Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Joan of the Sword Hand
CHAPTER LIII
THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH VISIBLE
"So," said Pope Sixtus amicably, "your brother was killed by the great explosion of Friar Roger's powder in the camp of the enemy! Truly, as I have often said, God is not with the Greek Church. They are schismatics if not plain heretics!"
He was a little bored with this young man from the North, and began to remember the various distractions which were waiting for him in his own private wing of the Vatican. Still, the Church needed such young war-gods as this Prince Conrad. There were signs, too, that in a little she might need them even more.
The Pope's mind travelled fast. He had a way of murmuring broken sentences to himself which to his intimates showed how far his thoughts had wandered.
It was the Vatican garden in the month of April. Holy Week was past, and the mind of the Vicar of Christ dwelt contentedly upon the great gifts and offerings which had flowed into his treasury. Conrad could not have arrived more opportunely. Beneath, the eye travelled over the hundred churches of Rome and the red roofs of her palaces – to the Tiber no longer tawny, but well-nigh as blue as the Alla itself; then further still to the grey Campagna and the blue Alban Hills. But the Pope's eye was directed to something nearer at hand.
In an elevated platform garden they sat in a bower sipping their after-dinner wine. Beyond answering questions Conrad said little. He was too greatly astonished. He had expected a saint, and he had found himself quietly talking politics and scandal with an Italian Prince. The Holy Father's face was placid. His lips moved. Now and then a word or two escaped him. Yet he seemed to be listening to something else.
That which he looked at was an excavation over which thousands of men crawled, thick as ants about a mound when you thrust your stick among their piled pine-needles on Isle Rugen. Already at more than one point massive walls began to rise. Architects with parchment rolls in their hands went to and fro talking to overseers and foremen. These were clad in black coats reaching below the waist, which made inky blots on the white earth-glare and contrasted with the striped blouses of the overseers and the naked bodies and red loin-cloths of the workmen.
Conrad blessed his former sojourns in Italy which enabled him to follow the fast-running river of the Pontiff's half-unconscious meditation, which was couched not in crabbed monkish Latin, but in the free Italic to which as a boy the Head of the Church had been accustomed.
"So your brother is dead! – (Yes, yes, he told me so before.) And a blessing of God, too. I never liked my brothers. Nephews and nieces are better, so be they are handsome. What, you have none? Then you are the heir to the kingdom – you must marry – you must marry!"
Conrad suddenly flushed fiery red.
"Holy Father," he said nervously, his eyes on the Alban Hills, "it was concerning this that I made pilgrimage to Rome – that I might consult your Holiness!"
The Pontiff nodded amicably and looked about him. At the far end of the garden, in a second creeper-enclosed arbour similar to that in which they sat, the Pope's personal attendants congregated. These were mostly gay young men in parti-coloured raiment, who jested and laughed without much regard for appearances, or at all fearing the displeasure of the Church's Head. As Conrad looked, one of them stood up and tossed over the wall a delicately folded missive, winged like a dart and tied with a ribbon of fluttering blue. Then, the moment afterwards, from beneath came the sound of girlish laughter, whereat all the young men, save one, craned their necks over the wall and shouted jests down to the unseen ladies on the balcony below.
All save one – and he, a tall stern-faced dark young man in a plain black soutane, walked up and down in the sun, with his eyes on the ground and his hands knotting themselves behind his back. The fingers were twisting nervously, and he pursed his lips in meditation. He did not waste even one contemptuous glance on the riotous crew in the arbour.
"Aha – you came to consult me about your marriage," chuckled the Holy Father. "Well, what have you been doing? Young blood – young blood! Once I was young myself. But young blood must pay. I am your father confessor. Now, proceed. (This may be useful – better, better, better!)"
And with a wholly different air of interest, the Pope poured himself a glass of the rich wine and leaned back, contemplating the young man now with a sort of paternal kindliness. The thought that he had certain peccadillos to confess was a relish to the rich Sicilian vintage, and created, as it were, a common interest between them. For the first time Pope Sixtus felt thoroughly at ease with his guest.
"I have, indeed, much to confess, Holy Father, much I could not pour into any ears but thine."
"Yes – yes – I am all attention," murmured the Pontiff, his ears pricking and twitching with anticipation, and the famous likeness to a goat coming out in his face. "Go on! Go on, my son. Confession is the breathing health of the soul! (If this young man can tell me aught I do not know – by Peter, I will make him my private chaplain!)."
Then Conrad summoned up all his courage and put his soul's sickness into the sentence which he had been conning all the way from the city of Courtland.
"My father," he said, very low, his head bent down, "I, who am a priest, have loved the Lady Joan, my brother's wife!"
"Ha," said Sixtus, pursing his lips, "that is bad – very bad. (Bones of Saint Anthony! I did not think he had the spirit!) Penance must be done – yes, penance and payment! But hath the matter been secret? There has, I hope, been no open scandal; and of course it cannot continue now that your brother is dead. While he was alive all was well; but dead – oh, that is different! You have now no cloak for your sin! These open sores do the Church much harm! I have always avoided such myself!"
The young man listened with a swiftly lowering brow.
"Holy Father," he said; "I think you mistake me. I spoke not of sin committed. The Princess Joan is pure as an angel, unstained by evil or the thought of it! She sits above the reach of scandalous tongues!"
("Humph – what, then, is the man talking about? Some cold northern snowdrift! Strange, strange! I thought he had been a lad of spirit!")
But aloud Sixtus said, with a surprised accent, "Then why do you come to me?"
"Sire, I am a priest, and even the thought of love is sin!"
"Tut-tut; you are a prince-cardinal. In Rome at least that is a very different thing!"
He turned half round in his seat and looked with a certain indulgent fondness upon the gay young men who were conducting a battle of flowers with the laughing girls beneath them. Two of them had laid hold of another by the legs and were holding him over the trellised flowers that he might kiss a girl whom her companions were elevating from below for a like purpose. As their young lips met the Pontiff slapped the purple silk on his thigh and laughed aloud.
"Ah, rascals, merry rascals!" (here he sighed). "What it is to be young! Take an old man's advice, Live while you are young. Yes, live and leave penance, for old age is sufficient penance in itself. (Tut – what am I saying? Let his pocket do penance!) He who kissed was my nephew Girolamo, ever the flower of the flock, my dear Girolamo. I think you said, Prince Conrad, that you were a cardinal. Well, most of these young men are cardinals (or will be, so soon as I can get the gold to set them up. They spend too much money, the rascals)."
"These are cardinals? And priests?" queried Conrad, vastly astonished.
The Holy Father nodded and took another sip of the perfumed Sicilian.
"To be a cardinal is nothing," he said calmly. "It is a step – nothing more. The high road of advancement, the spirit of the time. When I have princedoms for them all, why, they must marry and settle – raise dynasties, found princely houses. So it shall be with you, son Conrad. Your brother was alive, Prince of Courtland, married to this fair lady (what was her name? Yes, yes, Joanna). You, a younger son, must be provided for, the Church supported. Therefore you received that which was the hereditary right of your family – the usual payments to Holy Church being made. You were Archbishop, Cardinal, Prince of the Church. In time you would have been Elector of the Empire and my assessor at the Imperial Diet. That was your course. What harm, then, that you should make love to your brother's wife? Natural – perfectly natural. Fortunate, indeed, that you had a brother so complaisant – "
"Sir," said Conrad, half rising from his seat, "I have already had the honour of informing you – "
"Yes, yes, I forgot – pardon an old man. (Ah, the rascal, would he? Served him right! Ha, ha, well smitten – a good girl!)"
Another had tried the trick of being held over the balcony, but this time the maiden below was coy, and, instead of a kiss, the youth had received only a sound smack on the cheek fairly struck with the palm of a willing hand.
"Yes, I remember. It was but a sin of the soul. (Stupid fellow! stupid fellow! Girolamo is a true Delia Rovere. He would not have been served so.) Yes, a sin of the soul. And now you wish to marry? Well, I will receive back your hat. I will annul your orders – the usual payments being made to Holy Church. I have so many expenses – my building, the decorations of my chapel, these young rascals – ah, little do you know the difficulties of a Pope. But whom do you wish to marry? What, your brother's widow? Ah, that is bad – why could you not be content – ? Pardon, your pardon, my mind is again wandering."
"Tsut – tsut – this is a sad business, a matter infinitely more difficult, forbidden by the Church. What? They parted at the church door? A wench of spirit, I declare. I doubt not like that one who smote Pietro just now. I wonder not at you, save at your moderation – that is, if you speak the truth."
"I do speak the truth!" said Conrad, with northern directness, beginning to flush again.
"Gently – gently," said Sixtus; "there are many minutes in a year, many people go to make a world. I have never seen a man like you before. Be patient, then, with me. I am giving you a great deal of my time. It will be difficult, this marriage – difficult, but not impossible. Peter's coffers are very empty, my son."
The Pontiff paused to give Conrad time to speak.
"I will pay into the treasury of the Holy Father on the day of my marriage a hundred thousand ducats," said Conrad, blushing deeply. It seemed like bribing God.
The Vicegerent of Christ stretched out a smooth white hand, and his smile was almost as gracious as when he turned it upon his nephew Girolamo.
"Spoken like a true prince," he cried, "a son of the Church indeed. Her works – the propagation of the Faith, the Holy Office – these shall benefit by your generosity."
He turned about again and beckoned to the tall young man in the black soutane.
"Guliano, come hither!" he cried, and as he came he explained in his low tones, "My nephew, between ourselves, a dull dog, but will be great. He choked a ruffian who attacked him on the street; so, one day, he will choke this Italy between his hands. He will sit in this chair. Ah, there is one thing that I am thankful for, and it is that I shall be dead when our Julian is Pope. I know not where I shall be – but anything were preferable to being in Rome under Julian – purgatory or – Yes, my dear nephew, Prince Conrad of Courtland! You are to go and prepare documents concerning this noble prince. I will instruct you as to their nature presently. Await me in the hither library."
The young man had been looking steadily at Conrad while his uncle was speaking. It was a firm and manly look, but there was cruelty lurking in the curve of the upper lip. Guliano della Rovere looked more condottiere than priest. Nevertheless, without a word he bowed and retired.
When he was gone the Pope sat a moment absorbed in thought.
"I will send him to Courtland with you. (Yes, yes, he is staunch and to be trusted with money.) He will marry you and bring back the – the – benefaction. Your hand, my son. I am an old man and need help. May you be happy! Live well and honour Holy Church. Be not too nice. The commons like not a precisian. And, besides, you cannot live your youth over. Girolamo! Girolamo! Where is that rascal? Ah, there you are. I saw you kiss yonder pretty minx! Shame, sir, shame! You shall do penance – I myself will prescribe it. What kept you so long when I called you? Some fresh rascality, I will wager!"
"No, my father," said Girolamo readily. "I went to the dungeons of the Holy Office to see if they had finished off that ranting philosopher who stirred up the people yesterday!"
"Well, and have they?" asked the Pontiff.
"Yes, the fellow has confessed that six thousand pieces are hidden under the hearthstone of his country house. So all is well ended. He is to be burned to-morrow."
"Good – good. So perish all Jews, heretics, and enemies of Holy Church!" said Pope Sixtus piously. "And now I bid you adieu, son Conrad! You set out to-morrow. The papers shall be ready. A hundred thousand ducats, I think you said —and the fees for secularisation. These will amount to fifty thousand more. Is it not so, my son?"
Conrad bowed assent. He thought it was well that Courtland was rich and his brother Louis a careful man.
"Good – good, my son. You are a true standard-bearer of the Church. I will throw in a perpetual indulgence – with blanks which you may fill up. No, do not refuse! You think that you will never want it, because you do not want it now. But you may – you may!"
He stretched out his hand. The blessed ring of Saint Peter shone upon it. Conrad fell on his knees.
"Pater Domini nostri Jesu Christi benedicat te in omni benedictione spirituali. Amen!"
EPILOGUE OF EXPLICATION
It was the morning of a white day. The princely banner flew from every tower in Castle Kernsberg, for that day it was to lose a duchess and gain a duke. It was Joan's second wedding-day – the day of her first marriage.
Never had the little hill town seen so brave a gathering since the northern princes laid Henry the Lion in his grave. In the great vault where he slept there was a new tomb, a plain marble slab with the inscription —
"THERESA, WIFE OF HENRY,
DUKE OF KERNSBERG AND HOHENSTEIN."
And underneath, and in Latin, the words —
"AFTER THE TEMPEST, PEACE!"
For strangely enough, by the wonder of Providence or some freak of the exploding powder, they had found Theresa fallen where she had stood, blackened indeed but scarce marred in face or figure. So from that burnt-out hell they had brought her here that at the last she might rest near the man whom her soul loved.
And as they moved away and left her, little Johannes Rode, the scholar, murmured the words, "Post tempestatem, tranquillitas!"
Prince Conrad heard him, and he it was who had them engraven on her tomb.
But on this morning of gladness only Joan thought of the dead woman.
"To-day I will do the thing she wished," the Duchess thought, as she looked from the window towards her father's tomb. "She would take nothing for herself, yet shall her son sit in my place and rule where his father ruled. I am glad!"
Here she blushed.
"Yet, why should I vaunt? It is no sacrifice, for I shall be – what I would rather a thousand times be. Small thanks, then, that I give up freely what is worth nothing to me now!"
And with the arm that had wielded a sword so often and so valiantly, Joan the bride went on arraying her hair and making her beautiful for the eyes of her lord.
"My lord!" she said, and again with a different accent. "My lord!"
And when these her living eyes met those others in the Venice mirror, lo! either pair was smiling a new smile.
Meantime, beneath in her chamber, the Princess Margaret was making her husband's life a burden to him, or rather, first quarrelling with him and the next moment throwing her arms about his neck in a passion of remorse. For that is the wont of dainty Princess Margarets who are sick and know not yet what aileth them.
"Maurice," she was saying, "is it not enough to make me throw me over the battlements that they should all forsake me, on this day of all others, when you are to be made a Duke in the presence of the Pope's Legate and the Emperor's Alter– what is it? —Alter ego? What a silly word! And you might have told it to me prettily and without laughing at me. Yes, you did, and you also are in league against me. And I will not go to the wedding; no, not if Joan were to beg of me on my knees! I will not have any of these minxes in to do my hair. Nay, do not you touch it. I am nobody, it seems, and Joan everything. Joan – Joan! It is Joan this and Joan that! Tush, I am sick of your Joans.
"She gives up the duchy to us – well, that is no great gift. She is getting Courtland for it, and my brother. Even he will not love me any more. Conrad is like the rest. He eats, drinks, sleeps, wakes, talks Joan. He is silent, and thinks Joan. So, I believe, do you. You are only sorry that she did not love you best!
"Well, if you are her brother, I do not care. Who was speaking about marrying her? And, at any rate, you did not know she was your sister. You might very well have loved her. And I believe you did. You do not love me, at all events. That I do know!
"No, I will not 'hush,' nor will I come upon your knee and be petted. I am not a baby! 'What is the matter betwixt me and the maidens?' If you had let me explain I would have told you long ago. But I never get speaking a word. I am not crying, and I shall cry if I choose. Oh yes, I will tell you, Duke Maurice, if you care to hear, why I am angry with the maids. Well, then, first it was that Anna Pappenheim. She tugged my hair out by the roots in handfuls, and when I scolded her I saw there were tears in her eyes. I asked her why, and for long she would not tell me. Then all at once she acknowledged that she had promised to marry that great overgrown chimney-pot, Captain Boris, and must hie her to Plassenburg, if I pleased. I did not please, and when I said that surely Marthe was not so foolish thus to throw herself away, the wretched Marthe came bawling and wringing hands, and owned that she was in like case with Jorian.
"So I sent them out very quickly, being justly angry that they should thus desert me. And I called for Thora of Bornholm, and began easing my mind concerning their ingratitude, when the Swede said calmly, 'I fear me, madam, I am not able to find any fault with Anna and Martha. For I am even as they, or worse. I have been married for over six months.'
"'And to whom?' I cried; 'tell me, and he shall hang as surely as I am a Princess of Courtland.' For I was somewhat disturbed.
"'To-day your Highness is Duchess of Kernsberg,' said the minx, as calmly as if at sacrament. 'My husband's name is Johannes Rode!'
"And when I have told you, instead of being sorry for me, you do nothing but laugh. I will indeed fling me over the window!"
And the fiery little Princess ran to the window and pretended to cast herself headlong. But her husband did not move. He stood leaning against the mantelshelf and smiling at her quietly and lovingly.
Hearing no rush of anxious feet, and finding no restraining arm cast about her, Margaret turned, and with fresh fire in her gesture stamped her foot at Maurice.
"That just proves it! Little do you care whether or no I kill myself. You wish I would, so that you might marry somebody else. You dare not deny it!"
Maurice knew better than to deny it, nor did he move till the Princess cast herself down on the coverlet and sobbed her heart out, with her face on the pillow and her hair spraying in linked tendrils about her white neck and shoulders. Then he went gently to her and laid his hand on her head, regardless of the petulant shrug of her shoulders as he touched her. He gathered her up and sat down with her in his arms.
"Little one," he said, "I want you to be good. This is a great and a glad day. To-day my sister finds the happiness that you and I have found. To-day I am to sit in my father's seat and to have henceforth my own name among men. You must help me. Will you, little one? For this once let me be your tire-woman. I have often done my own tiring when, in old days, I dared death in women's garments for your sweet sake. Dearest, do not hurt my heart any more, but help me."
His wife smiled suddenly through her tears, and cast her arms about his neck.
"Oh, I am bad – bad – bad," she cried vehemently. "It were no wonder if you did not love me. But do keep loving me. I should die else. I will be better – I will – I will! I do not know why I should be so bad. Sometimes I think I cannot help it."
But Maurice kissed her and smiled as if he knew.
"We will live like plain and honest country folk, you and I," he said. "Let Anna and Martha follow their war-captains. Thora at least will remain with us, and we will make Johannes Rode our almoner and court poet. Now smile at me, little one! Ah, that is better."
In Margaret's April eyes the sun shone out again, and she clung lovingly to her husband a long moment before she would let him go.
Then she thrust him a little away from her, that she might see his face, as she asked the question of all loving and tempestuous Princess Margarets, "Are you sure you love me just the same, even when I am naughty?"
Maurice was sure.
And taking his face between her hands in a fierce little clutch, she asked a further assurance. "Are you quite, quite sure?" she said.
And Maurice was quite, quite sure.
Not in a vast and solemn cathedral was Joan married, but in the old church of Kernsberg, which had so often raised the protest of the Church against the exactions of her ancestors. The bridal escort was of her own tried soldiery, now to be hers no more, and all of them a little sad for that. Hugo and Helene of Plassenburg had come – Hugo because he was the representative of the Emperor, and Helene because she was a sweet and loving woman who delighted to rejoice in another's joy.
With these also arrived, and with these was to depart, the dark-faced stern young cardinal of San Pietro in Vincoli. He must have good escort, he said, for he carried many precious relics and tokens of the affection of the faithful for the Church's Head. The simple priesthood of Kernsberg shrank from his fiery glances, and were glad when he was gone. But, save at the hour of bridal itself, he spent all his time with the treasurer of the Princedom of Courtland.
When at last they came down the aisle together, and the sweet-voiced choristers sang, and the white-robed maidens scattered flowers for their feet to walk upon, the bride found opportunity to whisper to her husband, "I fear me I shall never be Joan of the Sword Hand any more!"
He smiled back at her as they came out upon the tears and laughter and acclaim of the many-coloured throng that filled the little square.
"Be never afraid, beloved," he said, and his eyes were very glad and proud, "only be Joan to me, and I will be your Sword Hand!"
