In the deeps of the woodland Fritz the Masterless had his hold,—half cave, half hut, under the towering Rothenstein,—a cliff of gnarled red rock. Here Gerda, his strong-armed, swarthy wife, came to him, with Wolf his eldest, a sinewy lad of fourteen who could run like a rabbit, and also the pair of younger girls, coarse, tow-headed wights, who resembled Maid Agnes as two mongrels do a Castilian spaniel. They surveyed the father’s booty with rude, gaping eyes, and Gerda sought greedily to see if the stranger wore no precious ring or jewelled crucifix; but Priest Clement had done that work too well, and she was disappointed. However, there was no doubting the value of Fritz’s catch. Such white skin and hands! Such silken hair and dainty face! She might be the Kaiser’s own daughter; and her dress, if sadly torn, was of very silk from the great Cham’s own country!
Agnes bore all more steadfastly than one might dream. There was a ritter’s red blood in her veins if she had been reared in the Bamberg convent. She protested stoutly that she was Graf Ludwig’s child, until Dame Gerda began to believe there was some fire behind so much smoke. So leaving Agnes to Wolf and the girls, she drew Fritz beyond earshot.
“She does not lie. She is the Graf’s own child. And Ulrich of the Wartburg is back of her plight, I am bound.”
“Humph!” commented Fritz; “it is a parlous thing to have dealings with the Graf, or with Ulrich either. Ulrich will hang me for taking his deer; the Graf for watching the roads. I am none too anxious for a voyage to purgatory that I desire to send a message to Ludwig, ‘I have found your daughter.’ He will come with five hundred men in lieu of ransom, and my best reward will be a long drop to the slip-noose.”
Gerda considered wisely.
“Such white skin and hands! There is a fortune in her.”
“Out with it then.”
“Wolf shall go to Eisenach to Mordecai the Jew. He smuggles many a wench south to Italy, though the saints know what becomes of them then! He will give us round groschens for her.”
Fritz frowned. His conscience troubled him, though only a little.
“If only Mordecai were not an unbeliever! It is wrong to deliver Christians into the clutch of infidels. I have heard he sells his women as far as to the Muslims.”