"It is just because they are hill-fed that we know them and will not risk our lives. The Alla has come down out of the mountains of Hohenstein. For four-and-twenty hours nothing without wing may pass and repass. Yet an hour earlier and our Duchess had been trapped on the hither side even as we. But now she will sit and laugh up there in Kernsberg. And—I cannot go back to Courtland without a bride!"
Prince Ivan stood a moment silent. Then his eyes glanced over his companion with a certain severe and amused curiosity. From foot to head they scanned him, beginning at the shoes of red Cordovan leather, following upwards to the great tassel he wore at his poignard; then came the golden girdle about his waist, the flowered needlework at his wrists and neck, and the scrutiny ended with the flat red cap on his head, from which a white feather nodded over his left eye.
Then the gaze of Prince Ivan returned again slowly to the pointed red shoes of Cordovan leather.
If there was anything so contemptuous as that eye-blink in the open scorn of all the burghers of Courtland, Prince Louis was to be excused for any hesitation he might show in facing his subjects.
The matter of Prince Wasp's meditation ran somewhat thuswise: "Thou man, fashioned from a scullion's nail-paring, and cocked upon a horse, what can I make of thee? Thou, to have a country, a crown, a wife! Gudgeon eats stickleback, jack-pike eats gudgeon and grows fat, till at last the sturgeon in his armour eats him. I will fatten this jack. I will feed him like the gudgeons of Kernsberg and Hohenstein, then take him with a dainty lure indeed, black-tipped, with sleeves gay as cranes' wings, and answering to the name of 'my lady Joan.' But wait—I must be wary, and have a care lest I shadow his water."
So saying within his heart, Prince Wasp became exceedingly thoughtful and of a demure countenance.
"My lord," he said, "this day's work will not go well down in Courtland, I fear me!"
Prince Louis moved uneasily, keeping his regard steadily upon the brown turmoil of the Alla swirling beneath, whereas the eyes of Ivan were never removed from his friend's meagre face.
"Your true Courtlander is more than half a Muscovite," mused Prince Wasp, as if thinking aloud; "he wishes not to be argued with. He wants a master, and he will not love one who permits himself to be choused of a wife upon his wedding-day!"
Prince Louis started quickly as the Wasp's sting pricked him.