THE FLAG ON THE BED TOWER
It took us all our powers of persuasion with the Prince to induce him
to depart homeward on the morrow, under escort of a dozen sturdy and
well-armed lanzknechte attached to the monastery. But the thing was
done at last.
"And remember," said our Karl, as he embraced us, "that if ye return not
on the eighth day at eventide, the forces of Plassenburg will e'en be
battering on the gates of Thorn by the hour of dusk. I am not going to
have my farms burned, my peasants disembowelled and cast to the
blood-hounds, my women ravished in their kindly home-steadings. God wot!
the cup of Duke Casimir hath been brimming this many a day, and we will
give him a deep and bitter draught to drink when we set it to his lips."
Thereupon we bade our dear and brave master a respectful adieu. Karl
Miller's Son he might be, but for all that he was every inch a king--a
right royal man, whom I would rather serve than the Kaiser himself.
And after he had gone from us a little way he turned again and waved his
hand, crying: "On the eighth day report you without fail, friends of
mine, unless ye wish me to come asking for you at the gates of Thorn,
with some din and the spilling of much blood."
The worthy Abbot Tobias gave us a paper to the Bishop Peter, now restored
to his bishopric of Thorn, and in some measure dwelling at peace with the
Duke Casimir since that ruler's reconciliation with Holy Church. In this
paper it was set forth that the most learned Doctor of Law, Leonard
Schmidt, with his servant Johann, were on their way to Ratisbon to
dispute concerning the Practice of Law and Reason with another most
learned Doctor of the Empire, and that, desiring to remain a day of two
in Thorn, they were by the Abbot Tobias of Wolgast commended to Bishop
Peter's kind hospitality.
For indeed the inns of Germany, and especially of the North, were not at
that time such as wise and learned men could readily submit to--neither
abide in, to be herded with dull, landward peasants and all the
tankard-swilling gutter-knaves of the town.
Of the remainder of our journey I need not speak, seeing that more than
once I have had to tell of that journey from Thorn to Plassenburg. It is
sufficient that by evening the dark, frowning mass of the Wolfsberg lay
imminent before us, each tower black against the sky. For even the new
portions which Casimir had builded were of intention blackened with
soot--mingled with the plaster and mortar, so that they should be of one
piece of grim terror with the rest of the building.
"After all it is not strange," said I to the Councillor, for when
there was no one in sight or very near us I rode with him instead of
behind him, "that the man who shakes at every breeze among the aspens
should take such pains to create the fiction and shadow of terror
about him, when the substance and reality is dominant all the while in
his own bosom."
Since we had come within the distressed and depopulated territory of the
Wolfmark we had not spoken to any soul. Indeed, except a few poor,
desolate peasant folk, burned black with the sun, scuttling from den to
den at the sight of mounted men, we had not seen any living creatures.
The cruelty which had marked the reign of the Black Duke seemed to have
afflicted the very face of the country with a visible curse.
But the day of deliverance was at hand.
As we came nearer to Thorn, there before us was the Red Tower, at first
dimly apparent, then prominent, then commanding, finally rising higher
than all the buildings of the Wolfsberg. How many days had I not looked
down from those windows! And my father was even now up there in his grim
garret, his heart stirring calm and kindly within him, in spite of all
the atmosphere of blood in which his life had moved, as untouched as
though he had been a gardener working among the flowers of the parterre.
Also the block was there, and against it the Red Axe was leaning.
Then I called to mind the prophecy of the Lady Ysolinde, that I should
return to take up my father's dreadful trade. And I smiled thereat.
For I thought that now I came in other circumstances--aye, even though
riding in at The tail of the learned Doctor Schmidt with my shaven and
chestnut-stained face, my flowing hair cropped to the roots, as in the
manner of the servant tribe! Yet for all that was I not the virtual
military commander of the Plassenburg and the right hand of the
Prince, whose forces would soon be clamoring against the walls of
Thorn and bringing down to destruction the hateful tyranny of the
Black Duke Casimir?
"What is that?" said I, pointing to a standard of immense size which
drooped from the Red Tower. It had been hanging limp and straight about
the staff, and till now we had not observed it. But as we went toiling up
to the Weiss Thor, and the last links of road lengthened themselves
indefinitely out before us in their own familiar manner, suddenly a waft
of hot wind from the sun-beaten plain of the Wolfmark blew out an immense
black flag, which spread itself, fluttered feebly, and died down again
flat against the pole.
"Nay," said the Doctor, "that I cannot tell. Surely you should know the
customs of your own city better than I!"
For the heat had made the High Chancellor a little snappish, as well
perhaps as the length of the way.
"Never in my time have I seen such a thing float above the Red Tower," I
made answer. "Can it be a flag of pestilence?"
It seemed a likely thing enough. Cities were often made desolate in a few
days by the plague--the people running to the hills, a weird devil's
silence all about the gates. These might well betoken the presence of a
foe to which the army of Plassenburg would seem as a friend.
As we rode under the Arch of the White Gate of Thorn we were summarily
halted to be examined. We gave our names, and the Doctor showed his
letters of authorization from a dozen learned universities. The Black
Hussar who examined our credentials was of a taciturn disposition, and
evidently no scholar, for he studied the parchments intently upsidedown,
and appeared to have an idea that their genuineness was best investigated
by smelling the seals.
"Where are you bound?" he asked.
"To the house of the learned and venerable Bishop of Thorn!" said the
Doctor Schmidt.
So the Hussar, having finally approved of the quality of the
scholastic wax, called a subordinate, and bade him guide us to the
house of Bishop Peter.
In an instant we were in the familiar streets, narrow, sunken, and
indescribably dirty, as they now appeared to me. For I had been
accustomed to the wider, airier spaces, and to the bickering rivulets
which ran down most of the steeper streets of Plassenburg, and which made
it one of the cleanest towns in the world. So that the ancient and
unreformed filth and wretchedness of Thorn appealed to my senses as they
had never done before.
There were evidences too of the terror in which the inhabitants had long
lived. The houses of the rich burghers were sadly dilapidated. No man
thought it worth while to spend a pot of paint on a house which might be
knocked about his ears that very night, if the Duke conceived there was
money or gear to be found within the walls of it.
Here and there the same black banner appeared.
I asked the reason of it from our guide.
"Is it that the plague is in the city?"
"The plague has, indeed, been in the city--yes! But that is not the
reason of the flag."
"And what then is the meaning of the black flag?" said I.
"Ye are strangers indeed!" answered the man. "Did you not know that the
great Duke Casimir is dead, and that the black flag flies for him, and
must fly on the Wolfsberg till his successor be crowned."
"And who is his successor?" said I.
"Who but young Otho, the worst of the Wolfs litter. But perhaps you are
his friend?"
He turned with a keen look, like one who has been accustomed to deliver
himself in company where he is sure of sympathy, and who suddenly has to
consider his words in society the tone of which he is not sure of.
"Nay," said I, "we are travelling strangers and know nothing of your
politics. But this Duke Otho, wherefore has he not been crowned?"
"Because," said the man, "the Duke Casimir, they say, hath been foully
murdered, and that through the witchcraft of a woman. So by our laws,
till the murderer is punished, the young Duke may not be crowned."
By this time we were at the entering in of the long, dull mass of
building, which during most of my boyhood had stood unoccupied, owing to
the quarrel between Bishop Peter and the Duke. Our guide led us
unchallenged into the quadrangle, and then abruptly vanished without
pausing to bid us good-day, or even deigning to accept the modest
gratuity which my master, the learned Doctor, had in his front pouch
ready for him.
As for me, I stood holding the horses and looking about for any of my own
quality who might show me the way to the stables.
Presently a long, lean, lathy youth slouched out of one of the gloomy
entries. He stood amazed at the sight of me. I went to him to ask where I
might bestow the horses, now standing weary-footed, hanging their heads
after the long journey and the toil of the final ascent from the plain.
"Will you fight, outlander?" were the first words of my lathy friend from
the entry. He seemed to have been drawn up recently from a period of
detention in some deep draw-well, and to have the mould of the stones
still upon him.
"Why," said I, "of course I will fight, and that gladly, if you will find
me a man to fight with !"
"I will fight you myself," he said, swelling himself. "For the end of
this candle I will fight half a dozen such Baltic sausages as you be."
"Like enough," said I, "all in good time. But in the mean time show me
the stables, that I may put up my master's horses."
"What know I about you or your master's horses?" cried my Lad of Lath;
"and pray why should I show the way to Bishop Peter's good stables to
every wastrel that comes sneaking in off the street and asks the freedom
of our house. For aught I know you may have come to steal corn. Though,
if that be so, Lord love you, you have come to the wrong place."
"Come, stable-master," said I, placably, "let me see a corner and a wisp
of straw and I will ease the poor beasts. That will not harm the Bishop
Peter, whom my master has gone to visit. He is a friend of his, a man
learned in ecclesiastical affairs, who comes to hold disputations with
the Bishop--"
"Disputations--what be those? Anything with money at the end of them? If
so, he will be a welcome guest at this house. There is very little money
at the tail of anything in this town."
I thought I would try the effect of a broad silver piece upon him, at the
same time giving the lad the information that disputations were kinds of
fights with the tongues of men instead of with their fists.
The silver sweetened his face like a charm. He seized me by the hand.
"My name," he cried, "is Peter of the Pigs. I am not stable-master, but
feed the grouting piglings. And yet in a way I am indeed stable-master.
For the Bishop hath had no horses since the Duke took them away to mount
his cavalry for the raids into Plassenburg. So Peter of the Pigs looks
after all about the yard, and precious little there is to look
after--except one's own legs getting longer and leaner every day."
"And where is the Bishop this afternoon?" I said.
"Where should he be," cried Peter of the Pigs, "but at the trial of the
witch-woman in the Hall of Justice? It must be a rare sight. They say
she is to be put to the torture, and that they want a new executioner
to do it."
"Why," said I, struck to the heart by his words, "what is the matter with
the old one?"
"Oh," said the lad, "he is mortal sick abed. He happened an accident, or
some one stuck a dagger into him--no great matter if he had stuck it
through him, or cloven him to the chine with his own Red Axe!"