Joan of the Sword Hand

"So," said Pope Sixtus amicably, "your brother was killed by the great explosion of Friar Roger's powder in the camp of the enemy! Truly, as I have often said, God is not with t...

It was indeed Alexis the Deacon who met the Lady Theresa. And the matter had been arranged, just as Boris said. Alexis the Deacon, a wise man of many disguises, remained in Cour...

It remains to tell briefly how certain great things came to pass. We must return to Isle Rugen and to the lonely grange on the spit of sand which separates the Baltic from the w...

Conrad and Joan came back from the ruined fortification, silent mostly, but thrilled with the thoughts of that which their eyes had seen, their ears heard. Each had listened to...

That night the whole city of Courtland cowered in fear before its triumphant enemy. At the nearest posts the Muscovites were in great strength, and the sight of their burnings f...

It was a strange uncouth band that Joan had got together in a handful of minutes in order to accompany her to the field upon which, sullenly retiring before a vastly more numero...

And meanwhile right haughtily flew the red lion upon the citadel of Kernsberg. Never had the Lady Duchess, Joan of the Sword Hand, approven herself so brave and determined. In h...

When Maurice von Lynar reached the open air he stood for full five minutes, light-headed in the rush of the city traffic. The loud iteration of rejoicing sounded heartless and e...

After the tourney of the Black Eagle, Leopold von Dessauer had gone to bed early, feeling younger and lighter than he had done for years. Part of his scheme for these northern p...

Thus the climax came about in the twinkling of an eye, but the universal turmoil and wild jubilation in which Prince Louis's power and government were swept away had really been...

Upon the green plain beside the Alla a great multitude was assembled. They had come together to witness a sight never seen in Courtland before--the dread punishment of the Ukrai...

"Sirrah," she cried severely to the former, "is this the first use you make of our hospitality, thus to brawl in the street underneath my very windows with our noble guest the P...

Behind her sulked Maurice von Lynar. Had any been there to note, their faces were now strangely alike in feature, and yet more curiously unlike in expression. Joan gazed forward...

The Princes of Courtland and Muscovy, inseparable as the Princesses, were on the pleasant creeper-shaded terrace which looks over the rose garden of the palace of Courtland down...

Margaret did not answer her tormentor's taunt. Her arms went about Maurice's neck, and her lips, salt with the overflowing of tears, sought his in a last kiss. The officer of th...

Above, in the dusky light of the upper hall, Conrad and Joan stood holding each other's hands. It was the first time they had been alone together since the day on which they had...

The Duchess Joan was in high spirits. It had been judged necessary, in consultation with her chief officers, to ride a reconnaissance in person in order to ascertain whether the...

It was the hour of the evening meal at Isle Rugen. The September day piped on to its melancholy close, and the wild geese overhead called down unseen from the upper air a warnin...

Ten miles outside the boundary of the little hill state of Kernsberg, the embassage of Plassenburg was met by another cavalcade bearing additional instructions from the Princess...

Prince Louis entered, flushed and excited. His eyes had lost their furtive meanness and blazed with a kind of reckless fury quite foreign to his nature, for anger affected him a...

"But this one day, beloved," the Sparhawk was saying. "What is one day among our enemies? Be brave, and then we will ride away together under cloud of night. Von Dessauer will h...

"I have a right to call myself the widow of the Duke Henry of Kernsberg and Hohenstein," said Theresa von Lynar, in reply to Conrad's question as to whom he might thank for resc...

At the door of the summer palace not a soul was on guard. A great quiet surrounded it. The secretary could hear the gentle lapping of the river over the parapet, for the little...

Loud rang the laughter in the hall of the men-at-arms at Castle Kernsberg. There had come an embassy from the hereditary Princess of Plassenburg, recently established upon the t...

"And now," cried Princess Margaret, clapping her hands together impulsively, "now at last I shall hear everything. Why you went away, and who gave you up, and about the fighting...

"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 chance...

Never was day so largely and gloriously blue since Courtland was a city as the first morning of the married life of Maurice and Margaret von Lynar, Count and Countess von Löen....

"Prince Louis," continued Ivan, turning to the Prince, "we are keeping these holy men needlessly, as well as disappointing the good folk of Courtland of their spectacle. There i...

"Go down and bring a cup of wine!" commanded Joan as soon as he appeared. And Werner von Orseln, having glanced once at his mistress where she stood with the point of her sword...

"I cannot go back to Courtland dishonoured," said Prince Louis to Ivan of Muscovy, as they stood on the green bank looking down on the rushing river, broad and brown, which had...

Now Ivan, Prince of Muscovy, had business in Courtland very clear and distinct. He came to woo the Princess Margaret, which being done, he wished to be gone. There was on his si...

The woman in the crimson cloak waited for Joan to be assisted from the boat, and then, without a word of greeting, led the way up a little sanded path to a gate which opened in...

When Conrad, Cardinal-designate of the Holy Roman Church and Archbishop of Courtland, opened his eyes, it seemed to him that he had passed through warring waters into the sereni...

After the departure of his bride, the Prince of Courtland stood on the steps of the minster, dazed and foundered by the shame which had so suddenly befallen him. Beneath him the...

The Princess Margaret was standing by the window as the young man entered. Her golden curls flashed in the late sunshine, which made a kind of haze of light about her head as sh...

Hans Trenck came instantly to the salute with the ball in his hand. He had no difficulty in lifting it now. In fact, he did not seem able to let it down. Every man in the hall e...

"When the last Muscovite has crossed the Alla, when the men of Courtland stand ready to follow--then, and not sooner, we will deliver up our Lady Joan. For this we shall receive...

Now this is the report which Captains Boris and Jorian, envoys (very) extraordinary from the Prince and Princess of Plassenburg to the reigning Duchess of Hohenstein, made to th...

The chamber to which the Duchess Joan was conducted by her hostess had evidently been carefully prepared for her reception. It was a large low room, with a vaulted roof of carve...

And so, with the mounted guard of his own Cossacks before him and behind, Prince Ivan carried his bride to church through the streets of her native city. And the folk thronged a...

It chanced that in the chamber from which Werner von Orseln had come so swiftly at the cry of the Wordless Man, Boris and Jorian, after sleeping through the disturbances above t...

It was night in the city of Courtland, and a time of great fear. The watchmen went to and fro on the walls, staring into the blank dark. The Alla, running low with the droughts,...

But the late prisoner did not speak at once, though his captor stood back as though to permit him to explain himself. He was still bound and gagged. Discovering which, Max in a...

So soon as Werner von Orseln returned to Castle Kernsberg with news of the forcing of the Alla and the overwhelming numbers of the Muscovite hordes, the sad-eyed Duchess of Hohe...

The next moment Joan had disappeared, and when she was seen again she had assumed the skirt she had previously worn over her dress of forester, and was again the sedate lady of...

The Princess Margaret spoke low and confidentially to the secretary of embassy as they paced along. Johann Pyrmont felt correspondingly awkward. For one thing, the pressure of t...

The priest waited till their footsteps died away down the corridor before going to the door to shut it. Then he turned and faced the Sparhawk with a very different countenance t...

This is the report verbal of Captains Boris and Jorian, which they gave in face of their sovereigns in the garden pleasaunce of the palace of Plassenburg. Hugo and Helene sat at...

They had travelled for six hours through high arched pines, their fallen needles making a carpet green and springy underfoot. Then succeeded oaks, stricken a little at top with...

It was very quiet in the river parlour of the Summer Palace. A shaded lamp burned in its niche over the desk of Prince Conrad. Another swung from the ceiling and filled the whol...

It was not in accordance with etiquette that two such nobly born betrothed persons, to be allied for reasons of high State policy, should visit each other openly before the day...

The rose garden of the summer palace of Courtland was a paradise made for lovers' whisperings. Even now, when the chills of autumn had begun to blow through its bowers, it was o...

At this there ensued unyoked merriment. Each stout lad, from one end of the hall to the other, undid his belt as before a nobler course and nudged his fellow.