Part 5

It was nearly evening ere the royal party were assembled at table. As soon as the junker had seated his guests, and a lively and easy conversation had in some degree commenced, he departed, with a hasty excuse, and remained absent above half an hour. He returned gloomy and pale, but appeared afterwards in high spirits, excited by the wine and the company at table. To the king's inquiry as to what had so long deprived his guests of his company, he answered in a low tone, "I have been attending the court of justice, my liege! I would not let the judges wait for my explanation; matters of life and death it is ever best to get out of hand, ere we come to the drinking table."

The king became again silent and thoughtful, but the junker frequently drained his goblet, and Margrave Waldemar sought, by many a merry jest, to disperse the dark thoughts which frequently seemed to disturb the festivities in honour of a reconciliation; which, however, appeared rather to be forced than the effect of mutual good understanding.

The king purposed not to pass the night it the castle, where he had met with such hostile reception; but as it grew dark and late it was difficult for him to reject his brother's repeated invitation, without again betraying a distrust he wished he could wholly drive from his mind. As the junker at last, with a cheerful air, once more earnestly urged his invitation, while he drained the last goblets of wine with the king, to a speedy and happy union with the lovely Princess Ingeborg, and to a brotherly understanding, the cloud on Eric's brow vanished, and the last remains of mistrust seemed to be banished from his kindly heart. He pressed his brother's hand warmly, and drained his cup to the bottom: "Well, Christopher! I remain," he continued, in a confidential tone and half aside. "All shall be forgotten as in old times, when the good Drost Peter settled our childish disputes, and our mother Agnes joined our hands together." The king now appeared perfectly happy and satisfied; Christopher often laughed loudly. This cheerful tone soon pervaded the whole assemblage.

After the repast the king seated himself with his brother at a backgammon board; he only shook the dice, however, while he ordered the state of his faithful Aage to be inquired into, and waited in vain for a word of frankness and confidence from Christopher. The junker was especially courteous and attentive, but he still seemed desirous, by indifferent talk, to ward off all approaches to serious conversation. At this moment an officer of justice entered, and put a sheet of parchment into his hand: he became suddenly silent, and changed colour. The attendant hastily departed.

"What was that? my brother!" asked the king. "The death doom of my presumptuous servant, according to the verdict of the court of justice of this castle, and to the law of the land," answered the junker, without looking at him; "will you confirm it? Upon life and death you yourself determine?"

"As the friend and kinsman of the outlaws, he was doubtless my foe; but how guilty he is thou must know best," answered the king, with stern solemnity; "thou hast my authority for it: in my name to confirm the doom, or to pardon, as justice or moderation prompt thee. None save thou and the all-seeing God can know with certainty whether thy command could have been thus misinterpreted--If there be the least doubt, then----"

"No, there is no doubt here," exclaimed the junker impetuously, with a dark and gloomy countenance, and a wild and frightful glance, as he rose from the backgammon table, and departed with hasty strides.

The king looked long after him, with a serious and thoughtful gaze. He started up suddenly once or twice, and put his hand to his brow. "No!" he said, "it is impossible--I have his knightly and princely word of honour." The margrave now approached gaily and courteously, and took the vacant seat near the king at the table, where he soon succeeded in introducing a lively and amusing conversation.

CHAP. V.

The Drost had been brought from the ladies' apartment to a remote and quiet chamber, in the knights' story. Although he had sustained no serious injury in his heavy fall, he was, however, shattered in every limb, and unable to move. After a restorative bath, he had been carried to his couch and had fallen asleep; but the harrowing anxiety which he had endured so agitated his mind that it was impossible for him to sleep soundly. At one time he dreamed he was wrestling with corpses in dark graves, at another that he hovered over unfathomable abysses; but the idea of the king's danger, and the pitfall under the staircase, seemed to work most powerfully upon his imagination, and he frequently exclaimed in his disturbed slumber, "Beware, my liege! Now opens the grave under thy feet. Believe him not, believe him not, he is a traitor!"

It was late in the evening. A lamp burned on the table in Aage's chamber, and an aged, withered crone sat by his bed, muttering constantly to herself with toothless gums and shaking head. The door presently opened, and the king entered the darkened chamber, accompanied by Count Henrik and Junker Christopher. The nurse instantly withdrew, half in alarm, and with oft-repeated curtsey, without, however, allowing herself to be interrupted in her mutterings, and unconscious monologue. Junker Christopher and Count Henrik remained standing at the entrance, where they conversed together in a low tone and at intervals, of the chase and their horses, and of the large antlers of the stag over the door, while the king approached the Drost's couch, and drew the lamp forward on the table that he might have a full view of his features. Aage appeared for a moment to be sleeping soundly; but as the king stood by his couch, and with sympathising sorrow bent over his handsome though pallid face, the Drost suddenly opened his eyes and stared wildly before him. "Is it thou, my liege?" he whispered; "art thou still living in this murderous den? Beware! Believe him not!"

"Recollect thyself, my Aage, thou dreamest," said the king. "Thy pious wish is fulfilled; I and my brother are reconciled. Look! there he stands. He also wishes to see thee. The whole was a misunderstanding--the desperate plan of a rebel--one of the outlaws' race and friends. Be calm, my Aage; I am now a peaceful guest here with my brother--We have drunk to reconciliation and brotherly fellowship together--I have done him injustice also in the affair with Bruncke. I will give him back both Holbek and Kallunborg. He is now to accompany me on the expedition against the dukes."

"Noble, generous, kingly soul!" exclaimed Aage, seemingly quite roused from his dreaming state. "Hath a word, hath a cup of wine effaced such enmity and wrath? Now the Lord and our blessed Lady be praised! Love healeth all wounds, and mercy is a precious virtue. _How_ great is now thy love and clemency, my liege!" he continued, again somewhat wildly, and as if half dreaming; "doth it extend even unto the outlaws and their unhappy race--even unto Marsk Stig's kindred and children?"

"Ha! breathe not that accursed name, Aage," interrupted the king, with stern vehemence; "_so_ far my clemency will never extend--Now sleep well, my faithful Aage," he added, with his former mildness and affection. "Think not on what it is best to forget--they tell me thou art already out of danger, and can, perhaps, follow me to-morrow, or in a few days."

"Where sleeps my liege to-night?" asked Aage, in an anxious voice, and again gazing wildly around him.

"Close by thee, here in the knights' story; only be thou calm and sleep in peace. I sleep under a brother's roof."

"Come, my royal brother," interrupted Christopher, hastily approaching the couch, "speak no more with that sick dreamer, he is in a fair way to infect you with his feverish phantasies."

"Good night, my Aage," said the king, pressing the Drost's hand as he departed. "I will keep that I promised him," he said to the junker. "I will sleep near him, here in the knights' story."

"As you command, my royal brother," answered the junker, with a cold and bitter smile; and they left the sick chamber.

Count Henrik had also given his hand to Aage, and was about to follow the king; but the Drost detained him for a moment, in a state of painful anxiety. "Look, look!" he whispered, "there goes the murdered King Eric with Junker Abel[2]; _they_ once were brothers! and, hark! a flood roars beneath this castle. It is surely the bloody Slie,--take heed!--take heed, that no misfortune happens here!"

"You have perturbed dreams, Drost Aage," said Count Henrik, letting go Aage's fevered hand. "Sleep ye but in quiet; I watch." He then hastened after the king and the junker; but first glanced out of the window, and saw with secret horror, by the deepening star-light, a high, black scaffold in the back court of the castle, without the knights' story. He hastily drew the curtain before the window and departed; whereupon the old nurse (still shaking and muttering) re-entered the Drost's chamber. She was attired in the homely dress of a country burgher's wife; her eyes were large and sunken, and her pale, emaciated visage greatly resembled that of a corpse. With a distaff and a rosary in her hand, she resumed her station by the Drost's couch before the lamp, which she drew aside, that it might not shine in the face of the patient. All was now soon quiet in this wing of the castle, which only comprised the sleeping apartments of the knights. Aage lay long listening in anxiety. In the unusual stillness of the evening, however, a distant sound as of lutes and mirthful songs reached his ear.

"What is that?" he asked, raising his head with pain and difficulty.

"There is merriment in the knights' hall, noble sir! yes in troth! that there is," answered the nurse; "our stern junker hath caused minstrels and jugglers to be fetched from the town. There is no lack either of mead or sweet wine, that knoweth the precious Lord in heaven! He drinks to friendship with his brother, they say. Alack yes!" she added, "the great can be merry, doubtless, and leave care to the fiddle; ay! ay! when they quarrel among themselves, it all falls on the small! yes, in troth! does it--all falls on the small. My departed husband was, by my troth, doomed to death, in the great Marsk Stig's feud--alack yes! by my troth was he, he was but a poor man, I must tell ye: _he_ had neither knightly nor princely honour to swear himself free with, like the high-born junker; no, by my troth! had he not, that was the whole mishap. There sits now our old commandant in the tower--ay! ay! he will hardly see sun or moon more; they say he is to be executed to-night; alack yes! and yesterday he was master here at the castle; yes, in troth! was he so, but so goeth it in the world; alack yes."

"Executed?" repeated Aage; "the Lord have mercy on his soul; the king is strict and hasty: ha! but knew he?----"

"He doubtless knew, what we all know, that his high-born brother hath borne false witness," sighed the old woman; "but what care the great about cutting off an insignificant head, when they would save their own? The law must have its course--yes, in troth! that it must, _one_ head doubtless must fall, after such a commotion and uproar, but the junker's is placed too high, I trow! 'What should great lords keep servants for, if they could not wash themselves clean in their blood?' said my departed husband, when he was executed; yes, in troth! said he so, the blessed soul--But see now if ye can get to sleep, noble young sir! that is assuredly best for you. I talk mayhap rather too much: 'tis my bosom sin, they say--yes, by my troth! one talks too little, and another too much; was there no such thing as talk, no poor man would talk himself over to the evil one, and no high-born rogue would talk himself from the gallows."

"I must speak with the king," burst forth Aage, with eagerness, and vainly strove to rise, but his strength entirely forsook him, and he fell back in a swoon. The old nurse thought he slept, and indeed he soon appeared to have fallen into a kind of slumber. The nurse looked at him several times, with the lamp in her hand, and nodded, as she continued to chatter to herself; "Ay! ay! a good honest face, in troth!" she muttered. "But who is honest in this sinful world? he consorts with the great,--ay! ay! and those good folk one should never believe--no in troth, one should never believe. He would have spoken with the king--yes, forsooth! when it is question of saving a poor devil's life, and telling the king that his brother is a rogue and traitor; then such a fine courtier fellow swoons or falls asleep, till it is too late. Wake up, Sir Knight! wake up!" She shook him in vain; "Alack! I verily believe it is death's sleep,--well then he is excused: after such a fall and being battered into a pudding, there can doubtless be no great life in him--he draws breath though, I believe! yes, in troth he does! Youth is strong, perhaps nature will help herself--Hark! now they follow the king to bed," she continued, and listened: "he will surely sleep close by here, ay! ay! This is his favourite servant, this same Drost. Weil, the Lord keep his hand over the king! he means well by us all; yes, in troth he does--alack yes! even though he should doom many a poor devil to death--but indeed that's his business--it is therefore he is king. He upholds law and justice, yes in troth! and makes, besides, no difference between high and low. Should he now have doomed to death his own brother according to the flesh? That would have been too hard--yes, in troth, would it; he is after all but a man, and who is just in all things in this sinful world? Ay, ay! but the junker--alack, yes! The Lord preserve us from him--if we get _him_ for a king, it will be a bad look-out--yes, in troth will it! alack, yes!" Thus she muttered to herself, and nodded beside the lamp until she fell asleep in the arm-chair. It might be somewhat past midnight, when Drost Aage awoke, strengthened in body, and refreshed by the deep sleep, caused by exhaustion, which seemed to have given a favourable turn to his illness. He was still, however, in a feverish state; he looked around him with surprise, and appeared not to know where was. The pale sleeping nurse, beside the lamp, seemed to him, as the light faintly lit up her emaciated visage, like a sitting corpse. He half arose and stared fixedly at her; he remarked signs of strong agitation in her deathlike face; her toothless gums mumbled, but without any sound; it appeared as though she wished to speak, but had not the power to utter a word. It seemed to him, as if he now beheld what he had often heard and read of in ancient sagas and poems of olden time. The dark vaulted chamber in his imagination was a subterranean prophet's cave, and the old mumbling crone a dead prophetess, on whose tongue Runic letters had been laid to cause her to prophesy.[3] He tried to rise and the attempt succeeded; his shattered limbs were strengthened and pliant. He wrapped the white woollen coverlet around him, and soon stood listening on the floor, and gazing on the old woman's visage. "Whom talkest thou with?--corpse! what dost mumble of in thy grave?" he whispered, and she moved her mouth still faster. "Murder, murder!" she exclaimed, at length, in audible words. "Hark, hark! now his head falls before the axe."

At the same instant Aage actually heard with dismay a sound outside the window, as of the stroke of an axe; he rushed forward, and pulled aside the curtain. The light of a number of torches glared on him from the back court of the castle. He saw with horror, a body of men-at-arms surrounding a scaffold, on which stood an executioner with a bloody head in his hand. A cold shudder came over Aage; he knew not, as yet, whether he waked or dreamed; he stood speechless, as if rooted to the spot, and gazed on the horrid sight; a low chant fell on his ear, and he beheld a crowd of Franciscan monks advance under the scaffold with a black coffin. Among the spectators he recognised Junker Christopher's dark countenance, strongly lit up by a torch. The bloody head fell from the executioner's hand, and it seemed to him, to his inexpressible horror, to be the king's; he staggered back and overturned the table with the lamp. The old woman waked in affright, and shrieked loudly; but Aage rushed out of the chamber, into the dark passage, in indescribable consternation. "Murdered!--the king murdered!" was the cry of his inmost soul; but no word passed his lips; he went on, like a sleep-walker, with staring eyes, not knowing whither he was going. "Here he was to sleep--here close by me,"--he thought, and stopped at a side door. He had already extended his hand to open it, when he saw a light, and heard footsteps at a distance in the passage. The door beside which he stood, was enclosed between two pillars projecting from the wall--he stopped behind one of the pillars, and kept his eye on the light in the passage. It approached slowly, and often stopped; at last it came so near that he could see, it was carried by a tall figure in a dark mantle. The light fell only on the lower part of the shrouded form; his walk was tottering and hesitating; a large sword glittered under his mantle. The figure came nearer and nearer; but with stealthy and almost noiseless steps. At last it advanced close to the pillar, behind which Aage stood, and paused again. The light was now; raised, while the shrouded bearer looked around him on all sides, and the light fell on a long and wildly glaring visage--it was Junker Christopher.

"Ha! fratricide! regicide!" shouted Aage, in a frenzy, and rushed out upon him.

With a cry of alarm the junker let fall the light, and sprang backward. "Murder! help! a madman!" he shouted, and drew his sword.

Amid this noise the door between the pillars opened, and Count Henrik stepped forth with a light. "What is the matter here?" he asked eagerly, but in a low tone. "Who dares to wake the king?"

"The king! the king!" exclaimed Aage, with inexpressible joy, "he lives?--the Lord be praised! it was then but a dreadful dream! but saw I not the junker here?"

"Yes, assuredly, thou saw'st him, madman!" cried the junker, returning his sword into the sheath. "Had you not come out. Count Henrik, I should have cut that mad fellow down on the spot. He fell upon me here, with a wild incoherent speech, as I was stealing softly to my chamber that I might not wake the king. If I see aright, it is the chivalrous Sir Drost, who is walking in his sleep, or would play the ghost. One would think my castle was turned into a madhouse."

"A _singular_ adventure, noble Junker," said Count Henrik, gazing with a penetrating look on his perturbed countenance. "Our good Drost is sick, as you know, and hath disquiet fevered dreams," he added in a light courtier-like tone. "He must in his phantasies have taken you for a murderer and traitor; but you must excuse him; his loyalty and devotion for your royal brother are alone to blame for it."

"You come from an execution, Sir Junker!" said Aage, whose self-possession was now fully restored; "it was, I presume, your unhappy commandant, who so ill underwood your order and will?"

"Right!" answered the prince; "he hath got his well-merited wages--the presumptuous madman! but madness spreads here, I perceive."

"Your highness's imagination hath surely also been at work," continued Aage, "since my dreams could scare you thus. I beseech you meanwhile graciously to pardon me for stopping you just beside _this_ door. It was, perhaps, however, a lucky chance; you might easily have made a mistake between your own and the king's sleeping chamber."

"Go to thy couch, madman!" replied the junker, with gloomy harshness, and with his hand on his sword. "You dream as yet it seems to me, and might deserve to be wakened by my good sword--One should bind and shut up a visionary and dreamer like you when one would have a quiet night:" so saying, he hastily snatched his candle, which Count Henrik had taken up from the floor and lighted, and the junker went with rapid strides through the next side door into his own sleeping apartment.

"I have a fearful suspicion," whispered Aage to Count Henrik; "but I was ill and over-excited--I may be wrong: it is too dreadful to think of--Let it not disturb the king's peace."

"What you mean, Drost, I am also loth to think of," answered the count, "though after what hath here happened, almost every thing is possible. Come, let us stay here together to-night."

They then both entered the door between the pillars, and all was soon perfectly quiet at the castle.

The next morning early the king and his men rode out of the burnt and dilapidated gate of Kallundborg castle. Count Henrik, Margrave Waldemar, and Junker Christopher accompanied him on horseback, together with his fifty knights, and a numerous troop of lancers. Drost Aage followed slowly behind in a litter, borne by two horses. He was far from recovered from the effects of his dangerous fall, but was not to be kept back.

The king and his brother rode in silence through the town, at some distance from their train. "Thou hast surely wished to take from me the desire of being oftener thy guest at Kallundborg, Christopher!" said the king in a gloomy, dissatisfied mood, as they rode slowly up the hill to St. George's hospital, and looked back on the castle and town. "I have used thy fair castle gate badly it is true; some broken pates, too, I have left behind me; but neither didst _thou_ prepare me any fair spectacle at my mattins."

"What! the criminal on the wheel?" muttered Christopher. "Hath his head said good morning to you from the stake? The fault was not mine: that unpleasant sight would have been kept from your eyes, but you yourself chose your sleeping apartment with that unsightly prospect. To say truth, my royal brother," he added in an upbraiding tone, "you seemed to me to require _proof_ that there was no manner of doubt in this case."

"That word then sounded ill to thee," answered the king. "Understood'st thou me not? There might be a doubt of the criminal's sanity, but not of his miscreant deed; there might be a doubt of the ambiguity of thy commands to him, without there being the slightest doubt of thy meaning, as thou didst explain it to me on thy knightly word. Only on that ground did I make over to thee my privilege of pardon, together with the power of confirming the sentence: there was no need, either, to hasten with the execution of the bloody doom."

"It was needful to decide the matter ere you left the castle," replied Christopher eagerly. "I, for my part, had no ground for doubt. I have shown I feared not to witness the fall of the traitor's head, as your Drost can affirm, if he hath come to his senses."

"He is now quite collected," answered the king. "I know he walked in his sleep last night, and gave thee a start by my door."

"Ay, indeed! hath he told you of that pleasant adventure!" said the junker, starting and changing colour. "Had he been in his right senses, I would have demanded that he be declared infamous for the audacious outrage."

"As I have heard the circumstance, he is excused: thy alarm he hath also accounted for to me."

"How mean ye?" asked Christopher, in the greatest anxiety.

"Truly, it is not good to return to one's couch with such a bloody spectacle before one's eyes," said the king, with not unsympathising glance at the junker pale and agitated countenance. "Be not ashamed of it, Christopher! mayhap it does thy heart honour--Thou wert sick at heart, and greatly moved by the sight of thine aged servant's execution Aage supposed. I see myself how it hath taken hold on thee. It is the first death-warrant thou hast sealed--I know by experience such acts excite peculiar and painful feelings."