CHAPTER I

By the first day of October, Peter, after ravaging Ingria, found himself before Narva, swiftly bearing the thunders of his vengeance against his Northern rival, who, despite the extreme severity of the climate (it was already midwinter in this bitter latitude), was steadily advancing to meet the last and most powerful of his enemies.

Peter was on fire to prove to the people, who were half unwillingly accepting his gigantic efforts to lift Russia into the position of a great power, that his new methods of warfare were capable of rendering null the treaties of Stolboro and Plivia, and Karl was equally resolute to prove that he was invincible in defense of what he had every right to consider his own territory.

John Rheinhold Patkul, the Livonian noble who had been largely instrumental in forming the threefold secret treaty against Sweden, who had been first in the service of the Elector of Saxony and afterwards Peter’s envoy at Dresden, was now with the Muscovite army, and the report of his presence there further inflamed the cold anger of the King of Sweden, who, crossing the sea with a fine fleet of transport, was marching towards Narva six weeks after Peter had commenced the siege, regardless alike of the increasing rigors of the winter and the disparity of numbers between his own army and that of the Czar.

He had reason for his confidence, for it was in numbers only that Peter had the advantage.

A skilled general with a disciplined army would have been able to reduce the little town of Narva into ashes in a few days, perhaps hours; Peter had sat down before it six weeks in vain, while the Baron de Horn, in command of the beleaguered garrison, was able, with his few pieces of cannon, to again and again level the trenches, redoubts, and fortifications that Peter had constructed round his camp, in accordance with what he had learnt in his travels.

These rude attempts at the science of war were complete failures; 150 cannon could scarcely be fired and could never hit their objective; nearly 65,000 men remained helpless before a garrison of 1000, in a small ill-protected town.

Peter, in no way sparing himself (he still held the rank of lieutenant in his own army), spent his days going from one part of his camp to another, instructing, working, exhorting, threatening, enduring all the hardships of the terrible weather and the inadequate supplies of the badly provisioned army.

The Duke of Croy was in command; an able soldier, trained in the traditions of European warfare, he yet was incapable of controlling an army consisting largely of a horde of peasants, dressed in skins, armed with scythes, pruning knives, and officered by a haughty and ignorant nobility, who knew neither how to enforce obedience nor how to submit to discipline.

There was not one good gunner in the whole army and no one who had seen a siege before; the only passable troops were the Strelitz, decimated by Peter’s late vengeance on their reactionary spirit and only accustomed to Eastern and Asiatic methods of warfare.

Day after day Peter, dressed in the old green uniform, with a worn fur cap and mantle, smoking a Dutch clay pipe, watched, with a dogged patience, the erections of fortifications that Horn’s artillery always accurately demolished; his brooding gaze traveled over his soldiers, courageous, robust, and willing, but completely ignorant and uncontrollable, and he thought of what he had yet to do for Russia.

Easier to build his city on the marshes of the Neva than to frame out of these an army that would defeat Karl of Sweden! He became melancholy and fierce; neither Mentchikoff nor Patkul nor Croy could divert his gloomy musings; the only creature who had any power to soothe him was Marpha, the Livonian peasant, whom he had brought with him and who bloomed like a winter rose amid the rough life of the camp; she enjoyed her surroundings, could give or take a rude jest with the least of the soldiery, wait on the Czar like a foot-boy, yet be a wild Aspasia to this strange Pericles.

The King of Sweden, with about 8000 men, of which the half were cavalry, landed at Pernau in the gulf of Riga; with all the horse and about half of the foot he advanced at once on Revel, without waiting for the rest of his troops.

Peter meanwhile had left the army before Narva in charge of the Duke of Croy, and had himself hastened to Pskov to bring up a new body of 30,000 troops; his design being to enclose Karl between two armies; he had already thrown across the road from Revel to Narva 55,000 men, including his best troops, the Strelitz, 5000 of which formed an advance guard, who soon found themselves facing the first regiments of the King of Sweden’s army.

The Strelitz were so well posted among the rocks that a far fewer number than they possessed could have easily hindered the approach of a much larger army than that possessed by Karl, but the Russians, not knowing what they had to face and believing the Swedes innumerable as well as excellent, fled with little resistance. This panic communicated itself to their compatriots behind them, and in two days the Swedes had swept before them 25,000 men, taken all the Russian outposts, and appeared before the Czar’s entrenchments before Narva.

It was a black morning of dreadful cold, the last day of November, when Karl found himself before the army of Peter.

A gray sky hung heavily over the desolate landscape and seemed to press heavily on the bare trees; the Swedes were fatigued with the march from Pernau and the encounters with the Russians on the road; Karl called a halt.

A young Scotchman in his army, who had several times proved himself useful in delicate work of espionage, had managed to get ahead of the army and penetrate the Russian lines; the news he brought was considered interesting enough to cause him to be taken before the King.

He had never seen Karl XII face to face, and it was with considerable curiosity that he followed the staff officer who took him into the royal presence.

The army was taking a few hours’ repose, but no tents had been set up, and the Scotchman found Karl seated on the great roots of a huge pine tree, with him Count Piper and several generals.

He was already completely inured to hardships for which his childish training had well fitted him, and suffered from the severities of warfare perhaps less than any of his soldiers.

He was now only a few months past his eighteenth birthday, but in every respect had reached his full development; his great height and powerful figure made him conspicuous even among an army of robust and vigorous men; he had the grace of the athlete and the dignity of a king in his carriage, yet there was an awkwardness, a stiffness in his manners that might have been haughtiness or indifference or even shyness; his expression was cold and unchanging, his speech abrupt and plain; he gave no impression of youth save in the softness of his traits and the slackness of his figure.

He wore a blue uniform, tight waisted and with a full skirt, closely fastened with buttons of gilt leather up to the throat and showing no shirt, but only the plain band of the black satin cravat; an ordinary leather belt and strap supported his sword, and long gauntlet gloves reached to his elbow, his soft knee boots and his breeches were alike of leather; he wore a three-cornered black hat set well on his head, and his fair hair arranged in curls like a peruke on his shoulders.

He had a mantle of blue cloth, lined with fur, but this, despite the freezing cold, was cast on the ground beside him; his face, yet beardless and showing, notwithstanding the exposure to intemperate weather, still the bloom of extreme youth, had hardened in outline since he had begun the life of a soldier; the features were firm as a mask of stone, fresh with the warm tints of health, generous and full in line and curve; neither enthusiasm nor humor, nor pride, nor tenderness showed in his expression; his blue eyes looked out with a cold, level, and serene glance; he had the air of one dwelling in a world of his own with little care for others.

The Scotchman thought him remarkable but neither agreeable nor attractive; the King had a personality too aloof from warm and human weaknesses to command sympathy from ordinary men; he had many servants but few friends, much admiration, but little love.

“Tell me,” he said at once, as the young man was presented to him, “did you see the Czar of Muscovy?”

The Scotchman saw that the King attached much importance to this question, and was chagrined that he could not answer in the affirmative.

“Sire, the Czar has left his army to hasten up the reserves.”

“I should like to have met him in the battle,” said Karl, but without a trace of annoyance. “The reserves could have come up without him. I think he did ill to leave his post now.”

“It looks,” said one of the generals who stood beside the King, “as if he was afraid of your Majesty.”

“That is impossible,” replied Karl quietly, “for I take him to be a great man.”

“But it is true, sire,” put in the Scot, “that the Muscovites have a great terror of your Majesty; I was in their camp last night and heard them speak of you and your exploits as they might have spoken of supernatural things.”

“It needs but a poor prowess to achieve a reputation in the eyes of savages,” replied the King, still cold and unmoved. “These Russians are both ignorant and wild. How came you, sir, to escape detection?”

“I speak the German very well, sire, and passed for the servant of a German officer, of whom they have several, and their camp is in such a confusion one might almost come and go as one pleases.”

“They know nothing of war,” observed Karl, “but the Czar will teach them.”

“He seems much loved--though unjustly cruel and unwisely generous. I saw his friend, Mentchikoff, and the Livonian woman who they say has a great influence over him.”

Karl smiled, as if he was glad to hear of this weakness in his rival; there was not a woman in the whole of the Swedish army; the Scot remarked how disagreeable his smile was; it seemed to disfigure his noble face.

“Saw you this woman?” he asked.

“Yes, sire, at the door of Peter’s empty tent, making kvas, as they call the stuff they drink. She had a fur coat of uncouth cut and was all smeared with meal and honey, but in her way she is as beautiful as Aurora von Königsmarck.”

The King abruptly changed the subject as if he regretted having shown even so much interest in the affairs of his enemy.

“You learnt nothing of importance?” he asked with great indifference; he had only spoken to the spy because he wished to know if Peter was with his army; as to his own actions, he had decided what they were to be ever since he had landed at Pernau.

The Scotchman proceeded to tell him of what he had learnt of the enemy, their number, disposition, and probable plans.

Karl listened with patience, but with so cold a mien that the young man faltered in his speech; the King’s face, blank as it was of all but courageous steadfastness, overawed him and made him uneasy; he felt that he spoke to one utterly beyond his knowledge or liking; he was glad when he was dismissed.

As he went Karl rose from the tree roots, overtopping, by nearly half a head, his tallest officer; the air was still and freezing, and a few flakes of ghastly white snow began to flutter from the bitter sky.

“We should be able to attack at midday,” said the King; it was then about ten o’clock.

“Your Majesty has considered the peril?” asked General Rehnsköld. “By all accounts we must be outnumbered by a hundred to one, and they are entrenched and fortified.”

Karl stooped and took up his mantle, shaking from it the first flakes of snow that were large and hard.

“Do you doubt,” he answered, “that I, with 8000 Swedes, can pass over the bodies of 80,000 Muscovites?”

He swung the mantle round his great shoulders and then added instantly, fearful that he had seemed to boast, a thing his pride loathed: “Are you not really of my opinion, Rehnsköld? I have two great advantages--he cannot use his cavalry, and as the ground is enclosed his great numbers will be but an encumbrance. It is I who am really stronger than he, and have all the advantages.”

General Rehnsköld bowed his head in assent; there was not one of the staff officers behind him who did not consider the young King’s action rash to madness.

Karl saw this; for their opinion he cared nothing; but he greatly disliked to be suspected of bravado; his was not the unconscious modesty of a man who knows not he is great nor that his actions are remarkable, but the conscious austerity of one who is aware he is extraordinary and wishes to be acclaimed, but not by his own tongue.

“If I defeat the Czar here, Cracow and Varsovia are open to me,” he said, turning his blue eyes on the quiet faces of his officers.

Again General Rehnsköld bowed.

“I am entirely of your Majesty’s opinion.”

“At least you submit very gracefully, General,” replied Karl, with his ugly smile.

He turned away and Count Piper followed him.

“He will be as hard and obstinate as his father,” remarked an officer, shivering under his fur, for the cold was of Polar intensity.

“Eight thousand men against eighty thousand!” exclaimed another. “He thinks to rival Leonidas or one of his saga heroes.”

“Gentlemen,” said Rehnsköld, “I think he will do it.”

The King and Count Piper mounted and cantered along the lines of the resting army; Karl had taken no deliberations and held no councils. He considered that there was nothing to do but to give the order to attack; after a brief survey of his men he would be back with his staff under the great pine.

Count Piper, who was not a soldier but a true patriot, glanced several times at what the black hat and full fair curls allowed him to see of the King’s face.

He had been very eager to urge him into a defensive war, but he had never dreamed of these reckless projects, this complete absorption in war for war’s sake; he secretly suspected that all the cold but deep passion of the King’s nature was concentrated, not on the desire to better Sweden, but on the design of making for himself the reputation of an invincible captain; the main object of the war was achieved in the restoration of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp to his dominions; but Karl had never said a word of returning to Stockholm, even for a visit, and the last advices from the Council of Regency in the capital he had thrust in his pocket without reading, and he had embarked on this desperate winter campaign, with no purpose that Count Piper could see but that of making the world stare.

“As long as these mad exploits are successful----” thought the statesman, “but his first failure will cost us all Gustavas Vasa gained!” He could not resist the endeavor to rouse Karl from his passive hardness.

“When your Majesty has beaten the Czar of Muscovy, will you be content?”

“There is still Augustus,” replied the King; he glanced up at the snow-filled air. “Look, the storm is blowing towards the enemy, we shall have it at our backs, they in their eyes--did I not say I was fortunate?”

Count Piper shivered; the weather was black and bitter enough to freeze a man’s soul; he wished Karl’s ardor for glory had stopped short of battle in midwinter at a latitude of 30 degrees Polar, with odds of a hundred to one.

“You are cold?” asked Karl. “I like the snow. I wish Peter was with his men. Surely he will return from Pskov.”

His blue eyes cast a bright glance over the precise ranks of his perfectly disciplined soldiers; men who had prayers twice a day and lived like athletes in training.

“I had an item of news from Stockholm when last I heard,” said the Count, as they turned their horses’ heads. “Viktoria Falkenberg is dead. It seems that she had long concealed a fatal complaint.”

The King’s expressionless face did not alter; he was skilfully guiding his horse over the rough ground, already white with snow.

“The signal for the charge,” he remarked, “will be two shots--the passwords--‘God with us.’”

A darkness enclosed the world with the soft descent of the snow; the flakes hung in the folds of the King’s mantle and in his curls; his hat was covered; the ground was frozen, the tops of the gaunt pines hidden in the whirling storm; the rigid ranks of Sweden showed a darkness amid the dark; facing them were the black gaping cannon of the vast army of the Czar; even beneath their fur caftans the Russians were numb; Marpha, wrapped in skins and wools, stared at a picture of St. Nicholas Mentchikoff had thrust into her hands, but she was not praying but thinking of the absent Czar; she wished he was back in the dirty tent where she could minister to him and prepare him for the fight.

“I wonder if he is afraid of that boy?” she thought, then suddenly crouched low as the sound of the Swedish cannon scattered the storm; Karl and his eight thousand were hurling themselves on the ranks of Muscovy; Marpha crept to the tent door and looked out, but the snow swirled in and blinded her; again the cannon and distant shouts; she sat huddled and silent, hating her lover for not being there.