"Nay, truly," he said, smiling sadly, "you and I are in one despite, Louis. Your wife scorns you—me, my sweetheart. Did Margaret tell me? Nay, verily! Yet I learned it, nevertheless, even more certainly because she denied it so vehemently. But, after all, I daresay all will end for the best."
"How so?" demanded Prince Louis haughtily.
"Why, I have heard that your Papa at Rome will do aught for money. Doubtless he will dissolve this marriage, which indeed is no more than one in name. He has done more than that already for his own nephews. He will absolve your brother from his vows. Then you can be the monk and he the king. There will be a new marriage, at which doubtless you shall hold the service book and he the lady's hand. Then we shall have no ridings back to Kernsberg, with four hundred lances, at a word from a girl's scornful mouth. And the Alla down there may rise or fall at its pleasure, and neither hurt nor hinder any!"
The Prince of Courtland turned an angry countenance upon his friend, but the keen-witted Muscovite looked so kindly and yet so sadly upon him that after awhile the severity of his face relaxed as it had been against his will, and with a quick gesture he added, "I believe you love me, Ivan, though indeed your words are no better than red-hot pincers in my heart."
"Love you, Louis?" cried Prince Ivan. "I love you better than any brother I have, though they will never live to thwart me as yours thwarts you—better even than my father, for you do not keep me out of my inheritance!"
Then in a gayer tone he went on.
"I love you so much that I will pledge my father's whole army to help you, first to win your wife, next to take Hohenstein, Kernsberg, and Marienfeld. And after that, if you are still ambitious, why—to Plassenburg and the Wolfmark, which now the Executioner's Son holds. That would make a noble kingdom to offer a fair and wilful queen."
"And for this you ask?"
"Only your love, Louis—only your love! And, if it please you, the alliance with that Princess of your honourable house, of whom we spoke just now!"
"My sister Margaret, you mean? I will do what I can, Ivan, but she also is wilful. You know she is wilful! I cannot compel her love!"