Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Joan of the Sword Hand

CHAPTER XLVIII
JOAN GOVERNS THE CITY

It was night in the city of Courtland, and a time of great fear. The watchmen went to and fro on the walls, staring into the blank dark. The Alla, running low with the droughts, lapped gently about the piles of the Summer Palace and lisped against the bounding walls of the city.

But ever and anon from the east, where lay the camps of the opposed forces, there came a sound, heavy and sonorous, like distant thunder. Whereat the frighted wives of the burghers of Courtland said, "I wonder what mother's son lies a-dying now. Hearken to the talking of Great Peg, the Margraf's cannon!"

At the western or Brandenberg gate there was yet greater fear. For the news had spread athwart the city that a great body of horsemen had paused in front of it, and were being held in parley by the guard on duty, till the Lady Joan, Governor of the city, should be made aware.

"They swear that they are friends" – so ran the report – "which is proof that they are enemies. For how can there be friends who are not Courtlanders. And these speak an outland speech, clacking in their throats, hissing their s's, and laughing 'Ho! ho!' instead of 'Hoch! hoch!' as all good Christians do!"

The Governor of the city, roused from a rare slumber, leaped on her horse and went clattering off with an escort through the unsleeping streets. When first she came the folk had cheered her as she went. But they were too jaded and saddened now.

"Our Governor, the Princess Joan!" they used to call her with pride. But for all that she found not the same devotion among these easy Courtlanders as among her hardy men of Hohenstein. To these she was indeed the Princess Joan. But to those in Castle Kernsberg she was Joan of the Sword Hand.

When at last she came to the Brandenburg gate she found before it a great gathering of the townsfolk. The city guard manned the walls, fretted with haste and falling over each other in their uncertainty. There was yet no strictness of discipline among these raw train-bands, and, instead of waiting for an officer to hail the horsemen in front, every soldier, hackbutman, and halberdier was shouting his loudest, till not a word of the reply could be heard.

But all this turmoil vanished before the first fierce gust of Joan's wrath like leaves blown away by the blasts of January.

"To your posts, every man! I will have the first man spitted with arrows who disobeys – aye, or takes more upon himself than simple obedience to orders. Let such as are officers only abide here with me. Silence beneath in the tower there."

Looking out, Joan could see a dark mass of horsemen, while above them glinted in the pale starlight a forest of spearheads.

"Whence come you, strangers?" cried Joan, in the loud, clear voice which carried so far.

"From Plassenburg we are!" came back the answer.

"Who leads you?"

"Captains Boris and Jorian, officers of the Prince's bodyguard."

"Let Captains Boris and Jorian approach and deliver their message."

"With whom are we in speech?" cried the unmistakable voice of Boris, the long man.

"With the Princess Joan of Hohenstein, Governor of the city of Courtland," said Joan firmly.

"Come on, Boris; those Courtland knaves will not shoot us now. That is the voice of Joan of the Sword Hand. There can be no treachery where she is."

"Ho, below there!" cried Joan. "Shine a light on them from the upper sally port."

The lanterns flashed out, and there, immediately below her, Joan beheld Boris and Jorian saluting as of old, with the simultaneous gesture which had grown so familiar to her during the days at Isle Rugen. She was moved to smile in spite of the soberness of the circumstances.

"What news bring you, good envoys?"

"The best of news," they said with one accord, but stopped there as if they had no more to say.

"And that news is – "

"First, we are here to fight. Pray you tell us if it is all over!"

"It is not over; would to Heaven it were!" said Joan.

"Thank God for that!" cried Boris and Jorian, with quite remarkable unanimity of piety.

"Is that all your tidings?"

"Nay, we have brought the most part of the Palace Guard with us – five hundred good lances and all hungry-bellied for victuals and all monstrously thirsty in their throats. Besides which, Prince Hugo raises Plassenburg and the Mark, and in ten days he will be on the march for Courtland."

"God send him speed! I fear me in ten days it will be over indeed," said Joan, listening for the dull recurrent thunder down towards the Alla mouth.

"What, does the Muscovite press you so hard?"

"He has thousands to our hundreds, so that he can hem us in on every side."

"Never fear," cried Boris confidently; "we will hold him in check for you till our good Hugo comes to take him on the flank."

Then Joan bade the gates be opened, and the horsemen of Plassenburg, strong men on huge horses, trampled in. She held out a hand for the captains to kiss, and sent the burgomaster to assign them billets in the town.

Then, without resting, she went to the wool market, which had been turned into a soldiers' hospital. Here she found Theresa von Lynar, going from bed to bed smoothing pillows, anointing wounded limbs, and assisting the surgeons in the care of those who had been brought back from the fatal battlefields of the Alla.

Theresa von Lynar rose to meet Joan as she entered, with all the respect due to the city's Governor. Silently the young girl beckoned her to follow, and they went out between long lines of pallets. Here and there a torch glimmered in a sconce against the wall, or a surgeon with a candle in his hand paused at a bedside. The sough of moaning came from all about, and in a distant window-bay, unseen, a man distract with fever jabbered and fought fitfully.

Never had Joan realised so nearly the reverse of war. Never had she so longed for the peace of Isle Rugen. She could govern a city. She could lead a foray. She was not afraid to ride into battle, lance in rest or sword in hand. But she owned to herself that she could not do what this woman was doing.

"Remember, when all is over I shall keep my vow!" Joan began, as they paused and looked down the long alley of stained pillows, tossing heads, and torn limbs lying very still on palliasses of straw. Without, some of the riotous youth of the city were playing martial airs on twanging instruments.

"And I also will keep mine!" responded Theresa briefly.

"I am Duchess and city Governor only till the invader is driven out," Joan continued. "Then Isle Rugen is to be mine, and your son shall sit in the seat of Henry the Lion!"

"Isle Rugen shall be yours!" answered Theresa.

"And when you are tired of Castle Kernsberg you will cross the wastes and take boat to visit me, even as at the first I came to you!" said Joan, kindling at the thought of a definite sacrifice. It seemed like an atonement for her soul's sin.

"And what of Prince Conrad!" said Theresa quietly.

Joan was silent for a space, then she answered with her eyes on the ground.

"Prince Conrad shall rule this land as is his duty – Cardinal, Archbishop, Prince he shall be; there shall be none to deny him so soon as the power of the Muscovite is broken. He will be in full alliance with Hohenstein. He will form a blood bond with Plassenburg. And when he dies, all that is his shall belong to the children of Duke Maurice and his wife Margaret!"

Theresa von Lynar stood a moment weighing Joan's words, and when she spoke it was a question that she asked.

"Where is Maurice to-night?" she asked.

"He commands the Kernsbergers in the camp. Prince Conrad has made him provost-marshal."

"And the Princess Margaret?"

"She abides in the river gate of the city, which Maurice passes often upon his rounds!"

A strange smile passed over the face of Theresa von Lynar.

"There are many kinds of love," she said; "but not after this fashion did I, that am a Dane, love Henry the Lion. Wherefore should a woman hamper a man in his wars? Sooner would I have died by his hand!"

"She loves him," said Joan, with a new sympathy. "She is a princess and wilful. Moreover, not even a woman can prophesy what love will make another woman do!"

"Aye!" retorted Theresa, "I am with you there. But to help a man, not to hinder. Let her strip herself naked that he may go forth clad. Let her fall on the sharp wayside stones that he may march to victory. Let her efface herself that no breath may sully his great name. Let her die unknown – nay, make of herself a living death – that he may increase and fill the mouths of men. That is love – the love of women as I have imagined it. But this love that takes and will not give, that hampers and sends not forth to conquer, that keeps a man within call like a dog straining upon a leash – pah! that is not the love I know!"

She turned sharply upon Joan, all her body quivering with excitement.

"No, nor yet is it your way of love, my Lady Joan!"

"I shall never be so tried, like Margaret," answered Joan, willing to change her mood. "I shall never love any man with the love of wife!"

"God forbid," said Theresa, looking at her, "that such a woman as you should die without living!"

CHAPTER XLIX
THE WOOING OF BORIS AND JORIAN

"Jorian," said Boris, adjusting his soft underjerkin before putting on his body armour, "thou art the greatest fool in the world!"

"Hold hard, Boris," answered Jorian. "Honour to whom honour – thou art greater by at least a foot than I!"

"Well," said the long man, "let us not quarrel about the breadth of a finger-nail. At any rate, we two are the greatest fools in the world."

"There are others," said Jorian, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the women's apartments.

"None so rounded and tun-bellied with folly!" cried Boris, with decision. "No two donkeys so thistle-fed as we – to have the command of five hundred good horsemen, and the chances of as warm a fight as ever closed – "

"That is just it," cried Jorian; "our Hugo had no business to forbid us to engage in the open before he should come."

"'Hold the city.' quoth he, shaking that great head of his. 'I know not the sort of general this priest-knight may be, and till I know I will not have my Palace Guard flung like a can of dirty water in the face of the Muscovites. Therefore counsel the Prince to stand on the defensive till I come.'"

"And rightly spoke the son of the Red Axe," assented Boris; "only our good Hugo should have sent other men than you and me to command in such a campaign. We never could let well alone all the days of us."

"Save in the matter of marriage or no marriage!" smiled Boris grimly.

"A plague on all women!" growled the little fat man, his rubicund and shining face lined with unaccustomed discontent. "A plague on all women, I say! What can this Theresa von Lynar want in the Muscovite camp, that we must promise to convey her safe through the fortifications, and then put her into Prince Wasp's hands?"

"Think you that for some hatred of our Joan – you remember that night at Isle Rugen – or some purpose of her own (she loves not the Princess Margaret either), this Theresa would betray the city to the enemy?"

"Tush!" Jorian had lost his temper and answered crossly. "In that case, would she have called us in? It were easy enough to find some traitor among these Courtlanders, who, to obtain the favour of Prince Louis, would help to bring the Muscovite in. But what, if she were thrice a traitress, would cause her to fix on the two men who of all others would never turn knave and spoil-sport – no, not for a hundred vats of Rhenish bottled by Noah the year after the Flood!"

"Well," sighed his companion, "'tis well enough said, my excellent Jorian, but all this does not advance us an inch. We have promised, and at eleven o' the clock we must go. What hinders, though, that we have a bottle of Rhenish now, even though the vintage be younger than you say? Perhaps, however, the patron was more respectable!"

Thus in the hall of the men-at-arms in the Castle of Courtland spoke the two captains of Plassenburg. All this time they were busy with their attiring, Boris in especial making great play with a tortoiseshell comb among his tangled locks. Somewhat more spruce was the arraying of our twin comrades-in-arms than we have seen it. Perhaps it was the thought of the dangerous escort duty upon which they had promised to venture forth that night; perhaps —

"May we come in?" cried an arch voice from the doorway. "Ah, we have caught you! There – we knew it! So said I to my sister not an hour agone. Women may be vain as peacocks, but for prinking, dandifying vanity, commend me to a pair of foreign war-captains. My lords, have you blacked your eyelashes yet, touched up your eyebrows, scented and waxed those beautiful moustaches? Sister, can you look and live?"

And to the two soldiers, standing stiff as at attention, with their combs in their hands, enter the sisters Anna and Martha Pappenheim, more full of mischief than ever, and entirely unsubdued by the presence of the invader at their gates.

"Russ or Turk, Courtlander or Franconian, Jew, proselyte, or dweller in Mesopotamia, all is one to us. So be they are men, we will engage to tie them about our little fingers!"

"Why," cried Martha, "whence this grand toilet? We knew not that you had friends in the city. And yet they tell me you have been in Courtland before, Sir Boris?"

"Marthe," cried Anna Pappenheim, with vast pretence of indignation, "what has gotten into you, girl? Can you have forgotten that martial carriage, those limbs incomparably knit, that readiness of retort and delicate sparkle of Wendish wit, which set all the table in a roar, and yet never once brought the blush to maiden's cheek? For shame, Marthe!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed Jorian suddenly, short and sharp, as if a string had been pulled somewhere.

"Ho! ho!" thus more sonorously Boris.

Anna Pappenheim caught her skirts in her hand and spun round on her heel on pretence of looking behind her.

"Sister, what was that?" she cried, spying beneath the settles and up the wide throat of the chimney. "Methought a dog barked."

"Or a grey goose cackled!"

"Or a donkey sang!"

"Ladies," said Jorian, who, being vastly discomposed, must perforce try to speak with an affectation of being at his ease, "you are pleased to be witty."

"Heaven mend our wit or your judgment!"

"And we are right glad to be your butts. Yet have we been accounted fellows of some humour in our own country and among men – "

"Why, then, did you not stay there?" inquired Martha pointedly.

"It was not Boris and I who could not stay without," retorted Jorian, somewhat nettled, nodding towards the door of the guard-room.

"Well said!" cried frank Anna. "He had you there, Marthe. Pricked in the white! Faith, Sir Jorian pinked us both, for indeed it was we who intruded into these gentlemen's dressing-room. Our excuse is that we are tirewomen, and would fain practise our office when and where we can. Our Princess hath been wedded and needs us but once a week. Noble Wendish gentlemen, will not you engage us?"

She clasped her hands, going a step or two nearer Boris as if in appeal.

"Do, kind sirs," she said, "have pity on two poor girls who have no work to do. Think – we are orphans and far from home!"

The smiles on the faces of the war-captains broadened. "Ho! ho! Good!" burst out Boris.

"Ha! ha! Excellent!" assented Jorian, nodding, with his eyes on Martha.

Anna Pappenheim ran quickly on tip-toe round to Boris's back and peered between his shoulders. Then she ran her eyes down to his heels.

"Sister," she cried, "they do it. That dreadful noise comes from somewhere about them. I distinctly saw their jaws waggle. They must of a surety be wound up like an arbalist. Yet I cannot find the string and trigger! Do come and help me, good Marthe! If you find it, I will dance at your wedding in my stocking-feet!"

And the gay Franconian reached up and pulled a stray tag of Boris's jerkin, which hung down his back. The knot slipped, and a circlet of red and gold, ragged at the lower edges, came off in her hand, revealing the fact that Boris's noble soubreveste was no more than a fringe of broidered collar.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Jorian irrepressibly. For Boris looked mightily crestfallen to have his magnificence so rudely dealt with.

Anna von Pappenheim clapped her hands.

"I have found it," she cried. "It goes like this. You touch off the trigger of one, and the other explodes!"

Boris wheeled about with fell intent on his face. He would have caught the teasing minx in his arms, but Anna skipped round behind a chair and threatened him with her finger.

"Not till you engage us," she cried. "Hands off, there! We are to array you – not you to disarray us!"

Whereat the two gamesome Southlanders stood together in ludicrous imitation of Boris and Jorian's military stiffness, folding their hands meekly and casting their eyes downward like a pair of most ingenuous novices listening to the monitions of their Lady Superior. Then Anna's voice was heard speaking with almost incredible humility.

"Will my lord with the hook nose so great and noble deign to express a preference which of us shall be his handmaid?"

But they had ventured an inch too far. The string was effectually pulled now.

"I will have this one – she is so merry!" cried solemn Boris, seizing Anna Pappenheim about the waist.

"And I this! She pretendeth melancholy, yet has tricks like a monkey!" said Jorian, quickly following his example. The girls fended them gallantly, yet, as mayhap they desired, their case was hopeless.

"Hands off! I will not be called 'this one,'" cried Anna, though she did not struggle too vehemently.

"Nor I a monkey! Let me go, great Wend!" chimed Martha, resigning herself as soon as she had said it.

In this prosperous estate was the courtship of Franconia and Plassenburg, when some instinct drew the eyes of Jorian to the door of the officers' guard-room, which Anna had carefully left open at her entrance, in order to secure their retreat.

The Duchess Joan stood there silent and regardant.

"Boris!" cried Jorian warningly. Boris lifted his eyes from the smiling challenge upon Anna's upturned lips, which, after the manner of your war-captains, he was stooping to kiss.

Unwillingly Boris lifted his eyes. The next moment both the late envoys of Plassenburg were saluting as stiffly as if they had still been men-at-arms, while Anna and Martha, blushing divinely, were busy with their needlework in the corner, as demure as cats caught sipping cream.

Joan looked at the four for a while without speaking.

"Captains Boris and Jorian," she said sternly, "a messenger has come from Prince Conrad to say that the Muscovites press him hard. He asks for instant reinforcements. There is not a man fit for duty within the city saving your command. Will you take them to the Prince's assistance immediately? Werner von Orseln fights by his side. Maurice and my Kernsbergers are already on their way."

The countenances of the two Plassenburg captains fell as the leathern screen drops across a cathedral door through which the evening sunshine has been streaming.

"My lady, it is heartbreaking, but we cannot," said Boris dolefully. "Our Lord Prince Hugo bade us keep the city till he should arrive!"

"But I am Governor. I will keep the city," cried Joan; "the women will mount halberd and carry pike. Go to the Prince! Were Hugo of Plassenburg here he would be the first to march! Go, I order you! Go, I beseech you!"

She said the last words in so changed a tone that Boris looked at her in surprise.

But still he shook his head.

"It is certain that if Prince Hugo were here he would be the first to ride to the rescue. But Prince Hugo is not here, and my comrade and I are soldiers under orders!"

"Cowards!" flashed Joan, "I will go myself. The cripples, the halt, and the blind shall follow me. Thora of Bornheim and these maidens there, they shall follow me to the rescue of their Prince. Do you, brave men of Plassenburg, cower behind the walls while the Muscovite overwhelms all and the true Prince is slain!"

And at this her voice broke and she sobbed out, "Cowards! cowards! cowards! God preserve me from cowardly men!"

For at such times and in such a cause no woman is just. For which high Heaven be thanked!

Boris looked at Jorian. Jorian looked at Boris.

"No, madam," said Boris gravely; "your servants are no cowards. It is true that we were commanded by our master to keep his Palace Guard within the city walls, and these must stay. But we two are in some sense still Envoys Extraordinary, and not strictly of the Prince's Palace Guard. As Envoys, therefore, charged with a free commission in the interests of peace, we can without wrongdoing accompany you whither you will. Eh, Jorian?"

"Aye," quoth Jorian; "we are at her Highness's service till ten o' the clock."

"And why till ten?" asked Joan, turning to go out.

"Oh," returned Jorian, "there is guard-changing and other matters to see to. But there is time for a wealth of fighting before ten. Lead on, madam. We follow your Highness!"