CHAPTER XVI
TWO WOMEN--AND A MAN
It was the forenoon of a Sunday, a dull, sleepy time in all countries,and one difficult to get overpast. I was as usual busy with myaccoutrement, recently bought with the loan of Master Gerard. The LittlePlaymate was just returned from the cathedral, and had indeed scarcelylaid her finery aside, when there came a loud knocking at the outer gateof the Red Tower. Then one of the guard tramped stolidly from the wicketto the door of our dwelling.
"A lady waits you at the postern," said he, and so tramped his wayunceremoniously back to his post.
I knew without any need of telling that it was the Lady Ysolinde. So Irose, and hastily setting my fingers through my hair, went to the gate.There, attended by the respectable servitor, was, as I had expected, theLady Ysolinde.
"Good-morrow," she said very courteously to me, and I duly returned hergreeting with a low obeisance of respect and welcome.
She wore a large garment, fashioned like a man's cloak, over her festalattire--which, with a hood for the head, wholly enveloped her figure anddescended to her feet.
"I have come, as I promised, to see the Little Playmate." These were herfirst words as we paced together across the wide upper court under thewondering eyes of the men of the Duke's body-guard.
"Pray remember, Lady Ysolinde," said I, with much eagerness, "that Ihave as yet said nothing of the matter to Helene, and that my father onlyknows that I am to ride to Plassenburg in order to exercise myself in thepractice of arms, before becoming his assistant here in the Red Tower andin the Hall of Judgment across the way."
My visitor nodded a little impatiently. She who knew so many things, of asurety might be trusted to understand so much without being told.
In the inner doorway Helene met us. And never had it been my fortune tosee the meeting of two such women. The Little Playmate had in her handsthe broidered handkerchiefs, the long Flemish gloves, and the littleilluminated Book of the Hours which I had given her. She had been aboutto lay them away together, as is the fashion of women. And when she metthe Lady Ysolinde I declare that she looked almost as tall. Helene wasperhaps an inch or two less in stature than her visitor, but what shelacked in height she more than made up in the supple erectness of hercarriage and the vivid and extraordinary alertness of all her movements.
"Lady Ysolinde," said I, as they met with the mutually level eyeshot ofwomen who measure one another, "this is Helene--whom, for love andkindliness, we of the Wolfsberg call the 'Little Playmate.'"
The daughter of Master Gerard impetuously threw back the gray monk's hoodwhich shrouded the masses of her tawny hair. She put out both hands toHelene, held her a moment at arm's-length to look into her eyes, even asshe had done with me, but in a different way. Then, drawing her nearer,she leaned forward and kissed her on the brow and on both cheeks.
Now I am not ordinarily a close observer, and many things, speciallythings that pertain to the acts of women, pass by me unnoticed. But I sawin a moment that there was not, and never could be, more than thesemblance of cordial amity between these two women.
I noted the Little Playmate instinctively quiver like a taken birdwhen she was thus embraced. It was, I think, the undying antipathy ofEve for Lilith, a hatred which is mostly on the side of Eve, theMother-Woman--its place being taken by sharper and more dangerous envyin the breast of Lilith-without-the wall.
There, face to face, stood the two women who were to make my life, rulingit between them, as it were, striking it out between the impact of theirnatures, as underneath the blows of two smiths upon the ringing anvil theiron, hissing hot, becomes a sword or a ploughshare.
It was impossible to avoid contrasting them.
Helene, of a bodily beauty infinitely more full of temptation, bloomfulwith radiant health, the blush of youth and conscious loveliness upon herlips and looking out under the crisp entanglement of her hair, all simplepurity and straightness of soul in the fearless innocency of her eyes;the Lady Ysolinde, deeper taught in the mysteries of existence, moreconscious of power, not so beautiful, but oftentimes giving theimpression of beauty more strongly than her fairer rival, compact ofswift delicate graces, half feline, half feminine (if these two be notthe same). All these passed like clouds over the unquiet sea of hernature, reflecting the changing skies of circumstance, and were fitted toproduce a fascination ever on the verge of repulsion even when it wasstrongest. Ysolinde was the more ready of speech, but her words weretouched constantly with dainty malice and clawed with subtlest spite. Shecatspawed with men and things, often setting the hidden spur under thevelvet foot deeply into the very cheek which she seemed to caress. Suchas I read them then, and largely as even now I understand them, were thetwo women who moulded between them my life's history.
I suppose it is because I am of this Baltic North that I must need thinkthings round and round, and prose of reasons and explanations--even whenI write concerning beautiful maids--forever dreaming and dividing,instead of going straight, sword in hand, for their hearts, as is the wayof the folk from the English land over-seas, or, more simply still, lyingabout their favors, which, I hear, is mostly the Frenchman's way.
But enough of intolerable theory.
Instinctively the Lady Ysolinde spoke to our maid of the Red Tower in amanner and tone very different from that which I had ever before heardher employ, at once more equal and more guarded.
"I was told by Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made atmy father's house on the day after his foolish boy's prank of the WhiteSwan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age,like myself a maid solitary among men. So to-day I have come to solicither acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind to me, who have ever been inthis city and country as a stranger in a strange land."
It was prettily enough said, and our Helene, easily touched, and perhapsa little ashamed of her first stiffness, put out a hand which the otherquickly and securely clasped. Then those two sat down together. Ysolindevon Sturm kept her eyes fixed on the Playmate, but our shy and slenderHelene looked steadily past her out over the tumbled red roofs and peakedgables of the city of Thorn to the gray Wolfmark plains which lay spreadbeneath our windows like a picture in a book.
At intervals, as it came near the hour of their mid-day meal, theblood-hounds howled in the kennels, and by their tone I knew that myfather had left the Hall of Judgment where he had been detained all themorning. Also I knew very well that the Lady Ysolinde wished me to findan errand elsewhere, in order that she might talk alone with hercompanion. But I saw also the appeal in the eyes of the Playmate, and Iwas resolved not to give her the chance.
"Are you never weary in this dull tower?" asked the lawyer's daughter,still holding the Playmate's hand.
"It is not dull," replied Helene. "I have my work. There are two men asshiftless and helpless as babes to attend to, and none to help me butold Hanne."
"Let men attend to themselves," cried Ysolinde; "that is ever my motto.They ought to be our servants, not we theirs."
It was said smilingly, yet there was bitterness under the words as well.
"But," said Helene, smiling back at her with a fresh directness all herown, "one of the men saved my life and brought me up as his own daughter,and the other is--is Hugo, here."
And as she spoke of my father and of me I saw the eyes of the LadyYsolinde fixed upon her, as it had been to read her inner soul.
"And, by-the-way," she said, at last, after a long pause, "you have heardhow this same Master Hugo proposes to himself to escape from theprison-house of this city, for a season to exercise himself in arms, andso in roving adventure fulfil that which is not granted to a maid, his'wandering years.' He goes (so my father tells me) to the Court of thePrince of Plassenburg, with the promise of a company to command. And I amglad, for I shall ride thither under his escort. Indeed, and in truth, myhome is far more there than here in Thorn. But I would fain have acompanion of my own sex. So I have come to beg of you, Mistress Helene,that you will accompany me. The Prin
cess, I know, has great need of amaid of honor near her person, and will gladly welcome a friend of minefor the post."
The Little Playmate looked up astonished, as well she might, at thisdirect assault, which was moreover spoken with a pretty shamefacednessand the air of asking almost too great a favor. And, indeed, if there wasany patronage in the thing offered, it was at least carefully kept out ofthe manner of asking.
"Lady Ysolinde, I cannot accept your too overpowering favor," saidHelene, after a pause, "but your kindness in thinking at all of me willalways warm my heart."
At this critical moment came my father in, looking more than grave andsevere, so that I judged at once that he had been talking to the DukeCasimir and had found his post of chief adviser both thankless anddifficult. I knew it could be no matter of his office which worried him,for that day he wore his holiday attire of white Friesland cloth, and thebroad bonnet in which I loved best to see him. There was no mark of hiscalling about him anywhere, save a little Red Axe sewed upon his leftbreast like a war veteran's decoration.
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