"They swear that they are friends"—so ran the report—"which is proof that they are enemies. For how can there be friends who are not Courtlanders. And these speak an outland speech, clacking in their throats, hissing their s's, and laughing 'Ho! ho!' instead of 'Hoch! hoch!' as all good Christians do!"
The Governor of the city, roused from a rare slumber, leaped on her horse and went clattering off with an escort through the unsleeping streets. When first she came the folk had cheered her as she went. But they were too jaded and saddened now.
"Our Governor, the Princess Joan!" they used to call her with pride. But for all that she found not the same devotion among these easy Courtlanders as among her hardy men of Hohenstein. To these she was indeed the Princess Joan. But to those in Castle Kernsberg she was Joan of the Sword Hand.
When at last she came to the Brandenburg gate she found before it a great gathering of the townsfolk. The city guard manned the walls, fretted with haste and falling over each other in their uncertainty. There was yet no strictness of discipline among these raw train-bands, and, instead of waiting for an officer to hail the horsemen in front, every soldier, hackbutman, and halberdier was shouting his loudest, till not a word of the reply could be heard.
But all this turmoil vanished before the first fierce gust of Joan's wrath like leaves blown away by the blasts of January.
"To your posts, every man! I will have the first man spitted with arrows who disobeys—aye, or takes more upon himself than simple obedience to orders. Let such as are officers only abide here with me. Silence beneath in the tower there."
Looking out, Joan could see a dark mass of horsemen, while above them glinted in the pale starlight a forest of spearheads.
"Whence come you, strangers?" cried Joan, in the loud, clear voice which carried so far.
"From Plassenburg we are!" came back the answer.
"Who leads you?"