XXI
HOW ALBRECHT AND HERR FREDERICH TALKED IN THE WOOD
Hardly had the hawking-party set out that day, when Herr von Zimmern, with a smile of cruel craft upon his face, went limping in search of Baron Albrecht. He found him with Father Christopher, and between the two lay upon the oaken table a scroll of parchment in which they had been reading.
"Pardon me that I disturb your studies," Herr Frederich said, with the air of one who strives to seem humble in his demeanor; "but I would that the Lord Baron come forth and ride with me. I have that to show which it were well for him to see."
"What is it, and whither should we ride?" the knight asked, looking up calmly; while Von Zimmern noted with amusement and mingled anger that into the face of Father Christopher there stole an expression of dismay.
"You are more cautious than of old, when it booted not whither we rode so be it that our steeds were good and the quarry fair," the cripple responded with a discordant laugh. "For to-day trust me in the old fashion, and come without question."
"The old fashion is no more possible," Albrecht answered; "but nevertheless I will go with thee, if it be only that the occasion may serve for the saying of certain words that must sooner or later be spoken between us."
Von Zimmern looked at the baron in some surprise, but returned no other answer than a profound bow which seemed mocking in its excessive deference. He waited a moment while the other laid aside the parchment and prepared to accompany him, the priest all the while looking as if he had it in his desire to prevent this sally from the castle did he but know how to accomplish his wish. Herr von Zimmern found it not easy to accustom himself to this new Albrecht who had been developed out of the kobold lad whom he had trained and shaped at his will, and of whose simple wits it had been so easy to get the better by a little human guile. He had for long years foreseen the time when Albrecht should gain a human soul, and for this he had schemed; but now that the thing was accomplished he was confused by the result. Albrecht with a soul was not the being that Herr Frederich had expected him to be, and the fact continually filled the cripple with a baffled sense of confusion.
Together Albrecht and his companion got to horse, and without further speech they rode down the hill and into the shadow of the forest. The instant the shadow of the pines fell upon him Albrecht knew that there were evil influences abroad that day. He caught a glimpse among the tree boles of the shadowy form of a kobold, and he heard in the air the whispers of beings to which his sight was growing dim as he became more human. He looked at his companion questioningly, as if he suspected the truth; but Herr Frederich held his face under control, and did not betray the feverish glee which burned within him. Herr Frederich was secretly full of malicious triumph. He had gathered from the burning looks of Count Stephen when that morning the cripple had brought tidings of the quarry to be had in the meadow and from the ambiguous speech of the lord of Schaffhausen, that to-day was the lover determined to bring his wooing to a climax; and he had promise that opportunity should not be lacking, since the kobolds of the forest, urged on by Von Zimmern and angry at the desertion of their brotherhood by Albrecht, had given pledge to bring Erna and her lover together alone in the wood.
Herr Frederich had brought Albrecht forth from the castle to follow on the track of the hunters, feeling sure that the wood-folk would contrive opportunity, and that Count Stephen would not be loath or slow to avail himself of it to press his passion; and it was with the surety of being able to show to Albrecht his wife listening to the vows of another, perhaps even clasped in her lover's arms, that the malicious cripple led the way through the forest.
So still in silence they rode, until they did in truth come upon the hawking-party, as hath been told. When Herr Frederich beheld how the damsel Fastrade rode in advance with her mistress while the Count followed, as it at that moment happened, he muttered under his breath a curse bitter and deep.
"Now they have beheld us!" he exclaimed in vexation; and involuntarily he turned his horse toward the deeper shades behind the spot where they rode.
Albrecht followed the other as he wheeled, and rode after until they were out of sight of the hawking-party. Then he drew rein.
"Hold thee still there!" he commanded.
Herr Frederich, with a sudden thrill of rage and no less of terror, checked his horse, feeling that his quarry had escaped him. He sat glaring at the baron with eyes from which blazed the hate he would no longer take the trouble to conceal.
"Thinkest thou," Albrecht said in a voice so perfectly calm and self-controlled that it stung his hearer like the lash of a whip, "that I am so dull as not to understand that thou hast brought me forth into the forest to play the spy?"
"You were brought here," Herr Frederich answered furiously, "to see how your lady and her lover – "
No more could he say, for Albrecht with a sharp thrust of the spurs made his horse leap forward, and caught the other by the throat. For an instant, as the two confronted each other with blazing eyes, it seemed that the death-hour of the cripple had surely come. Then the strong fingers of Albrecht loosened their hold, an expression of regret softened the splendid rage in his face, and Herr Frederich wrenched himself free from the grasp that was strangling him.
Albrecht reined his horse backward.
"Beware that thou dost not provoke me too far," he said. "I was prepared for the foul thing that thou wast minded to say, but I will not listen to the name of my lady from thy lips. Dost thou think, forsooth, that I am so besotted that I have not seen that thou wast minded to play a part too foul for one to name it, and to bring about my dishonor in mine own house to the intent that I should be – Nay, to what intent thou best knowest. I had fortified myself to the end that to-day for the last time I should bear with thee patiently, but if thou takest the name of my wife upon thy lips, I will not answer for my forbearance."
Herr Frederich, panting and dishevelled, leaned upon the pommel of his saddle and regarded his companion with looks of burning ferocity.
"I did but try," he sneered, "to warn you in time, that you might save yourself from – "
The threatening look which gathered blackly upon the brow of Albrecht warned him to be more guarded in his speech, and he broke off abruptly, leaving the rest unspoken.
"The faithful service of the best part of my life," he went on, endeavoring to cover his anger with a show of wounded zeal and faithful affection, "counts for nothing with you, and it is not strange that this endeavor to serve you should bring to me only abuse. It was to do you a service that I adventured the rage of Count von Rittenberg, and – "
Albrecht put up his hand with a gesture which once more cut the speaker short.
"Why is it," he asked, "that thou hast gone about to do me harm? What cause hast thou to hate me? If I was not over-thoughtful of thee in the old days, I was at least never cruel, and I took care that thou shouldst fare as well as might be. Thou wert set next to myself, and never did I let that one of those under my hand should so much as speak to thee lightly."
Herr Frederich threw the reins down upon the neck of his steed, and with folded arms he sat confronting Albrecht. The supreme hour of his life had come. Now at last would he pour forth all the wrath that for long years had been festering in his soul. There was not more a need of prudence, of concealment, of a cloak with which to hide the intents of his heart. He labored only how to frame his speech so that it should sting and burn Albrecht to the very soul, like the lightning shafts, or the poisoned spear of the Wild Huntsman that leaves an incurable wound at its lightest touch. He glanced about with an instinctive, cowardly desire to see whither he could flee if the other's rage should overleap all bounds, and he muttered a spell to summon the sprites of the wood.
"Ah, thou art, then, in league with the folk of the forest?" Albrecht said, hearing him. "Couldst thou not trust thine own powers for evil, that thou hast called upon them to help thee?"
The cripple gave no heed to the interruption. He was lost in the fierceness of his feelings. He was determined that of the bitter joy of this moment he would lose nothing through craven fear. He cast all prudence to the wind.
"It is true," he began, in a tone which was at first low, but which increased as he went on, and the fierceness of his anger burst out more and more, as a fire that is opened to the wind blazes higher and higher, "that you had me treated well at the hands of the wild crew at Neiderwasser, since, forsooth, I was too valuable a thing to be lightly handled. If your underlings were forced to treat me with respect, were they ever allowed to forget that I was an underling also; I, who had been born a man and a freeholder? Oh, the fool of a kobold, that thinks himself able to understand men because, forsooth, he hath stolen a soul through his wife! Why do I hate you? You who kept me in thralldom among creatures no better than the wild beasts save that they speak and go upright! You, whose father stole me from freedom, from home, from the wife that belonged to me only, and from the children that were helpless without me! Why do I hate you? God's wounds, I had much cause to love you!"
His bitter laughter rang through the forest. Albrecht shuddered, but he drew nearer to the cripple, and Herr Frederich saw in his face an expression of compassion. The fierceness of Von Zimmern's rage was increased twofold that he could excite in the knight only pity and not the anger which he longed to provoke.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried again, his voice rising ever higher till the hollows of the wood rang with it; "do you know why I taught you to long for a human soul, and why I spared no pains to fit you for the part you had to play to gain one, so that you should by no means fail? It was because till you had a soul my vengeance could have no hold upon you! It was that I was not content to hurt you for the short life which would have been yours in the forest; I would bring on you a punishment that should be eternal! When you were a lad I could scarcely keep my hands from tearing and maiming you, and I should have laughed had your accursed kobold father rent me limb from limb for doing it; but I waited for a better vengeance! The only thing that is wanting to my content now is that your father cannot know how I have paid my debt to his son."
He seemed to have gone mad, and Albrecht shuddered and crossed himself at the sight of fury so demoniacal. The cripple shivered and trembled with excitement; the tears gathered in his eyes, and the foam specked his lips. The knight's own eyes were dim, as he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the other's arm.
"I have indeed much for which to ask thy forgiveness," Albrecht said; "but I was, as thou hast said, only a kobold, and what could I know better than the rest of my race, save what thou didst teach me? Meseemeth that if thou hadst but cumbered somewhat to teach me mercy in my callow youth, all soulless as I was I might perchance have learned somewhat of it."
"Oh, without doubt!" retorted Von Zimmern scornfully, as he shook off the hand which lay pleadingly upon his arm; "but that was reason enough why I should not teach. I was willing to suffer if thereby I could the better compass my revenge in the end."
"And yet," interposed Albrecht, inquiringly, "when my marriage was about to take place, thou didst all but prevent it when thou gavest to the countess a ring by which she might know kobolds from men?"
"Yea," Herr Frederich replied, grinding his teeth; "for a moment the thought of your present bliss was too much for me. I saw you look on your bride with longing and delight, and I thought of mine from whom I had been stolen. To see you so blest was a trial too great for even my patience; and for a moment I was so weak that had you not interfered, I had spoiled all, and cheated myself of the vengeance wrought out by all those years of waiting and suffering. I thank you for that!"
There was silence in the wood for a moment while the two confronted each other with piercing eyes. Overhead the wind soughed in the pine tops, and to the mind of Von Zimmern the sound brought the memory of the many long, weary days and nights he had listened to this wail in the tree-tops of the Neiderwasser valley. A new frown of hate came over his black face.
"Year after year," he burst out, "I pined in that cursed slavery, and longed and longed for those I had left behind; and you offered me nixies, and promised that I should be free to return to my own when I had married you to a mortal wife."
"And that promise was kept," Albrecht responded.
"Kept!" the other echoed with fierce scorn. "You kept it when all that I loved was gone. You set me free to seek a row of graves; to carry my miserable, broken body about the world alone. God's blood!" he went on, dashing the spurs into the bleeding flanks of his steed and still reining the animal back with a strong hand; "at the grave of my wife I took new oaths of vengeance, and I hastened back to keep them. It was not hard! The folk of the wood were eager to help me by bringing the count and the lady alone together in the forest, and he already had the work of winning – "
"Silence!" broke in Albrecht, in a voice of thunder.
The wild excitement of Herr Frederich was infecting him also, despite all his efforts at self-control. His cheeks were flushed, and he breathed deeply and pantingly between his teeth. The cripple was not slow to perceive these signs of growing passion, and he fanned the flame with new taunts and deeper reproaches.
"Fool of a kobold!" he cried out yet again; "to think you could play with a soul and be safe! Was it then like a boar-spear with which your hand could have its own will? Oh, the wise wood-creature!"
He broke into shrill laughter and bitter, till all the forest resounded; and among the dark recesses of the pines it seemed that unseen lips joined in the evil peal of wicked scorn and merriment.
"Now," he cried, and in his voice was a new ring of triumph, "our kobold hath ruined not alone his own soul, lightly gotten and quickly lost, but hers which could by no means be satisfied with such a brutish, half-human thing as her husband. It is not a marvel that she must needs turn toward a human lover after – "
The knight sprang upon him with a face distorted with rage and jealousy, and caught the cripple by the throat. He dragged him from the saddle, and Herr Frederich was as helpless in the grasp of those powerful hands as if he were in the clutch of a lion. Albrecht dashed him to the earth. His head was grazed by a stone, and for an instant everything swam before his eyes. The thick-growing ferns closed over him like the waves of the sea, and then they were parted by the face of Albrecht, who stooped toward him.
"Thou art a craven and a liar!" Albrecht hissed between his set teeth.
Then again with strong hands he seized Herr Frederich, and lifted him out of the bracken as if to dash him again to earth.
With a moan and a mighty effort to speak, the cripple, swinging in air, flung at the knight one last bitter taunt.
"It is bravely done," he cried, "to kill the man your father maimed!"
The clutch of Albrecht relaxed instantly. He lowered the other until he could lean against his horse, and then stood confronted to him with a face which kept Von Zimmern silent.
"Thou art right," he said. "God knoweth that I and mine have done thee evil enough already. I have need to ask thy forgiveness; and I would to God that there were reparation which man might compass, so be it that thus I could do by thee that which would undo what my father hath done unto thee. Only, since that may not be, I warn thee that thou come not in my sight again. I spare thy life when thou hast said words for which death were the only fitting meed; but I pledge not myself if I see thee again."
And as if he might not trust himself to say aught further, Albrecht vaulted into the saddle and rode swiftly away through the wood.
XXII
HOW ALBRECHT RODE HOME
Mighty was the struggle in the mind of Albrecht as he rode swiftly through the forest when he had left Herr Frederich in the wood. His good steed of his own instinct took the way back toward the castle, and strained every sinew that he might the sooner come thither, for that his master sharply spurred him on. Albrecht had only the thought that it behooved him to put all the distance he might compass between his angry heart and the temptation from which he fled, and he heeded not whither he rode. The falling leaves of the beech trees, yellow as topaz, rustled downward in bright showers as he sped; the pitchy cones of the pines, glistening with unctuous drops, fell now and then with a dull thud upon the soft carpet of brown needles beneath his horse's feet; the squirrels chattered indignantly at his intrusion upon their wild and quiet domain; and now and then some wood-bird flew startled from the thicket, oftentimes so close as almost to touch him.
The cheeks of the knight burned with a fever which the wind of the autumn afternoon, cool though it was and loaded with refreshing balsamic scents, could not allay. His heart beat hotly with rage and love and hatred and jealousy, until its fierce throbbing seemed wellnigh to choke him. Through a rift in the trees he caught a glimpse of the towers of Rittenberg; and he recalled the sight of them which he had when he first came hither, and how Herr Frederich had pointed them out to him, saying with his smile which now Albrecht so loathed:
"Now I will ride homeward, and await tidings of the speeding of your wooing. Yonder is the castle, and there shall you find both bride and soul!"
The memory surged over the mind of Albrecht like a bitter wave of the northern sea, black and stinging with its icy cold. He struck his clenched hand against his breast, and a groan escaped from his lips.
"It were better never to have had a soul!" he murmured.
A hollow laugh from unseen lips answered him. He looked around, suddenly checking his horse with a wrench of the bridle which wellnigh threw the good steed upon its haunches. He was silent an instant, as if he waited for some one to call out in mockery. There was no sound save the panting of his steed, the murmur of the soft wind in the tree-tops, and the distant hoarse cry of a heron scared by the fowler and fleeing toward the deeper recesses of the forest.
Albrecht put his hand upon his forehead like a man who awakens.
"I know ye, kobold crew!" he cried. "Ye shall not conquer. I defy ye, for I have a soul."
Then again he struck the spurs into the horse's flanks and flew onward toward Rittenberg. The dread that Erna might indeed be lost forever beset him like a flame, and he did not pause even on the steep below the castle gate. As if urged on by the furies he flew up the hill, and dashed into the courtyard spattered with foam from his horse's bridle.
He threw his rein to a servitor, and hastened to his chamber. He dashed his cap, its heron-plume torn and ragged from his wild ride through the wood, upon the rush-strewn floor, and with great strides he began to pace to and fro. He was confused by the emotions with which he struggled. Never in the months since he became a man had so fierce a rush of contending passions swept through his mind, and he was dizzied by their force. Below in the courtyard he heard light laughter, and a snatch of song which one of his men-at-arms had taught some serving-wench; and the sounds carried him back to the wild, free life of the forest. For a moment it seemed to him that he would gladly give up all that he had won could he but be once more the gay, soulless Albrecht who had come to Rittenberg; so strong was the rush of the old memory, the desire for the old lawless, jocund kobold life, that he was ready to curse the day that brought him to the castle and gave him a human bride. Yet the thought of Erna and the passionate love for her which filled his heart were too strong to be overcome, even by the swelling disquiet of his soul. He could not yet think first of the high spiritual blessings which the gift of a soul made possible to him, since ever the image of his bride rose before his mind as the chief desire of his life.
So long did Albrecht wrestle with the temptations which raged within him like ravening wolves, that the dusk began to rise from the forest to the height where the castle stood, as a night-mist rises from beneath. He thought of the wood-creatures who had mocked at his pain, and full well did he know how fain were they to do his bidding did he charge them to waylay Count Stephen in the forest and do him harm. Were it not madness to let all the instincts of his whole life go because of the fetters which were laid upon him by this thing which was so wondrously within him, and which had changed him from the most blithe and most bold of all the kobolds of the forest to the tame thing that dared not avenge himself upon the knight who would steal from him the love of his wife? The rushes were crushed and ground into dust beneath his heel as he strode to and fro, and the great drops stood upon his forehead.
Suddenly in the gathering dusk he stood still, as does a knight who turns at last upon his enemies and stands at bay, bidding them defiance. All the might of his soul did he call up to aid him in the conflict with the passions and temptations which beset him. There came into his splendid face a look of boldness, of confidence, yet too of horror, as of one who at last sees his foes for what they in truth are. A moment he stood motionless; then with firm step and resolute mien he went down the long corridor, which echoed to his tread, and descended the private stairway which led to the castle chapel. There before the altar he bowed himself in prayer.
Half an hour later, as Albrecht, calm and firm once more, was returning to his chamber, he encountered Erna in the corridor. She had been to his chamber to seek him, on her return from the hunt. The attendants had stared open-mouthed when she rode into the courtyard unattended, but she had given them no heed. She longed to fling herself into the arms of her husband, that he might shield her from the danger and the temptation which lay about her; but when she found his chamber vacant, suddenly she recalled seeing Albrecht in the forest, riding with Herr von Zimmern like an evil spirit behind him, and the thought brought with it a great fear of what he might have seen. At that moment she heard his step in the corridor approaching her. Her first impulse was to hide like a guilty thing; then she remembered that she was not guilty. She saw Albrecht standing on the threshold as if he were an angel of light. His splendid strength seemed to her that of a god. She ran to him and flung herself, sobbing wildly, into his arms.
It had seemed to Albrecht in the cool and holy quiet of the chapel, that he had conquered passion and come to desire spiritual good even above the love of this beautiful woman who now flung herself into his embrace, weeping so sore; but now that he held her fast he thought again of the folk in the wood, and how speedily they would rid him of his rival did he but bid them. Even were they in league with Herr Frederich, as well might be, they would obey him and do his will. He strained Erna to his bosom in a strong and jealous clasp; then, as a wave returns that has swept down the sea-beach, came again his will to conquer evil and to beat down this temptation. When in a moment he spoke there was in his voice no trace of the feelings which stormed within him.
"What hath affrighted thee, sweetheart?" he said, kissing her fondly.
She had clung to him, hiding her face, and feeling that his strong arms could protect her from the world; that now was all harm put away and all evil trodden down. Then when he spoke, it seemed to her, all unwrought and excited as she was, that his voice, though soothing and compassionate, was that of one who is no more cumbered by troubles such as hers. He was to her like one who is removed from passion, and the turmoil of a strife such as that which tossed her spirit, by the width of half the wide sky. He was so calm, so kind; he soothed her like a tired child when, forsooth, her soul hungered and thirsted to be comforted with the apples and flagons of love. She knew not for what she yearned, but she did not find it in his embrace, albeit he was full tender and fond.
Albrecht saw that she strove with herself that she might recover her calmness. She freed herself from his embrace, and stood wiping her tears, and calming herself in woman's wise.
"It is only that thou hast wed a foolish and timorous wife," she answered him; "I lost the hunt and rode home alone. Methought I heard voices in the forest, and it hath unnerved me."
Albrecht changed color. What peril from the wood-folk might not Erna have escaped! He started forward to take her again in his arms, but she turned away with a smile.
"Belike it was nothing but my own wild fancy," she said. "Indeed, now that once again I am safe at Rittenberg I know not if I heard aught. I cannot have left the hunt more than half an hour agone. I did but turn aside in the beech wood near the ford to follow a bird-cry for a little, and I lost my way thereby."
She cast down her eyes, for in truth as she thus put by his question with a feigned excuse she could not meet his gaze; and Albrecht, remembering what had been said to him in the forest concerning the estrangement of her affections, thrilled with a keen pang. She left him, and passed down the corridor toward her chamber; and he stood and watched her like one who seeth his dearest hope flee away before his face.