HUGO GOTTFRIED, RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK
Then cried Dessauer from the door to me as I stood thus holding my father
in my arms:
"Haste you, lad; there are men coming across the yard with torches. They
are gathering in groups about the door. Now they are on the stairs--many
soldiers--and with weapons in their hands!"
And scarcely had he spoken when the sound of the tramping of men in haste
came to us up the turret, and the door of the garret was thrust violently
open. A turmoil of men-at-arms burst in on us. I stood still, holding
Gottfried Gottfried, his head on my shoulder, though I knew that he was
dead. But as one came forward with a paper in his hand I stooped and laid
my father gently on his bed.
An officer of the Black Hussars, fantastically dressed in their
church-yard array, with skull and cross-bones slashed in silver across
his breast, accosted me.
"Hugo Gottfried, son of Gottfried Gottfried, in the name of the Duke Otho
and the State of the Wolfmark, I arrest you! Also you, Leopold von
Dessauer, Chancellor of the Princedom of Plassenburg. You are accused as
spies and enemies of the commonweal. Yield yourselves therefore to me,
without condition."
"I am indeed Hugo Gottfried," said I, "but you may see for yourselves the
mission on which I have come hither. And for this hour, at least, you
might have spared your brutal entry. Behold!"
I caught a torch from the nearest soldier, and let its light shine on
the dead face of the fourteenth Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark.
The men started back. The terrible countenance of the dead affected them
even more than the grim figure of the Red Axe as they had seen him
stalking from the Hall of Justice to the block.
"Ah," said the officer, not wholly irreverently, "Gottfried Gottfried has
gone now to the dark place to which he hath sent so many. But, after all,
he is dead--and I heard a monkish clerk prate the other day, 'Let the
dead bury their dead.' I have my orders, and the Duke Otho waits.
Therefore I bid you follow me, Hugo Gottfried and Leopold von Dessauer."
So, leaving the body of my father lying on the bed in his garret, we were
constrained to follow our captors down the stairs. Across the court-yard
we were hurried, and through the Hall of Justice into the private
apartments of the Duke.
Otho von Reuss, now Duke of the Wolfmark, was standing erect by the great
chair in which, as my father had so often described him to me, Casimir
had sat so many days with his head sunk on his breast. The new Duke stood
up proudly, gazing at us with frowning brows and lowering, narrowed eyes.
This was mighty fine, but I could not help thinking of the poor
appearance he had made on the hill above the Hirschgasse as he slunk off
when he saw an evil cause going desperately against him.
"So," he said, "gentlemen both, I have caught you spying in my land. You
know what those have to expect who are caught in hostile territory in
disguise."
I thought it was as well to take the high hand at once, especially since
I saw that humility would avail us nothing at any rate.
"Before now I have seen Otho von Reuss in hostile territory, and a right
cowed traitor he looked!" said I, boldly.
The Duke smiled upon me, like a man that has a complete retort on his
tongue but who is content for the present to reserve it.
"My friend," he said, suavely, "I will reply to you presently. I have a
word to speak to your betters."
He turned him about to Dessauer.
"And what, Lord High Chancellor of Plassenburg, think you of this
masquerading? Dignified, is it not? And your wondrous speech in court
that was to have done such great things. Will you be pleased to abide
with us here in the Wolfsberg? Or must you forsake us to pleasure the
Emperor, who, poor man, cannot sleep of nights in his bed at Ratisbon
till the eloquent Doctor is come to cheer him with the full-flowing river
of speech?"
"Duke Otho," said Dessauer, "my life is indeed in your hands. I hold it
forfeit. A few years less or more are but little to Leopold von Dessauer
now. But there is one who will most bloodily avenge us if a hair of our
heads falls to the ground."
"Who?" said Otho, sneeringly. "Karl Miller's Son, I suppose. Ah, fool
that you are, I hold your poor Karl in the palm of my hand!"
"It is like enough," said Dessauer, with a quick look, the look of a keen
fencer when he sees an advantage. "I have often enough seen the palm of
your hand approach Karl Miller's Son's treasury when I kept the moneys."
I saw the face of Otho twitch angrily. But he had evidently made up his
mind to command his temper, sure of having that up his sleeve which would
sufficiently answer all taunts.
"You mistake me," he said, with more subtlety than I had expected from
the brute. "I had not meant to prove ungrateful. I am but newly come to
my own here in the Wolfmark. I have learned from your host, Bishop
Peter, how precious a thing forgiveness is. And now I am resolved to
practise it. There is a time to love and a time to hate; a time to war
and a time to be at peace. This is the last news I had from the holy
clerk whose revenues I pay. So lay it to heart, as I have done."
"Glad am I," said Dessauer, courteously, as if he had been turning a
phrase on the terrace at Plassenburg--"glad am I that in your hour you
are to be mindful of old friends, for they are like old wine, which grows
better and mellower with the years."
"It is indeed well," said Otho von Reuss, ironically. "I have known the
Chancellor Dessauer many years, and he grows more honorable and more wise
with each decade.
"But now 'tis with this young man that I would speak," he said, changing
his tone. "He at least is mine own servant, and so I have other words for
him. Hugo Gottfried, you remember that you insulted me, striking me on
the face with a glove, because I offered certain civilities to a maid of
honor to the Princess of Plassenburg. You wounded me in the arm. Your
father, of whose death I have heard but now, cast me forth like a cur-dog
from a chamber window. Between you ye have shamed me, and would shame me
worse--for the sake of the murderess of mine uncle, Duke Casimir."
"Well do you know that the Lady Helene is innocent of that crime, or any
other," said I; "she is purer than your eyes can look upon or your heart
conceive. Yet, solely because she knows you for the foul thing you are,
Helene lies condemned in your dungeons to-night. I ask you to grant me
but one boon--that I may die with her!"
"Nay, my friend, gentlest squire of dames, defender of the oppressed, I
have better things in store for you and your maid than that!"
He paused and looked a long while at me, as it seemed, chewing the cud
of revenge upon that which he had to say to me.
At last he came a step nearer, that he might look into my eyes.
"Hugo Gottfried," he said, slowly, "son of Gottfried Gottfried, you are
my servant now. I said that I would forgive you all for the sake of old
times in exile together. And now you and I are both again in our own
land. They that kept us out of our offices are dead, and we standing in
their places. There is a maid down there in the Wolfsberg dungeons who
to-morrow must meet her fate."
He paused a moment and laid his hand on my shoulder impressively.
"And you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Justicer of the Dukedom, Red Axe of
the Wolfmark, art the man who must carry out that doom!"
Again he paused--and the world seemed instantly to dissolve into
whirling vapor at his words. I had never once thought of such a
conclusion. Yet I was indubitably, by my father's death, Hereditary
Executioner of the Wolfmark. Red Axe of Thorn I was, and by a terrible
chance I had returned in time to be installed in mine office, even as
the Lady Ysolinde had foretold.
But a strong thought swelled triumphant in my heart.
"Well," said I, looking the sneering tormentor in the face, "if so be
that I am your Hereditary Justicer, it will be long ere a sentence so
monstrous shall be carried out by me. I will not slay the innocent, nor
pour out the blood of a virgin saint, for a million deaths. You can
torture me with all your hellish engines, and you will find that a
Gottfried has learned how to suffer, as well as, how to make others
suffer, in fourteen generations. As God strengthens me, I will never
carry out your sentence--do with me what you will."
"Nobly said, Justicer of the Mark!" said Otho. "I had thought of that!
But in case you should refuse to do your lawful office, it may be well
for you to remember that I have other instruments that mayhap will please
you less."
He threw open a door suddenly, and we looked into an underground hall,
where a dozen men were carousing--Duke Casimir's Hussars of Death,
black-browed, evil-faced, slack-jowled villains every man of them, cruel
and sensual. A blast of ribald oaths came sulphurously up, as if the
mouth of hell had been opened.
"Listen!" said Otho, with his hand on my shoulder.
And a jest struck to our ears concerning the prisoner, the Little
Playmate--a jest which sticks in my memory to this day. And even yet I
hope to cleave the jester through the brain, meet him when I may.
The Duke shut the door, and turned to me again. His eyes narrowed to a
thin line which glittered with hate and triumph.
"If you, Hugo Gottfried, Hereditary Executioner of the Mark, refuse to do
your duty at the time appointed upon the prisoner condemned, I, Duke
Otho, solemnly declare that I will cast your fair and tender lamb into
that den of wolves down there to work their wills upon. Hark to them!
They will have no misgivings--no qualms, no noble renunciations."
Then he turned to me airily and confidently.
"Well, my good Justicer, will you carry out the just and merciful
sentence of the law, and baptize your Red Axe with the blood of her for
whose sake you chose to insult and wound a Duke of the Mark?"
I turned away, sick at heart.
"Give me time. God's mercy--give me time!" I cried. "At least let me see
Helene. I will give you my answer to-night. But, first of all, let me see
my beloved."
"I am forgiving and most merciful," he said, smiling till his teeth
showed. "Observe, I do not even cast you into prison to make sure of you.
Go your ways" (he sat down and wrote rapidly); "here is a pass which will
enable you to visit the prisoner. At midnight I shall expect you to tell
me that to-morrow you will fulfil your office."
He handed me the paper and motioned us away.
"We are free to go?" said I, wonderingly.
"Surely," he replied, smiling. "Are you not both my friends, and can Otho
von Reuss be forgetful of old times? Come and go at your pleasure. Be
sure to be here to give me your answer at midnight to-night--or--"
He pointed with his hand to the door he had again opened, and with the
fingers of his other hand beat time to the blasphemous chorus which came
belching up from below.