Conrad shook his head. His brother had doubtless gone momentarily distract with his troubles.
"Nay, deny it not! And smile not either—lest I spoil the symmetry of that face for your monkish mummery and processions. Aye, if I have to lie under ten years' interdict for it from your friend the most Holy Pope of Rome!"
"Do not forget there is another Church in my country, which will lay no interdict upon you, Prince Louis," laughed Ivan of Muscovy. "But to horse—to horse—we lose time!"
"Brother," said the Cardinal, laying his hand on Louis's arm, "on my word as a knight—as a Prince of the Church—I knew nothing of the matter. I cannot even guess what has led you thus to accuse me!"
The Princess Margaret came at that moment out of the cathedral and ran impetuously to her favourite brother.
He put out his hand. She took it, and instead of kissing his bishop's ring, as in strict etiquette she ought to have done, she cried out, "Conrad, do you know what that glorious wench has done? Dared her husband's authority at the church door, leaped into the saddle, whistled up her men, cried to all these Courtland gallants, 'Catch me who can!' And lo! at this moment she is riding straight for Kernsberg, and now our Louis must catch her. A glorious wedding! I would I were by her side. Brother Louis, you need not frown, I am nowise affrighted at your glooms! This is a bride worth fighting for. No puling cloister-maid this that dares not raise her eyes higher than her bridegroom's knee! Were I a man, by my faith, I would never eat or drink, neither pray nor sain me, till I had tamed the darling and brought her to my wrist like a falcon to a lure!"
"So, then, madam, you knew of this?" said her elder brother, glowering upon her from beneath his heavy brows.
"Nay!" trilled the gay Princess, "I only wish I had. Then I, too, would have been riding with them—such a jest as never was, it would have been. Goodbye, my poor forsaken brother! Joy be with you on this your bridal journey. Take Prince Ivan with you, and Conrad and I will keep the kingdom against your return, with your prize gentled on your wrist."
So smiling and kissing her hand the Princess Margaret waved her brother and Prince Ivan off. The Prince of Courtland neither looked at her nor answered. But the Muscovite turned often in his saddle as if to carry with him the picture she made of saucy countenance and dainty figure as she stood looking up into the face of the Cardinal Prince Conrad.
"What in Heaven's name is the meaning of all this—I do not understand in the least?" he was saying.