All this time the High Councillor had been gazing by fits and starts at the links of the necklace, turning it about and viewing it from every-angle. It was composed of short bars of gold laid horizontally three and three together, and bound together with short chains of gold. And on each of the bars there was engraven a crest. Letters also were on the bars, cut in plain deep script.
"Now tell your tale and tell it briefly—that is, if brevity be in you, which I doubt," said Dessauer.
"As I said before," quoth the forester, "I was in the wars; I mean not only in the wars with womenkind, but also with mankind. And among other things I remember the night of the Duke Casimir's famous ride, when he took Plassenburg, because there was scarce a sober man within the walls."
"And his Highness the Prince Karl away on Baltic side with his men, else had Casimir never set foot within the city!" cried the High Chancellor.
"Ah, like enow," said the woodman, "I ken naught of that. But this I do know, Plassenburg was taken with much slaughter and grievous loss of goodly gear. They captivated many noble prisoners also, and, because I slept in the stables, they took me to help lead the horses. Yet I was not ill-treated, save that I had to keep pace with the horsemen upon my feet. But I saw the Prince—"
"Which Prince? Speak plainly," said the High Councillor, gruffly.
"Why, the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg of Plassenburg," said the man. "He, as your well-born Wisdom remembers, was then the only Prince in these parts—a good man, and born of the noblest, though not of the capacity of his present Highness the Prince Karl."
"Proceed somewhat faster. Yon move as slowly as one of your own forest oxen at the wood-hauling," cried the well-born Councillor in a testy tone.
"We were long in riding over to Thorn—two days and nights upon the way. It was a terrible time, and all the while those condemned beasts of the Wolfmark, Casimir's Black Riders, driving us with their spears like prick-goads, till our backs were all bleeding, gentle and simple alike. So at midnight of the third day we came to the city of Thorn, and up through the streets to the Wolfsberg. There was no gladness in the town, such as there would have been in our city had there been news of a victory, or even of some hundreds of the enemy's horses well driven. For then as now the town hated its Duke. And so they were all silent.
"Then in the darkness we came to the castle, and the word was: 'Dismount, and to the shambles!' Me and my like they meddled not with, but only the great ones. And it was then, as I told you, that I saw Prince Dietrich with the little maid in his arms. I had carried her part of the way for him, and faithfully delivered her up again, feeding her with the choicest meats I could obtain when she could eat. But she was tired, mostly, and would not look at food. So for this he gave me her necklace from about her pretty neck. But the rest of her noble golden gear, the belt and the clasps, were upon the maid when the headsman of Thorn delivered her to one that stood near by. So, being almost asleep with weariness and exhausted with terror, they carried her away, and I saw the maid no more.