THE BAITING OF THE SPARHAWK
"Bring in the Danish Sparhawk, and we will bait him!" said Werner. "We
have shown our guests but a poor entertainment. Bring in the Sparhawk, I
say!"
At this there ensued unyoked merriment. Each stout lad, from one end of
the hall to the other, undid his belt as before a nobler course and
nudged his fellow.
"'Ware, I say, stand clear! Here comes the Wild Boar of the Ardennes,
the Wolf of Thuringia, the Bear from the Forests of Bor-Russia! Stand
clear--stand clear!" cried Werner von Orseln, laughing and pretending to
draw a dagger to provide for his own safety.
The inner door which led from the hall of the men-at-arms to the
dungeons of the castle was opened, and all looked towards it with an air
of great amusement and expectation.
"Now we shall have some rare sport," each man said to his neighbour, and
nodded.
"The baiting of the Sparhawk! The Sparhawk comes!"
Jorian and Boris looked with interest in the direction of the door
through which such a remarkable bird was to arrive. They could not
understand what all the pother could be about.
"What the devil----?" said Jorian.
And, not to be behindhand, "What the devil----?" echoed Boris. For
mostly these two ran neck and neck from drop of flag to winning-post.
Through the black oblong of the dungeon doorway there came a lad of
seventeen or eighteen, tall, slim, dark-browed, limber. He walked
between a pair of men-at-arms, who held his wrists firmly at either
side. His hands were chained together, and from between them dangled a
spiked ball that clanked heavily on the floor as he stumbled forward
rather than walked into the room. He had black hair that waved from his
forehead in a backward sweep, a nose of slightly Roman shape, which,
together with his bold eagle's eyes, had obtained him the name of the
Spar or Sparrow-hawk. And on his face, handsome enough though pale,
there was a look of haughty disdain and fierce indignation such as one
may see in the demeanour of a newly prisoned bird of prey, which hath
not yet had time to forget the blue empyrean spaces and the stoop with
half-closed wings upon the quarry trembling in the vale.
"Ha, Sparhawk!" cried Werner, "how goes it, Sparhawk? Any less bold and
peremptory than when last we met? Your servant, Count Maurice von Lynar!
We pray you dance for us the Danish dance of shuffle-board, Count
Maurice, if so your Excellency pleases!"
The lad looked up the table and down with haughty eyes that deigned no
answer.
Werner von Orseln turned to his guests and said, "This Sparhawk is a
little Dane we took on our last excursion to the north. It is only in
that direction we can lead the foray, since you have grown so
law-abiding and strong in Plassenburg and the Mark. His uncles and
kinsfolk were all killed in the defence of Castle Lynar, on the Northern
Haff. We know not which of these had also the claim of fatherhood upon
him. At all events, his grandad had a manor there, and came from the
Jutland sand-dunes to build a castle upon the Baltic shores. But he had
better have stayed at home, for he would not pay the Peace Geld to our
Henry. So the Lion roared, and we went to Castle Lynar and made an
end--save of this spitting Sparhawk, whom our master would not let us
kill, and whom now we keep with clipped wings for our sport."
The lad listened with erected head and haughty eyes to the tale, but
answered not a word.
"Now," cried Werner, with his cup in his hand and his brows bent upon
the youth, "dance for us as you used to do upon the Baltic, when the
maids came in fresh from their tiring and the newest kirtles were
donned. Dance, I say! Foot it for your life!"
The lad Maurice von Lynar stood with his bold eyes upon his tormentors.
"Curs of Bor-Russia," he said at last, in speech that trembled with
anger, "you may vex the soul of a Danish gentleman with your aspersions,
you may wound his body, but you will never be able to stand up to him in
battle. You will never be worthy to eat or drink with him, to take his
hand in comradeship, or to ride a tilt with him. Pigs of the sty you
are, man by man of you--Wends and boors, and no king's gentlemen."
"Bravo!" said Boris, under his breath, "that is none so dustily said for
a junker!"
"Silence with that tongue of yours!" muttered his mate. "Dost want to be
yawing out of that window presently, with the wind spinning you about
and about like a capon on a jack-spit? They are uncanny folk, these of
the woman's castle--not to trust to. One knows not what they may do, nor
where their jest may end."
"Hans Trenck, lift this springald's pretty wrist-bauble!" said Werner.
A laughing man-at-arms went up, his partisan still over his shoulder,
and laying his hand upon the chain which depended between the manacled
wrists of the boy Maurice, he strove to lift the spiked ball.
"What!" cried Werner, "canst thou, pap-backed babe, not lift that which
the noble Count Maurice of Lynar has perforce to carry about with him
all day long? Down with your weapon, man, and to it like an apothecary
compounding some blister for stale fly-blown rogues!"
At the word the man laid down his partisan and lifted the ball high
between his two hands.
"Now dance!" commanded Werner von Orseln, "dance the Danish milkmaid's
coranto, or I will bid him drop it on your toes. Dost want them jellied,
man?"
"Drop, and be damned in your low-born souls!" cried the lad fiercely.
"Untruss my hands and let me loose with a sword, and ten yards clear on
the floor, and, by Saint Magnus of the Isles, I will disembowel any
three of you!"
"You will not dance?" said Werner, nodding at him.
"I will see you fry in hell fire first!"
"Down with the ball, Hans Trenck!" cried Werner. "He that will not dance
at Castle Kernsberg must learn at least to jump."
The man-at-arms, still grinning, lifted the ball a little higher,
balancing it in one hand to give it more force. He prepared to plump it
heavily upon the undefended feet of young Maurice.
"'Ware toes, Sparhawk!" cried the soldiers in chorus, but at that
moment, suddenly kicking out as far as his chains allowed, the boy took
the stooping lout on the face, and incontinently widened the superficial
area of his mouth. He went over on his back amid the uproarious laughter
of his fellows.
"Ha! Hans Trenck, the Sparhawk hath spurred you, indeed! A brave
Sparhawk! Down went poor Hans Trenck like a barndoor fowl!"
The fellow rose, spluttering angrily.
"Hold his legs, some one," he said, "I'll mark his pretty feet for him.
He shall not kick so free another time."
A couple of his companions took hold of the boy on either side, so that
he could not move his limbs, and Hans again lifted high the ball.
"Shall we stand this? They call this sport!" said Boris; "shall I pink
the brutes?"
"Sit down and shut your eyes. Our Prince Hugo will harry this nest of
thieves anon. For the present we must bear their devilry if we want to
escape hanging!"
"Now then, for marrow and mashed trotters!" cried Hans, spitting the
blood from the split corners of his mouth.
"_Halt!_"