As the horses slowly laboured up the zigzagging road, the view along the silvery Moselle widened and extended, and at last the strong grey walls of the castle came into sight, with the ample gates wide open. The horsemen in front drew up in two lines on each side of the gates without entering, and thus the Archbishop, at the head of his little band, slowly rode first under the archway into the courtyard of the castle.
On the stone steps that led to the principal entrance of the castle stood a tall, graceful lady, with her women behind her. She was robed in black, and the headdress of her snow-white hair gave her the appearance of a dignified abbess at her convent door. Her serene and placid face had undoubtedly once been beautiful; and age, which had left her form as straight and slender as one of her own forest pines, forgetting to place its customary burden upon her graceful shoulders, had touched her countenance with a loving hand. With all her womanliness, there was, nevertheless, a certain firmness in the finely-moulded chin that gave evidence of a line of ancestry that had never been too deferential to those in authority.
The stern Archbishop reined in his black charger when he reached the middle of the courtyard, but made no motion to dismount. The lady came slowly down the broad stone steps, followed by her feminine train, and, approaching the Elector, placed her white hand upon his stirrup, in mute acknowledgment of her vassalage.
“Welcome, prince of the Church and protector of our Faith,” she said. “It is a hundred years since my poor house has sheltered so august a guest.”
The tones were smooth and soothing as the scarcely audible plash of a distant fountain; but the incident she cited struck ominously on the Archbishop’s recollection, rousing memory and causing him to dart a quick glance at the countess, in which was blended sharp enquiry and awakened foreboding; but the lady, unconscious of his scrutiny, stood with drooping head and downcast eyes, her shapely hand still on his stirrup-iron.
“If I remember rightly, madame, my august predecessor slept well beneath this roof.”
“Alas, yes!” murmured the lady, sadly. “We have ever accounted it the greatest misfortune of our line, that he should have died mysteriously here. Peace be to his soul!”
“Not so mysteriously, madame, but that there were some shrewd guesses concerning his malady.”
“That is true, my Lord,” replied the countess, simply. “It was supposed that in his camp upon the lowlands by the river he contracted a fever from which he died.”
“My journey by the Moselle has been of the briefest. I trust, therefore, I have not within me the seeds of his fatal distemper.”