A better product of Lady Marta's goodwill was, that Regina was allowed to embroider, and fine materials were ordered for her in the autumn from Stockholm. Thus it became possible for her to work a large piece of silk with the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ in silver and gold. Lady Marta in her innocence considered the work a sacrament cloth, which Regina might present to Vasa church, as a proof of her change of sentiments. A warrior's eyes, on the other hand, would have discerned in it an intended flag, a Catholic banner, which the imprisoned girl was quietly preparing in expectation of the day when her work would wave at the head of the Catholic hosts.
Still Lady Marta was not quite satisfied with the Holy Virgin's image, which seemed to her surrounded by too large a halo to be truly Lutheran. She therefore considered how she could procure her prisoner a more suitable occupation. It happened now and then that the daughter of the Storkyro peasant king, Meri, when she was in town, made an errand to Korsholm, and in order to gain the favour of the lady of the castle, presented her with several skeins of the finest and silkiest linen floss, which no one in the whole vicinity could spin as well as Meri. Lady Marta consequently got the idea one fine day to teach her prisoner to spin, and to give her Meri as a teacher in this art. Meri on her part desired nothing better. The near connection in which the imprisoned lady had stood to the king, gave her an irresistible interest in Meri's eyes. She wished to hear something about him—the hero, the king, the great, never-to-be-forgotten man, who stood before her mind's eye with more than earthly lustre. She wished to know what he had said, what he had done, what he had loved and hated on earth; she wished for once to feel herself transported by his glory, and then to die herself—forgotten. Poor Meri!
So Meri made her second acquaintance with Lady Regina in the castle. She was received at first with coldness and indifference, and her spinning scarcely pleased the proud young lady. But gradually her submissive mild demeanour won Regina's goodwill, and a captive's natural desire to communicate with beings outside the prison walls finally made Regina more open.
They spun very little, it is true, but they talked together like mistress and maid, especially during the days when Dorthe was shut up on account of her wicked tongue, and it was quite opportune that Meri recollected some German from more brilliant days. Meri knew how to constantly lead the conversation on to the subject of the king, and she soon divined Regina's enthusiastic love. But Regina was very far from having any idea of Meri's earlier experiences; she ascribed her questions to the natural curiosity which such high personages always excite in the minds of the common people. Sometimes she seemed astonished at the delicacy and nobleness of the simple peasant woman's expressions and views. There were moments when Meri's personality appeared to her as an enigma full of contradictions, and then she asked herself whether she ought not to consider this woman as a spy. But the next instant she repented this thought; and when the spinner looked at her with her clear, mild, penetrating gaze, then there was something which said to Regina's heart, this woman does not dissemble.
They were sitting one day in the beginning of December, and Dorthe was again shut up for her unseasonable remarks to the chaplain. There was a striking contrast between these two beings whom fate had brought together from such opposite directions, but who on one point shared the same interest.
The first, young, proud, dark, flashing, and beautiful, a princess, even in captivity; the other of middle age, blonde, pale, mild, humble, and free, and yet very submissive. Regina now seventeen, could be considered twenty; Meri now thirty-six, had something so childish and innocent in her whole appearance, that at certain moments she might be taken for seventeen. She could have been Regina's mother, and yet she who had suffered so much, seemed almost like a child in comparison with the early matured southerner at her side. Lady Regina had been spinning a little, and during the operation broken many threads. Provoked and impatient, she pushed the distaff away and resumed her embroidery. This happened very often, and her instructress was accustomed to it.
"That is a pretty image," said Meri, after a look at the piece of silk. "What does it represent?"
"God's Holy Mother, Sancta Maria," answered Regina, as she made the sign of the cross, which she was always in the habit of doing when mentioning the name of the Holy Virgin.
"And what is it for?" asked Meri with a naïve familiarity.
Regina looked at her. Again a suspicion came into her mind, but it immediately passed away.