Only the Kernsbergers bit their lips and watched the eye of Maurice, by whose side a slim page in chain-mail had ridden all day with visor down. And the men of the Palace Guard prayed for Prince Hugo to come.
As for Joan, she cared nothing for victory or defeat, loss or gain, because that the man she loved leaned on her breast, bleeding and very still.
Yet with great gentleness she gave him down into loving hands, and afterwards stood marble-pale beside the couch while Theresa von Lynar unlaced his armour and washed his wounds. Then, nerving herself to see him suffer, she murmured over to herself, once, twice, and a hundred times, "God help me to do so and more also to those who have wrought this—specially to Louis of Courtland and Ivan of Muscovy."
"Abide ye, little one—be patient. Vengeance will come to both!" said Theresa. "I, who do not promise lightly, promise it you!"
And she laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. Never before had the Duchess Joan been called "little one!" Yet for all her brave deeds she laid her head on Theresa's shoulder, murmuring, "Save him—save him! I cannot bear to lose him. Pray for him and me!"
Theresa kissed her brow.
"Ah," she said, "the prayers of such as Theresa von Lynar would avail little. Yet she may be a weapon in the hand of the God of vengeance. Is it not written that they that take the sword shall perish by the sword?"
But already Joan had forgotten vengeance. For now the surgeons of Courtland stood about, and she murmured, "Must he die? Tell me, will he die?"
And as the wise men silently shook their heads, the crying of the victorious Muscovites could be heard outside the wall.
Then ensued a long silence, through which broke a gust of iron-throated laughter. It was the roar of the Margraf's captured cannon firing the salvo of victory.