THE RED AXE IS LEFT ALONE
Gottfried Gottfried bowed to the guest of his house with the noble manner
which comes to every serious-minded man who deals habitually in the high
matters of life and death. I made his introductions to the Lady Ysolinde,
and as readily and gracefully he returned his acknowledgments. For the
rest I allowed Master Gerard's daughter to develop her own projects to
him, which, indeed, she was no long time in doing.
As she proceeded I saw my father change color and become as to his face
almost as white as the Friesland cloth in which he was dressed.
Presently, however, as if struck with the sound of a well-known name, he
looked up quickly.
"Plassenburg, said you, my lady?" he inquired.
The Lady Ysolinde nodded.
"Yes, to Plassenburg, where the Princess has great need of a maid
of honor."
"Her Highness is often upon her travels, I hear it reported," said my
father, "while the Prince keeps himself much at home."
"He esteems his armies more than all the marvels of strange countries,"
replied Ysolinde, "and thus he holds the land and folk in great quiet."
"And your father, Master Gerard, would have my son engage with this
Prince Karl for a space. Well, I think it may be good for the lad. For I
know well that the shadow of the Red Tower stalks after him through this
city of Thorn, and there is no need that he should lie down under it too
soon. But this of my little maid is a matter apart, and means a longer
and a sorer parting."
"Fear not, my father," cried the Playmate, eagerly, "I would not leave
you alone, even to be the Princess of Plassenburg herself."
My father took another strange look from one to the other of the two
women, the import of which I understood not then.
"I know not," said he; "I think this thing also might be for the best. As
I see it, there are strange times coming upon us in Thorn. And the town
of Plassenburg under Karl the Prince is a defenced city, set in a strong
province, content and united. It might be wisest that you also should go,
little one."
"I cannot go," said Helene, "and leave you alone."
Gottfried Gottfried smiled a sad smile, wistfully pleasant.
"Already I am wellnigh an old man, and it is the nature of my profession
that I should be alone. I work among the issues of life and death. Every
man must be lonely when he dies, and I, who have lived most with dying
men, am perforce already lonely while I live. It is well--a clearer air
for the young bird! But yet it will be lonesome to miss you when I come
in--the empty pot wanting the flower; the case without the jewel; silence
above and below; your voice and Hugo's, that have changed the sombre Red
Tower with your young folks' pleasantries, heard no more. Ah, God wot, I
had thought--I had dreamed far other things."
He stopped and looked from one to the other of us, and I saw that
Ysolinde of the White Gate read his thought. Whereat right suddenly the
Little Playmate blushed, and as for me I kept watching the dull gold
flash on the spangles of our guest's waist-belt, which was in form like
a live serpent, with changeful scales and eyes of ruby red.
My father went over to where Helene sat. She rose to meet him and cast
her arms about his neck. He laid his right hand on her head--that
terrible hand that was yet not dreadful to us-who loved him.
"Little flower," he said, in his simple way, "God be good to you in the
transplanting! It is not fair to your young life that my red stain should
lie upon your lot. I have given you a quiet hermitage while you needed
it. But now it is right that my house should again be left unto me
desolate. It is already late summer with Gottfried Gottfried, and high
time that the young brood should fly away."
He turned to me.
"With you, Hugo, it is a thing different; you were born to that to which
you are born. And to that, as I read your horoscope, you must one day
return. But in the mean time care well for the maid. I lend her to you. I
give her into your hand. Cherish her as your chiefest treasure. Let her
enemies be yours, and if harm come to her through your neglect, slay
yourself ere you come again before me. For, by the Lord God of all
Righteous Judgment, I will have no mercy!"
I saw the eyes of the Lady Ysolinde glitter like those of the snake in
her belt as thus my father delivered Helene over to me.
But my father had yet more to say.
"And if any," he went on, in a deep, still voice, keeping his hand upon
the downcast head of the Little Playmate--"if any, great or small,
prince or pauper, harm so much as a hair of this fair head, by the great
God who wields His Axe over the universe and sits in the highest Halls of
Judgment, whose servant I am--I, Gottfried Gottfried, swear that he shall
taste the vengeance of the Red Axe and drink to the dregs the cup of
agony in his own blood!"
So saying, he kissed Helene and stalked out without turning his head or
making any further obeisance or farewell.
We sat mazed and confounded after his departure.
The Lady Ysolinde it was who first recovered herself. She put out a
kindly hand to Helene, who stood wet-eyed and drooping by the window,
looking out upon the roofs of Thorn, though well I wot she saw nothing of
spire, roof, or pinnacle.
"God do so to me and more also," she said, in a low, solemn voice, "if I
too keep not this charge."
And I think for the moment she meant it. The trouble was that the Lady
Ysolinde could not mean one thing for very long at a time. As, indeed,
shall afterwards appear.
So it was arranged that within the week Helene and I should say our
farewells to the Red Tower which had sheltered us so long, as well as to
Gottfried Gottfried, who had ever been my kind father, and to the little
Helene more than any father.
But in spite of all we wearied day by day to be gone. For, indeed,
Gottfried Gottfried said right. The shadow of the Red Tower, the stain of
the Red Axe, was over us both so long as we abode on the Wolfsberg. Yet
what it cost us to depart--at least till we were out of the gates of the
city--I cannot write down, for to both of us the first waygoing seemed
bitter as death.
I remember it well. My father had been busy all the morning with his grim
work on the day when we were to ride away. A gang of malefactors who had
wasted a whole country-side with their cruelty had been brought in. And,
as it was suspected that other more important villains were yet to be
caught, there had been the repeated pain of the Extreme Question, and now
there remained but the falling of the Red Axe to settle all accounts. So
that when he came to bid us farewell he had but brief time to spare. And
of necessity he wore the fearful crimson, which fitted his tall, spare
figure like a glove.
"Fare thee well, little one!" he said, first to Helene. "Not thus, had
the choice lain with me, would I have bidden thee farewell. But when it
shall be that I meet you again I will surely wear the white of the festa
day. I commit you to Him whose mistakes are better than our good deeds,
whose judgments are kinder than our tenderest mercies."
So he kissed her, and reached a hand over her shoulder to me.
"Son Hugo," he said, "go in peace. You must return to succeed me. I see
it like a picture--on the day when I lie dead you shall stand with the
Red Axe in your hand waiting to do judgment. It is well. Keep this maid
more sacred than your life--and, meantime, fare you well!"
So saying he left us abruptly.
Our horses were saddled in the court-yard, and as I rode last through the
rarely opened gateway, I saw Duke Casimir looking out from his window
upon the lower enclosure, as was his pleasure upon the days of execution.
I heard the dull thud, which was the meeting of the Red Axe and the
redder block as that which had been between fell apart. And for the last
time I heard the blood-hounds leap and the pattering of their eager feet
upon the barriers as they leaped up scenting the Duke's carrion.
Thus the latest I heard of the place of my nativity was fitting and
dreadful. I was mortally glad to ride away into the clear air and the
invigorating silence. But on my heart there still lay heavy the
twice-repeated prediction of my father and of the Lady Ysolinde, that I
should yet return and hold the Red Axe in his place.
But I resolved rather to die in the honest front of battle.
Nevertheless, had I known the future, I would have seen that they and not
I were right.
I was indeed fated to return and stand ready to execute doom, with the
Red Axe in my hand and my father lying dead near by.