"Where sleeps my liege to-night?" asked Aagé, in an anxious voice, and again gazing wildly around him.
"Close by thee, here in the knights' story; only be thou calm and sleep in peace. I sleep under a brother's roof."
"Come, my royal brother," interrupted Christopher, hastily approaching the couch, "speak no more with that sick dreamer, he is in a fair way to infect you with his feverish phantasies."
"Good night, my Aagé," said the king, pressing the Drost's hand as he departed. "I will keep that I promised him," he said to the junker. "I will sleep near him, here in the knights' story."
"As you command, my royal brother," answered the junker, with a cold and bitter smile; and they left the sick chamber.
Count Henrik had also given his hand to Aagé, and was about to follow the king; but the Drost detained him for a moment, in a state of painful anxiety. "Look, look!" he whispered, "there goes the murdered King Eric with Junker Abel[[2]]; they once were brothers! and, hark! a flood roars beneath this castle. It is surely the bloody Slie,--take heed!--take heed, that no misfortune happens here!"
"You have perturbed dreams, Drost Aagé," said Count Henrik, letting go Aagé's fevered hand. "Sleep ye but in quiet; I watch." He then hastened after the king and the junker; but first glanced out of the window, and saw with secret horror, by the deepening star-light, a high, black scaffold in the back court of the castle, without the knights' story. He hastily drew the curtain before the window and departed; whereupon the old nurse (still shaking and muttering) re-entered the Drost's chamber. She was attired in the homely dress of a country burgher's wife; her eyes were large and sunken, and her pale, emaciated visage greatly resembled that of a corpse. With a distaff and a rosary in her hand, she resumed her station by the Drost's couch before the lamp, which she drew aside, that it might not shine in the face of the patient. All was now soon quiet in this wing of the castle, which only comprised the sleeping apartments of the knights. Aagé lay long listening in anxiety. In the unusual stillness of the evening, however, a distant sound as of lutes and mirthful songs reached his ear.
"What is that?" he asked, raising his head with pain and difficulty.
"There is merriment in the knights' hall, noble sir! yes in troth! that there is," answered the nurse; "our stern junker hath caused minstrels and jugglers to be fetched from the town. There is no lack either of mead or sweet wine, that knoweth the precious Lord in heaven! He drinks to friendship with his brother, they say. Alack yes!" she added, "the great can be merry, doubtless, and leave care to the fiddle; ay! ay! when they quarrel among themselves, it all falls on the small! yes, in troth! does it--all falls on the small. My departed husband was, by my troth, doomed to death, in the great Marsk Stig's feud--alack yes! by my troth was he, he was but a poor man, I must tell ye: he had neither knightly nor princely honour to swear himself free with, like the high-born junker; no, by my troth! had he not, that was the whole mishap. There sits now our old commandant in the tower--ay! ay! he will hardly see sun or moon more; they say he is to be executed to-night; alack yes! and yesterday he was master here at the castle; yes, in troth! was he so, but so goeth it in the world; alack yes."
"Executed?" repeated Aagé; "the Lord have mercy on his soul; the king is strict and hasty: ha! but knew he?----"