THE DROPPING OF A CLOAK
And so, with the mounted guard of his own Cossacks before him and
behind, Prince Ivan carried his bride to church through the streets of
her native city. And the folk thronged and marvelled at this new custom
of marrying. But none interfered by word or sign, and the obsequious
rabble shouted, "Long live Prince Ivan!"
Even some of the better disposed, who had no liking for the Muscovite
alliance, said within their hearts, looking at the calm set face of the
Prince, "He is a man! Would to God that our own Prince were more like
him!"
Also many women nodded their heads and ran to find their dearest
gossips. "You will see," they said, "this one will have no ridings away.
He takes his wife before him upon his saddle-bow as a man should. And
she will pretend that she does not like it. But secretly--ah, we know!"
And they smiled at each other. For there is that in most women which
will never be civilised. They love not men who walk softly, and still in
their heart of hearts they prefer to be wooed by the primitive method of
capture. For if a woman be not afraid of a man she will never love him
truly. And that is a true word among all peoples.
So they came at last to the Dom and the groups of wondering folks,
thinly scattered here and there--women mostly. For there had been such
long delay at the Summer Palace that the men had gone back to their
shavings and cooperage tubs or were quaffing tankards in the city
ale-cellars.
The great doors of the cathedral had been thrown wide open and the
leathern curtains withdrawn. The sun was checkering the vast tesselated
pavement with blurs of purple and red and glorious blue shot through the
western window of the nave. In gloomy chapel and recessed nook marble
princes and battered Crusaders of the line of Courtland seemed to blink
and turn their faces to the wall away from the unaccustomed glare. The
altar candles and the lamps a-swing in the choir winked no brighter than
yellow willow leaves seen through an autumnal fog. But as the _cortège_
dismounted the organ began to roll, and the people within rose with a
hush like that which follows the opening of a window at night above the
Alla.
The sonorous diapason of the great instrument disgorged itself through
the doorway in wave upon wave of sound. The Princess Margaret found
herself again on her feet, upheld on either side by brother and lover.
She was at first somewhat dazed with the rush of accumulate disasters.
Slowly her mind came back. The Dom Platz whirled more slowly about her.
With a fresh-dawning surprise she heard the choir sing within. She began
to understand the speech of men. The great black square of the open
doorway slowed and finally stopped before her. She was on the steps of
the cathedral. What had come to her? Was it the Duchess Joan's wedding
day? Surely no! Then what was the matter? Had she fainted?
Maurice--where was Maurice? She turned about. The small glittering eyes
of Prince Ivan, black as sloes, were looking into hers. She remembered
now. It was her own wedding. These two, her brother and her enemy, were
carrying out their threat. They had brought her to the cathedral to wed
her, against her will, to the man she hated. But they could not. She
would tell them. Already she was a--but then, if she told them that,
they would ride back and kill him. Better that she should perjure
herself, condemn herself to hell, than that. Better anything than that.
But what was she to do? Was ever a poor girl so driven?
And there, in the hour of her extremity, her eye fell upon a young man
in the crowd beneath, a youth in a 'prentice's blue jerkin. He was
passing his arm softly about a girl's waist--slily also, lest her mother
should see. And the maid, first starting with a pretence of not knowing
whence came the pressure, presently looked up and smiled at him,
nestling a moment closer to his shoulder before removing his hand, only
to hold it covertly under her apron till her mother showed signs of
turning round.
"Ah! why was I born a princess?" moaned the poor driven girl.
"Margaret, you must come with us into the cathedral." It was the voice
of her brother. "It is necessary that the Prince should wed you now. It
has too long been promised, and now he can delay no longer. Besides, the
Black Death is in the city, and this is the only hope of escape. Come!"
It was on the tip of Margaret's tongue to cry out with wild words even
as she had done at the door at the river parlour. But the thought of
Maurice, of the torture and the death, silenced her. She lifted her
eyes, and there, at the top of the steps, were the dignitaries of the
cathedral waiting to lead the solemn procession.
"I will go!" she said.
And at her words the Prince Ivan smiled under his thin moustache.
She laid her hand on her brother's arm and began the ascent of the long
flight of stairs. But even as she did so, behind her there broke a wave
of sound--the crying of many people, confused and multitudinous like the
warning which runs along a crowded thoroughfare when a wild charger
escaped from bonds threshes along with frantic flying harness. Then came
the clatter of horses' hoofs, the clang of doors shut in haste as decent
burghers got them in out of harm's way! And lo! at the foot of the
steps, clad from head to foot in a cloak, the sick Princess Joan, she
whom the Black Death had stricken, leaped from her foaming steed, and
drawing sword followed fiercely up the stairway after the marriage
procession. The Cossacks of the Muscovite guard looked at each other,
not knowing whether to stand in her way or no.
"The Princess Joan!" they said from one to the other.
"Joan of the Sword Hand!" whispered the burghers of Courtland. "The
disease has gone to her brain. Look at the madness in her eye!"
And their lips parted a little as is the wont of those who, having come
to view a comedy, find themselves unexpectedly in the midst of high
tragedy.
"Hold, there!" the pursuer shouted, as she set foot on the lowest step.
"Lord! Surely that is no woman's voice!" whispered the people who stood
nearest, and their lower jaws dropped a little further in sheer
wonderment.
The Princes turned on the threshold of the cathedral, with Margaret
still between them, the belly of the church black behind them, and the
processional priests first halting and then peering over each other's
shoulders in their eagerness to see.
Up the wide steps of the Dom flew the tall woman in the flowing cloak.
Her face was pallid as death, but her eyes were brilliant and her lips
red. At the sight of the naked sword Prince Ivan plucked the blade from
his side and Louis shrank a little behind his sister.
"Treason!" he faltered. "What is this? Is it sudden madness or the
frenzy of the Black Death?"
"The Princess Margaret cannot be married!" cried the seeming Princess.
"To me, Margaret! I will slay the man who lays a hand on you!"
Obedient to that word, Margaret of Courtland broke from between her
brother and Prince Ivan and ran to the tall woman, laying her brow on
her breast. The Prince of Muscovy continued calm and immovable.
"And why?" he asked in a tone full of contempt. "Why cannot the Princess
Margaret be married?"
"Because," said the woman in the long cloak, fingering a string at her
neck, "she is married already. _I am her husband!_"
The long blue cloak fell to the ground, and the Sparhawk, clad in
close-fitting squire's dress, stood before their astonished eyes.
A long low murmur, gathering and sinking, surged about the square.
Prince Louis gasped. Margaret clung to her lover's arm, and for the
space of a score of seconds the whole world stopped breathing.
Prince Ivan twisted his moustache as if he would pull it out by the
roots.
"So," he said, "the Princess is married, is she? And you are her
husband? 'Whom God hath joined'--and the rest of it. Well, we shall see,
we shall see!"
He spoke gently, meditatively, almost caressingly.
"Yes," cried the Sparhawk defiantly, "we were married yesterday by
Father Clement, the Prince's chaplain, in the presence of the most noble
Leopold von Dessauer, High Councillor of Plassenburg!"
"And my wife--the Princess Joan, where is she?" gasped Prince Louis, so
greatly bewildered that he had not yet begun to be angry.
Ivan of Muscovy put out his hand.
"Gently, friend," he said; "I will unmask this play-acting springald.
This is not your wife, not the woman you wedded and fought for, not the
Lady Joan of Hohenstein, but some baseborn brother, who, having her
face, hath played her part, in order to mock and cheat and deceive us
both!"
He turned again to Maurice von Lynar.
"I think we have met before, Sir Masquer," he said with his usual suave
courtesy; "I have, therefore, a double debt to pay. Hither!" He beckoned
to the guards who lined the approaches. "I presume, sir, so true a
courtier will not brawl before ladies. You recognise that you are in our
power. Your sword, sir!"
The Sparhawk looked all about the crowded square. Then he snapped his
sword over his knee and threw the pieces down on the stone steps.
"You are right; I will not fight vainly here," he said. "I know well it
is useless. But"--he raised his voice--"be it known to all men that my
name is Maurice, Count von Löen, and that the Princess Margaret is my
lawfully wedded wife. She cannot then marry Ivan of Muscovy!"
The Prince laughed easily and spread his hand with gentle deprecation,
as the guards seized the Sparhawk and forced him a little space away
from the clinging hands of the Princess.
"I am an easy man," he said gently, as he clicked his dagger to and fro
in its sheath. "When I like a woman, I would as lief marry her widow as
maid!"