The Red Axe

  CHAPTER XLI

  THE GARRET OF THE RED TOWER

  I felt my temples, my ears, my neck tingling with cold. I seemed to havefallen into a sea of ice. I think I would have fallen and fainted butthat at that moment my master sat down beside the Bishop, and I was leftfree to retire into a darksome corner, where I staggered against a beam,slimy with black sweat, and hung over it with my hand clasping my brow,trying to think what had happened.

  I do not know how long I remained in this position, nor yet when I cameto myself. All was a dream to me, a nightmare of horrid whirlings andinfinite oppressions. The faces of the folk that watched, the garmentryof the Bishop and his priests, the red robes of the young Duke and hisassessors, spun round me in a hideous phantasmagoria.

  At last I was conscious that a trumpet had blown. Whereupon all rose up.The secretaries stacked their papers unconcernedly with the feathers oftheir pens in their mouths. And then in the solemn silence which ensuedthe Duke and his judges filed out of the door, while the power of theChurch, represented by Bishop Peter and his priests, went forth byanother. Before I could realize the situation, Helene had vanished, as itseemed, down a trap-door in the floor.

  My master accompanied Bishop Peter. As for me, I hardly knew what I did.I did not even stand up, till our conductor, he who had gone forward toannounce us at the first, ran across to me, and, plucking me by the armfrom the beam on which I leaned, whispered, hurriedly: "Art dead ordrunk, man, that thou riskest thine ears and thy neck? Stand up while theJudges and the new Duke go by!"

  So, dazed and numb, I hent me up, and lo! coming arm in arm towards mewere Otho von Reuss and his newly appointed Chief Justice andassessor--who but mine old friend Michael Texel! The Duke bent asearching look on me as I bowed low before him, but he saw only the tanof my skin and the close bristle of my hair. And so all passed on.

  "Ho, blackamoor, thy master waits thee! Run, if thou wouldst avoid thewhipping-post!" cried another of the rout of servitors, with a smallsniggering laugh.

  So, putting out a hand to stay myself, I staggered weakly after mymaster. I found him at the door, in talk with the confessor of theBishop.

  "And so," he was saying, "this girl was reared in the executioner'shouse. And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secretsof necromancy, it is not known where. I would see this Duke's Justicer.Does he dwell near by? What! In that very tower? It is of good omen. Letus go in thither."

  But the confessor excused himself, being in no wise desirous to visit theRed Axe, even in his time of sickness.

  "I have business of the soul with Bishop Peter. I will speak with theeagain at refection," he said, twitching his head up at the Red Tower withsuspicious glances, as if he feared unseen ears might be listening, andthat some of its fearful magic might even descend upon a man so notablyholy as a Bishop's confessor.

  Presently Dessauer and I were across the court-yard at the well-knowndoor. I knocked, and listened, whereupon ensued silence. Again and yetagain I made the quaint death's-head knocker thunder, and then, when theechoes ceased, there was once more a great silence in the tower.

  I heard the blood-hounds of Duke Casimir howl. The indigo shadow of thepinnacled Hall of Justice stretched across and touched the Red Tower withan ominous finger.

  "Let us go in," said I. And, pushing the unresisting door, I began toclimb the stone stairs. Each smoothed hollow and chipped edge wasfamiliar to me as my name. Indeed, much more so, for I was now passingunder a false one. So I climbed, in a dazed way, up and up. There on myleft was the sitting-room. It had been searched high and low, escritoiresrudely tossed down, aumries rifled, household stuff, grain, white linen,empty bottles, all cast about and huddled together even as the searchershad left them.

  Then above was the little room where Helene used to sleep. Here the wrackwas indescribable--every hidingplace rifled, her pretty worked bedquiltlying across the doorway trampled and soiled, her dainty white clothing,some she had worn at Plassenburg, and even the tiny dresses of herchildhood, all torn and confused together. And in the midst, whataffected me more than everything else, a tiny puppet of wood my fatherhad hewn her with his knife, and which she had dressed as a queen withred ribbons and crown of tinsel--ah, so long ago--and in such happy days.

  "Father!" I called, loudly. "Father!"

  But in this I forgot myself. There might have been enemies lurkinganywhere in the house of pain and disaster.

  My own room came next, and the way out upon the roof; but we tried notthese. There remained only the garret of my father. I climbed up, withDessauer behind me, and pushed the door open.

  Then I stood in the entering-in, looking for the first time for years onthe face of my father.

  He lay on his conch, his head bound about with a napkin. The dark wisp ofhair which rose like a cock's comb, sticking through the stained clothwhich swathed his brow, was no longer blue-black, but of an iron-gray,splashed and brindled with pure white. His eyes were open, and shone,cavernous and solemn, above his fallen-in cheeks. It was like lookinginto the secrets of another world. That which he had so often causedother eyes to see, the Red Axe of Thorn was now to see for himself. Thehand which lay--mere skin, muscle, and bone--on the counterpane hadguided many to the door of the mysteries. Now at its own entrance it wasto push the arras aside, for the Death-Justicer of the Mark was to gobefore the Judge of all the earth.

  My father lay gazing at me with deep, mournful eyes. So sad they seemedthat it was as if nothing in heaven or earth, neither joy nor sorrow,life nor death, could have power to change their expression ofimmeasurable sadness.

  I entered, and my companion followed.

  "You are alone? There is none with you here?" I said to my father, goingto the bedside.

  He started at the voice, and looked up even eagerly. But his eyes dulledand deadened again as he fell back.

  "I did but dream!" he muttered, sadly.

  "You have no one with you here, Gottfried Gottfried?" said I again, forin a matter of life and death it was as well to make sure even at risk ofdisturbing a dying man.

  He set his hand to his brow as if trying to think.

  "Who should be with me--except all these?" he answered, very solemnly.And swept his hand about the room as if he saw strange shapes standing inrows round the walls. "I wish," he went on, almost querulously, "whoeveryou may be, you would tell these people to keep their hands down. Theypoint at me, and thrust their dripping heads forward, holding them likelanterns in their palms."

  He turned away to the back of the bed, and then, as if he saw somethingthere worse than all the rest, faced about again quickly, saying, withsome pathetic intonation of his lost childhood, "There is no need forthem to point so at me, is there? I did but my duty."

  "Father!" said I, gently touching his cheek with my hand as I used to do.

  "Ah, what is that?" he said, quickly. "Did some one call me father? Letme go! I tell you, sirs, let me go! She needs me. They are torturing her.I must go to her!"

  "Father," I said again, putting him gently back, "it is I--your own sonHugo--come back to speak with you, to help if it may be--to die for theLittle Playmate if need be."

  "Hugo--Hugo!" he said. "Yes, yes--of course, I know--my little lad, mypretty boy!"

  He pushed me back to look at me, eagerly, wistfully--and then thrust mesharply away.

  "Bah!" he said; "you lie! What need to lie to a dying man? My Hugo hadyellow hair and a skin like lilies. Yours is dark--"

  "Father," said I, "I am here disguised. Help is coming, sure andstrong, if we can only wait a little and delay the trial. But tell meall. Speak to me freely, if you love your daughter Helene--yourdaughter and my love."

  He sat up now, and motioned me to come nearer. There was a dark, fierce,unworldly light in his eyes. I set a pillow to his back, and went andkneeled by the bed as I used to do at good-night time when I said myPaternoster.

  Then for the first time he knew me.

  "Say your prayers, child!" he commanded, in his old voice.
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  So, though with the stress of wars and other things I had mostlyforgotten, yet I said not only that, but the little Prayer of Childhoodhe had taught me. And then I kissed him as I used to do when I bade himgood-night.

  "Yes," he said, softly, "it is true, after all. You are mine ownonly son. Hugo--I am glad you have come so far to see your fatherbefore he dies."

  I told him how I had come, and brought Dessauer forward, introducing himas one great in the kingdom where I was, and to whom I was muchbeholden. He shook him by the hand with grave, intent courtesy, andagain looked at me.

  "Now, father," said I, "we have no long time to bide with you, lest thenew Duke come upon us. We must hie us back to our lodging with the BishopPeter, lest we be missed."

  My father smiled.

  "Ye will live but sparely there!" said he, with a flicker of hisancient smile.

  "Tell us how you came to this," said I, "and, if you can, why Helene, ourlittle Helene, stands so terribly accused."

  My father paused a long time before he began to answer.

  "It is not easy for me to tell you all," he said. "I know and I have thewords, but, somehow, when I try to fit the words to the thing, they runasunder and will not mix, like water and oil. But see, Hugo, here is anelixir of rare value. Drop a drop or two on my tongue if ye see mewander. It will bring me back for a time."