"He must be left to his flock. Count Tilly will dismiss the poorest prisoners. Do you, madame, get your charge ready at once for her journey to the camp. The men shall make a litter!"
"You are more an officer of Wallenstein than of Tilly!" she said. "Were I you, I should seek employment with the former."
"Wallenstein! I was with Wallenstein till the Emperor accepted his resignation!"
"The Emperor will recall him!" she said confidently.
Nigel sprang towards her eagerly.
"Is this true? And if true, how do you know it? Who are you?"
She smiled a lofty, condescending, tantalising smile and left him.
Wallenstein! Wallenstein in chief command again! Wallenstein the supreme general of generals, the man who could pick men, place them in the exact rank they could fill, caring nothing for archdukes or landgraves, only for soldiers,—the man who could make war itself an orderly thing, not quartering rough soldiers promiscuously upon quiet burgher families, but levying contributions and spending them in pay and provisions like any merchant, getting good value for them. Wallenstein appealed to the Scot in Nigel as a thorough man, no less brave than Tilly, but a genius for organising armies, a good Catholic, but no fanatic. It was like a shrill summons to Nigel to hear that Wallenstein might take the field again. But how could this proud damsel of Thüringen know? Who was she?
To be the daughter of the Landgrave of Thüringen was to be almost the daughter of a prince. She had not admitted it, but that she came of very noble birth he was sure. She must be steeped in Lutheranism to be in Magdeburg during the siege. Yet she seemed not to regard either the dead pastor or the living with the respect that one who was strong in the faith would be likely to show.
His men-at-arms came in, doublets and pockets stuffed. They had found no wine at all events.