"That we may concert plans of escape?" said Joan. "You desire to continue your pilgrimage—I to return to my people, who, alas, think themselves better off without me!"
"I do, indeed, greatly desire to see Rome," replied the Prince. "The Holy Father Sixtus has sent me the red biretta, and has commanded me to come to Rome within a year to exchange it for the Cardinal's hat, and also to visit the tombs of the Apostles."
But Joan was not listening. She went on to speak of the matters which occupied her own mind.
"If you were a priest, why did you ride in the great tournament of the Blacks and the Whites at Courtland not a year ago?"
The Prince-Cardinal smiled indulgently.
"I was not then fledged full priest; hardly am I one now, though they have made me a Prince of Holy Church. Yet the tournaying was in a manner, perhaps, what her bridal dress is to a nun ere she takes the veil. But, my Lady Joan, what know you of the strife of Blacks and Whites at Courtland?"
"Your sister, the Princess Margaret, spoke of it, and also the Count von Löen, an officer of mine," answered Joan disingenuously.
"I am indeed a soldier by training and desire," continued the young man. "In Italy I have played at stratagem and countermarch with the Orsini and Colonna. But in this matter the younger son of the house of Courtland has no choice. We are the bulwark of the Church alike against heretic Muscovite to the north and furious Hussite to the south. We of Courtland must stand for the Holy See along all the Baltic edges; and for this reason the Pope has always chosen from amongst us his representative upon the Diet of the Empire, till the office has become almost hereditary."
"Then you are not really a priest?" said Joan, woman-like fixing upon that part of the young man's reply, which somehow had the greatest interest for her.
"In a sense, yes—in truth, no. They say that the Pope, in order to forward the Church's polity, makes and unmakes cardinals every day, some even for money payments; but these are doubtless Hussite lies. Yet though by prescript right and the command of the head of the Church I am both priest and bishop, in my heart I am but Prince Conrad of Courtland and a simple knight, even as I was before."