Joan of the Sword Hand

"There are others," said Jorian, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the women's apartments.

"None so rounded and tun-bellied with folly!" cried Boris, with decision. "No two donkeys so thistle-fed as we – to have the command of five hundred good horsemen, and the chances of as warm a fight as ever closed – "

"That is just it," cried Jorian; "our Hugo had no business to forbid us to engage in the open before he should come."

"'Hold the city.' quoth he, shaking that great head of his. 'I know not the sort of general this priest-knight may be, and till I know I will not have my Palace Guard flung like a can of dirty water in the face of the Muscovites. Therefore counsel the Prince to stand on the defensive till I come.'"

"And rightly spoke the son of the Red Axe," assented Boris; "only our good Hugo should have sent other men than you and me to command in such a campaign. We never could let well alone all the days of us."

"Save in the matter of marriage or no marriage!" smiled Boris grimly.

"A plague on all women!" growled the little fat man, his rubicund and shining face lined with unaccustomed discontent. "A plague on all women, I say! What can this Theresa von Lynar want in the Muscovite camp, that we must promise to convey her safe through the fortifications, and then put her into Prince Wasp's hands?"

"Think you that for some hatred of our Joan – you remember that night at Isle Rugen – or some purpose of her own (she loves not the Princess Margaret either), this Theresa would betray the city to the enemy?"

"Tush!" Jorian had lost his temper and answered crossly. "In that case, would she have called us in? It were easy enough to find some traitor among these Courtlanders, who, to obtain the favour of Prince Louis, would help to bring the Muscovite in. But what, if she were thrice a traitress, would cause her to fix on the two men who of all others would never turn knave and spoil-sport – no, not for a hundred vats of Rhenish bottled by Noah the year after the Flood!"

"Well," sighed his companion, "'tis well enough said, my excellent Jorian, but all this does not advance us an inch. We have promised, and at eleven o' the clock we must go. What hinders, though, that we have a bottle of Rhenish now, even though the vintage be younger than you say? Perhaps, however, the patron was more respectable!"

Thus in the hall of the men-at-arms in the Castle of Courtland spoke the two captains of Plassenburg. All this time they were busy with their attiring, Boris in especial making great play with a tortoiseshell comb among his tangled locks. Somewhat more spruce was the arraying of our twin comrades-in-arms than we have seen it. Perhaps it was the thought of the dangerous escort duty upon which they had promised to venture forth that night; perhaps —

"May we come in?" cried an arch voice from the doorway. "Ah, we have caught you! There – we knew it! So said I to my sister not an hour agone. Women may be vain as peacocks, but for prinking, dandifying vanity, commend me to a pair of foreign war-captains. My lords, have you blacked your eyelashes yet, touched up your eyebrows, scented and waxed those beautiful moustaches? Sister, can you look and live?"

And to the two soldiers, standing stiff as at attention, with their combs in their hands, enter the sisters Anna and Martha Pappenheim, more full of mischief than ever, and entirely unsubdued by the presence of the invader at their gates.

"Russ or Turk, Courtlander or Franconian, Jew, proselyte, or dweller in Mesopotamia, all is one to us. So be they are men, we will engage to tie them about our little fingers!"

"Why," cried Martha, "whence this grand toilet? We knew not that you had friends in the city. And yet they tell me you have been in Courtland before, Sir Boris?"

"Marthe," cried Anna Pappenheim, with vast pretence of indignation, "what has gotten into you, girl? Can you have forgotten that martial carriage, those limbs incomparably knit, that readiness of retort and delicate sparkle of Wendish wit, which set all the table in a roar, and yet never once brought the blush to maiden's cheek? For shame, Marthe!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed Jorian suddenly, short and sharp, as if a string had been pulled somewhere.

"Ho! ho!" thus more sonorously Boris.

Anna Pappenheim caught her skirts in her hand and spun round on her heel on pretence of looking behind her.

"Sister, what was that?" she cried, spying beneath the settles and up the wide throat of the chimney. "Methought a dog barked."

"Or a grey goose cackled!"

"Or a donkey sang!"

"Ladies," said Jorian, who, being vastly discomposed, must perforce try to speak with an affectation of being at his ease, "you are pleased to be witty."

"Heaven mend our wit or your judgment!"

"And we are right glad to be your butts. Yet have we been accounted fellows of some humour in our own country and among men – "

"Why, then, did you not stay there?" inquired Martha pointedly.

"It was not Boris and I who could not stay without," retorted Jorian, somewhat nettled, nodding towards the door of the guard-room.

"Well said!" cried frank Anna. "He had you there, Marthe. Pricked in the white! Faith, Sir Jorian pinked us both, for indeed it was we who intruded into these gentlemen's dressing-room. Our excuse is that we are tirewomen, and would fain practise our office when and where we can. Our Princess hath been wedded and needs us but once a week. Noble Wendish gentlemen, will not you engage us?"

She clasped her hands, going a step or two nearer Boris as if in appeal.

"Do, kind sirs," she said, "have pity on two poor girls who have no work to do. Think – we are orphans and far from home!"

The smiles on the faces of the war-captains broadened. "Ho! ho! Good!" burst out Boris.

"Ha! ha! Excellent!" assented Jorian, nodding, with his eyes on Martha.

Anna Pappenheim ran quickly on tip-toe round to Boris's back and peered between his shoulders. Then she ran her eyes down to his heels.

"Sister," she cried, "they do it. That dreadful noise comes from somewhere about them. I distinctly saw their jaws waggle. They must of a surety be wound up like an arbalist. Yet I cannot find the string and trigger! Do come and help me, good Marthe! If you find it, I will dance at your wedding in my stocking-feet!"

And the gay Franconian reached up and pulled a stray tag of Boris's jerkin, which hung down his back. The knot slipped, and a circlet of red and gold, ragged at the lower edges, came off in her hand, revealing the fact that Boris's noble soubreveste was no more than a fringe of broidered collar.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Jorian irrepressibly. For Boris looked mightily crestfallen to have his magnificence so rudely dealt with.

Anna von Pappenheim clapped her hands.

"I have found it," she cried. "It goes like this. You touch off the trigger of one, and the other explodes!"

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 noble 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 courtship of Franconia and Plassenburg, 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 Duchess 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.