The king's countenance grew dark. He had referred the cause of the captives to the law and justice of the land; he would hear nothing of it himself: he knew they had accused themselves before their judges of being privy to the treasonable sojourn of Kaggé at Wordingborg. He was silent; but it was evident that the thought of Marsk Stig and of his father's death was again fearfully present to Eric's mind, and disposed him but little to favour the race of the regicide or any friend of the outlaws;--the minstrels looked doubtfully at each other, and no one dared to say a word more on this subject.
CHAP. IX.
It was late, and every one retired to rest. The king repaired to his private chamber. Count Henrik saw with uneasiness that Master Thrand followed him. The king's chamber was immediately adjoining the library, to which Count Henrik had access. He hesitated a moment; it seemed to him degrading, without the king's knowledge and consent, to become a concealed witness to his conversation with the mysterious scholar; but his anxiety and care for the king's safety at last overcame every scruple. He took a light with him and went to the library. The light went out in the passage, which he deemed fortunate, as his presence might otherwise be easily betrayed if there was the least chink in the door between the library and the private chamber. He stepped softly into the vaulted and flagged apartment, where a pair of bookshelves with wire grating, together with some chairs and a reading table, were the only furniture. The moon shone brightly through the small bow window; he seated himself at the table close by the door of the private chamber, fixed his eyes on an open manuscript, and listened.
"Here we are now alone, and wholly undisturbed," he heard the king say, and the chivalrous Count Henrik felt he blushed for himself; he made a movement to depart, but put a constraint on his feelings and kept his seat on hearing Master Thrand's whispering voice, but in so low and mysterious a tone that he could not understand a word.
"I know it all," continued the king, "and it is useless for you to deny it, learned Master Thrand! You are what is called a heretic and Leccar brother; as such you are doomed to fire and faggot, by the pope, with your whole sect, and proscribed by all Christian kings; according to my decree, and at the requirement of the papal court you are banished from my state and country also. Yet if you can prove to me you have found the philosopher's stone, as you seem yourself to imagine, and that there exists a higher truth and wisdom than the revealed Word, I will acquit you, and in defiance of pope and clergy will recal the decree of banishment against your sect."
"Most mighty sovereign!" now said the mountebank, distinctly, though in a hesitating tone;--"what you know of me I have myself confided to you; had I not known your generosity and reverence for the laws of hospitality, and had I not known you were elevated far above this ignorant and narrow-minded age, such a confidence in a ruler would have stamped me as the most contemptible of fools. You have spoken truth, great sovereign!" he continued, as it seemed with assumed firmness. "I am a heretic and Leccar brother; but, to be such I esteem a higher honour (even should I at last die at the stake for it) than if all blinded, gulled Christendom were to worship me as the greatest and most admirable of saints."
"Truly!" answered the king, sternly, "that is a bold speech, Master Thrand; if it contain not loftier wisdom than hath yet been known to the best and wisest scholars during the space of thirteen centuries, I must regard it as the most mad and presumptuous declaration that hath ever passed the lips of man. I stand myself, as you know, in dangerous and daring strife with that power which in the church's name would rule princes as well as people, and enslave our souls. I defy every decree of man which would drive us to despair and ungodliness, and give over our souls to the destroyer; but notwithstanding, I deem the church and the divine Word on which it is founded not the less sure and stedfast, and I would fain see that philosopher--or fool, who would cause me to swerve a hair's breath from this belief."
"As soon as your grace understands me fully," answered Master Thrand, with calmness, "you will see that is nowise my aim: the real church of truth is the invisible one which I also worship in spirit, and the true eternal Word of God is that which hath never been wholly revealed, but to which I hearken with reverence, and appropriate through the medium of science, by searching into yon great book of revelation, which can only be unlocked by the wakened power of divinity within us. Hear ye not yourself, noble king! the mighty voice of divinity in the thunders of heaven? See ye not the finger of the Almighty in the destructive lightning? And must you not confess that he who is ruler over those mighty forces of nature, is the only true powerful God whom we must worship and adore?"
"Well! that is a matter of course, but what of that?" asked the king, in an impatient tone.
"If I now could show you," continued Master Thrand, with rising zeal, "that the same power lies in my hand and in my will--that I by a nod can force the voice of Omnipotence to speak and announce in shouts of thunder, that I am the Lord and master of those godlike powers--will you then deny my right to publish the divine word, which speaks through my will as it does through nature? Will you then any longer doubt my having found and possessed myself of the essence of things,--the source of power,--which shall hereafter change the form of the world and throw down the idol temples of prejudice, and the fortified castles of tyrants? Will you then believe I have found the key to the great mystery of life; and that the voice of deity, which speaks through my will and my works, is able to say--Live! when time, sickness, and age,--when sword and poison,--when war, pestilence, and hunger,--when stake and executioners,--when popes and tyrants, and all the foes of life, shout--Die!"