CHAPTER XXXIV
LITTLE JOHANNES RODE
"But this one day, beloved," the Sparhawk was saying. "What is one dayamong our enemies? Be brave, and then we will ride away together undercloud of night. Von Dessauer will help us. For love and pity Prince Hugoof Plassenburg will give us an asylum. Or if he will not, by my faith!Helene the Princess will--or her kind heart is sore belied! Fear not!"
"I am not afraid--I have never feared anything in my life," answered thePrincess Margaret. "But now I fear for you, Maurice. I would give all Ipossess a hundred times over--nay, ten years of my life--if only youwere safe out of this Courtland!"
"It will not be long," said the Sparhawk soothingly. "To-morrow VonDessauer goes with all his train. He cannot, indeed, openly give us hisprotection till we are past the boundaries of the State. But at theFords of the Alla we must await him. Then, after that, it is but a shortand safe journey. A few days will bring us to the borderlands ofPlassenburg and the Mark, where we are safe alike from prince brotherand prince wooer."
"Maurice--I would it were so, indeed. Do you know I think being marriedmakes one's soul frightened. The one you love grows so terrifyinglyprecious. It seems such a long time since I was a wild and recklessgirl, flouting those who spoke of love, and boasting (oh, so vainly!)that love would never touch me. I used to, not so long ago--though youwould not think it now, knowing how weak and foolish I am."
The Sparhawk laughed a little and glanced fondly at his wife. It was astrange look, full of the peculiar joy of man--and that, where theessence of love dwells in him, is his sense of unique possession.
"Do keep still," said the Princess suddenly, stamping her foot. "How canI finish the arraying of your locks, if you twist about thus in yourseat? It is fortunate for you, sir, that the Duchess Joan wears her hairshort, like a Northman or a bantling troubadour. Otherwise you could nothave gone masquerading till yours had grown to be something of thislength."
And, with the innocent vanity of a woman preferred, she shook her ownhead backward till the rich golden tresses, each hair distinct and crispas a golden wire of infinite thinness, fell over her back and hung downas low as the hollows of her knees.
"Joan could not do that!" she cried triumphantly.
"You are the most beautiful woman in the world," said the Sparhawk, withappreciative reverence, trying to rise from the low stool in front ofthe Venice mirror upon which he was submitting to having his toiletsuperintended--for the first time by a thoroughly competent person.
The Princess Margaret bit her lip vixenishly in a pretty way she hadwhen making a pretext of being angry, at the same time sticking thelittle curved golden comb she was using upon his raven locks viciouslyinto his head.
"Oh, you hurt!" he cried, making a grimace and pretending in his turn.
"And so I will, and much worse," she retorted, "if you do not be stilland do as I bid you. How can a self-respecting tire-woman attend to herbusiness under such circumstances? I warn you that you may engage a newmaid."
"Wickedest one!" he murmured, gazing fondly up at Margaret, "there is noone like you!"
"Well," she drolled, "I am glad of your opinion, though sorry for yourtaste. For me, I prefer the Lady Joan."
"And why?"
"Because she is like you, of course!"
* * * * *
So, on the verge perilous, lightly and foolishly they jested as allthose who love each other do (which folly is the only wisdom), while thegreen Alla sped swiftly on to the sea, and the city in which Deathwaited for Maurice von Lynar began to hum about them.
As yet, however, there fell no suspicion. For Margaret had warned herbowermaidens that the Princess Joan would need no assistance from them.Her own waiting-women were on their way from Castle Kernsberg. In anycase she, Margaret of Courtland, would help her sister in person, aswell for love as because such service was the guest's right.
And the Courtland maidens, accustomed to the whims and sudden likings oftheir impetuous mistress, glad also to escape extra duty, hastened theirtask of arraying Margaret. Never had she been so restless and exacting.Her toilet was not half finished when she rose from her ebony stool,told her favourite Thora of Bornholm that she was too ignorant to betrusted to array so much as the tow-head of a Swedish puppet, enduedherself without assistance with a long loose gown of velvet lined withpale blue silk, and flashed out again to revisit her sister-in-law.
"And do you, Thora, and the others, wait my pleasure in the anteroom,"she commanded her handmaidens as she swept through the doorway. "Gobarter love-compliments with the men-at-arms. It is all such fumblersare good for!"
Behind her back the tiring maids shrugged shoulders and glanced at eachother secretly with lifted eyebrow, as they put gowns and broideredslippers back in their places, to signify that if it began thus theywere in for a day of it. Nevertheless they obeyed, and, finding certainyoung gentlemen of Prince Louis's guard waiting for just such anopportunity without, Thora and the others proceeded to carry out to theletter the second part of the instructions of their mistress.
"How now, sweet Thora of the Flaxen Locks?" cried Justus of Graetz, aslender young man who carried the Prince's bannerstaff on saints' days,and practised fencing and the art of love professionally at other times;"has the Princess boxed all your ears this morning, that you cometrembling forth, pell-mell, like a flock of geese out of a barn when thefarmer's dog is after them?"
There were three under-officers of the guard in the little courtyard.Slim Justus of Graetz, his friend and boon companion Seydelmann, a man offine presence and empty head, who on wet days could curl the wings ofhis moustaches round his ears, and, sitting a little apart from these,little Johannes Rode, the only very brave man of the three, a swordsmanand a poet, yet one who passed for a ninny and a greenhorn because hechose mostly to be silent. Nevertheless, Thora of Bornholm preferred himto all others in the palace. For the eyes of a woman are quick todiscern manhood--so long, that is, as she is not in love. After that,God wot, there is no eyeless fish so blind in all the caverns of theHartz.
With the Northwoman Thora in her tendance of the Princess there werejoined Anna and Martha Pappenheim, two maids quicker of speech and morerestless in demeanour--Franconians, like all their name, of theirpersons little and lithe and gay. The Princess had brought them backwith her when at the last Diet she visited Ratisbon with her brother.
"Ah, Thora, fairest of maids! Hath an east wind made you sulky thismorning, that you will not answer?" languished Justus. "Then I warrantso are not Anna and Martha. My service to you, noble dames!"
"Noble 'dames' indeed--and to us!" they answered in alternate jets ofspeech. "As if we were apple-women or the fat house-frows ofCourtlandish burghers. Get away--you have no manners! You sop your witsin sour beer. You eat frogs-meat out of your Baltic marshes. A dozendozen of you were not worth one lively lad out of sweet Franconia!"
"Swe-e-et Franconia!" mocked Justus; "why, then, did you not stop there?Of a verity no lover carried you off to Courtland across his saddle-bow,that I warrant! He had repented his pains and killed his horse long erehe smelt the Baltic brine."
"The most that such louts as you Courtlanders could carry off would be ascreeching pullet from a farmyard, when the goodman is from home. Thereis no spirit in the North--save, I grant, among the women. There is ourPrincess and her new sister the Lady Joan of the Sword Hand. Where willyou see their match? Small wonder they will have nothing to say to suchmen as they can find hereabouts! But how they love each other! 'Tis asgood as a love tale to see them----"
"Aye, and a very miracle to boot!" interjected Thora of Bornholm.
The Pappenheims, as before, went on antiphonally, each answering andanticipating the other.
"The Princesses need not any man to make them happy! Their affection foreach other is past telling," said Martha.
"How their eyes shine when they look at each other!" sighed Anna, whileThora said nothing for a little, but watched Johannes Rode keenly. Shesaw he had
something on his mind. The Northwoman was not of the opinionwhich Anna Pappenheim attributed to the Princesses. For the fair-skinneddaughters of the Goth, being wise, hold that there is but one kind oflove, as there is but one kind of gold. Also they believe that theycarry with them the philosopher's stone wherewith to procure that fineore. After a while Thora spoke.
"This morning it was 'The Princess needs not your help--I myself will beher tire-woman!' I wot Margaret is as jealous of any other serving theLady Joan----"
"As you would be if we made love to Johannes Rode there!" laughed MarthaPappenheim, getting behind a pillar and peeping roguishly round in orderthat the poet might have an opportunity of seeing the pretty turn of herankle.
But little Johannes, who with a nail was scratching a line or two of acatch on a smooth stone, hardly even smiled. He minded maids of honour,their gabble and their ankles, no more than jackdaws crying in thecrevices of the gable--that is, all except Thora, who was so large andfair and white that he could not get her quite out of his mind. But evenwith Thora of Bornholm he did his best.
"That is all very well _now_," put in vain Fritz Seydelmann, strokinghis handsome beard and smiling vacantly; "but wait till these samePrincesses have had husbands of their own for a year. Then they willspit at each other and scratch--like cats. All women are cats, and maidsof honour the worst of all!"
"How so, Sir Wiseman--because they do not like puppies? You have foundout that?" Anna Pappenheim struck back demurely.
"You ask me why maids of honour are like cats," returned Seydelmanncomplacently (he had been making up this speech all night). "Do they notarch their backs when they are stroked? Do they not purr? Have you notseen them lie about the house all day, doing nothing and looking assaintly as so many abbots at High Mass? But at night and on thetiles--phew! 'tis another matter then."
And having thus said vain moustached Seydelmann, who plumed himself uponhis wit, dragged at his moustache horns and simpered bovinely down uponthe girls.
Anna Pappenheim turned to Thora, who was looking steadily through theself-satisfied Fritz, much as if she could see a spider crawling on thewall behind him.
"Do they let things like that run about loose here in Courtland?" sheasked, with some anxiety on her face. "We have sties built for them athome in Franconia!"
But Thora was in no mood for the rough jesting of officers-in-waitingand princesses' tirewomen. She continued to watch the spider.
Then little Johannes Rode spoke for the first time.
"I wager," he said slowly, "that the Princesses will be less inseparableby this time to-morrow."
"What do you mean, Johannes Rode?" said Thora, with instant challenge inher voice, turning the wide-eyed directness of her gaze full upon him.
The young man did not look at her. He merely continued the carving ofhis couplet upon the lower stone of the sundial, whistling the air as hedid so.
"Well," he answered slowly, "the Muscovite guard of Prince Ivan havepacked their own baggage (together with a good deal that is not theirown), and the minster priests are warned to hold themselves at thePrince's bidding all day. That means a wedding, and I warrant you ournoble Louis does not mean to marry his Princess all over again in theDom-Kirch of Courtland. They are going to marry the Russ to our PrincessMargaret!"
Blonde Fritz laughed loud and long and tugged at his moustache.
"Out, you fool!" he cried; "this is a saint's day! I saw it in thechaplain's Breviary. The Prince goes to shrive himself, and right wiselyhe judges. I would not only confess, but receive extreme unction aswell, before I attempted to come nigh Joan of the Sword Hand in the wayof love! What say you, Justus?"
But before his companion could reply, Thora of Bornholm had risen andstolen quietly within.