Maurice—where was Maurice? She turned about. The small glittering eyes of Prince Ivan, black as sloes, were looking into hers. She remembered now. It was her own wedding. These two, her brother and her enemy, were carrying out their threat. They had brought her to the cathedral to wed her, against her will, to the man she hated. But they could not. She would tell them. Already she was a—but then, if she told them that, they would ride back and kill him. Better that she should perjure herself, condemn herself to hell, than that. Better anything than that. But what was she to do? Was ever a poor girl so driven?
And there, in the hour of her extremity, her eye fell upon a young man in the crowd beneath, a youth in a 'prentice's blue jerkin. He was passing his arm softly about a girl's waist—slily also, lest her mother should see. And the maid, first starting with a pretence of not knowing whence came the pressure, presently looked up and smiled at him, nestling a moment closer to his shoulder before removing his hand, only to hold it covertly under her apron till her mother showed signs of turning round.
"Ah! why was I born a princess?" moaned the poor driven girl.
"Margaret, you must come with us into the cathedral." It was the voice of her brother. "It is necessary that the Prince should wed you now. It has too long been promised, and now he can delay no longer. Besides, the Black Death is in the city, and this is the only hope of escape. Come!"
It was on the tip of Margaret's tongue to cry out with wild words even as she had done at the door at the river parlour. But the thought of Maurice, of the torture and the death, silenced her. She lifted her eyes, and there, at the top of the steps, were the dignitaries of the cathedral waiting to lead the solemn procession.
"I will go!" she said.
And at her words the Prince Ivan smiled under his thin moustache.
She laid her hand on her brother's arm and began the ascent of the long flight of stairs. But even as she did so, behind her there broke a wave of sound—the crying of many people, confused and multitudinous like the warning which runs along a crowded thoroughfare when a wild charger escaped from bonds threshes along with frantic flying harness. Then came the clatter of horses' hoofs, the clang of doors shut in haste as decent burghers got them in out of harm's way! And lo! at the foot of the steps, clad from head to foot in a cloak, the sick Princess Joan, she whom the Black Death had stricken, leaped from her foaming steed, and drawing sword followed fiercely up the stairway after the marriage procession. The Cossacks of the Muscovite guard looked at each other, not knowing whether to stand in her way or no.
"The Princess Joan!" they said from one to the other.
"Joan of the Sword Hand!" whispered the burghers of Courtland. "The disease has gone to her brain. Look at the madness in her eye!"