The Red Axe
Page 6
CHAPTER VI
DUKE CASIMIR'S FAMILIAR
I mind it was some tale of years later that I got my first glimpse belowthe surface of things in the town of Thorn, and especially in the castleof the Wolfsberg.
Duke Casimir continued to move, as of yore, in cavalcade throughhis subject city. The burghers bowed as obsequiously as ever whenthey could not avoid meeting him. There were the old lordlyperquisitions--thunderings at iron-studded doors, battering-rams setbetween posts, and the clouds of dust flying from the driven lintels, thescreams of maids, the crying of women, a stray corpse or two flung on tothe street, and then the procession as before, arms and legs, with amercenary soldier between each pair, fore and aft. All this was repeatedand repeated, till the dull monotony of tyranny began to wear through thelong Teutonic patience to the under-quick of Wendish madness.
It chanced that one night I could not sleep. It was no matter of maidsthat kept me awake, though by this time I was sixteen or seventeen andgreatly grown--running, it is true, mostly to knees and elbows, butnevertheless long of limb and stark of bone, needing only the muscle laidon in lumps to be as strong as any.
I had begun to steal out at nights too--not on any ill errand, but that Imight have the company of those about my own age--'prentice lads and thewilder sons of burghers, who had no objection to my parentage, andthought it rather a fine thing to be hand-in-glove with the son of theRed Axe of Thorn. And there we played single-stick, smite-jacket,skittles, bowls--aye, and drank deep of the city ale--the very thinnestbrew that was ever passed by a bribed and muzzy ale-taster. All this wasmightily pleasant to me. For so soon as they knew that I had determinedto be a soldier, and not the Red Axe of the Wolfmark, they complimentedme greatly on my spirit.
Well, as I lay awake and waited for the chance to slip down a rope frommy bedroom window, whose foot should I hear on the turret stairs but thatof my Lord Duke Casimir! My very heart quailed within me. For the fear ofhim sat heavy on every man and woman in the land. And as for thechildren--why, as far as the Baltic shore and the land of the lastRitters, mothers frightened their bairns with the Black Duke of theWolfsberg and his Red Axe.
So now the Duke and the Red Axe were to be in conference--as indeed hadhappened nearly every day and night since I could remember. So thatpeople called my father the Duke's Private Devil, his Familiar Spirit,his Evil Genius. But I knew other of it--and this night, of all nights inthe year, I was to know better still.
It was a summer midnight--not like the one I told of when the storybegan, white with snow and glittering with the keen polish of frost. Buta soft, still night, drowsy yet sleepless, with an itch of thundertingling in the air--and, indeed, already the pulsing, uncertain glow ofsheet-lightning coming and going at long intervals along the south.
I crouched and nestled in the hole in the wall where I had long agohidden the hated red cloak, pulling my knees up uncomfortably to my chin.And great lumps of bone they were, knotted as if a smith had made them inthe rough with a welding hammer and had forgotten to reduce them with thefile afterwards. At that time I was thoroughly ashamed of my knees.
But no matter for them now. Duke Casimir passed in and shut the door.
"Gottfried," I heard him say, "I am a dead man!"
These words from the great Duke Casimir startled me, and though I knewwell enough that Michael Texel, the Burgomeister's son, was waiting forme by the corner of the Jew's Port, I decided that, as I might never hearDuke Casimir declare his secretest soul again, I should even bide where Iwas; and that was in the crevice of the wall among the old clothes, whichgave off such a faint, musty, sleepy smell I could scarcely keep awake.
But the Duke's next words effectually roused me.
"A dead man!" repeated Casimir. "I have not a friend in all the realm ofthe Mark besides yourself. And there is none of all that take my bountyor eat my bread that is sorry for me. See here," he said, querulously,"twice have I been stricken at to-day--once a tile fell from a roof anddinted the crown of my helmet, and the second time a young man struck atmy breast with a dagger."
"Did he wound you, Duke Casimir?" asked my father, speaking for the firsttime, but in a strangely easy and equal voice, not with the distance anddeference which he showed to his lord in public.
"Nay, Gottfried," replied Duke Casimir; "but he bruised my shirt of mailinto my breast."
And I heard plainly enough the clinking of the rings of chain-armor asthe Duke showed his hurt to my father. Presently I heard his voice again.
"And the Bishop has touched me in a new place," he said. "He declaresthat he will lay his interdict upon me and my people--ill enough to holdin hand as they are even now. When that is done they will rise inrebellion. My very men-at-arms and knights I cannot depend upon--onlyupon you and the Black Riders."
"In the matter of the Bishop's interdict, or in other matters, do youmean that you can trust my counsel, Duke Casimir?" asked my father.
"'Tis in the burial of the dead that the shoe will pinch first with theseburghers of Thorn and among our soldiers at the Wolfsberg. For mass,indeed, they care not a dove's dropping--but that the corpse should becarried to a dog's grave, that they cannot away with. Red Axe, I tell youwe shall have the State of the Mark about our ears in the slipping of ahound's leash--and as for me, I know not what I shall do."
"Listen, and I will counsel you, Duke Casimir! Care you not though theeast wind brought Bishop Peters whirling over the Mark, as many as theJanuary snowflakes that come to us from Muscovy. I, Gottfried Gottfried,tell you what to do. In every parish of the Mark there is a parson. Everyclerk of them hath a Presbytery, in which he dwells with those that areabiding with him. Bid you the soldiers that are obedient to you to carryall the corpses of the dead to the Presbytery, and leave them there underguard. Then let us see whether or no the parsons will give them burial.What think you of the counsel, Duke Casimir?"
I could hear the Duke rise and pace across the floor to where myfather sat on his bed. And by the silence I knew that the two men wereshaking hands.
"Red Axe," said the Duke, much moved, "of a truth you are a greatman--none like you in the Dukedom. These beard-wagging, chain-jinglinggentry I have small notion of. And would you but accept it, I would giveyou to-morrow the collar of gold which befits the Chancellor of the Mark.None deserves to wear it so well as thou."
My father laughed a low scornful laugh.
"Because I bid you teach the parsons their own religion, am I to be madeChancellor of the Mark? A great gray wolf out of the forest were assuitable a Chancellor of the Mark as Gottfried Gottfried, the fourteenthhereditary Red Axe of Thorn!"
Then I heard him reach over his bed for something. I stole out of thehole in the wall and crouched down till my eyes rested at the greatlatchet hole through which the tang of leather to lift the boltordinarily goes. I could see my father sitting on his bed and the RedAxe lying across his knees. He took it in hand, dangling it like aninfant. He caressed it as he spoke, and ran his thumb lovingly along theshining edge.
"Ah," he said, "my beauty, 'tis you and not your master they should makeHigh Chancellor of this realm. 'Tis you that have held the power of lifeand death, and laid the spirit of rebellion any time these twenty years.And well indeed wouldst thou look with a red robe about thee" (here hereached for a cloak that swung from the rafters contiguous to his hand);"a noble presence wouldst thou be in a tun-bellied robe and a collar ofshining gold! Bravely, great State's Chancellor of the Wolfmark, wouldstthou then lead the processions and preside at the diets of justice--asindeed thou dost mostly as it is."
And he made the Red Axe bow like a puppet in his hands as he swept thecloak of red out behind the handle.
I could see Duke Casimir now. He had drawn up a stool and sat opposite myfather, with his elbows on his knees. One hand was stroking the side ofhis head, and his haughtiness had all fallen from him like a forgottenovermantle. He looked another man from the cruel, relentless Prince whohad ridden so sternly at the head of his men-at-arms and looked socal
lously on at the death of men and the yet more bitter agony of women.
He stared at the floor, absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, while myfather regarded him with his eyes as though he had been a lad in his'prenticing who needed encouragement to persevere.
"Duke," he said, steadily, "you have borne the rule many years, and Ihave stood behind you. Have I ever advised you wrong? Make peace with theyoung man, your nephew; he is now only the Count von Reuss, but one dayhe will be Duke Otho. And if he be rightly guided he may be a brave ruleryet. But if not, and he gather in his hand the various seditions andconfused turbulences in the Dukedom, why, a worse thing may befall."
"You advise me," said the Duke, lifting his head and looking at hisJusticer, "to recall my nephew and risk all that threatened us ere hefled to the Prince of Plassenburg--Karl, the Miller's Son."
Gottfried Gottfried continued to run his thumb to and fro along the edgeof the Red Axe.
"Even so," he replied, without raising his head; "give him the command ofthe Black Riders of the Guard, who, as it is, adore him. Let him try his'prentice hand on Bamberg and Reichenan. And if he offend, why, then itwill be time to apply for further advice to this chancellor in the RedRobe, whose face so shines with wisdom."
The Duke rose.
"Well, on your head be it!" he said.
"Nay," said my father, "I but advise, it is for you to decide, my Lord.If Duke Casimir sees a better way of it, why, then the words of hisservant are but as the tunes that the east wind whistles through thekey-hole."
And at the mention of key-holes I imagined that I saw my father's eyesrest on the latchet crevice. So I bethought me that it was time for me tobe retiring to bed. To my room, therefore, I went straightway, tiptoeingon the points of my hose. And with ears cocked I heard my father attendthe Duke to the door, and on across the yard, lest any night-wanderingtraitor should take a fancy to make a hole in the back of Duke Casimir ofthe Wolfmark.
Presently came my father in again, and I heard his foot climb steadilyup to my room. The door opened, and never was I in so deep a sleep. Heturned down the coverlet to see that I was undressed--but that I had seento. Whereat he departed fully satisfied.
Nevertheless this interview left me with a great feeling of insecurity.If the Duke Casimir were thus full of fears, doubts, misgivings, whencecame the fierce and cruel courage with which he dominated his liegeburghers and harassed the country round about for a hundred leagues? Thecunning of a weak man? Say, rather, the contrivance of a strong servantto hide the frailty of a weak master.
Then first it was that I saw that my father Gottfried Gottfried was thetrue ruler of the Wolfmark, and that the man who had carried me on hisshoulders and played with the little Helene was--at least, so long asDuke Casimir lived--the greatest man in all the Dukedom and firstCouncillor of State, whether the matter were one of peasant or Kaiser.