Joan of the Sword Hand

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XL

  THE LOVES OF PRIEST AND WIFE

  It remains to tell briefly how certain great things came to pass. Wemust return to Isle Rugen and to the lonely grange on the spit of sandwhich separates the Baltic from the waters of the Freshwater Haff.

  Many things have happened there since Conrad of Courtland, Cardinal andArchbishop, awaked to find by his bedside the sleeping girl who was hisbrother's wife.

  On Isle Rugen, where the pines grew dense and green, gripping andsettling the thin sandy soil with their prehensile roots, Joan andConrad found themselves much alone. The lady of the grange was seldom tobe seen, save when all were gathered together at meals. Werner vonOrseln and the Plassenburg captains, Jorian and Boris, played cards andflung harmless dice for white stones of a certain size picked from thebeach. Dumb Max Ulrich went about his work like a shadow. The tensoldiers mounted guard and looked out to sea with their elbows on theirknees in the intervals. Three times a week the solitary boat, with MaxUlrich at the oars, crossed to the landing-place on the mainland andreturned laden with provisions. The outer sea was empty before theireyes, generally deep blue and restless with foam caps. Behind them theHaff lay vacant and still as oil in a kitchen basin.

  But it was not dull on Isle Rugen.

  The osprey flashed and fell in the clear waters of the Haff, presentlyto re-emerge with a fish in his beak, the drops running like a brokenstring of pearls from his scales. Rough-legged buzzards screamed theirharsh and melancholy cry as on slanted wings they glided down inclinesof sunshine or lay out motionless upon the viewless glorious air. Wildgeese swept overhead out of the north in V-shaped flocks. The sea-gullstacked and balanced. All-graceful terns swung thwartways the blue sky,or plunged headlong into the long green swells with the curve and speedof falling stars.

  It was a place of forgetting, and in the autumn time it is good toforget. For winter is nigh, when there will be time and enough to thinkall manner of sad thoughts.

  So in the September weather Joan and Conrad walked much together. And asJoan forgat Kernsberg and her revenge, Rome and his mission receded intothe background of the young man's thoughts. Soon they met undisguisedlywithout fear or shame. This Isle Rugen was a place apart--a haven ofrefuge not of their seeking. Mars had driven one there, Neptune theother.

  Yet when Conrad woke in his little north-looking room in the lucidpearl-grey dawn he had some bad moments. His vows, his priesthood, hisprincedom of Holy Church were written in fire before his eyes. His heartweighed heavy as if cinctured with lead. And, deeper yet, a rat seemedto gnaw sharp-toothed at the springs of his life.

  Also, when the falling seas, combing the pebbly beaches with foamyteeth, rattled the wet shingle, Joan would ofttimes wake from sleep andlie staring wide-eyed at the casement. Black reproach of self broodedupon her spirit, as if a foul bird of night had fluttered through theopen window and settled upon her breast. The poor folk of Kernsberg--herfatherland invaded and desolate, the Sparhawk, the man who ought to havebeen the ruler she was not worthy to be, the leader in war, the lawgiverin peace--these reproachful shapes filled her mind so that sleep fledand she lay pondering plans of escape and deliverance.

  But of one thing she never thought--of the cathedral of Courtland andthe husband to whose face she had but once lifted her eyes.

  The sun looked through between the red cloud bars. These he soon leftbehind, turning them from fiery islands to banks of fleecy wool. Theshadows shot swiftly westward and then began slowly to shorten. In hischamber Prince Conrad rose and went to the window. A rose-coloured lightlay along the sea horizon, darting between the dark pine stems andtransmuting the bare sand-dunes into dreamy marvels, till they touchedthe heart like glimpses of a lost Eden seen in dreams. The black bird ofnight flapped its way behind the belting trees. There was not such athing as a ghostly rat to gnaw unseen the heart of man. The blue dome ofsky overhead was better than the holy shrine of Peter across the tawnyflood of Tiber, and Isle Rugen more to be desired than the seven-hilledcity itself. Yea, better than lifted chalice and wafted incense, Joan'shand in his----

  And Conrad the lover turned from the window with a defiant heart.

  * * * * *

  At her casement, which opened to the east, stood at the same moment theyoung Duchess of Hohenstein. Her lips were parted and the mystery of thenew day dwelt in her eyes like the memory of a benediction. Southwardlay the world, striving, warring, sinning, repenting, elevating theHost, slaying the living, and burying the dead. But between her and thatworld stretched a wide water not to be crossed, a fixed gulf not to bepassed over. It was the new day, and there beneath her was the strip ofsilver sand where he and she had walked yestereven, when the moon wasfull and the wavelets of that sheltered sea crisped in silver at theirfeet.

  An hour afterwards these two met and gave each other a hand silently.Then, facing the sunrise, they walked eastward along the shore, whilefrom the dusk of the garden gate Theresa von Lynar watched them with asad smile upon her face.

  "She is learning the lesson even as I learned it," she murmured,unconsciously thinking aloud. "Well, that which the father taught it ismeet that the daughter should learn. Let her eat the fruit, the bitterfruit of love--even as I have eaten it!"

  She watched a little longer, standing there with the pruning-knife inher hand. She saw Conrad turn towards Joan as they descended a littledell among the eastern sand-hills. And though she could not see, sheknew that two hands met, and that they stood still for a moment, eretheir feet climbed the opposite slope of dew-drenched sand. A swift sobtook her unexpectedly by the throat.

  "And yet," she said, "were all to do over, would not Theresa von Lynaragain learn that lesson from Alpha to Omega, eat the Dead Sea fruit toits bitterest kernel, in order that once more the bud might open andlove's flower be hers?"

  Theresa von Lynar at her garden door spoke truth. For even then amongthe sand-hills the bud was opening, though the year was on the wane andthe winter nigh.

  "Happy Isle Rugen!" said Joan, drawing a breath like a sigh. "Why werewe born to princedoms, Conrad, you and I?"

  "I at least was not," answered her companion. "Dumb Max's jerkin of bluefits me better than any robe royal."

  They stood on the highest part of the island. Joan was leaning on thecrumbling wall of an ancient fort, which, being set on a promontory fromwhich the pinetrees drew back a little, formed at once a place ofobservation and a point objective for their walks. She turned at hiswords and looked at him. Conrad, indeed, never looked better or moreprincely than in that rough jerkin of blue, together with the cordedforester's breeches and knitted hose which he had borrowed fromTheresa's dumb servitor.

  "Conrad," said Joan, suddenly standing erect and looking directly at theyoung man, "if I were to tell you that I had resolved never to return toKernsberg, but to remain here on Isle Rugen, what would you answer?"

  "I should ask to be your companion--or, if not, your bailiff!" said thePrince-Bishop promptly.

  "That would be to forget your holy office!"

  A certain gentle sadness passed over the features of the young man.

  "I leave many things undone for the sake of mine office," he said; "butthe canons of the Church do not forbid poverty, or yet manual labour."

  "But you have told me a hundred times," urged Joan, smiling in spite ofherself, "that necessity and not choice made you a Churchman. Does thatnecessity no longer exist?"

  "Nay," answered Conrad readily as before; "but smaller necessities yieldto greater?"

  "And the greater?"

  "Why," he answered, "what say you to the tempest that drove mehither--the thews and stout hearts of Werner von Orseln and his men, notto speak of Captains Boris and Jorian there? Are they not sufficientreasons for my remaining here?"

  He paused as if he had more to say.

  "Well?" said Joan, and waited for him to continue.

  "There is something else," he said. "It is--it is--that I cannot bear toleave you! God knows I could no
t leave you if I would!"

  Joan of Hohenstein started. The words had been spoken in a low tone, yetwith suppressed vehemence, as though driven from the young man's lipsagainst his will. But there was no mistaking their purport. Yet theywere spoken so hopelessly, and withal so gently, that she could not beangry.

  "Conrad--Conrad," she murmured reproachfully, "I thought I could havetrusted you. You promised never again to forget what we must bothremember!"

  "In so thinking you did well," he replied; "you may trust me to the end.But the privilege of speech and testimony is not denied even to thecriminal upon the scaffold."

  A wave of pity passed over Joan. A month before she would have withdrawnherself in hot anger. But Isle Rugen had gentled all her ways. The peaceof that ancient fortalice, the wash of its ambient waters, the very lackof incident, the sense of the mysteries of tragic life which surroundedher on all sides, the deep thoughts she had been thinking alone withherself, the companionship of this man whom she loved--all these hadwrought a new spirit in Joan of the Sword Hand. Women who cannot bepitiful are but half women. They have never yet entered upon theirinheritance. But now Joan was coming to her own again. For to pity ofTheresa von Lynar she was adding pity for Conrad of Courtland and--Joanof Hohenstein.

  "Speak," she said very gently. "Do not be afraid; tell me all that is inyour heart."

  Joan was not disinclined to hear any words that the young man mightspeak. She believed that she could listen unmoved even to his mostpassionate declarations of love. Like the wise physician, she wouldlisten, understand, prescribe--and administer the remedy.

  But the pines of Isle Rugen stood between this woman and the girl whohad ridden away so proudly from the doors of the Kernsberg minster atthe head of her four hundred lances. Besides, she had not forgotten thetournament and the slim secretary who had once stood before this man inthe river parlour of the Summer Palace.

  Then Conrad spoke in a low voice, very distinct and even in itsmodulation.

  "Joan," he said, "once on a time I dreamed of being loved--dreamed thatamong all the world of women there might be one woman for me. Suchthings must come when deep sleep falleth upon a young man. Waking I putthem from me, even as I put arms and warfare aside. I believed that Ihad conquered the lust of the eye. Now I know that I can never again betrue priest, never serve the altar with a clean heart.

  "Listen, my Lady Joan! I love you--there is no use in hiding it.Doubtless you yourself have already seen it. I love you so greatly thatvows, promises, priesthoods, cardinalates are no more to me than thecrying of the seabirds out yonder. Let a worthier than I receive andhold them. They are not for a weak and sinful man. My bishopric letanother take. I would rather be your groom, your servitor, your lacquey,than reign on the Seven Hills and sit in Holy Peter's chair!"

  Joan leaned against the crumbling battlement, and the words of Conradwere very sweet in her ear. They filled her with pity, while at the sametime her heart was strong within her. None had dared to speak suchthings to her before in all her life, and she was a woman. The PrincessMargaret, had she loved a man as Joan did this man, would have givenback vow for vow, renunciation for renunciation, and, it might be, havebartered kiss for kiss.

  But Joan of the Sword Hand was never stronger, never more serene, neversurer of herself than when she listened to the words she loved best tohear, from the lips of the man whom of all others she desired to speakthem. At first she had been looking out upon the sea, but now shepermitted her eyes to rest with a great kindliness upon the young man.Even as he spoke Conrad divined the thing that was in her heart.

  "Mark you," he said, "do me the justice to remember that I ask fornothing. I expect nothing. I hope for nothing in return. I thought oncethat I could love Divine things wholly. Now I know that my heart is tooearthly. But instead I love the noblest and most gracious woman in allthe world. And I love her, too, with a love not wholly unworthy of her."

  "You do me overmuch honour," said Joan quietly. "I, too, am weak andsinful. Or how else would I, your brother's wife, listen to such wordsfrom any man--least of all from you?"

  "Nay," said Conrad; "you only listen out of your great pitifulness. ButI am no worthy priest. I will not take upon me the yet greater thingsfor which I am so manifestly unfitted. I will not sully the holygarments with my earthliness. Conrad of Courtland, Bishop and Cardinal,died out there among the breakers.

  "He will never go to Rome, never kneel at the tombs of the Apostles.From this day forth he is a servitor, a servant of servants in the trainof the Duchess Joan. Save those with us here, our hostess and the threecaptains (who for your sake will hold their peace), none know thatConrad of Courtland escaped the waters that swallowed up his companions.They and you will keep the secret. This shaven crown will speedilythatch itself again, a beard grow upon these shaveling cheeks. A dash ofwalnut juice, and who will guess that under the tan of Conrad the serfthere is concealed a prince of Holy Church?"

  He paused, almost smiling. The picture of his renunciation had grownreal to him even as he spoke. But Joan did not smile. She waited a spaceto see if he had aught further to say. But he was silent, waiting forher answer.

  "Conrad," she said very gently, "that I have listened to you, and that Ihave not been angry, may be deadly sin for us both. Yet I cannot beangry. God forgive me! I have tried and I cannot be angry. And whyshould I? Even as I lay a babe in the cradle, I was wedded. If a womanmust suffer, she ought at least to be permitted to choose the instrumentof her torture."

  "It is verity," he replied; "you are no more true wife than I am truepriest."

  "Yet because you have dispensed holy bread, and I knelt before the altaras a bride, we must keep faith, you and I. We are bound by our nobility.If we sin, let it be the greater and rarer sin--the sin of the spiritonly. Conrad, I love you. Nay, stand still where you are and listen tome--to me, Joan, your brother's wife. For I, too, once for all willclear my soul. I loved you long ere your eyes fell on me. I came asDessauer's secretary to the city of Courtland. I determined to see theman I was to wed. I saw the prince--my prince as I thought--stormthrough the lists on his white horse. I saw him bare his head andreceive the crown of victory. I stood before him, ashamed yet glad,hosed and doubleted like a boy, in the Summer Pavilion. I heard hisgracious words. I loved my prince, who so soon was to be wholly mine.The months slipped past, and I was ever the gladder the faster theysped. The woman stirred within the stripling girl. In half a year, intwenty weeks--in five--in one--in a day--an hour, I would put my hand,my life, myself into his keeping! Then came the glad tumult of therejoicing folk, the hush of the crowded cathedral. I said, 'Oh, notyet--I will not lift my eyes to my prince until----' We stopped. Ilifted my eyes. And lo! the prince was not my prince!"

  There was a long and solemn pause between these two on the oldwatchtower. Never was declaration of love so given and so taken. Conradremained still as a statue, only his eyes growing great and full oflight. Joan stood looking at him, unashamed and fearless. Yet neithermoved an inch toward either. A brave woman's will, to do right greatly,stood between them.

  She went on.

  "Now you know all, my Conrad," she said. "Isle Rugen can never more bethe isle of peace to us. You and I have shivered the cup of ourhappiness. We must part. We can never be merely friends. I must abidebecause I am a prisoner. You will keep my counsel, promising me to besilent, and together we will contrive a way of escape."

  When Conrad answered her again his voice was hoarse and broken, almostlike one rheumed with sleeping out on a winter's night. His wordswhistled in his windpipe, flying from treble to bass and back again.

  "Joan, Joan!" he said, and the third time "Joan!" And for the moment hecould say no more.

  "True love," she said, and her voice was almost caressing, "you and Iare barriered from each other. Yet we belong--you to me--I to you! Iwill not touch your hand, nor you mine. Not even as we have hithertodone. Let ours be the higher, perhaps deadlier sin--the sin of soul andsoul. Do you go back to your office, your electorate,
while I stay hereto do my duty."

  "And why not you to your duchy?" said Conrad, who had begun to recoverhimself.

  "Because," she answered, "if I refuse to abide by one of my father'sbargains, I have no right to hold by the other. He would have made meyour brother's wife. That I have refused. He disinherited his lawful sonthat I might take the dukedom with me as my dowry. Can I keep that whichwas only given me in trust for another? Maurice von Lynar shall be DukeMaurice, and Theresa von Lynar shall have her true place as the widow ofHenry the Lion!"

  And she stood up tall and straight, like a princess indeed.

  "And you?" he said very low. "What will you do, Joan?"

  "For me, I will abide on Isle Rugen. Nunneries are not for me. There aredoubtless one or two who will abide with me for the sake of olddays--Werner von Orseln for one, Peter Balta for another. I shall not belonely."

  She smiled upon him with a peculiar trustful sweetness and continued--

  "And once a year, in the autumn, you will come from your high office.You will lay aside the princely scarlet, and don the curt hose and bluejerkin, even as now you stand. You will gather blackberries and help meto preserve them. You will split wood and carry water. Then, when theday is well spent, you and I shall walk hither in the high afternoon andtell each other how we stand and all the things that have filled ourhearts in the year's interspace. Thus will we keep tryst, you and I--notpriest and wedded wife, but man and woman speaking the truth eye to eyewithout fear and without stain. Do you promise?"

  And for all answer the Prince-Cardinal kneeled down, and taking the hemof her dress he kissed it humbly and reverently.