“I am not so brave as you think me, my Lord,” she answered, coldly. “There is one thing I dare not do. I am not brave enough to allow your Lordship to go free, if you refuse what I ask.”
“And should I not relent at first, there are dungeons in Starkenburg where this proud spirit, with which my enemies say I am cursed, will doubtless be humbled.”
“Not so, my Lord. You will be treated with that consideration which should be shown to one of your exalted station.”
“Indeed! And melted thus by kindness, how long, think you, will the process take?”
“It will be of the shortest, my Lord, for if, as you surmise rumour should get abroad and falsely proclaim that the Archbishop lodges here against his will, there’s not a flying baron or beggared knight in all the land but would turn in his tracks and cry to Starkenburg, ‘In God’s name, hold him, widow, till we get our own again!’ Willingly would they make the sum I beg of you an annual tribute, so they might be certain your Lordship were well housed in this castle.”
“Widow, there is truth in what you say, even if a woman hath spoken it,” replied the Archbishop, with a grim smile on his lips and undisguised admiration gleaming from his dark eye. “This cowardly world is given to taking advantage of a man when opportunity offers. But there is one point you have not reckoned upon: What of my stout army lying at Treves?”
“What of the arch when the keystone is withdrawn? What of the sheep when the shepherd disappears? My Lord, you do yourself and your great military gifts a wrong. Through my deep regard for you I gave strict command that not even the meanest of your train should be allowed to wander till all were safe within these gates, for I well knew that, did but a whisper of my humble invitation and your gracious acceptance of the same reach Treves, it might be misconstrued; and although some sturdy fellows would be true, and beat their stupid heads against these walls, the rest would scatter like a sheaf of arrows suddenly unloosed, and seek the strongest arm upraised in the mêlée sure to follow. Against your army, leaderless, I would myself march out at the head of my two-score men without a tremor at my heart; before that leader, alone and armyless, I bow my head with something more akin to fear than I have ever known before, and crave his generous pardon for my bold request.”
The Archbishop took her unresisting hand, and, bending, raised it to his lips with that dignified courtesy which, despite his disclaimer, he knew well how, upon occasion, to display.
“Madame,” he said, “I ask you to believe that your request was granted even before you marshalled such unanswerable arguments to stand, like armoured men, around it. There is a tern and stringent law of our great Church which forbids its servants suing for a lady’s hand. Countess, I never felt the grasp of that iron fetter until now.”
Thus came the strong castle above Trarbach to be builded, and that not at the expense of its owners.