LITTLE JOHANNES RODE
"But this one day, beloved," the Sparhawk was saying. "What is one day
among our enemies? Be brave, and then we will ride away together under
cloud of night. Von Dessauer will help us. For love and pity Prince Hugo
of Plassenburg will give us an asylum. Or if he will not, by my faith!
Helene the Princess will--or her kind heart is sore belied! Fear not!"
"I am not afraid--I have never feared anything in my life," answered the
Princess Margaret. "But now I fear for you, Maurice. I would give all I
possess a hundred times over--nay, ten years of my life--if only you
were safe out of this Courtland!"
"It will not be long," said the Sparhawk soothingly. "To-morrow Von
Dessauer goes with all his train. He cannot, indeed, openly give us his
protection till we are past the boundaries of the State. But at the
Fords of the Alla we must await him. Then, after that, it is but a short
and safe journey. A few days will bring us to the borderlands of
Plassenburg and the Mark, where we are safe alike from prince brother
and prince wooer."
"Maurice--I would it were so, indeed. Do you know I think being married
makes one's soul frightened. The one you love grows so terrifyingly
precious. It seems such a long time since I was a wild and reckless
girl, flouting those who spoke of love, and boasting (oh, so vainly!)
that love would never touch me. I used to, not so long ago--though you
would not think it now, knowing how weak and foolish I am."
The Sparhawk laughed a little and glanced fondly at his wife. It was a
strange look, full of the peculiar joy of man--and that, where the
essence of love dwells in him, is his sense of unique possession.
"Do keep still," said the Princess suddenly, stamping her foot. "How can
I finish the arraying of your locks, if you twist about thus in your
seat? It is fortunate for you, sir, that the Duchess Joan wears her hair
short, like a Northman or a bantling troubadour. Otherwise you could not
have gone masquerading till yours had grown to be something of this
length."
And, with the innocent vanity of a woman preferred, she shook her own
head backward till the rich golden tresses, each hair distinct and crisp
as a golden wire of infinite thinness, fell over her back and hung down
as low as the hollows of her knees.
"Joan could not do that!" she cried triumphantly.
"You are the most beautiful woman in the world," said the Sparhawk, with
appreciative reverence, trying to rise from the low stool in front of
the Venice mirror upon which he was submitting to having his toilet
superintended--for the first time by a thoroughly competent person.
The Princess Margaret bit her lip vixenishly in a pretty way she had
when making a pretext of being angry, at the same time sticking the
little curved golden comb she was using upon his raven locks viciously
into his head.
"Oh, you hurt!" he cried, making a grimace and pretending in his turn.
"And so I will, and much worse," she retorted, "if you do not be still
and do as I bid you. How can a self-respecting tire-woman attend to her
business under such circumstances? I warn you that you may engage a new
maid."
"Wickedest one!" he murmured, gazing fondly up at Margaret, "there is no
one like you!"
"Well," she drolled, "I am glad of your opinion, though sorry for your
taste. For me, I prefer the Lady Joan."
"And why?"
"Because she is like you, of course!"
* * * * *
So, on the verge perilous, lightly and foolishly they jested as all
those who love each other do (which folly is the only wisdom), while the
green Alla sped swiftly on to the sea, and the city in which Death
waited for Maurice von Lynar began to hum about them.
As yet, however, there fell no suspicion. For Margaret had warned her
bowermaidens that the Princess Joan would need no assistance from them.
Her own waiting-women were on their way from Castle Kernsberg. In any
case she, Margaret of Courtland, would help her sister in person, as
well for love as because such service was the guest's right.
And the Courtland maidens, accustomed to the whims and sudden likings of
their impetuous mistress, glad also to escape extra duty, hastened their
task of arraying Margaret. Never had she been so restless and exacting.
Her toilet was not half finished when she rose from her ebony stool,
told her favourite Thora of Bornholm that she was too ignorant to be
trusted to array so much as the tow-head of a Swedish puppet, endued
herself without assistance with a long loose gown of velvet lined with
pale blue silk, and flashed out again to revisit her sister-in-law.
"And do you, Thora, and the others, wait my pleasure in the anteroom,"
she commanded her handmaidens as she swept through the doorway. "Go
barter love-compliments with the men-at-arms. It is all such fumblers
are good for!"
Behind her back the tiring maids shrugged shoulders and glanced at each
other secretly with lifted eyebrow, as they put gowns and broidered
slippers back in their places, to signify that if it began thus they
were in for a day of it. Nevertheless they obeyed, and, finding certain
young gentlemen of Prince Louis's guard waiting for just such an
opportunity without, Thora and the others proceeded to carry out to the
letter the second part of the instructions of their mistress.
"How now, sweet Thora of the Flaxen Locks?" cried Justus of Grätz, a
slender young man who carried the Prince's bannerstaff on saints' days,
and practised fencing and the art of love professionally at other times;
"has the Princess boxed all your ears this morning, that you come
trembling forth, pell-mell, like a flock of geese out of a barn when the
farmer's dog is after them?"
There were three under-officers of the guard in the little courtyard.
Slim Justus of Grätz, his friend and boon companion Seydelmann, a man of
fine presence and empty head, who on wet days could curl the wings of
his moustaches round his ears, and, sitting a little apart from these,
little Johannes Rode, the only very brave man of the three, a swordsman
and a poet, yet one who passed for a ninny and a greenhorn because he
chose mostly to be silent. Nevertheless, Thora of Bornholm preferred him
to all others in the palace. For the eyes of a woman are quick to
discern manhood--so long, that is, as she is not in love. After that,
God wot, there is no eyeless fish so blind in all the caverns of the
Hartz.
With the Northwoman Thora in her tendance of the Princess there were
joined Anna and Martha Pappenheim, two maids quicker of speech and more
restless in demeanour--Franconians, like all their name, of their
persons little and lithe and gay. The Princess had brought them back
with her when at the last Diet she visited Ratisbon with her brother.
"Ah, Thora, fairest of maids! Hath an east wind made you sulky this
morning, that you will not answer?" languished Justus. "Then I warrant
so are not Anna and Martha. My service to you, noble dames!"
"Noble 'dames' indeed--and to us!" they answered in alternate jets of
speech. "As if we were apple-women or the fat house-frows of
Courtlandish burghers. Get away--you have no manners! You sop your wits
in sour beer. You eat frogs-meat out of your Baltic marshes. A dozen
dozen of you were not worth one lively lad out of sweet Franconia!"
"Swe-e-et Franconia!" mocked Justus; "why, then, did you not stop there?
Of a verity no lover carried you off to Courtland across his saddle-bow,
that I warrant! He had repented his pains and killed his horse long ere
he smelt the Baltic brine."
"The most that such louts as you Courtlanders could carry off would be a
screeching pullet from a farmyard, when the goodman is from home. There
is no spirit in the North--save, I grant, among the women. There is our
Princess and her new sister the Lady Joan of the Sword Hand. Where will
you see their match? Small wonder they will have nothing to say to such
men as they can find hereabouts! But how they love each other! 'Tis as
good as a love tale to see them----"
"Aye, and a very miracle to boot!" interjected Thora of Bornholm.
The Pappenheims, as before, went on antiphonally, each answering and
anticipating the other.
"The Princesses need not any man to make them happy! Their affection for
each other is past telling," said Martha.
"How their eyes shine when they look at each other!" sighed Anna, while
Thora said nothing for a little, but watched Johannes Rode keenly. She
saw he had something on his mind. The Northwoman was not of the opinion
which Anna Pappenheim attributed to the Princesses. For the fair-skinned
daughters of the Goth, being wise, hold that there is but one kind of
love, as there is but one kind of gold. Also they believe that they
carry with them the philosopher's stone wherewith to procure that fine
ore. After a while Thora spoke.
"This morning it was 'The Princess needs not your help--I myself will be
her tire-woman!' I wot Margaret is as jealous of any other serving the
Lady Joan----"
"As you would be if we made love to Johannes Rode there!" laughed Martha
Pappenheim, getting behind a pillar and peeping roguishly round in order
that the poet might have an opportunity of seeing the pretty turn of her
ankle.
But little Johannes, who with a nail was scratching a line or two of a
catch on a smooth stone, hardly even smiled. He minded maids of honour,
their gabble and their ankles, no more than jackdaws crying in the
crevices of the gable--that is, all except Thora, who was so large and
fair and white that he could not get her quite out of his mind. But even
with Thora of Bornholm he did his best.
"That is all very well _now_," put in vain Fritz Seydelmann, stroking
his handsome beard and smiling vacantly; "but wait till these same
Princesses have had husbands of their own for a year. Then they will
spit at each other and scratch--like cats. All women are cats, and maids
of honour the worst of all!"
"How so, Sir Wiseman--because they do not like puppies? You have found
out that?" Anna Pappenheim struck back demurely.
"You ask me why maids of honour are like cats," returned Seydelmann
complacently (he had been making up this speech all night). "Do they not
arch their backs when they are stroked? Do they not purr? Have you not
seen them lie about the house all day, doing nothing and looking as
saintly as so many abbots at High Mass? But at night and on the
tiles--phew! 'tis another matter then."
And having thus said vain moustached Seydelmann, who plumed himself upon
his wit, dragged at his moustache horns and simpered bovinely down upon
the girls.
Anna Pappenheim turned to Thora, who was looking steadily through the
self-satisfied Fritz, much as if she could see a spider crawling on the
wall behind him.
"Do they let things like that run about loose here in Courtland?" she
asked, with some anxiety on her face. "We have sties built for them at
home in Franconia!"
But Thora was in no mood for the rough jesting of officers-in-waiting
and princesses' tirewomen. She continued to watch the spider.
Then little Johannes Rode spoke for the first time.
"I wager," he said slowly, "that the Princesses will be less inseparable
by this time to-morrow."
"What do you mean, Johannes Rode?" said Thora, with instant challenge in
her voice, turning the wide-eyed directness of her gaze full upon him.
The young man did not look at her. He merely continued the carving of
his couplet upon the lower stone of the sundial, whistling the air as he
did so.
"Well," he answered slowly, "the Muscovite guard of Prince Ivan have
packed their own baggage (together with a good deal that is not their
own), and the minster priests are warned to hold themselves at the
Prince's bidding all day. That means a wedding, and I warrant you our
noble Louis does not mean to marry his Princess all over again in the
Dom-Kirch of Courtland. They are going to marry the Russ to our Princess
Margaret!"
Blonde Fritz laughed loud and long and tugged at his moustache.
"Out, you fool!" he cried; "this is a saint's day! I saw it in the
chaplain's Breviary. The Prince goes to shrive himself, and right wisely
he judges. I would not only confess, but receive extreme unction as
well, before I attempted to come nigh Joan of the Sword Hand in the way
of love! What say you, Justus?"
But before his companion could reply, Thora of Bornholm had risen and
stolen quietly within.