The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

CHAPTER XXX

INSULT AND CHALLENGE

Now, because there is still so much to tell, and so little time and space to tell it in, I must go forward rapidly. In these dull times of grouting peace, when men become like penned pigs, waking up only at feeding-time, they have no knowledge of how swiftly life went when every day brought a new living friend or a new dead enemy, when love and hate awakened fresh and fresh with each morrow's sun—and when I was young.

Perhaps that last is the true reason. But when the Baltic norther snorts without, and mine ancient thigh-wound twinges down where my hand rests, naturally I have no better resource than to fall to the goose-quill. And lo! long ere I am done with the first page, and have the ink no more than half-way to the roots of my hair, I am again in the midst of the ringing hoofs of the foray. I hear the merry dinting of steel on steel; the sullen chug-chug of the wheels of Foul Peg, the Margrave's great cannon, which more than once he lent our Prince; the oaths of the men-at-arms shouldering her up, apostrophizing most indecently her fat haunches, and the next moment getting tossed aside like ninepins by her unexpected lurches. Ah, the times that were when I was young!

I see these gallants about our later courts—Lord help them, sons of mine own, too, some of them—year in and year out, crossing their legs and staring at the gilded points of their shoon. All are grown so tame—none now to ride a-questing in the Baltic forest for border brigands —indeed, there be no brigands to quest for.

But I forget. Time was when I looked love, and I too had shoon, aye, with golden tips to match the armor of honor which the Prince gave me after I had led my first regiment to victory—even as the Lady Ysolinde had said. And noble shoes of price they were.

And I could make love, too, when I had the chance. But, nevertheless, not more than one day in six—spending the rest in the new training of my men, the perfecting of their equipment, the choosing of their horses, and the providing for their stores.

God wot—it was a good time. I mind me the year when the Prince fell out with Duke Casimir, and we played over again the old tricks with him.

Never was I gladder of any quest than that to ride within sight of the Red Tower, and wave the blue and yellow of my master under the very ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and almost within hearing of the inhuman howling of its blood-hounds.

"Singe his beard!" said my master. And with a hundred riders I did it too. For though the burghers clattered to their gates, I rode to the very walls of the Wolfsberg, which for bravado I summoned to surrender. And the best of it was that no man knew me. For I had grown soldierlike and strong, and was most unlike the lad who had ridden away so meekly and almost in tears out of the gate of that very Wolfsberg.

Of my father, thank God, I saw nothing—though I doubt not he observed my troop. For doubtless he would be with his master—aged now, soured, and prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of the assassin's bullet in every wind.

And, save when an honest burgher was slain by the Black Riders, the beasts of the kennels were fed on diet more ordinary than of old.

So we rode back with our prisoners, and as much plunder as we could screw out of old Burgomeister Texel and his citizens by threats of sacking the city—a deed which I was main sorry for afterwards, in the light of that which happened at a later day. But I knew not the future then, and it was as well. For the guilders paid nobly for the new-fashioned ordnance which stood us in such good stead that autumn, when we had sterner work in hand than singeing the gray beard of Duke Casimir.

Within Schloss Plassenburg things went on much as usual. Perhaps I was lax in my wooing—I cannot tell; I loved sincerely enough, of a certainty. Nor, after this, was I backward in telling Helene of it, and sometimes she would love me well enough, and then again she would not. So that I could not tell what she would be at.

Looking back upon everything now, I see clearly how that the rankling secret thorn was the accursed understanding with the Prince, that for his peace's sake I was to abide friendly with the Princess and let her try her fool experiments on me. Which she did, God wot, innocently enough—that is, for all the harm they did me. But, nevertheless, without knowing it, I kept the Little Playmate with a sore and aching heart for many and many a day.

But I made nothing of it—thinking, like a careless, ill-deserving soldier-lover, eager for success and dazzled with ambition, chiefly of my profession, of how to win battles and take fortresses against the surrounding princelings, our Karl's enemies, till one day I found Helene with her cheeks wet and her pretty lips bitten till the blood had come.

"What is't, little one? Tell me!" said I, going to her and putting my arm about her, as indeed I had some right to do, if no more than the right of having carried her up into the Red Tower in her white gown so long ago.

But she wrested herself determinedly out of my hold, saying: "Do not touch me, sir. 'Tis all your fault!"

"What is my fault, dear lass?" said I. "Tell me, and I will instantly amend it."

"Oh!" she cried, casting her hands out from her in bitter complaint, "there is nothing so meanly selfish as a man! He will say tender things—aye, and do them, too, when it liketh him. He can be, oh, so devoted and so full of his eternal affections. He is dying all for love! And then, soon as he passes out of the door he ties his sword-knot and points his mustache to his liking, and lo! there is no more of him. He goes and straightway forgets till it shall please his High Mightiness to call again. Oh! and we—we women, poor things, must stand about with our mouths open, like mossy carp in a pond, and struggle and push for such crumbs of comfort as he will deign to throw us from the full larder of his self-satisfaction!"

This was a most mighty speech for the Little Playmate, and took me entirely by surprise. For mostly she was still enough and quiet enough in her ways and speakings.

"'Tis true, sweetheart, that some men are like that," I replied, gently, "but not Hugo Gottfried, surely. When did you ever find me unkind, unthankful, unfaithful? When went I ever away and left you alone?"

"Oh, you did—you did," she cried, the tears starting from her lovely eyes, "or I should never have been insulted—treated lightly, spoken to as a staled thing of courts and camps!"

And Helene sank down beside the garden wall in an abandonment of sorrow—so that my heart grew hot and angry at the cause of her grief, to me then unknown.

I knelt down beside her and touched her lightly on one rounded, heaving shoulder.

"Dearest," said I, "I knew nothing of this. Tell me who has insulted you. As God is in His heaven, I will have my sword in his heart or nightfall, were it the Prince himself! Tell me, and by the Lord of the Innocents, I will make him eat cold steel and drink his own blood therewith!"

"Oh, it was my own fault—I know I should not have met him—let him speak to me in the garden. But you were so cold to me, Hugo. And then I thought—I thought that the Woman was taking you away from me. Also she sent me out to be—to be in his path!"

"In whose path, I bid you tell me, and what woman?"

Though the latter I knew well enough.

"The Princess," she answered, "and the Count von Reuss. To-day he spoke to me of love, and spoke it hatefully, shamefully, when the Princess had bidden me go and carry her message to him. But it was with me that he desired to meet. And I—at first many days ago—I walked by his side and listened, for then he spoke courteously and like a gentleman. For you were on the high terrace, and I wished you to see. I thought—I hoped—"

And the little one broke off with tears.

"I know, I know!" cried I, contritely; "I am a blind, doting fool. In this Prince's court I thought no more of such dangers than when I had you safe and innocent, my Playmate of the Red Tower. But what did or said Von Reuss?"

"Truly he did naught, but only spoke—things for which I would have smitten him to death had I possessed a dagger. I bade him begone. And he swore he would execute his purpose yet in spite of every town's Executioner in the Empire."

"Ah, will he?" said I, a calm chill of hatred settling about my heart.
"I, Hugo Gottfried, will execute him, if I have to send for my father's
Red Axe to do it with—singed and scented monkey that he is."

"Nay," said Helene, "then I wish I had not told you. Perhaps he will not meddle with me again, and if you cross him he may slay thee. Remember, I have no friend here but you, Hugo!"

"Count von Reuss slay me! I could eat him up without salt or savory—a weak reed, a kerl without backbone save of buckram; why, I will shake him this day like a rat between my hands!"

So I spoke in my anger, hot with myself that I had let the Little
Playmate suffer these things, and resolved that neither Prince nor
Princess would stand between me and my love a moment longer.

But in all lands it takes more than Say-so to budge the stubborn wheels of circumstance.