Red Axe - Samuel Rutherford Crockett (books to read fiction .TXT) 📗

speaks to his equal.
"No," said I, "but I stubbed my toe most confoundedly, jarring it upon the rascal's backbone as he went through the door."
"Ah!" he replied, thoughtfully, nodding his head, "that was more fitting for such as he. But you may get a chance at him with the dagger yet or the night be over."
And with that he went back to his door, blowing up his slow-match as he went.
Presently the supper was pronounced cooked, and, after washing his hands, Jorian resumed his coat, amid the universal attention of the motley crew in the great hall, and began to dish up the fragrant stew. Ho had been collecting for it all day upon the march, now knocking over a rabbit with a bolt from his gun, now picking some leaves of lettuce and watercress when he chanced upon a running stream or a neglected garden--of which last (thanks to Duke Casimir and his raiders) there were numbers along the route we had traversed.
Then, when he had made all ready, our sturdy cook dished the stew into a great wooden platter--rabbits, partridges, scraps of dried flesh, bits of bacon for flavoring, fresh eggs, vegetables in handfuls, all covered with a dainty-smelling sauce, deftly compounded of milk, gravy, and red wine.
Then Jorian and Boris, one taking the heap of wooden platters and the other the smoking bowl of stew, marched solemnly within. But before he went, Boris handed me his pistolet without a word, and the slow-match with it. Which, as I admit, made me feel monstrously unsafe. However, I took the engine across my arm and stood at attention as I had seen him do, with the match thrust through my waistband.
Then I felt as if I had suddenly grown at least a foot taller, and my joy was changed to ecstasy when the Lady Ysolinde, coming out quickly, I knew not at first for what purpose, found me thus standing sentinel and blowing importantly upon my slow-match.
"Hugo," she said, kindly, looking at me with the aqua-marine eyes that had the opal glints in them, "come thy ways in and sit with us."
I made her a salute with my piece and thanked her for her good thought.
"But," said I, "Lady Ysolinde, pray remember that this is a place of danger, and that it is more fitting that we who have the honor to be your guards should dine together without your chamber doors."
"Nay," she said, impetuously, "I insist. It is not right that you, who are to be an officer, should mess with the common soldiers."
"My lady," said I, "I thank you deeply. And it shall be so, I promise you, when we are in safety. But let me have my way here and now."
She smiled upon me--liking me, as I think, none the worse for my stiffness. And so went away, and I was right glad to see her go. For I would not have lost what I had gained in the good opinion of these two men-at-arms--no, not for twenty maidens' favors.
But in that respect also I changed as the years went on. For of all things a boy loves not to be flouted and babyfied when he thinks himself already grown up and the equal of his elders in love and war.
So in a little while came out Jorian and Boris, and, having carried in the bread and wine, we three sat down to the remains of the stew. Indeed, I saw but little difference as to quantity from the time that Jorian had taken it in. For maids' appetites when they are anyways in love are precarious, but, after they are assured of their love's return, then the back hunger comes upon them and the larder is made to pay for all arrears.
Not that I mean to assert that either of these ladies was in love with me--far otherwise indeed. For this it would argue the conceit of a jack-a-dandy to imagine, much more to write such a thing. But, nevertheless, certain is it that this night they were both of small appetite.


CHAPTER XXII
HELENE HATES ME
However, when the provision came to the outer port, we three sat down about it, and then, by my troth, there was little to marvel at in the tardiness of our eating. For the rabbits seemed to come alive and positively leaped down our throats, the partridges almost flew at us out of the pot, the pigeons fairly rejoiced to be eaten. The broth and the gravy ebbed lower and lower in the pan and left all dry. But as soon as we had picked the bones roughly, for there was no time for fine work lest the others should get all the best, we threw the bones out to the hungry crew that watched us sitting round the stalls, their very jowls pendulous with envy.
So after a while we came to the end, and then I went to the entrance of the chamber where were bestowed the Little Playmate and the Lady Ysolinde. For I began to be anxious how Helene would be able to comport herself in the company of one so dainty and full of devices and convenances as the lady of the Weiss Thor.
But, by my faith, I need not have troubled about our little lass. For if there were any embarrassed, that one was certainly not Helene. And if any of us lacked reposefulness of manners, that one was certainly a staring jackanapes, who did not know which foot to stand upon, nor yet how to sit down on the oaken settle when a seat was offered him, nor, last of all, when nor how to take his departure when he had once sat down. And as to the identity of that jackass, there needs no further particularity.
Nevertheless, I talked pleasantly enough with both of them, and I might have been an acquaintance of the day for all the notice that the Little Playmate took of me, oven when the Lady Ysolinde told her, evidently not for the first time, of my standing sentry by the door and blowing upon the match at my girdle.
From without we heard presently the clapping of hands and loud deray of merrymaking, so I went to find out what it might be that was causing such an uproar.
There I found Jorian and Boris giving a kind of exhibition of their skill in military exercises. It might be, also, that they desired to teach a lesson for the benefit of the wild robber border folk and the yet more ruffianly kempers who foregathered in this strange inn of Erdberg on the borders of the Mark.
I summoned the maids that they might look on. For I wot the scene was a curious and pleasing one, and I could see that the eyes of the Lady Ysolinde glittered. But our little maid, being used to all these things from her youth, cared nothing for it, though the thing was indeed marvellous in itself.
When I went out our two men-at-arms had each of them in hand his straight Wendish Tolleknife, made heavy at the end of the Swedish blade, but light as to the handle, and hafted with cork from Spain.
Ten yards apart, shoulder to shoulder they stood, and, first of all, each of them poising the knife in the hollow of his hand with a peculiar dancing movement, set it writhing across the room at a marked circle on a board. The two knives sped simultaneously with a vicious whir, and stood quivering, with their blades touching each other, in the centre of the white. At the next trial, so exactly had they been aimed that the point of the one hit upon the haft of the other and stripped the cork almost to the blade. But Jorian, to whom the knife belonged, mended it with a piece of string, telling the company philosophically that it was no bad thing to have a string hanging loose to a Tolleknife, for when it went into any one the string would always hang down from the wound in order to pull it out by.
Then they got their knives again and played a more dangerous game. Jorian stood on guard with his knife, waving the blade slowly before him in the shape of a long-bodied letter S. Boris poised his weapon in the hollow of his hand, and sent it whirring straight at Jorian's heart. As it came buzzing like an angry bee, almost too quick for the eye to follow, Jorian flicked it deftly up into the air at exactly the right moment, and, without even taking his eye off it, he caught the knife by the handle as it fell. Thereafter he bowed and gave it back to the thrower ceremoniously. Then Boris guarded, and Jorian in his turn threw, with a like result, though, perhaps, a little less featly done on Boris's part.
All the while there was a clamant and manifold astonishment in the kitchen of the inn, together with prodigal and much-whispering wonder.
Then ensued other plays. Boris stood with his elbow crooked and his left hand on his hip, with his back also turned to Jorian. _Buzz!_ went the knife! It flashed like level lightning under the arch of Jorian's armpit, and lo! it was caught in his right hand, which dropped upon it like a hawk upon a rabbit, as it sped through his elbow port.
Then came shooting with the cross-bow, and I regretted much that I had only learned the six-foot yew, and that there was not one in the company, nor indeed room to display it if there had been. For I longed to do something to show that I also was no milksop.
Now it chanced that there was in one corner a yearling calf that had been killed that day, and hung up with a bar between its thighs. I saw an axe leaning in the corner--an axe with a broad, cutting edge--and I bethought me that perhaps, after all, I knew something which even Jorian and Boris were ignorant of. So, mindful of my father's teaching, I took the axe, and, before any one was aware of my intent, I swept the long-handled axe round my head, and, getting the poise and distance for the slow drawing cut which does not stop for bone nor muscle, I divided the neck through at one blow so that the head dropped on the ground.
Then there was much applause and wonder. Men ran to lift the calf's head, and the owner of the axe came up to examine the edge of his weapon. I looked about. The eyes of the Lady Ysolinde were aflame with pleasure, but, on the other hand, the Little Playmate was crimson with shame. Tears stood in her beautiful eyes.
She marched straight up to meet me, and, clinching her hands, she said; "Oh, I hate you !"
And so went within to her chamber, and I saw her no more that night. Now I take all to witness what strange things are the mind and temper of even the best of women. And why Helene thus spoke to me I know not--nay, even to this day I can hazard no right guess. But as I have often said, God never made anything straight that He made beautiful, except only the line where the sea meets the sky.
And of all the pretty, crooked, tangled things that He has made, women are the prettiest, the crookedest--and the most distractingly tangled.
Which is perhaps why they are so everlastingly interesting, and why we blundering, ram-stam, homely favored men love them so.
But the best entertainment must at long and last come to an end. And the one in the inn of Erdberg lasted not so long as the telling of it--for the