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

who has been accustomed to deliver himself in company where he is sure of sympathy, and who suddenly has to consider his words in society the tone of which he is not sure of.
"Nay," said I, "we are travelling strangers and know nothing of your politics. But this Duke Otho, wherefore has he not been crowned?"
"Because," said the man, "the Duke Casimir, they say, hath been foully murdered, and that through the witchcraft of a woman. So by our laws, till the murderer is punished, the young Duke may not be crowned."
By this time we were at the entering in of the long, dull mass of building, which during most of my boyhood had stood unoccupied, owing to the quarrel between Bishop Peter and the Duke. Our guide led us unchallenged into the quadrangle, and then abruptly vanished without pausing to bid us good-day, or even deigning to accept the modest gratuity which my master, the learned Doctor, had in his front pouch ready for him.
As for me, I stood holding the horses and looking about for any of my own quality who might show me the way to the stables.
Presently a long, lean, lathy youth slouched out of one of the gloomy entries. He stood amazed at the sight of me. I went to him to ask where I might bestow the horses, now standing weary-footed, hanging their heads after the long journey and the toil of the final ascent from the plain.
"Will you fight, outlander?" were the first words of my lathy friend from the entry. He seemed to have been drawn up recently from a period of detention in some deep draw-well, and to have the mould of the stones still upon him.
"Why," said I, "of course I will fight, and that gladly, if you will find me a man to fight with !"
"I will fight you myself," he said, swelling himself. "For the end of this candle I will fight half a dozen such Baltic sausages as you be."
"Like enough," said I, "all in good time. But in the mean time show me the stables, that I may put up my master's horses."
"What know I about you or your master's horses?" cried my Lad of Lath; "and pray why should I show the way to Bishop Peter's good stables to every wastrel that comes sneaking in off the street and asks the freedom of our house. For aught I know you may have come to steal corn. Though, if that be so, Lord love you, you have come to the wrong place."
"Come, stable-master," said I, placably, "let me see a corner and a wisp of straw and I will ease the poor beasts. That will not harm the Bishop Peter, whom my master has gone to visit. He is a friend of his, a man learned in ecclesiastical affairs, who comes to hold disputations with the Bishop--"
"Disputations--what be those? Anything with money at the end of them? If so, he will be a welcome guest at this house. There is very little money at the tail of anything in this town."
I thought I would try the effect of a broad silver piece upon him, at the same time giving the lad the information that disputations were kinds of fights with the tongues of men instead of with their fists.
The silver sweetened his face like a charm. He seized me by the hand.
"My name," he cried, "is Peter of the Pigs. I am not stable-master, but feed the grouting piglings. And yet in a way I am indeed stable-master. For the Bishop hath had no horses since the Duke took them away to mount his cavalry for the raids into Plassenburg. So Peter of the Pigs looks after all about the yard, and precious little there is to look after--except one's own legs getting longer and leaner every day."
"And where is the Bishop this afternoon?" I said.
"Where should he be," cried Peter of the Pigs, "but at the trial of the witch-woman in the Hall of Justice? It must be a rare sight. They say she is to be put to the torture, and that they want a new executioner to do it."
"Why," said I, struck to the heart by his words, "what is the matter with the old one?"
"Oh," said the lad, "he is mortal sick abed. He happened an accident, or some one stuck a dagger into him--no great matter if he had stuck it through him, or cloven him to the chine with his own Red Axe!"


CHAPTER XL
THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH
At this point came my master back, looking exceedingly disconsolate. A starveling, furtive-eyed monk accompanied him.
"The Bishop," he said, "is gone forth of his house. He is in attendance at the trial of a woman for witchcraft, one whom some of the common city folk hold to be a saint. But the young Duke and others swear that she is a witch, and hath murdered the Duke Casimir. Haste thee with the horses, sirrah, and attend me to the Hall of Justice. I have sent a messenger forward with my credentials to the Bishop Peter."
So to the corner of the yard I went and rubbed down the horses with a wisp of straw which Peter of the Pigs brought me, and which smelled of his charges too. Then, with another piece of money in his hand, I sent him out to the nearest corn-chandler's to buy some corn for our beasts, the which I gave them, and stood by them till I saw them eat it too. For in such a poverty-stricken place, and with a gentleman of the capacity of Master Peter of the Pigs, one that is in any way fond of his horses cannot be too careful.
This done, I announced myself to my master as ready to accompany him.
Then, through the streets of Thorn, all strangely empty, we took our way. Women were leaning out of windows; every head turned castleward up the street.
They hardly deigned a glance at my master or at myself, but continued to gaze. And as each passenger came down the street from the direction of the Wolfsberg they cried questions at him, so that he ran the gantlet of a dropping fire of shrill queries.
"What are they doing to the sweet saint up yonder?"
"Hath she been put to the Question?"
"Who could be executioner in such a case? A man would be sent to hell-fire for daring to lay hand on her."
The popular sympathies ran clearly with the accused, which is not, as our old Hanne had reason to remember, the rule in trials for witchcraft.
Soon we were passing the gate of the Red Tower. It was barred and closed. The windows of my father's house looked barrenly down, like the eye-holes of skulls. I saw the window from which I used to gaze wistfully down upon the children, who would not play with me, but spat upon the tower when they saw me looking at their play and pipings upon the streets.
There above was the window of my father's garret, with the edge of the black flag blowing out above it.
The streetward door of the Judgment Hall was open, and a great crowd of people stood about, silent, anxious, respectful. Some of them talked in low tones, and whenever there was a word passed out of the door, within which men looked ten deep, it scattered all about like a wave which comes into a sea-cave by a narrow entrance, and then widens out till it breaks gently in the wide inner hall.
"She is not to be tortured; only the Hereditary Executioner may do that. They have threatened the old woman. She has confessed all!"
So ran the words about the crowd, and ever and anon, one would detach himself from the press, elbowing his way out, and then speed down the long street, crying the latest tidings of the trial.
It was manifestly impossible for us to obtain entrance by this door. So we looked about for another.
Then I minded me of the private passage which led from the inner court-yard which I knew so well. We skirted the crowd, with our attendant following, till we came to the side door, which led directly into the Hall of Judgment behind the judges' high seats.
It was the way by which many a time I had seen my father enter, either in his dress of black or in that of red. And I was always glad when I saw him put on the scarlet, because I knew that then the worst was over for some poor tortured soul.
But when my master proposed that the attendant of the Bishop should carry a letter into the hall to his master to inform him that we waited without, the man trembled in every limb, and the hair of his head shocked itself up in sheer terror.
"I cannot--I dare not," he cried; "it is the place of torture--of the engines--the strappado--the water-drop, the leg-crushers!"
And at this point the vision of what was contained within the fatal door became so appalling to him that he picked up his skirts and fled, looking over his shoulder all the while to make sure that the Red Axe was not after him full tilt.
So Dessauer and I were left standing. And if the matter had been less serious, it would have been comical to see us thus deserted upon mine own middenstead, as it were.
"Bishop Peter of Thorn seems a prelate somewhat difficult of approach," said the Chancellor. "I wonder if we shall ever lay any salt on his tail?"
"Let us risk it and go in," said I. "We are putting all our cards on the table, at any rate. And at least we can see all that is to be sees. If there is any risk of Von Reuss penetrating our disguises, it is as well to gulp and get it over at once, rather than suck gingerly at it till the fear of death chills our marrow."
"Go on, then," he said, somewhat crossly; "there is indeed naught to be gained by standing here as a butt for the eyes of evil-doers."
So I opened the door carefully, and with a trembling heart. The hum of a great assembly breathed turbidly upon us in a hushed chaos of sound. The warm, stifling atmosphere, heavy with a thousand respirations, the sound of a voice speaking loud and clear, the thunder of continuous heels on the paved floor, the voices of the ushers crying, "Silentium!" at intervals--these all came suddenly upon us as we shut out the air and sunshine and went into the Hall of Judgment.
We could not see the full assembly at first. We stood, as I had supposed, directly behind the judges' rostrum. Only the corners of the vast crowd which covered the floor and filled the galleries could be seen--a blur of white faces all bent towards one point. But at the corner, not far from us, a tall, spare, gray-headed ecclesiastic was speaking.
We stood still, in order that we might not interrupt by entering till he had finished.
What was our surprise when we heard his words.
"My Lord Duke," he was saying, "it is fortunate for the elucidation of this great mystery that I have this moment received word concerning a most learned and notable jurisconsult, a Doctor of the Law, wise in controversy and specially skilled in such cases, who has even now arrived in the city of Thorn, on his way to the Emperor at Ratisbon, before whom he is to dispute for the honor of truth and our holy religion.
"His name is the Learned, Venerable, and Reverend Doctor Schmidt, and I trust that we of the city