Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Joan of the Sword Hand

CHAPTER XXX
LOVE'S CLEAR EYE

"And now," cried Princess Margaret, clapping her hands together impulsively, "now at last I shall hear everything. Why you went away, and who gave you up, and about the fighting. Ugh! the traitors, to betray you after all! I would have their heads off – and all to save their wretched town and the lives of some score of fat burghers!"

So far the Princess Margaret had never once looked at the Sparhawk in his borrowed plumage, as he stood uneasily enough by the fireplace of the summer palace, leaning an elbow on the mantelshelf. But now she turned quickly to her guest.

"Oh, I love you!" she cried, running to Maurice and throwing her arms about her false sister-in-law in an impulsive little hug. "I think you are so brave. Is my hair sadly tangled? Tell me truly, Joan. The wind hath tumbled it about mine eyes. Not that it matters – with you!"

She said the last words with a little sigh.

Then the Princess Margaret tripped across the polished floor to a dressing-table which had been set out in the angle between the two windows. She turned the combs and brushes over with a contumelious hand.

"Where is your hand-glass?" she cried. "Do not tell me that you have never looked in it since you came to Courtland, or that you can put up with that squinting falsifier up there." She pointed to the oval-framed Venetian mirror which was hung opposite her. "It twists your face all awry, this way and that, like a monkey cracking a nut. 'Twas well enough for our good Conrad, but the Princess Joan is another matter."

"I have never even looked in either!" said the Sparhawk.

Some subtle difference in tone of voice caused the Princess to stop her work of patting into temporary docility her fair clustering ringlets, winding them about her fingers and rearranging to greater advantage the little golden combs which held her sadly rebellious tresses in place. She looked keenly at the Sparhawk, standing with both her shapely arms at the back of her head and holding a long ivory pin with a head of bright green malachite between her small white teeth.

"Your voice is hoarse – somehow you are different," she said, taking the pin from her lips and slipping it through the rebellious plaits with a swift vindictive motion.

"I have caught a cold riding into the city," quoth the Sparhawk hastily, blushing uneasily under her eyes. But for the time being his disguise was safe. Already Margaret of Courtland was thinking of something else.

"Tell me," she began, going to the window and gazing pensively out upon the green white-flecked pour of the Alla, swirling under the beams of the Summer Palace, "how many of your suite have followed you hither?"

"Only Alt Pikker, my second captain!" said the Sparhawk.

Again the tones of his voice seemed to touch her woman's ear with some subtile perplexity even in the midst of her abstraction. Margaret turned her eyes again upon Maurice, and kept them there till he shivered in the flowing, golden-belted dress of velvet which sat so handsomely upon his splendid figure.

"And your chief captain, Von Orseln?" The Princess seemed to be meditating again, her thoughts far from the rush of the Alla beneath and from the throat voice of the false Princess before her.

"Von Orseln has gone to the Baltic Edge to raise on my behalf the folk of the marshes!" answered the Sparhawk warily.

"Then there was – " the Princess hesitated, and her own voice grew a trifle lower – "the young man who came hither as Dessauer's secretary – what of him? The Count von Löen, if I mistake not – that was his name?"

"He is a traitor!"

The Princess turned quickly.

"Nay," she said, "you do not think so. Your voice is kind when you speak of him. Besides, I am sure he is no traitor. Where is he?"

"He is in the place where he most wishes to be – with the woman he loves!"

The light died out of the bright face of the Princess Margaret at the answer, even as a dun snow-cloud wipes the sunshine off a landscape.

"The woman he loves?" she stammered, as if she could not have heard aright.

"Aye," said the false bride, loosening her cloak and casting it behind her. "I swear it. He is with the woman he loves."

But in his heart the Sparhawk was saying, "Steady, Master Maurice von Lynar – or all will be out in five minutes."

The Princess Margaret walked determinedly from the window to the fireplace. She was not so tall by half a head as her guest, but to the eyes of the Sparhawk she towered above him like a young poplar tree. He shrank from her searching glance.

The Princess laid her hand upon the sleeve of the velvet gown. A flush of anger crimsoned her fair face.

"Ah!" she cried, "I see it all now, madam the Princess. You love the Count and you think to blind me. This is the reason of your riding off with him on your wedding day. I saw you go by his side. You sent Count Maurice to bring to you the four hundred lances of Kernsberg. It was for his sake that you left my brother Prince Louis at the church door. Like draws to like, they say, and your eyes even now are as like as peas to those of the Count von Löen."

And this, indeed, could the Sparhawk in no wise deny. The Princess went her angry way.

"There have been many lies told," she cried, raising the pitch of her voice, "but I am not blind. I can see through them. I am a woman and can gauge a woman's pretext. You yourself are in love with the Count von Löen, and yet you tell me that he is with the woman he loves. Bah! he loves you – you, his mistress – next, that is, to his selfish self-seeking self. If he is with the woman he loves, as you say, tell me her name!"

There came a knocking at the door.

"Who is there?" demanded imperiously the Princess Margaret.

"The Prince of Muscovy, to present his duty to the Princess of Courtland!"

"I do not wish to see him – I will not see him!" said the Sparhawk hastily, who felt that one inquisitor at a time was as much as he could hope to deal with.

"Enter!" said the Princess Margaret haughtily.

The Prince opened the door and stood on the threshold bowing to the ladies.

"Well?" queried Margaret of Courtland, without further acknowledgment of his salutation than the slightest and chillest nod.

"My service to both, noble Princesses," the answer came with suave deference. "The Prince Louis sent me to beg of his noble spouse, the Princess Joan, that she would deign to receive him."

"Tell Louis that the Princess will receive him at her own time. He ought to have better manners than to trouble a lady yet weary from a long journey. And as for you, Prince Ivan, you have our leave to go!"

Whilst Margaret was speaking the Prince had fixed his piercing eyes upon the Sparhawk, as if already he had penetrated his secret. But because he was a man Maurice sustained the searching gaze with haughty indifference. The Prince of Muscovy turned upon the Princess Margaret with a bright smile.

"All this makes an ill lesson for you, my fair betrothed," he said, bowing to her; "but – there will be no riding home once we have you in Moscow!"

"True, I shall not need to return, for I shall never ride thither!" retorted the Princess. "Moreover, I would have you remember that I am not your betrothed. The Prince Louis is your betrothed, if you have any in Courtland. You can carry him to Moscow an you will, and comfort each other there."

"That also I may do some day, madam!" flashed Prince Wasp, stirred to quick irritation. "But in the meantime, Princess Joan, does it please you to signify when you will receive your husband?"

"No! no! no!" whispered the Sparhawk in great perturbation.

The Princess Margaret pointed to the door.

"Go!" she said. "I myself will signify to my brother when he can wait upon the Princess."

"My Lady Margaret," the Muscovite purred in answer, "think you it is wise thus to encourage rebellion in the most sacred relations of life?"

The Princess Margaret trilled into merriest laughter and reached back a hand to take Joan's fingers in hers protectingly.

"The homily of the most reverend churchman, Prince Ivan of Muscovy, upon matrimony; Judas condemning treachery, Satan rebuking sin, were nothing to this!"

With all his faults the Prince had humour, the humour of a torture scene in some painted monkish Inferno.

"Agreed," he said, smiling; "and what does the Princess Margaret protecting that pale shrinking flower, Joan of the Sword Hand, remind you of?"

"That the room of Prince Ivan is more welcome to ladies than his company!" retorted Margaret of Courtland, still holding the Sparhawk's hand between both of hers, and keeping her angry eyes and petulant flower face indignantly upon the intruder.

Had Prince Ivan been looking at her companion at that moment he might have penetrated the disguise, so tender and devoted a light of love dwelt on the Sparhawk's countenance and beaconed from his eyes. But he only bowed deferentially and withdrew. Margaret and the Sparhawk were left once more alone.

The two stood thus while the brisk footsteps of Prince Wasp thinned out down the corridor. Then Margaret turned swiftly upon her tall companion and, still keeping her hand, she pulled Maurice over to the window. Then in the fuller light she scanned the Sparhawk's features with a kindling eye and paling lips.

"God in heaven!" she palpitated, holding him at a greater distance, "you are not the Lady Joan; you are – you are – "

"The man who loves you!" said the Sparhawk, who was very pale.

"The Count von Löen. Oh! Maurice, why did you risk it?" she gasped. "They will kill you, tear you to pieces without remorse, when they find out. And it is a thing that cannot be kept secret. Why did you do it?"

"For your sake, beloved," said the Sparhawk, coming nearer to her; "to look once more on your face – to behold once, if no more, the lips that kissed me in the dark by the river brink!"

"But – but – you may forfeit your life!"

"And a thousand lives!" cried the Sparhawk, nervously pulling at his woman's dress as if ashamed that he must wear it at such a time. "Life without you is naught to Maurice von Lynar!"

A glow of conscious happiness rose warm and pink upon the cheeks of the Princess Margaret.

"Besides," added Maurice, "the captains of Kernsberg considered that thus alone could their mistress be saved."

The glow paled a little.

"What! by sacrificing you? But perhaps you did it for her sake, and not wholly, as you say, for mine!"

There was no such thought in her heart, but she wished to hear him deny it.

"Nay, my one lady," he answered; "I was, indeed, more than ready to come to Courtland, but it was because of the hope that surged through my heart, as flame leaps through tow, that I should see you and hear your voice!"

The Princess held out her hands impulsively and then retracted them as suddenly.

"Now, we must not waste time," she said; "I must save you. They would slay you on the least suspicion. But I will match them. Would to God that Conrad were here. To him I could speak. I could trust him. He would help us. Let me see! Let me see!"

She bent her head and walked slowly to the window. Like every true Courtlander she thought best when she could watch the swirl of the green Alla against its banks. The Sparhawk took a step as if to follow, but instead stood still where he was, drinking in her proud and girlish beauty. To the eye of any spy they were no more than two noble ladies who had quarrelled, the smaller and slighter of whom had turned her back upon the taller!

They were in the same position still, and the white foam-fleck which Margaret was following with her eyes had not vanished from her sight, when the door of the summer palace was rudely thrown open and an officer announced in a loud and strident tone, "The Prince Louis to visit his Princess!"

CHAPTER XXXI
THE ROYAL MINX

Prince Louis entered, flushed and excited. His eyes had lost their furtive meanness and blazed with a kind of reckless fury quite foreign to his nature, for anger affected him as wine might another man.

He spoke first to the Princess Margaret.

"And so, my fair sister," he said, "you would foment rebellion even in my palace and concoct conspiracy with my own married wife. Make ready, madam, for to-morrow you shall find your master. I will marry you to the Prince Ivan of Muscovy. He will carry you to Moscow, where ladies of your breed are taught to obey. And if they will not – why, their delicate skins may chance to be caressed with instruments less tender than lovers' fingers. Go – make you ready. You shall be wed and that immediately. And leave me alone with my wife."

"I will not marry the Prince of Muscovy," his sister answered calmly. "I would rather die by the axe of your public executioner. I would wed with the vilest scullion that squabbles with the swine for gobbets in the gutters of Courtland, rather than sit on a throne with such a man!"

The Prince nodded sagely.

"A pretty spirit – a true Courtland spirit," he said mockingly. "I had the same within my heart when I was young. Conrad hath it now – priest though he be. Nevertheless, he is off to Rome to kiss the Pope's toe. By my faith, Gretchen lass, you show a very pretty spirit!"

He wheeled about and looked towards the false Joan, who was standing gripping nails into palms by the chimney-mantel.

"And you, my lady," he said, "you have had your turn of rebellion. But once is enough. You are conquered now. You are a wedded wife. Your place is with your husband. You sleep in my palace to-night!"

"If I do," muttered the Sparhawk, "I know who will wake in hell to-morrow!"

"My brother Louis," cried the Princess Margaret, running up to him and taking his arm coaxingly, "do not be so hasty with two poor women. Neither of us desire aught but to do your will. But give us time. Spare us, for you are strong. 'A woman's way is the wind's way' – you know our Courtland proverb. You cannot harness the Northern Lights to your chariot-wheels. Woo us – coax us – aye, even deceive us; but do not force us. Louis, Louis, I thought you were wise, and yet I see that you know not the alphabet of love. Here is your lady. Have you ever said a loving word to her, bent the knee, kissed her hand – which, being persisted in, is the true way to kiss the mouth?"

("If he does either," growled the Sparhawk, "my sword will kiss his midriff!")

Prince Louis smiled. He was not used to women's flatteries, and in his present state of exaltation the cajoleries of the Princess suited his mood. He swelled with self-importance, puffing his cheeks and twirling his grey moustache upwards with the finger and thumb of his left hand.

"I know more of women than you think, sister," he made answer. "I have had experiences – in my youth, that is; I am no puppet princeling. By Saint Mark! once on a day I strutted it with the boldest; and to-day – well, now that I have humbled this proud madam and brought her to my own city, why, I will show you that I am no Wendish boor. I can sue a lady's favour as courteously as any man – and, Margaret, if you will promise me to be a good girl and get you ready to be married to-morrow, I promise you that Louis of Courtland will solicit his lady's favour with all grace and observance."

"Gladly will I be married to-morrow," said the Princess, caressing her brother's sleeve – "that is, if I cannot be married to-day!" she added under her breath.

But she paused a few moments as if embarrassed.

Then she went on.

"Brother Louis, I have spoken with my sister here – your wife, the Lady Joan. She hath a scruple concerning matrimony. She would have it resolved before she hath speech with you again. Permit our good Father Clement to advise with her."

"Father Clement – our Conrad's tutor, why he more than another?"

"Well, do you not understand? He is old," pleaded Margaret, "and there are things one can say easiest to an old man. You understand, brother Louis."

The Prince nodded, well pleased. This was pleasant. His mentor, Prince Wasp, did not usually flatter him. Rather he made him chafe on a tight rein.

"And if I send Father Clement to you, chit," he said patting his sister's softly rounded cheek, "will he both persuade you and ease the scruples of my Lady Joan? I am as delicate and understanding as any man. I will not drive a woman when she desires to be led. But led or driven she must be. For to my will she must come at last."

"I knew it, I knew it!" she cried joyously. "Again you are mine own Louis, my dear sweet brother! When will Father Clement come?"

"As soon as he can be sent for," the Prince answered. "He will come directly here to the Summer Palace. And till then you two fair maids can abide together. Princess, my wife, I kiss your noble hand. Margaret, your cheek. Till to-morrow – till to-morrow!"

He went out with an awkward attempt at airy grace curiously grafted on his usually saturnine manners. The door closed behind him. Margaret of Courtland listened a moment with bated breath and finger on lip. A shouted order reached her ear from beneath. Then came the tramp of disciplined feet, and again they heard only the swirl of the Alla fretting about the piles of the Summer Palace.

Then, quickly dropping her lover's fingers, Margaret took hold of her own dress at either side daintily and circled about the Sparhawk in a light-tripping dance.

"Ah, Louis – we will be so good and bidable – to-morrow. To-morrow you will see me a loving and obedient wife. To-morrow I will wed Prince Wasp. Meantime – to-day you and I, Maurice, will consult Father Clement, mine ancient confessor, who will do anything I ask him. To-day we will dance – put your arm about my waist – firmly – so! There, we will dance at a wedding to-day, you and I. For in that brave velvet robe you shall be married!"

"What?" cried the Sparhawk, stopping suddenly. His impulsive sweetheart caught him again into the dance as she swept by in her impetuous career.

"Yes," she nodded, minueting before him. "It is as I say – you are to be married all over again. And when you ride off I will ride with you – no slipping your marriage engagements this time, good sir. I know your Kernsberg manners now. You will not find me so slack as my brother!"

"Margaret!" cried the Sparhawk. And with one bound he had her against his breast.

"Oh!" she cried, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, as she submitted to his embrace, "I don't love you half as much in that dress. Why, it is like kissing another girl at the convent. Ugh, the cats!"

She was not permitted to say any more. The Alla was heard very clearly in the Summer Palace as it swept the too swift moments with it away towards the sea which is oblivion. Then after a time, and a time and half a time, the Princess Margaret slowly emerged.

"No," she said retrospectively, "it is not like the convent, after all – not a bit."

"Affection is ever seemly, especially between great ladies – also unusual!" said a bass voice, speaking grave and kindly behind them.

The Sparhawk turned quickly round, the crimson rushing instant to his cheek.

"Father – dear Father Clement!" cried Margaret, running to the noble old man who stood by the door and kneeling down for his blessing. He gave it simply and benignantly, and laid his hand a moment on the rippling masses of her fair hair. Then he turned his eyes upon the Sparhawk.

The confusion of his beautiful penitent, the flush which mounted to her neck even as she kneeled, added to a certain level defiance in the glance of her taller companion, told him almost at a glance that which had been so carefully concealed. For the Father was a man of much experience. A man who hears a dozen confessions every day of his life through a wicket in a box grows accustomed to distinguishing the finer differences of sex. His glance travelled back and forth, from the Sparhawk to Margaret, and from Margaret to the Sparhawk.

"Ah!" he said at last, for all comment.

The Princess rose to her feet and approached the priest.

"My Father," she said swiftly, "this is not the Lady Joan, my brother's wife, but a youth marvellously like her, who hath offered himself in her place that she might escape – "

"Nay," said the Sparhawk, "it was to see you once again, Lady Margaret, that I came to Courtland!"

"Hush! you must not interrupt," she went on, putting him aside with her hand. "He is the Count von Löen, a lord of Kernsberg. And I love him. We want you to marry us now, dear Father – now, without a moment's delay; for if you do not, they will kill him, and I shall have to marry Prince Wasp!"

She clasped her hands about his arm.

"Will you?" she said, looking up beseechingly at him.

The Princess Margaret was a lady who knew her mind and so bent other minds to her own.

The Father stood smiling a little down upon her, more with his eyes than with his lips.

"They will kill him and marry you, if I do. And, moreover, pray tell me, little one, what will they do to me?" he said.

"Father, they would not dare to meddle with you. Your office – your sanctity – Holy Mother Church herself would protect you. If Conrad were here, he would do it for me. I am sure he would marry us. I could tell him everything. But he is far, far away, on his knees at the shrine of Holy Saint Peter, most like."

"And you, young masquerader," said Father Clement, turning to the Sparhawk, "what say you to all this? Is this your wish, as well as that of the Princess Margaret? I must know all before I consent to put my old neck into the halter!"

"I will do whatever the Princess wishes. Her will is mine."

"Do not make a virtue of that, young man," said the priest smiling; "the will of the Princess is also that of most people with whom she comes in contact. Submission is no distinction where our Lady Margaret is concerned. Why, ever since she was so high" (he indicated with his hand), "I declare the minx hath set her own penances and dictated her own absolutions."

"You have indeed been a sweet confessor," murmured Margaret of Courtland, still clasping the Father's arm and looking up fondly into his face. "And you will do as I ask you this once. I will not ask for such a long time again."

The priest laughed a short laugh.

"Nay, if I do marry you to this gentleman, I hope it will serve for a while. I cannot marry Princesses of the Empire to carnival mummers more than once a week!"

A quick frown formed on the brow of Maurice von Lynar. He took a step nearer. The priest put up his hand, with the palm outspread in a sort of counterfeit alarm.

"Nay, I know not if it will last even a week if bride and groom are both so much of the same temper. Gently, good sir, gently and softly. I must go carefully myself. I am bringing my grey hairs unpleasantly near the gallows. I must consider my duty, and you must respect my office."

The Sparhawk dropped on one knee and bent his head.

"Ah, that is better," said the priest, making the sign of benediction above the clustered raven locks. "Rise, sir, I would speak with you a moment apart. My Lady Margaret, will you please to walk on the terrace there while I confer with – the Lady Joan upon obedience, according to the commandment of the Prince."

As he spoke the last words he made a little movement towards the corridor with his hand, at the same moment elevating his voice. The Princess caught his meaning and, before either of her companions could stop her, she tiptoed to the door, set her hand softly to the latch, and suddenly flung it open. Prince Louis stood without, with head bowed to listen.

The Princess shrilled into a little peal of laughter.

"Brother Louis!" she cried, clapping her hands, "we have caught you. You must restrain your youthful, your too ardent affections. Your bride is about to confess. This is no time for mandolins and serenades. You should have tried those beneath her windows in Kernsberg. They might have wooed her better than arbalist and mangonel."

The Prince glared at his débonnaire sister as if he could have slain her on the spot.

"I returned," he said formally, speaking to the disguised Maurice, "to inform the Princess that her rooms in the main palace were ready for her whenever she deigns to occupy them."

"I thank you, Prince Louis," returned the false Princess, bowing. In his character of a woman betrayed and led prisoner the Sparhawk was sparing of his words – and for other reasons as well.

"Come, brother, your arm," said the Princess. "You and I must not intrude. We will leave the good Father and his fair penitent. Will you walk with me on the terrace? I, on my part, will listen to your lover's confessions and give you plenary absolution – even for listening at keyholes. Come, dear brother, come!"

And with one gay glance shot backward at the Sparhawk, half over her shoulder, the Lady Margaret took the unwilling arm of her brother and swept out. Verily, as Father Clement had said, she was a royal minx.