Otto of the Silver Hand. Говард Пайл
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at one another, and neither of them spoke. The Baron saw the look and in it read a certain meaning that brought him to his elbow, though only to sink back upon his pillow again with a groan.
“Why do you not answer me?” said he at last, in a hollow voice; then to the one-eyed Hans, “Hast no tongue, fool, that thou standest gaping there like a fish? Answer me, where is thy mistress?”
“I – I do not know,” stammered poor Hans.
For a while the Baron lay silently looking from one face to the other, then he spoke again. “How long have I been lying here?” said he.
“A sennight, my lord,” said Master Rudolph, the steward, who had come into the room and who now stood among the others at the bedside.
“A sennight,” repeated the Baron, in a low voice, and then to Master Rudolph, “And has the Baroness been often beside me in that time?” Master Rudolph hesitated. “Answer me,” said the Baron, harshly.
“Not – not often,” said Master Rudolph, hesitatingly.
The Baron lay silent for a long time. At last he passed his hands over his face and held them there for a minute, then of a sudden, before anyone knew what he was about to do, he rose upon his elbow and then sat upright upon the bed. The green wound broke out afresh and a dark red spot grew and spread upon the linen wrappings; his face was drawn and haggard with the pain of his moving, and his eyes wild and bloodshot. Great drops of sweat gathered and stood upon his forehead as he sat there swaying slightly from side to side.
“My shoes,” said he, hoarsely.
Master Rudolph stepped forward. “But, my Lord Baron,” he began and then stopped short, for the Baron shot him such a look that his tongue stood still in his head.
Hans saw that look out of his one eye. Down he dropped upon his knees and, fumbling under the bed, brought forth a pair of soft leathern shoes, which he slipped upon the Baron’s feet and then laced the thongs above the instep.
“Your shoulder,” said the Baron. He rose slowly to his feet, gripping Hans in the stress of his agony until the fellow winced again. For a moment he stood as though gathering strength, then doggedly started forth upon that quest which he had set upon himself.
At the door he stopped for a moment as though overcome by his weakness, and there Master Nicholas, his cousin, met him; for the steward had sent one of the retainers to tell the old man what the Baron was about to do.
“Thou must go back again, Conrad,” said Master Nicholas; “thou art not fit to be abroad.”
The Baron answered him never a word, but he glared at him from out of his bloodshot eyes and ground his teeth together. Then he started forth again upon his way.
Down the long hall he went, slowly and laboriously, the others following silently behind him, then up the steep winding stairs, step by step, now and then stopping to lean against the wall. So he reached a long and gloomy passageway lit only by the light of a little window at the further end.
He stopped at the door of one of the rooms that opened into this passage-way, stood for a moment, then he pushed it open.
No one was within but old Ursela, who sat crooning over a fire with a bundle upon her knees. She did not see the Baron or know that he was there.
“Where is your lady?” said he, in a hollow voice.
Then the old nurse looked up with a start. “Jesu bless us,” cried she, and crossed herself.
“Where is your lady?” said the Baron again, in the same hoarse voice; and then, not waiting for an answer, “Is she dead?”
The old woman looked at him for a minute blinking her watery eyes, and then suddenly broke into a shrill, long-drawn wail. The Baron needed to hear no more.
As though in answer to the old woman’s cry, a thin piping complaint came from the bundle in her lap.
At the sound the red blood flashed up into the Baron’s face. “What is that you have there?” said he, pointing to the bundle upon the old woman’s knees.
She drew back the coverings and there lay a poor, weak, little baby, that once again raised its faint reedy pipe.
“It is your son,” said Ursela, “that the dear Baroness left behind her when the holy angels took her to Paradise. She blessed him and called him Otto before she left us.”
IV. The White Cross on the Hill
Here the glassy waters of the River Rhine, holding upon its bosom a mimic picture of the blue sky and white clouds floating above, runs smoothly around a jutting point of land, St. Michaelsburg, rising from the reedy banks of the stream, sweeps up with a smooth swell until it cuts sharp and clear against the sky. Stubby vineyards covered its earthy breast, and field and garden and orchard crowned its brow, where lay the Monastery of St. Michaelsburg – “The White Cross on the Hill.” There within the white walls, where the warm yellow sunlight slept, all was peaceful quietness, broken only now and then by the crowing of the cock or the clamorous cackle of a hen, the lowing of kine or the bleating of goats, a solitary voice in prayer, the faint accord of distant singing, or the resonant toll of the monastery bell from the high-peaked belfry that overlooked the hill and valley and the smooth, far-winding stream. No other sounds broke the stillness, for in this peaceful haven was never heard the clash of armor, the ring of iron-shod hoofs, or the hoarse call to arms.
All men were not wicked and cruel and fierce in that dark, far-away age; all were not robbers and terror-spreading tyrants, even in that time when men’s hands were against their neighbors, and war and rapine dwelt in place of peace and justice.
Abbot Otto, of St. Michaelsburg, was a gentle, patient, pale-faced old man; his white hands were soft and smooth, and no one would have thought that they could have known the harsh touch of sword-hilt and lance. And yet, in the days of the Emperor Frederick – the grandson of the great Red-beard – no one stood higher in the prowess of arms than he. But all at once – for why, no man could tell – a change came over him, and in the flower of his youth and fame and growing power he gave up everything in life and entered the quiet sanctuary of that white monastery on the hill-side, so far away from the tumult and the conflict of the world in which he had lived.
Some said that it was because the lady he had loved had loved his brother, and that when they were married Otto of Wolbergen had left the church with a broken heart.
But such stories are old songs that have been sung before.
Clatter! clatter! Jingle! jingle! It was a full-armed knight that came riding up the steep hill road that wound from left to right and right to left amid the vineyards on the slopes of St. Michaelsburg. Polished helm and corselet blazed in the noon sunlight, for no knight in those days dared to ride the roads except in full armor. In front of him the solitary knight carried a bundle wrapped in the folds of his coarse gray cloak.
It was a sorely sick man that rode up the heights of St. Michaelsburg. His head hung upon his breast through the faintness of weariness and pain; for it was the Baron Conrad.
He had left his bed of sickness that morning, had saddled his horse in the gray dawn with his own hands, and had ridden away into the misty twilight of the forest without the knowledge of anyone excepting the porter, who, winking and blinking in the bewilderment of his broken slumber, had opened the gates to the sick man, hardly knowing what he was doing, until he beheld his master far away, clattering down the steep bridle-path.
Eight leagues had he ridden that day with neither a stop nor a stay; but now at last the end of his journey had come, and he drew rein under the shade of the great wooden gateway of St. Michaelsburg.
He reached up to the knotted rope and gave it a pull, and from within sounded the answering ring of the porter’s bell. By and by a little wicket opened in the great wooden portals, and the gentle, wrinkled face of old Brother Benedict, the porter, peeped out at the strange iron-clad visitor and the great black war-horse, streaked and wet with the sweat of the journey, flecked and dappled with flakes of foam. A few words passed between them, and then the little window was closed again; and within, the shuffling pat of the sandalled feet sounded fainter