My Lady Rotha: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

And then the most wonderful sight of all, a regiment of Swedish horse passed us, marching from Erfurt. All their horses were grey, and all their head-pieces, backs and breasts of black metal, matched one another. As they came on through the dust with a tramp which shook the ground, they sang, company by company, to the music of drums and trumpets, a hymn, 'Versage nicht, du Häuflein klein!' Behind them a line of light waggons carried their wives and children, also singing. And so they went by us, eight hundred swords, and I thought it a marvel I should never see beaten.

When they were gone out of sight, there were still droves of horses and mighty flocks of sheep to come, and cargoes of pork, and more foot and horse and guns. Some companies wore buff coats and small steel caps, and carried arquebuses; and some marched smothered in huge headpieces with backs and breasts to match. And besides all the things I have mentioned and the crowds of sutlers and horse-boys that went with them, there were munition waggons closely guarded, and pack-horses laden with powder, and always and always waggons of corn and hay.

And all hurrying, jostling, crawling southwards. It seemed to me that the world was marching southwards; that if we went on we must fall in at the end of this with every one we knew. And the thought comforted me.

Steve put it into words after his fashion. 'It must be a big place we are going to,' he said, about noon of the second day, 'or who is to eat all this? And do you mark, Master Martin? We meet no one coming back. All go south. This place Nuremberg that they talk of must be worth seeing.'

'It should be,' I said.

And after that the excitement of the march began to take hold of me. I began to think and wonder, and look forward, with an eagerness I did not understand, to the issues of this.

We lay a night at Bamberg, where the crowd and confusion and the stress of people were so great that Steve would have it we had come to Nuremberg. And certainly I had never known such a hurly-burly, nor heard of it except at the great fair at Dantzic. The night after we lay at Erlangen, which we found fortified, trenched, and guarded, with troops lying in the square, and the streets turned into stables. From that place to Nuremberg was a matter of ten miles only; but the press was so great on the road that it took us a good part of the day to ride from one to the other. In the open country on either side of the way strong bodies of horse and foot were disposed. It seemed to me that here was already an army and a camp.

But when late in the afternoon we entered Nuremberg itself, and viewed the traffic in the streets, and the endless lines of gabled houses, the splendid mansions and bridges, the climbing roofs and turrets and spires of this, the greatest city in Germany, then we thought little of all we had seen before. Here thousands upon thousands rubbed shoulders in the streets; here continuous boats turned the river into solid land. Here we were told were baked every day a hundred thousand loaves of bread; and I saw with my own eyes a list of a hundred and thirty-eight bakehouses. The roar of the ways, choked with soldiers and citizens, the babel of strange tongues, the clamour of bells and trumpets, deafened us. The constant crowding and pushing and halting turned our heads. I forgot my grief and my hope too. Who but a madman would look to find a single face where thousands gazed from the windows? or could deem himself important with this swarming, teeming hive before him? Steve stared stupidly about him; I rode dazed and perplexed. The troopers laughed at us, or promised us greater things when we should see the Swedish Lager outside the town, and Wallenstein's great camp arrayed against it. But I noticed that even they, as we drew nearer to the heart of the city, fell silent at times, and looked at one another, surprised at the great influx of people and the shifting scenes which the streets presented.

For myself and Steve and the men, we were as good as nought. A house in the Ritter-Strasse was assigned to my lady for her quarters--no one could lodge in the city without the leave of the magistrates; and we were glad to get into it and cool our dizzy heads, and look at one another. Count Hugo stayed awhile, standing with my lady and the Waldgrave in one of the great oriels that overlooked the street. But a mounted messenger, sent on from the Town House, summoned him, and he took horse again for the camp. I do not know what we should have done without him at entering. The soldiers, who crowded the streets, showed scant respect for names, and would as soon have jostled my lady as a citizen's wife; but wherever he came hats were doffed and voices lowered, and in the greatest press a way was made for him as by magic.

For that night we had seen enough. I thought we had seen all, or that nothing in my life would ever surprise me again. But next day my lady went up to the Burg on the hill in the middle of the city to look abroad, and took Steve and myself with her. And then I found that I had not seen the half. The city, all roofs and spires and bridges, girt with a wall of seventy towers, roared beneath us; and that I had expected. But outside the wall I now saw a second city of huts and tents, with a great earthwork about it, and bastions and demilunes and picquets posted.