“The Count von Eltz, my Lord, has built a castle that is part palace, part fortress, and in its latter office well-nigh impregnable.”
“Yes? And where?”
“In the Eltz-thal, my Lord, a league and a quarter from the Moselle.”
“Impossible!” cried Baldwin, bringing his clenched fist down on the table before him. “Impossible! You have been misled, Von Richenbach.”
“Indeed, my Lord, I had every reason to believe so until I viewed the structure with my own eyes.”
“This, then, is the fruit of Von Eltz’s contrition! To build a castle without permission within my jurisdiction, and defy me in my own domain. By the Coat, he shall repent his temerity and wish himself twice over a captive of the Saracen ere I have done with him. I will despatch at once an army to the Eltz-thal, and there shall not be left one stone upon another when it returns.”
“My Lord, I beseech you not to move with haste in this matter. If twenty thousand men marched up to the Eltz-thal they could not take the castle. No such schloss was ever built before, and none to equal it will ever be built again, unless, as I suspect to be the case in this instance, the devil lends his aid.”
“Oh, I doubt not that Satan built it, but he took the form and name of Count von Eltz while doing so,” replied the Archbishop, his natural anger at this bold defiance of his power giving way to his habitual caution, which, united with his resources and intrepidity, had much to do with his success. “You hold the castle, then, to be unassailable. Is its garrison so powerful, or its position so strong?”
“The strength of its garrison, my Lord, is in its weakness; I doubt if there are a score of men in the castle, but that is all the better, as there are fewer mouths to feed in case of siege, and the Count has some four years’ supplies in his vaults. The schloss is situated on a lofty, unscalable rock that stands in the centre of a valley, as if it were a fortress itself. Then the walls of the building are of unbelievable height, with none of the round or square towers which castles usually possess, but having in plenty conical turrets, steep roofs, and the like, which give it the appearance of a fairy palace in a wide, enchanted amphitheatre of green wooded hills, making the Schloss Eltz, all in all, a most miraculous sight, such as a man may not behold in many years’ travel.”
“In truth, Von Richenbach,” said the Archbishop, with a twinkle in his eye, “we should have made you one of our scrivening monks rather than a warrior, so marvellously do you describe the entrancing handiwork of our beloved vassal, the Count von Eltz. Perhaps you think it pity to destroy so fascinating a creation.”