The Drost had been brought from the ladies' apartment to a remote and
quiet chamber, in the knights' story. Although he had sustained no
serious injury in his heavy fall, he was, however, shattered in every
limb, and unable to move. After a restorative bath, he had been carried
to his couch and had fallen asleep; but the harrowing anxiety which he
had endured so agitated his mind that it was impossible for him to
sleep soundly. At one time he dreamed he was wrestling with corpses in
dark graves, at another that he hovered over unfathomable abysses; but
the idea of the king's danger, and the pitfall under the staircase,
seemed to work most powerfully upon his imagination, and he frequently
exclaimed in his disturbed slumber, "Beware, my liege! Now opens the
grave under thy feet. Believe him not, believe him not, he is a
traitor!"
It was late in the evening. A lamp burned on the table in Aage's
chamber, and an aged, withered crone sat by his bed, muttering
constantly to herself with toothless gums and shaking head. The door
presently opened, and the king entered the darkened chamber,
accompanied by Count Henrik and Junker Christopher. The nurse instantly
withdrew, half in alarm, and with oft-repeated curtsey, without,
however, allowing herself to be interrupted in her mutterings, and
unconscious monologue. Junker Christopher and Count Henrik remained
standing at the entrance, where they conversed together in a low tone
and at intervals, of the chase and their horses, and of the large
antlers of the stag over the door, while the king approached the
Drost's couch, and drew the lamp forward on the table that he might
have a full view of his features. Aage appeared for a moment to be
sleeping soundly; but as the king stood by his couch, and with
sympathising sorrow bent over his handsome though pallid face, the
Drost suddenly opened his eyes and stared wildly before him. "Is it
thou, my liege?" he whispered; "art thou still living in this murderous
den? Beware! Believe him not!"
"Recollect thyself, my Aage, thou dreamest," said the king. "Thy
pious wish is fulfilled; I and my brother are reconciled. Look!
there he stands. He also wishes to see thee. The whole was a
misunderstanding--the desperate plan of a rebel--one of the outlaws'
race and friends. Be calm, my Aage; I am now a peaceful guest here with
my brother--We have drunk to reconciliation and brotherly fellowship
together--I have done him injustice also in the affair with Bruncke. I
will give him back both Holbek and Kallunborg. He is now to accompany
me on the expedition against the dukes."
"Noble, generous, kingly soul!" exclaimed Aage, seemingly quite roused
from his dreaming state. "Hath a word, hath a cup of wine effaced such
enmity and wrath? Now the Lord and our blessed Lady be praised! Love
healeth all wounds, and mercy is a precious virtue. _How_ great is now
thy love and clemency, my liege!" he continued, again somewhat wildly,
and as if half dreaming; "doth it extend even unto the outlaws and
their unhappy race--even unto Marsk Stig's kindred and children?"
"Ha! breathe not that accursed name, Aage," interrupted the king, with
stern vehemence; "_so_ far my clemency will never extend--Now sleep
well, my faithful Aage," he added, with his former mildness and
affection. "Think not on what it is best to forget--they tell me thou
art already out of danger, and can, perhaps, follow me to-morrow, or in
a few days."
"Where sleeps my liege to-night?" asked Aage, in an anxious voice, and
again gazing wildly around him.
"Close by thee, here in the knights' story; only be thou calm and sleep
in peace. I sleep under a brother's roof."
"Come, my royal brother," interrupted Christopher, hastily approaching
the couch, "speak no more with that sick dreamer, he is in a fair way
to infect you with his feverish phantasies."
"Good night, my Aage," said the king, pressing the Drost's hand as he
departed. "I will keep that I promised him," he said to the junker. "I
will sleep near him, here in the knights' story."
"As you command, my royal brother," answered the junker, with a cold
and bitter smile; and they left the sick chamber.
Count Henrik had also given his hand to Aage, and was about to follow
the king; but the Drost detained him for a moment, in a state of
painful anxiety. "Look, look!" he whispered, "there goes the murdered
King Eric with Junker Abel[2]; _they_ once were brothers! and, hark! a
flood roars beneath this castle. It is surely the bloody Slie,--take
heed!--take heed, that no misfortune happens here!"
"You have perturbed dreams, Drost Aage," said Count Henrik, letting go
Aage's fevered hand. "Sleep ye but in quiet; I watch." He then hastened
after the king and the junker; but first glanced out of the window, and
saw with secret horror, by the deepening star-light, a high, black
scaffold in the back court of the castle, without the knights' story.
He hastily drew the curtain before the window and departed; whereupon
the old nurse (still shaking and muttering) re-entered the Drost's
chamber. She was attired in the homely dress of a country burgher's
wife; her eyes were large and sunken, and her pale, emaciated visage
greatly resembled that of a corpse. With a distaff and a rosary in her
hand, she resumed her station by the Drost's couch before the lamp,
which she drew aside, that it might not shine in the face of the
patient. All was now soon quiet in this wing of the castle, which only
comprised the sleeping apartments of the knights. Aage lay long
listening in anxiety. In the unusual stillness of the evening, however,
a distant sound as of lutes and mirthful songs reached his ear.
"What is that?" he asked, raising his head with pain and difficulty.
"There is merriment in the knights' hall, noble sir! yes in troth! that
there is," answered the nurse; "our stern junker hath caused minstrels
and jugglers to be fetched from the town. There is no lack either of
mead or sweet wine, that knoweth the precious Lord in heaven! He drinks
to friendship with his brother, they say. Alack yes!" she added, "the
great can be merry, doubtless, and leave care to the fiddle; ay! ay!
when they quarrel among themselves, it all falls on the small! yes, in
troth! does it--all falls on the small. My departed husband was, by my
troth, doomed to death, in the great Marsk Stig's feud--alack yes! by
my troth was he, he was but a poor man, I must tell ye: _he_ had
neither knightly nor princely honour to swear himself free with, like
the high-born junker; no, by my troth! had he not, that was the whole
mishap. There sits now our old commandant in the tower--ay! ay! he will
hardly see sun or moon more; they say he is to be executed to-night;
alack yes! and yesterday he was master here at the castle; yes, in
troth! was he so, but so goeth it in the world; alack yes."
"Executed?" repeated Aage; "the Lord have mercy on his soul; the king
is strict and hasty: ha! but knew he?----"
"He doubtless knew, what we all know, that his high-born brother hath
borne false witness," sighed the old woman; "but what care the great
about cutting off an insignificant head, when they would save their
own? The law must have its course--yes, in troth! that it must, _one_
head doubtless must fall, after such a commotion and uproar, but the
junker's is placed too high, I trow! 'What should great lords keep
servants for, if they could not wash themselves clean in their blood?'
said my departed husband, when he was executed; yes, in troth! said he
so, the blessed soul--But see now if ye can get to sleep, noble young
sir! that is assuredly best for you. I talk mayhap rather too much:
'tis my bosom sin, they say--yes, by my troth! one talks too little,
and another too much; was there no such thing as talk, no poor man
would talk himself over to the evil one, and no high-born rogue would
talk himself from the gallows."
"I must speak with the king," burst forth Aage, with eagerness, and
vainly strove to rise, but his strength entirely forsook him, and he
fell back in a swoon. The old nurse thought he slept, and indeed he
soon appeared to have fallen into a kind of slumber. The nurse looked
at him several times, with the lamp in her hand, and nodded, as she
continued to chatter to herself; "Ay! ay! a good honest face, in
troth!" she muttered. "But who is honest in this sinful world? he
consorts with the great,--ay! ay! and those good folk one should never
believe--no in troth, one should never believe. He would have spoken
with the king--yes, forsooth! when it is question of saving a poor
devil's life, and telling the king that his brother is a rogue and
traitor; then such a fine courtier fellow swoons or falls asleep, till
it is too late. Wake up, Sir Knight! wake up!" She shook him in vain;
"Alack! I verily believe it is death's sleep,--well then he is excused:
after such a fall and being battered into a pudding, there can
doubtless be no great life in him--he draws breath though, I believe!
yes, in troth he does! Youth is strong, perhaps nature will help
herself--Hark! now they follow the king to bed," she continued, and
listened: "he will surely sleep close by here, ay! ay! This is his
favourite servant, this same Drost. Weil, the Lord keep his hand over
the king! he means well by us all; yes, in troth he does--alack yes!
even though he should doom many a poor devil to death--but indeed
that's his business--it is therefore he is king. He upholds law and
justice, yes in troth! and makes, besides, no difference between high
and low. Should he now have doomed to death his own brother according
to the flesh? That would have been too hard--yes, in troth, would it;
he is after all but a man, and who is just in all things in this sinful
world? Ay, ay! but the junker--alack, yes! The Lord preserve us from
him--if we get _him_ for a king, it will be a bad look-out--yes, in
troth will it! alack, yes!" Thus she muttered to herself, and nodded
beside the lamp until she fell asleep in the arm-chair. It might be
somewhat past midnight, when Drost Aage awoke, strengthened in body,
and refreshed by the deep sleep, caused by exhaustion, which seemed to
have given a favourable turn to his illness. He was still, however, in
a feverish state; he looked around him with surprise, and appeared not
to know where was. The pale sleeping nurse, beside the lamp, seemed to
him, as the light faintly lit up her emaciated visage, like a sitting
corpse. He half arose and stared fixedly at her; he remarked signs of
strong agitation in her deathlike face; her toothless gums mumbled, but
without any sound; it appeared as though she wished to speak, but had
not the power to utter a word. It seemed to him, as if he now beheld
what he had often heard and read of in ancient sagas and poems of olden
time. The dark vaulted chamber in his imagination was a subterranean
prophet's cave, and the old mumbling crone a dead prophetess, on whose
tongue Runic letters had been laid to cause her to prophesy.[3] He
tried to rise and the attempt succeeded; his shattered limbs were
strengthened and pliant. He wrapped the white woollen coverlet around
him, and soon stood listening on the floor, and gazing on the old
woman's visage. "Whom talkest thou with?--corpse! what dost mumble of
in thy grave?" he whispered, and she moved her mouth still faster.
"Murder, murder!" she exclaimed, at length, in audible words. "Hark,
hark! now his head falls before the axe."
At the same instant Aage actually heard with dismay a sound outside the
window, as of the stroke of an axe; he rushed forward, and pulled aside
the curtain. The light of a number of torches glared on him from the
back court of the castle. He saw with horror, a body of men-at-arms
surrounding a scaffold, on which stood an executioner with a bloody
head in his hand. A cold shudder came over Aage; he knew not, as yet,
whether he waked or dreamed; he stood speechless, as if rooted to the
spot, and gazed on the horrid sight; a low chant fell on his ear, and
he beheld a crowd of Franciscan monks advance under the scaffold with a
black coffin. Among the spectators he recognised Junker Christopher's
dark countenance, strongly lit up by a torch. The bloody head fell from
the executioner's hand, and it seemed to him, to his inexpressible
horror, to be the king's; he staggered back and overturned the table
with the lamp. The old woman waked in affright, and shrieked loudly;
but Aage rushed out of the chamber, into the dark passage, in
indescribable consternation. "Murdered!--the king murdered!" was the
cry of his inmost soul; but no word passed his lips; he went on, like a
sleep-walker, with staring eyes, not knowing whither he was going.
"Here he was to sleep--here close by me,"--he thought, and stopped at a
side door. He had already extended his hand to open it, when he saw a
light, and heard footsteps at a distance in the passage. The door
beside which he stood, was enclosed between two pillars projecting from
the wall--he stopped behind one of the pillars, and kept his eye on the
light in the passage. It approached slowly, and often stopped; at last
it came so near that he could see, it was carried by a tall figure in a
dark mantle. The light fell only on the lower part of the shrouded
form; his walk was tottering and hesitating; a large sword glittered
under his mantle. The figure came nearer and nearer; but with stealthy
and almost noiseless steps. At last it advanced close to the pillar,
behind which Aage stood, and paused again. The light was now; raised,
while the shrouded bearer looked around him on all sides, and the light
fell on a long and wildly glaring visage--it was Junker Christopher.
"Ha! fratricide! regicide!" shouted Aage, in a frenzy, and rushed out
upon him.
With a cry of alarm the junker let fall the light, and sprang backward.
"Murder! help! a madman!" he shouted, and drew his sword.
Amid this noise the door between the pillars opened, and Count Henrik
stepped forth with a light. "What is the matter here?" he asked
eagerly, but in a low tone. "Who dares to wake the king?"
"The king! the king!" exclaimed Aage, with inexpressible joy, "he
lives?--the Lord be praised! it was then but a dreadful dream! but saw
I not the junker here?"
"Yes, assuredly, thou saw'st him, madman!" cried the junker, returning
his sword into the sheath. "Had you not come out. Count Henrik, I
should have cut that mad fellow down on the spot. He fell upon me here,
with a wild incoherent speech, as I was stealing softly to my chamber
that I might not wake the king. If I see aright, it is the chivalrous
Sir Drost, who is walking in his sleep, or would play the ghost. One
would think my castle was turned into a madhouse."
"A _singular_ adventure, noble Junker," said Count Henrik, gazing with
a penetrating look on his perturbed countenance. "Our good Drost is
sick, as you know, and hath disquiet fevered dreams," he added in a
light courtier-like tone. "He must in his phantasies have taken you for
a murderer and traitor; but you must excuse him; his loyalty and
devotion for your royal brother are alone to blame for it."
"You come from an execution, Sir Junker!" said Aage, whose
self-possession was now fully restored; "it was, I presume, your
unhappy commandant, who so ill underwood your order and will?"
"Right!" answered the prince; "he hath got his well-merited wages--the
presumptuous madman! but madness spreads here, I perceive."
"Your highness's imagination hath surely also been at work," continued
Aage, "since my dreams could scare you thus. I beseech you meanwhile
graciously to pardon me for stopping you just beside _this_ door. It
was, perhaps, however, a lucky chance; you might easily have made a
mistake between your own and the king's sleeping chamber."
"Go to thy couch, madman!" replied the junker, with gloomy harshness,
and with his hand on his sword. "You dream as yet it seems to me, and
might deserve to be wakened by my good sword--One should bind and shut
up a visionary and dreamer like you when one would have a quiet night:"
so saying, he hastily snatched his candle, which Count Henrik had taken
up from the floor and lighted, and the junker went with rapid strides
through the next side door into his own sleeping apartment.
"I have a fearful suspicion," whispered Aage to Count Henrik; "but I
was ill and over-excited--I may be wrong: it is too dreadful to think
of--Let it not disturb the king's peace."
"What you mean, Drost, I am also loth to think of," answered the count,
"though after what hath here happened, almost every thing is possible.
Come, let us stay here together to-night."
They then both entered the door between the pillars, and all was soon
perfectly quiet at the castle.
The next morning early the king and his men rode out of the burnt and
dilapidated gate of Kallundborg castle. Count Henrik, Margrave
Waldemar, and Junker Christopher accompanied him on horseback, together
with his fifty knights, and a numerous troop of lancers. Drost Aage
followed slowly behind in a litter, borne by two horses. He was far
from recovered from the effects of his dangerous fall, but was not to
be kept back.
The king and his brother rode in silence through the town, at some
distance from their train. "Thou hast surely wished to take from me the
desire of being oftener thy guest at Kallundborg, Christopher!" said
the king in a gloomy, dissatisfied mood, as they rode slowly up the
hill to St. George's hospital, and looked back on the castle and town.
"I have used thy fair castle gate badly it is true; some broken pates,
too, I have left behind me; but neither didst _thou_ prepare me any
fair spectacle at my mattins."
"What! the criminal on the wheel?" muttered Christopher. "Hath his head
said good morning to you from the stake? The fault was not mine: that
unpleasant sight would have been kept from your eyes, but you yourself
chose your sleeping apartment with that unsightly prospect. To say
truth, my royal brother," he added in an upbraiding tone, "you seemed
to me to require _proof_ that there was no manner of doubt in this
case."
"That word then sounded ill to thee," answered the king. "Understood'st
thou me not? There might be a doubt of the criminal's sanity, but not
of his miscreant deed; there might be a doubt of the ambiguity of thy
commands to him, without there being the slightest doubt of thy
meaning, as thou didst explain it to me on thy knightly word. Only on
that ground did I make over to thee my privilege of pardon, together
with the power of confirming the sentence: there was no need, either,
to hasten with the execution of the bloody doom."
"It was needful to decide the matter ere you left the castle," replied
Christopher eagerly. "I, for my part, had no ground for doubt. I have
shown I feared not to witness the fall of the traitor's head, as your
Drost can affirm, if he hath come to his senses."
"He is now quite collected," answered the king. "I know he walked in
his sleep last night, and gave thee a start by my door."
"Ay, indeed! hath he told you of that pleasant adventure!" said the
junker, starting and changing colour. "Had he been in his right senses,
I would have demanded that he be declared infamous for the audacious
outrage."
"As I have heard the circumstance, he is excused: thy alarm he hath
also accounted for to me."
"How mean ye?" asked Christopher, in the greatest anxiety.
"Truly, it is not good to return to one's couch with such a bloody
spectacle before one's eyes," said the king, with not unsympathising
glance at the junker pale and agitated countenance. "Be not ashamed of
it, Christopher! mayhap it does thy heart honour--Thou wert sick at
heart, and greatly moved by the sight of thine aged servant's execution
Aage supposed. I see myself how it hath taken hold on thee. It is the
first death-warrant thou hast sealed--I know by experience such acts
excite peculiar and painful feelings."
As the king said these words the junker's countenance seemed suddenly
to brighten, and he again breathed more freely. "In truth, my royal
brother," he said, hastily while a deep crimson flush succeeded to his
former paleness, "the stupid fellow was a brave man, notwithstanding!
It was not the most agreeable duty you put upon me. I was in some sort
a party concerned; but I was perfectly right; no one could know my
criminal servant as well as I; and the sentence was passed according to
law and justice, by impartial men. Your Drost is an excellent knight,"
he added, "but somewhat disposed to be visionary: he is devoted to you,
however, and I have nought against him, on account of his foolish
dreamings."
Count Henrick and Margrave Waldemar now approached the royal brothers,
and the conversation turned on indifferent topics. The procession
proceeded on the road to Korsoer, from whence the king intended to
cross the Belts, in order to join the Marsk, and the forces which were
to march against the turbulent dukes of Slesvig.
At the famous sea-fight of Groensund, the young King Eric had gained a
decided victory over these haughty princes, who frequently sought to
withdraw their allegiance to the Danish crown, and since the regicide
of Eric Glipping had secretly, as well as openly, made common cause
with the foes of the country and the outlawed regicides. By this
victory the king had indeed gained a high reputation with the dukes as
well as with the neighbouring northern powers, and the princes of north
Germany; but the quarrel with the archbishop and the Romish see, and
still more the king's excommunication at Sjoeborg, had given all his
foes courage, and renewed their hopes of shaking his throne, and
frustrating his bold projects. It was feared, not without reason, that
the young high-spirited King of Denmark, who now appeared as though he
would defy ban and interdict, might possibly have a desire to regain
the influence and power won by the great Waldemar the Victorious in
Germany. That monarch's chivalrous character, and the lustre his
conquests had shed on the Danish name, seemed early to have inspired
his bold descendant with the wish to tread in the paths of his renowned
ancestor, and a glorious reputation like that of Waldemar the
Victorious was assuredly the secret wish of Eric's heart, though he
lived in a time and under circumstances which demanded no ordinary
degree of power and wisdom, in a sovereign, even to save the country
from downfall, and preserve his own life and crown.
The renewed demands of the dukes, and the revival of long-accommodated
differences, but, especially, tidings of the outlaws having again found
protection and shelter in Slesvig, had in a great measure induced the
king to take up arms; and since the archbishop's flight, he had become
much more precipitate than formerly, and more inclined to carry every
thing through by the strong hand. The people well knew but cheerfully
tolerated Eric's youthful and often impetuous eagerness, and his liking
for chivalrous pomp. His firmness of purpose was indeed often called
obstinacy; and it was admitted he was not altogether free from an
excessive love of show, but from his childhood he had been the people's
darling, and such he continued to remain.
This breach with the dukes appeared to many to be rash and
inconsiderate; but the king's wrath was deemed justifiable, and the
public mind was calmed by the belief that with all his impetuosity he
had too much love for his people, and possessed too much sound policy
not to spare the blood of his warriors, and the scanty revenues of his
country, could he, sword in hand, honourably negotiate. The calm,
thoughtful Drost Aage contributed not a little to restrain the king's
vehemence, and now that Eric's older and more experienced counsellors,
the aged Jon Little and Drost Hessel were absent, the greater number and
most peaceably minded of the people rejoiced to see Drost Aage in the
king's train. The Drost's suffering state, and the perilous adventure
which had caused it, which was daily exaggerated by rumour, with the
most marvellous additions, attracted towards him the sympathy and
admiration of the lower classes. Those especially who had before
shunned him as an excommunicated man, now mourned over his misfortune,
since the king himself shared the same fate. The energetic and warlike
Count Henrik of Mecklenborg, with his bold commanding glance, also
found favour with the people, who looked up to him with confidence. He
and Aage were often received with animated shouts of acclamation, while
a dumb and almost timorous courtesy was, on the contrary, shown to the
gloomy Junker Christopher; and the foreign Margrave Waldemar, who
always rode by the junker's side, was looked on as a half suspicious
guest, whose presence might well be dispensed with. Wherever the
procession passed, the young chivalrous monarch himself was received
with the most loyal demonstrations of the people's affection, which had
been more than ever called forth by the knowledge of the ecclesiastical
persecution he then endured. Even the much dreaded lightnings of
excommunication seemed transformed into a halo of martyrdom around the
head of Eric, the avenger of his father, and the defender of the
throne; especially as the greater and most estimable part of the Danish
clergy boldly declared his cause to be just and honourable.
The sorrow and displeasure which it was known had been caused the king
by his brother the junker's suspicious conduct had still more increased
the sympathy of the people for him.
"For Eric, the youthful king!" was the general salutation, when all
hats and caps waved in the air in his honour. "Away with the red hat
from Rome! Away with all traitors! King Eric! and none other!" often
resounded as he rode through the crowded street. "Long live Princess
Ingeborg! Long live the king's true love!" also shouted many a merry
bachelor. Where this salutation greeted the king, his own greeting
became doubly kind and gracious. "Thanks, good people! thanks!" he
answered cheerfully, and waved his hand; "if the Lord and our blessed
Lady will it so, you shall see her here as your queen in the summer!"