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"Idlers' Gate," A.L. Burt, New York, 1932
"Idlers' Gate," A.L. Burt, New York, 1932
"'One need not look beyond bit mother—'
"'Ah, with a unman like that!—'
"The gossip rose, swelled, sank, hissed, like a snake gliding swiftly towards a foe, through the blue shadows of the Idler's Gate; malice, curiosity, indolence, spite, each had a say; the idlers stripped their victim with darting tongues, they left him without a shred of honor, without a tatter of decency to patch his nakedness."
Prinz Stefan, the new Regent, had arrived.
Marienburg, usually so calm and safe even in those turbulent days of the late 18th Century, had become a twisting web of conspiracy and intrigue. The old Chancellor, Von Frühl, had laid his plans well. Like a spider he waited for the upstart who was to take over his rule.
So opens the story of a bitter duel between two strong but very different men to win the heart of a young king who was just a boy, and the confidence of his people. And this tense, deadly battle in which treachery, murder, and greed all play their parts, is no more dramatic than the inner conflict in Stefan's heart between his passion for Von Frühl's daughter, the Countess Serafina, and his unselfish idealism, which points another way.
The author has created not only a swift-moving drama of character and action. With authentic realism he has brought to life in this historical romance all the rich color and glamor of one of die most exciting periods in European history.
From the dust-jacket of the A.L. Burt edition, 1932.
"Man is of a Mist—and in the
Dark
We meet our Fortunes....."
John Dryden—The Tempest.
IF you find, on an ancient map of those large lands once known as the Holy Roman Empire, a city of the name of Marienburg, it will not be that where occurred the events narrated in the following tale. And the principality over which there was such a to-do is neither Bavaria nor Pomerania, Saxony or the Palatinate. Nor is it fairyland. The author records the purest truth that he knows, even if he is shy about producing his authorities.
What, then, is this book, if it be neither history nor fancy?
It is a story, and all stories are true, as the dullest of us know. I could take my oath that Sigismund II. really lived and that somewhere, on any chance journey in Central Europe, you might come upon the short tomb of Kurt von Hohenheim, deeply chiseled with twenty coats of arms, each with sixteen quarterings, gilt and silvered. The effigy is in perfect condition, save for the right hand, which, drooping over the marble-mattress, has been broken off; and the face is carved in so fine a quality of alabaster, that a flame kindled close by the cheeks sends a warm glow through the translucent stone and may be observed the other side of that serene countenance which has smiled for nearly two hundred years at the sombre vaultings of the sacred ceiling.
There is a portrait of Prinz Stefan at Cracow and another at Stettin. In the first he reclines indolently against a drop-cloth landscape of glossy blue laurels where Pagan temples rise on banks of verjuice green beside crimped streams. He wears a furred Jaeger costume and holds a fowling piece across his knee; the artist has concentrated his timid skill on the flat details of tinsel flowers on violet brocade, the gloss on sable, the glitter of inlaid metal, the linen spun webs and lilies of Brussels lace knotted into a cravat. The sitter's face is wooden, roughly sketched in and left unfinished, as if in despair; a curious face; even without knowing the man one might believe anything, noble or evil, of this uncommon creature.
The second portrait shows a much older person; there are no fopperies or fripperies; the fleece sparkles from a flame-colored riband across a black habit; the peculiar countenance, so handsome to a fastidious judgment, is hardened into an expression of resigned fortitude; the long narrow eyes are heavy and reddened as if from sleeplessness or sorrow. This piece was painted after Prinz Stefan became Regent for Sigismund II.
As for the Contessina Serafina, as the Gräfin von Frühl had the affectation to name herself, all her likenesses were in rich, brittle material, carved coral, thin enamel, onyx from Sardis, smoky-brown, milk-tinged, or silver medallions fine enough to slip inside a man's glove. There remains of these only an alto relievo in colored wax, and even there the profile has been effaced by the rude pressure of a coarse thumb; all that is left is a long, jasmine-pale neck, a slender bust, a cluster of curls that appear bleached and dyed, a cunning commonplace arrangement of radiant silk, of lustrous pearls—any woman! Why, she was no more than that.
I wrote among the high-set pines, blue-black as a stormy ocean, rigid in the thin mountain air, above the deep rocky clefts where the sparse streams trickle into icicles that hang like broken spears over the ravines. And far below, where the snow-drifts slide on to the plain, I saw the crumbling outlines of the monstrous stone warriors who support the useless arch, with its crowning, shattered trophies, where weeds deface the stiff flags, and the wild bird nests in the cornucopia of a forgotten plenty among gigantic fruits and overblown lilies all now thrice immobile, stone and frozen snow, the defaced armed men who still hold up the pride of the Idlers' Gate.
"One need not look beyond his mother—"
"Ah, with a woman like that!—you have the sum total—"
"Of course he is a scoundrel—"
"Why, there was this—"
"And that—"
The gossip rose, swelled, sank, hissed like a snake gliding swiftly toward a foe, through the blue shadows of the Idlers' Gate; malice, curiosity, indolence, spite, each had a say; the idlers stripped their victim with darting tongues, they left him without a shred of honor, without a tatter of decency to patch his nakedness. Never had they enjoyed such rich sport; the man was defenseless; his mother openly shameless, openly shamed, his family of an abominable reputation, his own career giving occasion for every kind of scandal; for instance, had not his noble young wife left him soon after the marriage years ago? Ah! there were many entertaining versions of that story. These were tossed to and from the loungers, and a professional newsmonger who loitered among them, eagerly made notes that he might re-dress for the news-sheets, where discretion could openly plant many a sting in the unprotected bosoms of the great. But there was a hitter flavor beneath this relish of gossip; the man they derided had been no concern of theirs a few weeks ago; they had sometimes mentioned him, but without zest. They knew now, however, by a fantastic juxtaposition of events, that he was to be their ruler, Regent for their Prince who was but twelve years old. They might look, then, to have this infamous fellow over them for, say, five, six years, nay, who could tell, perhaps indefinitely, once he had installed himself and his creatures in Marienburg? So they buzzed about his name, venomous as the flies of Egypt.
And the idlers reassured each other: "Von Frühl will see he is not long in the saddle. Von Frühl will make a sharp tussle of it!"
"Ah, indeed he will find it difficult to best Von Frühl."
They grinned and chuckled, applauding this man who had often formerly been the subject of their unfavorable discourses; under the rule of the late indolent Prince, the Graf Floris von Frühl had been his energetic tax-gatherer, and proportionately hated; but now the gossips were prepared to admit that, compared to a foreigner of the reputation of the new Regent, the Chancellor might have his virtues. They would have resented it if he had been made Regent himself, as he had confidently expected to be, but since he was disappointed they were prepared to hold him wronged. If it came to a struggle between him and Prinz Stefan (and, if they knew the tenacious, sly fox who had so often cheated them, come to a struggle it must) the country would be behind Von Frühl—to a man; sluggish they might be under an accustomed tyranny, but a foreign spur would cause them to kick.
THE Idlers' Gate was a triumphal arch erected a hundred years before, by Sigismund I. in celebration of those victories that had added noble provinces to his possessions; this imposing monument of pride had taken six years to build and cost two hundred thousand rix dollars; the piers bore on each face a heavily armed warrior who, with a frowning and strained effort supported the span of the great arch which was crowned by martial trophies, crossed standards, drums, axes and pikes that rose between a vast curling shell from which flowed sheaves of wheat, clusters of grapes, ingots of silver, bars of bullion, lilies budding on long stems and roses unfolding behind thorned branches. Above all, was the achievement of Sigismund I., the huge pointed, foliated shield, laced and interlaced with a hundred quarterings, supported by two tusked and collared boars and surmounted by the mighty helmet with a closed vizor; above this, soared the antlers of a stag with a stiff gilt pennon glittering from each branch, and in the center a cross. This rigid vanity was expressed in the heavy, pliable native stone of a warm yellow tone, easy to carve, quick to wear away,-but still, after a century, very magnificent.
These were the broad features of the arch; the sculptor had adorned it underneath, as was the exterior, with a thousand intricate details, which were little observed in full sunlight, but stood out in delicate design when the shadows were cast sideways; the cross on the summit of the stone helm was kept freshly gilded.
The Arch of Sigismund I. stood on the verge of the outskirts of Marienburg, and on leaving the city, admitted Into the long gardens presented to his loyal subjects by that Prince; beyond these splendid walks and noble parterres, more modest gates of scrolled ironwork enclosed the palace grounds so that the arch was midway between court and city. As an excuse for loitering in this convenient spot, an inn stood discreetly behind a trellis of vines that sheltered tables and benches; it swung a sign blazoned with the princely arms, and its name, "The White Boar," was taken from the princely supporters. Hangers-on of the Court, merchants, servants, citizens in search of an airing, travelers come to view a curiosity, writers for the Gazettes nosing for gossip, gathered naturally in the shade of the deep arch where many an alcove and a jutting base formed convenient seats, or in the large parlor of "The White Boar." Round about the great gate became the recognized meeting-place of many a group of business acquaintances, of many a keen huckster with odd wares to traffic, of many a foreigner spying for his government, of many a loiterer who found cheap amusement in watching the comings and goings from the Residenzschloss, for all had to go through the public gardens and pass under the arch unless they used deliberate secrecy.
And so it was that the arch of Sigismund I. was known as the Idlers' Gate.
SINCE the sudden and unexpected death of Karl Ludwig XIV. things had been dull round the Idlers' Gate. That one great pageant of the State funeral a mile long—the one spectacle of the young Prince< in mourning cloak and weepers walking behind his father's bier on which lay gauntlets, cuirass, and antlered helm—and then nothing—only Graf von Frühl in his black clothes driving to and fro in his plain coach, and even that not often, for the Chancellor would remain at the Residenzschloss for days together; had he not the full burden of government on his lean shoulders?
Dull, indeed; and the more dull by contrast with the past, for Karl Ludwig had been gay, lavish, admired and liked for expensive and popular vices; the country had been long at peace and prosperous, so no one felt the pinch of an expensive prince; the gracious ruler, long a widower, there was no touch of female virtue to restrain the elegant, good-humored indecorum of his establishment. All the business of the state was in the hands of Von Frühl who was descended from men who had always stood close to their sovereigns; was it not a Von Frühl who had advised Sigismund I. on the treaties that had justified the erection of Idlers' Gate?
A few weeks after the reading of the will and testament of Karl Ludwig, when it was learnt that not the faithful Von Frühl, but the stranger Prinz Stefan Zawadski was to be Regent, Idlers' Gate and "The White Boar" became thronged with the curious, eager to observe with malice the coming of the foreigner whom they had so eagerly vilified, whose rule they so keenly resented; when would he come from Imperial Vienna? He was now three weeks overdue and no certain news of his stately progress through the Empire.
He had accepted the Regency, and the Diet had accepted him, supported as he was by the Emperor. No one had observed any indication in the smooth face of Von Frühl that he was blasted by the overturn of all his hopes through the dead man on whom he had fawned.
He said nothing publicly against Prinz Stefan; there was no need for him to do so. The offenses of their new Regent were already immense in the estimation of the people over whom he was to rule; above all was he not a Roman Catholic? No doubt he would bring a rabble of priests with him to overawe good Lutherans.
THE sun slanting westwards, began to cast searching rays through Idlers' Gate; the loiterers, in twos and threes went their ways or drifted into "The White Boar." Klaus, one of the upper servants in the establishment of Von Frühl, was the last to depart; he had a whole day's holiday and regretted that it had not been enlivened by any incident nor enriched by a single morsel of gossip to cherish or scatter as his mood might be. He gave a final longing glance backwards across the sun-hazed gardens where agave and aloe were carefully nourished in deep vases of crimson porphyry. He was rewarded. Two men on foot were coming from the light iron gates of the Residenzschloss; the foremost walked heavily, oppressed by the heat which even the fleshy-leaved plants seemed to exhale, and by, perhaps, a private dejection. Klaus knew him at once for Mynheer Stocken, the Dutch jeweler, who was lodging with Melchoir the Jew in the Klosterstrasse. He guessed his business too. Of course the Dutchman had crept up to the palace in the hope of selling the black sapphires that the late Prince had ordered just before his death, and which Mynheer Stocken had brought himself from Amsterdam. The rare jewels had been intended for the narrow corsage of Mademoiselle Luli, who had danced so ravishingly in the Prince's private theater, and who had since, upon a stern gesture from Von Frühl, floated away, light as a tuft of thistle seed, to seek and sow mischief in Hesse Cassel.
"Ah," grinned Klaus to himself, "one can see that he has not sold them. They must be worth a large figure. And I dare say he is almost ruined having got them back on his hands."
KLAUS accosted the Dutchman as he passed, followed by his taciturn Hollander servant, through Idlers' Gate; they had some slight acquaintance through Melchoir the Jew with whom Klaus sometimes had dubious transactions. The merchant seemed pleased to see the servant and willingly followed him behind the red curls of the young vine leaves and green grapes that covered the trellis of "The White Boar." The Hollander continued on his way sullenly; he was heavily armed and of uncommon strength. No doubt, thought Klaus, he carries the gems in his bosom. And there they are safe enough.
He ordered beer. "No luck with the little Prince?" he asked, for Mynheer Stocken's business was no secret but well noised about the city.
"I have not sold the sapphires," sighed the merchant; he was a small man with ginger eyebrows and wore an old-fashioned tow-colored wig and garments that had been scoured and turned; he drank his pale beer with relish and admitted that he had been kept waiting in antechambers since midday; and, after all, for nothing. He sadly eyed his companion, who was nondescript as a good servant must be, yet had a lively glance, a close mouth, an air at once resolute and impudent; he came from the Hartz mountains and was not above thirty years old. The tight, crisp vines made patterns in shadow over the heads of both the men and darkened the sand beneath their table. Other idlers, with half-drained mugs in their hands, craned forward to overhear what Mynheer Stocken might have to say to Klaus, the servant of Von Frühl.
But these two, neither of whom was careless nor ingenuous, spoke in undertones. A weary dancing bear, brought in by a wandering Neapolitan in vermilion rags, lay in the porch and snapped at the lazy flies; Mynheer Stocken looked at the panting, honey-colored sides of the prone animal as he said:
"I did not see the young Prince. And when at last M. Von Frühl received me I was referred to the Regent. And he would not buy."
"The Regent!" Klaus lowered his cunning voice over this tremendous piece of news. "Do you mean that you saw him? That he is at the Residents?"
"Yes, I believe that he arrived privately—last night. I saw and spoke with him for five minutes or so—he said that it was not reasonable for either the Prince or the State to purchase the jewels—"
Klaus interrupted with a dozen eager whispered questions.
"What is he like? Is he civil? Haughty? Why this secret arrival? Is he friendly with my master, Von Frühl? What age and what bearing? Did you see a priest?" and so on till the Dutchman interposed:
"Why? I was only interested in selling the sapphires. I don't concern myself with these people save as possible customers—"
"Come, come, you must have noticed some-thing—"
"Well, he is an amiable young man of twenty-seven or so——"
"Twenty-eight, exactly—"
"His appearance is impressive and alluring, his manners very fine. He and Von Frühl were very soft with each other—but that is the way of the great, whether they be enemies or no."
"So! And why could he not buy the sapphires?"
The merchant made a wry grimace.
"For reasons of common sense. He said that the Prince would have no need for jewels for several years, that his treasury was full—that the State was not so prosperous as might seem—that he must look into the national finances before he made any expenditure—that there, were, he knew, roads, bridges, public buildings needed, and that it was in his charge, as guardian of the prince, to see to these matters of import."
"That tone, eh?"
"He seemed sincere. I asked him if he might not take the purchase as a debt of honor on the late Prince's estate—and he said there had been no mention in His Highness' papers of such a transaction, that, though he did not doubt my word, the affair was confessedly a folly, and the price very high."
"Did you not suggest that he bought them for himself? He is one of the richest men in Europe."
"I did so. He replied that since the stones were for women's wearing and he had no lady to please, it would be but a squandering. And so gave me my congé."
"Shall you try him again?"
The merchant shook his bewigged head.
"That prince means what he says. Civil as he was, I should not care to cross him. I liked him and would not vex him willingly. And I should think that he has a hard labor before him. Tell me, friend Klaus, why is he so disliked here and so many vile stories told about him?"
Klaus shrank up his shoulders; he liked to believe all the evil that he heard, and to invent more; he began to repeat some of the ugliest charges against the Regent, but the Dutchman, who knew the world well, checked him.
"One hears those things of anyone who is successful, hein? A great general, a fine administrator, this Prinz Stefan, I have heard much of him hi my travels. But how does he come to be Regent here? And to your young prince! But he is a Zawadski—"
Klaus spilled a little beer on the wooden table and roughly traced out a noble genealogy. The brown bear sat propped up in the porch, happily crunching sugar comfits; the Neapolitan picked out a metallic melody on his shining yellow varnished guitar, and the idlers, though drowsy after the good brown malt liquor, stared with curiosity at the merchant and the servant talking so low and close under the lengthening shadows of the vines.
"Thus," Klaus drew rude lines in the beer stains. "Sigismund I., Johan Willem VI., their wives, good German stock, no matter for them! Karl Ludwig XIII., married first Emilie von Leuchenberg (parents of Karl Ludwig XIV., recently defunct) then he must needs see and desire Ludmila Zawadski, heir of her great house. He met her at Vienna—what did he desire, her wealth or her beauty? He was twenty years older than this dainty piece. He brought her back to Marienburg and they seemed, I've heard, content enough—one son, this Prinz Stefan."
"Ah, I see, that is it," the merchant was scarcely listening, he was wearied by this long explanation and dunking anxiously of his unsold jewels, but as he wanted a favor of Klaus, he waited patiently.
"When Stefan was ten years old there came the great scandal—you must remember something of it—"
"Yes, yes, the Prince Karl Ludwig XIII. repudiated his wife, a flagrant indiscretion—I recall it very well—"
Klaus could have enlarged on the shameful story of the unhappy princess, but the merchant would not have patience; why go over this stale gossip that people had cracked their lungs over nearly twenty years ago? It all came back to him very clearly—Ludmila and her little son were returned to her outraged family who threatened fierce reprisals, but she died and the affair sank down. Stefan was brought up by his grandfather in Cracovia and left all the wealth, honors, and titles of the Zawadski; his own brilliant qualities had soon made him a favorite at Vienna; at twenty-five he was a famous soldier, at twenty-eight a famous administrator, governor of Transylvania, of Pomerania.
"But what I do not understand," admitted the Dutchman, "is how he could ever, after such a breach have been asked to return to Marienburg. Or how he could have accepted—
"His stepbrother, the late Prince Karl Ludwig XIV., always took his part against their father; even after the rupture they used to meet in Vienna, at the court. They served one campaign together against the Turks."
"There must have been a great affection between them since Karl Ludwig trusted his son and his country to Prinz Stefan at the last! It is a curious tale."
"You may believe, we think it so! The late Prince seemed to live only for his pleasures and to leave all to Von Frühl. No one would have credited that he had the energy to make such a will—"
"How did he die?"
"A sudden fever! How do I know? He was gone in twenty-four hours."
"I would he had lived only a week longer until he had bought the sapphires!" lamented the merchant. "It is true that I had them a bargain from a Syrian who had smuggled them from Kashmir—yet I invested a lot in them—"
"You don't know of any possible purchaser for them?" inquired Klaus keenly, leaning across the beer-stained table.
"Alas, no! The Margraf von Baden Durlach envies—but he is a shrewd hucksterer. He could only offer less than I gave."
"Yet I dare say that would be a pleasant sum for a plain man like myself," mused the servant, smiling; the Dutchman then drew his bench closer to the other and commenced on the plan that had caused him to pause at "The White Boar" and endure the indifferent company of Klaus.
"Would Von Frühl buy them for his daughter? Is she not very expensive and proud? And he, after all these years of office, must have money enough."
Klaus gave a low, lewd laugh and glanced round; they had the space under the vines to themselves save for the bear who sat back on his haunches and indolently licked the drops of sugar that melted on his twitching nose.
"Ah, the Contessina Serafina! You know that we must name her that since she-was at Court at Vienna where they all speak Italian!"
"Yes, yes," said the merchant impatiently, "I have heard of her, her beauty, wit, learning and charms—and the grand match that her father pro-poses for her—"
"An archduke, no less!"
"Is it settled? Will he buy the jewels for a wedding present?"
"Softly! Softly! Nothing is settled. My master has sent his daughter for three winters to Vienna to stay with his sister, who is one of the ladies of the Empress—but so far, nothing! So he brings her back to Marienburg—does not want her staled, eh? How choice he is with this pearl! She lives here almost like a nun, and, imagine this, my friend, he has sentries round his villa to protect this exquisite creature!"
"Yes, yes, but will he consider the stones for her?"
"I believe that he might," replied the servant, who was already fitting a plan of his own into that of the merchant. "It would have to be carefully worked. She is greedy of splendor and he does not easily deny her—she might take a fancy to them if she saw them——-"
"Ah, she would! Male Indian sapphires, black as ink until they touch white flesh, then—a thousand shades of azure, violet, cerulean—"
"You have not them with you?"
"No. My man, Dirk, has taken them back to their steel chest—but I could show them to you at Melchoir's house—"
"I would like to see them. I have a little influence with the young lady's maid—"
"For anything that you do I will pay a high commission."
"So!" Klaus pulled out his purse and put down the beer money; now that he had done his business with the merchant he was anxious to be gone so that he might spread abroad in Marienburg that the new Regent, Prince Stefan Zawadski, had come secretly to the city and was now in the Residenzschloss.
The evening had come with a splendor of light more glorious than the radiance of day; the air shimmered gold in the arch of the Idlers' Gate. The gilt cross above the knight's antlers blazed like a flare of wild fire; the torsos of the stone warriors, their frowning brows, their pouting lips were outlined by blue shadows that threw the deep modeling into high relief. The zenith of the heavens was clear azure as midday, but the lower sky was violently stained saffron, amber, and crimson; against these brilliant hues that faded even as they burnt so brightly, rose the dark sharp forms of the pointed laurel leaves, the shapely myrtle boughs, the stately bay clusters of the public gardens.
The bear, chained and muzzled, ambled after his master down the dusty road towards the city. A blonde maid came out of "The White Boar," and regardless of the familiar splendor of the superb portal of Sigismund I. against the fires of the sun's decline, pulled straight the Idlers' chairs and wiped up the sour slops from their drinking. A rub with her coarse cloth and the tragic pedigree of Prinz Stefan Zawadski was gone.
GRAF Floris von Frühl decided to sleep that night in the Residenzschloss; he had long had his rooms in the palace and his family was only his daughter, who was ostentatiously guarded; nor did she pine for his company. He had to speak to her, gravely, impressively; that future interview was among his cares; but other matters pressed more cruelly on his anxious mind.
He was a man bitterly perplexed, deeply angry. Beneath his suave demeanor that long practice had rendered easy for him to assume, seethed wonder, baffled ambition, self-contempt. He had been so sure of Karl Ludwig, been so absolutely the master of that indolent Prince with his mediocre intelligence, his hatred of change or novelty; the minister had thought that he had known every trick and turn of that simple mind. And all the while his last will, that monstrous testament, had been lying in the secret casket of His Highness' attorneys.
Von Frühl had not reckoned on the premature death of the Prince, but he had always thought that, in such an event, he and he alone would be Regent. For such a post, he thought, everything recommended him—his services, his family, his impeccable loyalty, his unassailed dignity, his power and money.
But set aside. And for Stefan Zawadski! Von Frühl had been a young secretary to his own father at the time of the disgrace and banishment of the wretched Ludmila, and had been earnest in overthrowing that princess, in blowing abroad her shame, in resisting the rage of the Zawadski. He, Floris Von Frühl, could remember clearly the dark child, so touchingly like his mother, sitting erect and pallid beside her, as a carriage without arms bore her for ever from her husband's palace.
"And he comes back. He has that courage. That lack of shame. And I must play second. Study his humors, his moods, flatter his reserves. Place my knowledge, my experience at his disposal. Fawn a little in a gentlemanly fashion, to keep my place, my privileges. Well, for a little while, he has the Emperor behind him. And the Diet. I must wait. Be careful."
Von Frühl turned swiftly and faced his own reflection, that of a tall, stately man of fifty, whose fine face was expressionless from long dissimulation, whose pale gaze was haughty from long use of complete power over all those among whom he moved.
He declared to his reflection in the mirror with the pearwood frame, with more vigor than he had, for long, put into speech: "But be assured that I shall put him down."
He was alarmed to hear that he had spoken aloud; he greatly valued his self-control that he believed he had rendered invincible; with a grimace of self-disgust he went, in his light, almost tiptoeing manner, to search for Sigismund II.
THE transient glitter of the western rays was level with the low windows of the Residenzschloss which opened onto the wide terrace with the winged staircase that curved by shallow steps down to a fountain with a basin of black granite brimmed with lilies, greenish-white as a rain-drenched moon, rocked against the marble bosoms of Galatea and her nymphs blowing raised horns.
Von Frühl passed along the terrace and peered into one window after another. Empty rooms. The Prince's closet was in some disorder, the Latin and Greek grammars flung down on the orange-wool Samarkand carpet, the two globes, one dark with green seas, tawny continents, the other gaudy with constellations in the shape of giants and monsters, stood in the heavy brass frames slightly out of place. A violet ball, a waxed tennis racquet showed through the twilight. Von Frühl had heard the laughter of boys below him in the garden mingling pleasantly with the mellow sounds of evening, a broken melody of little birds in the young beeches, a stir in the fragile boughs of the acacia beyond the hawthorn hedge. He leant over the balustrade and saw the boys playing in the dusk, shouting with delight as they chased each other in and out of the evergreen walls of the quidnunc; the vague light from which all color was fading rapidly, gave a dim lustre to their coats of black satin, to their curls of bright chestnut-brown, of silver gold—Sigismund II. and Kurt von Hohenheim, his one friend.
THE Chancellor faced the boy, still flushed and breathless from his play and rebuked him in a tone of deep respect; had he not lessons to prepare for tomorrow, prayers to attend, above all, a princely dignity to preserve? This boisterous rudeness was the result of the Graf Kurt's influence and must be stopped....
Sigismund II. now stood before the wide hearth; his disheveled tresses, fine as floss, pale as a winter-chilled primrose, did not reach to the grandiose carving of his own flaunting arms cut in the stone chimney hood.
"No," he panted defiantly, "Kurt has nothing to do with it. I wanted to play. I have done enough lessons for to-day."
With his own careful cold hands the Chancellor lit the candles of ambergris scented wax that stood between the open windows with the stiff curtains of broad blue brocade; he did not wish for the interruption of a servant's entry.
"I know," he replied, with his tone of unassailable authority, "what influence the Graf Kurt has on Your Highness, and I intend to remove him from your person."
"I shall not tolerate that, sir."
"No? We will not talk of it now. I have something else to say to your Highness. After supper the Regent will be presented to you."
The child did not reply; his delicate face was still stained with rosy patches, his expression was still sullen, hostile; his suit of complete mourning, black velvet, dull satin, crape bordered, gave him an air of pathos; in himself he was an exquisite creature, his vivid fairness was accentuated, with a natural coquetry, by his distinct black lashes, and the long, rather thin oval of his face was flawless in line and proportion.
"I wonder," added Von Frühl with a calculated hesitation, "how much I might tell His Highness, who is nearly thirteen years old? Something he ought to know."
Sigismund II. displayed no curiosity; he had no hope of anything interesting or exciting from Von Frühl, a man he knew better than he had known his own father and whom he had never liked and always dreaded.
"I regard the coming of the Prinz Stefan as a misfortune, for yourself and the country," added the Chancellor deliberately.
"Why?"
"I hardly dare tell you. I do not wish to trouble you unduly. You have heard that he is a foreigner, a Roman Catholic, that he will understand nothing of us or our ways, that he is not likely to be loved. Or respected."
Sigismund II. had heard all this, and worse, of Prinz Stefan, from his tutors and his valets, for he was entirely surrounded by the creatures of Yon Frühl, but he said:
"My father liked Prinz Stefan. He used to speak to me of him. They were at the war together."
"Comrades-in-arms are tender of each other," replied the Chancellor, who had not been prepared for this. "And his late Highness was too generous and easy. Besides, sir, you saw him so little that he could not have spoken much of Prinz Stefan."
"But he did," replied the child obstinately; and at thought of his kind father and his present loneliness his delicate face flushed with the effort to keep back tears.
"If Your Highness is so moved at even casting a thought towards your great loss, I do marvel that you could frolic so lightly just now."
Sigismund II., who could not himself understand his contrasting moods, stood dumb, with downcast eyes, awaiting further reproof. But the Chancellor was not then in a mind to scold; his one present design was to blast the child's possible trust and confidence In the Regent, Standing between the candles, his discomposed spirit not revealed in his quiet look, he steadily related all the evils of Prinz Stefan that he thought a boy's shrewdness could compass.
Sigismund II. became uneasy, as if he suspected the impure intention behind the skilful discourse; he unconsciously glanced behind him at the escutcheon in the chimney-hood as if this were being subtly dishonored.
"He is my uncle, Graf von Frühl."
The Chancellor longed to retort that the character of Ludmila Zawadski made this doubtful, but stopped short of this injury to unguarded innocence.
"You must think of him as a foreigner, a Zawadski."
"He lived here till he was near as old as I am now. In the Residenzschloss."
"And left it, he and his mother, in disgrace."
Von Frühl smiled coldly at the expression of shame that clouded the boy's candid face.
"You will understand better when you are older. I see that you have some design of charity towards this intruder on our peace and dignity. Why?"
"I do not know, Graf von Frühl."
The Chancellor, adroit as he was, yet was not fine enough to realize that he would never have, never had had, the boy's confidence, that he could learn nothing from probing and questioning the shy soul of Sigismund IL, that retreated deeper into spiritual fastnesses.
"Then," he said, "leave fantastic, childish softness and neither trust, nor credit, the Regent whose rule will breed nothing but barrenness and discontent. Do you hear me, Sigismund?"
"Yes, Graf von Frühl."
"And remember to look towards me in everything. I only exist to serve you. As I served your father. And my father served your grandfather."
"Yes, Graf von Frühl. And will you please to say nothing more of the departure of Kurt?"
"I am vexed," replied the Chancellor sternly, "to see your Highness lean, in this sickly and timorous manner, upon another. And it makes me the more diligent to comply with my own positive intention, which is to return the Graf Kurt to his parents."
THE western wind blew in strong sighings through the stiff leaves and little berries of the laurels beneath the window of the Regent, which he kept wide set, for the mild gusts of evening airs, flowing steadily, as a river through the trees, greatly soothed his fatigue.
He was listening to Von Frühl who detained him against his will in the tall painted closet used by the late prince; the first swift disagreement between the Chancellor and the Regent had been in the latter's choice of the Royal apartments for his own use.
"It is for the dignity of my office," Prinz Stefan had said, "and my father built and embellished them."
Von Frühl looked at the austere young man as he gazed at the graciousness of the night. The stars clustered so thick and heavy that it seemed that they must presently break through the purple atmosphere, like diamonds through gauze, and lie on the sweet, dew-wet grass. The Regent sat sideways to his high open casement as if he strained against the confinement of the cabinet, for he was turned from his bureau of malachite on which glowed his only tight, a parcel gilt lamp, fed by sweet oil.
Looking at this young man, Von Frühl felt his body and his spirit weakened by his hatred, and born of this hatred, strange, secret emotions that made him stammer in what he was about to say, and then fall silent.
Stefan Zawadski took no heed of his enemy; his right hand was clasped on the back of the chair, his chin resting on it as he eagerly drank in solace from the night, refreshing himself with those gentle overflowings of mild winds.
For his misfortune, he was in appearance completely of his mother's race and bore no outward trace of northern blood; it was difficult to believe him a descendant of Sigismund I., the lint-haired, red-faced warrior who had decreed the monument to his own glory that had become the Idlers' Gate.
He had a grace and a dignity that refined all he did or said, that was a part of himself as much as the black hair curling back from the low brow, or the long hands that knew not how to be clumsy; yet this same gift of stately elegance was held suspect by his inferiors who affected to hold that it was false and concealed a hundred treacheries.
His features reflected his mother's beauty in a male cast; and this, too, was held to be wrong. A man should resemble his father, a woman should not stamp her likeness on a race to which she is of no importance save to hand down the pattern from one man to another. Is there not something at once touching and prophetic of disaster in the lineaments of a fair woman reproduced in the sterner features of her son?
The dust and fire of many campaigns had not marred this glow of Ludmila's sad beauty in her only child; if the splendid eyes were languorous from fatigue, the perfect lips seemed designed to serve the ends of love, and the whole pose of the man, which was like a clear flame burning straightly, showed an order, a harmony in his nature that should have meant a smooth felicity. Yet all was marked by melancholy, as if with all his rich blessings which made him, to the greedy envy of the vulgar, a veritable Fortunatus, there was mingled in his disposition some ingredient that left him naked before a malignant fate.
He wore the garments in which he had entered the Residenzschloss, a brown traveling coat, open on the bosom to a waistcoat where bullion flowers cast back the lamplight; his linen, which the collar-less clothes revealed abundantly, was of the finest mull without lace. Yon Frühl found an odious affectation in this personal simplicity of the man who had brought with him three barbers and twenty-five violins, as many as those kept by the King of France. How insolent, too, was this star-gazing out of the open window, when he, the Chancellor, was speaking! Struggling with the tumult of his angry hatred, Von Frühl plunged again into the discourse with which he detained the Regent in the painted cabinet.
Prinz Stefan had said: "I must, without more delay, see the boy." And Von Frühl had answered: "We must speak together before you see the boy."
So he spoke, and it did not appear as if the Regent listened. Then abruptly Von Frühl made his speech such as no proud man could ignore.
"I do fee! an unspeakable amazement that your Highness took up this charge."
"Why, Graf von Frühl? It fits into other charges I have. There is quiet on the Eastern frontiers. And it is only for a few years."
"For a few months, I think! I am very sorry that you, sir, undervalue the difficulties of your position here."
Prinz Stefan continued to gaze out into the slumbrous dark.
"I know them all. I did take my brother's will as a trust not to be evaded by a man of honor."
"A man of honor," whispered Von Frühl, with his hand thrust into his bosom.
"So I said," The Regent turned at last; he seemed to look through, not at, his enemy. "Will you help me in these difficulties you so anxiously foresee?"
"I am not used to being ruled, Prinz Stefan."
"But I came here to rule. Come, no more mouthings. I suppose you will be necessary to me for a while, and indeed, I would put no obstacles in the way of our good understanding."
"I think only of the country that I have served so long. That my father before me—"
"That to me? Keep such declarations for solemn assemblies. Men of sense do not need these assurances."
Von Frühl caught his breath, then brought out:
"You do not realize the feeling against you, sir, in Marienburg—"
Prinz Stefan rose; he was taller than the Chancellor, though the cunning proportion of his body made him appear less in height.
"Why, Von Frühl? What is the bottom of this vulgar dislike?"
"Your Highness cannot have forgotten the manner of your leaving the city eighteen years ago?"
"I recall very well. Perhaps for that reason I wished to return. If I have any other reasons, why should I give them to you?" he smiled as if at some thought not reflected In his words. "We must work together for a while, Von Frühl, and so, in common sense must tolerate each other. And now, admit me to your little Prince."
"The boy cannot enter into it. All is between us."
"Sigismund should have some sparkles of manhood in him. I want him to trust me. Do you keep him from me? You have always been my enemy and that of my family. Yet I suppose——" he reflected a second; "Would a man be so base as to poison a child's mind against another?"
"I have not done that."
"I did not accuse you. I suppose he is surrounded by your servants and that their insinuations are not very wise, nor, towards me, friendly."
"It is the infirmity of your fortunes, Prinz, that give the vulgar cause for scoffs and spites."
"Why, this is better than if you fawned on me. I believe that we two shall govern very well in Marienburg."
Von Frühl hated the Regent the more for his air of being too great to take easy offense, yet this haughty forbearance did give him a pause in which to realize the folly of violence, insolence or defiance; he made a glancing side attack.
"There are great responsibilities—the silver mines, the mineral springs, the sale of mercenaries—the threat from Silesia, the menace from Russia—"
"All this I have heard discussed in Vienna, where we are not so ill-informed. We keep the boy from his bed."
Prinz Stefan moved towards the door which was set invisibly in the wall and painted with the sleek forms of naked rosy women and their demon lovers, Leda and the White Swan, Europa and the White Bull.
"A moment," Von Frühl again detained the Regent. "I beg that you will not, in one matter, interfere with my authority. The prince's page and close companion is Kurt von Hohenheim, a boy who is more intelligent, ambitious and vigorous than his master, and so obtains a great influence over him. They become inseparable. And I intend to return young Kurt to his parents."
"Why?"
"Surely my motive is obvious! This Kurt is bold, daring, insolent—will be rapacious and overbearing—the favorite. All the power in the state will pass into his hands. Sigismund will be completely under his thumb."
"You see yourself," said the Regent, smiling at Europa for pleasure in the delicate craft of her plump, painted body, "supplanted before so many years?"
"I do. The Hohenheim are hostile to me and most ambitious. They use the boy as a lever to raise themselves."
"Maybe. And yet maybe we talk of the pure play of children—a gay empty bubble! The prince has been lonely, I think. I have been a lonely child myself. I will see the Graf Kurt and decide what I will do."
SIGISMUND II. awaited the Regent in an audience chamber that had been closed since his father had received the Bohemian ambassador there a year gone. The Chancellor would have this formality. The boy felt small and adrift in the vast apartment. He counted the sconces silver beaten into a dimpled surface and the outline of the Boar; eight on either wall and in each eight candles that the flame made transparent half-way down. And between the sconces, arras a hundred years old, showing men in stiff pleated skirts and women in tapering coifs posturing in dark fields starred by little separate flowers, roots and leaves, like a botanical lesson; in places the arras was worn, but darned with gold thread.
The boy noted the reflection of the candlelight in the gleaming floor that smelt of beeswax. Down the center of this ran a narrow carpet woven with the princely devices that led to three steps, a dais, a canopy, a chair, all prune-colored Utrecht velvet and double fringed. Sigismund II. thought it all very dull and formidable. Von Frühl had told him to sit on the throne and wait the coming of the Regent, but, restless as a small caged animal, he paced softly about the large, bright, empty room. There was a door either side of the canopy; the boy opened one after the other and called fearfully: "Kurt! Kurt!" for his friend was usually near him. When no answer came he began to be afraid. Had Kurt really been sent away? He felt distracted by the ruins of his small happiness which all lay in the hands of his companion. All the pleasure he knew was involved with Kurt.
Shrinking and miserable he sat on a stool beneath one of the tapestries and remembered all the vague evil he had heard of his new master, the Regent.
A wicked man? Sigismund II. had read history and fables with his tutors, and knew that uncles had murdered their nephews and stolen their kingdoms before now.
So many dreads assailed the boy in his loneliness that he wished that he were already a man, thinking that that estate would mean that he would have done with cowardice and tears.
When the Regent entered the audience chamber he saw an empty throne and a small figure in mourning crouching on one of the stools against the wall. But Sigismund II. rose with much dignity to receive this new menace against his peace, and held out his hand to be kissed, as he had been taught from infancy.
Prinz Stefan was alone; he had rejected the insistency of Von Frühl who had wished to present him with rigid formality to the sovereign; but the Regent had said: "I will study this tender and compliant mind by myself."
As he came forward the boy considered him with candid curiosity, giving all his attention to the scrutiny, and pondering wherein this man was different from all other men he knew. He noted that Prinz Stefan wore black and that took his thoughts strangely to the relationship between this stranger and his father.
He observed the grace and beauty of the Regent and his tense expression relaxed; he mingled ugliness and wickedness in his judgment, and he marked, as if they were of importance, some Vienna fashions in Prinz Stefan's attire—the rosettes, fastened with acorns with diamond centers at his wrists, the gold ring through which the long lock of hair that hung over his shoulder was knotted.
The Regent kissed the boy's hand and asked him if he would not be seated on the throne.
"I think, sir, that is rather your place, sir," said Sigismund II., blushing.
"Let us make a parity of our claims and seat ourselves on the steps," smiled Prinz Stefan, "since the chamber affords no chairs beyond this stately seat."
The boy accepted his graceful invitation and they seated themselves on the steps of the dais which were covered by an Eastern tapestry.
"I remember this chamber very well, Sigismund; they have changed it little. I suppose it seems curious to you to consider that I was born in Marienburg and bred here till I was ten years old?"
"It makes you less of a foreigner, sir."
"But foreigner I am. And of a different religion, also, Sigismund, from you and your subjects. Could you tell me what—anything of—what you have heard of me?"
The child did not speak; his glance fell and a quick suffusion of blood stained his smooth cheek.
"I am answered," said the Regent sadly. "I had hoped that, young as you are—but, no, these disasters are never hid. Tell me, do you love the Graf von Frühl?"
"No."
"I believe him an honest, loyal servant to your House. He has a splendid ability, a rich experience. Tell me why you do not like him?"
In response to this grave sincerity the boy offered his confidence without being aware that he was doing so.
"He is gloomy. And not just. He watches you and thinks that you do not know it. He is always there. And he hates Kurt. He wants to send Kurt away."
"Kurt is your friend?"
"Yes." Sigismund was shy again, but conquering his reticence, urged: "Will you, if I am obedient and give little trouble, please, Highness, allow Kurt to stay?"
Prinz Stefan smiled.
"I was an only child, Sigismund, too. And very lonely and cruelly wounded, as you never will be. I had a friend, Mathias—he was killed beside me at Pollnitz." With a sudden flash of vigor he added: "But is this a real friendship, not a fancy, Sigismund? It is ignoble for a prince to be infatuated with a favorite—a weak prince is an object of contempt, though he may never hear the ribald scoffs he provokes. It needs great wit and great courage to be a worthy prince, Sigismund. You have felt your destiny sometimes? To be a man, and to rule—"
"I have horrible dreams now and then, and often feel very sad and dull. Sometimes my head aches very much."
"Alas! how soon is youth poisoned by premonition of misfortune! But you should be happy a while yet. What do they teach you?"
"I hate my lessons. So many hours of them, and one may not relax a moment."
"Do you ride?"
"Not often—but I would like to, and to play tennis and to fence. Kurt is better at all this than I am—"
"They should train you to be a prince, not a pedant. You should not be behind in common knowledge so as to put it within the compass of little men to shame you, you should know some history, such as the actions of heroic men, and enough of mathematics to construct a javelin, a demi-lune, or to direct the engineers—but for the rest I hold it but a weariness."
"Yet you, sir, read Greek, for a diversion."
"Who told you that?" asked the Regent, surprised.
"My father. He said you were a good musician, too, and that he wished me to be one also."
"Your father spoke of me to you! Then you have heard some kind words of me, Sigismund. I have some taste for Greek and for music—but I am no scholar. For you, I will alter your education a little."
The boy looked at him expectantly, his pure soul clear in his clear eyes.
"You shall go abroad more. And learn the Great Horse. And if your tutors are tedious, dry men, I will change them. You shall study mankind more, books less. It is a womanless court—who shall make up to you the loss of your mother? You may pursue music if you will, I have brought several excellent performers with me. To play some noble instrument may relieve delicate, fanciful thoughts, that unexpressed, may effeminate the mind."
Prince Stefan stared closely, thoughtfully, at his young charge, and the boy, fascinated both by his appearance and his words, observed with a subtle pleasure bright flecks in the black eyes bent on him, so that the iris seemed streaked with crimson gold beneath the thick lashes.
"Sigismund, I have come here because I loved your father who was my friend when all others were against me. I think, from what he said to me and wrote to me, that his great easiness had inclined him to an indolence he sharply regretted and to the passing of his power to an inferior. He knew this smacked of lack of duty to you, and had resolved not so to longer relegate his authority when he died. And left me his charge."
"Was my father a good soldier?"
The Regent answered this question as if it had not been in the least irrelevant.
"An admirable soldier. I saw him, one of the first to plant his standard in the Turkish camp."
The boy seemed to reflect on this with pleasure; Prince Stefan was silent, aware that the emotion of this moment would perish in the handling. Sigismund II. propped his face between his hands, his elbows on his knees, sighed, and said at length, "And Von Frühl?"
"He will be your obedient Minister."
"He will send Kurt away."
"Not if I wish him to stay. You are not afraid of Von Frühl, Sigismund?"
The prince hung his head.
"If you have a true liking for Kurt, and it is not a tinsel fancy or a wanton humor, he shall remain. I should like to speak with him. It may he, if there is a core of worthiness in your friendship, that you may be of the rarest benefit to each other."
The boy gave him such a look of passionate gratitude that it near kindled in the Regent the folly of saying: "Trust me, confide in me."
He knew one could not force or solicit a child's respect or affection and he smiled, wishing that he could have said: "Servants and base busybodies-have slandered me to you, I know. I left great offices to come here and have already had such glories and honors and more as have left me satiated. I took up this employ, in much odious, simply because I loved your father." Would anyone ever believe that? Even the child would think him ambitious, rapacious, and eager even for petty gain; and he could never put his case before him, never explain or justify himself to anyone. He rose, asking but one favor:
"Never dissemble with me, Sigismund. I shall not despise the least of your thoughts."
"You will stay in Marienburg?"
"Until you are a man and may judge all for your self," replied Prinz Stefan. "If," he added, "I can achieve as much."
BARON D'OSTEN, the Chamberlain, was waiting for Sigismund II. when he left the audience chamber and took him to his apartments, which were next to those of the Regent; the boy was taciturn, for he knew this man to be at once the shadow and instrument of Von Frühl.
"Your Highness has been kept long. I trust you are not fatigued?"
"No, Baron d'Osten."
"Prince Stefan did not disturb you with upbraidings or injunctions?"
"No."
The Chamberlain, who had soft, insinuating manners, continued to ply the child with questions; and in all he said he cast a lively disdain upon the Regent, saying, at length, when he could no longer endure the boy's closeness:
"I hope Prinz Stefan has not worked on your Highness for secrecy, causing you to forget who are your friends. You must not be seduced by a honeyed voice."
"He said that Kurt might stay."
"Ah—then he was false. He spoke but to-day to Graf von Frühl of his intention to send away one who was, he said, too much your second self."
The boy's glance was, at this, so swift and piercing, that the man half-closed his own weary eyes as if in self-protection; but continued with mechanical malice to distil his poison.
"It is my duty to warn you, sir, against Prinz Stefan. A papist—"
"I don't mind that. So is the Emperor."
"Maybe. We are Lutherans. When Prinz Stefan ruled in Hungary he rooted out the heretics, as he called them, furiously. He used to surround churches and set fire to them. When the wretches rushed out his troopers would drive them back into the flames."
The boy remained obstinate, silent; but the Chamberlain was gratified to observe his sensitive face quiver as if in trouble and added: "My advice is bitter but wholesome. Your Highness must be preserved from this—dangerous man, so strangely, so unhappily, set over us."
Sigismund II. said: "I should like some gold acorns to fasten my wristbands, like Prinz Stefan has."
GRAF VON FRÜHL entered his daughter's chamber and at sight of his heaviness she cried, out petulantly:
"You look as if you had thrown an ill cast, sir. Must I feel the tedious effects of it?"
"You are neither simple, nor a child, Serafina. You ought to understand very well the vexations I have had of late. And now that this Zawadski is here—he saw the prince last night, and, d'Osten thought, impressed him."
"Why should I be disturbed by this? You have been stupid with this dull matter ever since Karl Ludwig died."
Von Frühl regarded his daughter coldly, almost with hostility.
"Why did you leave Vienna so early this year? You might have gone to Leutenburg with the Court. What can I do for you here? A child ruling! A womanless Court!"
"Prinz Stefan is married." Her sneer was ugly.
"You know his wife lives apart in a convent. I believe he negotiates a divorce at Rome. He is of no use to us. He must be, somehow, got rid of—Serafina, you met him at Vienna?"
"Now and then. He was mostly at the wars."
"Should you meet him here you will do all that is possible, in a civil way, to affront him. You will influence all your acquaintances to avoid and slight him—"
"So you mean to make it so loathsome for him that he will leave us?"
"Leave my intentions. Follow my instructions. Now, for yourself."
"Am I to be discussed?"
"I want to see you married. If you cannot get the Archduke—you are twenty-three," he eyed her sharply. "It is odd that you are content to live here so cloistered. I never thought you were of a contemplative turn. It is not possible that you have drifted into some ruinous folly and liking for some penniless cadet who carries a pair of colors in the Prince's guards?"
"No. It is not possible;" her indifference convinced him more than would have contempt or anger. "I am merely weary. And longed to spend this summer in peace. At home. I do not concern myself that the Court is more like a monastery, with a child to rule and in mourning, and no entertainments offered for gentlewomen. I am content here."
"Well, if you return to Vienna by the autumn—¦ perhaps it is not so impolitic for you to enhance your value by this withdrawal."
THE Gräfin von Frühl had contrived, as much by her own and her father's arts and influence, as by her beauties, to gain the reputation of one of the fairest women in the Empire. There were many pretty creatures, even in her native city, who, though hidden from the praises of all but one or two, might have outshone this great beauty had they been given her luster of wealth and fame. Indeed, her excessive care for her own loveliness, the anxiety she lavished on cherishing, on enhancing her charms, had given her a weary, artificial air and made her, after her most elaborate toilets, appear more like a doll than a woman. She was so perfumed, oiled, curled, crimped, powdered, painted, that she had lost her natural dower of extreme youth, that fresh bloom that seems the very lustre of innocence.
But her grace was inherent; she would always have, even in rags or neglect, when her face might seem nothing, that perfect proportion of long limbs, that poise and sway of a slender body, chaste as Diana (her poets said), voluptuous as Venus, those slim hands that looked too frail to raise a rose, those narrow arched feet that look too delicate to support even her light weight; if her serene visage was but the countenance of any fair young woman, her body seemed the expression of the spirit it impressed—swift, indolent, passionate, rebellious.
Every movement that she made was a delight to watch, her attitudes, her gestures, made a constant pattern, as gracious, as unrehearsed as the flight of butterflies, the dart of birds through blossoms, or the bending of reed canes in the morning airs.
She was auburn-haired, and her locks, disposed in close rings, like the fleece of Colchis, were arranged high on her head, adding to the long oval of her face; she was pale even to the full lips, but these she stained a glistening vermilion; her eyes were long and between grey and brown, her brows very faint and perfectly formed; her narrow lids easily tightened and drooped when she was crossed or fatigued; her sweet smile was idle and had in it nothing of merriment. Those who knew her best had often surprised on this exquisite countenance, the concentrated frown, the pursed lips, the lowering forehead, of the greedy trader considering a dubious bargain. Did she ponder how best to sell her treasures of beauty, breeding, name and dower?
Yet again, Renata von Cüstrin, the young widowed cousin she kept with her for decorum's sake, had sometimes come upon her in an extremity of passion in which there was no calculation, prone on her bed, clutching her small breasts, her careful curls disordered, her lards and unguents staining the pillow; she would sob and lament in so open a fashion that her companion, afraid of surprising some dangerous secret, would tiptoe away.
The accomplishments of the Contessina Serafina were famous; her Greek and Latin, her music and poetry, her painting on glass, her copperplate engraving, were not in themselves of much value, but seemed bright gems in the diadem of beauty.
Careless of her attire when she was alone, she wore a black silk gown of perfunctory mourning and played with round beads of white coral on a silver chain while her father discoursed, heavily, without his usual biting wit, on the difference in his fortune since the coming of Prinz Stefan Zawadski, and his determination to be rid of that meddling foreigner.
SERAFINA did not appear to give her attention to her father; her glance was vague, and when he paused for her encouragement or sympathy, she was silent.
"I do not interest you, Serafina?"
"I am so useless. How can I help?"
"I should have thought you were very capable of seconding some intrigue, nay, of planning some intrigue, that would rid us of this scoundrel—"
"You concern yourself too deeply. No doubt the dullness of Marienburg will drive Prinz Stefan away in a very short while—why, you can hardly believe how he lived in Vienna. What he has relinquished to come here."
"That proves that he means to make his coming here worth his while. Do you not perceive his ambition? He could be sovereign-He has only a child to dispose of...."
Serafina yawned and dropped her corals into the silk hollow between her knees.
"Stocken, the Dutch merchant, has some sapphires to sell. I should like to see them."
Von Frühl stormed at this frivolity.
"They are an extravagant price! Have you considered that since Prinz Stefan is here, many of my avenues of profit are closed? I shall need every pfennig I have to maintain my place—sops here and there—bribes, expenditure of every kind."
"I should like to see the sapphires. Renata's woman heard from Klaus, who knows the Dutchman, that they are cheap."
"Cheap or costly, they are not for you. Will you never be content?"
Von Frühl' looked at his daughter with that grasping counting-house expression that sometimes disfigured her smooth features, as if he cast up whether or no he had made a good investment in this resplendent creature. Vexed by her cool return of his scrutiny, he exclaimed:
"Had Sigismund been a few years older I had married you to him."
"A useless thought! I cannot wait five years or so."
"The Archduke? What hopes there?"
"You know all that I know. The last ball at the Hapsburg he would have the dancing continued till sunrise, and I was nearly always his partner."
"It is odd," remarked Von Frühl vaguely uneasy before this feeble yet inscrutable creature, "that you are content to leave such chances for this dull lassitude—this gloomy seclusion?"
"How suspicious you are!" smiled Serafina. "Do you not suppose it possible that a woman sometimes wishes repose, leisure, tranquillity?"
SIGISMUND II. and Kurt von Hohenheim held their revels in the long gallery in the old west wing of the Residenzschloss, which had been for years disused and served as a depository for discarded tapestries, theatrical properties, and furniture. It was lit by round windows, now darkened by cobwebs; by a steep spiral staircase at one end, it led to a door on to the privy gardens, which was always kept locked. The boys liked to lean over the black well of this staircase and fancy that they gazed into Hell's mouth, or the steep descent into the Pagan Hades, where heroes wander in frost and twilight.
They always entered the gallery by the other door which led to the library, and sometimes were lucky enough to escape to this entrancing playground when they were supposed to be at their studies, and to elude pursuit and capture for hours.
Kurt had found a small suit of armor, gold damascened on steel, in which he would endeavor to harness himself, and with this and some actors' wooden swords they had many a mock fight, lusty, vigorous, sometimes ending in a real quarrel, brief, honest, flaring into renewed unspoken affection.
Kurt was always the leader, his personality was already forceful, dominant, full of resource, headstrong. Sigismund hid from his friend his own fear of the gallery when the dusk encroached and the dim blue light of the round windows stared like so many lifeless eyes, his dislike of some of the antique portraits on the dusty walls, with their leaden gaze or squinting glance, their old-fashioned clothes, and their horrid air of being dead but not dissipated into the kindly elements as dead creatures should be, his faint thrill of terror when he saw Kurt transformed into a mimic knight, his sword brandished grimly above his crested steel head—all these tremors Sigismund kept from Kurt, for Kurt was afraid of nothing.
On this day Kurt had found an alabaster mask, tied with flesh-colored ribbons, so fine as to be almost transparent, that exactly fitted his own handsome face, and he had the humor to fasten it on himself and so run about, fancying himself a demon and slashing with a Punchinello's tarnished truncheon, so that Sigismund leapt and ran in front of him, now evading, now challenging, shrieking with feigned terror.
So Baron Grunfeldt, the secretary of Von Frühl, found them, and with many rebukes, brought the resisting Kurt before the Regent, who had demanded to see him. Sigismund II followed, plucking straight his ruffled suit of mourning, and knocking the dust off his knuckles.
THE Regent received the two boys in the painted closet and sent away Von Grunfeldt. He took Kurt's hot, moist hand and drew the flushed, defiant boy close to him, while he looked at him earnestly.
Kurt von Hohenheim was robustly beautiful, with brilliant coloring, like enamel, lips naturally of as deep a red as Serafina achieved by careful tinting and staining, eyes colored like a fresh woodland nut and reddish hair, stiffly curling in a crest above his white forehead; he was hotly loyal to his liking, hotly rebellious against all forms of authority, and, since he had come to the Residenzschloss, had worked for, championed, and fought for Sigismund, who was his inferior in all mental and physical essays.
He met the Regent's long gaze without a flicker in his vivid eyes and smiled in a proud amusement, as if he mocked at adult calculations and baffled wonders.
"I think," said Prinz Stefan, "that you mean to be something better than a prince's favorite."
"Sir, in Hohenheim, I am myself a prince."
The Regent released the small, strong hand, and smiled at Sigismund II, who waited in a taut anxiety for the result of this weighing up of his friend; he expected what he was so used to endure, some reproaches, much advice, warnings, moralizings, gracious condescension, a flow of talk; but Prinz Stefan merely said:
"I have been overlooking the table of your work which your tutors have given me. I perceive that you are, indeed, too much indoors. I have altered that. If in anything you are in future displeased, tell me, Sigismund. Will you ride with me this afternoon—both of you? And always at this hour?"
Tears smarted in Sigismund's eyes, so that he was forced to turn aside; but Kurt stooped and kissed the young man's hand with a silent warmth of gratitude.
MYNHEER STOCKEN sighed in pure weariness; he had been waiting for hours in the private cabinet at Schloss Frühl, and the day was closing in; abstemious as he was, he began to miss his supper, his pipe, his slippers, and his Gazette de Hollande. Of course, if, in the conclusion, he sold the black plagues, as he now named the sapphires, this tedious waiting would have been worth while. But supposing that the capricious, pampered, insolent Serafina refused, after all, to buy? He had heard some stories of her when he had been beguiling his tedium at the Idlers' Gate. It was Klaus who had secretly introduced him into Von Frühl's palace and hidden him in this little closet, bidding him be patient. The lady did not wish her father to know that she was seeing the stones, but, once she had seen them, she was sure to purchase—Klaus had so cleverly worked this backstairs intrigue with the assistance of the Baroness von Cüstrin's woman. The Dutchman reflected sourly that, even if he did sell the unlucky gems, he would have to pay away some of the profits.
Perhaps she would not see him; he put his thin hand nervously inside his bosom, where the flat leather wallet lay snugly; he had brought also a few diamonds and emeralds to tempt the luxurious fool.
How he despised that type of woman; he thought with gratitude of his own neat Mariachen in Amsterdam, and wished himself at home.
And as the dusk increased, some uneasy prickings of doubt began to trouble the good merchant. Perhaps he was stupid to have allowed himself to be parted from Dirk with his powerful arms and stout bludgeon.
Indeed, he thought he would never have come alone if Klaus had not summoned him so earnestly, declaring that this was a wondrous opportunity for him to enter and leave the Schloss Frühl secretly, since, for some unexplained reason, the sentries that usually kept guard round the palace were suddenly, that evening, withdrawn at dusk. And Von Frühl was remaining at the Residenzschloss for the night.
Mynheer Stocken yawned, fidgeted with his tow-colored wig, sighed, then smiled, for the door opened cautiously and Klaus, followed by his fellow servant, Killian, entered.
The Contessina Serafina would see the jewels immediately, and was in the most urbane of moods.
The Dutchman followed the two valets down a small corridor into a lady's chamber, bright with mirrors in blue glass frames. In the center was a table, covered by a Chinese silk tapestry that touched the ground all round. The window stood open on a balcony, and the merchant, so long enclosed in a shut closet, was grateful for the fresh air that blew in across the tops of the cypress trees the color of the black sapphires themselves against the pellucid sky.
The next moment he felt a stinging pain on his temple and a wet stifling mass on his mouth; he had just time to realize that he was being robbed by the two ruffians before he became insensible.
WHEN Mynheer Stocken recovered his wits, he wondered if he were in his tomb or in hell, for all about him was black; his arms were strapped to his sides and he was firmly gagged. He lay still in a sweating apprehension, unable to even roll over; but be found he could move his head, and in doing so, perceived a thread of light on the level of his eyes. He lay still, and, as he was quick and shrewd, soon discovered that he had been thrust, bound and gagged, under the long cover of a table—yes, he could recall that table with that long Chinese cloth in the center of the room with the mirrors, into which he had been lured. For a while gratitude, because he was in no worse a situation, sweetened his discomfort, but he soon began to realize that it was impossible for him to attract attention and that he must he there, in pain and misery, until he was discovered by chance; and he found his imprisonment, ridiculous as it might be, dismal enough.
The sound of distant voices raised in his mind wonderments as to where he was, whose apartment he was in, what hour of the night it might be; but his sick brain could decide nothing save the horrid fact that Klaus and his fellow rogue must be, by now, over the frontier with the black sapphires which had brought him, Hans Stocken, nothing but misfortune.
He tried to groan and writhe, for the reflection that his property might be recovered could he give the alarm in time was bitter, but he could make no sound and very little movement.
With all his senses alert and his anxiety to be discovered rendering him almost insensible to his pains and discomforts, he soon made out that there were two people in the room, a man and a woman, and that presently, by a stroke of chance, they came to the table and sat there, now and then raising the cloth from the floor with the tips of their shoes, but never near enough for him to touch.
And then, his ears being acutely pricked, his fears began to change, and he was near to wishing that he might not be discovered. For he understood from the discourse that he heard above him that his two unseen companions were clandestine lovers, and that the lady received her cavalier privily in the depth of night. "What maid would be as bold as this in the apartments of her mistress?" Van Stocken remembered the tales of the daughter of Von Frühl mouthed by the loiterers at Idlers' Gate, he remembered that Klaus had told him of the sudden withdrawal of the sentries, and he shuddered in his bonds for dread of coming upon one of those secrets of the great that are often a matter of death to the common man who, against his will, spies on them. And he sweated in his endeavor to make these two understand they were overheard by a most unwilling eavesdropper, to warn them to flee, without revealing themselves, but he could do nothing.
MYNHEER STOCKEN had twisted sideways, facing the feet of the people seated at the table; the lady wore shoes of blue velvet with a curl of dyed ostrich, and above he could glimpse a bare ankle; the man's soft boot was not to be distinguished from any other. They seemed to be drinking, the Dutchman could hear the clink of crystal on crystal; he could also hear, very clearly, their speech, but he doubted if he would ever recognize their voices again, so changed and heavy were their tones with emotion—and then the use of a name put the wretch beneath the cloth out of all speculation as to who the lady might be, for the man said:
"Serafina, are you so careless as to wish me to stay?"
"We are safe till dawn.-Everything is locked, every precaution is taken! Why will you waste time with these fears!"
"I must be fearful, I was near so fearful that I did not come."
"Ay, and you only came to tell me I must ask for no more meetings! How unfortunate I am! That of all who loved me I must take you!"
"I know that you might have had a better lover, Serafina."
"Remind me that I chose you!"
"Why are you so bitter angry, my love?"
"I would I had been better guarded, so that you could not have had me. Now I am stale to you and you are restless and would escape! No wonder that I am bitter angry! Consider what misery gnaws me, day and night!"
The man laughed and sighed together as if too used to such feminine passions, but took (as Van Stocken judged) the distracted creature in his arms and caressed her; yet still she protested, though now in a tone of amorous lassitude.
"You did not come to Marienburg for me!"
"No, I told you. And I would you had not come either; eh, my beauty, do you think I want to ruin you!"
"Almost I would be ruined for you."
"Almost, sweet, eh?"
"One loses everything, pride, pleasure-—one lives in the hideous loneliness, this deep fear—what hope? What future?"
Van Stocken thought that she wept on his shoulder, his voice fell to a whisper, making sugared lover's promises, beseeching, too, courage and patience; but the lady had no mind to exercise these virtues, and was not easily soothed, yet presently sighed into a warm acquiescence of her lover's endearments.
Amid such sighs, abrupt exclaims and little sounds of laughter, fettered in her lover's arms, she whispered:
"My garter—It is unclasped—garter me."
"Why must you be gartered, when you wear no hose?"
They moved, searching, Van Stocken thought, for the garter. By now the prudent. Dutchman had resolved to endure any suffering sooner than endeavor to provoke a discovery of himself. He lay rigid, scarcely venturing on a breath. "What would my life be worth if they found me? If the cloth were lifted I might see her in the embrace of one of her father's grooms, for his voice has no accent by which one may judge him, all being distraught by passion."
A corner of the cloth was lifted; Van Stocken saw a masculine hand, with a plain wrist band, picking up from the folds of the Chinese tapestry a ribbon of flexible gold; from the linen cuff hung a link of two acorns with diamond centers.
They had left the table and he could scarcely hear their voices and nothing of their discourse, save that it was sweet like run honey.
Van Stocken cursed all lovers and his own rapacity in offering to deal with these Messalinas. His business had always been with honorable ladies until he had attempted to procure the black sapphires for Mademoiselle Luli.
His sour thoughts were interrupted by a cry quickly suppressed from the unseen woman, and a few words, in a language that Van Stocken did not understand, from the man. The prisoner strained his attention and soon understood that they had found his good tow-colored wig that he had paid sis gulden for at the second-hand shop in Amsterdam; they were alarmed, they were consulting together, and then they were searching the room. He closed his eyes swiftly as a flood of light smote them and affected unconsciousness as the cloth was flung back; he believed that unless he appeared insensible he might easily meet death at the hands of the angry gallant.
"Jesu Maria!" breathed a voice in his ear as he was dragged out by a powerful grasp; and Van Stocken noted: "A Roman Catholic," while precise to feign a complete swoon; he had sufficient fortitude not to stir with relief as his bonds were deftly and swiftly cut; he judged that the man was on his knees beside him, while the woman was standing near, lamenting in a whisper.
The gag was taken out of his mouth, his face wiped, and the masculine voice, that was then completely different in timbre, said:
"It is Stocken, the Dutch jeweler, who came to Marienburg to sell the black sapphires. He has been decoyed here and robbed."
At this the merchant had to make an effort not to open his eyes and learn who this was who knew him so soon, but resisted and lay inert.
"Is he dead?" asked the lady, in eager hope, it seemed.
"No—but beaten out of his wits. He has been vilely maltreated. You must have help—raise the alarm at once."
"With you here?"
"Ah, what a mischance! I must leave you—but how can I?—there may be danger still."
"No danger equal to that of you being found here. Go, and I will arrange all—say I was disturbed—why did you cut his ropes? They will think that I had help."
"I could consider nothing but the safety of this poor fellow, who must have instant assistance."
"Ah, always anyone first and myself last!" was the lady's exasperated lament, which Van Stocken thought grossly unreasonable. Her companion replied firmly:
"Since he is loosened and may now, any second, recover his wits, it would be wisest for you to fetch your scissors and raise an outcry—There must be a pursuit of the thieves."
"How could they have got away?"
"You forget that the sentries were withdrawn."
Van Stocken, uncomfortable, suffering in every stiff and aching limb, wished fervently that the lady would cease her to-do; but she, maddened by the abrupt departure of her lover, yet most fearful of dishonor, first clung to him, then thrust him off, so that the merchant, in his feigned swoon, heard a contention above him and wondered how long his patience must endure.
Then silence and the closing of a window; the Dutchman ventured to cautiously open an eye, and saw a young woman, naked, save for a robe of gauze with silver stars, pulling the Chinese cloth off the table so that wine flagons and goblets crashed to the floor; then rushing through an inner door.
Van Stocken, who considered that his ordeal might be allowed to be at an end, groaned lustily; the lady returned immediately, a satin gown was flung over her shift and a pair of scissors in her shaking hand. Van Stocken judged it prudent to pretend unconsciousness a little longer while the lady bent over him and made a feint of removing his already severed cords. He believed that he had been very lucky in avoiding all cause of offense towards the Contessina Serafina.
THE Gräfin von Frühl, with a commotion of servants about her, described her adventure with much sharpness and edge.
A tumult of falling vessels had roused her from her slumber; snatching up her night lamp, she had run into her mirror cabinet, from whence the noise came, found a strange old man struggling in the table-cloth, which he had evidently dragged over in his efforts to extricate himself from his bonds—and with it a wine service she and the Gräfin Von Cüstrin had used on the evening before. Her first thought had been to fetch scissors and cut the cords, her second, to shriek for aid. Who was the stranger? How had it been possible for him to enter her apartments? Who had so wickedly ill-treated him?
Van Stocken, recovering on a settee under the administrations of Von Frühl's apothecary, supplied this information. Even before he had told his tale, it was noted that neither Klaus nor Killian was among the household that had hurried to the ringing of their mistress' bell.
"A dastardly crime!" cried the Contessina Serafina with fury more on her own account than on his, Van Stocken thought. "These knaves ought to be broken on the wheel!"
The Dutchman looked at her very curiously from under his ginger brows j he had seen her once before, driving behind two skewbald horses in the Langenstraat, and had thought that she appeared a bedizened puppet less than human. But she was human enough now, disordered by her lover's handling, hot with rage and fright, shuddering with tremors, her lips busy with lies.
Her image, reflected a hundred times in the wall mirrors, was that of a pale, distressed woman, with faint brows contracted, with full lips a little apart, a little distorted, with damp curls out of place, falling along her taut neck.
"The strumpet," thought Van Stocken, without the least pity for her acute distress. He wondered who her lover might be.
THE Regent inspected the oratory that Father Sokolov had fitted up in one of the chambers (it had been a dining-room) of the royal apartments in the Residenzschloss. The priest, who was at once the confessor and secretary to Stefan Zawadski, a former Prior of Jacobins, and a doctor of theology, had used much love and ingenuity in planning this chapel, which was now very rich, with ceiling of gilt, stamped leather, walls paneled in pale, fragrant cedar wood, and floor covered with a glittering mosaic of alabaster, malachite, jasper and porphyry. There was a brocade Prie-Dieu for the Prince, and fringed stools for his suite, an altar of pink marble inlaid with a gold design and sparkling with a cloth, where the bullion embroidery was an inch deep. Candles, thick as a lady's wrist, were in sticks of painted wood, and the sacred gold vessels and gossamer napkins had been brought from Vienna.
Behind the altar was a soft, suave Umbrian painting of a Virgin leaning against a quince tree, whose dark leaves fell over the flushed, sleeping child she held. The Lutherans who had seen the picture whispered that, incredible blasphemy!—this smiling woman in the azure robe was a likeness of Ludmila Zawadski.
Georges Sokolov, who had a pointed, wistful face, a slight figure twisted in one shoulder, surveyed his handiwork with approval and colored with pleasure at the gracious praises of the Regent.
But at the end of his commendations that Prince said:
"This will make us even more hated, father."
"It is a nation of bigoted heretics."
"We shall be accused of endeavoring to convert the little Prince."
"If your Highness could—"
"I do not think of it. I must not meddle there. I have difficulties enough without that."
Prinz Stefan lingered in the carved doorway, garlanded with wooden fruits, of the chapel. His dark face was thoughtful, as if he debated within himself some unhappiness.
"I never foresaw, father, such troubles as I have met. I stand quite alone with the few I brought with me. All I do is given an ill face. On every hand I am quietly, obstinately thwarted. And maligned without mercy."
"It is Von Frühl," said the priest, troubled.
"Yes. I knew that he was my enemy, but I never understood what power he had. He has made me well hated here, father. I am used to ignoring slander—but this—"
The priest did not reply; he had sent his faithful servant, the Florentine, Mario Bolla, in disguise about the city and to lounge in the Idlers' Gate, so that he might come at the crux of what Marienburg said of the Regent. At Bolla's reports Georges Sokolov had been deeply distressed.
"He has his creatures everywhere," continued the Regent. "And how can I get rid of them, since I have none to fill their places but those also of Von Frühl's party?"
"That Alois, the Prince's French valet, should go. He poisons the boy against you."
"I know. But they are all so careful not to give outward cause for offense. And it would look ill if I too soon dismissed my brother's servants. Besides—lacqueys! Useless to concern myself with any but the master. He must go. How, father, must he go?"
"Your Highness could place a charge of corruption before the Emperor," suggested the little priest, mildly. "There can be no doubt of his long peculations."
"That would involve too many people, and cause a fracas I should not be able to control."
"A secret arrest? A sudden disappearance?"
The Regent smiled into the honest face of his friend.
"Maybe, in time. I do not intend to be frustrated in what I have undertaken here. Nor do I, father, wish to provoke a revolt—a religious fury."
"Von Frühl cannot forgive your Highness for keeping the Graf Kurt at Court. He is afraid of that boy, and now that you have won him, hates him too."
"Have I won him?" mused the Regent. "Neither he nor Sigismund has professed any loyalty to me."
"They are happier than they have been, and must know that they owe it to you."
"They are honest children. Von Frühl would ruin Sigismund for his own ends—my brother foresaw that. Whatever happens, I must prevent that, father."
"It is a very heavy task that your Highness has undertaken." The little priest paused, then added abruptly: "I am very sorry about this peevish scandal of the black sapphires."
"It is vexatious enough, but does it concern me that two knaves in Von Frühl's employment beguiled the Dutchman to his house and robbed him?"
"But the mystery of it is that the sentries were withdrawn that very night." The priest spoke diffidently, eyeing the Regent with some tribulation. "Von Frühl is furious that you will not, sir, order an investigation as to who gave that order."
"It is a military matter, father, and I will not open it at Von Frühl's bidding."
"I think you are wrong," replied the priest gently, but with that complete candor which, without any comment thereon, was always used between the two men. "Why not satisfy Von Frühl as to who gave the order? He has been importunating me on the matter. And I think justly. Highness," added Georges Sokolov, earnestly, "Captain Lemoine, who commands these men, was sent with the Envoy to Persia the day after the robbery."
"I suppose that matter had long been arranged. The Envoy must have a military attaché.
"Von Frühl swears that Captain Lemoine was sent away at a few hours' notice, after the robbery."
"Von Frühl cannot possibly know that."
"He guesses it," said the priest uneasily. "He says the sentries know no more than that their orders came from their lieutenant and he refers to the captain, who is absent. Highness, It would be wiser to recall Captain Lemoine."
"I shall not do so. What does Von Frühl suspect?" The Regent turned his long eyes steadily on Sokolov. "He wishes merely to make trouble. No doubt Lemoine had some use for the soldiers. Von Frühl has no just claim on these sentries."
"Highness, we may believe that this affair is gall to him and frets him to the bone. There are whispers already—that one of the women of the Gräfin Von Frühl entertained a lover. We know how choice he keeps his daughter and what high hopes he entertains for her. He would not have his establishment blown upon."
"Who dares to do so?"
"They say," said the priest, sadly, "that even Van Stocken is talking. He will not leave Marienburg until the police have made every effort to trace the robbers."
"What is Van Stocken saying?" smiled the Regent. "And why should you concern yourself, father, with these vain opinions?"
"It is my business to do so. I fear, Highness, I am your only agent in Marienburg. I do not know what the Dutchman says. But I believe that, with shrugs and hints, he insinuates that he was not altogether unconscious when he lay bound under the table."
"A trader lamenting the loss of his wares!" said the Regent lightly. "Do not trouble yourself, father, about this paltry affair."
Georges Sokolov went his way to his business closet, with downcast eyes and sensitive lips twitching. He wished that Stefan Zawadski, whose fortunes were so brilliant elsewhere, had not ventured into this nest of enemies, where the smallest imprudence might bring the greatest mischance.
The Regent remained at the door of the new chapel, which greatly pleased his senses. He liked, even in his religion, all that made life soft and sumptuous; he was profoundly sensual, yet all gross delights left him untempted; his great joy was in that spiritual voluptuousness that lifts the senses to mingle with the soul in one rapture. But he did not then mark the soft harmonies of his chapel. He foresaw, from the words of Georges Sokolov, an infinite stock of trouble.
As he closed the chapel door he exclaimed on a heavy checked sigh: "What a damnable mischance!"
SIGISMUND II. enjoyed greater freedom and more pleasure than he had ever known before. He bloomed in his new liberty, his new authority; there was a fresh color in his face, a fresh lightness in his walk, a zest and eagerness in his speech. He was frequently in public, and everywhere he was accompanied by Kurt Von Hohenheim, and generally by the Regent, save when he went to the services in the Lutheran cathedral. Under Prinz Stefan's advice he had discarded his full mourning and such sad adherences to his father's memory, and wore suits of gray, of no somber shade but full of interchangeable colors like the neck of a dove. The horse from the Imperial stables, that was especially trained for him, was a noble hue, like country cream in color and handsomely trapped with leather bossed with silver. He had, for the first time, pages in his liveries, with silver boars on their breasts.
This change in the education of the Prince was ill enough suffered by Von Frühl, but what curdled his blood with a fierce wrath was the ascendency of Kurt Von Hohenheim. For the Chancellor could see in this boy, who bore himself with such careless boldness, such indifferent gayety, a more dangerous rival to his own power than was even the Regent.
He argued thus: even at the worst Prinz Stefan could not remain in Marienburg after the majority of Sigismund II., and that was only a few years ahead. All then he, Von Frühl, had to do was to be patient, endure all until the insolent foreigner had to withdraw, and then re-assume his full ascendency over the country that he held by so many ramifications of his creatures and his intrigues, and over the facile, plastic mind of Sigismund IX that he had, he trusted, made an impression on, that Stefan Zawadski would not easily efface.
But in Kurt Von Hohenheim was an ever present enemy, one who would never leave Marienburg nor the side of the Prince.
It seemed, perhaps, timorous to so dread a child, but Von Frühl did not see the Graf Kurt as a child, for only too well could he visualize him as a presumptuous youth, as a dominating man; only too clearly could he see the budding qualities of the boy, his brilliant resource, his unthinking courage, his noble pride, his scorn, as a creature of action, of all the slow shifts, doubtful labors, and sly, cowardly cheatings that Von Frühl stood for. Ah, very well the Chancellor knew that he had a redoubtable foe there and one who had complete influence over the mind of Sigismund II. And daily he turned over, in his shrewd, unscrupulous brain so practiced in matters of this sort, whether he could not combine some circumstances, invent some policy, create some situation that might rid him both of Kurt Von Hohenheim and Prinz Stefan, who played his protector.
VON FRÜHL was passing through the palace gardens on his way to see the Regent, when he observed young Kurt riding down one of the wide avenues, jaunty, merry, now singing, now whistling, now plucking at the long feather-like sprays of dull pink tamarisk bloom that waved against his crest of bright hair as he rode.
The Chancellor, a straight, stern figure, in the doleful heavy black mourning that he refused to set aside, waited at the turn of the path for the little horseman to approach. When he reached him Von Frühl gave him a sharp command to stop.
Which Kurt did, though with no more than a Casual salute, smiling as if the man (who seemed to him old, ugly and curst) was only to be tolerated through courtesy; and the boy had not much of that for those whom he disliked and was impatient to be on his way for his fencing bout with Sigismund II.
"You must not ride so boisterously through the garden, nor pull at those flowers. Do you think them vulgar weeds? They are exotics that cost much to keep."
Kurt still smiled and without replying stroked the smooth shining neck of his horse. He knew perfectly well that Von Frühl cared nothing for the flowers and but seized the chance for a rebuke. The just, generous nature of the child scorned the man's crooked malice.
"Do you hear me?" cried the Chancellor harshly raising his voice.
"I hear you, Graf Von Frühl." The radiancy of the boy's beauty, on which the sun gleamed full, even more intensely exasperated Von Frühl, who said quickly:
"Demand my pardon, make your submission."
The brilliant color deepened in the boy's round cheek; his crystalline eyes darkened.
"These are not your gardens, Graf Von Frühl, nor are you my master."
"You need a lesson, then?" The Chancellor lifted his cane to strike, but the boy swerved his horse and cried out as he rode away:
"You need a lesson, Graf Von Frühl, and some day I will give it to you."
THE Regent, awaiting a hateful interview with the Chancellor, lingered in the closet where many of his brother's intimate possessions had been placed on that Prince's death. It was Stefan himself, as sole executor of the will, who had broken the seals of yellow wax impressed with the white Boar that secured presses and bureaus, cases and boxes.
As the Regent opened the wide leaves of a garde robe he saw within uniforms, belts, boots, sashes, belonging to the dead man. The dark rose and silver parade dress which Karl Ludwig XIV. had worn as Commander-in-Chief of his own army Prinz Stefan could remember at Pollnitz and Gradno—the white, gold and scarlet of an Imperial Marshal he had seen at Vienna not so long ago. Slack, smelling faintly of musk and damp, the rich clothes tarnished in the dark.
The Regent closed the press.
On the shelves, on the floor, had been huddled his brother's few personal books—some volumes on hunting, some French plays, a Lutheran Bible and prayer book. In a long chest lay his swords and fowling pieces, in a small bureau were packets of love letters, some accounts, in the pocket of the last coat he had worn was a missive, never sent, addressed in his own hasty, up and down hand, to Mademoiselle Luli—prima ballerina of the Italian Comedy.
The Regent stood melancholy amid all these objects that had belonged to the dead. That morning he had felt his intolerable vexations so heavy on him, had seen himself with such loathing being drawn into so many base, even blackguardly self-defenses, that he had been minded to abandon Sigismund II. to Von Frühl and to return to the places where he was loved, easy and powerful.
And to fortify himself against this longing to escape his burdensome duty he had visited his brother's chamber and handled these poor relics of the dead man who had trusted him. Standing there he took from his pocket a copy of the will of Karl Ludwig XIV.
"... As I trust my soul to God Almighty, so I trust my only lawful child and heir, Sigismund Albrecht Willem, to my half-brother, Prinz Stefan Zawadski, relying in all on his care and honor, giving him full charge over my realm and the person of my son in the full confidence that he will perform this duty most exactly however full of trouble or pain it may be to him...."
The Regent locked the door of his brother's apartment and went to the painted closet where he was to meet Von Frühl.
THE Chancellor came at once to the tedious, vexed question of the robbery in Schloss Frühl. He had some news to add to his account of the imbroglio. Klaus had been arrested in Baden Durlach, where he was endeavoring to sell the sapphires to the Margraf. Van Stocken could recall having, foolishly as he now realized, told Klaus, that this Prince, avid of gain, would purchase the jewels at a low price; they had been found on the thief and were being returned to the Dutchman.
Prinz Stefan declared gently that nothing of this, was of any importance to the government. Why should they discuss this wretched affair, particularly as it was now ended? Van Stocken could take his jewels and leave Marienburg, Klaus would be punished, and that would conclude the vexatious, sordid episode.
Yon Frühl countered stormily:
"I am resolved to sift this matter to the bottom,"
"If you please, do so, Graf Von Frühl. But why should I have to be involved in what is a simple private robbery and has nothing to do with the welfare of the State?"
"There have been some noisome reports abroad. My household has been traduced. I must investigate the order for the withdrawal of the sentries." Von >Frühl again vehemently demanded the recall of Captain Lemoine; and again the Regent refused, civil, implacable.
"I cannot recall a member of an Envoy's suite on so frivolous a matter. I am, myself, well satisfied that the men were withdrawn for some simple reason. As I was forced to tell you before, Graf Von Frühl, this parade of yours was neither justified nor sanctioned."
"I had the warrant for it under the late Prince's hand."
"But no renewal of it under mine."
Von Frühl smiled maliciously as if he had scored a delicate point in a difficult game.
"Your Highness being so fixed in these denials and refusing me the plain satisfaction that I ask, confirms all the ugly talk."
"Against me?" The smile of the Regent was affable. "I have heard that the good people of Marienburg are very idle-tongued—are they ingenious enough to connect me with this sorry theft?"
Von Frühl-rose. He had himself well in hand, but he was not disposed to be cautious.
"It is said that Klaus was in league with some member of your Highness' household—the Italian, Bolla, your priest's servant, is suspected—who had sufficient influence to contrive that the sentries were withdrawn. And it is supposed—understand how odious this is to me!—that one of my daughter's women was helping these ruffians."
"How can you possibly concern yourself with this miserable tattle of the market square?" Prinz Stefan's thin jet brows rose in courteous amazement.
"Because, sir"—Von Frühl was equally well-mannered—"your action in refusing to recall Lemoine, in seeming to stifle, as you do, all inquiry, unhappily makes it appear that your Highness is protecting some member of your household."
Prinz Stefan leant back in his chair. He remained unperturbed under the Chancellor's jealous scrutiny.
"Such stupidities are beneath our discussion. Even these ignorant boors, these malicious chamberers, must know that I have not been long enough in Marienburg for any member of my household to hatch a conspiracy with any member of yours."
"Klaus was with my daughter in Vienna. So were the women she has with her. They might then have made acquaintance with this Bolla or another."
The blood crept under the Regent's clear skin; his hands that he usually kept still in quiet elegant repose, became restless. He picked up a lapis lazuli paper knife and tapped the bureau before him with it, looking at this, his own action, and not at the Chancellor as he replied.
"I would answer for Bolla as for myself. I pray you, repeat no more of these extravagances, or I shall think that you countenance them."
"Very well." Von Frühl's voice was sunk. "We must wait until the trial of Klaus, when Van Stocken will give evidence, and the whole obscure affair will be ventilated."
The Regent smiled, ignored this, and said:
"The worthy citizens of Marienburg will soon have a spectacle to divert their thoughts from this ridiculous trumpery. When I first took up this charge I made a resolve to do something that I had long wished to do, and at once made arrangements—for the solemn removal of the Princess Ludmila's remains from Cracovia to the Cathedral of Marienburg."
He looked round swiftly. If he had hoped to see the Chancellor overwhelmed by amazement he was not disappointed. Von Frühl was dumb with astonishment.
"This Princess," continued the Regent, drawing designs with the blue stone knife on the tablets before him, "is the only lady united to my father's house who Is not buried in the family vaults. I have the permission of His Holiness to lay her in a consecrated chapel attached to this Lutheran church, which was—in my eyes is now—Roman Catholic. The cortège, which left Cracovia before I left Vienna, should be here within the week. There will he a day of mourning, a great procession. Several hundreds of my own people will be here for the ceremony, which is to take place with every conceivable pomp and reverence."
Von Frühl thought better of his first resolve to cry out in furious, contemptuous protest: "What!—this woman, whose name was a by-word, whose disgrace was open, who was sent back with shame to her people, to be honored publicly by this translation of her remains, allowed to rest by the flawless women in the royal vaults." The Chancellor instinctively put his hand to his mouth, as if to stifle some such outburst, then swiftly reflected: "He will ruin himself, even his effrontery of brass cannot carry this off—let him, then, go his road." Then again: "Is this an excuse to fill the city with his creatures, his troops?"
"You are thoughtful, Graf Von Frühl." The Regent's low voice was pleasant. "What have you to say?"
"Much that I dare not. The action that your Highness proposes is beyond words impolitic. Have you obtained the consent of Prince Sigismund?"
"No. I hold it but a comedy to ask of a hoy a favor he cannot understand. And I have full powers."
"The expense will be enormous—and your Highness spoke of retrenchment in the State—"
"Be assured that I shall meet all these expenses. I have the money."
Von Frühl thought it wiser to say no more on a subject that still scattered his thoughts with amazement. The Regent's smile deepened as he observed that the Chancellor had at last found a matter to put the affair of the black sapphires out of his mind.
Before he left the royal apartments Von Frühl found occasion to speak to Alois, the French valet of the little Prince, a man whom he paid very well and trusted as far as he allowed himself to trust anyone.
Briefly, with laconic good breeding, he told the servant of his increasing difficulties, and the intolerable insolence of young Kurt which the Regent refused to punish.
"We must rid the country of them, my good Alois—I believe I can create an esclandre—very pernicious to Prinz Stefan—from this imbroglio of the jewel robbery—you may be useful to me there. Meanwhile, lose no opportunity of revealing to Prinz Sigismund the manner of sly tyrant we have got over us; cruel, rapacious, and treacherous."
"I insinuate into him all the evil reports that I can, Excellency, and have to invent very little; there is matter enough abroad to the discredit of this Prince."
Von Frühl then related the amazing resolution of the arrogant Regent to bring to Marienburg the remains of his mother, the infamous Ludmila, wanton, witch ...
"Tell your master the horror, the revolt this will provoke among the people—tell him the wretched creature was sold to the Devil and that her very bones will bring misfortune to his House—impress him with all the images of dread and fantastic alarm that may most surely set him against Prinz Stefan."
"Rely on me, Excellency. I have already done much. His Highness broods, in the evening, or when he is alone, very uneasily on the tales I have related to him of Prinz Stefan's cruelties in Pomerania and Transylvania—and lately has asked for a lamp at night."
Von Frühl smiled and thoughtfully fingered his fine mouth, where, of late, the sagging wrinkles had been cut deeper and the bilious skin had turned a more sickly hue; his whole face having, since the coming of Prinz Stefan, increased in harshness.
Alois bowed and tiptoed back to his post; Von Frühl went on his way, carefully down the wide corridor bright where the sunlight, streaming in through the wide windows, found the sparse gold in the old Flemish hangings, where the ornate figures from the Romaunt de la Rose slowly faded into a mere intermingling of tinsel threads, a common warp and woof.
SIGISMUND II. awoke in a sweat of fright; his shattered dream clung to him in veils of horror. He whimpered and sat up in his great bed, his knees hunched to his chin, his eyes wide with misery.
The little consoling light for which he had pleaded gave him the courage to resist crying aloud, but filled the room with a menace of shadows.
Shadows from the curtained bed with the plumes atop; shadows from the tall presses—tall enough to conceal a man, a demon—shadows from the stately chairs, shadows not to be explained, cast, surely, by some ghastly unearthly presence.
Sigismund II. had been dreaming of unutterable woe and terror, tortures done in the dark, bloody executions, ghastly pursuits, vain shriekings for mercy, the talons of a witch in a human throat ... he sprang out of bed and stood shivering on the step, afraid to move.
Alois and his fellows had done their work well; the boy saw all his dreads materialized in the slim figure, the dark pale face of a demon who resembled Prinz Stefan; smiling, treacherous, capable of unnameable evil.
Sigismund II. pryed, with cautious alarm, round the chamber; he continually glanced over his shoulder to see if the presses had opened to disclose that erect form, that false noble face smiling at him....
He peeped into the closet where Alois slept, (sword, pistols and bell by his side), then crept to the next room, taking his little lamp with him. Here Kurt slept, serene, flushed, his gleaming hair a gold mesh on the pillow, his sturdy right hand outflung on the coverlet. Sigismund breathed more freely at sight of his friend's placid repose and sighed, wishing that he had that courage that nothing troubled.
He longed to wake Kurt, but forbore, out of shame, for the other boy brightly mocked at his night fancies, naming them base, foolish, and only suited to girls.
So Sigismund II. forbore to rouse his friend, yet was too terrified to return to bed. Someone, something, would surely be lurking between those white lambs-wool curtains embroidered with foxgloves and strawberries....
He thought of Prinz Stefan with a fearful fascination, and was so tormented in his childish mind, which was still clouded by odious dreams, that he made the trembling resolution to venture to the Regent's apartments, to see for himself if a fox's, devil's, or vampire's shape had transformed Stefan Zawadski into a creature of terror.
THE night was softly warm and the boy had not thought to put on his chamber robe; with his pallor, his pale hair dank with sweat, his night attire white and straight to his feet, he looked like a vision of the newly dead dressed for the grave, as he opened the door of Prinz Stefan's inner chamber, and gazed, with dilated pupils, across the radiance of the candles.
He had found all the apartments of the Regent lit, and with his naked soundless feet had hurried from one to another until he reached this, where the two men, Prinz Stefan and Georges Sokolov, sat talking together, in the hushed voices that men will use when they discourse in the silence of the night.
The window was open and the gentle waftings of the breeze filled the light silken curtains and sent them quivering into the room; there was no other movement for the two were still, weighed and sunk by thought, and the child stood still also, in the doorway, the latch in his hand, his hurried breath lifting his white shirt.
"Jesu come between us and harm," murmured the priest, crossing himself, and Prinz Stefan stared a second before he said, holding out his hand:
"What has happened, Sigismund? Do you want me?"
The boy did not reply as he considered eagerly the man who spoke, no demon or fox-faced magician, not straight, slim, smiling and armed, in panoply of official dress or uniform, but seated in a weary attitude, wearing a loose chamber robe, and his hair turned back from his forehead. Nor was there anything formidable about the little priest in the black soutane, who smiled in so kindly and wise a manner.
Sigismund II. crossed to the Regent's knee; he was too absorbed in his fear to be ashamed of it; he stood unabashed, earnestly gazing into the young man's perturbed face.
"Something has alarmed you, Sigismund? Why have you left your bed? Are you ill? Why did not Alois or Kurt awake?"
"I did not want to wake them."
Prinz Stefan questioned no more, he drew the boy closer; he had seen in that long, almost infantile face, a look of his dead brother.
"Would you like to sleep here, Sigismund? For to-night?"
"Oh, yes, if you please."
Sigismund II. had found instant comfort in the touch of his uncle and realized as soon as he was in the presence of Prinz Stefan that here was no magician, no demon—that must have been merely a trick of the vile spirits who haunted him—that delusion that clothed them in the likeness of the Regent.
"Could you not say, sir, what disturbed you?" asked Georges Sokolov compassionately.
The boy, safe in the circle of Prinz Stefan's arm, answered bravely.
"Oh, only dreams. I really do not remember now. I think it was something that Alois said. Of course, I was not afraid. But confused."
"What did Alois say, sir?" asked the priest.
"I do not really know. It was about war, and murdering people—torturing, you know, and burning them. Heretics. I know that I ought not to mind, but when it is dark—I mean when one is asleep—" He paused, abashed, realizing that he had nearly betrayed what Alois had said of the Regent. "I am a heretic, you see."
"I will replace this servant. I would I could put with you the Florentine, Bolla, but I doubt if that would be politic." The Regent frowned, troubled, and glanced at the priest.
"I should not like Alois to go—it will seem as if I had told tales of him," said the boy.
"I will find a reasonable excuse for sending away the fellow if you do not like him. Do you like him, Sigismund?"
"No. And he tells Graf von Frühl everything that I do."
Prinz Stefan smiled tenderly at the small delicate face now resting on his shoulder; this was the first mark of confidence that he had had from the child, and he valued it the more that it was given unconsciously.
"Come, I will show you someone who will exorcise all your evil dreamings and make them no more than atoms in the sun."
THE Regent carried Sigismund II. to his Oratory, opened the garlanded, sweet cedarwood door, and showed him the shrine within, the sanctuary lamp burning before the altar, massive with gold, and the picture of the woman holding the child, shaded by the quince tree; the air was fragrant and hazed with the blue fumes of incense which burnt in a thurible suspended from the ceiling.
The boy was attracted, then repelled.
"A Papist chapel," he whispered fearfully.
"Do not think of it like that, Sigismund. It is beautiful, is it not? And the woman, is she not kind? Indeed, she was kind and gay, too; when she could laugh no more she died."
Sigismund II. glanced up, puzzled.
"You speak as if you had known her, sir—is it not a fabulous saint?"
"It is the blessed Mother of God, Sigismund. But it has a likeness to one whom I knew. Lovely, gentle—when I pray here I think of her, and do no wrong. For in God's Mother we worship all sweet women. And indeed, my first prayers were said with this lady's face above me. I was her son."
"I do not remember my mother at all, sir."
"It is a misfortune, Sigismund. I would that I could persuade you to think of her as always near you, in the breeze, as it might be, or in a light mist, or in the flower that bends towards you as you pass. And far more powerful in love for you than these miserable demons and specters that fright you. Come sometimes and look at this picture, Sigismund—and see how she smiles. Is there not comfort in it?"
The boy did not answer; he leant against the
Regent; the young man felt the slender shoulder press against his side, and looked down with great tenderness on the fair ruffled hair that came just to his heart. He reflected that he should have had a son growing up to this height, and on his tragic marriage which kept him hound and denied him heirs; all his life and actions seemed then to him hut a gilded emptiness, like the painted nutshells hung on the fir trees at Christmastide, or a bubble phantom of pleasure. He was the last of his House, and knew that he stood near that abyss of spiritual desolation from which he had tried to rescue the child. A torment of loneliness assailed him and he recalled, with shame and disgust, certain lusts and vanities of his which threatened to involve him in sore affronts to his pride and honor.
"I used to be gay once!" he smiled in an endeavor to cast off this dark mood, "but I believe that I have scarcely laughed since I came to Marienburg—the place oppresses me—"
"But you will not leave?" asked Sigismund quickly.
"You do not want me to go?"
"No. Please stay with me."
"I am indulgent, eh? But I do not want you to lean on me, Sigismund. Nor on Kurt. I want you to understand and judge all for yourself."
"I do not want to be a Prince, really—"
The Regent laughed, and put his arm round the drowsy little figure.
"Come, you are half asleep! I will carry you to bed. Look again at the Mother of God, and think of her red lamp always burning———"
The young man picked up the boy who drooped slackly on his shoulder and so carried him to his own chamber, placing him in that bed of sweet pale chestnut wood where his father had so often slept. Sigismund It. relaxed with pleasure into the down pillows; the atmosphere of the room was agreeable; a hundred, curious, lovely little objects took his sleepy fancy, the lamplight was amber warm and it was agreeable to know that near was the holy chamber with the picture of the woman who could hold at bay all demons.
"But where will you sleep, sir?"
"I do not think that I shall sleep to-night, Sigismund. And if I do, I have my iron bed in the closet, I do not care to lie too soft."
He looked down anxiously at the small face in the pillow, flushed, he thought, and frail; the hand that clung to his was moist. "A woman is needed here. I am at a loss—if I should do wrong—"
Seeing the smooth forehead pearled with sweat under the dank hair, the Regent opened the drawer of a bureau to take out a fair linen napkin. The boy watched from the pillow. He saw something that attracted him among the linen; when Prinz Stefan turned to fetch a bottle of essence, Sigismund leant from the bed, and, with candid pleasure, pulled a fine rope-ladder of thin silk from the open drawer.
WHEN the Regent returned to the bed, he saw Sigismund sitting up, unfolding, with excited gestures, the length of the rope-ladder.
"Oh, what a wonderful ladder! Will it bear a man? What is it for?"
The Regent pressed the sharply perfumed napkin to his own nostrils.
"I made that myself, Sigismund. It amuses me to knot the silk—we used such ladders for our surprises in the Turkish wars—"
"Oh, yes, I see how strong it is! And steel hooks at the end—but would it bear a man in armor?"
Prinz Stefan took the ladder from the boy's eager grasp, and cast it into the drawer, then wiped Sigismund's damp face and hands.
"It is a useless thing here—I brought it by chance—now you are cool, Sigismund, lie down and sleep."
The boy obeyed, with a sigh of relief and lassitude; the Regent, closing the drawer, thought, "I must find the key and lock that away—why was I too stiff to ask him not to speak of it? But children forget."
He shaded the light from the hoy's face and sat by the bed, taking up absently, a volume of Valerius Maximus that was on the side-table. But he did not read, and so many bitter shapes crowded into his mind that he did not, either, recall that he had intended to lock the drawer.
TONGUES never ceased to wag at the Idlers' Gate; here, indeed, was something to mouth over....
What, the infamous, the wretched Ludmila, to be brought from her outlandish country and placed with great parade beside the saintly bones of the revered, virtuous princesses who slept in blameless austerity within the hallowed cathedral!
So violent was the outcry, so persistent the hubbub that it seemed at first as if the Regent would not be able to carry out his pious intention towards his mother's remains. But, after all, the opposition to him ended in talk.
To begin with, it was discovered that all the vile tales told of Ludmila were without solid foundation; those who could remember twenty years back could give no definite account of the departure of the Polish princess from Marienburg.
It was all: 'I heard this;' 'I was told;' 'They said;' 'This and that appeared very strange.'
And so on, gossip of grooms, of chamberers, of the ignorant, of the lazy. Ah, not that everyone did not believe the very worst, but there was nothing positive to go upon—so that they might protest: "This woman shall not be buried in our sacred church."
What were the facts?
The Princess with her son had suddenly left the Residenzschloss on a visit to her father; soon after her return to her old home she had died suddenly, and the child (a second son with no hopes of his father's inheritance) had been adopted by Stanislas Zawadski, and never returned to Marienburg.
What was there in that? Nothing terrible after all, no public outcry, no open scandal, no accusation, no divorce, no imprisonment; what had passed between Karl Ludwig XIII. and the Zawadski no one knew.
Of course, the Von Frühl, who had been so passionately active against Ludmila, must have had proofs of her guilt in their hands, but they had never disclosed them.
And then, how make a public commotion against the men supported not only by the Emperor, but even by the chiefs of the Lutheran Church?
For Prinz Stefan had contrived to seduce or beguile these learned pastors, not celebrated for their tolerance, and it had been made known to the slightly awed citizens of Marienburg that their own Dr. Spitzbach and Dr. Firmus would assist the Roman Catholic Bishop of Plack who was escorting the body of Ludmila from Poland—there was to be a ceremony combining the rites of both religions, and all seemed amicable among the lofty ones.
Old men might grumble and declare that when they were young a Bishop of Plack would very willingly have watched a Dr. Firmus consumed at a slow fire—times had changed. The Emperor was a Papist and Prinz Stefan his firm friend. A man, besides, who had plenty of money, ah, they all knew how easy that made everything.
So the gossip ended in gossip, and the idlers about the triumphal gate consoled themselves for the timidity with which they endured what they had first so vehemently declared would be unendurable, by the reflection that the State funeral of Ludmila Zawadski promised a fine spectacle. Besides, most of them had tasted, if indirectly, of the Regent's lavishness and easy rule. Marienburg was quiet and Prinz Stefan had smilingly quoted Cicero to Von Frühl: "Nihil tam populare quam bonitas."
Mynheer Stocken, lingering in Marienburg for the trial of Klaus, then safely immured in the Archers Tower of the Prinzenberg, found himself a figure of considerable importance as the center of an intriguing affair; he was, nevertheless, surprised when he was summoned to the Residenz and, on arrival at the Palace, taken directly to the Regent.
This prince sat alone in a cabinet that opened on to a large room by folding doors which then stood wide; at the far end of that chamber Sigismund II. and Kurt von Hohenheim were building a fort with wooden bricks, under the direction of Bolla, the Italian servant of Georges Sokolov, but so far away was this little group that they could neither hear nor be heard, but looked a smaller picture framed in the great open doors.
The Regent sat by a small table piled with a set of books bound in pale olive leather with scarlet markers showing between the gilt fore-edges; a new edition of Seneca sent from Venice, but then unpacked.
He motioned the Dutchman to be seated and said at once:
"On further consideration of your business, Mynheer Stocken, I think that there is an obligation on my part to buy the jewels my brother ordered. I take into account the injuries, pains, alarms, delays you have had in coming to Marienburg."
A flush of relief and pleasure colored the merchant's weather-stained cheeks, his pouched eyes glittered under his tow-colored wig, which had been re-curled since the adventure of Schloss Frühl; he had had no offers for the black sapphires.
"Have you the stones?"
"Yes, Serene Highness. I always carry them with me, because since I was robbed, everyone is so sure that I will not do so."
He took a wallet of common pigskin from his bosom and handed it to the Regent, who opened it. In a pouch of white velvet and chamois skin lay the jewels. Prinz Stefan shook them on to the table—three large, and four smaller sapphires, exquisitely but oddly mounted in a fine filigree of silver that, formed like petals, seemed to enclose the jewels as if they were the hearts of flowers.
The Regent took up the largest and placed it on his white palm; at once the gem began to throb with color as if struck into sudden life; Prinz Stefan was startled to see the immediate surge of azure, a depth like fathoms of the ocean, in a stone not a quarter of an inch thick, an azure that slipped from purple to violet, then to an utmost glimmer of gold.
"I will buy them at the price my brother arranged."
Surprised at the merchant's long silence, he raised his eyes and saw that the Dutchman was staring (as he thought) at the jewels which still lay in the prince's hand.
But Prinz Stefan was mistaken; it was not at the gems that Mynheer was staring, but at His Highness' wrist from which hung the gold acorns with diamond centers.
IN a low voice the merchant said:
"Serene Highness, the price of the jewels is doubled."
It was a shot, if not in the dark, at least in considerable obscurity, and the shrewd, cautious Dutchman drew his breath sharply at his own temerity; perhaps, in being so quick to pounce on his own advantage he had made a fool of himself....
But there was just a shade too long a pause before the Regent answered quietly: "Why this heavy increase?" And the Dutchman was satisfied?... of course, that was why he had been sent for....
"Your Serene Highness has said—I have gone through some trouble for the stones. They are now worth more to me—and perhaps to your Highness."
Prinz Stefan slid the jewels on to the table among the books; he kept his gaze on them, and the pure outline of his profile revealed nothing.
"I have long wished, Mynheer Stocken, to purchase from a certain noble in Muscovy, a green diamond that he has—I fancy to have it set with these sapphires—he is willing to trade, but I have not yet given much leisure to the project. Would you go for me to Georgia, see the gem, report on it and buy it, if it is indeed unique? I would give you an escort of Huzzars and pay you well."
"I am very honored, Highness. But Georgia is a long way off, and a wild, desperate country—"
"I have said that I would pay you well. And with an escort of soldiery you would be in no danger."
Prinz Stefan raised his long Eastern eyes, blank and stately as those of a panther looking beyond his proposed victim and the Dutchman shivered in his trader's heart; how safe would he be, amid the snows and glooms of Russia in the power of Prinz Stefan's Huzzars? In some lonely forest they might so easily dispose of him; but then, he might so easily be disposed of any hour in Marienburg; it had been stupid, no doubt, to try conclusions with this powerful Prince....
"I am forced to remain here till after the trial of Klaus, who robbed me, Serene Highness. I could not leave immediately for Georgia."
"It would be necessary for you to leave at once. That trial is of no importance."
"I am the principal witness!"
"If you undertook my business, Mynheer Stocken, you would leave Marienburg in twenty-four hours."
"Your Highness will purchase the jewels at the price I have named?"
"If you will oblige me by undertaking this voyage to Muscovy."
Mynheer Stocken hesitated; he thought: "If I don't go he will find another way of disposing of me—not so agreeable, no doubt! And it is a huge fortune offered. I could retire and live in peace in the Keizerstraat—but if he intends that I shall never return from Georgia—"
The Regent sat immobile, his glance traveled through the open door to where, in the distance, the two boys worked so happily under the lively and amusing direction of the vivacious Florentine.
The Dutchman anxiously studied this quiet figure, then, took a resolution that was, even to himself, strange, for he seemed to throw himself on the mercy of the man who, a few moments before, he had quietly menaced.
"I could let the sapphires go at the original price or little more—if your Highness will assure me—if I may rely—" he paused, then stammered: "I am a very mean creature compared to your Highness—I never meant to offend—"
The Regent interrupted:
"Mean creatures can be dangerous. To deal with them is part of one's daily duty, usually it is simple—a question of money. But what has that to do with what we were discussing, Mynheer Stocken?" he smiled and added with great authority, "I have no wish to cheapen the sapphires, and your escort will be entirely reliable."
Mynheer Stocken felt oddly comforted; it did not, somehow, occur to him to doubt this assurance; he had always liked fair bargains and he felt that this was one ... after all, if he had chosen to speak ... but as a respectable honest man, he much preferred to keep a decorous silence and turn over his handsome gain; he was pleased, too, that he was able to do a service, if only a well-paid one, to Prinz Stefan, for he liked the man of whom he had heard so much evil.
The Regent turned away his face as he took his tablets from his pocket and wrote out the order for the price of the black sapphires. As he did so he bit his nether Up, and a slight spasm disturbed his smooth brow; he was deeply humiliated. It was the first time that he had paid hush-money.
THE bright scarlet ball had lodged maddeningly out of reach in the high, flat houghs of the cedar tree which was blue-black as drifted thunder-cloud in the summer heat.
Sigismund II. valued the ball which had been given him by Prinz Stefan that morning; it was of fine wood, covered in leather, and stamped with the signs of the Zodiac in gold and black; the boy was troubled at losing the pretty gift and Kurt disliked to be thwarted by something that was only just out of reach; but the smooth trunk defeated them; the sunny afternoon that had seemed so full of joy lay suddenly heavy and full of vexation on their hands.
A glimpse of Von Frühl walking near on his way to the Palace sent them both running from the tantalizing tree; of late the Chancellor had conducted himself with the utmost vindictiveness towards Kurt and with contemptuous civility towards the Prince; this enmity was a sport to the older boy, but Sigismund was secretly afraid of the grim man, with his glittering looks and withering sneers who had, for as long as he could remember, been in power over him; when Kurt's candid laugh rang out with robust, candid amusement, Sigismund's smile quivered with apprehension in response to Von Frühl's cold reproofs.
When the Chancellor had disappeared behind the avenue of ilex, then withered to a hue of dried seaweed, the two boys crept back to the cypress and looked longingly at the vermilion ball resting in the fork of the high, reddish wood. They had only this half-hour of liberty before they were due for their ride with the Regent.
"I know!" cried Sigismund, "I will ask Prinz Stefan to lend us his rope-ladder—he has one that he used in the Turkish wars—the other night he showed it to me."
THE boys could not find the Regent; he was closeted with those dull men, absorbed in that dry business, the very thought of which disgusted Sigismund II. with the prospect of ever ruling for himself.
"We will see if we can find Bolla—he would give it to us," he said eagerly.
But the Florentine was not in the Regent's apartments which stood empty, shuttered against the sun that beat so strongly on the terrace. The affair became an adventure, a challenge from Fate; Sigismund was for turning back, Kurt for going on; he, as always in their debates, prevailed; whispering and laughing the boys crept into the bedroom, opened the drawer, that Sigismund recalled so well, and drew out the black silk rope-ladder, displacing, as they did so, a miniature that fell from an open enameled case into the piles of cambric napkins and ruffles.
Kurt carelessly picked this up: "Why, it is Gräfin von Frühl. I thought that they disliked each other so much!" then, negligently dropping the lady's picture, he fastened on the prize, examined the ladder and instantly scorned Sigismund's explanation of it: "Why, how could this be used in war? A shot would carry it away—it is to be flung up, at a wall or window where someone is waiting—it will be no use to scale the tree——"
"Prinz Stefan told me himself that it was employed in surprises," maintained Sigismund obstinately. "Let us try it on the tree—if we threw it up, it might catch—see how strong and sharp the hooks are—it is beautifully knotted, pure silk and very strong—"
"Whatever can it be for?" puzzled Kurt innocently, impatiently. "Come along, let us try, though I dare say that one of the gardener's ladders would have been better—"
AFTER ten minutes of Kurt's dexterous throwing the hooks caught on a projecting bough and the boy was about to triumphantly mount the dangling ladder to the joyous applause of Sigismund, when Von Frühl, then leaving the Residenz, came again down the ilex avenue.
He saw the ladder and in a second was casting his ominous shadow beneath the cedar tree, questioning the boys with animosity and spite, turning what had been a delightful adventure into something obscurely sinister beyond the comprehension of the children.
"Where did you get this thieves' tackle?" he shook the ladder angrily with a nervous hand. "Is that how you spend your time?" he swung on to Kurt, "making these implements for ruffian use?"
"I only wanted to get the ball—" began Sigismund; Von Frühl put him aside with no more ceremony than if he had been a page and continued to scold and threaten Kurt, who stared at him scornfully under lowering brows, the rosy blood staining his robust face, then interrupted, his voice pitched clear above the man's hoarse venom.
"I did not make the ladder. I found it in the Regent's drawer. What harm is there in it, Graf von Frühl? Why are you so disturbed?"
"You lie," replied the Chancellor, speaking more quietly than before, but with greater malice, finding this was a grateful occasion for a long-contained venom.
"Graf von Frühl! You must not say that to me!"
"We didfind it in the bureau of Prinz Stefan," panted Sigismund, paling and flushing with agitation.
"So!" The Chancellor turned on him a bitter smile. "Pardon me, sir, if I cannot take your word—knowing as I do, how you are under the thumb of Graf von Hohenheim."
"You must take mine and his too!" cried Kurt furiously. "I'll not be named a liar! If I were older and you were younger I would call you to account for this!" And his sparkling eyes returned undauntedly the hatred that shot at him from under Von Frühl's weary brows.
"The Regent used the ladder in the Turkish wars—" began Sigismund, the Chancellor laughed contemptuously.
"I tell you, sir, that is thieves' tackle, used for midnight robberies—and—espionages—no honest man would have it in his possession. It is impossible that you found it in the bureau of His Serene Highness."
With that sudden dignity he could sometimes assume with so pathetic an air, Sigismund II. answered quietly:
"We will go to the Regent, if you please, Graf von Frühl; he will tell you that the ladder belongs to him, and then you will ask pardon of Kurt for naming him a liar."
The dismal little procession, an ageing man, two fresh boys, all livid, rigid with distress and hate, turned towards the Residenz. The ladder dangled from the cedar and the ball, snug in the branches, showed brightly through the dark foliage, a mocking of a broken play that would never be resumed.
PRINZ STEFAN was in the low, long music room; he was occupying the short time before his daily ride with the boys by practising with his orchestra, in which he played the violoncello. In his plain, gray riding dress and nigh boots he sat amid the violins, the large, beautiful instrument between his knees; his expression was happy, for he believed that the vexatious business of the day was over and music was his opiate for all troubles. He was completely absorbed in playing "Variations on a Minuet" by Monsieur Jean Pierre Duport, when Von Frühl broke in, followed by the two angry, flushed boys, abating peace, bringing fever and discord.
With a sigh, Prinz Stefan, on the Chancellor's clamor for an immediate hearing, dismissed the musicians. But retained the violoncello, as if he found comfort in it; he made mute movements with the bow while Von Frühl told his story, to which he gave as much importance as if it was the protocol of a vital treaty.
"This impudent He must be brought home to Graf Kurt—it is, of course, impossible that such a roguish thing as the ladder should be in the possession of your Serene Highness. And this false report will damage you, sir, if it be not instantly denied."
Prinz Stefan looked up from the violoncello; the three watching him so eagerly marked that he was strangely pale and that a faint moisture stood on his short, curving upper lip.
"Come here, Kurt," he said softly, and, when the boy was by his knee. "What is your account of this?"
"Sir—" cried the Chancellor, "if my word is to be doubted!"
"No. But I will tear Graf Kurt."
Passionately, but with clarity, Kurt related the unhappy episode of the ball and the ladder; when he had finished the Regent, who was looking down at the clear reflection of the violoncello in the brilliant waxed floor, did not, for a second, reply to the boy's proud, fervent appeal. A dull horror touched the baffled mind of Sigismund II.—supposing that Prinz Stefan denied them?
.But he said:
"Yes, the ladder is mine, and there is no great harm, Graf von Frühl, in the taking of it—"
In feigned or real amazement the Chancellor recoiled; the two boys drew great breaths of relief; each felt as if some unnameable horror had passed away; the tears sprang to Sigismund's eyes with joy, at the relaxing of the horrible tension, and Kurt exclaimed impetuously:
"I could have proved that I spoke the truth—for I know what else was in the drawer—napkins, ruffles, and a picture of Gräfin von Frühl—"
"My daughter!" cried the Chancellor in a queer sharp voice; Sigismund, exquisitely sensitive, discerned a look of pain, almost of anguish, on the features of Prinz Stefan, though this was instantly controlled. The boy sensed that the wrong thing had been said; he exclaimed instantly:
"Oh, no—it was not the Gräfin von Frühl—but a lady with black hair—the same as that which is in the Regent's chapel—"
"Yes," said Prinz Stefan, smiling and looking up from the bow in his hand, "the boy refers to a copy in little of the Madonna in my chapel."
"You remember now, Kurt, do you not?" urged Sigismund, and Kurt, quick to understand him, evaded: "Oh, in truth, I do not remember very well, only that it was the picture of a woman."
The Regent rose and carefully put his bow in its case.
"And now," said Sigismund with an effort, "Graf von Frühl must ask pardon of Kurt—for saying he lied—must he not, Serene Highness?"
"I fear you were too hasty, Von Frühl," smiled the Regent, "and must do as the Prince says—"
The Chancellor writhed in unspeakable humiliation; this ignominy before the detested child!—he began to stammer a hot refusal; but Prinz Stefan sadly interposed: "How can we teach them justice and honor if we do not administer one and practice the other?"
"I still cannot believe that the ladder belonged to your Highness."
"You have my word for it!" Prinz Stefan laughed in a melancholy fashion. "Why are you so amazed? Such things are common in Vienna—"
"Not in Marienburg! By God—it would hardly be credited—"
Swiftly the Regent stopped him:
"Von Frühl! You speak of my private affairs! No more, we have had enough of these stupid quarrels. Pray make your apology to Graf Kurt."
The Chancellor put his hand to his mouth, looked away, then said, in an unnatural voice:
"I request your pardon, Graf Kurt, for naming you liar since I now realize that you spoke the truth."
"I freely give you my pardon, Graf Von Frühl."
The Chancellor turned and left the room without saluting anyone; Sigismund II. looked wistfully after him and sighed: "He will never forgive that! Now he will be more our enemy than ever!"
"What does that matter?" asked Kurt. "Why must he be so curst and cross and interfere with everything?"
Sigismund II. went over to the Regent, who leant thoughtfully against the harpsichord, and asked his pardon for rifling his drawers; the boy was fearful that he had caused some mischief in the queer obscure adult world to which Prinz Stefan belonged; but he was reassured by the Regent's friendly smile; all the while since they had interrupted him he had smiled.
"Anyone might have done it, Sigismund. If I had had secrets I should have locked them away—"
But his lightness was assumed; when he went out on the terrace he could see his black ladder dangling above the distant lawns—like a hidden shame brought to the cruel light of day. "Oh, Sigismund, what mischief have you caused!"
As he ordered the ladder to be taken down and the ball fetched from the bough, he reflected, with great bitterings, on the slough in which he found himself. He had confounded Von Frühl with talk of honor and justice and had allowed a child to lie for him; he had even supported that he.
THE loungers round the Idlers' Gate and about the tables of "The White Boar," then shaded by ripening grapes, had yet another strange item of news to discuss—the disappearance of Mynheer Stocken a few days before the trial of Klaus was appointed to begin ... the last that had been seen of him was when he had gone up to the Residenzschloss to take the black sapphires to the Regent. It was very generous, no doubt, of that Prince to make amends for the poor merchant's sufferings by purchasing, after all, the vexatious stones, but had he been paid for them? The merchant had disappeared so suddenly, so completely!
Alois, the Frenchman, who had been valet to Prince Sigismund II. and, since his dismissal by the Regent, had taken the place of Klaus in the household of the Chancellor, was frequently at the Idlers' Gate, where he was sent by his new master to spread and pick up gossip.
He had a strong motive for hating the Regent and did the Chancellor's evil work with zest. He had many hints to give as to what he had seen, heard, or guessed while he had been in the Residents, ambiguous, cautious hints, but each with a poisonous sting.
Alois thought that the affair of the sapphires was strange from the beginning. Who had ordered the withdrawal of the sentries? Who had spirited away the merchant? Someone of high power, certainly!
The Frenchman licked his full lips over the German wine that he scorned to compare with his native vintage; he always had an attentive audience elbowing to be near him—he was so full of witty, scandalous tales—that of the rope-ladder, now—what did they think of that? Ah, lust and shame! Pride and a fall!
THE height of summer had been reached and over-passed as if the pride of beauty and light, reaching a perilous splendor, over-toppled from an overweening magnificence. The late flowers blossomed in violent colors, shades of furious reds and brilliant yellows, as if warmed by a distempered blood, the earlier blooms fell apart on bursting seeding hearts, the fruits shriveled amid withering leaves, the placid azure left the heavens, the verdant green faded from the grass. The heavy wheat on the plains rustled waist-high and showed the scarlet poppies between the golden stems; the clear river shrank in the intemperate heat, and the chestnut forest on the lower mountain slopes began to early lose the long yellow leaves which the first irregular and inconstant winds of autumn blew far down into the palace garden; husbandmen looked at the almanac of Erra Pater for prophecies of showers.
It was a windless day when the stately funeral procession of Ludmila Zawadski wound through the turreted streets of Marienburg, and a faint chill, as if ice lay beneath the gilding of the sunshine, was in the thin air which blew so direct from the mountain tops that one might fancy the citadel of the winds to be on those distant heights.
All shops, banks, theaters, and markets were closed, all private Louses hung with black cloths, a great populace crowded the streets and everyone had a knot of crape on hat or shoulder.
This gorgeous procession took two hours to pass One spot and was in every way marvelous, full of rare circumstances, and foreign wonders. Strange carriages, horses, priests, soldiers, nobles—a train of a thousand people, mounted and on foot, with slow, well-regulated pacing filled the streets to the sound of marches and of hymns. The Polish uniforms, the Polish vestments, the Zawadski liveries, the Zawadski fiefs with their individual parade, the great banners with coats of arms, the nuns, the young singing boys in white—all this outlandish and superb display, the like of which they had never seen before, deeply impressed the citizens of Marienburg. Their scoffs died on their lips, their sneers faded, they plucked off their bonnets as the hearse, as high as the houses, drawn by eight led horses, and gleaming with a hundred silver shields, went slowly, clumsily by... perhaps after all, they nudged and whispered one to the other, the dead princess had been slandered—at least the Roman Catholic Church paid her full honor, and say what you would, Rome was mighty—and the Emperor had sent his representative—these holy women and the Lutheran pastor, too! Would all these follow the corpse of a wanton?
Prinz Stefan, bareheaded, in voluminous mourning, on a black warrior horse, with jet harness, rode directly behind the ponderous hearse, looking straight before him at the slow crape-hung catafalque that concealed his mother's bones.
Such few Catholics as there were in Marienburg knelt and crossed themselves as the hearse passed, nor did their neighbors interfere with them. Resentment of the foreigner, dislike of the stranger, malice, envy, slander, were all bridled by awe, by superstition, by the enjoyment of a magnificent spectacle; some of the women even murmured that, be Prinz Stefan what he might, he did well in thus honoring his mother, and here and there a girl sighed that the tyrant was handsome enough in his well-cut sables. But the appearance of Prinz Stefan was not such as takes the vulgar, and his dark complexion was held suspect in this northern clime; he was, in everything, alien to all of them; they were silent, overcome by his magnificence; avid to glut their curiosity, but they would never like him, understand him, nor willingly obey him. And his greatest offense was that he seemed not to know that they were there, but rode as grave, as self-absorbed, as if he passed through empty lanes in a lonely twilight.
Quick spiteful comment was roused by the absence of Sigismund II. from this doleful pageantry; no one knew that it was the express wish of the Regent that the boy should' not, so soon after the death of his father, assist at another funeral, and that the little Prince and Kurt von Hohenheim, with wine and food in wicker baskets, roamed free as bees with Bolla, the gay Florentine, up the mountain slopes in delightful holiday, tracking a stream to its source, quaffing the upland pool.
All the ministers swelled the procession; Von Frühl's sharp profile, lined with suffering, showed in gray outline through the windows of his glass coach; his daughter was with him; the women in the streets thought that her famous beauty was nothing so much, paint went ill with her mourning and her face was wilted by discontent, as the flowers, at the turn of the year, are blasted by too fierce a sun when the freshness of the petals is lost.
AS the Contessina Serafina left the Cathedral at the end of the tedious and exhausting ceremony, she, with other ladies had to pass where the Regent stood beside the Bishop of Plack. As she did so, she stumbled and fell, dropping to her knees in her heavy mantle so that instinctively the Prince, in alarm, leant forward and raised her light weight, encumbered by the mourning draperies.
For a second the stately pageantry was interrupted while Von Frühl's daughter lay in the arms of Prinz Stefan, then, with a formal apology, a low reverence, she had passed on demurely with the other ladies, who were amused at the deep flush that passed over the face of the Regent, who had seemed strangely wrought up and enthusiastic during the long ritual, and forgetful of all about him ... was he a monk or a hermit that he must color so at the touch of a woman against his heart? Nay, they had not heard that he was so modest.
He took his place in the procession and his head was sunk a little on his breast so that George Sokolov, who loved him best of any there, peered at him anxiously.
Ah, if he, Stefan Zawadski, had believed that he had seen Heaven open a little above him, a corner of a veil raised as he prayed, she had contrived to bring him to earth again. How was it possible that he had once believed her noble, lovely in her soul, lofty in her spirit? As well hope to get the whole ocean echoing in a frail, hollow shell, as hope to find mighty virtues and passions animating that shallow heart. Oh, lust and shame! A vile rumor, a fond, vicious woman!
EVEN through the darkness of her own hidden tempests, Serafina began to notice the ill looks of her father and to pity them. She asked him if these late heats in the city, which seemed to draw up all the corruptions of the summer, were not blasting him?—If he would not be wise to withdraw to the mountains in villagiatura, as did most of the nobles?
"If Prinz Stefan stays in Marienburg, I must," replied Von Frühl sullenly. "He says that he will remain here till October as there is much business that he intends to learn."
"And where will he go then?"
"To the hunting lodge at Frederiksburg, perhaps. I do not know. He has sent to have that house put in order." The Chancellor turned, suddenly nervous, on his daughter. "But you, why will you remain here, when you might be with the Court. The Regent himself advised me to send you away—"
"The Regent? What excuse had he for offering advice?"
"I was complaining to him of the great scandal and distress to you of this accursed robbery—and he said: 'Why allow her to remain here, at a Court of children and soldiers, when she is accustomed to the delights of Vienna?' I, too, would rather that you left me, Serafina, I want to have my hands free."
He spoke so brokenly, so wildly, so contrary to his usual suave restraint, his face was so distorted and distressed that, in alarm, she asked:
"Free for what object, what end, father?"
"To struggle against Prinz Stefan with all my resources—he has resolved to remove me as soon as, with decency, he may. And I have resolved to ruin him—I believe that I can do it—I have all the materials in my hands."
She interrupted impatiently.
"Cannot you, father, with some charity and moderation, some guile and patience, endure the Regent for his term of office? You will fret the country into a tumult and undo us all—"
"You understand nothing. This man intends to displace me. Do you think, after all these years of power, I can endure idleness at his command? He seduces the young Prince from me. And if you knew, Serafina, the insolence that I have to endure from the presumptuous Kurt—"
She said flatly: "I am sorry that you should make an enemy of the Regent, and I cannot conceive how you may be able to ruin him."
"Mynheer Stocken has been spirited away. But Klaus remains. And I have been to the Prinzenberg and seen him."
The waving of the heron feather fan in her long hand ceased abruptly; she leaned forward with parted lips while he unfolded what use he intended to make of Klaus....
SIGISMUND II. found occasion to say nervously to the Regent:
"You are not angry with Kurt, are you, sir?"
"Why should I be angry with him?"
"He thinks that you are. Graf von Frühl says that you are—says that you will never forgive—about the ladder—"
The Regent looked down into the small face turned so earnestly towards him; he felt like one who fights an invisible enemy.
"Kurt feels, sir, that he did wrong, something that hurt or offended you. I think we both did—though I do not understand quite what it was—"
"Sigismund, if you had done wrong I would have punished you—but I take it to have been but an innocent mischief. Who makes so much of it? Why is it not forgotten?"
"Why, the servants, sir, and our tutors—"
The Regent checked him.
"A pity, Sigismund, that we cannot keep our affairs from these dependents, who are nearly always base and make but puddled streams of our clearest intentions."
His voice was sad, for he saw well enough the web Von Frühl and his creatures strove to create about him, and the boy thought this emotion was concealed vexation at the behavior of Kurt.
"Why do you look so bewildered, Sigismund?" asked Prinz Stefan tenderly. "Indeed, indeed I am not angry."
The boy could not express the cause of his confusion, for he was baffled between the instinctive trust and liking that he felt for this man and what others said of him; Von Frühl, for instance, had foretold this soft behavior on the part of Prinz Stefan: "Ask him if he is offended and he will smile and be loving—but he only waits his chance to strike, like a purring tiger."
So Sigismund II. gazed earnestly at the pale noble face turned towards him, and wondered, in dismal fear, if indeed it concealed a thousand treacheries.
Prinz Stefan was thinking: "This court has grown strangely corrupt—all seems ruled by the spite of grooms—Von Frühl's influence? There should not be so much vileness—all poisoned by these jackals!" He was a little confounded, for he had always lived openly and never found any difficulty in attaching honest, loyal men to his person "I thought I had purified the place with the dismissal of Alois." Aloud he said, unable to endure the boy's poignant look, beseeching and yet reticent, half afraid, half bewildered, yet so desperately eager to be neither afraid nor bewildered, but to be joyous, frank and friendly.
"I will give you Mario Bolla for your body servant. He will see to it that you are not plagued by these idle follies."
THE Contessina Serafina's perfume shop was in the Mittelstrasse, near the Cathedral. There her soaps, unguents, toilet waters, essences, and washes were all made in a laboratory set in a garden at the back of the shop, where plots of herbs and aromatic plants grew sleek with careful tending.
Everything that Serafina used was scented with African pinks, and beds of these small, dark crimson, or striped saffron and white, with pale bluish leaves, made sweet the walks of small alabaster stones. In glasshouses beyond, other carnations, tied in red pots, budded, all ready for the winter, so that no inclemency of the season might deprive beauty of her Eastern scent.
Serafina came frequently to this costly establishment for the bleaching and dyeing of her hair, for baths of asses' milk, for masking with warm wax, for sundry such delicacies that it suited her to have in these cool secret chambers, rather than in her own house.
She always took Renata von Cüstrin or a waiting woman with her, and sometimes they would wait hours for her in the antechambers, yawning, playing with a white squirrel in a cage, or staring idly through the window at the common people on their common errands who went up and down the Mittelstrasse.
On this occasion Serafina said to Renata:
"Do not wait for me. I am so weary that X shall He for hours in the baths, and the masking with wax, and my hair, will take a long while. It will be soon enough if you return at sunset."
The Gräfin von Cüstrin was a little surprised at this, for it was then midday, but consented agreeably, and Serafina went alone into the apartments at the back of the shop.
She did not, however, take any baths nor maskings, nor did she disband her locks for burnishing or curling. She purchased a smoke-blue phial of essence that she emptied into her bosom; she ordered some ointments; she adjusted a small traveling visor over her brooding face, and telling the perfumer's assistant that the Gräfin von Cüstrin was waiting for her below, left the shop, a few moments after her elegant carriage and her easy duenna had left the perfumer's door with the sign of the golden pestle and mortar on a wooden scarlet shield.
Serafina wore a green walking dress that was not too rich for a citizen's wife of the better sort and attracted no attention whatever as she walked through the crowded streets, out of the stone gates on the north, opposite the side of the city where the Residenz was situate and slowly, first by the road, and then by the paths, went up the mountain, through the groves of yellowing chestnuts, towards the little stone summerhouse, or hunting-lodge, built by Sigismund X., near the old shrine where Sanctus Paulus had meditated in granite till the Iconoclasts discovered his retreat.
IT was a long time since the pampered woman had walked so far, or been so long in the open air; she was soon fatigued, soon slightly giddy from the sense of wide space about her, of mountains above her, and her heart beat quickly because of the steady ascent.
She seemed, she thought, to have come a great distance, and there was no sight of the white facade near the ravine and the mill; supposing she lost her way: she had only vague directions to guide her... she had been forced to take a long way round in order to avoid the little village at the foot of the mountain—a miserable place, a church, a few cottages, a bridge over the widening mountain torrent, a few goats, some cattle ... she might have, she believed, walked through those stupid rustics without any fear of any of them, absorbed as they were with their first harvest of apples and nuts, knowing her; none of them ever came to the city; but she must be prudent in detail seeing how imprudent the whole expedition was. And perhaps, after all, he would not be there, though it had been a command that she had slipped into his hand when she had feigned to swound in the Cathedral: "Be at the mountain lodge of Sanctus Paulus by three o'clock on the next Friday. I shall rely on this."
SERAFINA suddenly saw above her the small stone building, rising sheer from a ledge of rock which overhung leaping water breaks, beyond was a disused mill, with the somber black wheel motionless and dripping dank weeds—during all her upward journey she had heard the sound of falling water—near, far—incessant.
Above the modest edifice grinned the white boar on a stone weather-stained and defaced shield; the house had nothing else of dignity nor distinction, for it had been built by Sigismund L as a place of retreat for those moody meditations to which he was much given in his latter years, loving much to wander up the mountain ravines with a Greek or Latin Bible, or a "De Animantibus Subterraneis" of Georgias Agricola under his arm, for he found consolation, after a life of brutal action, in the windings of logic and speculations on other worlds. Above the ruined shrine overgrown with thick grass, was a mountain ash, hung with berries weighing down the slender boughs.
Serafina saw that the door was open; she was much exhausted and wondered if this caprice of hers had been worth while. Yet if he should be there, they might have some hours together in a lovely solitude—longer alone than they had ever had before. And that would be worth any risk, any fatigue.
She crossed the threshold and saw him waiting within, cast on a high settle by the cold hearth on which was a scatter of dead ashes. And all her joy at finding him was overcast by the knowledge that he had not been watching for her at door or window.
THOUGH the hunting lodge of Sanctus Paulus had long since been disused, it had not been neglected; the furniture of horn and chestnut was clean, the glass and leather tankards in the press were polished, and, when Prinz Stefan had opened the shutters, only a small drift of dead leaves, like a broken garland, had fallen into the well-swept room. A dark, smoke-colored flask of Tokaji with the Imperial seal stood on the table near a bunch of iron keys with foliated wards. The room and everything in it gave great pleasure to Serafina, for it was redolent, she thought, of the personality of the man whom she loved. She looked at his gloves, his hat, and a cluster of small, fragrant mountain flowers flung across the settle. She gave him her hands; her artificial perfume had been lost in the ascent. She was odorous of pine, of the pure air.
"You might have let me known that you would come," she said weakly. "That would have spared me much wonder and anxiety."
"We have no go-between and I did not dare to try to find one." He drew her to his breast and she rested there gratefully, yet resentful of his power over her senses.
"I found a way! That letter in Church! Was it not clever?" As he did not answer, she glanced quickly up at him. "Have you one of your fancies about that?"
"This fancy, Serafina, that if you had truly loved me, you had not given me that when my hands were still perfumed by the rosemary crown I had laid on my mother's grave." He kissed her as he spoke, but she was offended.
"Oh, you are so full of whims! Because you have me secretly, I am a disgrace to you?" She drew away from him and he did not endeavor to detain her. "The funeral was a folly—it put all against you, raked up old scandals, and must have cost a great deal of money."
"Poor Serafina! Are you not very fatigued, coming up the steep path? Why did you choose this place, my love?"
He poured out a glass of the Tokaji and set out on some majolica plates he had found the food he had brought up with him in a knapsack.
Serafina watched him with helpless anger; never had she been able to break down his inflexible restraint.
"I wanted to be alone with you—away from everyone."
She sunk on the settle, and pulled to pieces the cluster of wild flowers as she spoke. "Besides, I have something important to tell you."
"Will you not be missed?"
"I have arranged everything. Do not let us waste time talking about that. Does anyone ever come here? And if by chance one of us were seen it would not greatly matter—some tale would serve."
He brought her the wine and the food. The door stood open behind him, on yellow leaves, yellow sunshine and the blue mountain air. It was the first day of September; everything, even the smallest blade of grass, seemed to sparkle behind transparent gold.
Serafina took a little of the wine, but would not eat. They had not met since the night of the robbery. She was disappointed that he did not woo her violently. She pulled off her hat and asked:
"Did you buy the black sapphires for me?"
"Do you want them?" He was sharply surprised. "They seem to me of ill-omen."
"Why, then, did you buy them?"
"Because the Dutchman was blackmailing me, my dear. He must have merely feigned unconsciousness when I dragged him from under the table."
"It is not possible!"
"He knew me. I heard he was spreading hints so sent for him and he at once showed his hand by doubling the price of the jewels—in some way he knew me! But be at ease, I have disposed of him."
"Ah—what they say then is true?"
"What do they not say in Marienburg?" smiled Prinz Stefan. "The truth, for your comfort, is that I paid him his price and sent him on a fool's errand to Muscovy."
She looked at him strangely and cried scornfully:
"The rogue is lucky! I think you handle our affairs carelessly—how has it got all over the town about the rope ladder? In front of my father you admitted that it was yours!"
"I could not deny a child—give the lie to Kurt."
He said this so simply that she was almost too enraged to speak with civility.
"Ah, I see how it is! Everyone counts before myself! My name is nothing! What a fool's expedient to send that rascal to Muscovy; he may return, he may speak—and he has my honor in his hands! Could you not, for my sake, have disposed of the Dutchman for ever? And let the boy pass as a liar?"
"Do not rail, Serafina. It spoils your pretty face. Trust me that you are safe."
"You take all so easily; you were ever slow to sense danger, slothful to take offense—easy, whimsical!" She turned on him suddenly. "Why did you advise my father to send me away from Marienburg?"
"Because I wish you to leave, since I cannot. If we both remain here we shall be discovered. Our security is most brittle. And more malice than I knew there was in all the world buzzes about me."
"Come too, then!" she cried passionately. "Let us both return to Vienna and leave this miserable place, where you have met with nothing but misfortune, to my father."
He merely said; "Serafina, I shall stay here till Sigismund is of age," but she knew that he was unshakeable and she fell weeping with vexation and weariness. Instantly he was all tenderness; indeed, he pitied her greatly, for it seemed to him that her whole life was twisted awry and he could foresee no happiness ahead for her ... but what was the sum of all her complaint? Pure unreasonableness!
He was not sufficiently interested in her, he did not value highly enough her love, so generously given, he put the boy Prince, a thousand whims, before herself—otherwise he would return to Vienna, where, in that gallant Court, they might meet without restriction, love each other without being watched, spied on....
"My love, do you know what plans your father has for you?"
"The marriage with the Archduke? I make no account of it—even that I have sacrificed for you. You alone have the right to be my husband."
He did not remind her, she marked, that she had known from the first that he was married. She goaded his silence by adding:
"Is your divorce ever to be granted at Rome?"
"I have not asked for a divorce."
"Oh, I heard—"
"Serafina, what does one not hear? I have never solicited a divorce, I never could."
"Why will you not speak of your marriage, even to me? What mystery is there? I have heard a dozen different tales. Stefan, surely to me you might trust the truth."
He sat down on a stool at her feet and took her hands in his as he replied earnestly:
"Serafina, I will tell you this secret, if you will promise not to reveal it."
"I promise," she agreed, too easily. ¦
"My wife—Lodoiska Sapieha—is mad. We were married when we were very young, and after a year or so she gave signs of lunacy—incurable. And so she Jives, poor, poor child, under the care of the Ursulines."
"Why must this not be known?" demanded Serafina eagerly.
"For the sake of her family—the Sapieha—and her own."
"But if she is mad, what does it matter to her! And why should you care for her family? You could divorce a lunatic."
"If I exposed her, Serafina! And she is not always mad. For long intervals she is sane and fully understands the terror of her situation." He spoke as if he pleaded with the eager woman at whose feet he sat, but she was hotly impatient.
"You allow a hundred tales to be spread, to your discredit—merely to please the pride of the Sapieha and the delicacy of a mad woman!"
"She is my wife. I am a Roman Catholic, Serafina. And—she is not like you—straight and beautiful, Serafina, but—but—a little deformed. And not lovely—only gentle."
"What a marriage for a man like you!"
He rose, leant against the mantelshelf, and stared down at the ashes on the hearth.
"But I loved her, Serafina. We were very happy."
"Perhaps," she cried in bitter mockery, "you still love her!"
He did not answer, still she must probe into what she did not understand, but that hurt and angered her intolerably.
"So, there is no hope of a divorce, for these flimsy reasons you are bound for ever in this crazy marriage!"
"Yes. Serafina, the time is passing. For your own sake tell me now anything that you wish me to know. We may not meet again for long."
She controlled herself, her hands trembled in her lap, and her head sank back against the hard settle.
"My father has resolved to unseat you. He has arranged some pricks under the saddle! He has spread it that you ordered the sentries to be withdrawn, that you disposed of Mynheer Stocken."
"That is true—as long as the reason is not known."
"My father gives the reason—the black sapphires. He says that you had resolved to have them and not pay for them, that you bribed Klaus to trick the merchant to our house, to thieve the jewels and discredit us."
"But this is childish trumpery! No fool would believe it."
"Let me finish. He says that Klaus was on his way to your estates at Schmetz when he was arrested—that you then asked the Dutchman to the Residenz, got the jewels, had him murdered secretly, and the note on your hankers taken from him. He says that Bolla, the Florentine, used the silk ladder to enter our house, to make love to one of my women and assist in the crime, that this Bolla is an infamous character, even a poisoner, and that you have got rid of the faithful Alois to put this rascal about the Prince's person for evil purposes—he has also some other shrewd stroke in hand of which he will reveal nothing. There, I have told you all!"
The Regent listened patiently to this hurried speech. At the end he said:
"Your father loses his wits to invent such an issue of lies, every one of which could be disproved."
"Maybe, if he faced you with them. Do you think that he means to do so? No, they are to be carefully insinuated, whispered, broached secretly, till there is such a brew of scandal that no one will listen to reason. Besides," she added with acid spite, "how could you expose even these stupidities without revealing the truth? No doubt that is what my father hopes, to force you to reveal the truth. That would ruin both of us. If you ordered Captain Lemoine to return from Persia, and M. Stocken from Muscovy, and they told the pure truth, where should we be? If you even proved that you had paid for the gems, would not the huge sum you gave be known at once for a forced tribute?"
"You are quick and clever, Serafina. I cannot take any notice of these slanders. What of Klaus?, Has your father tampered there?"
"Yes. He says that Klaus will say what he, my father, wishes, at the trial."
"Ah!" The Regent stood thoughtfully contemplating the sun, the yellow leaves beyond the open door. "And what advice have you to give me, Serafina?"
"Only this—that you resign the Regency and leave Marienburg, when all slanders will die of themselves. For my sake you ought to do this."
"But I will not, Serafina."
"Then all this malice and fury will increase and in the end the truth will come out, and I might as well stand naked in the market place for the rabble to throw mud at!"
"Serafina, you should go immediately to Vienna, and leave this to me."
"And lose you for ever," she thought, for she was constantly tormented by the sting of his imagined infidelities. Aloud she said: "I will not go. I would rather face anything than fly."
"As you please. Be assured that I shall do everything possible to protect you."
"Have you no solution to this hateful problem? Nothing to suggest to countermine my father? You seem very cool and indifferent."
"On the contrary, I am overwhelmed by the thought of my stupidity in visiting you that night—see what one folly will grow into!"
Serafina rose; she did not care to dwell on that, for the visit had been the result of her frantic importunity.
"Have you nothing to suggest?" she urged.
"Yes. It is quite simple. I shall retire your father to his estates, dismiss all his creatures and put my own people into office. I did not want to do this, but I am forced."
"That may cause a revolution!"
"If it does, I must face it. The army might be loyal, and I could get more troops from the Emperor. But I do not think that Von Frühl is as beloved as all that. In affairs of this kind a firm front is usually sufficient to bring people to reason."
"And the trial of Klaus?"
"That is quite simple, too. There will be no trial. I will have Klaus put over the frontier secretly in such a manner that he will not dare to return."
Serafina was silenced, not satisfied. She was irritated by his complete detachment, his quick, unemotional solution of the problem that had overwhelmed her, his lack of outcry, of exclaim, of passion, his implied indifference towards her own suffering, humiliation and loneliness; and she started an oblique grievance.
"It is not agreeable to hear you so coolly announce that you intend to ruin my father!"
"He will not be ruined. He has amassed great wealth—he grows old. He looks ill enough to me. He cannot endure these brouhahas of politics and passion. Let him find peace and ease in retirement."
"To him, loss of power will be ruin! And you show no remorse."
"I feel none," smiled the Regent. "He strove his utmost to ruin me—and mine—twenty years ago, did he not? But yet, I feel sorry for this, Serafina, that I have done him a private wrong—with you. In Vienna it seemed different—but here—"
"I do not understand!"
"One does not care to have a secret advantage Over an enemy. He values you above all his possessions, and I—" He broke off abruptly, troubled, downcast.
She became more angry at this. She had no love for honorable actions, and his niceties and scruples (as she named them) exasperated her. The afternoon was passing and their interview had been merely tedious.
"You should be glad of this subtle revenge on him," she cried cruelly, "in that you have made of me what he said your mother was!"
To her pleasure she observed that this shaft had gone home; he could not answer, and turned away, then she, in a transport of passion, ran after him, and caught his arm.
"Oh, did we come here for this! Love me a little! I meant nothing of what I said! I have suffered, too; my life is wholly wretched!"
"Poor Serafina—how can I comfort you!"
TO linger any longer would be an open folly. She must not allow the Gräfin Von Cüstrin a chance to ask for her at the perfumer's shop; no, she must be ready, in the ante-chamber, after having made some second purchase. How hateful to have to think of these miserable details in her present state of delicious lassitude.
She would have liked to have lain, drowsy, warm, in this upper room, on this long couch with scarlet cushions, watching the yellow chestnut leaves waving across the window. The tittle stone house seemed to her enchanted. She would willingly have lived here all her life. How tediously stretched ahead all her barren to-morrows....
She sat up, with heavy reluctance, laced her chemise, buttoned her coat; he knelt by the bed, holding her plain, latchet shoes. She looked down at him and wondered if he knew how utterly he pleased her ... she had sufficient experience to know that it was rare enough for a woman to find a lover who was not in some way a substitute, a make-shift, a second best.... In Stefan Zawadski she had found this rarity, a man who completely pleased her, satisfied her, with whom she was content. Yet there was so much in his soul and mind that she neither understood nor liked; many of his actions she hated, much of what he said made her angry, but let him only put his arms about her and be kind and she could forget, forgive everything.
As he buckled her shoes she leant forward and lightly touched his hair. In this last, complete intimacy she had cast aside all their doubts and difficulties. She thought that she had him again completely, as in the Vienna days, and she asked, in full confidence, when they should meet again?
But he replied, not raising his eyes from her buckles, that he drew carefully over her high instep:
"We must not meet again, Serafina. Not in Marienburg or here."
"What would you condemn me to!"
"I will not do it, my sweet. This is an end."
She got to the floor and looked at him as he still knelt. "The end?"
'"While we are Both here, Serafina. Do you not see that we dance on an abyss?"
She crossed to the window and looked out on the long yellow leaves so near the casement.
"Your wife, Stefan—this Lodoiska—is she likely to live long?"
He had risen (she saw from the corner of her eye) and was leaning against the bed rail.
"No. She is like—in any sudden convulsion—to die."
"You think me brutal to ask! But—when you are free—will you marry me, Stefan?"
"Our love is not that on which marriage is founded, Serafina. I should not please you long—and your father."
"Never mind that. Will you give me your promise to marry me when you are free?"
"This is a heavy discourse for a tender hour."
"Oh, answer me!"
"Then—no."
"Why?"
"For the same reason that any other of your lovers would give, Serafina," he smiled.
"My other lovers!" She had not expected this and had no reply in her shame and dismay. "It is not true!" she echoed childishly.
"Serafina, this honor of yours I take such pains to preserve intact before all is not such as a man joins to his own."
"I have been faithful to you," she stammered, overwhelmed.
"Have you? Ay, since we met, and I thank you for it—but before, nay, my dear, the world being as it is, it is your first lover whom you should ask to marry you."
"How is all this known? Do men, then, talk?" she cried, betraying herself in her fury and amazement.
"No. But without words a woman's gallantries become public."
"Public!"
"Not here, but in Vienna—if not public, but known to those who care to know."
"Yet you advise me to return to Vienna!"
"Were you not made for such a life?" he asked, moving towards her. "Will you not forget all this and part lovingly from me?"
She had no answer; she felt like a chastised child; she had been so sure that she had deceived him. What emphasis she had put on her surrender, her sacrifice—and all the while he had known, and never revealed his knowledge till she had directly challenged him! She had been living then in a fool's paradise. Perhaps others knew also? No wonder the Archduke dangled! Perhaps she was quite ruined, secure as she had felt herself and would never find a husband save one whom she despised.
She picked up her hat, and, brushing past him as he waited for her answer, went down the stairs, across the hall where the mountain flowers withered on the tall settle, and out under the chestnut trees.
SHE had walked rapidly, but he overtook her when she dropped exhausted, panting, on one of the rocks beside the falling stream, staring down into the valley.
"I perceive that it is true what they say of your treachery," she stammered, "to insult me, at such a moment!"
"Insult?" he pondered, then reflected. 'No doubt to name a woman what she is, however delicately, is, to most of them, an insult.'
He looked about him, delighted at the beauty of the spot. And began, to her amaze and despair, to discourse on matters indifferent enough to her; how he would like to repair the weather-stained shrine of Sanctus Paulus, to set in it a lofty statue from Italy, how he would like to try the effect o£ four orchestras playing at different levels of the water breaks, so as to hear the varying echoes through the perpetual sound of the pure water falling on smooth stones. All this, she thought, as if their recent interview had been nothing as if he had not, by his easy charge, entirely altered her attitude of mind, clouded her prospects, humbled her pride, filled her with terror for the future.
"I have always been faithful to you, Stefan."
She spoke humbly, but her love was in that state of ecstasy that might easily turn to hate. Under all her roused emotion her cold judgment wondered that he should take it all so lightly. Did he not realize that she was dangerous?
For reply he pressed her hand warmly:
"I do believe that, Serafina," but he was amused that she thought this same fidelity a virtue. He tried to comfort her, for he was always sorry for anyone overthrown, and she consented to rest in his arms for a moment, while the loosened yellow leaves blew past, from the mountain side to the valley; but it was late. They soon parted and each went a different way.
AS the Regent went down the mountain side he passed a farmhouse, where the second crop of fodder was being stored under the high gable; a woman at the door was watching the men at work; a lint-headed boy hung to her blue apron, and in the kitchen behind them a table showed plenished with yellow earthenware bowls of steaming soup and thick slices of rye bread; beyond was a spinning wheel, laden with the freshly carded wool. Mother and son stared with shy curiosity at the stranger and wished him "good evening." As he gaily returned the kind salutation he wished that Sigismund II. had the rustic boy's bright color and sturdy muscles, and he decided that he would soon bring his ward up the mountains—to Sanctus Paulus—but, no, the whim of Serafina had profaned that sanctuary.
More than once he glanced over his shoulder at the peasant home and the figure of the woman, beautiful in her rough austerity; there was one who asked little and gave much; served, created, offered with full hands, was fecund, useful, expecting no reward for ceaseless toil.... Serafina seemed barren indeed by contrast, her hoarded beauty very trivial....
"I must be falling out of love," thought Prinz Stefan.
SIGISMUND II., as soon as his lessons were over, tried to find the Regent, but was told, both by Bolla and Georges Sokolov, that he was abed with a slight fever—a return of the Tertian ague he had contracted in the Hungarian marshes—and would see no one.
The boy was dispirited by this news, and found the hours tedious, though Bolla tried to amuse him.
Two episodes in the long afternoon turned his boredom into a vague apprehension of some obscure evil.
First, he contrived to avoid Bolla and to slip into the Regent's apartments—he was so anxious to ask when his new horse and groom that he had been promised were arriving from Poland. Georges Sokolov soon found him and nervously led him away; but not before he had taken a darting glimpse through the half-open door of the bed-chamber and seen that it was empty, the bed smooth.
Sigismund II. felt a keen pang of disappointment; the Regent had deceived him, was not ill, had permitted a lie—as he had permitted a he about the portrait of Gräfin von Frühl....
The other incident that disturbed the boy was this; he thought that he had seen the Chancellor and Alois disappearing quickly at the end of a corridor. But Bolla assured him that Graf von Frühl had gone for the day into the country and could not possibly be in the Residenz—and as for Alois, he would certainly never dare show his face there again.
But Sigismund was not satisfied; if he had not seen the two men then he was being haunted by his bitter dreams in the daytime, and he recoiled from that possibility.
He had never noticed before how lonely the Residenz was; how large, how quiet. He silently fretted over the absence of the Regent; it was mysterious, slightly sinister; he missed him at the table and during the afternoon ride; his games with Kurt lacked spirit and point; he continually looked round in alarm expecting to see Von Frühl or Alois stalk into the room.
No such depression shadowed the bright spirit of Kurt. He was gay, eager, full of devices and rallied Sigismund on his despondency. If the Regent was sick to-day he would be well to-morrow, and even if Von Frühl and Alois were lurking in the Residenz, what would it matter? Who cared for them?
Kurt suggested that they should romp in the long gallery, but Sigismund would not agree.
"I would like to play backgammon, Kurt. I am tired. You had the board in your room."
"I will fetch it."
Swift, radiant as light itself, Kurt ran out of the Prince's closet.
And did not return.
SIGISMUND II. sought out Mario Bolla where he was mending his lute on the terrace.
"Bolla, I can't find Kurt. He went to my room to fetch the backgammon board, and was so long that I went after him; but he is not there, and the board is in its place."
"I suppose the young Graf plays a trick on us," smiled the Florentine kindly, "and hides for sport. Do not look so alarmed, sir."
"This has been a wretched day, Bolla. I wish the Regent were here."
"Why, so he is, but sick."
Sigismund II. shook his fair head. He was past subterfuge.
"No, his room is empty—and now Kurt has gone! Oh, do come along, Bolla, and let us find him!"
The eager child caught the man's hand and pulled him into the Residenz.
But a careful search did not reveal Kurt; no one had seen him, no one had heard him. As the dusk fell Sigismund's distress increased to frenzy. His call of "Kurt! Kurt! Where are you now?." rose to a cry.
BOLLA suggested that perhaps the young lord was hiding in the disused gallery, where he and his master so often played; but Sigismund answered:
"No, for that is locked. I tried the door long ago—you know that. Graf von Frühl ordered it to be locked, for he forbade us to play there."
"But the privy door from the garden?"
"No, no, that is always locked too."
"And the windows?"
"Oh, Bolla, they are round and about fifty feet from the ground! What makes you think that he is in the gallery?"
"Because it is the only part of the Residenz or the gardens that we have not searched. He must have gone into the city."
"But how could he? The sentries, Bolla! And never before has he done such a thing."
Sigismund IL stood abashed by the weight of his own misfortune. This sudden loss of Kurt seemed intolerable, not to be endured—the horror of it was increased by the absence of the Regent. Georges Sokolov had had to confess, sorrowfully, that Prinz Stefan was not ill, but had given that excuse to secure for himself an undisturbed privacy; he was abroad on his own affairs, and the priest did not know when he would return.
The Chamberlain and Baron Grunfeldt both seemed to make much of this piece of information. Sigismund II., even through his acute sorrow, saw the glances that they exchanged.
Everyone stood helpless; the young boy felt that he, in this most horrid dilemma, was in command. He tried to summon some dignity, some fortitude. Only Mario Bolla had any suggestion to make—the long gallery—might it not have been locked from the inside?
"But Kurt had not the keys! But, very well." He turned to d'Osten. "Will you send for the keys of the gallery, please, as we have looked everywhere else."
IT was almost dark in the long gallery. The twilight seemed as thick as a substance, the three round windows were like dim moons, the shadows behind the piled-up furniture, the heaps of old scenery, the tarnished arms, hung dense, like flung black draperies. Sigismund II. shivered. Bolla's lantern seemed to cast no light at all.
"Oh, Kurt!" The boy's voice rose shrill in the solitude. "Are you here? Don't hide any longer! Kurt! Kurt!"
Bolla threw the rays of his lamp behind the lumber—no answer to Sigismund's call, no movement revealed by the moving light, which only showed rolled, faded drop cloths, mimic palaces in painted wood, the broken baubles of Punchinello, lath swords, bedizened properties, cob-webbed and cracked—a medley of gauds and shadows.
"He is not here, my Prince," sighed Mario Bolla; his lean, strong face peered anxiously above the lantern. Sigismund ran ahead, calling, calling: "Kurt! Kurt!"
He traversed, in his swift fright, the length of the gallery and came to the balustrade that protected the spiral staircase that he and Kurt had so often, in mock terror, named the entrance to Hell.
He peered over:
"Kurt, are you there?" Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness below, "Ah! Yes, he is here, Bolla! Kurt, come up at once! Don't play any more!"
The Florentine was quickly beside him and held the lantern over the well of the stair. Incredulous, dismayed, the man leant over the rail beside the boy. Yes, something lay below in the curve of the twisting steps, a small figure flung head downwards.
"My Prince," cried Bolla, seizing Sigismund by the arm, "let me go and see," and he struggled with Sigismund, endeavoring to detain him, but the boy, with a fierce whimper, wrenched free, tearing his coat, and plunged down the stairs, so that he stumbled in the dark, and Bolla, hastening after with the lantern, found him fallen in the curve of the spiral, prone above another child.
Mario Bolla crossed himself; the lantern shook in his hand as he directed the trembling rays over the piteous group.
"It is he!" stammered Sigismund. "It is Kurt! He has fallen and hurt himself Oh! help!"
The wavering light fell over the down hung face of Kurt, which was twisted horribly on the neck.
"He is wearing the mask, the alabaster mask!" shrieked Sigismund. "You know, we used to play with it! Make him take it off!"
Mario Bolla had also seen the white visage of
Kurt von Hohenheim. He set his lantern on the step, snatched at Sigismund with all his strength, dragged him to the head of the stairs where the others had gathered, staring, waving candles, and cried:
"Go down and take up what lies below!"
The boy writhed in his grasp, screaming to be free, to go to Kurt, but the Florentine, who was a wrestler, and a man of great force, held him tightly and carried him out of the long gallery.
SOME lacqueys, under the direction of Baron d'Osten, raised the body of Kurt von Hohenheim from the spiral staircase; his neck was broken, and his rounded limbs, so flexible and joyous a few hours before, already stiffening; he frowned. His lips were strained over his blood-stained teeth and in his innocent eyes was that stare that men think appears only in a murdered corpse.
THE Regent returned, leisurely, at the hour of sunset, along the terrace of the Residenz; his attire, so simple that it might have been that of one of his own rangers, and the cluster of fading mountain flowers in his hat, amounted to a disguise; but it was already twilight, and he was tolerably certain of meeting no one before he gained his own apartments.
He was in a good humor, he knew not why. What Serafina had told him had disturbed him little. He felt himself able to deal with Klaus, as he had dealt with Mynheer Stocken, and he intended to remove Von Frühl from all opportunity to meddle in his affairs. The Regent felt, too, a certain lightness of spirit, a sense of hope and expectancy that usually came to him when he began, or ended, a love affair.
So, careless of who might overhear him, he sang softly one of the melodies he had lately been playing on the violoncello—"ll re pastore."
He was surprised to see two figures waiting at the door of his apartments—Georges Sokolov, whose face looked horrid pale above his black habit, and Mario Bolla, with a crucifix in his hand.
The Regent ceased singing.
"Something—evil?" He stepped into the room with a quickly sensitive apprehension of some great misfortune.
The priest took his hand and gazed at him earnestly.
"My son, Kurt von Hohenheim has been found dead in the stairway in the long gallery."
"Little Kurt! Dead?"
"A broken neck. But the surgeon says there are bruises on his throat. There is a growing suspicion of—evil."
"Little Kurt, dead!" The Regent pulled off his hat, then added faintly: "Mario Bolla, were you not in charge of these boys?"
The Florentine went on his knees while he related in a voice harsh with distress all the circumstances of the loss and discovery of Kurt yon Hohenheim.
The Regent stood to hear as if he held himself up to listen to a sentence condemning him to unspeakable ignominy. He grasped the hand of Georges Sokolov, and, while he listened, seemed to shrink and dwindle like a man, bent by increasing burdens, shrinks and dwindles from his ease and pride.
When Mario Bolla had no more to say, and the priest stood silent, the Regent whispered:
"An accident! The child was used to play there."
"The door was locked—he had no key," sighed Georges Sokolov, looking up. "He went to the Prince's room—everyone wonders. A full investigation is expected."
"And shall be made."
"But—your absence? I had to let all know that you were not in the Residenz," murmured the priest, pale with sorrow.
Stefan Zawadski leant against the wall; Mario Bolla rose from his knees and ran to hold up his master with the same energy as that with which he had supported him when the ball struck his shoulder at Passowitz.
"If I had not left my post this might not have happened—"
Not venturing to look at the man who spoke on this harsh, broken note of anguish, the priest replied:
"You have been bitterly punished." The Regent put aside Bolla and stood erect. "Sigismund—I must go to Sigismund—" The priest caught his sleeve.
"Sir—he will not see you—"
"Not see me?"
"You must understand what he believes—what they all insinuate;—he thinks you were angry about the rope-ladder—he has been taught that you never forgive. You let him lie—about that—woman's—picture. You let Bolla lie for you—to-day; you see, my prince—all works to one end—"
"No, no," cried the Regent, as the meaning of what the priest said pierced his anguish. "No, that's impossible—"
"We deal with an innocent soul, as candid, as aside, easily blasted as a May bud!" Georges Sokolov turned his face.
"They will kill him between them—no, no, I must go to him. But indeed, you are wrong, father—he cannot suspect—"
"I know what he suspects," sighed the priest, "do not go to him."
SIGISMUND II. lay in his great bed, drowsy from an opiate the doctor had given him, but fully conscious of his intense misery, his shocking bereavement. He was utterly lonely and without hope; he lay rigid, wishing to die. All the people who came and went in his shadowed room were to him all enemies, magicians, demons. No one, nothing was to be trusted in a world in which Kurt could die.
He held his grief inviolate as an overwhelmed soldier in final defeat will keep his standard immaculate among hosts of armed men.
None of those who stooped over him, whispered, pryed, and consulted, round his bed, surprised a sigh, a tear, a complaint; he opposed a stubborn silence to their probings, their flatterings, and lay with his face hidden in the pillows.
When he was struggling with the fumes of the narcotic mess they had forced on him he had heard two of these intruding shapes from whom he had no escape, chatter in low tones behind the white wool curtains with the foxgloves.
"—treacherous! He decided on this from the first! His revenge for the ladder—"
"Abominable!"
"But he murdered enough children—heretics, as he called them—in Hungary."
"Have they sent for Von Frühl?"
"Yes. This will mean, of course, the end of the Pole."
The voices faded into a meaningless chitter; Sigismund II. was not quite sure that he had heard them—they were, perhaps, part of the phantasmagoria that circled about him, that flowed, with a thousand wavering shapes bred from the poppy with which they had dosed him, round two immovable horrors, the black spiral staircase where Kurt lay head downwards with the alabaster mask on his face, and the erect figure of the Regent, dark, slim, smiling, but on the verge of some appalling transformation.
Sigismund 33. clenched his hands under the clothes; the very worst had befallen; there was only to wait and endure with fortitude. He knew, instinctively, that he ought to have courage and that was the only knowledge left in the chaos that engulfed him.
THE bed-curtains were slowly drawn aside and the Regent looked down at him; Sigismund lay rigid, staring.
Stefan Zawadski's face was changed by vehement emotion; the bony structure, the wide cheekbones, the slightly jutting jaw, the hollows in the temples, was painfully visible beneath the pale, taut flesh, the full lips were strained so that all the curves were effaced, the nostrils were unnaturally dilated and the large dark eyes were suffused with blood.
Sigismund gazed at this face and the changed details of the features, then slowly drew himself away, farther, farther away, still rigid, clutching at the sheets so that he was at bay, staring, at the far end of the bed.
The Regent grasped the curtains as if to support himself, then sank on his knees on the bed step and rested his arms on the quilt that was thickly embroidered with white boars, antlered helms, and knightly garlands, worked by Sigismund's mother while she awaited his birth.
For a second Prinz Stefan bowed his face on his hands, then looked up, directly at the boy, who had never ceased to stare at him.
"Speak to me, Sigismund," he whispered, and his voice was harsh on his dry lips.
The boy was as dumb as if he had lost the power of speech, and the Regent implored, stretching his arms across the bed:
"Speak, Sigismund, speak to me!"
Then the boy asked faintly, with a cold Curiosity:
"Are you weeping for Kurt?"
"No, for myself, Sigismund." The tears dripped down his cheeks; he was quite indifferent to this, though no one had ever seen him weep before; he muttered to himself, pressing his breast as if he was in the confessional: "Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!"
The boy turned his face away, the Regent timidly touched his small hand, that lay, flung out-side the coverlet. This was instantly withdrawn.
Prinz Stefan rose and left the bedchamber; he cared nothing for all the curious eyes on him in the antechamber, all the doctors, lacqueys, and pages, who marked his swollen lids and wet cheeks and nudged each other as he passed.
THE gossips at the Idlers' Gate, who crowded in the blue shadows of the great arch, and filled the seats behind the fruiting vine (wrinkled crimson grapes behind curling crimson leaves), had enough material now to satisfy their malice and their curiosity. Had not the accursed foreigner, son of the accursed woman once flung with ignominy from their midst, proved the villain that they had predicted he would be? Thief, murderer, liar, perfidious intriguer, a traitor with a honeyed tongue, all this he had proved himself; had he not shown the bad blood in him by all his actions since he came to Marienburg?
By now the value of the black sapphires had increased to an extravagant sum, and Prinz Stefan's wealth had dwindled in the opinion of the vulgar, so that it was easy to credit that he was in financial straits, burdened with debts in Vienna, in the power of money lenders, and had been greedy for those Indian jewels worth an Emperor's ransom—-Klaus had been in his employ, of course, and, with Bolla, the sly Italian bravo, had worked the outrage at Schloss Frühl; Mynheer Stocken had been quietly disposed of; no doubt his body lay at the bottom of the river—Klaus had suddenly disappeared from the Prinzenberg—did anyone believe that he had escaped without powerful help? Escaped? Perhaps he had gone to join the Dutchman in the secret grave of a murdered man. See how cunningly it was all hushed up! There would he no trial, no inquiry, no punishment. And the priceless black sapphires remained in the possession of Prinz Stefan.
Then, the death of the young Graf von Hohenheim! Who dared to say what they thought of that? Everyone knew how the child had exposed the Regent in the matter of the rope-ladder ...no doubt the young Prince would die too, of grief at the loss of his friend, and then, who would rule? Not, of course, the Brandenburger who was named in the will of Karl Ludwig XIV. of blessed memory, but the elegant monster who had come upon them but of a blue sky, like a summer storm, devastating all fair prospects....
Many people said that he was a magician? his grandmother came from Transylvania, the very cradle of witchcraft—she had patronized Cornelius Agrippa von Wittenheim, an adept in the black art, who was, as everyone was aware, one of the most infamous of wizards. Who knew how many of his filthy secrets might not be in the possession of Prinz Stefan? He kept a white owl at his hunting-lodge near Vienna and was often seen with it on his shoulder—he had, cruel as he was, on several occasions, during his government of Pomerania, refused to allow torture to be used on suspected witches. Ah! how many were the proofs against this most wretched man! Even his long black ringlets were taken to be a devil's signature—odd, indeed, he appeared among the lint-haired northerners.
Some timid folk living near the Cathedral declared that the damned Ludmila rose from her grave at the last hour of darkness and ran about the streets, peering into windows, whispering at doors, hastening back to her chapel at the first pallor of twilight; ah, he had brought a witch, a vampire, a were-wolf amongst them!
It was necessary to place guards about the tomb of this princess to protect from desecration the bones that had been brought from so far; these were Polish cavaliers; many Poles had remained in Marienburg; many of them appeared uncouth barbarians with their shaven crowns with one long lock and fierce mustachios. So Marienburg seethed towards a rebellion against the Regent; so the people turned eagerly towards Floris von Frühl, who seemed to their excited minds the proper representative of their late dead Prince, the proper guardian of his son.
But the Chancellor was not the man that he had been; when, on his return from a brief visit to his estate he had heard of the death of young Kurt, he had taken a fit or seizure which had left him changed; the left side of his face was twisted, his left hand shook, he who had seemed so young for his years, looked of a sudden, more than his age; he talked to himself, slept badly, and was never out of the company of Alois, who proved a diligent attendant.... Was it not possible, nay, very likely, that some hellcat spell was being cast over this faithful servant of Sigismund II.?
THE citizens hoped to see a third funeral pass through the streets of Marienburg, and that the last tragic ceremony of Kurt von Hohenheim's short life would whet their lust for vengeance.
But the dead child's father, a heavy, robust, handsome man, came by night with six carriages and took away his son in a hearse, where the small coffin was covered twice over with armorial shields; he appeared sullen and spoke little; his birth was high, but his means straitened; he had six children, and had hoped much from the friendship of his beautiful son with the Prince Sigismund.
Many horrible stories were told of the boy's death and burial; the little white arm had stiffened in a raised attitude as if he accused his murderer; when the Regent had looked at him in his gilt coffin the blood had trickled from his nostrils, staining the embroidered napkin over his face, so that it had to be replaced; his shape, with a twisted neck, pointing to the bruises on his throat, had already been seen flitting among the lumber in the long gallery. Terrible above all terrors was the ghost of a child, robbed of his manhood, his brilliant future, a thousand glorious hopes, sent unshriven into the dark.
Sigismund II. was seen by no one; he lay, it was whispered, mute, without any interest in life, only kept from a death of exhaustion by the potions the doctors forced on him; but even so, he could not live long and a deep, bitter gloom came with the autumn storms to Marienburg, and muttered furies accompanied the dry leaves blowing down from the chestnut woods.
THE Gräfin von Cüstrin, decorously accompanied by the Baroness d'Osten, came to the Residenz and asked an audience of the Regent; she had told her companion that she wanted a post for a relation, but the truth was that she had a letter to deliver from Serafina.
Prinz Stefan received her alone in the painted closet, and she looked at him with a curiosity so absorbed that for a moment she forgot her errand; she had never seen him closely before and she had heard so much of him in the last few weeks. He seemed, to her woman's hidden vehemence, so quiet. She thought: "If he is innocent why does he not perform some action that would dominate them all? And if he is innocent, who is guilty?" And then: "Is this the man of whom so many heroic exploits in the battaglia are told?"
"You had some business with me, madame?"
"None of my own. I am dame de compagnie to the Gräfin von Frühl."
"I know."
"I thought it likely that your Serene Highness had never noticed me. I live much effaced. I am now a mere messenger. A letter from the Gräfin von Frühl."
She placed a thick packet, trebly sealed, on the table in front of him; he did not touch it.
"Do you, madame, know what is in that?"
"No. Only that the Gräfin, hearing some tale that you will displace her father, solicits your compassion. I am to wait your answer."
"How could there be an answer to such a request?"
He took up the letter, reluctantly the Gräfin von
Cüstrin thought; while he broke the seals and read it she keenly observed him; she was sensitive enough to feel that it was pride that kept his face, naturally so expressive, mask-like; she had had often herself to assume that impassive look in order to protect herself from the boundless humiliations and affronts to which she was subjected in her quality of dependant.
Prinz Stefan did not read the letter word for word; he merely glanced at the sense of the exquisitely written, close-pressed lines; "She loved him, she thanked him for disposing of Klaus, how long must he mourn for young Kurt? Most Important of all, when could they meet? She was weary, weary of all this dull interlude. After the late horrors surely he would return to Vienna for the winter? Her father seemed much broken—surely for her sake he, her lover, could resign all to the old man. She loved him—and the sapphires? Might she, after all, not have them? She could keep them hidden, close as their secret. He might send them by Renata, who was faithful, if stupid—they would go in a little packet, she knew. When would he come to fasten them round her throat? She loved him."
The Regent lit a taper that stood in an enameled snake-shaped holder by his hand; as the quivering flame melted the cold wax he said, courteously:
"Madame, will you tell the Gräfin von Frühl what I do now?"
He held the letter in the fire; it flared, flamed in his hand for a second; he flung it down and put his heel on it; however, it seemed not in malice, for he sighed:
"There is no other answer."
"It seems scarcely civil, sir."
"Madame, you are very intimate with the Gräfin von Frühl—you have lived with her, I believe, for some years now. Has she earned your kindness, your gratitude, your esteem?"
He looked at her so candidly with his tired, sad eyes that she replied with more frankness than she had used for a long time:
"No, Serene Highness. The truth is that I serve my cousin out of necessity because my husband was ruined in the frontier wars and I save my revenues till my son is educated, to keep Cüstrin for him. I have never found anything good in the Gräfin von Frühl."
"Then you will have no pain in telling her I burnt her letter. She will know the contents are safe. Tell her not to write to me again, nor to send to me, through any means, any messenger."
The lady leant slightly forward from her stiff leather chair.
"You intend to—retire the Graf von Frühl?"
"Yes. Tell Ms daughter so. I had done it—before —but—I have been much disturbed of late."
"Then it is not true that your Serene Highness resigns the Regency?"
"No."
"I have heard so many rumors—"
"Ah, yes, those! You may deny them all, madame. I remain here during the term that my brother—God assoil him—appointed."
The lady rose.
"I am glad, sir."
"Why?" He was also on his feet; she thought that it was only by a great effort of will that he gave his attention to either her or her mistress; she was confused by his question.
"I hardly know. I—it has been so strange. I was deeply moved by—the accident. I hope that your Serene Highness will remain. The little Prince has no other kinsfolk to uphold him--" As the Regent did not speak she hurried on nervously: "I hope that he begins to outlive his sorrow?"
"Madame, it is not to be spoken of. I dare
"Alas! He has the prayers of all good and charitable people."
The lady swept a curtsy; there was much she would have liked to have said, nothing that she could venture to say; she left the painted cabinet.
Prinz Stefan pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the stain of burnt paper from his fingers.
AS the Gräfin von Cüstrin left the Residenz the dusk was falling; her visit had been purposely planned for a discreet hour. The air blew cold from the mountains; the trees, all laden with fruits and berries, appeared black against a pale sky; as the lady was getting into her carriage she noticed, to the left of the terrace, a strange outline; the old wing stood a skeleton against the pellucid void of heaven, a mere wall, the unglazed windows blank apertures; a portion of the facade had fallen..,. "What is that?" she asked of the lacquey who let down the coach step.
"His Highness the Regent is demolishing the old wing, madame—the gallery where the young Graf Kurt von Hohenheim—that blaze is where they burn all the old rubbish—the spiral staircase was burnt too, madame. The Regent means to have parterres on that spot."
The Gräfin von Cüstrin glanced at the flare of the bonfire where the fragments of the long gallery and much of the gaudy, disused splendors that had been stored there, flared into the darkening air and cast a lurid tinge of flickering light across the three round windows in the shell of the long gallery. She thought of that smaller flame that had consumed the letter of the Gräfin-Serafina; detached as she was from all these events, a mere spectator with no special interest in any of the players, she felt a sense of some impending disaster that made her shiver into the pale fur mantle that had been the bribe for carrying the letter.
EVERYONE was asleep in the Residenz save two men; even Sigismund II., drugged by possets, lay in a feverish slumber, and his attendants dozed by the bed-posts in the uncertain light of the night-lamps; it was a breezeless night and no dubious rustle of undergrowth, crack of bough, or sighing air disturbed the watchdogs or made the sentries prick their ears; only now and then a ripe chestnut, a loosened pine-cone, slid through the leaves from branch to branch, and dropped to the mellow earth.
All slept save these two men, Stefan Zawadski and Father Georges Sokolov, enclosed in the little chapel of the royal apartments that had no windows and was lit only by the altar candles of pure wax. The black soutane of the priest was the only darkness, for the taper flames showed nothing but rich soft colors and were reflected a hundred times in precious metals, in bullion fringes, in oil-polished panels of cedar.
The priest, who was much exhausted by the burden of another's emotion, found to his shame that his uneasy thoughts were wandering from God, on Whose mercy he had so pitifully thrown himself.
He was thinking of the cedar tree from which had been hewn these odorous panels of fine reddish timber—how a pilgrim to the Holy Land had brought home the close folded hard fruit, green as summer, and planted it with a prayer, and how from that grave and womb in one, it had risen and grown in the alien soil, until it was more mighty than any native tree. And then after more than the lives of three generations had passed, an awful tempest had laid low the towering cedar, and it had been shorn of its dark tresses and bound like another Sampson, dragged away and dismembered to adorn this sanctuary where man offered his paltry glories to God....
"My senses spin," thought the priest unhappily. "I have prayed too long."
He rose stiffly from the cushioned altar steps and glanced with deep, helpless compassion at the man who prostrated his body. How tall he looked in this attitude of utter humiliation, a splendid creature to lie so low in such despair. The weary priest scarcely knew how the time had gone, but used as he was to long vigils he thought that this watching had been for many hours.
Fearing that Stefan Zawadski was unconscious, he touched him on the shoulder; the young man roused himself with a shudder and pulled himself up so that he rested on his elbow; he stammered out the question with which he had begun his penitence.
"Why does God permit such things, father? I am no nearer that!"
Georges Sokolov had no acceptable answer to this eternal problem; he knew that neither scraps of philosophy nor dictums of theology would help this sorrow.
He said, in his faint, tired voice:
"It is your duty to save the other child."
"I cannot. I came here to ask God to show me the way, but all is dark. The Prince will not see me. It is true that I may force myself on him—he has no power, no privacy, poor child—how can I help him when he hates me? And with justice, father."
"You blame yourself too much. Even if you had been in the Residenzschloss it might have happened."
"I do not think so."
"You are fully resolved not to see this wretched woman again—at least—not in the way of love?"
"She is odious to me. When I think that I was with her when—this happened—I could hate her."
"Hate her, no! You have helped to make her hateful—yet I think that you owe her nothing and may put her out of your mind."
"Indeed," sighed the young man wearily, still prone and resting on his elbow, "she was a harlot when I met her and I but took what many had had before me. I owe her nothing. And to protect her honor I have been at great expense and labor. Let her go."
"But will," mused the priest, "she let you go?"
"Ah, easily! Never since I have known her has she given me one instance of affection nor love, though she will use those words. I was but her gallant, and she will soon find another."
The priest thought: 'Not one like you, my poor friend, so readily. And disappointed lust can be as bitter, as powerful, as disappointed love. I fear that this harpy may be dangerous.'
"Leave her!" cried the Regent impatiently, striking the ground with his hand. "The boy! How can I save the boy? He is as shut from me as if he were in another world. Oh, father, if punishment were due to me because of my luxury and folly, need it have been this? I would have given anything, even my own life, to have been spared this."
Georges Sokolov believed him; he had often heard such cries of despair in the secrecy of the confessional—"Anything but this! Oh, Lord! Anything but this!"
He had no consolation to offer; his own faith had sunk low as an expiring flame; he doubted his own right to be a priest, the purity of his own intentions; earthly lures had never tempted him; was that, perhaps, the very reason why, in passive resignation, he had taken holy orders? "If I had had a straight, strong body, a face like Stefan Zawadski, should I have been a priest? Of what use am I, with my thin blood and quiet mind? God has need of more powerful instruments through which to send His thunder."
The Regent had risen and upheld himself against the chapel wall; Georges Sokolov, at sight of this, made an effort over his own weakness.
"We move in the dark, knowing nothing. Only courage is a certain good. The boy must be saved." Forcing himself, he added: "Tell me, I must know?—do you think that—Kurt—was—do you think it was an accident?"
"What else should I think? I have not heard of the murder of a child since the chronicles of barbarism. All loved him, save only Von Frühl, and it would be monstrous to suspect him—besides, he was away from Marienburg. So was Alois, his creature. It must have been an accident—some play in the half-dark, my strictest inquiries can find no doubtful circumstance."
The priest interrupted this agitated speech:
"But why should the child have gone to the long gallery? He went to fetch the backgammon-board from the Prince's chamber—and the locked door? He had no key."
"The Chamberlain cannot clearly recollect if he left his keys loose—a lacquey may have wished to fetch something from the gallery and taken the keys, and have been afraid, afterwards, to confess as much—how many affairs are confused by the petty lies of timidity!—while the gallery was open the boy crept in, on some innocent mischief—and the man, not noticing him in the gloom—locked him in on his departure—"
"Is that your solution?"
"I can think of no other that is not too terrible for credit."
"Did Von Frühl," mused the priest, "have the keys of this gallery, or those of the privy door at the bottom of the winding stair?"
"No, no—"
"Could he, or Alois, have got them?"
"Neither Von Frühl nor the Frenchman were at the Residenz that day."
"Neither," sighed Georges Sokolov, "were you—but Von Frühl tries to fasten the tragedy on you—"
"He can say where he was—I cannot," replied the Regent, moving to the chapel door. "Does he traduce me to that extent? Could any credit such slanders?"
"It is my business to see—to hear for you. I know what is whispered—every day louder—in Marienburg. Anything is credited of a foreigner. They know nothing of you but the scandals of the Gazettes."
"And Sigismund?" asked Stefan Zawadski, painfully. "Does he?—why should he?—is it possible?"
"I do not know. They will not let me approach him. But a child is all candor. Your little necessary lies, so ordinary to you, to him serve as a basis for all horrid possibilities."
The Regent looked over his shoulder at the Umbrian picture, soft, glowing behind the altar steps; that was like Ludmila Zawadski.
"Let us," said the priest, bowing his head, "cease our frettings and our implorings. Hath not the Lord said—'Be still and know that I am God'?"
The Regent did not answer; he believed that the sight of the picture of the mother and child had told him what to do; a repose that was not all the lassitude of fatigue fell over his spirit.
A CLEAN, frightened boy, with lint-white hair, smelling of cows' breath and autumn leaves, uncomfortable in his church-going clothes, a robust woman whose ruddy cheeks were blanched, whose clumsy garments had all been woven and made by her own hands, stood before the Regent in the painted closet.
He had that morning sent for them from the little farm at the foot of the mountain; as he looked at them he wondered at their dread and trembling; why had they supposed that his summons meant evil and not good fortune? He feared that they were too simple and stupid for his purpose; often had he been thus the dupe of his own fancy; it was fantastic to suppose that help and healing could come from these poor creatures he had remembered on the mountain-side; their obvious terror of him disheartened him; they were completely ignorant, too, and knew nothing of what had happened in Marienburg.
Without much hope he said, speaking German slowly, for their speech was uncouth: "I want your help," and he told them the story of the Graf Kurt and Sigismund II.
IN the great bedroom that he had never left since the death of Kurt the young Prince lay listless, too weak to raise his head. October sunshine, deep-colored, mellow, fell on the pile of toys that Mario Bolla had diligently procured, drums, guns, painted boxes that played a tune on the turning of a handle, trumpets, soldiers in carved wood, brilliant balls, intricate games, books with many pictures, wheels adorned with flags that spun round in the slightest breeze. A white dog slept on a red cushion, a gray-bearded monkey crouched mournfully in a cage; the sun-rays struck splinters of light from crystal goblet and engraved flagon, and glowed on dishes of blooming fruit, stuck with the last orange and scarlet flowers, on gilt papers of comfits, and on phials and bottles holding a hundred nauseous drugs.
All this display was unheeded by the boy who lay still, rigid, his eyes closed, his breath scarcely disturbing his thin throat. Into his darkness broke a strange voice, speaking in a strange accent: "Oh, the poor child! Oh, the poor little one!"
Sigismund II. opened his eyes, for this was a woman's voice and it was a long while since a woman had spoken to him or anyone used that note of compassionate caress; he stared up at a deep-bosomed, heavy creature, in coarse, clean kerchief, and smoothly folded hair; her broad face was simple and noble; beside her was a fair-haired boy who gazed at him with awe and pity out of clear eyes as pure as mountain water.
"What ails thee, my poor lamb?" murmured the woman, who had forgotten that she spoke to her Prince; never had she seen a child so frail, so wasted, so branded by grief: "There, my beauty, my pretty one, art thou sad and lonely?"
"Kurt," breathed Sigismund through shaking lips.
The woman bent over him, gathered him from the pillow in her strong arm.
"Was that thy friend? Art thou sorrowing for him? Nay, thou must not!" She felt his bones sharp under the lace nightshirt and her oxlike eyes become moist with compassion. "He is happy with the Good Shepherd. Dost thou not believe that? But thy grief holds him back—see, he cannot rest because of thy mourning—he is not at peace because of thy grieving."
Woman and child looked at each other with complete understanding; with a short cry he suddenly threw his thin arm round her neck and wept as violently as his strength allowed so that her best kerchief was damp above her warm bosom.
"Ay, weep, my lamb, my pretty, weep away the pain, and then be comforted." She thought of a boy she had lost two years gone by; he lay beneath the strong, white mountain flowers in holy turf, and she believed that the guardian angels, when they came at night to bless her other children, did not forget his grave; and Sigismund II. thought of the mother he had never known and the picture in the Romish chapel; these were the first tears he had shed since the death of Kurt and they washed away the darkness of a horror that had seemed as black, as eternal as Hell.
She kissed his swollen eyes, and though he could not remember when a woman had kissed him before, the touch of her hard warm lips seemed to him natural; he sobbed more and more softly while she gently rocked him to and fro.
"Why, see," she whispered, close to his wet cheek, "Peter is amazed at all thy pretty things—never has he seen such treasure before."
Sigismund II. looked through a blur of tears at the other boy, who was staring with ludicrous wonder at the piled up toys, at the dog and the monkey, at the exotic fruits and drinks.
"He may play with them," whispered the Prince; "Peter, take a toy," smiled the mother.
With clumsy, absorbed delight the peasant boy drew a painted sword from the heap and fastened it on his stout person; he was ten years old, but so finely grown that he was near as tall as Sigismund II.; he looked slowly at' his mother for approval.
"There," she nodded comfortably. "He always wanted to be a soldier, did'st thou not, Peter?"
"He has got it on the wrong side," whispered Sigismund II., and he dimly smiled, slack on her breast.
WHENEVER the Regent went abroad there were rude murmurings, angry followings, if he was on coach or horseback, and manifestations of rebellious ill-will that no man could mistake. There were great complainings about his Polish troops who had remained in Marienburg since his mother's funeral, whereat he sent them away and was censured for a foolhardy pride, for most people believed that in these foreigners lay his only safeguard. The nobility showed open hostility and kept away from the Residenz; there was no longer talk of the Regent going into villagiatura. All the leaves were off the trees and Sigismund II, was too ill to move, though he had left his bed and even his chamber under the care of his new nurse, and like a flower that has been denied sustenance, but slowly returns to vigor when replenished with fresh water, so the boy began to raise his face and turn it to the light. But these two must always be with him, the heavy, placid peasant woman and her son Peter; she stayed out of kindness, the child for the splendor of the life, but an elder Peter, the farmer, would not leave them for ever at the court, though he was greedy of the Regent's money. In the spring they must return to the mountain foot. Sigismund II. was told that he might go with them for a while when they left.
It was on a day when he had visited his mother's grave, and been grossly insulted by those who recognized him on his return that the Regent visited Sigismund II. for the first time since the day of Kurt's death. The boy, wrapped in a fine white woolen robe, sat over one of the first fires which burnt far back on the wide hearth. Peter was playing with the monkey; he was thoughtful, for he began to weary a little of the Residenz and to yearn for the farm and his brothers and sisters; now and then, to reassure himself, he looked askance at the open door beyond which his mother sat spinning; he had found that the importance of the Prince's treasures had rapidly diminished, but that his mother was ever necessary.
"Peter," said the Regent, "go to your mother for a while," he glanced earnestly at Sigismund II. who tried to rise to greet him. "Nay, remain so—"
Peter was away, Sigismund II. sank back in the great chair with arms, and stared into the fire. The Regent stood by the hearth; he held his wide leaved hat in his hand, and the costly heron plumes on it touched the floor; a little color came into his own face as he observed that the boy, though feeble and pallid, had no longer the shadow of death across his brow; his hair had grown long during his illness, it hung, smoothly combed, to his waist, and with his fragility, gave him a feminine appearance.
"Sigismund, once I allowed you to lie for me; and once you found me in a deception—I was not ill, but abroad from the Residenz, secretly. Sigismund, you and your playmate may have done such tricks, but you did not expect them from me. Sigismund, the portrait was that of Gräfin von Frühl."
The boy, who was listening intently, whispered: "I know."
"When a man has a woman's likeness or anything of hers he must not allow it to be known; lest it seem that she has favored him too much for her dignity. To prevent that he must even he. So—I would not say the truth. And before her father, who would have taken it as an affront. So the world taints us, Sigismund. I would only have done it for a woman."
"Yes," said the boy, still looking away.
"And when I left the Residenz I went in secret for the sake of another, for whose sake I must be silent. Do you understand?"
The boy looked at him earnestly.
"A woman, too?" he asked gravely.
"Yes."
"She was in trouble and you went to help her but?"
"Yes. Sigismund, I have told this to no one—I beg you not to betray me." And he, who had never explained or excused his actions before, seemed to ask this favor naturally.
"No," the boy flushed; his serious eyes were unfathomable. The Regent said:
"Sigismund, you will take up your life again? In a few years you will be a man. If you fail the country it must have a foreign master. It is very easy to be a peasant like Peter. But you are a Prince. It will always be difficult and you must scarcely expect to be happy. It will be work, toil, disappointment, slander. Can you do it, Sigismund? Remember, that it is what you were born and bred to—"
"I will be a Prince," replied the boy. "I do not feel so childish as I did. I do not want so much play. I should like to work now. Perhaps I could go to the mountain with Peter first?"
"Yes, you shall go, Sigismund."
The boy closed his eyes tightly, and said quickly:
"I would like the long gallery—shut up—for ever."
"It has gone, Sigismund. When you go out you will see nothing there but the fresh earth which is ploughed for parterres."
"Thank you," but Sigismund II. did not open his eyes and a tear trembled under either lid.
It was in the mind of Prinz Stefan to tell him something of his own monstrous difficulties, how all were in a story against him, what incredible suspicions were held of him, how he intended to retire Von Frühl and what dire consequences that might have—but how burden a sick boy with these terrors and troubles? Besides, the soul of Sigismund was closed to him, and he dare not probe into it for fear he discovered that the boy was his outraged enemy.
So he was turning away when Sigismund, wiping his eyes, said:
"Sir, come close."
The Regent instantly bent down near to the fine, wan face.
"That day—the very day—I saw, oh, indeed I saw, Von Frühl and Alois in the Residenz."
"Sigismund, is it possible? Both were away!" He was startled, but he knew that the boy had been drugged, delirious and out of his mind for days together. "Do not think of it—"
"But they were there, secretly. I saw them, at the end of a corridor—they were gone very quickly."
"Sigismund, I do not want to suppose that is true. It is a dream. But I think that the Graf von Frühl is old and sick, and I shall retire him. So you will not see him very often again—"
"Nor Alois?"
"Alois will go with him," replied the Regent, much disturbed. "Nay, I will see that Alois does not come near you." Alarmed by the look on the boy's face, he added: "Let Peter come back now. Think of nothing but to be strong again—much will depend on you, Sigismund."
He called the other boy and left the room, not daring to say more, not daring to stay longer.
It was a night of heavy rain, and the water lashing on the closed windows had an angry, baffled sound akin to his own mood. But he was deeply conscious of the indifference of nature to human sufferings and knew that if his humor had been joyous he would have found a melody in the fall of the bold cascades against the glass. So it had rained that night in Vienna when, for the first time he had mounted to the chamber of Serafina, going with delight in his heart, to his doom.
THAT night Prinz Stefan wrote to the Graf von Frühl, depriving him of all his offices and banishing him to his estates; he prepared similar letters for the Chancellor's creatures, signed,.countersigned, and sealed them himself.
He then told Georges Sokolov what he had done.
"It should have been faced before. I have delayed too long."
The priest was dubious as to the issue of this bold move; he knew, through his agents, as Prinz Stefan could not know, the deadly reputation of the Regent in Marienburg, the strength of the party behind Von Frühl.
"The Chancellor will not easily endure this," he predicted.
"He must be expecting it. I told him and his daughter, I have seen him very little of late and in the most brief and formal fashion. He is so changed that I think he will make little protest. I take him to be a sick man. I believe that the death of Kurt struck him a main blow—he cannot be without all generous sentiment—and he was jealous of the boy, disliked him, and must have been much moved to hear of this fearful accident—"
The priest was secretly amazed at the Regent's judgment of his enemy and mused as Renata von Cüstrin had mused: "Why does he not do some-thing? How is it he does not suspect Von Frühl, who might, by this bloody device, rid himself of two obstacles—murder Kurt and blast the Regent by imputing the crime to him? But no, he sees nothing of this—he bears all meekly, and yet I had not believed him a meek man. There seems a certain stupidity in it also, and I had not believed him a stupid man either—"
Then Georges Sokolov was ashamed of himself because he had thought less worthily of another man than had Prinz Stefan; how should he, a priest, have this quick sense of evil? deny all nobility to Von Frühl and his daughter, suspect a hideous crime?
He was silent, in remorse, and looked in self-reproach at his friend, who seemed to have forgotten that the priest was there, for he was bent low over his desk, writing a painful letter to the medtcus who had the charge of Lodoiska, his wife. The last news of her was pitiful; she had fallen into a lethargy from which nothing would rouse her, yet at intervals her broken wits would piece together a prayer of agony: "that she might die quickly—that they would keep her husband away, since she would not have him see her thus ruined by extreme darkness."
DESPITE the guards placed round the tomb of Ludmila Zawadski in the Cathedral (where the fleecy-haired angels with interclasped hands had been just set on their socles by the master mason) the polished sarcophagus was discovered one dark morning, to be overspread with a wide veil, curiously flecked with gold—a wide stripe of crocus color on a fine mesh, arranged like a head-dress along the shape, tucked cunningly here and there into places between the rigid folds of the angel's robes crimped in stone, and between their cold feet.
No one knew what the veil meant, nor who could have placed it there; some took it for a token of honor, it could scarcely be a mark of disesteem and the urgent tongues clacked—who, in Marienburg, could wish to pay tribute to the foreign witch woman?
The frail, glittering gauze was left beneath the slow wheeling light and shade that fell through the narrow window and news of it taken to the Regent.
The messenger found him in mounting spirits, for Sigismund II. was abroad for the first time since his illness and had taken Peter to see the volariumin the ruins of the old Gothic Schloss at the extremity of the classic gardens, nor had he received the half-expected furious defiance from Graf von Frühl, whose dismissal had been then twenty-four hours in his hands.
So Prinz Stefan was gracious, even gay; but what the messenger said changed his mood, and, vivid and radiant as he had been, he seemed to be stilled and eclipsed in a pause of wondering horror, like one who, pricked by a knife, stays to see if he has a mortal wound or no. He made the messenger describe the veil and then ordered it to be removed arid burnt and a double guard set about the chapel; his effort to restrain bitter anger was apparent even to the simple bearer of the news who wondered much as to the meaning of the veil over the tomb.
It was Melchoir the Jew with whom Mynheer Stocken had lodged who assuaged the curiosity of Marienburg; he chanced to pass the Cathedral square, where the lime trees dripped with melted frost, and saw the sacristan, with cold fingers kindling a little fire of sticks round which the gossips gathered.
The Jew looked and smiled; his ancestors had come from Firenze and he knew what the veil meant.
"It is the badge that the Duca Cosimo de Medici decreed should be worn by every etèra—the yellow veil—the mark of infinite infamy."
"Who in Marienburg would know that?" pondered the sacristan, stroking his rough chaps, not ill-pleased at this subtle insult to the Regent.
"I do not know," the Jew was cautious; the crowd jostled up as the veil smoldered, burnt on the brightly-glowing twigs; they quickly caught at the explanation given by the traveled man; a gross word of the gutter described the women who were obliged to wear the saffron-bordered head covering, and this suited well with their opinion of Ludmila Zawadski, but—who had been bold and clever enough to think of this sly affront?
PRINZ STEFAN knew. He had in his traveling book-case of violet leather, festooned with gold amorin, a copy of the "Dialogo dell' Infinita della Amore" written by Tullia d'Aragona and dedicated to the tyrant of Firenze, the Duca Cosimo de Medici. The book had been fashionable last winter in Vienna; large sums had been paid for copies of this rarity; Prinz Stefan and the Contessina Serafina had smiled over it together—this treatise on platonic love, written by the famous, the exquisite, the noble courtesan. Serafina had found great delight in the proud lady's argument that the real virginity was the virginity of the heart, and that carnal adventures could not touch this impeccable purity which might be preserved intact amid the most voluptuous raptures.
Well he could recall those soft conversations by the banks of the Danube—and how they had pitied Tullia, who, once supreme and superb, had been compelled at the last, to wear the yellow veil of ignominy, despite her appeals to the Duchessa Eleanora.
He took the charming book from the case, wrote inside the cover, "Leave Marienburg within twenty-four hours," and dispatched it, securely sealed, by Mario Bolla, to the Gräfin von Frühl.
THE Chancellor received his dismissal with the lassitude of a man unnerved, broken, no longer able to struggle with adversity; his apathy had for some weeks disturbed his friends and followers; all the ends of his carefully twisted, intricately knotted intrigues trailed in his slack grasp—and what, his party argued, was the use of a revolt, open or secret, without a leader? Neither the Emperor nor the Diet had as much as hinted at the possibility of a recall for Prinz Stefan, and his unpopularity was largely a matter of lazy Up warfare. The people relished talking evil of him, but he ruled them well, he had lowered the tax on beer, he had stopped the press-gang for mercenaries,—Marienburg was prosperous and peaceful and enjoyed the scandals, the misfortunes that dogged Prinz Stefan; they might hate him, but it would take much fierce vigor to rouse them to dislodge him—did Floris von Frühl possess that vigor? It did not, of late, seem so, and even those embittered men whom the Regent had just summarily deprived of their posts were not inclined to provoke a half-hearted rising. Prinz Stefan had once quickly crushed a revolt in Pomerania—ten executions in so many days—better, the disaffected argued, retire to the country till the Regent's term of office was over—at least now that Von Frühl had become so suddenly aged and enfeebled.
But if his friends shrugged and were prepared to resign themselves to inaction, the Contessina Serafina would not so easily relinquish the contest.
"Father, is it possible that you intend to leave Marienburg on this man's orders?"
"I am not well," he spoke peevishly, and sipped at a glass of the cordial that Alois was constantly preparing for him; Serafina loathed the heady spiced smell of it and believed it doctored with drugs; she found the change in her father an intolerable vexation. She would, at this juncture, have given many years of her own wretched life to have restored to him the energy of two months before; exactly when she needed powerful, passionate help, she had none.
"You must not be ill," she declared, striving to instil into him some of her own bitter energy. "I, at least, am not going to give up everything like this. A few weeks ago you would have gone to any extremes——"
"I am weary," he strove to interest himself in what she was saying, but it was clear that his mind was absorbed by other affairs in which she had no part. "Go to Vienna—this should make no difference to you or to your ambitions. I am still wealthy—"
"It is impossible that you can be so sunk in spirit! The ignominy—the failure—"
"There is none," he was fiercely impatient. "All statesmen risk a sudden eclipse—I am old. Let it go by! It is all a dish of lapped milk to me. He is young, leave him to it—"
"You did not speak like that when he first came."
"Maybe. Say he has won the struggle! I'll not interfere. I shall be glad to get away from Marienburg———"
"Why did you once take such pains to dislodge him, to spread tales of him, to work up the secret accusations, about Mynheer Stocken, Klaus, the theft of the sapphires, the—accident to Kurt von Hohenheim?"
She leant across the table towards him, pulling the cloth a little awry in her eagerness, her quick breath was on his shallow cheeks; he looked at her with a half-furtive affection.
"Does it concern you? I would keep you clear of all of it! A moral squalor, my girl! Go to Vienna, forget Marienburg!"
"And you? Will you go to the country and grow peaches?"
"Yes, yes."
"And allow all the turmoil against Prinz Stefan to die away from lack of fuel?"
"Yes, yes."
She was confounded; she whitened and withered under his gaze till he was moved to pity, to alarm..
"Why do you stare so? You are not involved in any of it, thank God!"
She asked, frowning at him:
"Father, do you think that he caused Kurt von Hohenheim to be strangled and flung down the winding stair?"
Von Frühl rose violently.
"You always spoke brutally. It is ugly in a. woman. It may have been an accident."
"But," she insisted, with cruel emphasis, "where was he that day? Why did he demolish the long gallery? And all know that the child had vexed him about the rope-ladder—"
"I'll not hear it gone over again—I'm weary. I tell you I'm not sorry to retire. I begin to loathe the sight of the Residenz—"
She knew when she could do no more with a man; she stifled her contempt and left him; she was herself much shaken, conscious of strange impulses, of new powers within her own heart and brain that hitherto she had been unaware of. In. her own room she lifted a curtain and looked on the night, the darkness was laced with snow, pallid in the lamplight that fell over her shoulder through the pane.
"Who could have put the veil in the Cathedral?" mused Renata von Cüstrin, with as much malice as she dared to show, "A woman, of course. A man like that! There must be many women who hate him!"
As Serafina continued to stare at the steady fall of the crystalline flakes, Renata ventured:
"Who would know of such an old, odd device? And who could get the veil?"
"It would be easily procured," murmured Serafina, and Renata smiled secretly; she knew that two lengths of yellow silk had been stripped off a petticoat hung at the back of the press, and that a roll of muslin had gone from one of the drawers; she remembered Serafina's face when she had related to her the burning of her letter by the Regent. Then she had felt compassionate towards her mistress, much as she disliked her, now she knew only a cold scorn for that drooping figure, that still visage that so elegantly masked a spiteful perfidy.
She was sorry that she was in servitude to this woman; then her contempt became tinged with a tittle fear, for Serafina stood rigid so long staring at the first snowflakes.
Renata believed she saw the real human being who was the Gräfin von Frühl for the first time—no easy creature, full of langors and airs, simulated graces and delicate posturings, but a woman, erect, every muscle taut, every nerve tingling, careless of frowns disfiguring her smooth face, indifferent to her own beauty, absorbed (Renata was sure) in some dreadful resolution.
GRÄFIN VON FRÜHL knocked on the door of her father's apartments in the silent pause of the night; she was surprised when it was instantly open and Alois, full dressed, looked anxiously out; behind him the ante-room showed brightly lit, by lamp and fire, for the weather was suddenly, fiercely cold.
"I want to see my father," Serafina said impatiently, "Why are you out of bed?"
She passed the servant; she was holding a wide-sleeved mantle to her chin, and her face, without paint, slightly disfigured, the eyes swollen, the mouth compressed by lack of sleep and anguish was not (the Frenchman thought) beautiful.
"I am watching monseigneur, madame. As I do every night. May I entreat you not to disturb him?"
"Why do you think I am here if it is not on a matter of sharp importance?"
"Need you, madame, choose this hour?" The valet seemed to bar her way with what she considered intolerable insolence, but had she been less proud and quick to take offense she would have seen that the man was more anxious than impudent.
"Ay, I need," she replied swiftly. "I must speak to him when there is no possibility of interruption—when there is solitude about us. Go, wake him and tell him to come here to me."
She glanced round the disordered room.
"You are packing—stripping everything?"
"Madame, your father, the gracious Graf von Frühl, is leaving Marienburg, taking me with him."
"Neither he, you, nor I," she stated coldly. "Has he come to his dotage?"
Alois surveyed her keenly; he had rather more even than the usual large knowledge of the base side of humanity possessed by servants in great establishments. Apart from what he had heard at the Idlers' Gate (which he largely discounted) he believed that, on his own behalf, he could read this woman very well. He stood with his hand on the knob of his master's door and spoke with a meaning urgency:
"Will Madame take my humble advice? And leave Monseigneur in peace? Will Madame allow Monseigneur to retire from Court? For the good of his health—for the good of his soul?"
"You are very impertinent. Do as I told you."
But the servant did not move. There was a look of sardonic melancholy on his sallow face. The stupidity of cunning women often amazed him—as if they put all their wits into their toilet and their love affairs, and beyond that they were fools....
"Monseigneur is not fit to remain in' office—in the city. It is better for him, for Madame—for me—that we leave Marienburg."
"You put yourself with us? You have been too pampered!"
"I do not speak in insolence. I know Monseigneur as no one else can. I speak in warning."
"Stand aside."
He obeyed, but reluctantly, with a sullen look of contempt, and she passed directly into her father's bed-chamber. What she saw startled her, yet she was so absorbed in her errand that she could have taken much without surprise.
HALF a hundred candles burned in the room; in brackets, girandoles, in branched stands; the bed was undisturbed, cases cumbered chairs and couches, the bureaus were locked, the pictures taken from the walls. And in the midst of this brightly lit disarray sat Floris von Frühl before a small porcelain guéridon on which he was playing a game of cards with himself, flinging down and taking up, spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts, with rapid movements of his thin hands and muttering nervously to himself the while.
He wore his traveling coat of cinnamon cloth, frogged with black; his wig, hat, gloves, furred cloak, lay ready at his side. A Grecian bonnet of blue foulard drawn over his head gave him a grotesque appearance. He started violently at the sight of his daughter, dropped his cards, then clutched them up as if he would hide them.
"Why did you disturb me now? Did I not order Alois to keep anyone away?"
She stood over him, her hand on his shoulder.
"And why are you awake and mumbling over playing cards?"
"I cannot sleep. I do not want to sleep."
"Why are you ready to travel?"
"Because I am leaving Marienburg to-morrow as Prinz Stefan ordered."
"No."
"Yes! Yes!" he cried peevishly. "And you shall come too—unless you like to go to Vienna. At least I have involved you in nothing," he added with a dull satisfaction. "You may play your own game—marry the Archduke."
She took her hand from his shoulder.
"Why do you have so many lights? The glitter blinds me."
She moved to extinguish the candles in the stand nearest to her, but he cried out vehemently and she desisted with a sly look of scorn.
"I do not like the shadows! These long winter nights! Well, well, why have you come here to torment me?"
"I have sufficient reason. It is very necessary that you listen to me carefully. Though you seem to have lost all spirit, courage and judgment, you must find some vigor now."
Von Frühl did not resent the hard words; he rested his elbows on the guéridon and took his quivering chin in his trembling hand. She noted with disgust that he was unshaven, his upper lip stained by snuff. What a miserable old pantaloon he seemed, he who had been so dignified, sedate and formidable—and he was her sole champion, her only support; her pupils dilated with rage.
"I have done all I can for you, Serafina," he sighed, profoundly. "The future is in your hands."
"Very well. Thus I use it." She pushed aside his fur pelisse, his beaver, his gauntlets, and sat down; she had noted that he had not risen on her entrance, but she controlled her irritation at his dismal languor. Her desire to rouse him made her more cruel than she had intended to be. Staring into the flames of the myriad candles that glittered like a fallen constellation in the enclosed overheated room, she told him the story of herself and Stefan Zawadski. She explained the truth of the theft of the black sapphires, the disappearance of Mynheer Stocken and of Klaus, of Captain Lemoine—the absence of the Regent on the day of the death of Kurt von Hohenheim.
Resting on the frail guéridon, the stricken old man listened; when his sunken eyes did flicker towards her they seemed to express a bitter curiosity. She told the story in a detached fashion as if it were no concern of hers, but her intense emotion showed in her heavy attitude, slack as if she had lost the power to move, in her voice, thinned to a whisper in her pulsing throat.
And suddenly she broke her speech to rise and put out half the candles; this time Von Frühl made no protest, but sat, hunched, watching her as if he studied a stranger. She walked up and down while she finished her story, and all about her as she moved were the faint vanishing waftings of smoke from the rapidly extinguished flames.
"FATHER," she sank down on her knees beside him, concealing her face which was not convulsed by shame (as she would have him think it), but cold and stern: "I did not easily come to this. I was cajoled—forced—silent from bitter humiliation, from deepest ignominy. He vowed to Heaven he would marry me. He would get a divorce. Or his wife was dying. Again and again he forced himself into my privacy when I would have none of him—and for shame I was silent."
She had no difficulty in relating this tale, for it was bred of a wish that it were true; one that she had often rehearsed to beguile a loneliness haunted by jealousy—she had it as pat as a romance by Mademoiselle de Scudery—the unscrupulous, debauched man and all his money and power, and she, the poor prey of his caprice, pursued, surrounded, netted, taken—her agonies, her struggles, his threats and promises—easily she related these, for often had she longed to think that it might be thus between her and Stefan Zawadski.
Her father rose at last, without strength, but stumbling away from her, like an exhausted beast, who tries to make the road under the goad of intolerable pricks. She watched him greedily, forgetting to rise from her knees.
"You understand me, father; you realize what I've said?"
He stammered and sobbed, without dignity as she was without pity.
"Eh, eh! I understand!" Then, to her infinite rage he did not cry down the villain of her story, as she had meant he should, but turned savagely on her where she knelt and let loose on her his despair, his fury, using lewd words she had scarcely heard before, his anger the deeper because he had really prized her and held her immaculate, because he could remember her very young, very lovely, and innocent, because he had really, in his faint distracted fashion, loved her. Not only his ambition, his honor, but his affection was soiled in the mud, and suddenly, as he thought of her mother who had sparkled briefly in his cold youth and died in his arms, trusting this sweet girl to his care, he turned aside, leaned against the wall and wept.
Serafina waited for this storm to pass by; she bit her lip, rested her head on the chair that he had just left and endured his desperate, this feeble railing.
When he was silent, save for his pitiful tears, she rose and approached him where he rested against the crimson damask.
"Come, father, all that is over now." She led him to a settee with some show of tenderness. "I did not tell you this to madden you. If he—if Stefan—had been generous—but, no, that is not in his nature—listen—"
"It is my honor," he muttered childishly, "my name, my reputation—"
"We will redeem it—all—or be well paid for losing it. What object or appetite have I in view but this? You shall stay in Marienburg and rule here. We will not be thrown aside like old clouts."
Her force, her vehemence, assuaged his misery.
"What do you want me to do?"
"What do you think that you should do, father?"
"I suppose I ought to—" She was sure that he was going to say "kill him," and wondered much why he checked himself with a shudder on the word.
"That," she answered, "in the last resource. Listen, take heart. You and I will go to him to-morrow. We will—"
"Go to him? I?"
"Yes, as master, to dictate terms. He keeps you in full power, either resigns the Regency to you, or remains a figurehead—he keeps me."
"Do you want your—situation—made public?"
"Public, no! But I would rather be his maitresse en titre than be flung out of the country. I remain—and he puts me above all other women—the vulgar may think what they like. And when his wife dies, he marries me," Serafina added hastily. "It is a good match, as fine as that with the archduke, after all! He takes his oath—to you—about this marriage."
"And—if not? If he refuses?"
"Then I go to the Emperor. I cry Stefan up and down the Empire. I clamor for revenge, for compensation. I am a high-born woman, he ruined me, and I will blast him—if a village slut were treated so would she not go to the law? So will I."
"What would you make of yourself in this horrible scandal?"
"I shall be pitied—the Emperor will force him to marry me—or degrade or ruin him. I was the gentlewoman of the Empress—'¦—"
"I could not face it."
"You will not have to face it—he will give way—he will promise anything, perform anything—to keep this hidden. He dare not affront what I could do—how I could expose him."
She cast herself against the old man's sunken breast with a childish cry of exhaustion.
"Oh, do not make me speak any more! Is not this enough?"
He did not put his arms about her, but sat motionless, his hands hanging slackly, his head drooping, with his daughter flung across his bosom and the candles she had left burning guttering about them, till Alois peered furtively into the chamber with his master's cordial, and livid glances of hate for the disheveled, hitter-browed woman.
PRINZ STEFAN, searching in his desk for a lost seal, came upon the scarlet ball with the signs of the zodiac in gold that he had given Sigismund II., and it brought to his mind that this had been the cause of the taking of the rope ladder. "With a horrid pang he recalled Kurt's bright, flushed face when he had stood before him, denying that he had told a lie; Von Frühl's fury at being obliged to apologize.... The Regent wished he had not kept the ball, it had been taken from the tree by a gardener and brought to him, he had dropped it carelessly in the bureau... the sudden sight of it was ugly.
"I must destroy it before Sigismund sees it."
But Mario Bolla came in with news that made Prinz Stefan forget the gay toy and put it mechanically on the top of the desk between the bronze figure of centaurs.
The Florentine had seen Graf von Frühl and his daughter coming up the grand staircase, she supporting her father, Alois, alert and sullen, behind them; all three moved and inspired (as it seemed to Bolla) by some dangerous passion; he had hardly known the lady who seemed so tall, grand, and indifferent to all the gapings and starings of the lacqueys. The little Prince had been with him, and they had paused by the Caesar's bust in verde antico at the top of the ramp. When the boy had seen these three coming up he had fallen back a little and his eyes had seemed to turn in his head, as happened when he was being taken with one of his storms of terror, so Mario Bolla had hastened to his room with him and left him with his nurse, coming himself to warn the Regent.
"To warn me?" The Regent had listened keenly to the Florentine's recital. He stood erect before the desk and looked thoughtfully on the floor.
"It is your Serene Highness whom they demand to see."
"They should be across the frontier by now." Prinz Stefan smiled suddenly; his amusement seemed to Bolla very mal apropos, but the Florentine knew, from long experience, that his master could only with great difficulty be brought to take seriously anything that concerned himself. What the Florentine did not know was that the Regent believed he had some stable ground for his mirth, for he imagined that Serafina had come, under the aspect of a simple, tender maiden, to plead for her ruined and disgraced father.
THIS sentimental role was not, however, the Regent soon perceived, that which the Gräfin von Frühl was assuming; a glance at her face changed his own expression of indifferent mockery to a look of alert attention.
As she threw back her hood, on which a few snow crystals melted, and faced him, he realized her for the first time, as a formidable human being; hitherto she had been a mere woman, hollow hearted, malicious, but still, before all, and, in a manner, excusing all—a woman....
Now, as she urged the old man forward, Stefan Zawadski, sensitive to an inflection of a voice, the shading of a glance, considered her face under another aspect; guessed what she had done and her present purpose. He pitied Von Frühl, out of whom all the manhood seemed to have been struck; he might have pitied her if he had not remembered the yellow veil.
He waited for one of them to speak, but the old man stammered incoherently, and Serafina's denunciations died in her throat; she also found that she must consider Stefan Zawadski under another aspect. He had, hitherto, been to her merely a lover, she had seen him in no other mood; now, as she tried to face him, some powerful force seemed to emanate from him and held her back, thrust her from him.
As neither of them spoke, the Regent said:
"I ordered you to your estates, Graf von Frühl. Nothing that you or your daughter can say will make me alter my decision. Nothing!"
"I will not go," muttered the old man, mechanically defiant, leaning on his daughter's arm. "I will remain. I will keep my place—my power."
"That is impossible. I thought at first that you were a frank enemy and that we, strangely placed as we were, might have worked together for our natural interests. You had not the wit nor the control of your feelings to do this—your hatred of me Overthrew your judgment. You have intrigued against me by every base means possible. You have been a corrupt minister—in fifteen years of service under a careless prince you must have amassed sufficient treasure to make your retirement luxurious."
The Chancellor stared before him in silence. Serafina gave him a glance of fury for his speechlessness, then cried:
"I have told him everything, Stefan. We are resolved to have justice."
"I am very sorry for you, Graf von Frühl. Take her away, keep her close, lest she shame you."
As he spoke, Stefan Zawadski's long eyes, blank and noble as those of a watching beast of prey, sent a chill over the woman's hopes; for the first time it occurred to her that the tales told about him might be true. She faltered and turned aside. At this sign of weakness her father, who had stood so feeble and mute, flared up with a frantic passion.
"She is already shamed, and so am I! Do you think that you will escape? Ill drag you before the Diet, before the Emperor. I'll cry this tale up and down the Empire."
"What tale? Consider well what you are about to say, Graf von Frühl, do not put into words what never can be unsaid. Your silence is your best kindness to your daughter. Take her away, I say!"
"No, she stays, and so do I. On our own terms." His strained voice cracked. "She was not bred for this. I had different hopes—"
"I say, I pity you. But you must not call me to account for your misfortune."
"I must. I do. I demand that you marry her—the first instant that you are free!"
The Regent turned his gaze on Serafina. He had an air of expectant waiting that frightened her, but she forced herself to say:
"Stefan, you owe this to me." Then, blundering under his steady contempt, "Recall your promises, remember our love."
"Gräfin von Frühl, I do not recall either promise or love."
"Eh, you would deny it all?" stammered the Chancellor, snatching his daughter's wrist and pulling her forward. "But I could prove—"
"I shall deny nothing of the truth. Do you want me, either of you, to recite that truth? Your daughter already knows it and you should know it, even if she has lied to you, concocted her romances to bemuse you. Have you lived as you have lived so long, so cynically, and do not know what she is? Are you not able to sift and judge her sorry tales?"
Von Frühl saw his daughter's anguished face, and forgot all his part; he flung himself on the Regent and seized the lapel of his coat.
"You base scoundrel! You petty blackguard! I'll bring you down as never man was brought before!"
He stopped in his furious action, his frantic words, so suddenly that Serafina shrieked, thinking that Prinz Stefan with fist or knife had struck him; but the Regent had not touched the old man, even to loosen his hands from his coat. Floris von Frühl's stare was fixed on the scarlet ball with the signs of the zodiac that stood on the top of the bureau and that had, hitherto, been concealed by the Regent standing in front of it; his grasp loosened, he gurgled, and dropped in the arms of the man whom he was attacking.
"A fit or seizure," said the Regent, holding up the old, slack figure. "For long he has been ill. Why did you bring him here? Ring the bell."
She obeyed as if she had been the servant. Stefan Zawadski laid the old man on the floor (there was no couch in the small closet) and kneeling beside him, loosened his cravat.
When Mario Bolla, who was near at hand, came running in, the Regent explained calmly that the Chancellor, coming to deliver his keys and seals of office, had been taken with an apoplexy.
WHEN her father had been carried out, as helplessly overthrown as if he were dead, the Contessina Serafina contrived to remain behind in the painted closet, and detained Prinz Stefan by closing the door and standing against it. She was disarmed, her look, her gesture, combined in one desperate appeal.
"You see what a champion I have! I am helpless, hopeless! Have pity on me!"
"Why did you not have pity on the old man? It was a hard heart that could, for mean revenge, have so blasted him! Folly, too! What was in your mind when you dragged him here—to blackmail me, like Stocken did? Did you think the old man could best me—in this quarrel? Had he been in his right senses he had not come!"
This vehemence brought her to her knees.
"I did not know what I was doing! I was bewildered by the thought of losing you—that cruel command which you sent, written in the book—" She hid her face, which was convulsed and shining with tears; he allowed her to kneel and looked down on her crouching at his feet, as if that were her proper place.
"You put the yellow veil in the church. No one else could have known. You could not have supposed I should have forgiven that."
"I did not! I swear it!"
"So smooth in perjury, eh? Get up and follow your father!"
This brought her to her feet and swung her passion to hate again.
"You go too far. I am not bereft of all resources. I believe that I could ruin you."
"By shouting out to the vulgar that you are my discarded mistress? Think twice before you expose yourself."
"I would do it to punish you—discarded!"
"Did I not tell you in Sanctus Paulus how many knew already what you are? It is only before the canaille that you have this honor I have so worked to preserve—and even they whisper."
"Discarded!" she said again, as if that one word, of all those that he had used, stuck in her mind; then she again began to weep in a sudden storm of tears that stained her chill wet cheeks and tried to catch hold of him as he stood before the bureau. "Forgive, pity, understand."
He took hold of her and put her out of the door.
"The twenty-four hours are nearly over."
"Do you think I'll go?" she whispered, twisting in his grasp on the threshold of the cabinet.
"It would be wiser for you if you did, you cunning slut."
He shut the door on her and locked it. As he turned round his foot struck the scarlet ball that had fallen from the bureau when he had moved violently away from her advance, and his outflung hand had touched the desk.
ALOIS lurked round the entrance to the Residenz, alertly noting all he heard and saw, waiting for his master, holding himself lightly in readiness to run. He watched the carriage, equipped for a journey, with the arms of Von Frühl emblazoned on the hammer cloths and glittering polished side panels, turning and returning on the frozen gravel in front of the winged steps, the coachman carefully keeping his horses from chill.
The Frenchman's meager features were sullen. He had a profound distrust of the Gräfin Serafina; he did not quite understand what she was about in this visit, but he believed that she would make a failure of it, whatever it might be, and he had as shrewd an idea of the quality of Prinz Stefan as any man about the court—had indeed appraised him better than had any Teuton.
But even the servant's Gallic wit was not prepared for the disaster in which the Chancellor's last throw with fortune had ended. When he saw his master being carried down the stairs, followed by the doctors, he was minded to fly, yet hesitated, lest he betrayed himself before it was needful.
He drew aside and watched the unconscious old man, covered by a mantle, his bald head lolling, the whites of his eyes showing, slowly borne down the winged stairs, saw the alarmed grooms leap from behind the carriage and help place him within, the doctors, with their cases of instruments, following, saw too, (and clicked his tongue to see) a troop of horse wheel out from behind the Residenz and take their place behind the Chancellor's equipage as it drove towards the Idlers' Gate.
No one had taken any notice of him. As one of the royal lacqueys who had helped carry the fallen minister away, ascended the steps, hurrying to get out of the cold, Alois went lightly to meet him.
"The Graf von Frühl? Is he under arrest?"
"I believe so. He is to keep his chamber under guard, I heard them say. Well, we shall see what we shall see!"
"And the Gräfin?"
"I did not notice her. I suppose she has gone."
The man went his way and Alois hesitated, biting his sinewy finger; his unhealthy face was gray and greasy beads of sweat hung beneath his crimped hair; so Serafina von Frühl came upon him as she left the Residenz.
He sprang out at her, whispering thickly, speaking as equal to equal.
"Did I not warn you! Now all will be public! The old man betrayed himself! He was not fit to go—his only chance was in flight."
She stared at him without answering; her face looked as if it had been lightly bruised and her mouth hung open. The servant muttered in evil rage:
"Did you think the Regent a fool? I suppose all is over?"
She totally misunderstood him and thought that he referred to her own affairs; with an inarticulate command she made to pass him, but he put his hand across the door.
"Did—he—your father confess? Why is he struck down? Arrested?"
Stupidly she answered, as if she did not know to whom she spoke.
"Confess? But the Regent knows all—how deceive a man—like that?"
She went out on to the stone stairs, shivering in the bright air. Never in all her cosseted life had she felt so cold; a few slow flakes of snow fell from the lowering clouds that curdled in the chill, remote blue heavens.
She looked round, instinctively, for the carriage. Seeing that it had gone, she proceeded on foot, through the scrolled iron gates of the private gardens, into the public park, towards the triumphal arch of Sigismund I.
And, bitter as was the day, and early as was the hour, there were idlers about the gate, and loungers beneath the bare, withered vines and the sign of "The White Boar" piled with snow, who watched the proud woman go, and not one of them took her to be anything but a chamber-maid, for she was eclipsed, as if veiled in ashes, and none of them had thought to ever see the dainty Contessina on foot.
THE Regent remained closed in his closet all that morning; he picked up carefully the scarlet ball, replaced it in the bureau, then, from a secret press in the wall, close to the stove of biscuit colored, glazed earthenware, he took a chalice that had been that morning brought him by two friars walking barefoot from Varsovia. So humbly had they traveled that no one could have guessed how great a treasure they carried, and so, from sheer humility, they had been safe from robbers.
This chalice had been used in olden times at the sacring of the Kings of Poland and Stefan Zawadski intended it for his chapel in the Residenz; it was pure gold, smooth, perfect as the calyx of a flower, and joined by a knop stuck with pearls to a trumpet-shaped base; a band of filigree round the brim was decorated with cloisonné enamel and emeralds; above the hemispherical cup rose two voluted handles set with cabochons. As Prinz Stefan moved it delicately, even the dim winter light trembled into brilliancy in the jewels and the shining gold surface.
As the young man gazed at the chalice, all fatigue and anger was smoothed from his face and he smiled.
He remained long thus in contemplation of the vessel and once repeated the last words of the inscription between the six lobed roses on the base—"fiat amen."
At the hour when it was usual for him to attend to his business in the large council chamber next the throne room, he left the closet with the chalice in his hand, intending to set it himself in his chapel before he went to his work.
As he passed the head of the great stairs where Mario Bolla had seen the Chancellor corning up with his daughter, precisely by the Caesar Augustus in verde antico, a man sprang out with a cry and gesture of supplication—it was Alois. The Regent drew back, holding the chalice to the laces of his breast; behind him was a great tapestry showing hounds going to the meet in a misty landscape with trees as delicate as flowers.
"I am innocent," protested the servant, groveling. "Serene Highness!"
"Of what are you accused?"
The Frenchman saw in everything a trap and a trick; he believed that he had been left alone merely that he might betray himself by flight—ah, if he tried to leave the Residenz he would be arrested.
"I will confess all. More freely than if I was put to the torture. It was Graf von Frühl—not I—but I knew that he would put it on me for I am only a servant, a foreigner, a wretched helpless creature—indeed he threatened as much—"
"Of what do you speak?" whispered the Regent.
Alois tried to clasp the Prince's feet, his voice was almost lost in a husky whisper, but Stefan Zawadski heard.
"Of the murder of Kurt von Hohenheim."
The Regent turned his head so that he stared into the mystical landscape of the tapestry; he saw his brother's initials worked into the cockleshell border; he saw, in the vista of dim blue trees, a pale chapel, with a crucifix before it, and in the front the unleashed bloodhounds with lolling tongues and red eyes, nosing after their prey.
"Follow me," he commanded, turning to the supplicant.
"Mercy! I was silent through fear—mercy!"
"Follow me!"
Alois rose and went after him down the corridor to his own apartments; there, in the room next the chapel he set the chalice on the table and turned to the Frenchman.
"Tell me this story—your story."
"Your Highness will have had another version from the Chancellor."
"Let me hear yours—all you have to say."
"THE Graf von Frühl never forgave his forced apology to the Graf von Hohenheim—and my dismissal. I think from then his intellects were scattered. He persuaded me to come secretly with him to the Residenz, He gave out, on purpose, that he was going to his estates—he never went. I found out that your Serene Highness was sick—shut in your chamber. Graf von Frühl was delighted at this chance. He wanted to see, he said, the little Prince alone, to regain his dominion over him, to threaten him, and put him against your Highness, as had been his practice from your first coming. He had duplicate keys to most of the rooms and we got in by the privy door at the front of the winding stair.
"We remained hidden in the long gallery. It was not locked. Once we went out and saw the little Prince at the end of the corridor. He looked frightened and ran away. But I was surprised that my master did not go after him—he waited, he said, a better opportunity—and we returned to the long gallery. I do not know how long it was before my master went out alone—when he came back he was followed by the young Graf Kurt. He locked the door after him. He had met him, I gathered from their talk, on the stairs, and had him come in there as he had a message for the Prince. The boy asked 'What was this message?' as be was anxious to be on his way. Then the Chancellor began to upbraid him, very violently, especially about the rope-ladder and the apology, and the boy laughed. Then my master threw himself upon him, had him by the throat, dragged him to the stairs, and cast him down. He only moved once or twice, just to throw up his arm. We stumbled past him and out through the privy door. We lay in the shrubs till it was dark, then got away without being seen."
"THAT is a lie. The boy could have defended himself against the old man. It took two of you to do it. And it was planned. You came here with that intention. Not to see the Prince. It was to be put on me—and that I was away fitted in very well."
"No! No! That is what Graf von Frühl has confessed! That is his story!"
"He told me no story. But it is true that he confessed—for it was when he saw the scarlet ball that he fell."
"He said nothing?" shrieked Alois, realizing that his own cunning had flung him into a trap. "He did not confess? But the Gräfin told me that you knew everything!"
"So I do. This was a premeditated murder. Stand back and control yourself."
"I swear—"
"Do you?" The Regent opened the door behind him and the chapel was revealed; Alois shrank back, but the other man was master and when he commanded the servant shuddered forward. "Swear on that, then—" Prinz Stefan pointed to the altar where the cross was formed by his own state sword hilt, the blade passing through a slit in the marble table, the quillions and grip scintillating with deep-cut diamonds set in foliated gold. "I suppose you were bred a Roman Catholic."
Alois faltered long enough for the Regent to exclaim:
"Guilty!"
"I am not—"
"But you cannot swear—there—that you are innocent!"
Alois looked at the cross, then at the dark face turned towards him and clutched vainly for support at the smooth door-frame.
"Yes, yes, so it was—I will tell all—if you will spare me the torture—"
"Speak, then."
"I, set on by the Graf von Frühl and with his help, murdered the Graf von Hohenheim, we beguiled him into the long gallery with a tale, it was done very quickly." Alois began to gabble. "We took him by surprise—thus it was—"
GEORGES SOKOLOV was surprised and even alarmed by the absence of the Regent from the council chamber; there was a heavy press of business; the priest did not like the way in which the ministers shrugged, glanced at each other, and hastened to leave the chamber... there was a sitting of the Diet that afternoon that the Regent had convened himself, and the council had been called in preparation for this.... Georges Sokolov went in search of his friend; everything in the Residenz seemed very quiet; Mario Bolla said that Prinz Stefan was locked in his apartments; Sigismund II. was going that afternoon to the farm of Peter's father to see the icicles on the water-breaks; at present he was being driven round and round the frozen lake of the swans beyond the Chinese temple ... the priest took a servant and went down to the city. As he keenly noticed the temper of the people, as he read the pasquinades pasted on the walls, he counted up anxiously how many friends the Regent had in Marienburg. Since he had sent away all his fellow-countrymen save his few personal attendants, these might be counted on the fingers of one hand.
GEORGES SOKOLOV beat on the door of Prinz Stefan's chamber; after a brief delay the Regent himself opened it; his demeanor was very quiet. He had a reliquary of Limoges enamel in his hand; a phial of frosted crystal held a drop of martyr's blood, in a stand of deep, gleaming blue plaques; he showed pleasure at the sight of the priest and drew him inside, taking him affectionately by the arm.
"One of the shutters of this is loose," he said, holding up the reliquary. "I wonder if there is a goldsmith here could repair it—"
"You have other things to think of," replied his friend, "I have just come from the city. There is a revolt."
"So soon?" the Regent set regretfully his treasure on the table.
"Yes, the fall of Von Frühl has brought discontent to a head—that—and the woman."
"The Gräfin von Frühl?"
"Yes." The priest spoke heavily; he seemed anxious and ashamed. "She has, in these few hours, gotten together her friends, her father's followers—she is making public her accusation against you—she charges you with her own dishonor—with the murder of Mynheer Stocken."
"I heard from him last week—he does very well in Muscovy and will return in the spring."
"Will you not take this more seriously?"
"Forgive me, father, malice always seems to me so slight a thing."
"It is not. She says you put Klaus out of the way ¦—she says you murdered Kurt von Hohenheim—and that when her old father came to demand redress of you for her shame, you struck him down—and that is why he lies senseless."
"Alois, the French valet, has confessed to that murder—of the boy—he is in the Prinzenberg, where I sent him this morning."
"Produce him, then—all must be made public now. Send for Mynheer Stocken, even for the miserable Klaus, show the receipt for the sum you paid for the black sapphires."
"Do you think I am going to justify myself before these slanders? I have my own way of dealing with these misfortunes."
"Stefan Zawadski," said the priest urgently, "in some things you are a visionary. Thought, with you, paralyzes action. All the city is inflamed against you—the woman means to stop at nothing, she intends to denounce you before the Diet—d'Osten and Grunfeldt mean to support her—remember that her tale is such as to stir the vulgar, a noble maiden dishonored, three secret murders, and one a child—a theft of gems—a striking down of an old man."
"A farrago," said the Regent indifferently.
"But the people will believe it—they want to believe it—you have let matters go too long. They even accuse you of black magic, satanic arts. Everything is against you—you have been too inactive. Yes," added the priest in increasing trouble, "I must accuse you of that."
"I did not see what else I could do. Slander must work itself out—who can check it? When in Vienna I took this woman's favors; I did not, could not, know that I should have this post in Marienburg. In Vienna I could have dealt with her, here, maybe she has the power to ruin me. So it goes!"
"How was it that she tempted you?"
"Women as fair as that are not common. And she took my fancy. She knows very well how to make herself agreeable. Yet the day that she pleased me seems very far away." He spoke with patient disinterest, as if he strove to satisfy his friend against his own wish.
"You should not have sent back the Poles."
"It was not my intention to rule here with foreign force—I had not the right. I wanted to justify myself to the people."
"Now it seems, you are trapped and taken!"
"This revolt is dangerous?"
"The city is in a flare—everyone pressing round the Diet, the town hall, commotion everywhere."
"I must go down and see what all this amounts
"Too late! Why have you been idle all the day? Closeted here?"
"I could not hear—easily—the confession of Alois—that disturbed me. And then I received two letters from Varsovia—by the express. I had great need of solitude—I had to think—what to do."
"You think too much!"
"Yet these matters are not easily decided!" smiled the Regent wistfully.
"What were the two letters?"
"One tells me that if I will return the Polish Diet have a mind to elect me King."
"I expected that—the throne has been too long vacant."
"The other put this out of my mind," the Regent put his hand on the reliquary, as delicately as if he touched a flower. "Lodoiska is dead, father. Do you remember when she gave me that? I brought it out and seemed to see her fingers round it——"
The priest crossed himself.
"God has had pity on her gentle soul!"
"Yes, she left me too large a legacy, father. All the possession of the Sapieha are now mine. It means so little, eh? Ambition is too easily glutted—was not that an unhappy life, father? So much suffering! And the boy, murdered! These things make a darkness across the sun—I have wondered much," he drew a paper from his breast. "My little Lodoiska! See what she, in her great kindness said—father, that was my wife, that, and no other. We should have been so content—one with the other."
The priest read the carefully written letter of the nun enclosed in the doctor's report:. . at the last Her Highness was in full possession of her senses and begged us to send her benediction, her love, her greeting to her husband—for from him, she said, had come all the earthly happiness that she had ever known.
THERE were no idlers round the triumphal arch of Sigismund I., where the frozen snow sparkled on the interstices of the trophies, the folded stone flags, the cornucopia of cold rigid flowers, there were no customers at "The White Boar"—even the host and the serving maids had run down to the city. The golden cross above the antlered helm glittered over loneliness.
Everyone was gathered in the streets before the house of Von Frühl where, the whisper went, an old man lay dying from a thrust from his daughter's seducer, before the straight facade of the Parliament house where the tall figure of Justicia swung her brilliant scales above the deliberations of wise men; in the Cathedral square where the soldiers, hastily summoned (it was said) from the Citadel by the Regent, rested sullenly on their arms, waiting for a signal from their officers, who stood about in uncertain, excited groups, as ready for rebellion as for suppressing it.
Everyone talked over the dreadful denunciations of the Contessina Serafina. How had they become public? By many cunning devices. The lady had cried aloud her wrongs to Heaven and many besides celestial ears had heard her complaints. She Was going to expose him before the Diet, to claim revenge for her lost honor, her smitten father, for the murders, she would have, not only the Diet, but the whole city behind her. Did he not confess his guilt by skulking in the Residenz? No one had seen him since his early interview with the Chancellor—he had not appeared at the council, he would not appear at the Diet—it was clear he was afraid—well, if he did not come to answer his accusers there were those who would go and drag him out.... So the tongues clicked through the public places of Marienburg, and with every hour spoke a wilder violence.
GEORGES SOKOLOV besought the Regent not to go down to the Diet; every item of news that came to the Residenz was bad, the army could not he relied on—a prudent man would leave privately for Vienna and put the whole monstrous case before the Emperor—the few Poles guarding the tomb of Ludmila had been attacked, the standard of the Zawadski had been lowered from the citadel—d'Osten was going about inflaming openly the people. The priest abruptly ceased his arguments for he knew that they would all be in vain.
"Let me come with you," he concluded sadly, at a tangent.
"No. I cannot shelter behind a priest's robe. Besides, I have other work for you. I want you to go to the Graf von Frühl. I have heard that he is conscious and knows his situation very well. Pray, take him this packet, see he is alone when you deliver it—destroy my letter therein if he has not the strength to do so—leave him and return here to wait for me. Pray for Von Frühl, father, and for me."
The priest turned away his face.
"These fools will attempt anything—you risk your life if you go."
Stefan Zawadski smiled.
"I risk something more valuable if I do not go."
In the packet that the Regent had given Georges Sokolov was a small flask of lilac-colored crystal in a case of copper gilt, and round it was a strip of paper on which Prinz Stefan had written in his own hand.
Graf Floris von Frühl,
I send you a gift and a secret. My mother, of sainted memory, being maligned and injured, escaped calumny by her own act. Two drops of this essence ended her life. This my grandfather, Stanislas Zawadski, told me, and gave me the phial should I ever be in the like case where the injustice of mankind becomes intolerable. Alois has confessed. Because of your ancient House, because you are my enemy, because I passed some pleasant hours with your daughter I send you this means of escape from a worse death. It may seem that you died in your sickness. If you take this opportunity I will have Alois executed secretly so that he cannot expose you. If you do not I will have you both brought to public trial and public execution. God have mercy upon us, miserable sinners.
Amen.
Stefan Zawadski.
THE Regent put on his Polish uniform, the stiff skirted pelisse, high collar, fur-lined, rigid with gold bullion, the silk sash, that he had made fashionable in Vienna; he was alone, having dismissed his body servant. He looked regretfully at his violoncello in the corner, with the red portfolio near, in which was the Vivaldi piece—he would have liked to have played that over, in the twilight, thinking of Lodoiska—how lovely life might be, even in sadness, if it could only be purged of all gross humors, all malice, and squalid lies.
He debated with himself if he should take an escort. He thought that any display of force might provoke the people—yet to go alone smacked of ostentation—he decided to take four of his own men.
He debated with himself if he should put any of his present trouble before Sigismund II. This was quickly decided. He had not yet said to the hoy—"Believe me, trust me." He could not say it now. Most likely the boy was among his enemies. Besides, he could not involve a child in these turmoils, appeal to a child, bring forward a child as a buckler. Let the boy go up the mountain path with the peasants and Mario Bolla and see the water-breaks and know nothing of any of this trouble.
He had provided for the possibility of his overthrow—an express was already well on the way to Vienna earnestly recommending the young Prince to the Emperor's care "...in the event of my death in these disorders."
He would be sorry to leave the boy for whom he had hoped to do much—yet he could not think that Sigismund would miss him—there he had failed, poignantly.
"I was too hampered from the first—all the lies they told him! No doubt the Brandenburger will succeed—if he comes."
Mario Bolla was at the door of his room when the Regent came out, fastening his riding-gloves. The Florentine entreated him to remain in the Residenz or to send for military escort; the angry people, mostly armed, had surged as far as Idlers' Gate in their disappointment that the Regent had not appeared; to affront an infuriated mob was only a folly.
"But yet a folly," replied the Regent, "that one is obliged to commit."
SIGISMUND II. was attired for his journey to the farm at the foot of the mountains; it was late to be starting, but he was slow and languid in his movements since his illness. He looked at himself in the long mirror—"How tall I have grown."
He wondered where Mario Bolla was; he had hot seen him or the Regent all day, nay, nothing much of the Regent for several days; the boy's life was enclosed in the Residenz and the gardens and he had heard nothing of the disturbances in Marienburg.
Punctual to the hour Mario Bolla attended him and said that they would go out the privy way, and round by the suburbs so as not to touch the Idlers' Gate or the city.
"Why?"
The Florentine, who had just come from seeing his master ride out to meet his enemies, flung the whole story at the boy—the revolt—the accusations of murder, the arraignment before the Diet.
"The Regent has gone to face them—he has no friend here, none at all. But do not let that trouble your Princely Highness—I was bid to take you to your pleasure, let us go. I was forbidden to tell you this, sir—but it broke from me."
The boy had listened in silence, his thin cheek resting in his thin hand, sunk in the carved chair before the mirror; the fine, sensitive features trembled with emotion, like a flower shivers and changes under a chill wind.
When the servant finished, the Prince said, rising:
"'Mario Bolla, do you think that I could still wear the uniform made for the review last May? When I went with my father. I showed it to you—it was large then, but I have grown—"
"Your princely Highness does not need to wear a uniform of parade to visit a farm."
"But I am not going there. Will, you get the uniform, please? And my sword. Do you think that my father's dress sword would be too big? Look foolish, I mean?"
"What does your Highness intend to do?"
"I am going to the Diet. I ought to have been told this before. You see, Mario Bolla, everyone treats me like a child, but I am the Prince. I ought to do something. Kurt—Kurt would have gone."
"In the name of God, what is in your Highness' mind?"
"I want to tell them all that he could not have done any of these dishonorable actions, these dismal crimes."
"How does your Highness, who has always been in the hands of his enemies, know that?"
Sigismund replied earnestly:
"I could not say. But he did not! Will you please make me ready?"
Mario Bolla brought out the rich uniform; the cocked hat with the ruby agraffe, the orders of the Fleece, and the Black Eagle; his eyes sparkled with delight.
"I wish your Highness had told the Regent that you were his friend. He thinks you are against him."
"Why? I do not understand what all this is about—it seems rather stupid, does it not? But, of course, it is lies—about Prinz Stefan. I mean, one would trust him-—-anywhere—with anything—would one not, Mario Bolla?"
"Of course I would. But I have known him for years—I have reasons—your Serene Highness has none."
With unmovable faith, while he glanced anxiously at his uniform in the mirror, the boy answered: "You do not want reasons, do you? You know. This coat fits, does it not? I have not grown so much. I suppose that Peter will be disappointed. But we will go another day. I wonder if I can remember how my father addressed the Diet—I went with him once. One speaks in the plural. And bows, slightly, with one's hat under one's arm."
He was well-trained in the ceremonial of his rank; instructors in etiquette, in deportment, in delivering speeches, in receiving and entertaining both the humble and the great, had been given him from his earliest years. Even as an infant he had watched his father, (usually so casual, good-humored, and negligent in his manners,) sedate and unfamiliar, gracious and remote, at a review, before the Diet, at a banquet, in the Audience Chamber. And now he conned over in his earnest mind those precepts and examples. Could he put the first into practice and imitate the second? He believed so. He reminded himself that he was nearly a man, and that one of the rules most firmly impressed on him was that breeding largely consisted in being ready, with dignity and composure, for any emergency.
He believed that he could do this difficult thing and his muscles became taut, as when, with a ball in his hand he had measured the distance and the object before him to be aimed at. Already he felt a sense or liberation as if he escaped tne bonds of tutelage.
THE Regent, on his gray Polish horse, with his small escort made slow progress towards the parliament; the people made violent sallies and blocked his way, often close on his horse's flanks; the perpetual muttered abuse swelled now and then to open scurrility. Once or twice his escort had to use the flat of their swords to make a passage. General Baron Swartzenburg, the chief of the army under Sigismund II., who had been ordered to meet the Regent in the Cathedral Square, with his dragoons, was not there; the reinforcements sent earlier in the day to protect the tomb of Ludmila had been suddenly withdrawn, no one knew on whose order. From all public buildings the Zawadski flag had been taken down ... a wave of ferocious excitement shook the people when it was rumored that Serafina von Frühl had left her sick father's side and was on her way to the Diet.
Stefan Zawadski looked neither to right nor left, he was well-trained to remain impassive in the face of turmoil; only when a stone, hurled by a coarse hand, hit his noble horse on the neck, and sent the sensitive beast rearing with pain did he turn a narrow glance round him that sent his aggressors cowering.
And so, with much humiliation, danger, and fatigue, he came to the Diet, and mounted the steps beneath the statue of Justicia on the pediment, with the snow piled in her scales, at which figure he was observed to glance curiously.
When he entered the chamber the gathered hostility of all present was turned on him with dreadful force; as he mounted the dais and took the seat on the right hand of the empty throne he observed Serafina von Frühl, in deep mourning, supported by Baron d'Osten and Baron Grunfeldt, sunk, in a half-swooning attitude in a chair placed by the table in the body of the Hall, where the scribes sat. And he was aware that his entry had stayed a vast commotion of movement and talk; that all were surprised to see him, vexed that he had faced them, ready to pounce—a quick glance round all the faces watching him told him that he had not one friend there.
THERE was a pause in the movement, in the talk, only a little whispering, a little bending of a man to his neighbor, a little shuffling of papers ... the Regent turned to his secretaries and clerks, as he spoke to them he wondered what his enemies were waiting for ... was the woman to make shameless, impudent charges against him? How; was it possible they had admitted her? Very deep, very bitter must be the malice against him—-he had stepped into the pillory and all of them were ready to cast stones at him. "How completely I have failed—my brother and his boy."
He looked up from his portfolio to see that Serafina had risen.
THE Gräfin von Frühl remained on her feet without speaking, for her purpose was interrupted by the opening of the great doors at the end of the hall which the ushers set wide with an air of ceremonial; all eyes were turned indignantly towards this interruption, then vexation turned to amazement, for it was Sigismund II. who entered. He had not the train with which the Princes usually attended the Diet, but his air was one of the most stately formality; his cockaded hat was under his arm, his orders sparkling on his heart, his sword by his side, and he held himself so erect that the azure uniform wrinkled a little over his shoulders.
For a second he paused, concentrated on his business of remembering what his exemplar, his father, had done on a like occasion, and all, for that second, were still, arrested in their actions, as if under an enchantment.
Then the Regent rose; with what seemed one movement the assembled men got to their feet.
Sigismund II., taking no heed of any and quite alone, walked gravely the length of the Hall, up the steps of the dais, and stood there while, his hat tucked precisely under his arm, he bowed slightly, right and left.
None of the ministers and nobles present had seen him for some weeks; he had certainly grown quickly, the uniform was a little short in the skirts, and, for the first time, his hair was powdered. Mario Bolla had quickly and skilfully dressed the long yellow locks "en ailes de pigeon" and tied them with a broad black ribbon. So this change in him, his dignity and the ease with which he took his father's place, made him appear to the spectators' astonishment, almost a man, someone to be reckoned with—a personality.
Yet the force of his sincerity, of his candor, gave him all the power of a child.
The Regent stood mute, not influencing him by as much as a look, yet smiling a little to see the changed faces about him, and the discomfited fashion in which Serafina had sunk into her chair. "No doubt they all think that I arranged this 'coup de théatre,'" and he waited curiously, not having the least inkling of what the boy was about to say or do.
The alert stillness was so intense that a bird skimming across the winter brightness of the window seemed a notable interruption.
"Gentlemen," frowned Sigismund II., absorbed in his task and very erect; he corrected himself: "My lords and gentlemen, we have decided to preside ourselves at this Diet, from which we might have been excused by reason of our late illness. But we have heard of some matters that require our close attention."
Without the least confusion or fear he looked round them all, and held them all; there was not a stir among the packed benches.
In this great hush Sigismund II. continued:
"We have been disturbed by some murmurings and discontents, the course of which we do not rightly understand. If there be any complaints let them be brought to us in an orderly fashion. As we rode from the Residenz we observed riotings among the vulgar, we heard that there was an attack on the Cathedral, and saw, nowhere, the Zawadski standard," he turned smartly to his left and commanded: "General Baron von Swartzenburg!"
Red in the face, the bedizened soldier left his place and stood humbly before the dais.
"We are surprised," said Sigismund II., "that you, sir, have not been able to keep the peace in Marienburg—the soldiers, I hear, wait idly in the Cathedral Square."
"I trust," stuttered Von Swartzenburg, desperately at a loss, "that your Serene Highness was not exposed to any annoyance—if I had known your Serene Highness' intention—if I had received any orders from your Serene Highness—"
"The people were loyal enough," replied the boy coldly. "Will you, if you please, General Baron von Swartzenburg, go at once and clear the streets, run up the Zawadski flag again in the public buildings, and set a strong guard round the Cathedral? We suppose, if you cannot do this, that you are not a very capable commander-in-chief of our army."
Only the Regent, who had put his fingers before his mouth, smiled at this. General von Swartzenburg crimsoned to his stiff powdered side curls, saluted, and left the building; the nobles and deputies glanced from his heavy figure walking down the long carpet to the slim figure of the Prince on the dais, and a murmur that was like the whisper of applause, passed among them; there were low exclamations of—"'tis a man" and "'tis a Prince."
"We wish," said Sigismund, and his raised voice sounded pure and thin as the note of crystal struck on crystal, "to here express our great gratitude to our beloved uncle, Prinz Stefan Zawadski, who has undertaken the fatigue of government for us till we reach our majority. We hold him, under God, to have preserved our life and reason under our late—misfortune:—when our dear friend was, by accident, slain," his head was raised higher, his lips compressed. "We believe that some vile reports are current among the base about this gentleman. If any here hold such, let them understand our deep displeasure. We heard some rumor about the disappearance of a Dutch jeweler, Mynheer Stocken—and we were ourselves present when the Regent opened a letter from this person, sent from Russia a few days ago. As we have also seen, when His Highness has been helping us with our Greek exercises, the receipt for the large amount paid for the black sapphires, in his desk. And as for—the Graf Kurt von Hohenheim," he brought the name out bravely, but his knuckles were white from the grasp that he gave his sword-hilt, "we know him to have been much in the friendship of His Serene Highness. And we know that His Highness-wept for him."
A WEIGHT seemed to pass from the spirits of the nobles and deputies, it was as if they cast off an evil spell that had benumbed their judgment; it had needed a child to show them that they had nearly made fools of themselves at the bidding of a vindictive woman; why, there was nothing in any of it—there never had been—idlers' gossip!—There was no mistaking the boy, he knew, he spoke spontaneously, no art there, no preparation; he believed in his uncle, trusted him—he could prove that Mynheer Stocken was alive and the jewels paid for; the men present were heartily glad that they had not openly taken sides, most of them were ready to swear that they had come, not to affront, but to support Prinz Stefan. So a child's breath blew away much foul murk.
But the woman was not so easily confounded; she looked at her two supporters, but they turned their eyes aside uneasily, and all to whom her glance went drooped their lids. She rose and opened her pale mouth. Prinz Stefan alone in that crowded hall was looking at her, her hatred, her prepared tale rushed almost into speech; but she hesitated—the gaze of another beside the Regent was on her; in that hostile hush, before the proud candor of the child she could not speak.
She sat down at the table and put her hands before her face.
"Gräfin von Frühl," said Sigismund II., bowing slightly towards her defeated shame.
HE had not meant to speak to her, he had not thought of her at all when he had come to the Diet; but it had vexed his innate sense of propriety to see her there, and when she rose he recalled that Prinz Stefan had said he had been forced to lie on her behalf.
The boy, between two ages, a child yesterday, a man to-morrow, began to know many emotions for which he had, as yet, no name. He could begin to sense chivalry, the sacrifice of the strong to the weak, and, also, how this might involve one in disaster, if the weak were treacherous. Moreover, he did not like the Contessina Serafina. He regarded her with something of the repulsion that he felt for her father.
"Gräfin von Frühl," he repeated, with all the emphasis of his new-found authority, "it is not very seemly for a lady to attend the Diet. And we hear that your father is very ill."
She rose again, paused, in the hope of a possible champion. There was none. She had, indeed, mistaken her part; she was not made, this female creature, for vindictive violence, even if she were wronged it did not become her to proclaim her grievances; her beauty became distorted, almost repellant, when forced into expressing hatred, fury, malice. The hostile silence told her to obey the Prince, to save what she had left of dignity, of grace.
Baron d'Osten offered her his arm, and she fell, almost against her own volition, into the traditions of her breeding, curtsied to Sigismund II. and left the Hall.
The boy took his seat on the throne; to his secret relief his feet just touched the footstool. He gave his hat to one of the gentlemen on the steps of the throne and looked towards the Regent with a mute question as to what he should do next. The proceedings had no more interest for him; he had said all that he had come to say; he had told the truth and they had believed him; he was their master.
Never had he been afraid of men, now he was no longer afraid of shadows. Sorrow and loss had entered into him and increased his spiritual strength; he would never be completely a child again. But he was, in nothing, disillusioned. A strange unnameable contentment possessed him, he was conscious of a harmony between himself and his world that was very easeful. He felt a sense of power, of liberation.
He sat firmly on his throne and looked serenely at all these strange, formidable men. At first he had been bewildered, baffled by what they had told him, what they had insinuated about Prinz Stefan; but these doubts and confusions had passed with the terrible dreams of an infancy that seemed a long while ago. He felt the comfort of one who has followed an uncertain sparkle of light through the gloom and then finds himself suddenly in the clear glow of a brilliant sunshine.
The Regent, impassive, said:
"Does it please your Serene Highness that we should proceed to the business of the day?"
AS Sigismund II. and Prinz Stefan rode through the streets of Marienburg, the troops lined the way, the Zawadski standard flew from the public buildings, and a company of grenadiers kept guard about the Cathedral. General von Swartzenburg was ready to himself escort the Prince to the Residenz. But these precautions were not needed. The crowd was orderly, enthusiastic. The flame had not been applied to the tinder that might, at a spark, have flared into revolution. Nothing had been said, nothing had happened. The Gräfin von Frühl had gone, evidently, to the Diet, to plead for her father, fair filial foolishness!—and on hearing of his grave relapse she had hurried to his side without speaking. It was suddenly known everywhere that Mynheer Stocken was alive—that Prinz Stefan had paid a most generous sum for the black sapphires—that Klaus had really escaped from the Prinzenburg, that the Graf Kurt had really died from an accident, that the rope-ladder had nothing to do with any of it—that the Regent had really been ill on the day of the accident.... So the brew of truth and lies was stirred again and the mixture took another flavor. So the gossip twisted like a snake turning in his path—so the curtain was swept back on what should have been a sensational drama for the vulgar and there was, but an empty stage.
But if there was no scandal, at least there might be excitement; strained emotion must find a vent, eager expectation must not be altogether defrauded.
A fury of applause therefore, shouts and blessings, for the young Prince, who had been nothing till to-day, in anyone's eyes, save a vague, dubious promise for the future, but who appeared now, to every eager eye, a charming creature, bold, gracious, proud, fit to be the symbol and the idol of his country. If this young ruler, who, under every aspect, was so flattering to their pride, was satisfied with the Regent, why, so were they!
What was there against Prinz Stefan after all? Nothing but the gossip of the Idlers' Gate, from which everyone now warmly disassociated himself—wild, stupid tales!
So the two riding slowly between loyal troops, between loud acclamation, the dark man and the fair boy, were passionately applauded by those who knew nothing of either of them, nor of their story.
But if Stefan Zawadski smiled bitterly to himself, aware that he had been acquitted before he was charged and that he was not so blameless as now appeared, Sigismund II. Was gravely content with his people, with his uncle, with himself.
"You know," he said to Prinz Stefan, as they rode under the triumphal arch where the protected snow crisped under their horses' hooves, "at first I thought it would be difficult to speak at the Diet, but it was quite easy after all. Did you think, sir, that I made many mistakes?"
The Regent's long eyes looked at him curiously in the shadows, and asked: "Why did you do it? What made you believe in me?"; but these questions could not be put into words; what lay between these two would never be expressed in phrases. Therefore Prinz Stefan answered gravely: "You did very well indeed, Sigismund. I was pleased."
GEORGES SOKOLOV returned the phial of lilac-colored crystal to the Regent.
"The Graf von Frühl gave this to me. He said it was a pretty toy and he would not deprive you of it."
"Did he destroy my letter?"
"Yes. He burnt it in the taper by his bedside."
"Did you read it, or hear what was in it?"
"No!"
"Tell me, father, what he, the Graf von Frühl did—"
"He received me in his bedchamber, he had a Lutheran minister with him, when he had read your letter he bade us both leave him, for a while, to think upon his answer, I suppose. Then he rang for us to return, and seemed, I thought, to pray. And then gave me that message with the phial."
"Nothing else?"
"He said that what you had written was just."
Prinz Stefan held the little flask up to the candlelight; it was only half-full of the deadly essence.
"Were you there when the Gräfin returned?"
"Yes, she gave orders for all to be ready for an instant departure from Marienburg. They took her to her father. I believe he was dying, but she seemed to care very little for that."
The Regent put the crystal phial into his pocket; his friend looked at him curiously, even though his deep relief and a strong joy at averted tragedy, not quite understanding this man or his actions.
"So, sir, after all this turmoil and imbroglio, it all came to nothing! A tempest in a handbasin!"
Prinz Stefan drew out a piece of paper from his desk.
"And, after all, none of them will know how much truth there was in it, father."
Carefully he wrote the order for the secret execution of Alois in the Prinzenburg.
"I do not know," he remarked, "how I should have endured life without the power to—reward—and punish. To live and not to rule! Send to Varsovia, father, and say I'll not be King. I have here a charge that I like better."
SIGISMUND II. slept sweetly behind the white Jambs wool curtains embroidered with foxgloves; he had been much fatigued on his return from the Diet, but it was a pleasant lassitude. He had looked with different eyes on Peter; he was sorry for him, he meant to do much for him, but he no longer needed him; he felt lovingly towards Peter's mother, but he wanted her to return to the farm at the foot of the mountain, and he did not think it was likely that he would ever go there, even for a few hours. He was nearly a man.
Stefan Zawadski came to look on him, fearful that he might be disturbed or feverish after his exertion, but Mario Bolla, who watched in the antechamber, declared that the Prince had not been so happy since the death of Kurt.
"I envy his innocence," said the Regent sadly. "O Sancta Simplicitas!"
"You are not leaving him, sir?"
"He has spoken of that?"
"No, he takes it as a certainty that you'll stay—"
"Then, Mario Bolla, so we must."
He passed into the bedchamber which was warm, softly lit, protected from the cold darkness of the outer night, and looked down on the boy, childish again in his sleep, with his flushed cheeks, tumbled pale hair, soft parted lips, and dark lashes.
Stefan Zawadski had been playing the violoncello in the dark, an elegy for Lodoiska; the melody hovered in his ears; for a second he allowed the frailest of illusions to deceive him ... he, she, and the child between them ... a second only. The weight of his sorrow seemed to oppress the boy, who turned uneasily; the man drew back, banished his dream, subdued his grief.
There must be no specters here. Floris von Frühl was dead, Alois was dead, Sigismund II. need never know why nor how—their memories would not trouble him.
In the small hand outflung on the coverlet was a crumpled, soiled piece of paper; Prinz Stefan, recalling how once that hand had been refused him (but it never would be again) gently opened the slack fingers to see what the boy was treasuring. A letter written a year ago to him, when he had been on a visit to Mecklenburg with his father, childish but careful writing, a few misspelt words.
It is very lonely without you. Please come back soon. I hope that you are enjoying yourself. I am working hard at my lessons, but it is dull. Will you come next week? Please do.
Good-bye.
Kurt.
Stefan Zawadski put the letter again between the warm, moist fingers, and took even the shadow of his burden from the sleeping hoy.
The dawn, slow, cold, pale, was disturbing the east into a shudder of light, as the young man returned to his vigil in the solitude of the painted closet.
Idlers' Gate was deserted; the melting snow dripped from the chill carved trophies on to the paths worn smooth by the gossips and the loungers; in the somber daybreak the golden cross above the antlered helm gleamed faintly in a world of receding shadows.
As the frost thawed on the parterres laid out on the fresh-turned earth where the long gallery had stood, the first hard green shoots of flowers showed above the place where the winding stair had once been. On the boughs of the young, newly-planted trees the buds were visible for the first time that year.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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