Joan of the Sword Hand Part 38

It was half-past eleven when the archers of the guard appeared at the entrance of the square which leads from the palace. Behind them, rank upon rank, could be seen the lances of the wild Cossacks of Prince Ivan's escort who had remained behind when the Muscovite army went back to the Russian plains. Their dusky goat-hair tents, which had long covered the banks of the Alla, had now been struck and were laded upon baggage-horses and sumpter mules.

"The Prince of Muscovy delays only for the ceremony, whatever it may be!" the people said, admiring at their own prevision.

And the better sort added privately, "We shall be well rid of him!" But the baser grieved for the loss of the largesse which he scattered abroad in good Muscovite silver, unclipped and unalloyed, with the mint-master's hammer-stroke clean and clear to the margin. For with such Prince Ivan knew how to make himself beloved, holding man's honour and woman's love at the price of so few and so many gold pieces, and thinking well or ill of them according to their own valuation. The rabble of Courtland, whose price was only silver, he counted as no better than the trodden dirt of the highway.

Meanwhile, in the river parlour of the Summer Palace, the two Princesses were talking together even as the people had said. The Princess Margaret sat on a low stool, leaning her elbow on her companion's knee and gazing up at him. And though she sometimes looked away, it was not for long, and Maurice, meeting her ever-recurrent regard, found that a new thing had come into her eyes.

Presently a low tapping was heard at the inner door, from which a pa.s.sage communicated with the rooms of the Princess Margaret. The Sparhawk would have risen, for the moment forgetful of his disguise, but with a slight pressure of her arm upon his knee the Princess restrained him.

"Enter!" she called aloud in her clear imperious voice.

Thora entered hurriedly, and, closing the door behind her, she stood with the latch in her hand. "My Princess," she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper, "I have heard ill news. They are making the cathedral ready for a wedding. The Cossacks have struck their tents. I think a plot is on foot to marry you this day to Prince Ivan, and to carry you off with him to Moscow."

The Sparhawk sprang to his feet and laid his hand on the place where his sword-hilt should have been.

"Never," he cried; "it is impossible! The Princess is----"

He was about to add, "She is married already," but with a quick gesture of warning Margaret stopped him.

"Who told you this?" she queried, turning again to Thora of Bornholm.

"Johannes Rode of the Prince's guard told me a moment ago," she answered. "He has just returned from the Muscovite camp."

"I thank you, Thora--I shall not forget this faithfulness," said Margaret. "Now you have my leave to go!" The Princess spoke calmly, and to the ear even a little coldly.

The door closed upon the Swedish maiden. Margaret and Maurice turned to each other with one pregnant instinct and took hands.

"Already!" said Margaret faintly, going back into the woman; "they might have left us alone a little longer. How shall we meet this? What shall we do? I had counted on this one day."

"Margaret," answered the Sparhawk impulsively, "this shall not daunt us.

We would have told your brother Louis one day. We will tell him now.

d.u.c.h.ess Joan is safe out of his reach, Kernsberg is revictualled, the Muscovite army returned. There is no need to keep up the masquerade any longer. Whatever may come of it, let us go to your brother. That will end it swiftly, at all events."

The Princess put away his restraining clasp and came closer to him.

"No--no," she cried: "you must not. You do not know my brother. He is wholly under the influence of Ivan of Muscovy. Louis would slay you for having cheated him of his bride--Ivan for having forestalled him with me."

"But you cannot marry Ivan. That were an outrage against the laws of G.o.d and man!"

"Marry Ivan!" she cried, to the full as impulsively as her lover; "not though they set ravens to pick the live flesh off my bones! But it is the thought of torture and death for you--that I cannot abide. We must continue to deceive them. Let me think!--let me think!"

Hastily she barred the door which led out upon the corridor. Then taking Maurice's hand once more she led him over to the window, from which she could see the green Alla cutting its way through the city bounds and presently escaping into the yet greener corn lands on its way to the sea.

"It is for this one day's delay that we must plan. To-night we will certainly escape. I can trust certain of those of my household. I have tried them before.... I have it. Maurice, you must be taken ill--lie down on this couch away from the light. There is a rumour of the Black Death in the city--we must build on that. They say an Astrakhan trader is dead of it already. For one day we may stave it off with this. It is the poor best we can do. Lie down, I will call Thora. She is staunch and fully to be trusted."

The Princess Margaret went to the inner door and clapped her hands sharply.

The fair-haired Swedish maiden came running to her. She had been waiting for such a signal.

"Thora," said her mistress in a quick whisper, "we must put off this marriage. I would sooner die than marry Ivan. You have that drug you spoke of--that which gives the appearance of sickness unto death without the reality. The Lady Joan must be ill, very ill. You understand, we must deceive even the Prince's physicians."

The girl nodded with quick understanding, and, turning, she sped away up the inner stair to her own sleeping-chamber, the key of which (as was the custom in Courtland) she carried in her pocket.

"This will keep you from being suspected--as in public places you would have been," whispered Margaret to her young husband. "What Thora thinks or knows does not matter. I can trust Thora with my life--nay, what is far more, with yours."

A light tap and the girl re-entered, a tall phial in her hand. With a swift look at her mistress to obtain permission, she went up to the couch upon which the Sparhawk had lain down. Then with a deft hand she opened the bottle, and pouring a little of a colourless liquid into a cup she gave it him to drink. In a few minutes a sickly pallor slowly overspread Maurice von Lynar's brow. His eyes appeared injected, the lips paled to a grey white, beads of perspiration stood on the forehead, and his whole countenance took on the hue and expression of mortal sickness.

"Now," said Thora, when she had finished, "will the n.o.ble lady deign to swallow one of these pellicles, and in ten minutes not a leech in the country will be able to p.r.o.nounce that she is not suffering from a dangerous disease."

"You are sure, Thora," said the Princess Margaret almost fiercely, laying her hand on her tirewoman's wrist, "that there is no harm in all this? Remember, on your life be it!"

The placid, flaxen-haired woman turned with the little silver box in her hand.

"Danger there is, dear mistress," she said softly, "but not, I think, so great danger as we are already in. But I will prove my honesty----"

She took first a little of the liquid, and immediately after swallowed one of the white pellicles she had given Maurice.

"It will be as well," she said, "when the Prince's wiseacre physicians come, that they should find another sickening of the same disease."

Thora of Bornholm pa.s.sed about the couch and took up a waiting-maid's station some way behind.

"All is ready," she said softly.

"We will forestall them," answered the Princess. "Thora, send and bid Prince Louis come hither quickly."

"And shall I also ask him to send hither his most skilled doctors of healing?" added the girl. "I will despatch Johannes Rode. He will go quickly and answer as I bid him with discretion--and without asking questions."

And with the noiseless tread peculiar to most blonde women of large physique, Thora disappeared through the private door by which she had entered.

The Princess Margaret kneeled down by the couch and looked into the face of the Sparhawk. Even she who had seen the wonder was amazed and almost frightened by the ghastly effect the drug had wrought in such short s.p.a.ce.

"You are sure that you do not feel any ill effects--you are perfectly well?" she said, with tremulous anxiety in her voice.

The Sparhawk smiled and nodded rea.s.suringly up at her.

"Never better," he said. "My nerves are iron, my muscles steel. I feel as if, for my Margaret's sake, I could vanquish an army of Prince Ivan's single-handed!"

The Princess rose from her place and unlocked the main door.

"We will be ready for them," she said. "All must appear as though we had no motive for concealment."

And, having drawn the curtains somewhat closer, she kneeled down again by the couch. There was no sound in the room as the youthful husband and wife thus waited their fate hand in hand, save only the soft continuous sibilance of their whispered converse, and from without the deeper note of the Alla sapping the Palace walls.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE BLACK DEATH