The Mercenary Part 6

But as soon as the gates closed behind him and his men, he became aware from the looks of the people and their answers to his questions that he had come into a very hornet's nest. Arms seemed to be the customary wear, and in at least two of the squares he noticed stout burghers and apprentices practising drill under the guidance of men of martial bearing.

Instead of making, as he would have done, for an inn, he rode right through the town to the castle of Hradschin, which was the one place inside the town that promised security, if not good cheer, and was held on behalf of the Emperor by an officer who represented in a shadowy way the ancient dignity and function of the Vogt of long ago.

There he found the drawbridge up and the sentinels on guard, but he was admitted without much parley to find that the officer in question was an old comrade of his Wallenstein days, one Hildebrand von Hohendorf, who received him with open arms and a full flagon, and whose eyes roamed over the twenty well-appointed troopers with much satisfaction.

The burly Commandant's eye, as he sat back in his great chair after the first part of the supper was despatched, lit upon Nigel with great good-humour.

"So you are a captain of Tilly's, my boy! And I warrant you get another step if you carry despatches safely to Vienna! Some people have all the luck. And I wager you've a good round bag of golden crowns in your wallet as it is."

"As to that," said Nigel, "I left a few odd thalers with an honest banker at Erfurt. I know better than to carry much gold about me."

"Sly fellows, you Scots! Ha! ha! ha! A few odd thalers! Why, the sack of miserly Madgeburg must have been like drawing water in a bucket from a br.i.m.m.i.n.g well! And here I sit cooped up in Hradschin, and draw a few groschen a day for running the risk of a Lutheran bullet, or a crack from a sledge-hammer every time I go into the town, and the saints above know when I shall be able to get back to the wars."

"Why didn't you do the same as the others, and join Tilly?"

"In the first place, I got the offer of Hradschin, and in the second place, my own little estate of Hohendorf is but a few miles to the north, over by Elsterberg, and I can keep a better eye upon it than if I were wandering about with Tilly. And in the third place, when one has served with Wallenstein, it isn't the same thing to serve with Tilly."

"And in the fourth place, Hildebrand, you seem to have a good larder and a good cellar!"

Hildebrand laughed a hearty contented laugh.

"I like them better than your Rest.i.tution Edict! Well, Hendrick?"

A soldier had come in and stood at attention.

"There is a tumult in the town, Commandant. They have a.s.sembled on the other side of the moat with torches and weapons."

"Bid them all go to the devil and come back to-morrow morning!"

"Yes, Commandant!"

The soldier returned in a few minutes.

"They will have speech with you, Commandant!"

"Confound them all for disturbers of the peace! I am coming. This is a new caper!"

The Commandant donned his corselet and headpiece, and accompanied by Nigel came out on the roof of a small tower that overlooked the drawbridge.

There was the moat below and a narrow one at that. But it was a sufficient barrier.

"Silence for the Commandant!" shouted the sergeant of the guard. There was silence in the grim-looking crowd that stood many deep on the other side, torches and lanterns lighting up the faces of some and leaving others mere shadowy patches, lighting up, too, the faces of many steel weapons and the barrels of many firelocks.

"Now Johann Pfarrer! In G.o.d's name tell us what this is all about, and let a man get back to his supper!"

"Magdeburg!" shouted Johann Pfarrer with a voice like a deep-toned trumpet.

"Aye! Magdeburg!" The crowed echoed and roared it l.u.s.tily with a curious note of wild anger in the throat.

"Well, friends? What have I to do with Magdeburg?"

"Just this!" said Johann Pfarrer. "To-night we have heard an exact relation of the sack of Magdeburg. You have with you one of Tilly's captains and twenty of his h.e.l.l-born riders."

"Faith, Johann! you may be right! I don't know where they were born.

They are all good Germans!"

"The more shame!" growled Johann. "Now, Commandant, we are not joking.

Deliver them all up to us, officers and men!"

"For what? Who ever heard of a German delivering up his guests? Tut!

tut! man!"

"There is no 'Tut! tut!' about it," retorted Johann. "We are going to hang them. Blood for blood! Vengeance for Magdeburg!"

"What nonsense you talk," said Hildebrand in his jolly cajoling fas.h.i.+on.

"Why should you or I trouble about Magdeburg? Let the Brandenburgers look after themselves. You don't owe them anything!"

"They are our brothers in the faith," said another voice, and a Lutheran pastor stood out from the throng.

"Yes! Yes! Our brothers in the faith." The bystanders took up the cry till it reached the outskirts of the throng, seemingly a long way back.

"Well! I take my orders from the Emperor!" said Hildebrand. "You had better go and ask him! I give up my guests for no one. Now go away home to your suppers and your wives and don't trouble your heads with politics!"

"You hear, friends?" shouted Johann, turning to his comrades. "You hear what Commandant von Hohendorf tells us. Shall we?"

"No! A thousand noes!" was the reply from hundreds of throats, and the ominous rattle of weapons gave it emphasis. "Storm the castle! Burn down old Hradschin! Death to the h.e.l.l-riders," came from all sides.

Nigel, standing on the battlements in the rear of the Commandant, was not recognisable from below, but could very well distinguish the faces of most of those who stood in the front of the throng. They were drawn from all cla.s.ses in the town, which, it was clear, was stirred to its depths. There were few women, and only two of these had ventured near to the leaders. Nigel surveyed the a.s.sembly with the indifference of the soldier to the execrations of a crowd of citizens, and the added feeling of detachment from the exasperation which they felt at the slaughter of some of their own countrymen by others of their own countrymen in the pay of the Emperor, who was far on the other side of the mountains. His curiosity was alert, however, and when his eyes rested on the two women, whose heads were enveloped in hoods that left most of the face in impenetrable shadow, he strove to estimate their condition, whether gentle or simple. In bearing they both seemed apart from the burghers with whom they mingled. One of them was tall for a woman, and, when she moved, did so with a gesture that marked her at least as no housewife.

The other's movements were quick, and reminded Nigel of a hen moving and pecking with sudden jerks of fussiness. Then for a moment, as the Commandant was speaking, the tall woman looked upward and the ruddy light from a neighbouring torch fell upon her face for a mere instant, but it was long enough. Nigel drew his cloak about him with a s.h.i.+ver.

The woman appeared to have the eyes and mouth of Ottilie von Thuringen.

He was sure it was not she. She had started for Gotha. He had seen her in the coach, and at the head of his men had ridden, not, it was true, at breakneck speed, but at a good pace, wasting no time.

Some one, it was clear, had arrived in the town who had witnessed the sack of Magdeburg, and striven to and contrived to inflame the townspeople to a fever point. But even supposing, what was impossible, that the mysterious Ottilie had ridden by other roads and reached Plauen at his heels, what could her errand be? She was a Catholic. It was unthinkable to believe that she could be seeking to inflame the minds of Protestants to the butchery of a score of troopers in the service of the Emperor out upon a peaceful task of escort duty.

It pa.s.sed through his mind and was dismissed. Hildebrand turned to him.

"The pigs! They will be less noisy in the morning. Let us go in and finish our wine. Hradschin can stand a few hard words and even a few knocks such as they can give, unless Gustavus sends them a few cannon."

As they went in the tumult grew in volume, but it was soon lost to their ears as they once more resumed their wine within the thick walls.

"The devil of it is," said the Commandant, "that there will be no getting out of the place while they are in this mind. They will guard all the roads. And your men are all needed here if they make an attack in force to-morrow."

"The despatches do not admit of delay," said Nigel, who had no mind to be cooped up in Hradschin for a week. "If I cannot leave with the men, I must leave without them."

"But how are you going to get out of the town? You must cross the river, and the bridge will be guarded. There's your horse, too. Still, as you say, there are the despatches."

"Surely, if I start two hours before dawn, I can get the gates open after overpowering the guard. My twenty troopers ought to manage that.