The Red Axe

  CHAPTER LIII

  THE LUBBER FIEND'S RETURN

  Al these things had overpast so quickly that when Helene and I foundourselves alone in the Red Tower it seemed to both of us that we dreamed.

  We sat in a kind of buzzing hush, on the low window-seat of the old room,hand in hand. The shouts of the people came up to us from the squarebeneath. We heard the tramp of the soldiers, who cheered us as theypassed to and fro. Being at last alone, we looked into each other's eyes,and we could not believe in our own happiness.

  "My wife!" I said, but in another fashion than I had said it onthe scaffold.

  "My husband!" answered Helene, looking up at me.

  But I think, for all that we realized of the truth, we might as well havecalled each other King and Queen of Sheba.

  We had been conducted with honor to the Red Tower. For since it was invirtue of my hereditary office that I had obtained the greatdeliverance, I dared for the present seek no other dwelling-place. ForHelene's sake, indeed, I should have felt safer elsewhere. Besides,desperate and full of baffled hatred as I knew Duke Otho to be, I didnot believe that he would dare to molest us--for some time at least. Therage of the people, their unbounded jubilation at the deliverance oftheir Saint Helena from the jaws of death on the very scaffold, were toorecent to be trifled with by a prince sitting so insecure in his ducalseat as Otho of the Wolfmark.

  So here in the ancient Red Tower, I thought, we might at least be safeenough till my good fellows of Plassenburg, with the Prince at theirhead, should swarm hammering at the gates of Thorn.

  To us, sitting thus hand in hand, there entered the Bishop Peter.

  "Hail!" he said, blandly, and in his grandest manner, as we knelt for hisbenediction; "hail, bride and bridegroom! God has been good to you thisday. Bishop Peter, the least of His servants, greets you very well. Mayyou have long life and prosperity unfailing."

  I thanked him for his gracious words.

  "The folk of the city are full of joy," he said. "I think they wouldalmost proclaim you Duke to-day."

  "I desire no such perilous honor," I replied, smiling; "it were indeed anill-omen to have a Duke habited all in red."

  "It is your marriage-dress, Hugo," said Helene; "I will not have youspeak against it."

  Ever since the strain of the scaffold she had not once broke down--no,nor wept--but only desired to sit very close beside me, touching mesometimes, as if to make sure that I was real. Deliverance had been toogreat and sudden, and those things which had come so near to usboth--Death and the Beyond--had left a salt and bitter spray on our lips.

  "And what of the Lady Ysolinde?" I asked of the Bishop.

  Now the Bishop Peter was a good man, but, like many of his brethren, alover of great, swelling words.

  "The Lady Ysolinde," he said, oratorically, "by the immediate assistanceof the city guard, was placed in a litter and deported, all unconsciousas she was, to her father's house in the Weiss Thor, where she stillremains. But her most seasonable extract from the laws of the Wolfmark,which so opportunely saved the life of your fair wife, and led to thispresent happy consummation, I have here by me, even in my hand."

  And with that the Bishop drew the rolled parchment from his pocket andhanded it to me, with all the original seals depending from it. Now Ihave small gift for the deciphering of such ancient documents, being onlyskilled in the common script of the day, and not over-well in that. Sothat I had to depend upon the offices of Bishop Peter for theinterpretation.

  "I think," said the Bishop, after he had finished reading it over, "thatthis document had best remain in my own possession. It may be saferunder the seal and protection of the Church--even as, to speak truth,you and your wife would also be. I am a plain man," the Bishopcontinued, after a pause, "but remember that there is ever a place ofrefuge at the palace--and one which even Duke Otho is not likely toviolate, remembering the experiences of his predecessor, Duke Casimir,when he crossed his sword against the crosier of this unworthy servantof Holy Church."

  "I thank you," said I. "I would that it were possible to avail myself ofyour all too generous offer. But it will be necessary to abide at leastthis one night in the Red Tower."

  "Ah," he said, "why this night?"

  "Great things may happen this night, my Lord Bishop!" said I, and glancedsignificantly in the direction of Plassenburg.

  "Ah," said the Bishop again, "so then the power of Holy Church may not bethe only restraint upon Duke Otho by to-morrow at this time!"

  And, calling his attendants, the suave and far-seeing prelate made hisway with gravity and reverend ceremony down the streets of Thorn towardshis palace.

  So, bit by bit, the long day passed away, and I thought it would neverend. For Helene and I sat and waited for that which might happen, withbeating and anxious hearts. Ofttimes I ran to the top of the Red Tower,and sometimes it seemed that I could see a moving cloud of dust, andsometimes a flurry of startled cattle afar on the horizon. But till duskthere came to our aching eyes no better evidence that the lads ofPlassenburg were coming to our rescue and to the deliverance of thedown-trodden city of Thorn.

  The soldiers of the garrison were still encamped in the great square.There was also a constant swarming and mustering of men upon the rampartsof the Wolfsberg. Duke Otho had certainly enough men to make a creditableresistance. True, they were Free Companions, and without other loyaltythan that which they owed to their paymaster.

  And beneath this warlike show lay the city, rebellious and turbulent tothe core, the merchants longing for unhampered rights of trade andsecurity in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labors, the craftsmenclaiming freedom to work in their guilds without a payment of labor-bondtithes to the Duke, and especially without the fear of being snatchedaway at any moment from their benches and looms to join in his forays andincursions.

  Towards the gloaming I had come down from the roof of the tower, and wasstanding, gloomy, and little like a bridegroom, at the little windowwhence I had so often looked down upon the playing children of Thorn.Suddenly a great hand was reached up from the pavement, a folded paperwas thrust in at the lattice, and I saw the face of the Lubber Fiendlooking up at me from the street below.

  "Come up hither, good Jan," I cried to him. "I will run and openthe gate!"

  But the Lubber Fiend only shook his head till his ears flapped likeburdocks in the wind by the wood edges.

  "Jan will come none within that gate to tell where he has been," he said."Jan may be a fool, but he knows better than that."

  "And where have you been?" I asked, eagerly.

  Jan the Lubber Fiend stood on his tiptoes and whispered up to me with hiselbows on the sill.

  "You are sure the Duke is not behind you?"

  "There is none here--except my wife," I said, smiling. And I likedspeaking the word.

  "I have seen the great Prince," said Jan, nodding backward, and smilingmysteriously, "and he is coming, but not by himself. There are such apeck of mad fellows out there. There will not be much to eat in Thornwhen they all come in. Better make a good dinner to-day, that is myadvice to you. And I was bid to tell you that when all was ready fortheir coming a fire is to be lighted on a high place, and then the Princewill come to the gates."

  I longed much to hear more of his adventures, but neither love nor moneywould induce the thrice cautious Jan to set a foot within the precinctsof the Red Tower.

  "I will light a bonfire when it is dark at the White Gate," he said, ashe retracted himself into the dusk. "I know what will make a rare blaze.And the Prince cannot come too soon."

  So indeed I thought also, as I looked out and saw the swarms of DukeOtho's men in the court-yard and about the square, and reflected on ourhelplessness here in the Red Tower within the defenced precincts of theWolfsberg.