"Aye, truly," echoed Boris, the mead beginning to work nuttily under his steel cap, "when we melt this—ha, ha!—Katrin's jewel, we'll quaff many a beaker. The Rhenish shall flow-ow-ow! And Peg and Moll and Elisabet shall be there—yes, and many a good fellow-ow-ow——"
"Shut the door!" quoth Werner, the chief captain, at this point. "Sit down, gentlemen!"
But Jorian and Boris were not to be so easily turned aside.
"Call in the ale-drawer—the tapster, the pottler, the over-cellarer, whatever you call him. For we would have more of his vintage. Why, is this a night of jewels, and shall we not melt them? We may chance to get another for a second mouthful of lies to-morrow morning. A good duchess as ever was—a soft princess, a princess most gullible is this of yours, gentlemen of the Eagle's Nest, kerns of Kernsberg!"
"Sit down," said Werner yet more gravely. "Captains Jorian and Boris, you do not seem to know that you are no longer in Plassenburg. The broom bush does not keep the cow betwixt Kernsberg and Hohenstein. Here are no Tables of Karl the Miller's Son to hamper our liege mistress. Do you know that you have lied to her and made a jest of it?"
"Aye," cried Jorian, holding his ring high; "a sweet, easy maid, this of yours, as ever was cozened. An easy service yours must be. Lord! I could feather my nest well inside a year—one short year with such a mistress would do the business. Why, she will believe anything!"
"So," said Werner von Orseln grimly, "you think so, do you, Captains Boris and Jorian, of the embassy staff? Well, listen!"
He spoke very slowly, leaning towards them and punctuating his meaning upon the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right. "If I, Werner of Orseln, were now to walk upstairs, and in so many words tell my lady, 'the sweet, easy princess,' as you name her, Joan of the Sword Hand, as we are proud——"
"Joan of the Sword Hand! Hoch!"
The men-at-arms at the lower table, the bearded captains at the high board, the very page boys lounging and scuffling in the niches, rose to their feet at the name, pronounced in a voice of thunder-pride by Chief Captain Werner.