AT HALBERSTADT.
It was the evening of the third day after Breitenfeld. Vague rumours of
disaster had travelled across the intervening country of Halberstadt,
city, bishopric, and independent state in one, a stronghold for, rather
than of, the Empire, the domain and seat of Leopold the Bishop, a
Habsburger and cousin of Ferdinand. The city was not strong enough to
resist for long an attack by Gustavus, should he choose to make one, but
it was strong enough to serve for a short while as a rallying-place for
Tilly's fugitives.
Leopold the Bishop and his spoiled favourite niece, as he chose to call
her, the Archduchess Stephanie, stood on the flat roof of the tallest
tower of the palace looking along the road to the southernward. On the
face of Leopold, a proud ecclesiastical face, rather rotund than
ascetic, sat an extreme anxiety, and his sharp eyes roved restlessly
from the road to the city walls, where men were mustered and ordnance
trained, and officers bustled to and fro with an air of urgency. For who
knew what a few hours might reveal, whether the banners of Sweden, or of
Saxony, of Brandenburg or Hesse Cassel, would come swaying and
fluttering from the passes in the hills.
The Archduchess for the most part kept her gaze fixed upon the road,
though, woman-like, she lost little of what went on below. Her eyes
glistened with eagerness, but her features betrayed little of the drawn
look that the Bishop's wore. If the Bishop noticed it, he said nothing,
putting her apparent lack of anxiety down to the score of youth. But
absorbed as he was in the inward contemplation of the stakes at issue,
he did not closely scrutinise the face of his niece. For him the turn of
events meant a very possible siege, a defence of sorts, a storming and a
sack, or a judicious submission, but in any case a great inroad into his
treasure-chests. It promised indignities falling short of bodily
suffering, but hard to bear, and an ultimate disposal of his lands and
possessions in ways that would at once reduce his princely bishopric to
the dimensions of a paltry benefice, until the Lutheran tide should
recede and the Church take her own again.
For the niece it meant excitement, peril, but peril that would pass.
Princesses might be held to ransom, but no more. She might be expected
to sympathise with her father in the defeat of his armies, to feel
aggrieved at Fortune, who had dealt so hard a blow at her house, but not
to be prostrated by her grief. She would still be the beautiful
Archduchess Stephanie, and in the clash of armies and in the affairs of
a hazardous campaign there was like to be scant attention paid to the
matrimonial projects of Maximilian. Was this all? A cry broke from her
lips, and she pointed to the farthest bend of the road visible from the
tower.
"Now we shall know!" said the Bishop, clenching his lips firmly as if to
make sure they did not tremble.
Round the bend came thirty or forty troopers, and the first man carried
a yellow pennon.
"Tilly's men!" the Bishop exclaimed fervently. "To Thee be thanks, O
Lord!"
The Archduchess's eyes were riveted. Whether her emotion had really
been restrained hitherto by pride or not, her eyes filled with tears:
tears that she hastily brushed away, leaving her eyes again free to
discern what they might.
This time it was a group of officers, and in the middle could be
distinguished the famous red feather, drooping, it is true, but there.
"Count Tilly himself, Uncle!"
Behind the little cavalcade came a regiment of foot, still preserving a
martial appearance, with its pikemen and its musketeers, and after it
another and yet another.
It was almost pitiful to hear the proud Bishop, secure except for the
ears of his niece, ejaculating his thankfulness, as each addition to his
possible defenders came in sight.
Then as the cavalcade of officers approached the town gates the lips of
the Archduchess murmured, "Holy Mother, I thank thee!" and she put her
slender fingers into her uncle's as if to communicate to him something
of what she felt.
It was true that she had recognised Colonel Nigel Charteris among the
war-worn leaders as they rode through the gate of Halberstadt, but why
should the saving of this man's life more than those of a thousand
others elicit her cry of devotion?
Within an hour Leopold in his episcopal robes received Tilly and his
officers. Beside him, arrayed in all her richest attire, sat the
Archduchess Stephanie. The little general, the stains of his forced
march removed as far as possible, his left arm in a sling, his head
disfigured by the uncouth bandages of his barber surgeon, strode forward
with a gallant air, but with an unmistakable limp. He had been wounded
at Breitenfeld full a half-dozen times, and only his dauntless spirit
and his stalwart supporters had helped him to sustain the toils of the
retreat.
The Bishop received him with great compassion and honour, giving him
great praise for his courage and placing him beside him in a noble
chair: not, however, before the general had bowed as low as his wounds
permitted and kissed the hand of the Archduchess, whose eyes melted at
the sight of her father's faithful soldier, to whom fortune had shown
herself so froward.
"Battered, your Highness, beaten, but with God's grace I will face
Gustavus again!" he said to her.
Came Nigel's turn. He presented himself, in default of a better, in the
suit he had worn at Breitenfeld. He was thin and yellowish for a man of
his natural colouring. A day of battle and three days' flight before the
pursuers had drained his vitality over and above his actual wounds,
which had happily left his face unmarred and his limbs uncrippled.
The Archduchess claimed him.
"Colonel Nigel Charteris, Uncle. He came to Vienna with despatches from
Magdeburg. A Scottish gentleman who has doubtless done good service in
the battle!" She turned her eyes inquiringly towards Count Tilly.
"But for him I might not have left the field!" said Tilly briefly. "I
scarce know whether he did me service or disservice, your Highness," he
added, with something between a grunt and a sigh. "He fights like a wild
boar!"
"A pity we had not a legion of such angels!" said the Bishop as he laid
his hand in fatherly fashion on his shoulder.
The Archduchess motioned Nigel to her side.
"Believe me, Colonel Charteris, I am mighty glad that you have come
through the battle unscathed; though you make not the figure of bravery
you did at Vienna!"
"I am ashamed, your Highness, to meet your eye in such mean clothing,
but the Swede gave us no time to pack our valises, and, after all,
one's own skin with a live man within is better than a coat of many
colours upon a corpse."
The sun broke out in the eyes of the Archduchess.
"How you do take me at my word! You say nothing of surprise at finding
me at Halberstadt? Does nothing surprise you?"
"Your Highness spoke of nunneries at our last meeting, and I find you in
a Bishop's palace. In a nunnery I could not picture your radiance. Here
you are in your own place, and under the tutelage of the Church, no
less."
"Still the courtier of our camps! And have you met again our cousin
Ottilie?" She flung the question at him carelessly, or so it seemed, as
if she were indifferent as to the answer.
"That have I, your Highness!" he answered, looking straightly into the
eyes of the Archduchess. And whether it was that he was fordone with his
toils, his sudden remembrance of the Wartburg brought the colour back
into his pale cheeks.
"So!" said the Archduchess. "There have been passages of arms between
you! Ottilie is fortunate that she is not an Archduchess." There was a
shadowy pretence of petulance in the princess's tone. "Did we not
stipulate that you were our own cavalier?"
"In all liege service, yes, your Highness! Even to the death! Have I not
fought for you at Breitenfeld? Have I not felt the Lady Ottilie pour out
hot scorn upon me almost to the limit of man's forbearance, because I
served the Emperor, and in serving him, your Highness?"
"I should not have deemed you one to brook over much scorn," she said,
veiling her eyes, then flooding his face with their searching gaze.
"Nor am I by nature very patient, your Highness!"
"Then it must be that you love Ottilie! That if I can claim your
service, even your life, she, this meddler with the Lutherans, can claim
and hold your love?" The Archduchess spoke in low tones. Again Nigel
could almost persuade himself that it was Ottilie who spoke, wishful to
hear his avowal of passion. And yet it was not Ottilie.
"Why should you begrudge her so small a gift, or rather so poor an
offering, for I know not if she has accepted it?" he urged.
"Because a princess can never be sure that she commands love. Service
she knows she can command, even to the death. Men will spend themselves
for any bubble they call honour or duty. I grudge Ottilie your love. I
grudge any woman that is loved, her lover's love." The Archduchess spoke
with heat.
Nigel rejoiced that the Archduchess made it clear to him that in seeking
the heart of Ottilie he was not spurning hers; that she was only giving
tongue to the loneliness of rank. For in truth in the immediate presence
of the Archduchess, radiant, full of charm, he felt the memory of
Ottilie pale; and, loyal as he tried to be to his colours, whether in
love or war, he would have been more than man not to have felt an
answering emotion had anything she said given shape to the idea that she
too loved him.
So much they were able to say amid the ceremonious tumult of the
arrivals.
Supper was set and the good things of Halberstadt were lavished upon the
officers who had accompanied the retreat. It was not long before the
Archduchess and her attendant ladies left the hall for their own
chambers. And it was not till the morrow that Nigel again saw the
Archduchess.
The circumstances of a common peril loosened the observances of ceremony
and made it possible for them to meet, after Nigel had set in motion
the springs of military duty which were immediately necessary. As before
at Vienna the Archduchess received him in the gardens of the palace, but
this time in broad daylight.
"And Bramante's figure?" she asked suddenly.
"A vain imagining, your Highness! Though at the time I own I was amazed
at his jugglery."
"So you deemed it mere fooling?"
"What could I else? 'Tis true the course of my life has brought me into
your Highness's gracious presence. But what of Wallenstein? The Emperor
will have none of him. Gustavus has passed him by. He is as an old sword
thrown in a chimney corner to stir ashes with."
The Habsburg pride and haughtiness made itself heard in her voice and
seen on her lineaments.
"You do not know Albrecht von Waldstein. He is too great to rust. Can
you not see that now, even now, when your armies have crumbled before
Gustavus, while Tilly, the pride of Ferdinand, and Pappenheim, the
pillar of Maximilian, have been broken in two like straws, that the
supreme moment has come, the moment when the Emperor must and shall
recall him, beg him as a suppliant to raise the fallen standards and
gather yet again one of his mysterious and invincible armies, which
shall drive Saxon and Brandenburger whimpering to their kennels, and
Gustavus and his pastors scattering to their ships!"
The tones that began in pride and scorn had changed into tones of
prophetic exaltation. And for the first time Nigel comprehended that the
fortunes of Wallenstein were dearer to her heart than a lover's passion.
She was not merely what he had imagined the titular queen of
Wallenstein's party in the court, but her mind and heart were engaged,
enthralled by the idea of the future greatness of Wallenstein himself.
But Nigel's straightforwardness would not let him budge from his
self-appointed path.
"Wallenstein is not loyal to the Emperor!"
"Loyalty!" she exclaimed in a fine note of scorn. "Loyalty in German
lands! In Europe! To what? To one's faith? That does not hinder father
slaying son or brother brother. To one's pacts? It is as it suits one's
interests! Feudalism is dead. The Emperor's vassals rise against him.
And Albrecht von Waldstein is no vassal of the Emperor. He is a Bohemian
noble. True, our house of Habsburg conquered Bohemia, and our brother is
in name their king. But Bohemia is as free as it chooses, when it
chooses."
"But Wallenstein served the Emperor, amassed untold riches in his
service. Does he owe no allegiance?"
"Not a jot! He is of the race of Achilles! He fights where his eagle
mind dictates, not where some trembling Agamemnon bids. But why call him
disloyal?"
"Your Highness! I yield to none in admiration of Wallenstein's genius,
but at every turn of my road I have met evidences of his emissaries
being in touch with your father's enemies. This could have been borne,
if he had boldly gone into the quarrel on the side of Gustavus, but to
stay skulking at Prague while he sent out his poisonous messages...."
"Sir! I like not your adjectives!" she said, quickening her pace in her
anger.
"And then waiting the event," Nigel proceeded, "to send this to
Gustavus, _if he should be victorious_."
Nigel thrust his hand into his tunic and brought out a packet.
"Read what is writ!" she said carelessly.
"These for Gustavus in the event of his gaining a complete victory over
Count Tilly."
"In the event," Nigel commented.
"Spare the commentary, Colonel Charteris! What lies within?"
"In substance it is an offer from Wallenstein, begging for a command
from Gustavus of a pitiful twelve thousand men, and promising in return
to drive the Emperor and every Habsburg out of Austria."
The eyes of the Archduchess flashed. Her colour rose. Her bosom heaved
and fell.
She stretched forth her hand for the letter.
Nigel did not hesitate. He gave it. Was it not his to give, his only
spoil of the battlefield?
"You have made no copy? Told no one?"
"No, your Highness!"
She held out her hand again in token of dismissal. Nigel kissed it, gave
one swift glance at her imperial face and went away to the ramparts.