Joan of the Sword Hand. Crockett Samuel Rutherford
themselves that the old never had any existence.
The young Dane found the Duchess walking up and down on the noble promenade which faces the river to the west. For the water curved in a spacious elbow about the city of Courtland, and the summer palace was placed in the angle.
Maurice von Lynar stood awhile respectfully waiting for the Duchess to recognise him. Werner, John of Thorn, or any of her Kernsberg captains would have gone directly up to her. But this youth had been trained in another school.
Joan of Hohenstein stood a while without moving, looking out upon the river. She thought with a kind of troubled shyness of the morrow, oft dreamed of, long expected. She saw the man whom she was not known ever to have seen – the noble young man of the tournament, the gracious Prince of the summer parlour, courteous and dignified alike to the poor secretary of embassy and to his sister the Princess Margaret of Courtland. Surely there never was any one like him – proudly thought this girl, as she looked across the river at the rich plain studded with far-smiling farms and fields just waking to life after their long winter sleep.
"Ah, Von Lynar, my brave Dane, what good wind blows you here?" she cried. "I declare I was longing for some one to talk to." A consciousness of need which had only just come to her.
"I have seen the Princess Margaret," said the youth slowly, "and I think that she must mistake me for some other person. She spoke things most strange to me to hear. But fearing I might meddle with affairs wherewith I had no concern, I forebore to correct her."
The eyes of the Duchess danced. A load seemed suddenly lifted off her mind.
"Was she very angry?" she queried.
"Very!" returned Von Lynar, smiling in recognition of her smile.
"What said the Princess?"
"First she would have it that my name and style were those of the Count Von Löen. Then she reproached me fiercely because I denied it. After that she spoke of certain foreign customs she had been taught, recalled walks through corridors and rose gardens with me, till my head swam and I knew not what to answer."
Joan of the Sword Hand laughed a merry peal.
"The Count von Löen, did she say?" she meditated. "Well, so you are the Count von Löen. I create you the Count von Löen now. I give you the title. It is mine to give. By to-morrow I shall have done with all these things. And since as the Count von Löen I drank the wine, it is fair that you, who have to pay the reckoning, should be the Count von Löen also."
"My family is noble, and I am the sole heir – that is, alive," said Maurice, a little drily. To his mind the grandson of Count von Lynar, of the order of the Dannebrog, had no need of any other distinction.
"But I give you also therewith the estates which pertain to the title. They are situated on the borders of Reichenau. I am so happy to-night that I would like to make all the world happy. I am sorry for all the folk I have injured!"
"Love changes all things," said the Dane sententiously.
The Duchess looked at him quickly.
"You are in love – with the Princess Margaret?" she said.
The youth blushed a deep crimson, which flooded his neck and dyed his dusky skin.
"Poor Maurice!" she said, touching his bowed head with her hand, "your troubles will not be to seek."
"My lady," said the youth, "I fear not trouble. I have promised to serve the Princess in all things. She has been very kind to me. She has forgiven me all."
"So – you are anxious to change your allegiance," said the Duchess. "It is as well that I have already made you Count von Löen, and so in a manner bound you to me, or you would be going off into another's service with all my secrets in your keeping. Not that it will matter very much – after to-morrow!" she added, with a glance at the wing of the palace which held the summer parlour. "But how did you manage to appease her? That is no mean feat. She is an imperious lady and quick of understanding."
Then Maurice von Lynar told his mistress of his most allowable falsehoods, and begged her not to undeceive the Princess, for that he would rather bear all that she might put upon him than that she should know he had lied to her.
"Do not be afraid," said the Duchess, laughing, "it was I who tangled the skein. So far you have unravelled it very well. The least I can do is to leave you to unwind it to the end, my brave Count von Löen."
So they parted, the Duchess to her apartment, and the young man to pace up and down the stone-flagged promenade all night, thinking of the distracting whimsies of the Princess Margaret, of the hopelessness of his love, and, most of all, of how daintily exquisite and altogether desirable was her beauty of face, of figure, of temper, of everything!
For the Sparhawk was not a lover to make reservations.
The morning of the great day dawned cool and grey. A sunshade of misty cloud overspread the city and tempered the heat. It had come up with the morning wind from the Baltic, and by eight the ships at the quays, and the tall beflagged festal masts in the streets through which the procession was to pass, ran clear up into it and were lost, so that the standards and pennons on their tops could not be seen any more than if they had been amongst the stars.
The streets were completely lined with the folk of the city of Courtland as the Princess Margaret, with the Sparhawk and his company of lances clattering behind her, rode to the entrance of the palace where abode the bride-elect.
"Who is that youth?" asked Margaret of Courtland of Joan, as they came out together; she looked at the Dane – "he at the head of your first troops? He looks like your brother."
"He has often been taken for such!" said the bride. "He is called the Count von Löen!"
The Princess did not reply, and as the two fair women came out arm in arm, a sudden glint of sunlight broke through the leaden clouds and fell upon them, glorifying the white dress of the one, and the blue and gold apparel of the other.
The bells of the minster clanged a changeful thunder of brazen acclaim as the bride set out for the first time (so they told each other on the streets) to see her promised husband.
"'Twas well we did not so manage our affairs, Hans," said a fishmonger's wife, touching her husband's arm archly.
"Yea, wife," returned the seller of fish; "whatever thou beest, at least I cannot deny that I took thee with my eyes open!"
They reached the Rathhaus, and the clamour grew louder than ever. Presently they were at the cathedral and making them ready to dismount. The bells in the towers above burst forth into yet more frantic jubilation. The cannons roared from the ramparts.
The Princess Margaret had delayed a little, either taking longer to her attiring, or, perhaps, gossiping with the bride. So that when the shouts in the wide Minster Place announced their arrival, all was in readiness within the crowded church, and the bridegroom had gone in well-nigh half an hour before them. But that was in accord with the best traditions.
Very like a Princess and a great lady looked Joan of Hohenstein as she went up the aisle, with Margaret of Courtland by her side. She kept her eyes on the ground, for she meant to look at no one and behold nothing till she should see – that which she longed to look upon.
Suddenly she was conscious that they had stopped in the middle of a vast silence. The candles upon the great altar threw down a golden lustre. Joan saw the irregular shining of them on her white bridal dress, and wondered that it should be so bright.
There was a hush over all the assembly, the silence of a great multitude all intent upon one thing.
"My brother, the Prince of Courtland!" said the voice of the Princess Margaret.
Slowly Joan raised her eyes – pride and happiness at war with a kind of glorious shame upon her face.
But that one look altered all things.
She stood fixed, aghast, turned to stone as she gazed. She could neither speak nor think. That which she saw almost struck her dead with horror.
The man whom his sister introduced as the Prince of Courtland was not the knight of the tournament. He was