"Sire! The noble and high-born Captain Nigel Charteris with despatches from Tilly, Count of Tzerclaës!"
Nigel advanced, preceded by the gentleman-in-waiting, bowed three times as he did so, following the example set him, and presently stood at the Emperor's left hand, where stood the principal secretary, who received the despatches, and, having glanced at the seal, handed it to the Emperor, who, giving it to the Chancellor of the Empire, at his right hand, commanded him to break the seals.
The Emperor had acknowledged Nigel's presence at the side of his secretary with a slight but perceptible movement of the eyes, which rested upon him for a few seconds, and of the head, and then relapsed into an austere aloofness. Nigel, standing alert and ready for further business, if it should concern him, observed that Ferdinand was a man to all appearance of some fifty odd years, lean, of yellowish complexion, with eyes of a bluish tinge, dark-brown hair, a moustache twisted fiercely upwards, a short pointed beard with strands of grey in it, and dark scanty eyebrows. He wore a large stiff ruff about his neck. His doublet was of dark Genoese velvet, and a single gold chain suspended a medallion or badge of some order of knighthood. He sat in an easy attitude, attentive, but as a man wearied of affairs, yet of that fixity of will that lets nothing go by him that he should set his hand to. The long, slightly aquiline nose, fleshy towards the point, together with the projecting tufted lower lip, proclaimed him Habsburg. His chair was raised upon a dais, so that he sat on a higher level by some inches than the great officers of the council who sat at the table.
Nigel could not help noticing the slenderness of his hands and the length of the tapering fingers, which were beyond the common measure of men's hands, and reminded him of the hands of Ottilie von Thüringen.
From the Emperor his gaze fell upon a familiar figure that of a man who sat back from the table, as if to give more play to his long legs, and at the Emperor's right hand.
It needed but a glance at the face, ennobled by its fine expanse of forehead from which the hair had receded, and the flowing black locks, still making a brave show of plenty, which fell to his deep lace collar, to recognise Maximilian of Bavaria. The fine delicate dark brows, the large humorous dark eyes, the aquiline nose, the pointed chin decked with a pointed and unmistakably grey beard, the short upper lip with a soft flowing moustache, composed a face easy to remember, and somewhat suggestive of a life spent in thought and deep designs rather than in the field, where, however, he had borne no mean nor infrequent burden.
The Chancellor proceeded to read Count Tilly's despatch, which set forth with a brevity worthy of his reputation as a general the final operations before Magdeburg, the taking of the city, the number of men killed and wounded on both sides. Count Tilly here strongly commended the Bavarian General Pappenheim, who had rendered very notable assistance in the siege and storm. Then followed the roster of the army as it was on the morning of Nigel's departure, and an intimation that it was not possible to quarter the troops in the town itself on account of the destruction of the houses, and of the fear of pestilence. Pending further instructions, Count Tilly intimated that he should form a fortified camp not far from the city, making such excursions into the neighbouring country as might be necessary to continue the enforcement of the Edict, or to oppose the operations of Gustavus. In the event of the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, or either of them, declaring openly for Gustavus, he proposed to enter Saxony and endeavour to bring the Elector to submission.
The Emperor questioned Nigel as to the extent of the destruction of Magdeburg and the cause of it; and Nigel gave such answer as he was able, saying that, no quarter being given on either side, the entrance into the city was the cause of much bloodshed, owing to the tenacity of the burghers, many of whom set fire to their houses to entrap the soldiery and frustrate the sacking.
"You passed through Erfurt, Plauen, and Eger?" the Emperor asked. "How was the Edict being received?"
"Erfurt and Eger, sire, are mainly of the Catholic faith, and have strong garrisons. Plauen would willingly have hung me and my escort, incited to rebellion by the news from Magdeburg!"