Joan of the Sword Hand Part 58

Boris wheeled about with fell intent on his face. He would have caught the teasing minx in his arms, but Anna skipped round behind a chair and threatened him with her finger.

"Not till you engage us," she cried. "Hands off, there! We are to array you--not you to disarray us!"

Whereat the two gamesome Southlanders stood together in ludicrous imitation of Boris and Jorian's military stiffness, folding their hands meekly and casting their eyes downward like a pair of most ingenuous novices listening to the monitions of their Lady Superior. Then Anna's voice was heard speaking with almost incredible humility.

"Will my lord with the hook nose so great and n.o.ble deign to express a preference which of us shall be his handmaid?"

But they had ventured an inch too far. The string was effectually pulled now.

"I will have this one--she is so merry!" cried solemn Boris, seizing Anna Pappenheim about the waist.

"And I this! She pretendeth melancholy, yet has tricks like a monkey!"

said Jorian, quickly following his example. The girls fended them gallantly, yet, as mayhap they desired, their case was hopeless.

"Hands off! I will not be called 'this one,'" cried Anna, though she did not struggle too vehemently.

"Nor I a monkey! Let me go, great Wend!" chimed Martha, resigning herself as soon as she had said it.

In this prosperous estate was the courts.h.i.+p of Franconia and Pla.s.senburg, when some instinct drew the eyes of Jorian to the door of the officers' guard-room, which Anna had carefully left open at her entrance, in order to secure their retreat.

The d.u.c.h.ess Joan stood there silent and regardant.

"Boris!" cried Jorian warningly. Boris lifted his eyes from the smiling challenge upon Anna's upturned lips, which, after the manner of your war-captains, he was stooping to kiss.

Unwillingly Boris lifted his eyes. The next moment both the late envoys of Pla.s.senburg were saluting as stiffly as if they had still been men-at-arms, while Anna and Martha, blus.h.i.+ng divinely, were busy with their needlework in the corner, as demure as cats caught sipping cream.

Joan looked at the four for a while without speaking.

"Captains Boris and Jorian," she said sternly, "a messenger has come from Prince Conrad to say that the Muscovites press him hard. He asks for instant reinforcements. There is not a man fit for duty within the city saving your command. Will you take them to the Prince's a.s.sistance immediately? Werner von Orseln fights by his side. Maurice and my Kernsbergers are already on their way."

The countenances of the two Pla.s.senburg captains fell as the leathern screen drops across a cathedral door through which the evening suns.h.i.+ne has been streaming.

"My lady, it is heartbreaking, but we cannot," said Boris dolefully.

"Our Lord Prince Hugo bade us keep the city till he should arrive!"

"But I am Governor. I will keep the city," cried Joan; "the women will mount halberd and carry pike. Go to the Prince! Were Hugo of Pla.s.senburg here he would be the first to march! Go, I order you! Go, I beseech you!"

She said the last words in so changed a tone that Boris looked at her in surprise.

But still he shook his head.

"It is certain that if Prince Hugo were here he would be the first to ride to the rescue. But Prince Hugo is not here, and my comrade and I are soldiers under orders!"

"Cowards!" flashed Joan, "I will go myself. The cripples, the halt, and the blind shall follow me. Thora of Bornheim and these maidens there, they shall follow me to the rescue of their Prince. Do you, brave men of Pla.s.senburg, cower behind the walls while the Muscovite overwhelms all and the true Prince is slain!"

And at this her voice broke and she sobbed out, "Cowards! cowards!

cowards! G.o.d preserve me from cowardly men!"

For at such times and in such a cause no woman is just. For which high Heaven be thanked!

Boris looked at Jorian. Jorian looked at Boris.

"No, madam," said Boris gravely; "your servants are no cowards. It is true that we were commanded by our master to keep his Palace Guard within the city walls, and these must stay. But we two are in some sense still Envoys Extraordinary, and not strictly of the Prince's Palace Guard. As Envoys, therefore, charged with a free commission in the interests of peace, we can without wrongdoing accompany you whither you will. Eh, Jorian?"

"Aye," quoth Jorian; "we are at her Highness's service till ten o' the clock."

"And why till ten?" asked Joan, turning to go out.

"Oh," returned Jorian, "there is guard-changing and other matters to see to. But there is time for a wealth of fighting before ten. Lead on, madam. We follow your Highness!"

CHAPTER L

THE DIN OF BATTLE

It was a strange uncouth band that Joan had got together in a handful of minutes in order to accompany her to the field upon which, sullenly retiring before a vastly more numerous enemy, Conrad and his little army stood at bay. Raw lathy lads, wide-hammed from sitting cross-legged in tailors' workshops; prentices too wambly and knock-kneed to be taken at the first draft; old men who had long leaned against street corners and rubbed the doorways of the cathedral smooth with their backs; a sprinkling of stout citizens, reluctant and much afraid, but still more afraid of the wrath of Joan of the Sword Hand.

Joan was still scouring the lanes and intricate pa.s.sages for laggards when Boris and Jorian entered the little square where this company were a.s.sembled, most of them embracing their arbalists as if they had been sweeping besoms, and the rest holding their halberds as if they feared they would do themselves an injury.

The nose of fat Jorian went so high into the air that, without intending it, he found himself looking up at Boris; and at that moment Boris chanced to be glancing at Jorian down the side of his high arched beak.

To the herd of the uncouth soldiery it simply appeared as though the two war-captains of Pla.s.senburg looked at each other. An observer on the opposite side would have noted, however, that the right eye of Jorian and the left eye of Boris simultaneously closed.

Yet when they turned their regard upon the last levy of the city of Courtland their faces were grave.

"Whence come these churchyard scourings, these skulls and crossbones set up on end?" cried Jorian in face of them all. And this saying from so stout a man made their legs wamble more than ever.

"Rotboss rascals, rogues in grain," Boris took up the tale, "faith, it makes a man scratch only to look at them! Did you ever see their marrow?"

The two captains turned away in disgust. They walked to and fro a little apart, and Boris, who loved all animals, kicked a dog that came his way.

Boris was unhappy. He avoided Jorian's eye. At last he broke out.

"We cannot let our Lady Joan set forth for field with such a compost of mumpers and tun-barrels as these!" he said.

Boris confided this, as it were to the housetops. Jorian apparently did not listen. He was clicking his dagger in its sheath, but from his next word it was evident that his mind had not been inactive.

"What excuse could we make to Hugo, our Prince?" he said at last.

"Scarcely did he believe us the last time. And on this occasion we have his direct orders."

"Are we not still Envoys?" queried Boris.

"Extraordinary!" twinkled Jorian, catching his comrade's idea as a bush of heather catches moorburn.

"And as Envoys of a great princ.i.p.ality like Pla.s.senburg--representatives of the most n.o.ble Prince and Princess in this Empire, should we not ride with retinue due and fitting? That is not taking the Palace Guard into battle. It is only affording due protection to their Excellencies'

representatives."