CHAPTER XLIX
THE SERPENT'S STRIFE
Dazed and death-stricken by the horror of the choice which lay before me,I hastened down the street, hardly waiting for Dessauer, who toiledvainly after me. I knew not what to do nor where to turn. I could neitherthink nor speak. But it chanced that my steps brought me to the house ofthe Weiss Thor. Almost without any will of mine own I found myselfraising the knocker of the house of Master Gerard von Sturm. SirRespectable instantly appeared. I asked of him if the Lady Ysolinde wouldsee me--giving my name plainly. For since Duke Otho knew me, there was noneed of concealment any more.
The Lady Ysolinde would receive me.
I followed my conductor, but not this time to the room in which I hadseen her on the occasion of my last visit.
It was in her father's chamber that I met the Princess. The room was as Ihad first seen it. Only there was no ascetic old man with keen, deep-seteyes and receding forehead to rear his head back from the table as thoughhe would presently strike across it like a serpent from its coil.
For the moment the room was empty, but, ere I had time to look around,the curtains moved and the Lady Ysolinde appeared. Without entering, sheset a hand on the door-post, and stood poised against the heavy curtain,waiting for me to speak.
Her face was pale, her thin nostrils dilated. Anger and scorn sat whiteand deadly on every feature.
"So," she said, intensely, as I did not speak, "you have come backalready, most noble Hereditary Justicer of the Mark! Even as I toldyou--so it is. You come to ask mercy from the woman you despised, fromthe woman whose love you refused. You would beg her to spare her enemy.Ere you go I shall see you on your knees; ah, that will be sweet. I havebeen on my knees--can I believe it? Nay, I shall not forget it. I,Ysolinde of Plassenburg, have pled in vain to you--to you!"
And the accent of chill hatred and malice turned me to stone.
"My lady," said I, "well do you know that I would never ask aught for myown life, though the Red Axe itself were at my neck. But it is for themaid I love, for the little child I carried home out of the arms of theman condemned. I ask for her life, who never wronged you or any in allthis world. You have heard that task which the Duke hath laid on me,because it is my misfortune to be my father's son--I must take away mylove's sweet life, or, if I do not--" I could proceed no further for thehorror which rose in my heart.
"I know it," she said, calmly; "my father hath told me all."
"Then," cried I, "if the power lie with you, as you hope for mercy toyour own soul, be merciful! Save the maiden Helene from the death ofshame, and me from becoming her murderer!"
"Ah," she answered, with delicatest meditative inflection, "this isindeed sweet. The mighty is fallen indeed. The proud one is suppliantnow. The knee is bent that would not bend. Hearken, you and your pulingbabe, to the Princess Ysolinde! Were your lives in that glass, to save orto destroy--her life and your suffering--to make or to break, I wouldfling them to destruction, even as I cast this cup into the darkness!"
And as she spoke the wreathed beaker of Venice glass sped out of thewindow and crashed on the pavement without.
"Thus would I end your lives," she said, "for the shame that you two putupon me in the day of my weakness."
"Lady," I cried, eagerly, "you do yourself a wrong! Your heart is betterthan your word. Do this deed of mercy, I beseech you, if so be you can.And my life is yours forever!"
"Your life is mine, you say," cried she; "aye, and that means what?The wind that cries about the house. Your life is _mine_--it isa lie. Your life and love both are that chit's for whom you havedespised--rejected--ME!"
And I grant that at that moment she looked noble enough in her anger asshe stood discharging her words at me with hissing directness, like boltsshot twanging from the steel cross-bow.
"And, lest you should think that I have not the power to save you, I willtell you this--when you shall see the neck bared for the blade of the RedAxe, the fine tresses you love, that your eyes look upon with desire, allruthlessly cut away by the shears of your assistants--ah, I know you willremember then that I, Ysolinde, whom you refused and slighted, had thepower in her hand to deliver you both with a word, according to theimmaculate laws of the Wolfmark. Aye, and more--power to raise you bothto a pinnacle of bliss such as you can hardly conceive. In that hour,when you see me look down upon your anguish, you will know that I canspeak the word. You will watch my lips till the axe falls, and under yourhand the young life ebbs red. But the lips of Ysolinde will be silent!"
"Such knowledge is an easy boast, Lady Ysolinde!" I answered, thinkingto taunt her, that she might reveal whether indeed she had the powershe claimed.
"There," she said, pointing to the great collection of black-bound booksand papers about the walls; "see, the secret is there--the secret for thelack of which you shall strike your beloved to the death to save her fromthe unnamable shame. I know it; my father has revealed it to me. I haveseen the parchment in these hands. But--you shall never hear it, shenever profit by it, and my vengeance shall be sweet--so sweet!"
And she laughed, with a strange crackling laugh that it was a pain tohear.
"God forgive you, Lady Ysolinde," said I, "if this be so. For if therebe a God, you must burn in Great Hell for this deed you are about todo. Having had no mercy on the innocent, how shall you ask God to havemercy on you?"
"I will not ask Him!" she cried. "Instead of puling for mercy I will havehad my revenge. And after that, come earth, heaven, or hell--I shall notcare. All will then be the same to Ysolinde!"
I thought I would try her yet once more.
"The Little Playmate," I said, "the maid whom I have ever loved, though Iam not worthy to touch her, is no chance child, no daughter of the RedAxe of Thorn. Leopold von Dessauer hath found and sent to Karl the Princethe full proofs that Helene is the daughter of the last and rightfulPrince, and therefore in her own right Princess of Plassenburg."
"You lie, fool!" she cried--"you lie! You think to frighten me. And evenif it were true--thrice, four times fool to tell me! For shall not I, thePrincess of Plassenburg, the wife of the reigning Prince, stand for myown name and dignity. I would not help you now though a thousand fairheads, well-beloved, the desire of men, the envy of women, were to berolled in the dust."
"Then farewell, Princess," I cried; "you are wronging to the death ofdeaths two that never did you wrong, who loved each other with the loveof man and woman before ever you crossed their paths, and who since thenhave only sought your good. You wrong God also, and you lose your soul,divorcing it from the mercy of the Saviour of men. For be very sure thatwith that measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."
She did not answer, but stood with her hand still against the door-post,her head raised, and her lips curling scornfully, looking after me as Iretired with a smiling and malicious pleasure.
So, without further speech, I went out from the presence of the LadyYsolinde. And thus she had the first part of her revenge.