The Mercenary Part 42

He began by asking her whether by any chance a young woman, Elspeth Reinheit by name, had travelled with her from Prague, on her way home from Halberstadt.

The Archd.u.c.h.ess, evidently astonished at the question, said--

"No! What makes you ask?"

"There is a certain Lutheran pastor, your Highness, who has journeyed to Vienna, one Melchior Rad, who seeks this Elspeth Reinheit."

"Yes! But what has that to do with me?"

"He is convinced that this girl was brought by a certain mysterious Countess Ottilie von Thuringen, _of whom I have more than once heard_, to Prague, that she set out for Znaim, and from Znaim for Vienna."

"Indeed! I know of no Countess of the name!"

"Nor do I," said the Jesuit. "Though I have searched the records of heraldry," he added quietly.

The Archd.u.c.h.ess felt that the Jesuit was playing the cat to her mouse.

He proceeded: "But the singular thing is that when asked to describe the Countess Ottilie he described your Highness pa.s.sably well."

"Whom he may have seen at Halberstadt!" said the Archd.u.c.h.ess, determined that the cat should not gobble her.

"Only he has not been there!" said Father Lamormain.

"A prodigy!" said the Archd.u.c.h.ess.

"More prodigious still, he recognised your voice, though he did not see your Highness by reason of the darkness!"

"Recognised my voice!" said the Archd.u.c.h.ess, now roused to a fine appearance of indignation. "Where was this prowling Lutheran that he could hear my voice and neither see me nor be seen?"

"Upon the wall of the orchard close in the gardens of the palace of Vienna!"

But the Archd.u.c.h.ess was quick of wit. "Dear Father Lamormain," she said without a blush, and with an amused irony in her tones, "since when is it reported that I have taken to a.s.signations in the dark in orchard closes?"

"Nay!" said Father Lamormain. "Perchance I used not the right words. It was clumsy of me! The honest Pastor Rad but recognised the voice of his Countess talking to her lover in the orchard close!"

"And the lover?" the Archd.u.c.h.ess asked with an accent of merriment. "Did his Lutheran sapience recognise him also?"

"He had followed him thither!" said the Jesuit. "It was no other than our faithful Scot, who has to-day departed for Tilly's army!"

"I believe none of your pastor's tales! There is no Elspeth Reinheit about the palace, even in the kitchens, no Ottilie von Thuringen that I have ever heard of in Vienna. As for me I have a suitor, or had one, of whom you have spoken aforetime, the Elector Maximilian. One suitor at a time is trouble enough."

The Jesuit knew too many particulars of the doings of Ottilie von Thuringen to be in any doubt as to her ident.i.ty, but his suspicions of Nigel were too slight to credit the whole story of the pastor, so he said--

"It would be a great ease to the mind of the Emperor could you but take the Elector's suit in grave earnest," and he sighed heavily. "For the Empire is in great jeopardy. The Swede advances towards us. We have nothing as yet to oppose him but Tilly's army, gathered from a hundred garrisons. The Holy Father refuses his aid. France, ever jealous of us, seeks to bribe Maximilian into neutrality. With Maximilian and the other princes of the League neutral, what chance does Austria stand?"

There was no mistaking the priest's seriousness. It impressed the Archd.u.c.h.ess more than if he had preached a sermon on the end of all things. She had an uneasy conscience, for had she not helped to pull down the Empire?

"But what can I do?" she asked.

"You can give yourself for the Empire! In a time of peace you would have been wedded before this to whomsoever the Emperor judged it fit. In this time of war you can gain eternal salvation by offering yourself to our old ally."

"But how?"

"An emba.s.sy goes out to Bavaria to meet Maximilian to beg him to delay his scheme of neutrality, to oppose a strong front, to let his cities be besieged but not surrendered, to fight inch by inch of his soil, until we can bring a fresh army to his aid and drive back the Swede."

"And the emba.s.sy consists of?"

"The Archduke Ferdinand! Your Highness might well go with him, and some of our ladies. When Maximilian hears you plead for the Empire, hears you offer to stay with him and share his toils and his glory, there will be dealt the death-blow to the plots of France, and for Sweden it will be the beginning of the end."

"And what if the Elector flout me? It is ill offering the goods in the market that have once been denied to the buyer."

The Father Confessor smiled.

"We have never denied Maximilian. And the good wine has become the mellower in our Austrian cellars!"

The Archd.u.c.h.ess drew up her head and pouted her red lips.

"We will consider this matter. The Empire shall not perish for need of us. Though, in faith, wanting Maximilian, the Empire still has Wallenstein!" She looked covertly at the priest as she mentioned the name.

"Your Highness has at times much prized our Wallenstein!"

"Yes, and with cause! By Wallenstein and not by Maximilian shall we be delivered. By all means let us use Maximilian as our b.u.t.tress, but our sword and buckler in the open field will be Wallenstein. I would it were he and not Maximilian that I had to seek out!"

Father Lamormain marked the maidenly flush that accompanied the outspokenness, and adding them to what he had already known of her doings, he began to regard the tale of Pastor Rad as arising from some strange ferment in his brain. In any case his main point was gained. The Archd.u.c.h.ess would go. How deep were her feelings towards the Elector, or towards Wallenstein, he could not gauge. But he knew the depth of the Habsburg pride, that, rebellious or not, must in the long-run fan the altar flame in the shrine of the Imperial house.

But Father Lamormain, reader of hearts and minds, of eyes and mouths and tones, was not omniscient, and he did not read the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie; for how should he know that in one short hour she had thrown down the image of Wallenstein and set up that of the Scottish soldier of fortune. Had he reflected that the western road might lead to the Scot as easily as to the Elector? The cat was allowing the mouse too much law.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

A RECONNAISSANCE.

Gustavus, in view of the proposals for the neutrality of the Elector, had granted a fortnight's cessation from hostilities. The Elector made use of it to strengthen his positions, and an intercepted letter showed Gustavus that, whatever Richelieu might think, the Elector had no intention of being neutral. Gustavus, once undeceived, marched with all the army he could muster against Tilly, and drove him out of Franconia.

Tilly, advised by Maximilian, came to a stand on the banks of the Lech, which forms one of the frontiers of Bavaria. The firm intention of Tilly was to hold back Gustavus from the virgin territories of Maximilian.

The army of Count Tilly was drawn up in a position chosen by himself, astride the main road from Donauwerth to Neuburg, Ingolstadt, and Ratisbon, a position naturally defended on three sides by water, strongly fortified and armed. No bridges lent the Swedish army access.

They had been destroyed. Along Tilly's front in an almost straight line was the river Lech in a state of turbulence and flood.

Gustavus stigmatised it as a brook, but even brooks have played a great part in the history of battles; and, sanguine leader that he was, it is doubtful if he expected to cross it by a wild rush through its treacherous waters.

Disposed in earthworks at suitable intervals behind the river were numerous pieces of ordnance ready to dispute the pa.s.sage of the Swedes.

And into the rear of the defences Maximilian himself had led up those regiments that const.i.tuted the household troops of his command, as opposed to those that formed part of the Imperial army under Count Tilly.

The conjoined host was a formidable one, well armed, provisioned, rested, numbering not much less than the forty thousand of the Swede.