MISTRESS AND ENEMY.
There had been two human obstacles to the advance of Gustavus Adolphus.
One was George William, Elector of Brandenburg, whose fortresses of
Custrin and Spandau, held by any one but Gustavus, were awkward things
in the way of a retreat, if the Swede had to make one. George William
was very averse to the Edict. Magdeburg was one of the pearls of his
principality. But not being sure that Gustavus was strong enough to beat
the Emperor, he shilly-shallied. Gustavus in his impetuous way had
appeared at the gates of Berlin with a bodyguard of Swedes armed and
trained to a fine point. George William saw them and hesitated no
longer. Custrin and Spandau were lent to his friend Gustavus.
The advance of Gustavus southward was thus secured till he should come
to the Elbe, and across fine flat country suitable for such a march.
Once across the Elbe, he would be between Tilly and the Emperor. He
would also be in Saxony.
But the obvious crossings of the Elbe were at the bridge of Dessau and
the bridge of Wittenburg, both in the hands of the Elector of Saxony,
John George.
John George had not made up his mind. He was an Elector of the Empire.
He was also prince of a large territory. And the southern march of his
lands was also the march of Bohemia, and the south-west was the upper
Palatinate in the hands of Maximilian since the days of the Winter King.
He was also averse to Edicts and in favour of the pure Gospel as
represented by Lutheranism. But like the young man in the days of the
founder of the original Gospel, he had great possessions.
Unlike his brother Elector of Brandenburg, he was not liable to a sudden
nocturnal visit from the impetuous Gustavus, since a very large and
populous country lay between, but, apart from such forcible persuasion,
the policy of Saxony was not as yet to break from the Emperor. In the
days of the Winter King he had refrained from joining in the mad
escapades of the Protestants. He had no desire to do so now. Neither was
he inclined to bow to the Edict. And to meet the urgent demands of the
Emperor on that head, he had bethought himself of the strong man armed.
He had armed accordingly. Through the kindly offices of Wallenstein, who
was not unwilling to see the Saxons arming, he had been able to secure a
good Lutheran general--one Arnim, who, like his old captain,
Wallenstein, was without a command. The Elector of Saxony had forty
thousand soldiers in spick and span new uniforms getting drilled by
Arnim. But whether they would ultimately fight Gustavus, or merely grow
fat and well-liking under the pay and treatment of Arnim, and never
fight at all, John George was not at present sure.
There was the situation. Gustavus was entrenched in a fortified camp at
Werben, where the Havel joins the Elbe, sixty miles north of Magdeburg,
with smaller forces holding Spandau on the Havel and Custrin on the
Oder, a line of a hundred and fifty miles from west to east. Tilly and
Pappenheim (Maximilian's Pappenheim) were near Magdeburg. And sixty
miles south of Magdeburg were the brand-new forty thousand of John
George.
Colonel Nigel Charteris had seen enough in his journey to hasten his
march northward to Tilly. From all directions he heard that the
Landgrave of Hesse was marching to join Gustavus. And the news of the
preparations of John George had reached Eisenach. The whole of Thüringia
was in ferment.
But the reason of Nigel's uncommon haste down the hill to his camp
outside Eisenach was on account of that curious ambassador, Count von
Teschen. Nigel feared some mischance. Ottilie! Star Ottilie had said ...
what matter? Nigel galloped into camp. Hildebrand handed him his own
order brought earlier that morning by his own trooper, attended by one
of the Landgrave's huntsmen--
"_Send the Count to the Wartburg under escort._
"#Nigel Charteris.#"
The colonel made a gesture of annoyance.
"A good imitation, Hildebrand! Confound him! The best thing we can do is
to get on to Erfurt."
And on the road to Erfurt he had leisure to blame himself for listening
to her whom he omitted to "confound."
One does not commit to the nether gods the woman one has kissed, and
kissed in a very paroxysm of passion, whether she would be kissed or
not--the woman who has let her scarf flutter an adieu to one, the
affront notwithstanding, as one rode away. Not even when she has tricked
the affronter of a prisoner, an emissary of a traitor, who has sent the
woman a letter full of ... the nether gods know what, treason or love.
What part was she playing in the political intrigue? It was clear that
she had recognised the Count von Teschen as the hand of Wallenstein,
that she knew him to be essential, so far as his possibilities went, to
the furtherance of Wallenstein's designs. There might easily be a dozen
Count von Teschens, foxes with firebrands at their tails, rushing hither
and thither, but foxes that knew their business and the right
cornfields, and how themselves to escape the flames that they spread.
Nigel's own sense of duty permitted him no sympathy with Wallenstein.
Yet he could understand how Wallenstein, bereft of his command, hoping
nothing more from the Catholics, impatient of inaction, unable to bear
the loss of prestige, more akin in spirit to the great captains of
_condottieri_ that had ravaged Italy, indifferent which prince they
fought for, how such a Wallenstein might endeavour to curry favour with
the Protestant princes rather than rust like an old ploughshare. It was
intelligible, but only as the work of a man without gratitude, without
loyalty, without any conviction of his religion.
And what part was Ottilie playing? She was a Catholic. So was
Wallenstein. She had friends among the Protestant princes. So had many
members of Catholic families. She had gone so far as almost to
jeopardise her life, and, what was more, her honour, in the siege of
Magdeburg. To what had she trusted then to deliver her? She must indeed
have been full of the ecstasy of religion if she supposed that God, who
must have approved of the Catholic cause, would shield her in the midst
of carnage and the glutting of lust which had strewn the ruins of
Magdeburg with the bodies of the violated. Nigel had surprised her in
the cathedral at Erfurt at her devotions. But even then, and especially
in that walk afterwards together, he had not read her as devout; rather
as a woman intensely capable, self-sufficing, made for love but not
awakened to it, with the respect and instinct for religion that every
woman should possess as part of her endowment.
Then she had spoken of Wallenstein, and he could recall her tones,
proud, indignant: "What think you that Ottilie von Thüringen can have in
common with that cold seeker after power?"
Yet she had stood by him, Nigel, full of taunts as he ransacked von
Teschen's saddle-bags, knowing that, or at least expecting, that he
would find a letter for her under Wallenstein's own hand and seal.
Was the Erfurt episode a piece of acting, and was she then Wallenstein's
mistress, or bound to him by some tie of chivalry, some mimicry of the
romances of Torquato Tasso?
Mistress? At the very thought Nigel dug his spurs so savagely into his
horse that the animal, disgusted and outraged, performed such a curvet
as nearly threw him. No! Such supreme and noble loveliness had never
soiled its freshness by any breath of desire! This Nigel would have
sworn, and made good his oath, as any paladin of old time, with sword
against sword. More, he would have sworn that his own lips in that
frenzy, and gentle even in that frenzy, had been the first to ruffle the
sweet fragrance and surprise the dewiness of hers, unconscious as she
was that she had not merely suffered what she could not help. By that
kiss he had sealed her his. And insensibly he began to regard her as in
some measure two women,--one the star of his desire and worship, the
other the mysterious ally of the Emperor's enemies, against whom he must
plot to unravel her designs and those of the arch-plotter Wallenstein.
From this point his thought jumped at a bound to that other mistress,
the Archduchess Stephanie, whose loveliness, no less than Ottilie's,
impressed itself upon him, mingled with something of awe of the great
Habsburgs. She too was interested in the destiny of Wallenstein. But of
Wallenstein himself or his plans she had told him nothing. The mystic
circles and ovals interested or amused her perhaps, but of any intimate
understanding between her and the Duke of Friedland Nigel could not
remember a trace. Doubtless at the Court of Vienna there was a
Wallenstein party as well as a Maximilian party. It was almost certain;
and the Archduchess Stephanie might, as princesses have done, have
flattered herself that she was leading a party, while in reality her
name for a few aspiring nobles was merely a lure used by wire-pullers,
who let her know nothing of their real machinations.
Still at the one end stood the lofty Archduchess, at the other her
lovely and almost twin cousin, Ottilie von Thüringen, and between
Wallenstein, the cold seeker after power, swaying, utilising both to
further his schemes and ambition.
Nigel groaning in spirit, continued to ride on, and presently reached
Erfurt.
At Erfurt he found the small garrison full of rumours of an impending
attack from the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and although he had reason to
believe that that prince was not yet in a posture to march, Nigel
thought it wise to leave his regiment there with Hildebrand, partly to
get further drilling and some rest for their horses, partly to overawe
the townspeople and put the place in some condition to resist the
Landgrave should he venture to attack it. In the meantime, with a small
escort, he rode as fast as his horses could go to Wolmerstadt, where he
found General Tilly.
The little great man received him with his customary grimness of
demeanour. The thin hollow cheeks looked hollower than before, and the
red feather in the small high peaked hat danced with a more sinister
gaiety than ever.
"Well, Colonel Charteris?" Tilly never forgot his officers nor their
names. "Where is your regiment?"
"At Erfurt, General!"
"Why?"
"The Landgrave of Hesse was mustering his troops when I spoke to him
seven days ago. They say he is marching now to join Gustavus."
"I'll give him something to march for! And he shall find little to eat
on his march," barked Tilly. "What artillery at Erfurt?"
Nigel answered that they had twelve pieces of ordnance and sufficient
ammunition.
General Tilly gave immediate order for two thousand foot and two
thousand horse to be made ready to start.
And the next day, trusting the command of the remainder of the army to
Pappenheim, the grim old general set out through the territories of Saxe
Ernest and Schwarzburg, laying waste the countryside, and allowing his
troops to plunder and then burn the little town of Frankenhausen by way
of teaching the inhabitants not to have leanings towards Sweden.
In this way Tilly reached Erfurt, where he quartered his troops and
levied a substantial voluntary contribution of money and provisions.
Thence he sent messengers to the Landgrave, who had in fact not yet
begun his march, with instructions couched in haughty language that he
should disband his army and receive imperial garrisons into his
fortresses.
Hildebrand and his regiment were sent on to the camp at Wolmerstadt to
await Nigel, who, at the same time as Tilly set out, had been ordered to
carry out reconnaissances in the direction of Werben and watch the
movements of Gustavus on that bank of the Elbe.
It was not so much that Tilly feared the Landgrave of Hesse, as that he
was fretting at the inactivity imposed upon him by the state of affairs.
At Wolmerstadt he and Pappenheim were strong enough to attack Gustavus,
had it not been for the troops which the Elector of Saxony had mustered
in his rear. Gladly would he have attacked the Elector if the Emperor
had given him permission. But as yet John George had not declared
himself. So Tilly contented himself by threatening the smaller prince of
Hesse Cassel and wasting the borders of Saxony.
The Landgrave of Hesse was of a different mould from John George. This
was his reply to Tilly--
"As for admitting foreign troops into my fortresses, I will not. As for
my troops, they are mine to do my will. As for your threatening, I can
defend myself when you attack me."