HOW BARON EVERHARDT WAS OUTLAWED, AND HOW WULF HEARD OF THE BABY IN THE
OSIERS
One bright morning, not long after Wulf had climbed the ivy tower, there
came to the Swartzburg a herald bearing a message whereat Baron
Everhardt laughed long and loud. So also laughed the youngerlings of the
place, when the thing came to be noised among them; albeit two or three,
and in especial Wulf and Hansei, who was now head groom, laughed not,
but were sore troubled.
The baron had been declared an outlaw.
For an emperor now ruled in Germany, and good folk had begun to dare
hope that the evil days might be drawing to a close. The new emperor was
none other than Rudolf of Hapsburg, he who had been count of that name,
and since coming to the throne he had bent his whole mind and strength
to the task of bringing peace and good days to the land, and order and
law within reach of the unhappy common folk whose lives were now passed
in hardship and fear.
To this end the Emperor Rudolf had early sent to summon all of the
barons and the lesser nobles of the land to come to his help against the
rebel counts Ulric and Eberhard of Würtemberg, who had joined with King
Ottakar of Bohemia to defy the new ruler. The head of the Swartzburg had
been summoned, with the others, but, filled with contempt for “the poor
Swiss count,” as he dubbed the emperor, had defied him, and tore up the
summons before the eyes of the herald who brought it.
Nevertheless, in spite of the refusal of nearly all the nobles to aid
their emperor, the latter had, with his own men, gone against the two
rebel counts and their kingly ally, and had beaten their armies and
brought them to sue for peace. Now he was turning his attention to the
larger task of putting fear of the law and of rightful authority into
the hearts of the robber nobles.
Of these a goodly number were already declared outlaws, and now the
baron’s turn had come. Moreover, one of the men of the Swartzburg, who
had ridden beyond the mountains on a matter for the Herr Banf, had
ridden back with word that the emperor, with a strong army, was already
out against the outlawed strongholds, and meant soon to call at the
Swartzburg.
“And a warm welcome shall we give this new emperor of ours,” boasted
Conradt, on the castle terrace. “Emperor, forsooth! By the rood! Count
Rudolf will have need of all his Swiss rabble if he would bring the
Swartzburg’s men to knee before him!”
A chorus of assent greeted this speech. For once his hearers listened
respectfully to the baron’s nephew. Right eager were all the young men
for the fray that was threatening; and so great was their contempt for
the emperor that they could see for it but one outcome.
“But that his Austrians were in revolt and his army divided,” declared
one, “King Ottakar had never yielded to the Swiss. He of Hapsburg will
find it a harder matter to yoke the German barons.” And all his hearers
nodded assent to the bragging speech.
What Baron Everhardt, at council with his knights, thought of the
outlook, not even Conradt, among those on the terrace, rightly knew; but
a few hours later, by orders sent out through the stewards and the
masters of arms and horse, the routine of the castle was being put upon
a war footing, to the joy of the eager young men. All were busy, each at
his own line of duty, in the work of preparation for battle, and, to
Wulf’s delight, it fell to his lot to fare down the valley to the forge
on an errand for Herr Werner, whose man he was.
It was a matter of some weeks since Wulf had seen Karl, and glad was he
now to be going to him; for in his own mind he was sore perplexed in
this matter of the new emperor’s proclamation of the baron, and he
longed for the armorer’s wise and honest thought about it all.
“Thou hast seen this emperor of ours?” he said, as he sat curled, after
his childish wont, in the doorway of the smithy, whence he could look,
at will, within at the forge, or without adown a long green aisle of the
forest.
“Ay,” said Karl, proudly; “his own man-at-arms was I, as thou knowest,
and that was on the holy war. Served him have I, and gripped his
hand—the hand of an honest man and a sore needed one in this land
to-day.”
“Dost think he can master the barons?” the boy asked, and Karl looked
troubled.
“These be ill times for thought, boy,” he said, “and worse for speech;
but the emperor is ruler in the land, and if he bring not order into our
midst, then in truth are the scoffers wise, and God hath forgotten us up
in heaven.”
“Would I were of his train!” Wulf said quickly, and silence fell between
them, during which the boy sat gazing, with troubled eyes, adown between
the black trunks of the great trees. Karl, watching him, gathered
rightly that he was worried as to his duty.
“An he be in truth the emperor by will of the people, and not alone of
him at Rome,” Wulf added at last, “then are all true men who love
Germany bound to come to his banner.”
“Ay.” Karl thrust the iron he was welding deep into the glowing coals of
the forge.
“But I am of the Swartzburg’s men; and how may I be an honest one and
fail at this moment when every blade is needed?”
“’Tis hard,” Karl said, “and that only thine own heart can teach thee.”
He brought his hammer down upon the glowing iron till it sent out a
shower of sparks. “No man may show another what honest action may be;
but perhaps thou’rt nearer being the emperor’s man than the baron’s,
were the truth known. An I guess rightly, ’twere ill faring if one of
thy line raised blade against Rudolf of Hapsburg.”
The armorer muttered this half in his beard, nor looked at Wulf as he
spoke.
“Nay, Karl,” the boy cried sharply; “make me no more riddles, but speak
out plainly, man to man. What is this that thou hast ever held from me?
What meanst thou by any line of mine?”
“Alas!” said the armorer, sadly. “Naught know I, in truth, and there’s
the heartbreak. ’Tis a chain of which some links are missing, and ill
work is it to make that blade fitten again. Would to God I did know,
that I might speak of a surety that which my heart is settled upon. But
this that I do know shalt thou hear to-day.” And coming over by the
doorway, Karl took seat upon the great chest near by, and fell to
telling Wulf of that which we already know—of his trip to the Swartzburg
a dozen years before, and how he had taken him from the osiers.
“Never saw I that knight, nor naught dared I ever ask of him; but slain
was he by Herr Banf, and was no noise ever made of who he was. Only this
I know: that the sword Herr Banf gave me to put in order had been that
stranger’s, and none other was it than one forged by these own hands for
Count Wulfstanger of Hartsburg when he rode with Count Rudolf to
Prussia, and he was our emperor’s heart’s friend. Three swords made I at
that time, alike in temper and fashion; and one was for Count
Wulfstanger, one was his who is now emperor, and one I kept and brought
with me to this place—” Karl halted just here, but Wulf was too taken
with the tale to note that.
“But thou knowest not that aught had I to do with that stranger knight,”
he urged, longing for Karl’s answer.
“That do I not. But, lad, thou’rt fair like my Lord Bernard, as his own
son might be; and tell me, how camest thou in the osiers just at that
time? Oh, I have worn thin my poor wits over this thing. But naught have
I been able to learn or guess. I did what I might, and if ever thou
comest to thine own, and thine own be what I think—ah, boy, thou’rt fit
for it!” And the old armorer’s face shone with loving pride as his eyes
took in the figure in the doorway.
“I can bear arms and sit a horse and hold mine honor clean,” said Wulf,
simply. “But oh, Karl, fain would I know the rights of this matter.”
He sighed, his thoughts going back to the castle, and to the memory of a
fair small hand fluttering a ribband down over the heads of a rabble of
scrambling youths. Truly the tinker’s lad, if such he was, was looking
high.
“I wish that I might see that sword,” he said at last.
“That thou mayest.”
The armorer arose from his seat on the chest, and turned toward the
cupboard; but just then there showed, riding out from the forest and up
to the door of the forge, two or three riders whom Wulf knew to be from
Conradt’s mongrel band of thieves and cutthroats.
They had with them a matter of work that, he quickly saw, would keep
Karl busy for an hour or two; so, mindful of his errand and of the need
to get back to the Swartzburg, where so great things were toward, he
arose from the doorway.
What of loyalty and duty his mind might fix upon at last, he knew not
yet; but the thought of one who in the trouble to come might be in
danger drew him like a magnet. So, bidding Karl good-by, he went his
way.
His mind was full of confused thoughts as he fared through the forest,
and how long he had been walking he knew not when suddenly he heard a
whistling twang, and an arrow speeding close past his head lodged in a
tree not a foot from him.
Turning quick as flash, his eye caught sight of a fleeing figure beyond
the nearest trees, and without an instant’s halt Wulf sped after the
runner.
He was fleet of foot, and not many moments was it ere he was up with his
cowardly foe, and catching him by the shoulder with one strong hand, he
whirled the fellow about and stood face to face with Conradt.
The hunchback had thrown away his bow and arrows the better to run, and
now put hand to sword; but ere he could draw, Wulf put forth one long
leg and tripped him up, so that he lay upon his back on the turf,
glaring up at Wulf, whose face glowed with unwonted anger and whose
sword’s point was at the breast of the prostrate ill-doer.
“Thou again?” he asked, when he had looked Conradt well over. “And what
wouldst have this time? What thou’rt likely to get is a quick shriving,”
he added.
There was no reply.
“What wast after?” Wulf persisted.
“Thy life,” was the defiant answer. “To let thy tinker blood out—and to
get the ribband ye stole.”
“Softly,” the other said. “That were an ugly word an any one heard it.
My life thou’rt not likely to get; as for the ribband, ’tis as much mine
as the other, and I am minded to keep both.”
Conradt’s only reply was a muttered curse; but his eyes rolled shiftily,
glancing askance adown the woods, as seeking help.
“If thou’rt looking for thy cutthroats,” Wulf said, “they’re back at the
forge, and likely to stay there an hour or so yet. Meantime, my pretty
fellow,” he asked wrathfully, “what shall I do to thee?”
A look of sullen despair crept over the hunchback’s face.
“Thou’lt do what is in thee,” he snarled at last—“as I did with thee.”
Wulf raised his sword; but looking down upon the fellow who would have
slain him, he saw his ill-shapen body and distorted face, and noted the
lurking fear in his restless eyes, and because it was in him to be
pitiful and generous, his heart stirred with compassion, and he could
not smite the creature lying there. Slowly his hands fell until the
point of his sword rested upon the ground; then he spurned the figure
lightly with his toe.
“Get thee up and be off,” he said. “An thou bidest long here, it may not
go so well with thee, after all.”
Rolling over upon his face, Conradt sprang to his feet and slunk away,
curlike, into the forest. His life had been spared, but the beast that
dwelt within his bad heart was not tamed. He had been given another
chance, such as the strong may give the weak, whether the weakness be of
body or of soul, so the strong yet ward his own strength; but this he
was too base to know, but deemed that fear had held Wulf’s hand; so that
he was not helped at all by the mercy that had spared him.
As for Wulf, he gave the meeting scant thought as he went on his way.
The weightier matters that pressed upon his brain kept mind and heart
engaged while he journeyed; but his duty seemed no clearer to him when
he had reached the castle than it had done at the forge with Karl.