CHAPTER XXVII. THE TWO YEARS' SIEGE BEGINS.
What the Emperor feared the Archbishops would do, and what would have been the proper thing to do from a military standpoint, was what the warlike prelates did not do. Both were appalled at the loss of life which had accompanied their efforts to capture Thuron. It is not to be supposed that a man whose ambition it was to link his name with the building of the greatest cathedral the world had yet seen, relished the outlook which promised instead to give him the reputation of a Hannibal or an Alexander, and that, too, without the compensating fame of a great conqueror, for the Archbishop of Cologne saw that even if the castle were captured, the feat would add few laurels to the brow of a commander at the head of a comparatively overwhelming force. He felt he had been tricked by his smooth-spoken colleague, who had persuaded him that the mere appearance of this imposing body of men before the walls of Thuron would in a manner cause them to imitate the walls of Jericho. In this suspicion, however, he wronged his brother of Treves, who had not intentionally misled him, but had actually hoped to prevent bloodshed by employing a force so palpably irresistible that Heinrich would at once come to terms. Arnold von Isenberg had no particular objection to the shedding of blood, and had before now held down his enemies with a strong hand, but results in this instance had been out of all proportion to their cost. He had been led, more than he himself cared to admit, by the impetuosity of his fiery follower, Count Bertrich, who now lay raving with the fever resulting from his wound. As Arnold advanced in years he was more prone to depend on diplomacy for his victories than on actual force, but he liked to have the force in the background even if he did not care to use it.
There was a stormy scene between the two dignitaries on the morning after the failure of the night attack. The dormant suspicions of von Hochstaden were again roused. The assurance that the siege would be a bloodless one had been so quickly belied, that he now saw in Bertrich's first impetuous attack a determination to drag the forces of Cologne into a struggle which Treves shrank from meeting alone, and now the apparently frank answers of the culprit which at the time had satisfied him, seemed but the deeper villainy, as having been probably rehearsed beforehand. Thus the Archbishop of Cologne saw himself the easy dupe of his crafty co-elector, from whose latent methods he had more than once suffered, and whose cunning he had always feared.
"You have deceived me," he cried angrily, when they were in the conference tent alone together, saving only the presence of their two secretaries.
"I do not like your word 'deceived,'" replied von Isenberg, who remained as calm as the other was agitated, "unless you apply it to me as well. I have deceived you, perhaps, but I was myself deceived. If you accuse me of miscalculation, I am willing to admit the truth of the charge."
"You knew the character of this man Heinrich; I did not. You said we had but to sit down before the castle, and it was ours. That was not true."
"I have already admitted that I was mistaken," said Arnold, quietly.
"You can do nothing but admit it," cried von Hochstaden, hotly; "the facts disclaim all denial. What I hold is that you knew this before we came, and have drawn me into a quarrel which is none of mine; that you have forced on the fighting so that we are now apparently committed to a course of which I entirely disapprove."