It was late, and every one retired to rest. The king repaired to his
private chamber. Count Henrik saw with uneasiness that Master Thrand
followed him. The king's chamber was immediately adjoining the library,
to which Count Henrik had access. He hesitated a moment; it seemed to
him degrading, without the king's knowledge and consent, to become a
concealed witness to his conversation with the mysterious scholar; but
his anxiety and care for the king's safety at last overcame every
scruple. He took a light with him and went to the library. The light
went out in the passage, which he deemed fortunate, as his presence
might otherwise be easily betrayed if there was the least chink in the
door between the library and the private chamber. He stepped softly
into the vaulted and flagged apartment, where a pair of bookshelves
with wire grating, together with some chairs and a reading table, were
the only furniture. The moon shone brightly through the small bow
window; he seated himself at the table close by the door of the private
chamber, fixed his eyes on an open manuscript, and listened.
"Here we are now alone, and wholly undisturbed," he heard the king say,
and the chivalrous Count Henrik felt he blushed for himself; he made a
movement to depart, but put a constraint on his feelings and kept his
seat on hearing Master Thrand's whispering voice, but in so low and
mysterious a tone that he could not understand a word.
"I know it all," continued the king, "and it is useless for you to deny
it, learned Master Thrand! You are what is called a heretic and Leccar
brother; as such you are doomed to fire and faggot, by the pope, with
your whole sect, and proscribed by all Christian kings; according to my
decree, and at the requirement of the papal court you are banished from
my state and country also. Yet if you can prove to me you have found
the philosopher's stone, as you seem yourself to imagine, and that
there exists a higher truth and wisdom than the revealed Word, I will
acquit you, and in defiance of pope and clergy will recal the decree of
banishment against your sect."
"Most mighty sovereign!" now said the mountebank, distinctly, though in
a hesitating tone;--"what you know of me I have myself confided to you;
had I not known your generosity and reverence for the laws of
hospitality, and had I not known you were elevated far above this
ignorant and narrow-minded age, such a confidence in a ruler would have
stamped me as the most contemptible of fools. You have spoken truth,
great sovereign!" he continued, as it seemed with assumed firmness. "_I
am_ a heretic and Leccar brother; but, to be such I esteem a higher
honour (even should I at last die at the stake for it) than if all
blinded, gulled Christendom were to worship me as the greatest and most
admirable of saints."
"Truly!" answered the king, sternly, "that is a bold speech, Master
Thrand; if it contain not loftier wisdom than hath yet been known to
the best and wisest scholars during the space of thirteen centuries, I
must regard it as the most mad and presumptuous declaration that hath
ever passed the lips of man. I stand myself, as you know, in dangerous
and daring strife with that power which in the church's name would rule
princes as well as people, and enslave our souls. I defy every decree
of man which would drive us to despair and ungodliness, and give over
our souls to the destroyer; but notwithstanding, I deem the church and
the divine Word on which it is founded not the less sure and stedfast,
and I would fain see that philosopher--or fool, who would cause me to
swerve a hair's breath from this belief."
"As soon as your grace understands me fully," answered Master Thrand,
with calmness, "you will see that is nowise my aim: the real church of
truth is the invisible one which I also worship in spirit, and the true
eternal Word of God is that which hath never been wholly revealed, but
to which I hearken with reverence, and appropriate through the medium
of science, by searching into yon great book of revelation, which can
only be unlocked by the wakened power of divinity within us. Hear ye
not yourself, noble king! the mighty voice of divinity in the thunders
of heaven? See ye not the finger of the Almighty in the destructive
lightning? And must you not confess that he who is ruler over those
mighty forces of nature, is the only true powerful God whom we must
worship and adore?"
"Well! that is a matter of course, but what of that?" asked the king,
in an impatient tone.
"If I now could show you," continued Master Thrand, with rising zeal,
"that the same power lies in _my_ hand and in _my_ will--that _I_
by a nod can force the voice of Omnipotence to speak and announce in
shouts of thunder, that _I_ am the Lord and master of those godlike
powers--will you then deny my right to publish the divine word, which
speaks through my will as it does through nature? Will you then any
longer doubt my having found and possessed myself of the essence of
things,--the source of power,--which shall hereafter change the form of
the world and throw down the idol temples of prejudice, and the
fortified castles of tyrants? Will you then believe I have found the
key to the great mystery of life; and that the voice of deity, which
speaks through _my_ will and _my_ works, is able to say--_Live!_ when
time, sickness, and age,--when sword and poison,--when war, pestilence,
and hunger,--when stake and executioners,--when popes and tyrants, and
all the foes of life, shout--_Die!_"
There was a moment's silence in the private chamber, and Count Henrik
drew breath with difficulty. "Strange!" said the king's voice again;
"but no--it is impossible. I will defer forming an opinion of your
wisdom, Master Thrand, until I have seen the marvellous things you
speak of. As far as I understand you, you seem to consider yourself not
only as the lord and master of nature, but of Deity itself: such
discourse sounds to me like the greatest and most presumptuous
madness."
"Madness and wisdom, lying and truth, evil and good, darkness and
light, border closely on each other, noble king," again whispered the
well-oiled tongue of Thrand. "This must especially be the case in all
transitions from night to day, from error to truth, from one age to
another. That which I have here dared to whisper to you in this private
chamber, in reliance on the strength of your royal mind, will one day
be openly announced from the lowest seat of learning, and seem but as
the pastime of children to the mature in spirit. How each one of us
will picture to himself the divinity is in fact his own affair; that
will depend on his own individual mental vision; and will be a
necessity like all other things. What is divine is, and must ever
partly remain, a mystery to the majority; but we can all attain clear
views of time and its mutable concerns: this lies within the sphere of
our common vision, and so far I flatter myself I shall be able to open
your penetrating eyes, great king, that no part of time shall be wholly
hidden from you, and that you may be able to look as clearly into the
future as back upon the past perishable world of things and actions."
"Well then," said the king, impatiently, "teach me to see more clearly
with the mind's eye, if you are able. I have all reverence for your
bodily glass eyes, and you have certainly opened to me a wider view of
the outer world. One mirror of the past I know already in the study of
our chronicles; if there is also a natural mirror of the future, show
it me."
"There are _two_, gracious king!" answered Master Thrand, with
emphasis; "we call them providence and divination: we can possess
ourselves of both by keen wisdom, and awakened inner sense. With the
first you can see much; with the second more; with both almost every
thing. Of the highly-important step you are about to take to-morrow
your grace can only judge by means of such a twofold insight."
"What!" exclaimed the king, with vehemence; "think ye I am now about to
use my understanding for the first time, and consider the step which,
with well-advised purpose and with the help of God, I have already
taken, and which is my highest happiness? Be the consequences what they
may, and whatever the Almighty Ruler of the world hath ordained for me
and my kingdom, on this point the clearest insight into futurity cannot
change my will or extinguish the fairest hope of my life."
"But look, great sovereign!" continued Master Thrand, with eagerness;
"cast an unprejudiced and dispassionate glance into those person's
souls which you would link with yours. Three royal brothers--your
future brothers-in-law--stand yonder beside a throne; the weakest, the
least gifted, hath been chosen to fill it; but the superior mind and
power and courage of his brothers increase mightily. The nobler spirit
can never bow before its inferior; the fermenting forces must develope
themselves; opposing ones must separate; those of close affinity must
combine; what hath been arbitrarily joined must be forcibly severed;
and he who plunges into the wild tumultuous stream must be swept along
with it and perish."
"Silence! With thy presumptuous talk," interrupted the king, in a loud
voice, and stamping hard on the ground; "no contemptible calculation
and dread of the future shall stop my progress, or disquiet my soul.
Whatever may be working in the minds of those princes, crowns are not
left to be the sport of wild passions; justice and the highest power
are not subject to the will and authority of man, but to that of the
Almighty. A royal sceptre may repose secure in the hand of a child when
God is with him, even though that child stands surrounded by traitors
and murderers. This I have myself experienced."
"But, your royal grace, when the minor, as yonder, never attains to
majority in mind," objected Thrand, "when the power proceeding from the
will of a free and powerful nation is, through foolish superstition and
misconception, linked to the phantom which theologians call God's
grace--an idea which only hath meaning and significance when we see
that grace revealed in the great and noble, though mutable, will of the
people, to which all connection with the weaker unapt spirit is
destruction----"
"By all the holy men, the highest might and authority comes from
above!" interrupted the king, with vehemence, "In man's will only, not
in the Lord's, is there vacillation and change; he who justly wears a
crown hath a power in the will of God, which no mortal shall defy
unpunished. But enough of this. I called you not hither to consult with
you on state affairs. Knew I not you were a philosopher who takes but
little interest in worldly government, I should be tempted to believe
you were a wily emissary from my foes, and those who secretly strive to
undermine my happiness."
"Heaven forefend! your grace," exclaimed Master Thrand, in dismay.
"I called you hither to warn you--not to receive warnings," continued
the king, with stern vehemence. "I have perceived that your opinions on
spiritual things are dangerous and misleading. Keep them to yourself,
or I shall be necessitated to banish you from the country. I have all
due respect for your knowledge in worldly matters," he added; "it may
prove useful to me. My master of the mint, however, you cannot be at
present, and my spiritual adviser still less. If the wise Roger Bacon
was your teacher and master I would willingly know what he hath taught
you that is good and reasonable; but I will not hear a word more of the
philosopher's stone. I ask not to look into futurity; if you understand
that art, keep it to yourself. I regard it, if not as witchcraft, as
equally sinful and unwise. Such faculty hath as yet never made any
human being happy.
"If you can (which, however, I much doubt) protract human life beyond
its natural limits, keep such knowledge to yourself also: it seems to
me not less presumptuous and irrational. I desire not to live an hour
longer in this world than the Almighty hath ordained; but if you can,
by natural means and without sin unveil to me the secrets of nature--if
you can imitate the thunders of heaven as you assume--then show me and
our philosophers the art, and explain it to us, at whatever price you
deem fitting; but how far soever your mastery over the powers of nature
may extend, imagine not you have usurped the power from Him, in
comparison of whom the wisest and mightiest man on earth is but a
miserable impotent worm. Go hence and pray our Lord and the holy Virgin
to pardon you the presumptuous words you have here uttered. Would that
you might one day gain a better insight into what is of higher
importance to soul and salvation than all your temporal learning!"
Count Henrik could not hear what answer was made by Master Thrand to
this severe reproof; the words "to-morrow, noble king!" were all he
thought he understood, besides some common-place and obsequious
expressions of respect, and it seemed to him that the artist's voice
sounded hollow and hardly audible. The door of the private door opened
and shut again; Count Henrik perceived that the king was alone, and
heard him open the door to his sleeping chamber. The Count stepped
softly out of the library; he heard footsteps before him in the dark
passage. It was Master Thrand coming from the king's private chamber.
Count Henrik stood still on remarking that the little juggler often
paused in the passage, as if in secret deliberation; he muttered to
himself, and was busied with something in the dark; his whimsical gait
and figure was now suddenly lit up by a bright light, which instantly
vanished again; Master Thrand at last stopped at a private door which
led to Junker Christopher's apartments, but to which none had access
beside. The door opened and closed again, and Thrand disappeared.
"What was that?" said Count Henrik to himself, with a start, "a spirit
of darkness lurks between the royal brothers!" He left not the passage
ere he had seen the pyrotechnic artist steal back from the junker's
apartments, and repair to the knights' story in the opposite wing of
the castle, where all the stranger guests were assigned their quarters
for the night. Count Henrik did not betake himself to rest, but watched
this night as captain of the halberdiers, without the door of the
king's sleeping apartment.