The Red Axe

by S. R. Crockett

Then I heard him reach over his bed for something. I stole out of the hole in the wall and crouched down till my eyes rested at the great latchet hole through which the tang of leather to lift the bolt ordinarily goes. I could see my father sitting on his bed and the Red Axe lying across his knees. He took it in hand, dangling it like an infant. He caressed it as he spoke, and ran his thumb lovingly along the shining edge.

"Ah," he said, "my beauty, 'tis you and not your master they should make High Chancellor of this realm. 'Tis you that have held the power of life and death, and laid the spirit of rebellion any time these twenty years. And well indeed wouldst thou look with a red robe about thee" (here he reached for a cloak that swung from the rafters contiguous to his hand); "a noble presence wouldst thou be in a tun-bellied robe and a collar of shining gold! Bravely, great State's Chancellor of the Wolfmark, wouldst thou then lead the processions and preside at the diets of justice—as indeed thou dost mostly as it is."

And he made the Red Axe bow like a puppet in his hands as he swept the cloak of red out behind the handle.

I could see Duke Casimir now. He had drawn up a stool and sat opposite my father, with his elbows on his knees. One hand was stroking the side of his head, and his haughtiness had all fallen from him like a forgotten overmantle. He looked another man from the cruel, relentless Prince who had ridden so sternly at the head of his men-at-arms and looked so callously on at the death of men and the yet more bitter agony of women.

He stared at the floor, absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, while my father regarded him with his eyes as though he had been a lad in his 'prenticing who needed encouragement to persevere.

"Duke," he said, steadily, "you have borne the rule many years, and I have stood behind you. Have I ever advised you wrong? Make peace with the young man, your nephew; he is now only the Count von Reuss, but one day he will be Duke Otho. And if he be rightly guided he may be a brave ruler yet. But if not, and he gather in his hand the various seditions and confused turbulences in the Dukedom, why, a worse thing may befall."

"You advise me," said the Duke, lifting his head and looking at his Justicer, "to recall my nephew and risk all that threatened us ere he fled to the Prince of Plassenburg—Karl, the Miller's Son."

Gottfried Gottfried continued to run his thumb to and fro along the edge of the Red Axe.

"Even so," he replied, without raising his head; "give him the command of the Black Riders of the Guard, who, as it is, adore him. Let him try his 'prentice hand on Bamberg and Reichenan. And if he offend, why, then it will be time to apply for further advice to this chancellor in the Red Robe, whose face so shines with wisdom."

The Duke rose.