of the King, and the next day's ride was without adventure. Just as it
was growing dusk the party rode into the hospitable courtyard at
Abbotsleigh, and Jane found herself being helped from her lofty pillion
by her kindly host and relative.
"I would ask your good offices, dear sir," she said, "on behalf of this
honest fellow, a servant of my brother's, who is suffering somewhat from
the ague, that he may be better lodged and served than his comrades. My
brother has a great affection for him, and gave him especially to me for
this journey. I pray you see that he be well tended."
"It shall be done, fair sister," answered Mr. Norton at once; and
summoning Pope, the butler, he put Charles--or William Jackson, as he
was called--into his charge, telling him he was one of Colonel Lane's
tenants and favourite servants, and must be treated with kindness, as he
was suffering from ague.
Jane's time was naturally taken up with interviews with her sister, who
had just given birth to a little child, who had not lived above an hour
or two, so that the young mother was in sore trouble, and greatly
pleased to have her sister's sympathy and companionship. This personal
sorrow kept her thoughts busy with her own affairs, and she scarce spoke
more than a few words about Jane's journey, whilst the grave face and
rather preoccupied manner of her sister seemed explained by other
causes.
It was not till the evening of the next day that Jane came upon the
King, wandering in the shrubberies of the great garden. There was nobody
near, and the place was so secluded that Jane did not hesitate to pause
and speak with him. After all, even if anybody did see them, there was
nothing very wonderful in her having a few words with one of her own
servants.
"I trust, sire, that here, at least, you are subject to no ill words or
hardships?"
"Nay, fair Mistress, I am but too well lodged and served. For that
honest butler, Pope, who, it seems, was servant once to one of the
gentlemen of my household, Jermyn by name, has recognised me, and will
not be denied but to kiss my hand in private, and himself to wait upon
me in my room. I tell him that a serving man has no need to be served,
but he cannot see the sense of that. I truly think he is staunch to the
core, else I would be uneasy; for there is a great price upon this head.
Yet others have withstood the temptation to betray the secret, and
methinks he will too."
"Oh, I would not fear for Pope," answered Jane eagerly, "he is a good
and faithful servant. I am sorry--and yet I am glad that he should know;
for now you will be served with the best that this house has to offer!"
"But we must have a care," laughed Charles, "there was a fellow sat
beside me in the buttery this morning, who was giving such an excellent
account of the recent battle that I took him for one of Cromwell's
soldiers. But when I asked him he said no, he was in the King's
regiment; and I thought at first he spoke of Colonel King, but he meant
me all the while! So then I asked him what kind of man the King was?
Whereat he replied, with a quick look into my face, that he wasn't
anything like me, for all my swarthy skin; that he was half-a-head
taller for one thing, and forthwith gave so accurate a description of
my dress, and horse, and weapons, that I got frightened at the fellow's
keen eyes, and got me away as soon as I could."
It was nervous work hearing tales like this, albeit Charles would laugh
and make light of them. Too obvious a disguise would have provoked more
suspicion than the one he was adopting, with soldiers and spies
everywhere on the look-out for the fugitive Prince, whom so many already
declared to be the King, and upon whose head so great a reward was
placed.
"I marvel that each one who knows the secret doth not betray it, and
make himself rich for life," quoth the young man many times, as he
recounted his hairbreadth escapes. "What have we done that person after
person, man and woman and gentle maiden"--and he bent his head before
Jane with courtly grace--"should risk so much and lose so much in our
poor service?"
"You are our King, sire," answered Jane simply; and that seemed to be
answer enough.
Two days later Lord Wilmot came to her and asked speech. He had been
hovering about them all the while, and lurking in the neighbourhood of
Abbotsleigh watching and planning. Now he came to Jane, and spoke
freely.
"Mistress," he said, "we still want your help for two more stages of
the journey. Your pass will take us safely as far as Trent House in
Gloucestershire, where dwells Colonel Wyndham, whom I have seen; and who
will not only adventure life and estate in the King's service, but will
gladly lose them both to save him from peril. Once at his house, where
there are some excellent hiding-places, we shall be near enough the
coast to make, I trust, some speedy arrangement for the transit abroad.
But there are soldiers quartered in these parts, and we shall want your
aid for the next stages. Will you give it to us, and be ready to start
upon the morrow early?"
"Willingly, most willingly," answered Jane; "but bethink you, my lord,
what can I say to the people here? My sister is very ill. She was taken
last night with a fever, and now lies in a sorrowful state, and
constantly desires my presence. There are her husband and several
relatives to think of. What will they say if I incontinently depart?
Will not such conduct excite the very suspicion we most desire to
avoid?"
Lord Wilmot at once recognised the difficulty of her position, but his
quick wit suggested the remedy.
"Mistress Jane," he said, "supposing that at supper-time a note should
be brought to you purporting to come from your mother, saying that your
father is taken worse, and that she earnestly desires your return,
would that enable you to leave this house upon the morrow without
comment?"
Jane nodded her head. It was a time when men were put to all sorts of
strange expedients and stratagems. She had grown up in the thick of
them; and knew how gladly all her family would join in the plot that had
the King's welfare for its aim and object, though it was thought best to
keep the matter as far as possible secret.
Her sister was not in peril of her life, and had other relatives with
her. A summons from the aged father would weigh above all else; and when
the soft-footed Pope brought her the letter as she sat at supper, and
she read its contents half aloud, her flitting colour and fluttering
breath seemed to bespeak just that amount of natural emotion a daughter
was likely to feel.
"Bid William Jackson be ready to attend me on the morrow at daybreak,"
she said to Pope; and no one sought to stay or hinder.
So the brave young girl rode forth again with Charles in front as her
servant. With calm courage she passed her little party through the lines
of the Parliamentary soldiers whenever it was necessary; with ready and
dexterous wit, she answered all questions put to her; and on the evening
of the second day from leaving Abbotsleigh, she had the joy of seeing
Charles taken into the house of Colonel Wyndham, where it was thought
he would lie safely hid till a vessel could be chartered to take him
over to France.
"Sweet Mistress, how can I thank you for this good service?" asked
Charles, as she saw him on the following morning for a few brief
moments, ere she started forth for home once more--her task so bravely
accomplished.
"My reward is with me now, knowing your Majesty in present safety," she
answered; "the rest I shall receive when I hear of your safe arrival in
France."
"Nevertheless, sweet Mistress Jane," he said, speaking very earnestly,
"if the happy day should come when I return as King to this realm, where
I have so many brave and loyal friends, I will not forget those who have
aided me in this time of storm and stress and threatened peril!
Farewell; but something tells me that we shall meet again."
They did meet again. For the following year Jane was taken by her
brother to Paris, and quite unexpectedly encountered Charles in some
public place. He saw her instantly, and advancing, hat in hand, towards
her, exclaimed:
"Welcome, my life!"
And since Charles II. has often been charged with ingratitude towards
his friends, let it be said of him here that he showed a different
spirit towards the Lanes upon his restoration to power. He settled upon
Jane one thousand pounds for life, and half that amount upon her
brother the Colonel; also to the girl he gave a beautiful gold watch,
and a portrait of himself set round with pearls, which for generations
(until, in fact, they were mysteriously stolen and never heard of again)
were handed down as a precious family heirloom.
HELEN KOTTENNER
"To be a Queen, and a young Queen, and a widowed Queen in these stormy
times, and in these stormy lands! Ah, Helen, Helen, that is indeed no
light thing!"
"Indeed, madam, I know that it is not. I pray Heaven night and day for
your Majesty, that strength and help may be given you!"
"Thanks, thanks, my faithful Helen. Sometimes I feel I have no one about
me I can fully trust but thee. And oh, I have a load of care upon my
head! I need a faithful and devoted servant, and where can I turn to
find such an one?"
"Must that servant be a man, madam?" asked Helen. The sorrowful Queen
turned her gaze upon the speaker, as though she understood the drift of
the question.
"Ah, Helen, if we women were not such poor weak things!" she sighed,
bowed down by the weight of her troubles. But, after all, woman as she
was, the blood of kings ran in the veins of Elizabeth of Hungary, and
after a long lingering sigh she lifted her head, and the light came into
her eyes.
"Women are not always weak," spoke Helen, with a cautious glance in the
direction of the Queen's maidens at their tapestry work away at the
other end of the great hall. But they were laughing and chattering
amongst themselves, as girls will do, whatever be the century or the
surroundings; and then the eyes of the Queen and her lady met, and
Elizabeth paused and hesitated.
Helen Kottenner was the eldest and most trusted of her attendants, and
was devoted to her and to the little four-year-old daughter, the
Princess Elizabeth, called after her mother. Although little more than a
girl in years, Helen's life had been full of strange experiences and
many sorrows; so that she seemed to the young Queen to be a tower of
strength to her in her hour of perplexity and distress.
It was only a short while ago that her husband, King Albert, had died;
and although the crown had been bestowed upon him in right of his Queen
Elizabeth, yet so soon as she was left a widow, with only a little
daughter, the haughty Magyars, or nobles of Hungary, repudiated the idea
of being ruled over by a woman, and were casting about already to find
some husband for her, whom they could make up their minds to recognise
as King, in place of him who was dead.
"Helen," said the Queen, "thou dost know what the nobles are talking of.
Hast thou heard more than they tell me?"
"I have heard, madam, that a powerful party is in favour of sending an
embassy to King Wladislas of Poland, offering him the crown, together
with the hand of their widowed Queen!"
The young widow started to her feet in uncontrollable emotion, and then
as quickly sank back again.
"I have heard it too; but without my consent, without a word to me! They
talk, and talk, and plot, and seek to settle questions, to dispose of
the crown and a Queen's hand; and never so much as a word to her! 'Tis
infamous!--'tis infamous!"
"That would doubtless come later, madam," said Helen gently; "at present
they are scarce united among themselves."
"Then long may they remain so disunited!" cried the Queen, with energy.
"It is time that I want, Helen,--time!--time! When the child that the
good God is sending me is born, all may be different. I have prayed our
Blessed Lady--ah, how I have prayed!--that she will send me a little son
to reign in his father's stead. Verily I believe that she will hear my
prayer. And shall my boy's birthright be given away before that happy
day comes? Oh, the shame and injustice of it! I will not bear such a
thing to be done. But how can it be stopped? Would it be enough were I
to refuse, strenuously refuse, to have aught to say to such a marriage?"
Helen shook her head somewhat doubtfully.
"Madam, I fear, I greatly fear that it might not suffice. The wedding
might, indeed, be postponed till your Majesty's pleasure. But if the
Magyars once make up their mind, they will bring Wladislas hither and
crown him King with St. Stephen's crown; and once so crowned nothing can
change his right to rule, unless he grossly violate his coronation
oath."
"I know it! I know it!" cried the young Queen, in keen distress; "if
once that sacred circlet be placed upon his head, nothing can avail to
change the thing that has been done!"
Queen and lady looked full into each other's eyes. They both knew that
these words were the truth. In all the kingdom there was nothing so
sacred as that sacred crown. Once let it press the brows of any crowned
Prince, and his right was unchangeable and inalienable.
"You see, madam," continued Helen gently, "that the rule of an infant
would be well-nigh as irksome to the proud Magyars as that of a woman.
It may perchance be this very thing that is causing them to hasten to
some decision. An infant Prince might be a hindrance. A party might
gather--probably would gather--in his favour; and the land would be
distracted by faction, and, it may be, become imperilled from outside
adversaries such as Poland, Bohemia, or even the wily and cruel Turk.
Doubtless those who urge that the King of Poland be crowned King of this
realm too, think they are doing a service to their country, and perhaps
saving her from a bloody war."
"But are the rights of my child thus to be given away, ere we can claim
them for him?" cried the Queen indignantly. "Oh, Helen, Helen, dost thou
think this thing will be?"
"Indeed, madam, I fear it. All are not yet agreed; but every day there
come over fresh adherents to the cause. I trow before long they will
dispatch an embassy. But they will send first to know your Majesty's
pleasure!"
"My pleasure!" repeated the young Queen bitterly. "How much do they
think or care for that?"
"Indeed, madam, they are a wild and turbulent crew; and in very truth an
infant King might have a task he would be little able to perform----"
"Helen, Helen, thou art not counselling me to let this thing be without
protest?"
"Nay, madam, I would not dare to give such counsel. But I would remind
you how the thing will look in the eyes of the fierce and restless
Magyars."
The Queen sighed; her heart was full of bitterness and apprehension. A
weaker woman might have given way to what appeared the inevitable; but
Elizabeth was not a weak woman, and a mother will be brave for the
rights of her children, where she might be willing to cede her own.
It was only a few days before the dreaded news was formally made known
to her. Her nobles requested that she would give her hand in marriage to
the King of Poland, and thus unite the two territories, and give them a
King whom they would be ready to serve.
The young Queen's answer was slightly evasive. She promised to consider
the matter carefully; but since she had been so recently made a widow,
she begged that they would not press another husband upon her too
speedily.
With this reply they had to be content; but it did not stop them from
carrying on the negotiations with the neighbouring Prince on their own
account. They began to arrange at once for an embassy; and the Queen
heard words dropped from time to time that told her how much the matter
was looked upon as an accomplished fact.
"Helen," she cried, in deep excitement, when she had one day dismissed
her other ladies and was alone with her faithful friend, "Helen, you
know what they are already talking of now?"
Helen shook her head in sorrowful acquiescence.
"Alas! madam, they are talking already of bringing him here, and of
crowning him with St. Stephen's crown, and then of awaiting your
pleasure to wed him----"
"Ay, ay, the cowards! They think to force the thing on me! They think
that then I must needs do their pleasure! That, being Queen in my own
right, as truly I am, I must needs wed with him they will crown as King
to save my Royal station! Ah, how down-trodden and helpless are we poor
women! Who will come to our aid? They talk of the days of chivalry! But
where is true chivalry to be found?"
She paced up and down the room in her excitement; and then, suddenly
stopping before Helen, she said in low, deliberate, but very cautious
tones:
"Helen, thou hast said that they will crown him with St. Stephen's
crown. But supposing that that crown could not be found--what then?"
Helen started and looked hastily round her. Her eyes dilated like those
of the Queen, into which she was looking. The two young women stood
opposite to one another, breathing hard, and gazing, as if fascinated,
into each other's faces.
"How if the crown could not be found, Helen?" repeated the Queen, with
bated breath.
"Oh, madam, how could such a thing be?"
Deep silence reigned in the room. The Queen gradually recovered her
self-possession, and taking Helen's arm, walked back to the seat she had
quitted; she was trembling a little, but it was not with fear.
"Helen, I have thought and thought of this thing till it has become
strangely clear in my mind. If we could gain possession of this crown,
and hold it in trust, till we can have it placed upon the head of the
son whom our Blessed Lady will send me--oh, then, good Helen, all might
yet be well."
"But, madam, how can the crown be got at? Do not the nobles guard it as
the apple of the eye? Would it not be certain death if any were found
seeking to gain possession of it, even in the Queen's name?"
"Alas, Helen, it would! Whosoever seeks to do this thing takes his life
in his hand in so doing. And yet--and yet--God has watched over more
perilous undertakings even than this, and has brought them to a happy
end."
Helen looked into the Queen's eyes, and asked: "Madam, is it a task that
a woman may perform? Can Helen Kottenner accomplish this thing for her
Queen?"
The tears rushed to Elizabeth's eyes, as she cried:
"Oh, Helen, Helen, I verily believe that thou couldst do this
thing--with one faithful knight to help thee, if only thou didst dare to
adventure the peril thereof!"
Then the Queen rapidly unfolded her plan. The sacred crown was in the
vaults of the castle of Vissegrad, where the nobles had jealously
conveyed both it and the Queen upon her husband's death. The crown, with
other Royal treasures, was locked in a great iron-bound chest in a
vault beneath the castle, closely guarded by one or another of the
leading nobles of the kingdom. To attempt to reach the vault now, when
the castle was full of people, all more or less engaged in guarding the
Queen's person, was a manifest impossibility, although there was an
entrance to the vault from these very chambers, given over to her and
her maidens. But the nobles wished the Queen to change her place of
abode, and to remove her court to Presburg; and the thought had come to
her that if the crown and other Royal jewels were left behind, as seemed
probable, since no talk of moving them had reached her ears, then she
might make excuse to send back Helen, as though for something left
behind, to the comparatively deserted castle, and trust to her woman's
wit and skill and address to find a way of entering the vault, and
possessing herself of the coveted treasure.
For the Queen was possessed of a signet precisely like to the one with
which the chest was sealed; and she had keys which, it was believed,
might open some of the locks; and, if not, they could make provision
against such difficulties as that. If once Helen could gain possession
of the sacred crown, and carry it away from the power of the nobles, no
King could be set upon the throne of Hungary, and they would be forced
to await the Queen's pleasure. But it was a task before which even the
bravest heart might quail. Those were days when human life was held of
little count, and the fierce custodians of castle or vault would make
short work of any intruder found engaged in such a task as the one
proposed to Helen.
"They will kill you if they catch you, Helen," said the Queen, with a
little catch in her voice; but Helen's mind was now made up. The bold
blood of a soldier race ran in her veins. She was not to be turned from
her purpose by the promptings of fear.
It was absolutely necessary, however, that Helen should have at least
one assistant of the other sex, as the task of filing through locks and
bars would be more than her strength was equal to. The Queen had sought
to win one brave young noble to her service; but the first hint she
dropped of the mission desired from him had so alarmed him that he had
departed forthwith from the castle, leaving the Queen somewhat disturbed
in mind, though she felt confident the young knight would not betray
her.
Now, there was in the castle a young noble of Polish descent, who went
by the name of Pan Vilga. He had always shown a great admiration for the
beautiful Helen; and she believed that in him she would find one ready
to do her behests, and to adventure even life itself where her safety
was involved.
Cautiously she broke the matter to him, and was rewarded in the
confidence she had felt. As soon as he understood the perilous nature of
the task to which she had pledged herself, he took her hand, and
carrying it to his lips vowed to her that he would do everything in his
power to assist her in her dangerous mission; and told her that,
although he was a subject of King Wladislas, yet he regarded it as
nothing short of an outrage upon the Queen that her hand and her crown
should be thus bestowed without her consent. If they could in any way
hinder this conspiracy he would be ready to adventure life itself in the
good cause.
"And more than this, sweet lady. I have in my service a foster-brother,
of my own Christian name of Konrad, a fellow who will follow me
anywhere--and will do my bidding, asking no question, and be as silent
as the grave both then and afterwards. Indeed, he has so strange an
impediment in his speech that I think only I can understand his
mutterings. He is, moreover, a fellow of great size and strength, and
was brought up to the trade of a smith, till he followed my fortunes as
servant. Wherefore, the three of us may well contrive the thing
together; and the Queen may trust us to the death!"
All was now arranged for the journey. The Queen with Helen and the bulk
of the nobles, and the greater part of her ladies, removed themselves to
the castle of Komorn, the little Princess accompanying them. But some
few of the maids of honour were left behind to finish certain
arrangements; and Helen was to return for them in the course of a few
days, and bring them with her to the Queen.
When Helen returned to the lonely and now half-deserted castle, she
travelled by sledge, for the snows still lay deep on the roads, and the
Danube was frozen over. Her companions on the journey were an old woman
and the two faithful Konrads, who had been told off to escort the
remaining Queen's maidens to Komorn.
Meantime, the castle had been well-nigh deserted; and though it,
together with the precious chest in the vault, were in charge of a
sturdy seneschal, yet it so befell that on the day of their arrival this
worthy had fallen ill, and, instead of occupying his usual
sleeping-chamber that guarded the entrance to the vault, he had been
taken by his servants to a more commodious chamber some distance away.
"Sure our Blessed Lady is watching over us!" breathed Helen, when this
thing was known; for the great fear had been that when the conspirators
entered the vault through the door from the Queen's apartments, the
noise they must of necessity make would penetrate to the chamber of the
seneschal, and bring him and his soldiers raging into the vault; and
then, as they knew well, there would be no escape. Instant death might
as likely as not be their fate.