CHAPTER XIX
WENDISH WIT
The gray plain of the Wolfmark, which we had been traversing ever since we descended out of the steep Weiss Thor of the city of Thorn, had now begun to break into ridges and mounded hills of stiff red clay. And I, who had often kept my watch on the highest pinnacle of the Red Tower, looked with astonishment back upon the city I had left behind. Seen from the plain, Thorn had an aspect almost imperial.
It rose above the colorless flat of gray suddenly, unexpectedly, almost insolently. The city, with its numberless gables, spires of churches, turreted gate-houses, occupied a ridge of gradually swelling ground which rose like a huge whale-back from the misty plain. Its walls were grim, high, and far-stretching. But as we travelled farther into the Wolfmark the city seemed to sink deeper into the plain and the dark castle of Duke Casimir to shoot ever higher into the skies. So that presently, as we looked back, we could only see the Wolfsberg itself, the abode of cruelty and wrong, standing black against the white sky of noon.
Its flanking towers stood up above the battlemented wall, their turrets climbing higher and higher towards heaven, till the topmost Red Tower—that in which my father's garrot was, and in which I had spent my entire life until this day—soared straight upward above them all, like a threatening index-finger pointing, not into the clear sky of a summer's noon, but into clouds and thick darkness.
I was glad when at last we lost sight of it. Then, indeed, I felt that I had left my old life behind me. And, in spite of the Lady Ysolinde's ink-pool prophecy and my love for my father (such as it was), I did not mean ever to trust myself within that baleful circle of gray and weary plain upon which the Red Tower looked down.
Seeing that the maids were inclined to talk the one with the other, or rather that the Lady Ysolinde spoke confidentially with Helene, and that Helene now answered her without embarrassment and with frank, equal glances, I dropped gradually behind and rode with the two stout men-at-arms. These I found to be honest lads enough, but of a strangely reserved and taciturn nature, each ever waiting for the other to answer—being, like most Wendish men, much averse to questioning and still more stiff as to replying.
"You are men of Plassenburg?" I said to the nearest, simply and innocently enough, for the purpose of improving the cordiality of our relations.
Whereupon he turned his head slowly about to his neighbor, as it were to consult him. The glance said as clearly as monk's script: "What shall we answer to this troublesome, inquisitive fellow?"
At first I thought that perhaps they spoke not the common dialect, and that as we were travelling towards regions roughly Wendish and but lately heathen, they might have some uncouth speech of their own. So, as is ever the custom with folk that are not accustomed to the speaking of foreign tongues, I repeated the question in mine own language in a louder tone, supposing that that would do as well.
"You are men of the country of Plassenburg?" cried I, as loud as I could bawl.
"We are not deaf—we have all our faculties, praise the saints!" said the more distant of the two, looking not at me but at his companion. He, on his part, nodded back at his comrade's reply, as if it had been delicately calculated at once to answer my question and at the same time not to commit them to any dangerous opinions.
I tried again.
"Your prince, I hear, is a true man, brave, and well-versed in war?"
The shorter and stouter man, who rode beside me, glanced once at my face, and slowly screwed round his head to his companion in a long, questioning gaze. Then as slowly he turned his head back again.
"Umph!" he said, judicially, with a movement of his head, which seemed a successful compromise between a nod and a shake, just as his remark might very well have resulted from an attempt to say "Yes" and "No" at the same time.
This was not encouraging to one who, like myself, was in high spirits and much inclined for conversation. But I was not to be so easily beaten off.
"The Prince of Plassenburg has a Princess," I said, "who is often upon her travels?"
It was an innocent remark, and, so far as I could see, not one in itself highly humorous. But it broke up the gravity of these red-haired northern bears as if it had been the latest gay sally of the court-fool.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the more distant, lanky man, rocking himself in his saddle till the pennon on his lance shook and the point dipped towards his horse's ear.
"Ho! ho!" chorused his companion, slapping his thigh jovially. "Jorian, did you hear that? 'The Prince of Plassenburg hath a Princess, and she is often upon her travels.' Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho! ho!"
"He hath said it! Ho! ho! He hath said it! He is a wise fellow, after all, this beardless Jack-pudding of Thorn!" cried the other, tee-heeing with laughter till he nearly wept upon his own saddle-bow.
I began to get very angry. For we men of Thorn were not accustomed to be so flouted by any strangers, keeping mostly our own customs, and reining in the few strangers who ventured to visit Duke Casimir's dominions pretty tightly. Least of all could I brook insolence from these Wendish boors from the outskirts of half-pagan Borrussia.
"The Prince of Plassenburg hath churls among his retinue," said I, hotly, "if they be all like you two Jacks, that cannot answer a simple question without singing out like donkeys upon a common where there are no thistles to keep them quiet."
Sir Thicksides, the fat jolter-head nearest me set his thumb out to stick it into the side armor of Longlegs, his companion, who rode cheek by jowl with him.
"Oo-oo-ahoo!" cried he, crowing with mirth, as if I had said a yet more facetious thing. "'Tis a simple question—'Hath the Prince of Plassenburg a Princess, and is she not oft—ahoo!' Boris, prod me with thy lance-shaft hard, to keep me from doing myself an ill turn with this fellow's innocence."
"Hold up, Jorian !" answered the long man, promptly pounding him on the back with the butt of his spear. "Hold up, fat Jorian! Let not thy love of mirth do thee any injury. For thou art a good comrade, and fools were ever apt to divert thee too much. I have seen thee at this before—that time we went to Wilna, and the fellow in motley gave thee griping spasms with his tomfoolery."
Then was I mainly angry, as indeed I had sufficient occasion.
"You are but churls," I said, "and the next thing to knaves. And I will e'en inform the Prince when we arrive what like are the men whom he sets to escort ladies to his castle."
But though they were silenter after this, it was not from any alarm at my words, but simply because they had laughed themselves out of ply. For as I rode on in high dudgeon, half-way between the women and the men-at-arms, I could see them with the corner of an eye still nudging each other with their thumbs and throwing back their heads, and the breeze blew me scraps of their limited conversation.
"Ho! ho! Good, was it not? 'The Prince hath a Princess, and she—' Ho! ho! Good!"
The ridges of clay of which I have already spoken continued and increased in size as we went on. It was a dried-up, speckled, unwholesome-looking land. And people upon it there were none that we could see. The large fortified farms had ceased altogether. A certain frightful monotony reigned everywhere. Ravines, like cracks which the sun makes in mud, but a thousand times greater, began to split the hills perpendicularly to their very roots. The path wound perilously this way and that among them. And presently Jorian and Boris rode past me to take the lead, for Ysolinde and Helene were inclined to mistake the way as often as they came to the crossing and interweaving of the intricate paths.
And as these two jolly jackasses rode past at my right side I could see the thumb of long Boris curving towards the ribs of his companion, and the shoulders of both shaking as they chuckled.
"A rare simpleton's question, i' faith, yes. Ho! ho! Good!" they chorussed. "'The Prince hath a Princess'—the cock hath a hen, and she— Ha! ha! Good!"
At that moment I could with pleasure have slain Jorian and Boris for open-mouthed, unshaven, slab-sided Wendish pigs, as indeed they were.
Yet, had I done so, we had fared but ill without them. For had they been a thousand times jackasses and rotten pudding-heads (as they were), at least they knew the way and something of the unchristian people among whom we were going.
And so in a little while, as we wound our way along the face of these perilons rifts in the baked clay, with the mottled, inefficient river feeling its way gingerly at the bottom of the buff—colored ravine, what was my astonishment to see Jorian and Boris turn sharply at right angles and ride single file up one of the dry lateral cracks which opened, as it were, directly into the hill-side!
They did this without ever looking at the landmarks, like men who are anyways uncertain of their road. But, on the contrary, they wheeled confidently and rode jauntily on, and we three meekly followed, having by this time lost the Lubber Fiend, the devil doubtless knew where. For we must have followed Boris and Jorian unquestioningly had they led us into the bowels of the earth, as indeed, at first sight, they seemed to be doing.