The Mercenary Part 8

"Master Gordon! That's a queer speech!" said Nigel. "Count Tilly's been carrying out the Edict."

"Aye! That's just it, the most abominable Edict. Save us, mebbe ye're a Papist yersel'!"

"Yes! Or I should not be doing the Emperor's service!" Nigel retorted with some heat.

"Whisht! Whisht! man! A man must look to the bawbees, ye ken; but he should aye hould fast to his opeenions!"

"'Tis not for me to say what Mr Gordon should do, or not do," said Nigel dryly. "My creed is where I take my pay, there I fight, and as for the cause I say nothing."

"Aye!" said Commandant Gordon with something like a sigh. "And what brought ye to Eger, when it was a wheen shorter by Pilsen?"

He scrutinised Nigel with a long careful scrutiny.

"That I might tell you how matters stood with Hohendorf. Yours is the nearest garrison."

"Hooch aye!" The commandant appeared to be relieved of some antic.i.p.ated trouble. "I dinna think I can spare ony, but ye've done your duty in reporting it. I thocht ye were maybe paying a veesit to yon warlock the new Duke keeps at his hoose!"

"What new Duke?"

"Waldstein! Man! Waldstein! Duke of Friedland and the haill rickmatick!"

"Waldstein!" said Nigel. "Here? Waldstein?"

"Aye! He's studying the stars, he and his warlock. He's naething else to do. He's just a spent cannon-ball: good iron but useless. Speiring at the stars will he come back again or no, and speiring at Gustavus of Sweden whether he'll give him all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, if he falls doon and wors.h.i.+ps him."

"How do you know that he sends letters to Gustavus? Or what is in them?"

"Is it sae unlikely?" the other questioned cunningly. "I could believe onything of a Popish recusant! Waldstein was born a Protestant of good Lutheran parents, and ganged to a Protestant University--Altdorf--and then he wins clean over to the Papists. Noo I'm not saying onything against Papistry, though I dinna believe in it mysel', but _ye_ come of a Catholic family and have never known the truth. I peety but I dinna blame!"

"I am your very humble servant, Mr Gordon," said Nigel, bowing. "I am in need of food and lodgment. Good-bye!"

Nigel took horse again and rode down into the town, pondering many things.

At the foot of the hill he met Sergeant Blick.

"The sorrel horse, captain, is in a stable at the White Lamb."

"Good. We start to-morrow morning at dawn. Therefore have every man ready!"

"Yes, captain!"

"The man who rides the sorrel horse will ride northward before dawn. By whichever gate he pa.s.ses, he must be caught and made to ride with us, whether he likes it or not, without noise or fuss."

"Yes, captain!"

"Where is the lieutenant?"

"He is at the Blue Angel, captain!"

"Good! To-morrow at dawn!"

Nigel found the lieutenant sitting down to a dish of scrambled eggs with a plentiful dressing of chopped ham.

"There is veal to follow, and then a couple of ducks!" said the lieutenant, concluding the remark with a great gurgle of beer in the recesses of a huge tankard.

Nigel made haste to catch up with the lieutenant.

He had travelled with his comrade through the egg country, the calf country, and had reached duckland. Two legs, a slice of the broad brown back, and some delicate spinach loaded up his plate, when the door opened and a man-servant with the bearing of a soldier entered.

"Captain Charteris!"

"That is I!" said Nigel.

"The Count Albrecht von Waldstein desires the favour of your company for an hour."

CHAPTER VIII.

INTERLACING DESTINIES.

Nigel looked ruefully at the duck.

"Stay and eat it, comrade!" said the lieutenant.

"I must leave it! One does not keep Waldstein waiting! I bequeath it to you. See that you give a good account of it."

"That I can promise you!" said the still hungry lieutenant. "At dawn, you said?"

"At dawn! And give a good look at the horses before you turn in!"

Then casting his cloak about him Nigel went out into the deepening twilight.

Nigel Charteris had once, and only once, spoken to Wallenstein face to face. For although Nigel served as a subaltern all through the great campaign, the large armies commanded by the great general operated over tracts of country often miles apart, and months elapsed between one glimpse of him and the next. Little by little, as the great game of war had come to mean something to Nigel's mind, for at the first it had seemed but a sadly confused business, it came to him that Albrecht von Waldstein was a great player. Since his experience with Count Tilly, Nigel had been able to agree that he also was no mean antagonist, but not the equal of Wallenstein. In that curious welter of the Thirty Years' War it wanted but little shaking of the dice-box for Tilly and Wallenstein to have been pitted against one another. As the dice fell, they never were so pitted, and by consequence what then might have happened is left to those skilful in conjecture, and not for us the chroniclers of what did happen.

Nigel, ushered by one servant to another, and finally by some great one to the presence of the great man, felt the awe that one does in meeting the supremely great in one's own profession; but as to his being a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, which the Emperor had made him, a Duke of Friedland, which by comparison was a mere proclamation of landed n.o.bility, Nigel Charteris of Pencaitland in the Lothians cared little.

The man was gentle by birth as he himself was. Whether he was a degree higher or lower was naught to a gentle Scot, for the Scot yields to no man in the pride of race.

The house was a great house, rather deep than wide, with gardens full of trees behind. At some time it had belonged to the King of Bohemia, but had been bestowed on one of the great n.o.bles, and in the general disturbance of things ensuing upon the Winter King's invasion of Bohemia, Albrecht von Waldstein had bought it for a small part of its value. It was not the only instance of that faculty the exercise of which by the Jews has gained them the contemptuous names of brokers and Lombarders. In other words, Wallenstein became rich, had become rich, not because he was a great and successful general, but because the same talents which enabled him to plan and organise his armies, enabled him also to plan his own fortunes in matters of estate.

Wallenstein received Nigel in a s.p.a.cious chamber, which had been an audience-chamber in older days. It was panelled with wood all round the walls, and the flat ceiling was also of wood, but painted with the royal arms of Bohemia and those of the chief va.s.sals, much of them faded and blackened. There was a great open fireplace with a goodly fire of logs blazing in it, and at a convenient distance from it was a small table, curiously carved as to the legs, a couple of flagons of wine, and two tall goblets of fine gla.s.s curiously wrought.

In a great chair sat Wallenstein, and at the door by which Nigel entered stood two serving-men.

Nigel saluted his old commander-in-chief. Wallenstein nodded, and bade a servant bring a chair.