CHAPTER XXVI
PRINCE JEHU MILLER'S SON
Yet now, when she was in her own country, and as good as any queenthereof, I found the Lady Ysolinde in no wise different from, what shehad been in the city of Thorn and in her father's house. She called meoften to ride beside her, Helene being on my other side, while the LubberFiend, who had saved all our lives, gambolled about and came to her to bepetted like a lapdog of some monstrous sort. He licked his lips andtwisted his eyes upward at her in ludicrous ecstasy till only the whiteswere visible whenever the Princess laid her hand on his head. So that itwas as much as the archers of the guard could do to hide their laughterin their beards. But hide it they did, having a wholesome awe of theemerald eyes of their mistress, or perhaps of the steely light whichsometimes came into them.
It was growing twilight upon the third day (for there were no adventuresworth dwelling upon after that among the cavern dwellings of Erdberg)when for the first time we saw the towers of Plassenburg crowning a hill,with its clear brown river winding slow beneath. We were yet a good manymiles from it when down the dusty road towards us came a horseman, andfifty yards or so behind him another.
"The Prince--none rides like our Karl!" said Jorian, familiarly, underhis breath, but proudly withal.
"He comes alone!" said I, wonderingly. For indeed Duke Casimir of theWolfsberg never went ten lances' length from his castle without a smallarmy at his tail.
"Even so!" replied Jorian; "it is ever his custom. The officer whofollows behind him has his work cut out--and basted. Not for nothing isour Karl called Prince Jehu Miller's Son, for indeed he rides mostfuriously."
Before there was time for more words between us a tall, grim-faced,pleasant-eyed man of fifty rode up at a furious gallop. The first thing Inoticed about him was that his hair was exactly the same color as hishorse--an iron-gray, rusty a little, as if it had been rubbed with ironthat has been years in the wet.
He took off his hat courteously to the Princess.
"I bid you welcome, my noble lady," said he, smiling; "the cages areready for the new importations."
The Lady Ysolinde reached a hand for her husband to kiss, which he didwith singular gentleness. But, so far as I could see, she neither lookedat him even once nor yet so much as spoke a word to him. Presently hequestioned her directly: "And who may this fair young damsel be, who hasdone me the honor to journey to my country?"
"She is Helene, called Helene Gottfried of Thorn, and has come with me tobe one of my maids of honor," answered the Lady Ysolinde, lookingstraight before her into the gathering mist, which began to collect inwhite ponds and streaks here and there athwart the valley.
The Prince gave the Little Playmate a kindly ironic look out of hisgray eyes, which, as I interpreted it, had for meaning, "Then, if thatbe so, God help thee, little one--'tis well thou knowest not what isbefore thee!"
"And this young man?" said the Prince, nodding across to me.
But I answered for myself.
"I am the son of the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark," said I. "Ihad no stomach for such work. Therefore, as I was shortly to be made myfather's assistant, I have brought letters of introduction to yourHighness, in the hopes that you will permit me the exercise of arms inyour army in another and more honorable fashion."
"I have promised him a regiment," said the Princess, speaking quickly.
"What--of leaden soldiers?" answered the Prince, looking at hermighty soberly.
"Your Highness is pleased to be brutal," answered the Lady Ysolinde,coldly. "It is your ordinary idea of humor!"
A kind of quaint humility sat on the face of the Prince.
"I but thought that your Highness could have nothing else in hermind--seeing that our rough Plassenburg regiments will only accept men ofsome years and experience to lead them. But the little soldiers of metalare not so queasy of stomach."
"May it please your Highness," said I, earnestly, "I will be content tobegin with carrying a pike, so that I be permitted in any fashion tofight against your enemies."
Jorian and Boris came up and saluted at this point, like twin mechanisms.Then they stood silent and waiting.
The Prince nodded in token that they had permission to speak.
"With the sword the lad fights well," said Boris. "Is it not so, Jorian?"
"Good!" said Jorian.
"But with the broadaxe he slashes about him like an angel fromheaven--not so, Boris?" said Jorian.
"Good!" said Boris.
"Can you ride?" said the Prince, turning abruptly from them.
"Aye, sire!" said I. For indeed I could, and had no shame to say it.
"That horse of his is blown; give him your fresh one!" said he to theofficer who had accompanied him. "And do you show these good folk totheir quarters."
Hardly was I mounted before the Prince set spurs to his beast, and,with no more than a casual wave of his hand to the Princess and hertrain, he was off.
"Ride!" he cried to me. And was presently almost out of sight, stretchinghis horse's gray belly to the earth, like a coursing dog after a hare.
Well was it for me that I had learned to ride in a hard school--that is,upon the unbroken colts which were brought in for the mounting of theDuke Casimir's soldiery. For the horse that I had been given took thebit between his teeth and pursued so fiercely after his stable companionthat I could scarce restrain him from passing the Prince. But our waylay homeward, so that, though I was in no way able to guide nor yetcontrol my charger, nevertheless presently the Prince and I wereclattering through the town of Plassenburg like two fiends ridingheadlong to the pit.
Within the town the lamps were being lit in the booths, the folks busymarketing, and the watchmen already perambulating the city and crying thehours at the street corners.
But as the Prince and I drove furiously through, like pursuer andpursued, the busy streets cleared themselves in a twinkling; and we rodethrough lanes of faces yellow in the lamplight, or in the darker placeslike blurs of scrabbled whiteness. So I leaned forward and let the beasttake his chance of uneven causeway and open sewer. I expected nothingless than a broken neck, and for at least half a mile, as we flew upwardto the castle, I think that the certainty of naught worse than a brokenarm would positively have pleasured me. At least, I would very willinglyhave compounded my chances for that.
Presently, without ever drawing rein, we flew beneath the dark outer portof the castle, clattered through a court paved with slippery blocks ofstone, thundered over a noble drawbridge, plunged into a long and gloomyarchway, and finally came out in a bright inner palace court with lampslit all about it.
I was at the Prince's bridle ere he could dismount.
"You can ride, Captain Hugo Gottfried!" he said. "I think I will make youmy orderly officer."
And so he went within, without a word more of praise or welcome.
There came past just at that moment an ancient councillor clad in a longrobe of black velvet, with broad facings and rosettes of scarlet. He wascarrying a roll of papers in his hand.
"What said the Prince to yon, young sir, if I may ask without offence?"said he, looking at me with a curiously sly, upward glance out of thecorner of his eye, as if he suspected me of a fixed intention to tell hima lie in any case.
"If it be any satisfaction to you to know," answered I, rather piqued athis tone, "the Prince informed me that I could ride, and that he intendedto make me his orderly officer. And he called me not 'young sir,' butCaptain Hugo Gottfried."
"How long has he known you?" said the Chief Councillor of State. For soby his habit I knew him to be.
"Half an hour, or thereby," answered I.
"God help this kingdom!" cried the old man, tripping off, flirting hishand hopelessly in the air--"if he had known you only ten minutes youwould have been either Prime-Minister or Commander-in-Chief of the army."
It was in this strange fashion that I entered the army of the Prince ofPlassenburg, a service which I shall ever look back upon with gratitude,and count a
s having brought me all the honors and most of the pleasuresof my life.
Half an hour or so afterwards the blowing of trumpets and the thunder ofthe new leathern cannon announced that the Princess and her train wereentering the palace. The Prince came down to greet them on the thresholdin a new and magnificent dress.
"The Prince's officer-in-waiting to attend upon his Highness!" cried aherald in fine raiment of blue and yellow.
I looked about for the man who was to be my superior in my newoffice--that is, if Prince Karl should prove to have spoken in earnest.
"The Prince's orderly to attend upon him!" again proclaimed the herald,more impatiently.'
I saw every eye turn upon me, and I began to feel a gentle heat come overme. Presently I was blushing furiously. For I was still in myriding-clothes, and even they had not been changed after the adventure ofthe Brick-dust Town. So that they were in no wise fitting to attend upona mighty dignitary.
The Prince of Plassenburg looked round.
"Ha!" he said; "this is not well--I had forgotten. My orderly ought tohave been duly arrayed by this time."
"Pardon, my Prince," said I, "but all the apparel I have is upon mysumpter horse, which comes in the train of the Princess."
My master looked right and left in his quickly imperious and yethumorous manner.
"Here, Count von Reuss," he said to a tall, handsome, heavily jowledyoung man, "I pray you strip off thy fine coat for an hour, and lend itto my new officer-in-waiting. The ladies will admire thee more thanever in thy fine flowered waistcoat, with silk sleeves and frilledpurfles of lace!"
The young man, Von Reuss, looked as if he desired much to tell the Princeto go and be hanged. But there was something in the bearing of Karl ofPlassenburg, usurper as they called him, the like of which for command Ihave never seen in the countenance and manner of any lawfully begottenprince in the world.
So, beckoning me into an antechamber, and swearing evilly under hisbreath all the time, the young man stripped off his fine coat, andoffered it to me with one hand, without so much as looking at me. He gaveit indeed churlishly, as one might give a dole to a loathsome beggar tobe rid of his importunity.
"I thank you, sir," said I, "but more for your obedience to the Princethan for the fashion of your courtesy to me."
Yet for all that he answered me never a syllable, but turned his head andplayed with his mustache till his man-servant brought him another coat.