The Sword Maker - Robert Barr (top 10 non fiction books of all time txt) 📗

an exclamation that might be coarsely described as a snort of contempt. The Elector of Treves was leaning back in his chair discomfited by her abrupt desertion of him. The Elector of Cologne now leaned forward, dismayed at the turn affairs had taken, deep anxiety visible on his brow.

"Countess von Sayn," he began, and thus his ward realized how deeply she had offended, "in all my life I never met any young man who impressed me so favorably as Prince Roland of Germany. If I possessed a daughter whom I dearly loved, I could wish her no better fortune than to marry so honest a youth as he. The very point you make against him should have told most strongly in his favor with a young girl. My reading of his character is that so far as concerns the love you spoke of, he knows as little of it as yourself, and thus he agreed to our proposal with a seeming indifference which you entirely misjudge. If you, then, have any belief in my goodwill towards you, in my deep anxiety for your welfare and happiness, I implore you to agree to the suggestion my Lord of Mayence has made. You speak of love knowing nothing concerning it. I call to your remembrance the fact that one noble lady of your race may have foregone the happiness that love perhaps brings, in her desire for the advancement of one whom she loved so truly that she chose for her guide the more subdued but steadier star of duty. The case is presented to you, my dear, in different form, and I feel assured that duty and love will shine together."

As the venerable Archbishop spoke with such deep earnestness, in a voice she loved so well, the girl buried her face in her hands, and he could see the tears trickle between her fingers. A silence followed her guardian's appeal, disturbed only by the agitated breathing of Hildegunde.

The cold voice of the Elector of Mayence broke the stillness, like a breath from a glazier:

"Do you consent, Madam?"

"Yes," gasped the girl, her shoulders quivering with emotion, but she did not look up.

"I fear that the object of this convocation was like to be forgotten in the gush of sentiment issuing from both sides of me. This is a business meeting, and not a love-feast. Will you do me the courtesy, Madam, of raising your head and answering my question?"

The girl dashed the tears from her eyes, and sat up straight, grasping with nervous hands the arms of the throne, as if to steady herself against the coming ordeal.

"I scarcely heard what you said. Do you consent to marry Prince Roland of Germany?"

"I have consented," she replied firmly.

"Will you use your influence with him that he may carry out the behests of the three Archbishops?"

"Yes, if the behests are for the good of the country."

"I cannot accept any qualifications, therefore I repeat my question. Will you use your influence with him that he may carry out the behests of the three Archbishops?"

"I can have no influence with such a man."

"Answer my question, Madam."

"Say yes, Hildegunde," pleaded Cologne.

She turned to him swimming eyes.

"Oh, Guardian, Guardian!" she cried, "I have done everything I can, and all for you; all for you. I cannot stand any more. This is torture to me. Let me go home, and another day when I am calmer I will answer your questions!"

The perturbed Archbishop sat back again with a deep sigh. The ignorance of women with which his colleague of Treves had credited all three was being amazingly dispelled. He could not understand why this girl should show such emotion at the thought of marrying the heir to the throne, when assured the young man was all that any reasonable woman could desire.

"Madam, I pray you give your attention to me," said the unimpassioned voice of Mayence. "I have listened to your conversation with my colleagues, and the patience I exhibited will, I hope, be credited to me. This matter of business"--he emphasized the word--"must be settled to-day, and to clear away all misapprehension, I desire to say that your guardian has really no influence on this matter. It was settled before you came into the room. You are merely allowed a choice of two outcomes: first, marriage with Prince Roland; second, imprisonment in Pfalz Castle, situated in the middle of the Rhine."

"What is that?" demanded the Countess.

"I am tired of repeating my statements."

"You would imprison me--me, a Countess of Sayn?"

Again the tears evaporated, and in their place came the smoldering fire bequeathed to her by the Crusaders, and, if the truth must be known, by Rhine robbers as well.

"Yes, Madam. A predecessor of mine once hanged one of your ancestors."

"It is not true," cried the girl, in blazing wrath. "'Twas the Emperor Rudolph who hanged him; the same Emperor that chastised an Archbishop of Mayence, and brought him, cringing, to his knees, begging for pardon, which the Emperor contemptuously flung to him. You dare not imprison me!"

"Refuse to marry Prince Roland, and learn," said the Archbishop very quietly.

The girl sprang to her feet, a-quiver with anger.

"I do refuse! Prince Roland has hoodwinked the three of you! He is a libertine and a brawler, consorting with the lowest in the cellars of Frankfort; a liar and a thief, and not a brave thief at that, but a cutthroat who holds his sword to the breast of an unarmed merchant while he filches from him his gold. Added to that, a drunkard as his father is; and, above all, a hypocrite, as his father is not, yet clever enough, with all his vices, to cozen three men whose vile rule has ruined Frankfort, and left the broad Rhine empty of its life-giving commerce;" she waved her hand toward the vacant river.

The Archbishop of Cologne was the first to rise, horror-stricken.

"The girl is mad!" he murmured.

Treves rose also, but Mayence sat still, a sour smile on his lips, yet a twinkle of admiration in his eyes.

"No, my poor Guardian, I am not mad," she cried, regarding him with a smile, her wrath subsiding as quickly as it had risen. "What I say is true, and it may be that our meeting, turbulent as it has been, will prevent you from making a great mistake. He whom you would put on the throne is not the man you think."

"My dear ward!" cried Cologne, "how can you make such accusations against him? What should a girl living in seclusion as you live, know of what is passing in Frankfort."

"It seems strange, Guardian, but it is true, nevertheless. Sit down again, I beg of you, and you, my Lord of Treves. Even my Lord of Mayence will, I think, comprehend my abhorrence when such a proposal was made to me, and I hope, my Lord, you will forgive my outburst of anger just now."

She heard the trembling Treves mutter:

"Mayence never forgives."

"Now, Father Ambrose, come forward."

"Why?" asked Ambrose, waking from his reverie.

"Tell them your experiences in Frankfort."

"I am not allowed to speak," objected the monk.

"Speak, speak!" cried Cologne. "What, sir, have you had to do with this girl's misleading?"

"I thought," he said wistfully to his kinswoman, "that I was not to mention my visit to Frankfort unless my Lord the Archbishop brought up the subject."

"Have you not been listening to these proceedings?" cried the girl impatiently. "The subject is brought up before three Archbishops, instead of before one. Tell their Lordships what you know of Prince Roland."

Father Ambrose, with a deep sigh, began his recital, to which Treves and Cologne listened with ever-increasing amazement, while the sullen Mayence sat back in his chair, face imperturbable, but the thin lips closing firmer and firmer as the narrative went on.

When the monologue ended, his Reverence of Cologne was the first to speak:

"In the name of Heaven, why did you not tell me all this yesterday?"

Father Ambrose looked helplessly at his kinswoman, but made no reply.

"I forbade him, my Lord," said the girl proudly, and for the first time addressing him by a formal title, as if from now on he was to be reckoned with her enemies. "I alone am responsible for the journey to Frankfort and its consequences, whatever they may be. You invoked the name of Heaven just now, my Lord, and I would have you know that I am convinced Heaven itself intervened on my behalf to expose the real character of Prince Roland, who has successfully deluded three men like yourselves, supposed to be astute!"

The Archbishop turned upon her sorrowful eyes, troubled yet kindly.

"My dear Countess," he said, "I have not ventured to censure you; nevertheless I am, or have been, your guardian, and should, I think, have been consulted before you committed yourself to an action that threatens disaster to our plans."

The girl replied, still with the hauteur so lately assumed:

"I do not dispute my wardship, and have more than once thanked you for your care of me, but at this crisis of my life--a crisis transforming me instantly from a girl to a woman--you fail me, seeing me here at bay. I wished to spend a month or two at the capital city, but before troubling you with such a request I determined to learn whether or not the state of Frankfort was as disturbed as rumor alleged. Finding matters there to be hopeless, the project of a visit was at once abandoned, and knowing nothing of the honor about to be conferred on Prince Roland, I thought it best to keep what had been discovered regarding his character a secret between the Reverend Father and myself. I dare say an attempt will be made to cast doubt on the Reverend Father's story, and perhaps my three judges may convince themselves of its falseness, but they cannot convince me, and I tell you finally and formally that no power on earth will induce me to marry a marauder and a thief!"

This announcement effectually silenced the one friend she possessed among the three. Mayence slowly turned his head, and looked upon the colleague at his right, as much as to say, "Do you wish to add your quota to this inconsequential talk?"

Treves, at this silent appeal, leaned forward, and spoke to the perturbed monk, who knew that, in some way he did not quite understand, affairs were drifting towards a catastrophe.

"Father Ambrose," began the Elector of Treves, "would you kindly tell us the exact date when this encounter on the bridge took place?"

"Saint Cyrille's Day," replied Father Ambrose.

"And during the night of that day you were incarcerated in the cellar among the wine-casks?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Would it surprise you to know, Father Ambrose, that during Saint Cyrille's Day, and for many days previous to that date, Prince Roland was a close prisoner in his Lordship of Mayence's strong Castle of Ehrenfels, and that it was quite impossible for you to have met him in Frankfort, or anywhere else?"

"Nevertheless, I did meet him," persisted Father Ambrose, with the quiet obstinacy of a mild man.

Treves smiled.

"Where did you lodge in Frankfort, Father?"

"At the Benedictine Monastery in Sachsenhausen."

"Do the good brethren supply their guests with a potent wine? Frankfort is, and always has been, the chief market of that