JOHANN IN THE SUMMER PALACE
At the door of the summer palace not a soul was on guard. A great quiet
surrounded it. The secretary could hear the gentle lapping of the river
over the parapet, for the little pavilion had been erected overhanging
the water, and the leaves of the linden-trees rustled above. These last
were still clamorous with the hum of bees, whose busy wings gave forth a
sort of dull booming roar, comparable only to the distant noise of
breakers when a roller curls slowly over and runs league-long down the
sandy beach.
It was with a beating heart that Johann Pyrmont knocked.
"Enter!" said a voice within, with startling suddenness.
And opening the door and grasping his papers, the secretary suddenly
found himself in the presence of the hero of the tournament.
The Prince was standing by a desk covered with books and papers. In his
hand he held a quill, wherewith he had been writing in a great book
which lay on a shelf at his elbow. For a moment the secretary could not
reconcile this monkish occupation with his idea of the gallant
white-plumed knight whom he had seen flash athwart the lists, driving a
clean furrow through the hostile ranks with his single spear.
But he remembered his sister's description, and looked at him with the
reverence of the time for one to whom all knowledge was open.
"You have business with me, young sir?" said the Prince courteously,
turning upon the youth a regard full of dignity and condescension. The
knees of Johann Pyrmont trembled. For a full score of moments his tongue
refused its office.
"I come," he said at last, "to convey these documents to the noble
Prince of Courtland and Wilna." He gained courage as he spoke, for he
had carefully rehearsed this speech to Dessauer. "I am acting as
secretary to the Ambassador--in lieu of a better. These are the
proposals concerning alliance between the realms proposed by our late
master, the Prince Karl, before his death; and now, it is hoped, to be
ratified and carried out between Courtland and Plassenburg under his
successors, the Princess Helene and her husband."
The tall fair-haired Prince listened carefully. His luminous and steady
eyes seemed to pierce through every disguise and to read the truth in
the heart of the young architect-secretary. He took the papers from the
hand of Johann Pyrmont, and laid them on a desk beside him, without,
however, breaking the seals.
"I will gladly take charge of such proposals. They do as much credit, I
doubt not, to the sagacity of the late Prince, your great master, as to
the kindness and good-feeling of our present noble rulers. But where is
the Ambassador? I had hoped to see High Councillor von Dessauer for my
own sake, as well as because of the ancient kindliness and
correspondence that there was between him and my brother."
"His brother," thought the secretary. "I did not know he had a
brother--a lad, I suppose, in whom Dessauer hath an interest. He is ever
considerate to the young!" But aloud he answered, "I grieve to tell you,
my lord, that the High Councillor von Dessauer is not able to leave his
bed this morning. He caught a chill yesterday, either riding hither or
at the tourney, and it hath induced an old trouble which no leech has
hitherto been skilful enough to heal entirely. He will, I fear, be kept
close in his room for several days."
"I also am grieved," said the Prince, with grave regret, seeing the
youth's agitation, and liking him for it. "I am glad he keeps the art to
make himself so beloved. It is one as useful as it is unusual in a
diplomatist!"
Then with a quick change of subject habitual to the man, he said, "How
found you your way hither? The corridors are both confusing and
intricate, and the guards ordinarily somewhat exacting."
The tall youth smiled.
"I was in the best hands," he said. "Your sister, the Princess Margaret,
was good enough to direct me, being on her way to her own apartment."
"Ah!" muttered the Prince, smiling as if he knew his sister, "this is
the way to the Princess's apartments, is it? The Moscow road to Rome, I
wot!"
He said no more, but stood regarding the youth, whose blushes came and
went as he stood irresolute before him.
"A modest lad," said the Prince to himself; "this ingenuousness is
particularly charming in a secretary of legation. I must see more of
him."
Suddenly a thought crossed his mind.
"Why, did I not hear that you came to us by way of Kernsberg?" he said.
The blushes ceased and a certain pallor showed under the tan which
overspread the young man's face as the Prince continued to gaze fixedly
at him. He could only bow in assent.
"Then, doubtless, you would see the Duchess Joan?" he continued. "Is she
very beautiful? They say so."
"I do not think so. I never thought about it at all!" answered the
secretary. Suddenly he found himself plunged into deep waters, just as
he had seen the port of safety before him.
The Prince laughed, throwing back his head a little.
"That is surely a strange story to bring here to Courtland," he said,
"whither the lady is to come as a bride ere long! Especially strange to
tell to me, who----"
"I ask your pardon," said Johann Pyrmont; "your Highness must bear with
me. I have never done an errand of such moment before, having mostly
spent my life among soldiers and ("he was on his guard now") in a
fortress. For diplomacy and word-play I have no skill--no, nor any
liking!"
"You have chosen your trade strangely, then," smiled the Prince, "to
proclaim such tastes. Wherefore are you not a soldier?"
"I am! I am!" cried Johann eagerly; "at least, as much as it is allowed
to one of my--of my strength to be."
"Can you fence?" asked the Prince, "or play with the broad blade?"
"I can do both!"
"Then," continued his inquisitor, "you must surely have tried yourself
against the Duchess Joan. They say she has wonderful skill. Joan of the
Sword Hand, I have heard her called. You have often fenced with her?"
"No," said the secretary, truthfully, "I have never fenced with the
Duchess Joan."
"So," said the Prince, evidently in considerable surprise; "then you
have certainly often seen her fence?"
"I have never seen the Duchess fence, but I have often seen others fence
with her."
"You practise casuistry, surely," cried the Prince. "I do not quite
follow the distinction."
But, nevertheless, the secretary knew that the difference existed. He
would have given all the proceeds and emoluments of his office to escape
at this moment, but the eye of the Prince was too steady.
"I doubt not, young sir," he continued, "that you were one of the army
of admirers which, they say, continually surrounds the Duchess of
Hohenstein!"
"Indeed, you are in great error, my lord," said Johann Pyrmont, with
much earnestness and obvious sincerity; "I never said one single word of
love to the Lady Joan--no, nor to any other woman!"
"No," said a new voice from the doorway, that of the Princess Margaret,
"but doubtless you took great pleasure in teaching them foreign customs.
And I am persuaded you did it very well, too!"
The Prince left his desk for the first time and came smilingly towards
his sister. As he stooped to kiss her hand, Johann observed that his
hair seemed already to be thin upon the top of his head.
"He is young to be growing bald," he said to himself; "but, after all"
(with a sigh), "that does not matter in a man so noble of mien and in
every way so great a prince."
The impulsive Princess Margaret scarcely permitted her hand to be
kissed. She threw her arms warmly about her brother's neck, and then as
quickly releasing him, she turned to the secretary, who stood
deferentially looking out at the window, that he might not observe the
meeting of brother and sister.
"I told you he was my favourite brother, and that you would love him,
too," she said. "You must leave your dull Plassenburg and come to
Courtland. I, the Princess, ask you. Do you promise?"
"I think I shall come again to Courtland," answered the secretary very
gravely.
"This young man knows the Duchess Joan of Hohenstein," said the Prince,
still smiling quietly; "but I do not think he admires her very
greatly--an opinion he had better keep to himself if he would have a
quiet life of it in Courtland!"
"Indeed," said the Princess brusquely. "I wonder not at it. I hear she
is a forward minx, and at any rate she shall never lord it over me. I
will run away with a dog-whipper first."
"Your husband would have occasion for the exercise of his art, sister
mine!" said the Prince. "But, indeed, you must not begin by misliking
the poor young maid that will find herself so far from home."
"Oh," cried the Princess, laughing outright, "I mislike her not a whit.
But there is no reason in the world why, because you are all ready to
fall down and worship, this young man or any other should be compelled
to do likewise."
And right princess-like she looked as she pouted her proud little lips
and with her foot patted the polished oak.
"But," she went on again to her brother, "your poor beast out there hath
almost fretted himself into ribands by this time. If you have done with
this noble youth, I have a fancy to hear him tell of the countries
wherein he has sojourned. And, in addition, I have promised to show him
the carp in the ponds. You have surely given him a great enough dose of
diplomatics and canon law by this time. You have, it seems to me, spent
half the day in each other's society."
"On the contrary," returned the Prince, smiling again, but going towards
the desk to put away the papers which Dessauer's secretary had
brought--"on the contrary, we talked almost solely about women--a
subject not uncommon when man meets man."
"But somewhat out of keeping with the dignity of your calling, my
brother!" said the Princess pointedly.
"And wherefore?" he said, turning quickly with the papers still in his
hand. "If to guide, to advise, to rule, are of my profession, surely to
speak of women, who are the more important half of the human race,
cannot be foreign to my calling!"
"Come," she said, hearing the words without attending to the sense, "I
also like things foreign. The noble secretary has promised to teach me
some more of them!"
The tolerant Prince laughed. He was evidently accustomed to his sister's
whims, and, knowing how perfectly harmless they were, he never
interfered with them.
"A good day to you," he said to the young man, by way of dismissal. "If
I do not see you again before you leave, you must promise me to come
back to the wedding of the Duchess Johanna. In that event you must do
me the honour to be my guest on that occasion."
The red flooded back to Johann's cheek.
"I thank you," he said, bowing; "I _will_ come back to the wedding of
the Duchess Joan."
"And you promise to be my guest? I insist upon it," continued the kindly
Prince, willing to gratify his sister, who was smiling approval, "I
insist that you shall let me be your host."
"I hope to be your guest, most noble Prince," said the secretary,
looking up at him quickly as he went through the door.
It was a singular look. For a moment it checked and astonished the
Prince so much that he stood still on the threshold.
"Where have I seen a look like that before?" he mused, as he cast his
memory back into the past without success. "Surely never on any man's
face?"
Which, after all, was likely enough.
Then putting the matter aside as curious, but of no consequence, the
Prince rode away towards that part of the city from which the towers of
the minster loomed up. A couple of priests bowed low before him as he
passed, and the people standing still to watch his broad shoulders and
erect carriage, said one to the other, "Alas! alas! the truest Prince of
them all--to be thus thrown away!"
And these were the words which the secretary heard from a couple of
guards who talked at the gate of the rose-garden, as they, too, stood
looking after the Prince.
"Wait," said Johann Pyrmont to himself; "wait, I will yet show them
whether he is thrown away or not."