THE LOVES OF PRIEST AND WIFE
It remains to tell briefly how certain great things came to pass. We
must return to Isle Rugen and to the lonely grange on the spit of sand
which separates the Baltic from the waters of the Freshwater Haff.
Many things have happened there since Conrad of Courtland, Cardinal and
Archbishop, awaked to find by his bedside the sleeping girl who was his
brother's wife.
On Isle Rugen, where the pines grew dense and green, gripping and
settling the thin sandy soil with their prehensile roots, Joan and
Conrad found themselves much alone. The lady of the grange was seldom to
be seen, save when all were gathered together at meals. Werner von
Orseln and the Plassenburg captains, Jorian and Boris, played cards and
flung harmless dice for white stones of a certain size picked from the
beach. Dumb Max Ulrich went about his work like a shadow. The ten
soldiers mounted guard and looked out to sea with their elbows on their
knees in the intervals. Three times a week the solitary boat, with Max
Ulrich at the oars, crossed to the landing-place on the mainland and
returned laden with provisions. The outer sea was empty before their
eyes, generally deep blue and restless with foam caps. Behind them the
Haff lay vacant and still as oil in a kitchen basin.
But it was not dull on Isle Rugen.
The osprey flashed and fell in the clear waters of the Haff, presently
to re-emerge with a fish in his beak, the drops running like a broken
string of pearls from his scales. Rough-legged buzzards screamed their
harsh and melancholy cry as on slanted wings they glided down inclines
of sunshine or lay out motionless upon the viewless glorious air. Wild
geese swept overhead out of the north in V-shaped flocks. The sea-gulls
tacked and balanced. All-graceful terns swung thwartways the blue sky,
or plunged headlong into the long green swells with the curve and speed
of falling stars.
It was a place of forgetting, and in the autumn time it is good to
forget. For winter is nigh, when there will be time and enough to think
all manner of sad thoughts.
So in the September weather Joan and Conrad walked much together. And as
Joan forgat Kernsberg and her revenge, Rome and his mission receded into
the background of the young man's thoughts. Soon they met undisguisedly
without fear or shame. This Isle Rugen was a place apart--a haven of
refuge not of their seeking. Mars had driven one there, Neptune the
other.
Yet when Conrad woke in his little north-looking room in the lucid
pearl-grey dawn he had some bad moments. His vows, his priesthood, his
princedom of Holy Church were written in fire before his eyes. His heart
weighed heavy as if cinctured with lead. And, deeper yet, a rat seemed
to gnaw sharp-toothed at the springs of his life.
Also, when the falling seas, combing the pebbly beaches with foamy
teeth, rattled the wet shingle, Joan would ofttimes wake from sleep and
lie staring wide-eyed at the casement. Black reproach of self brooded
upon her spirit, as if a foul bird of night had fluttered through the
open window and settled upon her breast. The poor folk of Kernsberg--her
fatherland invaded and desolate, the Sparhawk, the man who ought to have
been the ruler she was not worthy to be, the leader in war, the lawgiver
in peace--these reproachful shapes filled her mind so that sleep fled
and she lay pondering plans of escape and deliverance.
But of one thing she never thought--of the cathedral of Courtland and
the husband to whose face she had but once lifted her eyes.
The sun looked through between the red cloud bars. These he soon left
behind, turning them from fiery islands to banks of fleecy wool. The
shadows shot swiftly westward and then began slowly to shorten. In his
chamber Prince Conrad rose and went to the window. A rose-coloured light
lay along the sea horizon, darting between the dark pine stems and
transmuting the bare sand-dunes into dreamy marvels, till they touched
the heart like glimpses of a lost Eden seen in dreams. The black bird of
night flapped its way behind the belting trees. There was not such a
thing as a ghostly rat to gnaw unseen the heart of man. The blue dome of
sky overhead was better than the holy shrine of Peter across the tawny
flood of Tiber, and Isle Rugen more to be desired than the seven-hilled
city itself. Yea, better than lifted chalice and wafted incense, Joan's
hand in his----
And Conrad the lover turned from the window with a defiant heart.
* * * * *
At her casement, which opened to the east, stood at the same moment the
young Duchess of Hohenstein. Her lips were parted and the mystery of the
new day dwelt in her eyes like the memory of a benediction. Southward
lay the world, striving, warring, sinning, repenting, elevating the
Host, slaying the living, and burying the dead. But between her and that
world stretched a wide water not to be crossed, a fixed gulf not to be
passed over. It was the new day, and there beneath her was the strip of
silver sand where he and she had walked yestereven, when the moon was
full and the wavelets of that sheltered sea crisped in silver at their
feet.
An hour afterwards these two met and gave each other a hand silently.
Then, facing the sunrise, they walked eastward along the shore, while
from the dusk of the garden gate Theresa von Lynar watched them with a
sad smile upon her face.
"She is learning the lesson even as I learned it," she murmured,
unconsciously thinking aloud. "Well, that which the father taught it is
meet that the daughter should learn. Let her eat the fruit, the bitter
fruit of love--even as I have eaten it!"
She watched a little longer, standing there with the pruning-knife in
her hand. She saw Conrad turn towards Joan as they descended a little
dell among the eastern sand-hills. And though she could not see, she
knew that two hands met, and that they stood still for a moment, ere
their feet climbed the opposite slope of dew-drenched sand. A swift sob
took her unexpectedly by the throat.
"And yet," she said, "were all to do over, would not Theresa von Lynar
again learn that lesson from Alpha to Omega, eat the Dead Sea fruit to
its bitterest kernel, in order that once more the bud might open and
love's flower be hers?"
Theresa von Lynar at her garden door spoke truth. For even then among
the sand-hills the bud was opening, though the year was on the wane and
the winter nigh.
"Happy Isle Rugen!" said Joan, drawing a breath like a sigh. "Why were
we born to princedoms, Conrad, you and I?"
"I at least was not," answered her companion. "Dumb Max's jerkin of blue
fits me better than any robe royal."
They stood on the highest part of the island. Joan was leaning on the
crumbling wall of an ancient fort, which, being set on a promontory from
which the pinetrees drew back a little, formed at once a place of
observation and a point objective for their walks. She turned at his
words and looked at him. Conrad, indeed, never looked better or more
princely than in that rough jerkin of blue, together with the corded
forester's breeches and knitted hose which he had borrowed from
Theresa's dumb servitor.
"Conrad," said Joan, suddenly standing erect and looking directly at the
young man, "if I were to tell you that I had resolved never to return to
Kernsberg, but to remain here on Isle Rugen, what would you answer?"
"I should ask to be your companion--or, if not, your bailiff!" said the
Prince-Bishop promptly.
"That would be to forget your holy office!"
A certain gentle sadness passed over the features of the young man.
"I leave many things undone for the sake of mine office," he said; "but
the canons of the Church do not forbid poverty, or yet manual labour."
"But you have told me a hundred times," urged Joan, smiling in spite of
herself, "that necessity and not choice made you a Churchman. Does that
necessity no longer exist?"
"Nay," answered Conrad readily as before; "but smaller necessities yield
to greater?"
"And the greater?"
"Why," he answered, "what say you to the tempest that drove me
hither--the thews and stout hearts of Werner von Orseln and his men, not
to speak of Captains Boris and Jorian there? Are they not sufficient
reasons for my remaining here?"
He paused as if he had more to say.
"Well?" said Joan, and waited for him to continue.
"There is something else," he said. "It is--it is--that I cannot bear to
leave you! God knows I could not leave you if I would!"
Joan of Hohenstein started. The words had been spoken in a low tone, yet
with suppressed vehemence, as though driven from the young man's lips
against his will. But there was no mistaking their purport. Yet they
were spoken so hopelessly, and withal so gently, that she could not be
angry.
"Conrad--Conrad," she murmured reproachfully, "I thought I could have
trusted you. You promised never again to forget what we must both
remember!"
"In so thinking you did well," he replied; "you may trust me to the end.
But the privilege of speech and testimony is not denied even to the
criminal upon the scaffold."
A wave of pity passed over Joan. A month before she would have withdrawn
herself in hot anger. But Isle Rugen had gentled all her ways. The peace
of that ancient fortalice, the wash of its ambient waters, the very lack
of incident, the sense of the mysteries of tragic life which surrounded
her on all sides, the deep thoughts she had been thinking alone with
herself, the companionship of this man whom she loved--all these had
wrought a new spirit in Joan of the Sword Hand. Women who cannot be
pitiful are but half women. They have never yet entered upon their
inheritance. But now Joan was coming to her own again. For to pity of
Theresa von Lynar she was adding pity for Conrad of Courtland and--Joan
of Hohenstein.
"Speak," she said very gently. "Do not be afraid; tell me all that is in
your heart."
Joan was not disinclined to hear any words that the young man might
speak. She believed that she could listen unmoved even to his most
passionate declarations of love. Like the wise physician, she would
listen, understand, prescribe--and administer the remedy.
But the pines of Isle Rugen stood between this woman and the girl who
had ridden away so proudly from the doors of the Kernsberg minster at
the head of her four hundred lances. Besides, she had not forgotten the
tournament and the slim secretary who had once stood before this man in
the river parlour of the Summer Palace.
Then Conrad spoke in a low voice, very distinct and even in its
modulation.
"Joan," he said, "once on a time I dreamed of being loved--dreamed that
among all the world of women there might be one woman for me. Such
things must come when deep sleep falleth upon a young man. Waking I put
them from me, even as I put arms and warfare aside. I believed that I
had conquered the lust of the eye. Now I know that I can never again be
true priest, never serve the altar with a clean heart.
"Listen, my Lady Joan! I love you--there is no use in hiding it.
Doubtless you yourself have already seen it. I love you so greatly that
vows, promises, priesthoods, cardinalates are no more to me than the
crying of the seabirds out yonder. Let a worthier than I receive and
hold them. They are not for a weak and sinful man. My bishopric let
another take. I would rather be your groom, your servitor, your lacquey,
than reign on the Seven Hills and sit in Holy Peter's chair!"
Joan leaned against the crumbling battlement, and the words of Conrad
were very sweet in her ear. They filled her with pity, while at the same
time her heart was strong within her. None had dared to speak such
things to her before in all her life, and she was a woman. The Princess
Margaret, had she loved a man as Joan did this man, would have given
back vow for vow, renunciation for renunciation, and, it might be, have
bartered kiss for kiss.
But Joan of the Sword Hand was never stronger, never more serene, never
surer of herself than when she listened to the words she loved best to
hear, from the lips of the man whom of all others she desired to speak
them. At first she had been looking out upon the sea, but now she
permitted her eyes to rest with a great kindliness upon the young man.
Even as he spoke Conrad divined the thing that was in her heart.
"Mark you," he said, "do me the justice to remember that I ask for
nothing. I expect nothing. I hope for nothing in return. I thought once
that I could love Divine things wholly. Now I know that my heart is too
earthly. But instead I love the noblest and most gracious woman in all
the world. And I love her, too, with a love not wholly unworthy of her."
"You do me overmuch honour," said Joan quietly. "I, too, am weak and
sinful. Or how else would I, your brother's wife, listen to such words
from any man--least of all from you?"
"Nay," said Conrad; "you only listen out of your great pitifulness. But
I am no worthy priest. I will not take upon me the yet greater things
for which I am so manifestly unfitted. I will not sully the holy
garments with my earthliness. Conrad of Courtland, Bishop and Cardinal,
died out there among the breakers.
"He will never go to Rome, never kneel at the tombs of the Apostles.
From this day forth he is a servitor, a servant of servants in the train
of the Duchess Joan. Save those with us here, our hostess and the three
captains (who for your sake will hold their peace), none know that
Conrad of Courtland escaped the waters that swallowed up his companions.
They and you will keep the secret. This shaven crown will speedily
thatch itself again, a beard grow upon these shaveling cheeks. A dash of
walnut juice, and who will guess that under the tan of Conrad the serf
there is concealed a prince of Holy Church?"
He paused, almost smiling. The picture of his renunciation had grown
real to him even as he spoke. But Joan did not smile. She waited a space
to see if he had aught further to say. But he was silent, waiting for
her answer.
"Conrad," she said very gently, "that I have listened to you, and that I
have not been angry, may be deadly sin for us both. Yet I cannot be
angry. God forgive me! I have tried and I cannot be angry. And why
should I? Even as I lay a babe in the cradle, I was wedded. If a woman
must suffer, she ought at least to be permitted to choose the instrument
of her torture."
"It is verity," he replied; "you are no more true wife than I am true
priest."
"Yet because you have dispensed holy bread, and I knelt before the altar
as a bride, we must keep faith, you and I. We are bound by our nobility.
If we sin, let it be the greater and rarer sin--the sin of the spirit
only. Conrad, I love you. Nay, stand still where you are and listen to
me--to me, Joan, your brother's wife. For I, too, once for all will
clear my soul. I loved you long ere your eyes fell on me. I came as
Dessauer's secretary to the city of Courtland. I determined to see the
man I was to wed. I saw the prince--my prince as I thought--storm
through the lists on his white horse. I saw him bare his head and
receive the crown of victory. I stood before him, ashamed yet glad,
hosed and doubleted like a boy, in the Summer Pavilion. I heard his
gracious words. I loved my prince, who so soon was to be wholly mine.
The months slipped past, and I was ever the gladder the faster they
sped. The woman stirred within the stripling girl. In half a year, in
twenty weeks--in five--in one--in a day--an hour, I would put my hand,
my life, myself into his keeping! Then came the glad tumult of the
rejoicing folk, the hush of the crowded cathedral. I said, 'Oh, not
yet--I will not lift my eyes to my prince until----' We stopped. I
lifted my eyes. And lo! the prince was not my prince!"
There was a long and solemn pause between these two on the old
watchtower. Never was declaration of love so given and so taken. Conrad
remained still as a statue, only his eyes growing great and full of
light. Joan stood looking at him, unashamed and fearless. Yet neither
moved an inch toward either. A brave woman's will, to do right greatly,
stood between them.
She went on.
"Now you know all, my Conrad," she said. "Isle Rugen can never more be
the isle of peace to us. You and I have shivered the cup of our
happiness. We must part. We can never be merely friends. I must abide
because I am a prisoner. You will keep my counsel, promising me to be
silent, and together we will contrive a way of escape."
When Conrad answered her again his voice was hoarse and broken, almost
like one rheumed with sleeping out on a winter's night. His words
whistled in his windpipe, flying from treble to bass and back again.
"Joan, Joan!" he said, and the third time "Joan!" And for the moment he
could say no more.
"True love," she said, and her voice was almost caressing, "you and I
are barriered from each other. Yet we belong--you to me--I to you! I
will not touch your hand, nor you mine. Not even as we have hitherto
done. Let ours be the higher, perhaps deadlier sin--the sin of soul and
soul. Do you go back to your office, your electorate, while I stay here
to do my duty."
"And why not you to your duchy?" said Conrad, who had begun to recover
himself.
"Because," she answered, "if I refuse to abide by one of my father's
bargains, I have no right to hold by the other. He would have made me
your brother's wife. That I have refused. He disinherited his lawful son
that I might take the dukedom with me as my dowry. Can I keep that which
was only given me in trust for another? Maurice von Lynar shall be Duke
Maurice, and Theresa von Lynar shall have her true place as the widow of
Henry the Lion!"
And she stood up tall and straight, like a princess indeed.
"And you?" he said very low. "What will you do, Joan?"
"For me, I will abide on Isle Rugen. Nunneries are not for me. There are
doubtless one or two who will abide with me for the sake of old
days--Werner von Orseln for one, Peter Balta for another. I shall not be
lonely."
She smiled upon him with a peculiar trustful sweetness and continued--
"And once a year, in the autumn, you will come from your high office.
You will lay aside the princely scarlet, and don the curt hose and blue
jerkin, even as now you stand. You will gather blackberries and help me
to preserve them. You will split wood and carry water. Then, when the
day is well spent, you and I shall walk hither in the high afternoon and
tell each other how we stand and all the things that have filled our
hearts in the year's interspace. Thus will we keep tryst, you and I--not
priest and wedded wife, but man and woman speaking the truth eye to eye
without fear and without stain. Do you promise?"
And for all answer the Prince-Cardinal kneeled down, and taking the hem
of her dress he kissed it humbly and reverently.