The duke now searched zealously in his portfolio. "They say that the king wore a copper ring, and on the inside of it magic signs were engraved, and the letters R.R.R."
"It is possible that I have mislaid it, for I cannot find it. And who the devil has time to think of such childish things? The ring must have been stolen from my private casket. If I find it again I will give it to you, and if not, you know that which is worth more. Go, young man, and be worthy of my confidence and the great king's memory. No one is to know what I have told you. Farewell; we will see each other again."
CHAPTER V.
LOVE AND HATE AGREE.
Again we fly from Germany's spring back to the North's winter. Before we go further on the bloody path of the Thirty Years' War, we will pay a visit to two of the chief personages of this narrative high up in East Bothnia.
It was about Advent time, 1632. A violent storm with heavy snow beat against the old ramparts of Korsholm, and drove the waves of the Baltic against the ice-covered shores. All navigation for the year had ceased. The newly conscripted soldiers had gone to Stralsund by way of Stockholm, at the end of July, and were impatiently waiting for news from the war. Then it happened in the middle of November that a rumour was spread about the country of the king's death. Such reports fly through the air, one does not know how or where they come from. Great misfortunes are known at a distance as presentiments, just as an earthquake far beyond its own circle causes a qualm in the mind. But this report had more than once been spread and refuted. The people relied upon King Gustaf Adolf's good fortune, and when corroboration did not arrive, the whole matter was forgotten, all thinking it was a false story.
It is an ordinary fact in life that, as we hate those to whom we have occasioned a wrong, so we feel well disposed towards persons whom we have had the opportunity of serving. Lady Marta of Korsholm was not a little proud of her brave defence against the drunken soldiers, and did not hesitate to attribute the preservation of the castle to the heroism she had then displayed. That she had saved Regina's life gave the latter great importance in her eyes; and neither could she refuse her admiration for the courage and self-sacrifice which the young girl had shown on the same occasion. The high-born prisoner was her pride; and she did not omit to watch her steps like an Argus; but she gave Regina a larger room, let her have old Dorthe again as a waiting woman, and provided her with an abundance of good food. Regina also was less proud and cold, she would sometimes answer Lady Marta with a word or a nod; but of all the nice things that were offered her, the choice meats, the strong beer, etc., she took little or nothing; she had sunk apparently into a state of indifference, told her beads devoutly, but in other respects let one day pass as another.
Lady Marta held the deep conviction that her prisoner, if not precisely the Roman Emperor's own daughter, was, nevertheless, a princess of the highest birth. She therefore hit upon the unlucky idea of trying to convert so distinguished a person from her papistical heresy, on the supposition that she would thereby accomplish something very remarkable when the war was ended and Regina was exchanged. Regina thus became exposed to the same proselytizing attempts which she herself had undertaken with the great Gustaf Adolf; but Lady Marta's were not so delicate or refined in their application as her own. She overwhelmed the poor girl with Lutheran sermons, psalm-books, and tracts, also often made long speeches interspersed with proverbs, and when this was without avail, she sent the castle chaplain to preach to the prisoner. Of course all this occurred to deaf ears. Regina was sufficiently firm in her faith to listen with patience, but she suffered from it; her stay at Korsholm became more unbearable every day, and who can blame her, if with secret longings she sighed for the day when she could regain her freedom.
Dorthe, on the contrary, flamed up every time the heretic preacher or the plucky old lady began their sermons, and rattled through a whole string of prayers and maledictions both in Latin and Low German, the result generally being that she was shut up for two or three days in the dungeon of the castle, until her longing for her lady's company once more made her tractable.
And so passed a half-year of Lady Regina's captivity.