The Mercenary Part 46

"To what port of shelter?"

"To Znaim! Sure Wallenstein would make you one of his new captains, and Znaim would be a veritable city of refuge!"

Nigel drew in his breath. "Stephanie, you have a G.o.dlike courage! To Wallenstein! And yet why not? He will want officers. Here I am on the list of the sick. There shall I be serving the Emperor! It is a bold plan, Stephanie, but we must venture all, or be forever cravens!"

"To-morrow! Nigel! Heaven send not the Swedes too soon to close the gates. At midday three leagues away by the road from the eastern gate!"

"And to-morrow if it see not our wedding shall see the eve of the bridal!" She took Nigel by both hands, dealing as tenderly as with any babe, and looked upon him with such a look of mystery and love and motherhood in her eyes as caught him up into heaven and left him entranced while one might count a hundred. Her look smote through his eyes and on to his very soul, and put her impress there as it had been the seal of the greatest Empire of all the world.

Then they kissed in solemn troth-plight, and the Archd.u.c.h.ess went down the stair leaving the room a darkness, though it was still broad day.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE CLOUDS AND SERGEANT BLICK.

Not for the first time in his military life did Nigel feel lonely. In this town of Ratisbon he had many military comrades, but no friend who would be as a wall against which he could set his back when it came to the grim push of steel against a half-ring of foemen. In bonnie Scotland, had he sought to carry off a king's daughter, he could have raised a st.u.r.dy dare-all troop of kinsfolk, men of his blood and name, who would have broken down the West Port, scaled the crags of Edinburgh Castle, risking their necks and their lands in a desperate endeavour to win the guerdon for him of his heart's desire. And desperate though it might be, with the king's daughter willing, what Scottish n.o.ble would not have made the essay with a light heart? And here in Ratisbon was no one on whom he might rely for a stout arm and a reckless generosity of service.

A friend such as he needed, not to speak of ten friends, must be told everything. One cannot ask a friend to aid one in carrying off a king's daughter without telling him what the dangers are. Rapidly he told off the officers he knew in Ratisbon. All were in the pay of the Emperor or the Elector. At the mention of either the shoulders would go up, there would be long draughts of beer, a cloud of smoke, pursed-up brows, and "Not to be thought of, my friend!" They were trusty fellows for the most part, would not betray his confidence, but neither would they throw themselves whole-heartedly into an enterprise which, successful, would bring to some certain death, and to the rest a very intangible reward, and failing would involve all in equal ruin.

Then again there were the Jesuits. Which of his trusty friends might not be Jesuits, if not, like his remaining aide-de-camp, a regular priest in an officer's uniform, then an officer, drawing Jesuit pay as well as the Emperor's?

He thought of the Emperor with his proud, cold, supercilious face. There was as little reason for hope of forgiveness as there was hope of consent from him. From the Emperor he pa.s.sed to Maximilian, the prince who should have been a Jesuit, as he was the foster-child of Jesuitism.

Of a lineage as proud as that of the Habsburgs, of a renown for policy as for valour, ruler of some of the fairest provinces and greatest cities of the Empire, he would of a surety in his love be as relentless an adversary as fate. Men of his dark complexion take the malady of love not lightly. Least of all men, being who he was, would he be pitiful.

Brook a rival, once disclosed to him, in a Scots mercenary, were he Wallace Wight himself? As well might the Danube cease to flow eastward, ever eastward. And behind, but peering between these two haughty and melancholy faces in Nigel's thought, was Father Lamormain's gentle, suave, and smiling countenance, from whose mouth had flowed persuasive speech that clothed the stern resolved marching orders of that sinister brotherhood in whom there was no shadow of turning. Into no conceivable scheme of Father Lamormain's could fit any idea of the marriage of Nigel with the Archd.u.c.h.ess. He had shown himself favourable to the Elector's suit. Nigel's service to the Emperor would not count for aught if he should stand in the way of the Jesuit advance.

Nigel looked out upon the clouds of peril. He might win through with the Archd.u.c.h.ess, make her his wife, reach Wallenstein. So much was possible, keeping their own counsel, acting swiftly with one mind, one courage. As for Wallenstein, it was impossible to predict how he might receive them, as friends, as hostages, or with cold negatives that should say "it lies not with my interest."

Nigel Charteris gazed upon the clouds of peril, and gazed undaunted. He was in that uplifted mood into which a mighty love exalts the soul, so that from its peak of splendour it can look down upon the clouds below hurtling their lightnings and sending up dim reverberations of their embattled thunders. For one hour of ecstasy shared by Stephanie he would cheerfully meet the after-doom.

He heard a footstep on the stair, a heavy tread, and the clank of spurs.

His reverie was dissipated like a bubble. What new thing was to happen?

"Blick!"

"Me! Colonel!"

It was Blick, big-shouldered, red-faced, bull-necked, smacking somewhat of beer and other liquors, soldierly Sergeant Blick.

"How in the name of----?" Nigel began.

"Sent out foraging from Ingolstadt, general! Got through the Swedish lines at night, waggons and all, but couldn't get back again. Met an infernal ambush of Swedes in a forest road. My men stood stoutly by me, and we gave a round dozen of them their 'fall out,' but what with their muskets and the trees it was no go. So we set spurs to our horses and made straight for Ratisbon. The devil was in it, for they got our waggons, a load of hams and a few barrels of good Bavarian beer, a score of lean fowls----"

"Enough, Blick! I warrant you left nothing of meat and drink but what you could not carry off! So you came to Ratisbon, and found me out?"

"Yes, colonel! Ingolstadt will come tumbling down in a day or two at most, and then the Swedes will come here after the Elector, as some say, or be off to ransack Munich, where he keeps his treasures, as others say. And in faith I don't see what's to stay him, now poor old Tilly's dead!"

"Dead?"

"Aye! Died as Gustavus fired the first round of his cannon. He was a tough fighter, and his soldiers ever got leave to sack a town in their own way. No fine manners and milk and water about the old General with the Red Feather. Rest his soul!"

"Amen!" said Nigel devoutly, making the sign of the cross. "Now what are you going to do?"

"I've reported myself and men to the general in command of Ratisbon. He says, 'Wait till the army retreats from Ingolstadt and then join it.'

Meantime I'm just looking after the horses and taking a ride to keep them in condition and get fodder for them, and there's mighty little in Ratisbon!"

Nigel smiled. He knew that Blick considered it a lamentable thing when he and his troop, not to mention the horses, did not get full rations, and that, if the regulations did not bring him and his to eat, he helped himself to the best with a very fair ability.

"If the Swedes are not upon us to-morrow, Blick, I want you to do me a service."

"How many troopers?"

"Two besides yourself, men you can trust, men who are good swordsmen, and see that your three horses are good for a long journey if need be.

And above all a quiet tongue, Blick, for you are meddling in a strange business. If any trouble come of it to you, you may blame me, as you obeyed orders. Meet me at the Eastern Gate with my horse at eleven. You will find him at the stables of the 'Cloister Bell.'"

"Yes, colonel! Two men, your own horse. Swords and pistols, at eleven, Eastern Gate!"

Blick saluted cheerfully. He wondered what was in the wind, but it was in any case a pastime, and Nigel, though not a spendthrift, always paid well for his services.

When the aide-de-camp returned that evening Nigel said nothing of his visitors, merely that he felt almost well enough to adventure the saddle on the morrow, and should try a short ride. The Jesuit examined his wounds carefully, and said he thought a gentle ride would do him no harm. Nothing more was said upon that score, though they talked freely about the progress of the Swede at Ingolstadt.

"It is a hard fortress to take," said the Jesuit, "and it may well be that the Swede may waste much powder and many good men before its walls and then not take it. Every week he spends before it is a week gained for us!"

"How?" asked Nigel. "We are shut up here!"

"Wallenstein's army grows daily, I hear. It is wonderful the magic of his name. From all places men are hastening."

Nigel expressed great wonder. He was surprised that, at a time when the Emperor was at his wits' end for men, Wallenstein could find them from the ends of the earth. But he also wished the Jesuit to tell him more.

But the Jesuit said nothing of how he had heard the news. Only the shadow of a fear ran across Nigel's heart that news went fro, as well as to, over great distances, through this wonderful chain of the brotherhood that served Father Lamormain. And he wondered whether this kindly, helpful aide-de-camp, who had practically set him on his legs again, would not with an equal kindliness conduct him to the strongest dungeon in the citadel if he received orders. He knew it would be so.

The next morning saw Nigel at the hour named at the east gate, saw his eager charger nuzzling in his shoulder for joy, saw him gather his reins and mount, and, followed by the escort, set out briskly, as a man should, to his trysting-place.

CHAPTER XL.

RIDE, RIDE TOGETHER.

To cover three leagues in an hour on such a horse as Nigel bestrode was no great affair.

It may have been a little more or a little less when Sergeant Blick, with his watchful eyes, descried that his former colonel was rapidly overtaking a little party that rode in the same direction. It consisted apparently of a lady habited in a riding-dress suitable for the winter, surmounted by a military-looking cloak, and a groom on another horse just behind.