The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PRIME OF THE MORNING

Now so strange a thing is woman that, so soon as we were started down the High Street of the city of Thorn, the Little Playmate dried her eyes, turned towards me in her saddle, and straightway began to take me to task as though I had been to blame.

"I have left," said she, "the only home I ever knew, and the only man that ever truly loved me, to accompany a young man that cares not for me, and a woman whom I have seen but once, to a far land and an unkindly folk."

"It is not fair," I said, "to say that I love you not. For, as God sees me, I have ever loved you—loved you best and loved you only, little Helenchen! And though you are angered with me now, I know not why—still till now you have never doubted it."

"I doubt it sorely enough now, I know," she said, bitterly; "yet, indeed,
I care not whether you or any love me at all."

And this saying I was greatly sorry for. It seemed a sad wayfaring from our old Red Tower and out of my native city of Thorn.

"Helene, little one," said I, "believe me, I love none in the whole world but my father and you. Trust me, for I am to keep you safe with my life in the far land to which we go. Do not let us quarrel, littlest. There are only the two of us here that remember the old man my father and the little room to which you came as a babe, all in white."

So presently she was somewhat pacified, and reached me a hand from the back of her beast, on pretence of leaning over to avoid a swinging sign in one of the narrow streets near by the White Gate, where we were to meet the Lady Ysolinde.

"And yet more, Little Playmate," said I, keeping her hand when I had it; "do not begin by distrusting the noble lady with whom we are to travel. For she means well to us both, and in the strange country to which we go we may be wholly in her power."

"You are sure that you do not love that woman, then?" said Helene, without looking at me. For, indeed, in many things she was but a child, and ever spoke more freely than other maids—perhaps with being brought up in the Red Tower in the company of my father, who on all occasions spoke his mind just as it came to him.

"Nay," said I, "believe me, little love, I do not love her at all."

And now on horseback Helene looked all charming, and what with the exercise, the unknown adventure, and my reassurance, she had a glow of rose color in her cheeks. She had never before been so far away from the precincts of the Wolfsberg. I had even taught her to ride in the court-yard of a summer evening, on a horse borrowed from one of the Duke's squires.

We found the Lady Ysolinde waiting for us at her house, Master Gerard talking to her in the doorway, earnestly and apart. Both of them had a look of much solemnity, as though the matter of their discourse were some very weighty one.

Presently her father kissed her and she came down the steps. I leaped from my horse to help her to the saddle, but the respectable serving-man was before me. So that instead I went about and looked to the buckles and girths, which were all in order, and patted the arching neck of the beautiful milk-white palfrey whereon she rode. Then Master Gerard waved a hand and went within.

And as we fared forth out of the Weiss Thor into the keener air of the country, I thought what a charge I had—to squire two ladies so surpassingly fair, each in her own several graces, as our Helene and the Lady Ysolinde.

No sooner, however, were we past the outer barriers, at which the soldiers of the Duke Casimir kept guard, than a vast, ungainly wight started up from the road-side.

"Jan Lubber Fiend!" cried the Lady Ysolinde; "what do you here?"

The oaf grinned his awful, writhed smile and wriggled his great body after the manner of a puppy desirous of the milk-platter.

"Think you, my lady," said he, cunningly, "that your poor Jan would abide within the precincts of the city house with that funeral ape bidding me do this and do that, sit here and sit there, come in and go out at his pleasure? A thing of dough that I could twist into knots as easily as I can crack my joints."

And of this latter accomplishment he proceeded to give us certain examples which sounded like cannon-shots delivered at close quarters.

"Get home with you!" cried Ysolinde; "I cannot have thee following us. There are two men presently to meet us, to guard us to Plassenburg, and we do not need you, Jan Lubber Fiend. Get back and take care of my father."

"Oh, as for him," said the monster, sitting down squat upon the plain road in the dust, "he is a tough old cock, and will come to no harm. We can e'en leave him with a good cook, a prime cellar, and an easy mind. But this young man is not to trust to with so many pretty maids. Jan will come and look after him."

And with that he nodded his hay-stack of a head three times at me, and going to the hedge-root he laid hold of the top of a young poplar and turned him about, keeping the stem of it over his shoulder. Then he set himself to pull like a horse that starts a load, and presently, without apparently distressing himself in the least, he walked away with the young tree, roots and all.

Having shaken off the earth roughly, he pulled out a sheath-knife and trimmed the branches till he had made him a kind of club, with which he threatened me, saying, "If I catch that young man at any tricks, with this club will Jan Lubber Fiend break every bone in his skin, like the shells of so many broken eggs."

Then laughing a little, and seeing that nothing could be made of the fellow, the Lady Ysolinde rode on and we followed her. We thought that surely there would be no difficulty in shaking him off long ere we reached our lodging-place of the evening, and that he would find his way back to the city of Thorn.

But even though we set our horses to their speed, it seemed to make no difference to the unwieldy giant. He merely stretched his legs a little farther, and caused his great gaskined feet to pass each other as fast as if they had been shod with seven-league boots. So he not only kept up with us easily, but oftentimes made a détour through the fields and over the wild country on either side, as a questing dog does, ever returning to us with some quaint vagrant fancy or quip of childish simplicity.

But what pleased me better than the appearance of the Lubber Fiend was that ere we had gone quite two miles out of the city we found two well-armed and stanch-looking soldiers waiting for us at a kind of cross-road. They were armed with the curious powder-guns which were coming into fashion from France. These went off with a noble report, and killed sometimes at as much as fifteen or twenty paces when the aim was good. The fellows had swords also, and little polished shields on their left arms—altogether worthy and notable body-guards.

"These two are soldiers of the Guard from Plassenburg," said the Lady Ysolinde, "though now they are travelling as members of a Free Company desiring to enter upon new engagements. But they will make the way easier and pleasanter for us, as well as infinitely safer, being veterans well accustomed to the work of quartering and foraging."

As indeed we were to find ere the day ended.

So we rode on in the brilliant light, and the long, long day seemed all too brief to us who were young, and scarce delivered from the prison-house of Thorn. And to my shame I admit that my heart rose with every mile that I put between me and the Red Tower.

Indeed, I hardly had a thought to spend on my father. The hot quadrangle of the Wolfsberg, ever smelling of horses and the swelter of shed blood, the howling, fox-colored demons in the kennels, the black Duke Casimir —right gladly I forgot them all. Aye, I forgot even my father, and everything save that I was riding with two fair women through a world where all was love and spring, and where it was ever the prime of a young morning.

The Lady Ysolinde could not make enough of our Little Playmate. She laughed back at her over her shoulder when she let her horse out for a canter. She marvelled loudly at Helene's good riding, and at the unbound beauty of the crisp ringlets which clustered round her head like a boy's. And our Helene smiled, well pleased, and ceased to watch my eyes or to grow silent if I checked my horse too long by the side of the Lady Ysolinde.

Mostly we three rode abreast over the pleasant country. So long as we were crossing the plain of the Wolfmark we saw few tilled fields, and the farm-houses were fewer still. But wherever these were to be seen they were fortified and defended like castles, and had gates, great and high, with iron plates upon them and knobs like the points of spears beaten blunt.

The Lady Ysolinde, who had often ridden that way, told us that these were all in the Duke Casimir's country, and were mostly possessed by the kin of his chief captains—feudal tenants, who for the right of possession were compelled to furnish so many riders to the Duke's Companies.

"But wait," she said, "till you come to the dominions of the Prince of Plassenburg. You will find that he is indeed a ruler that can make the broom-bush keep the cow."

So we rode on, and passed pleasant and exciting things, more than I had ever seen in all my life before.

Once we saw half a dozen men driving cattle across our path, and it was curious to mark how readily they drew their swords and couched their lances at us, turning themselves about this way and that like a quintain till we were quite gone by, which made us laugh. For it seemed a strange thing that men so well armed should fear a company of no more than their own numbers, and two of them maids upon palfreys.

But Ysolinde said: "It is not, after all, so strange, for over yonder blue hills dwells Joan of the Swordhand, who can lead a foray as well as any man, and once worsted Duke Casimir himself when he beset her castle."

So the day went past swiftly, with good company and the converse of folk well liking one another. And ever I wondered how we were to spend the night, and what sort of cheer we should find at our inn.