The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

CHAPTER XXXIX

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!"