understand her own feelings, as a fly which hath been ensnared by the
spider struggles to regain the freedom of his wings. She was herself
entangled in a web of circumstance and of passion, and she glowed with a
warmth which was at once shame and desire. She was not without some
proper indignation against Count Stephen, and yet she desired with a
curiosity which was not all unwilling, to learn what more he would dare
to whisper in her ear before they came again to the castle from this
hunt upon which she had ridden against the wish of her husband. Her
blood seemed on fire. She repeated to herself the words in which she had
for the first time set at naught the wishes of Albrecht, and with
strange inconsistency she was angry that he had not forced her to remain
at the castle. She said to herself that when she had declared her
defiance of his will that she go not with the count to fly the falcon,
her husband should have constrained her to obedience. She could not
divine why it was that Albrecht seemed to look upon her as a being
higher than himself, and to yield to her will as if it were that of one
who had the right to command. He seemed less strong and noble than she
had believed him when he failed to bend her pride to his wish.
Erna was a woman, and she did not ask herself what would have been her
feelings had she at this moment been a prisoner at home, instead of
careering thus across the forest with the soft west wind blowing in her
face and a tingling sense of the hoof-beats of Count Stephen's steed
just behind her. Though it be not when they are most kindly entreated
that women be most just, yet are they not to be constrained into doing
justice to those who love them.
Very lovely was the countess to-day, as she rode through the greenwood.
She was clad in a robe of green cloth, the color of the new tips of the
pine branches in the springtime. Her cap was embroidered with gold, and
its tuft of heron's plume was held in its place by a clasp of jewels.
Her hawk was a jerfalcon as white as the snow new-fallen, upon which
the sun shines ere yet it hath been smirched or sullied; and his hood
and jesses were of crimson, of the same hue as her gloves, which were
richly enwrought with golden thread in quaint devices. The spotless
plumage of the bird against the red of the glove was wondrously fair to
see, and wondrously fair was the lady as she carried the falcon against
her breast.
Little did it please the temper of Erna that Herr von Zimmern should
have taken it upon himself to suppose that she rode to-day because he
had been to the trouble of riding in the early morning to the meadow by
the lake and bringing word again that the ducks, now on their way
southward, were there. She was well assured in her own mind that she had
been minded to please no one but herself when she had insisted in
setting out despite the wish of Albrecht that she go not. Certainly she
had no longing to show friendliness to Herr von Zimmern for his service,
since to say sooth the prejudice which she had from his first coming
held against the cripple had in no wise softened with time, albeit he
had seemed to be devoted to Albrecht and to her; neither had it been her
wish, she assured herself, to pleasure Count Stephen, however his
earnestness in the matter might seem to give color to such a
supposition. She was only of the mind to come, and to show her husband,
who each day became more and more wearisomely given to devout matters,
that she was not to be ruled by his unreasonable whims and to shut
herself up as if she were a nun in a cloister instead of being lady of
Rittenberg, the fairest holding in all the country round.
She was not without a secret anger that Albrecht gave no sign of seeing
how his guest was striving to steal away the heart of his wife. She set
her teeth with vexation that no token indicated that the baron was even
aware of the peril in which his happiness stood. She said to herself
that there could be little love where one saw only such indifference.
Her clear cheek flushed hotly as the thought came that it might after
all be indifference rather than blindness which made her husband so
calm. She recalled that while he wooed her he had found the kisses of
Elsa to his liking, and the doubt whether he were not one of the men
whose affection goes as lightly as it comes, pierced her heart. The very
suspicion made her hot with rage.
Yet surely Albrecht had declared that the caress of no other woman could
evermore be sweet to him; it was only that he was sunk into this mire of
religious musing in which Father Christopher encouraged him. She half
hated the old priest at the thought. She wondered how far it would be
possible for Count Stephen to carry his wooing before the wrath of
Albrecht would break out. The question affected her almost as if she
already felt the caress of the lover. She became suddenly so keenly
conscious of the presence of the count behind her that she glanced back
as if in fear. Then she reined in her palfrey so that her damsel
Fastrade, who rode discreetly in the rear, might overtake her.
For a time she paced forward demurely, feeling the sidelong glances of
the count upon her like a hand, and with difficulty restraining the
impulse to look up and meet his burning eyes. She knew well that he
watched her as a fowler might watch a bird that is fluttering ever
nearer the snare; and every moment it became harder for her to maintain
her calm. Suddenly the impulse seized her to dash wildly forward along
the woodland way.
"Come, Fastrade!" she called imperatively.
She struck her palfrey sharply, and onward she flew, her damsel
following as well as she might. She felt as if she were escaping from
danger; the wood seemed full of beings in league with Count Stephen; she
even seemed to hear wicked whispers in her ears, so clear that she could
have sworn that they were pronounced by unseen lips; some presence
tried to hold her back, and only the need of escape made her forget for
the moment to be afraid; for a brief time a wild exhilaration thrilled
her blood, as if in leaving Count Stephen behind in the beech wood she
were overcoming the unseen powers of evil and freeing herself from
temptation.
"Ride, Fastrade!" she called backward over her shoulder, conscious in
the brief glance behind that the plume of the count was still to be seen
as he galloped easily after them. "Ride! faster, faster!"
The falcon fluttered against her breast, almost thrown from her wrist by
the swiftness of her pace; her heart fluttered beneath, half in fear and
half in a dangerously delicious confusion. The very air, soft and
perfumed, languorous and enervating, seemed to melt her resolution and
to help to overcome her. She held up her arm, and shook her falcon until
he reeled again, tossing his hooded head so that his bell rang right
merrily. She broke into wild laughter, and along the green arches of the
wood she heard the soft voices of the unseen ones laugh with her; but
she no longer felt as if she were combating the powers about her; she
did but jest with them and they with her. She trembled without fearing
and yet without knowing why.
"On, Fastrade!" she cried still. "Faster, faster!"
Suddenly, as she looked through the beech-tree boles, which here began
to grow more sparsely, as the riders approached the meadow where they
were to throw off the falcons, Erna saw two figures. Her first thought
was that they were creatures of the wood, but in a moment more she saw
that it was her husband riding with Herr von Zimmern. The sight sobered
her instantly. She reined in her palfrey so abruptly that Fastrade, who
had much ado to keep up with her mistress, hardly now escaped dashing
against her. Erna could not divine why Albrecht should be here when she
supposed him to be at home. Her first fearful thought, which the
guiltiness of her mind conjured up, was that he had come to play the spy
upon her and the count; but the openness with which he allowed himself
to be seen, and the grave courtesy with which he saluted her as she rode
by, showed her that this was not the object of his ride. Albrecht did
not attempt to join her, but rode into the wood so quickly that neither
of Erna's companions saw him, albeit had Fastrade been less occupied
with her palfrey, thrown into confusion by the suddenness with which he
had been checked, she might have perceived the baron.
Although Erna could not in the least determine why Albrecht was there,
the sight of him had instantly subdued her wild mood. She became quiet
and thoughtful, and for all the afternoon while they flew their hawks,
she watched almost in silence; so that the count jested upon her
soberness.
"Didst thou, then, see a ghost in the wood?" he demanded; "or was it
that thou hast ridden across the track of the Wild Huntsman? Certain it
is that something has come to thee since thou fleddest from me to ride
on with thy damsel. Thou art too beautiful to be trusted in the forest
without a knight beside thee; sooner or later is a kobold sure to
capture thee if thou ridest thus recklessly."
Something in his tone angered the Lady of Rittenberg. Since the hour
when she had thoughtlessly put into his hand the scroll of Ovid with its
pictures of such wickedness that a modest dame might by no means give
them unto the gaze of another, and which she blushed to see when she
examined the parchment more closely afterward, it had seemed to Erna
that Count Stephen accosted her with a freedom which he had not carried
of old. She turned from him now, and bent her regard upon the jess of
her falcon, as if she were making sure that it were secure, as the bird
rested upon her wrist after having struck down a brace of ducks.
"Nay," the count continued, laughing and speaking in a tone which was of
itself like a caress, "and thou takest to being angry with me, Mistress
Cousin, I am indeed undone. It is but that the light of thy beauty hath
so dazzled thy slave that I know not what I say, and so in sooth may
unwitting offend thee."
"Now thou art minded to jest and to mock me," Erna returned, instantly
relenting. "I am not angry. Why should I be? Only that it is perhaps not
customary for the guest to praise the beauty of his hostess as thou hast
of late fallen into the fashion of doing."
"No," the count answered gravely, and with a look into her eyes that she
could not meet unabashed; "but then it is not often that the guest so
truly and so heartily loveth his hostess."
"It hath a savor as if thou wouldst flout at my poor face," she
continued, making her countenance as if she heard not his bold words;
"and surely it is not seemly that one should mock his hostess."
"Of a truth, fair cousin," Count Stephen began eagerly, "I--
"Hush!" she cried softly, her manner changing. Then aloud she said,
moving nearer to the spot where stood Fastrade: "Have we not a brave
quarry to-day? I have never seen the hawks do better."
The day was well worn when the train started to return to the castle,
and in the beech wood the shadows were gathering so that one could see
but dimly there; and it might be that when Erna turned her head as she
rode through a leafy covert and spoke as if to Fastrade, she in truth
believed her damsel to be behind her, albeit the ambling of the maiden's
palfrey was little enough like to the trampling of the stallion upon
which Count Stephen rode, so near that the nose of his steed was all but
touching the haunches of Erna's. And yet before she turned the countess
hesitated and flushed there in the shadow, and her voice as she spoke
the name of her damsel had in it a tremor which could hardly have been
there had she in all verity spoken for the ears of Fastrade.
Count Stephen pressed his horse forward so that their steeds were
abreast in the narrow way.
"Nay, it is I," he said, so close that as he leaned toward her in the
dusk she felt his breath hot upon her cheek.
She reined her palfrey away from him, but it seemed to her as if
something unseen thrust itself in her way so that she could not escape.
It came upon her that the wood-folk were in league with her cousin, and
her terror made her turn again toward Count Stephen, although she shook
the reins of her palfrey to urge him forward. But the path was too
narrow for two horses to run together in it, and Count Stephen kept his
steed close beside her own. Her falcon she had given to Rupert, who rode
far behind, and it occurred to her now that had she but kept it with her
she might have let it escape and so produced an excitement by means of
which to be freed from her entanglement.
"Dearest!" breathed the count at her ear; and the passion of his voice
stirred her pulses with fiery dread.
She felt as if she were suffocating; she longed to flee, and yet she
longed also to stay. Some resistless fascination seemed to overpower
her, and without speaking she rode by her lover's side for the space of
a falcon's plunge at his quarry. Then Count Stephen half threw himself
from his horse to hers, cast his strong arm about her, and kissed her.
The touch of his lips broke the spell which passion and opportunity had
been weaving about her. She tore herself out of his embrace with a
vehemence which nearly threw him from his saddle, and struck her palfrey
with all her force. Before he recovered his seat she was fleeing down
the forest path with all her speed, panting and weeping, and urging her
palfrey with voice and with whip toward the castle.
XXI
HOW ALBRECHT AND HERR FREDERICH TALKED IN THE WOOD.
Hardly had the hawking-party set out that day, when Herr von Zimmern,
with a smile of cruel craft upon his face, went limping in search of
Baron Albrecht. He found him with Father Christopher, and between the
two lay upon the oaken table a scroll of parchment in which they had
been reading.
"Pardon me that I disturb your studies," Herr Frederich said, with the
air of one who strives to seem humble in his demeanor; "but I would that
the Lord Baron come forth and ride with me. I have that to show which it
were well for him to see."
"What is it, and whither should we ride?" the knight asked, looking up
calmly; while Von Zimmern noted with amusement and mingled anger that
into the face of Father Christopher there stole an expression of dismay.
"You are more cautious than of old, when it booted not whither we rode
so be it that our steeds were good and the quarry fair," the cripple
responded with a discordant laugh. "For to-day trust me in the old
fashion, and come without question."
"The old fashion is no more possible," Albrecht answered; "but
nevertheless I will go with thee, if it be only that the occasion may
serve for the saying of certain words that must sooner or later be
spoken between us."
Von Zimmern looked at the baron in some surprise, but returned no other
answer than a profound bow which seemed mocking in its excessive
deference. He waited a moment while the other laid aside the parchment
and prepared to accompany him, the priest all the while looking as if he
had it in his desire to prevent this sally from the castle did he but
know how to accomplish his wish. Herr von Zimmern found it not easy to
accustom himself to this new Albrecht who had been developed out of the
kobold lad whom he had trained and shaped at his will, and of whose
simple wits it had been so easy to get the better by a little human
guile. He had for long years foreseen the time when Albrecht should gain
a human soul, and for this he had schemed; but now that the thing was
accomplished he was confused by the result. Albrecht with a soul was not
the being that Herr Frederich had expected him to be, and the fact
continually filled the cripple with a baffled sense of confusion.
Together Albrecht and his companion got to horse, and without further
speech they rode down the hill and into the shadow of the forest. The
instant the shadow of the pines fell upon him Albrecht knew that there
were evil influences abroad that day. He caught a glimpse among the tree
boles of the shadowy form of a kobold, and he heard in the air the
whispers of beings to which his sight was growing dim as he became more
human. He looked at his companion questioningly, as if he suspected the
truth; but Herr Frederich held his face under control, and did not
betray the feverish glee which burned within him. Herr Frederich was
secretly full of malicious triumph. He had gathered from the burning
looks of Count Stephen when that morning the cripple had brought tidings
of the quarry to be had in the meadow and from the ambiguous speech of
the lord of Schaffhausen, that to-day was the lover determined to bring
his wooing to a climax; and he had promise that opportunity should not
be lacking, since the kobolds of the forest, urged on by Von Zimmern and
angry at the desertion of their brotherhood by Albrecht, had given
pledge to bring Erna and her lover together alone in the wood.
Herr Frederich had brought Albrecht forth from the castle to follow on
the track of the hunters, feeling sure that the wood-folk would
contrive opportunity, and that Count Stephen would not be loath or slow
to avail himself of it to press his passion; and it was with the surety
of being able to show to Albrecht his wife listening to the vows of
another, perhaps even clasped in her lover's arms, that the malicious
cripple led the way through the forest.
So still in silence they rode, until they did in truth come upon the
hawking-party, as hath been told. When Herr Frederich beheld how the
damsel Fastrade rode in advance with her mistress while the Count
followed, as it at that moment happened, he muttered under his breath a
curse bitter and deep.
"Now they have beheld us!" he exclaimed in vexation; and involuntarily
he turned his horse toward the deeper shades behind the spot where they
rode.
Albrecht followed the other as he wheeled, and rode after until they
were out of sight of the hawking-party. Then he drew rein.
"Hold thee still there!" he commanded.
Herr Frederich, with a sudden thrill of rage and no less of terror,
checked his horse, feeling that his quarry had escaped him. He sat
glaring at the baron with eyes from which blazed the hate he would no
longer take the trouble to conceal.
"Thinkest thou," Albrecht said in a voice so perfectly calm and
self-controlled that it stung his hearer like the lash of a whip, "that
I am so dull as not to understand that thou hast brought me forth into
the forest to play the spy?"
"You were brought here," Herr Frederich answered furiously, "to see how
your lady and her lover--"
No more could he say, for Albrecht with a sharp thrust of the spurs made
his horse leap forward, and caught the other by the throat. For an
instant, as the two confronted each other with blazing eyes, it seemed
that the death-hour of the cripple had surely come. Then the strong
fingers of Albrecht loosened their hold, an expression of regret
softened the splendid rage in his face, and Herr Frederich wrenched
himself free from the grasp that was strangling him.
Albrecht reined his horse backward.
"Beware that thou dost not provoke me too far," he said. "I was prepared
for the foul thing that thou wast minded to say, but I will not listen
to the name of my lady from thy lips. Dost thou think, forsooth, that I
am so besotted that I have not seen that thou wast minded to play a part
too foul for one to name it, and to bring about my dishonor in mine own
house to the intent that I should be--Nay, to what intent thou best
knowest. I had fortified myself to the end that to-day for the last time
I should bear with thee patiently, but if thou takest the name of my
wife upon thy lips, I will not answer for my forbearance."
Herr Frederich, panting and dishevelled, leaned upon the pommel of his
saddle and regarded his companion with looks of burning ferocity.
"I did but try," he sneered, "to warn you in time, that you might save
yourself from--"
The threatening look which gathered blackly upon the brow of Albrecht
warned him to be more guarded in his speech, and he broke off abruptly,
leaving the rest unspoken.
"The faithful service of the best part of my life," he went on,
endeavoring to cover his anger with a show of wounded zeal and faithful
affection, "counts for nothing with you, and it is not strange that this
endeavor to serve you should bring to me only abuse. It was to do you a
service that I adventured the rage of Count von Rittenberg, and--"
Albrecht put up his hand with a gesture which once more cut the speaker
short.
"Why is it," he asked, "that thou hast gone about to do me harm? What
cause hast thou to hate me? If I was not over-thoughtful of thee in the
old days, I was at least never cruel, and I took care that thou shouldst
fare as well as might be. Thou wert set next to myself, and never did I
let that one of those under my hand should so much as speak to thee
lightly."
Herr Frederich threw the reins down upon the neck of his steed, and with
folded arms he sat confronting Albrecht. The supreme hour of his life
had come. Now at last would he pour forth all the wrath that for long
years had been festering in his soul. There was not more a need of
prudence, of concealment, of a cloak with which to hide the intents of
his heart. He labored only how to frame his speech so that it should
sting and burn Albrecht to the very soul, like the lightning shafts, or
the poisoned spear of the Wild Huntsman that leaves an incurable wound
at its lightest touch. He glanced about with an instinctive, cowardly
desire to see whither he could flee if the other's rage should overleap
all bounds, and he muttered a spell to summon the sprites of the wood.
"Ah, thou art, then, in league with the folk of the forest?" Albrecht
said, hearing him. "Couldst thou not trust thine own powers for evil,
that thou hast called upon them to help thee?"
The cripple gave no heed to the interruption. He was lost in the
fierceness of his feelings. He was determined that of the bitter joy of
this moment he would lose nothing through craven fear. He cast all
prudence to the wind.
"It is true," he began, in a tone which was at first low, but which
increased as he went on, and the fierceness of his anger burst out more
and more, as a fire that is opened to the wind blazes higher and higher,
"that you had me treated well at the hands of the wild crew at
Neiderwasser, since, forsooth, I was too valuable a thing to be lightly
handled. If your underlings were forced to treat me with respect, were
they ever allowed to forget that I was an underling also; I, who had
been born a man and a freeholder? Oh, the fool of a kobold, that thinks
himself able to understand men because, forsooth, he hath stolen a soul
through his wife! Why do I hate you? You who kept me in thralldom among
creatures no better than the wild beasts save that they speak and go
upright! You, whose father stole me from freedom, from home, from the
wife that belonged to me only, and from the children that were helpless
without me! Why do I hate you? God's wounds, I had much cause to love
you!"
His bitter laughter rang through the forest. Albrecht shuddered, but he
drew nearer to the cripple, and Herr Frederich saw in his face an
expression of compassion. The fierceness of Von Zimmern's rage was
increased twofold that he could excite in the knight only pity and not
the anger which he longed to provoke.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried again, his voice rising ever higher till
the hollows of the wood rang with it; "do you know why I taught you to
long for a human soul, and why I spared no pains to fit you for the part
you had to play to gain one, so that you should by no means fail? It was
because till you had a soul my vengeance could have no hold upon you! It
was that I was not content to hurt you for the short life which would
have been yours in the forest; I would bring on you a punishment that
should be eternal! When you were a lad I could scarcely keep my hands
from tearing and maiming you, and I should have laughed had your
accursed kobold father rent me limb from limb for doing it; but I waited
for a better vengeance! The only thing that is wanting to my content now
is that your father cannot know how I have paid my debt to his son."
He seemed to have gone mad, and Albrecht shuddered and crossed himself
at the sight of fury so demoniacal. The cripple shivered and trembled
with excitement; the tears gathered in his eyes, and the foam specked
his lips. The knight's own eyes were dim, as he leaned forward and laid
his hand upon the other's arm.