make a man reflect in the first instance what a really fine fellow he is. It is doubtless one of the first qualities of good wine to enhance in the man who drinks it the estimation of his own vintage. Had the page, who as a fact knew nothing, or the barber, or the valet, breathed the name of Father Lamormain, of a surety Nigel would have regarded the idea as humorous, and even at that rather wanting in point. If he had been solemnly a.s.sured that Father Lamormain, that very benign Jesuit he had met for the first and only time in his life in the palace garden, was the donor of the suit, he would probably have worn it, but, as the gentleman in one of Shakespeare's plays wore his rue, with a difference.

Not that Nigel Charteris in his braveries was one whit more a braggart or a fop or one iota less a Scottish gentleman than when, stained with blood and smoke, begrimed and weary, he had taken shelter at the hands of Elspeth Reinheit in the old house at Magdeburg. But that evening he did feel that the world was at his feet, and he did make a gallant figure as the doors flew open and the pages, announcing the "high-born and n.o.ble Colonel Nigel von Charteris," admitted him to the presence of his Emperor and the brilliant circle of the court.

The Emperor and his consort alone were seated. The guests were not yet all a.s.sembled, and stood about in groups within reach of the royal voices. There were perhaps eight or ten ladies, amongst whom, when his eyes had grown used to the numerous candles and the glitter of jewels, reflected and multiplied by the mirrors of Venetian gla.s.s that hung upon the walls, Nigel recognised the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie and a younger sister who more resembled the Emperor.