In the Armourers’ House our little boy had been frankly snubbed; and big brother, Hermann, whom he found in it (made much of as the hero of the day), being measured, if you please, for a suit of armour (which he supposed he would need very soon now), had given him the brutal advice to go back to Agnes, and Heinrich, and Conrad in the nursery—and not be forcing his company on his elders.
And then, suddenly, things had changed. As he turned out of the Armourers’ smithy, with Hermann’s mocking laugh in his ears, he heard his own name called once or twice. His mother had sent one of her women in search of him, and he was to come at once to the women’s apartments.
It certainly was a comfort to be wanted somewhere, and young Ludwig made about two steps of the staircase which led to the long open gallery on the side of the great courtyard. He lingered a little, though, on the gallery, for the sense of beauty and comfort which one had to starve somewhat in mediæval castles found satisfaction here. Sweet-scented flowers grew in boxes in the spaces between the charming double columns, which even to-day are the Wartburg’s chief architectural beauty. In gilded cages beneath the open arches were the little song-birds his mother loved. On the inside wall were painted tender domestic scenes from the Bible. He had a dim but very pleasant consciousness, as he passed them by, that the figures were smiling out on him the welcome of old friends. And as he paused for a moment at the door of his mother’s room, and looked back along the gallery, he noticed that the last rays of the sun were filling it, and the birds were singing, and some of the flowers, that had gone to sleep, had wakened up again.
But all this did not prepare him for what he found when he pushed open the door, and stood on the threshold of the great vaulted chamber, where his mother awaited him.
A feast of colour and light! Instead of the golden evening rays, here was the soft radiance of hundreds of waxen tapers. The hinged wooden shutters had been let down over the unglazed window spaces, and night was summoned hither before her time. From the quartered arches of the painted roof hung chandeliers of enamelled bronze, of the admirable workmanship of the period, and each of them was laden with lights. In long rows between the columns on which the roof rested stood tall candle-sticks with great “king-candles” burning in them. On the hearth flamed a fire of scented wood, and the light of candles and leaping fire made wonderful play with the glowing colours of the painted ceilings, and the splendid tapestry on the walls.
“Come hither, fair son.”
Young Ludwig came over the flower-strewn floor, between columns of coloured marble and “king-candles,” his handsome, fair head held high. In his page’s dress of crimson, he fitted in well with the rest of the scene. So did his mother, standing in the midst of her maidens, stately and beautiful in her mantle, with its shimmering embroideries, its long train, and breast fastening of regal pearls. She held out a little white hand to him, and he kissed it, kneeling on one knee. Then, with a sudden impulse, as if the mother claimed her rights as well as the princess, she stooped down to him, moved aside her wimple, and laid his firm young cheek against her own. She left her hand in his, while he rose from his knees, and led him with it to the top of the chamber.
“Look, fair son, and tell me what you see.”
For a moment Ludwig was so astonished at what he saw that he could not speak. Then he turned to his mother with a question: “Who worked the tapestry? And how do I come to be standing in the Landgraf’s robes, high on the Wartburg, with the valley and the town of Eisenach far beneath me, and a great star hanging low from the sky above my head?”
His mother answered one part of his question: “The ‘Wise Nun’ in thy Father’s Convent of Eisenach has wrought it,” she said, and then stopped suddenly, and led him to the lateral wall.