CHAPTER XLII,

THE RITTERSAAL.

It was autumn now.

The day was dark and stormy; a grey sky spread its cold background beyond the picturesque gables and wooden fronts of the old houses of Assens. The solemn storks had all disappeared to warmer latitudes; rain, and even sleet, poured down into the narrow and muddy streets; a variety of tints were spreading over the woods; the beeches were becoming yellow, but the hardy pine of the north yet wore unchanged its dark and wiry foliage. All betokened gloom and the misfortunes that threatened Denmark, as we landed in the boats of Sir Nickelas Valdemar, and marched into the town with drums beating and colours flying.

It was a dilapidated place, very little of it having survived the warlike operations of old John of Rantzau, who, ninety years before, had routed there the army of Christopher, Duke of Oldenburg, slain Güstaf Troll, archbishop of Upsala, and levelled nearly all Assens to the ground. In the houses that remained, our soldiers were billeted by the burgomaster; while Duke Bernard, with all the officers, the count and his daughters, repaired to the adjacent castle, to be presented to the king and court.

The Scottish musketeers of the Lord Spynie, and the Danish guards, with their kettle-drummer beating on his famous silver drum, received us with all honour at the castle gate; and many a hand was held out from the ranks of Spynie, to grasp ours in warm welcome as we passed them. The brass culverins boomed from a cavalier before the gate, as a salute to our colonel and the Duke of Saxe-Weimar.

"Ah! my old trooper, dost thou smell powder again?" said he, stroking Haven, his curveting horse, which was led by a page, for, in compliment to the ladies, this gallant prince accompanied us on foot.

He gave his arm to the Count of Carlstein; ungloved I led Ernestine by the hand; Ian led Gabrielle; Sir Donald and our brother officers followed in a group behind us; and the whole were marshalled forward to the Bittersaal, or saloon of the knights, where the king awaited us.

Through folding-doors of carved oak, ushers in the royal livery admitted us to this magnificent old hall, at the upper end of which, under a canopy and upon a dais, stood King Christian, with a glittering group of courtiers.

Grotesquely carved in stone, many a column and corbel projected from the wall; from thence sprung the arched roof; between were hangings of leather embossed with gold arabesques, which had assumed a sombre brown by age. The arched fireplace, within whose vast recess a company might have dined, had around it stone benches on three sides, as in our ancient towers at home; in the centre, a pile of pine roots and Meinel logs were crackling and blazing in an enormous basket of iron.

Above the king's crimson canopy hung the moth-eaten remnant of the miraculous Dannebrog, the far-famed banner of Denmark, which was said to have been sent by the pope, for Waldemar II. to unfurl against the Pagans of Livonia; but which was taken by the warlike Ditmarsches in the war of 1580, and retaken from them by the valiant Frederick II.

A flood of crimson and yellow light fell from the painted windows on the king and his group, which, from the length of our interview, I had every means of observing. Christian was plainly attired in a military undress of buff, with gold trimmings, and buff gloves edged with gold; over one shoulder was his scarf of silk; over the other was the broad blue riband; under his left arm was a broad beaver hat edged with rich galloon; his neck was encircled by a chain of gold, at which hung the order of the Elephant, bearing on its back a silver tower studded with diamonds, and full of armed men. A black silk patch concealed the loss of his left eye, which had been destroyed by a splinter in one of those naval battles which have rendered his memory so dear to Denmark. Near him stood his queen, Anna Catharina, of the House of Brandenburg, a fair and somewhat florid-looking German, and another lady whom he had wedded with the left hand, according to the usage of the times--a fairer and more beautiful Dane, whose peculiar position imparted a gentle and retiring expression to her soft features; though that position was deemed so far from equivocal, that he created her Countess of Fehmarn (the Saraos of the north), and one of her daughters was espoused by the grand-master, Corfitz Ulfeld.

The venerable queen-mother was also present; she was a grave and stately old dame, attired in a long fardingale of scarlet taffeta, with a stomacher studded with diamonds, and her grey hair highly frizzled. Near the king were the Counts of Rantzau and Aschefeld; the Barons of Nybourg, Alsen, Fœyœ, and others (for there are but two titles of nobility in Denmark); all of these were grim-looking riders, clad in armour of a fashion considerably older than I had ever seen worn in Scotland. Rantzau was Lord of Elmeshorne and Bredenburg, that castle which old Dunbar had defended so valiantly. The grand chancellor, the mareschal of the court, and the _Liveknecht_, with several other gentlemen, wore the large medal of the Knights of the Armed Hand, an order of twelve created by Christian ten years before in the castle of Kolding, on his being chosen general of the circle of Lower Saxony.

The ladies remained near the queen, and, like the Danish gentlewomen in general, they were graceful, fair-haired, blue-eyed, softly-featured, and exquisitely feminine; but there were neither fire, loftiness, nor dignity about them. They seemed gentle and languishing; and in truth, tall Ian with his giant plume, red M'Alpine with his crape scarf, Sir Donald with his swarthy visage, and all our bare-kneed Scottish officers, occupied much more of their attention than the splendid cavaliers of the court.

"Such an engaging air--what a beautiful dark girl!" I heard King Christian say as Ernestine appeared. He spoke to old Rantzau, his _Liveknecht_, or squire of the body, who as such could never be without his sword, or far from the royal person; "her eyes sparkle like lance-heads--yet they are soft as a summer-moon."

"Though war hath left your majesty but one eye, it is a sharp one for beauty," replied his grim old comrade; "but I would prefer her fair sister, with those mild and sweet blue eyes, and the rich Madonna hair."

At these somewhat too audible remarks, the sisters coloured deeply, and the ladies near Anna Catharina whispered together, and tittered behind their fans.

Though her attire was plain (for Karl's pistoliers had made somewhat free with her baggage at Oldenburg), there was something striking and triumphant in the beauty of Ernestine. On finding herself the object of so many eyes, that gazed with curiosity and scrutiny, she assumed a proud bearing, which I can liken only to that of a stately Arab horse; while poor little Gabrielle quailed, coloured, and drooped her long eyelashes in the most charming confusion; for with much that was noble and graceful, she had in her nature more that was timid and infantile.

The gallant Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, wearing in his helmet the glove of his future bride, a German princess of Dourlach, led forward the Count of Carlstein, saying--

"Allow me to present to your majesty one of the bravest of the Imperial officers--the colonel-general of the German cavalry."

"A brave soldier is always welcome here--even though an enemy," replied Christian, with a haughty bow, to which the count replied by another quite as haughty. "Duke, I have received your fatal despatch, and M'Alpine the Scottish captain has told me all--all--and more than I could have wished to hear. And these ladies, count, are your daughters?"

"In my ardour to rescue whom, I this day stand before your majesty a prisoner," replied the count.

"Nay," said Christian; "Duke Bernard, I understand, has but anticipated me. Saved from that mass of drowning cowards at Heilinghafen, you are not a prisoner, but a freeman, and must retain the sword my general returned to you--_Ironhewer_, the theme of so many camp songs. But enough of this--lead forward these fair girls. By the Dannebrog! John of Rantzau, they are beautiful as summer flowers!"

On being presented, Ernestine and Gabrielle were about to kneel, when the brave king anticipated them, by kneeling and kissing their hands.

Anna Catharina smiled disdainfully, and threw a furtive glance at the drooping Countess of Fehmarn, her rival of the left-hand. A gleam of pleasure passed over the features of Carlstein, and he said, while his eyes moistened----

"Your majesty does my poor girls infinite honour."

"Nay, count, I stand as a soldier before them; but as a king before you. We cannot pay too much homage to beauty. I have said, count, that you are free, and you may, when you please, rejoin the Imperialists."

"I owe your majesty a thousand thanks; but, with these two girls, how can I now, unattended, pursue a journey so long and so difficult--through hostile Juteland?"

"Ah--that is true!" grumbled old Rantzau, rubbing his thick beard; "der teufels braden!"

"Count of Carlstein," said the old queen-dowager, in high Dutch, "alone you may rejoin your comrades, but these poor maidens could never survive the toil and danger of such a journey."

"True--madam--true!" said the count.

"Where you go, father, Ernestine will go, too," said his eldest daughter, with a proud smile, as she clasped her hands upon his arm.

"And I, too," said Gabrielle, clinging to him on the other side.

"I thank you, my brave girls; but I see that now we must indeed part--and I thank your majesties for your sympathy," said the count, with a sad smile. "Would to Heaven that I had listened to the advice of the good empress when at Vienna, and left in her charge, my motherless girls! But we have never been separated; they would accompany me, even beyond the Elbe, for such is the dear wilfulness of one, and such the affection of both. I am a soldier of fortune, royal lady. In these and other wars I have fed myself with my sword. In the camps and cities of strangers, far from my own home, I felt that I had one wherever my daughters were; my whole soul is bound up in these two girls, and through a thousand dangers God has spared me for their sakes--spared me to protect and love them--as I feel assured that he will spare me from a thousand more."

The count paused, and his voice trembled. It was a fine scene. Old John of Rantzau rubbed his beard again; the queen gazed immoved, with a stolid expression on her German face; but she whom the king loved best, the Countess of Fehmarn, was visibly affected, and drew nearer to her these two little girls, who were all but princesses, and, who alone of all that glittering group remained by her side--for she was their mother.

"After the freedom so graciously bestowed by this kingly duke, and ratified by a princely king," said Carlstein, "my honour requires that I should immediately rejoin my troops, who are now without any other leader than the Count of Merodé; but my daughters--my daughters----"

"Count," said the aged queen-mother again, as Carlstein paused, "I am about to retire to my own castle of Nyekiöbing in the isle of Laaland; permit your daughters to go with me, and I will protect them as if they were my own until this hapless war is ended, or until you can again receive them."

"Madam, it is a gracious offer, and worthy of her who is the mother of a gallant monarch--one whom future times shall tell of," replied the count. "Kneeling, madam, I thank you from my soul--nay, Ernestine, look neither sad nor proud," he added in a whisper, "for it must be so;" and from some protest she was about to make, she was awed to silence by her father's firmness and the presence in which she stood.

"My fairest one," said the brave king, "you have heard what her majesty, our august mother, proposes. You are at liberty to go, and your gallant father may accompany you. From Laaland he can more easily rejoin his victorious comrades; and, if our poor Denmark is conquered, he may still more easily rejoin you at Nyekiöbing."

The king smiled as he said this; but old John of Rantzau, and those fierce Danes who felt their scars of Lütter smart, twirled their red mustaches, and eyed the count with hostility and hatred.

And now, by the invitation of the queen-dowager, Ernestine, her father, and sister were led away to another part of the castle. Queen Anna Catharina, the Countess of Fehmarn, with all their ladies, followed, and I felt sadly that Ernestine was about to be secluded from me; but she gave me a kind farewell glance on retiring through the folding-doors of the Rittersaal--a glance that sank deep in my heart, and made it leap with joy.

The moment they were all gone, a cloud descended upon the brow of Christian IV.; he turned towards the duke and us, and, striking together his gauntleted hands, exclaimed bitterly--

"Bernard! Bernard! oh what a disastrous week this has been. I concealed my grief before that proud Imperialist and his daughters--but my heart bleeds for Denmark; and now I see nothing but flight from isle to isle--defeat, disgrace, and death! Oh! after all I have endured for Denmark, the battles I have fought by sea and land, the friends I have lost, the blood I have shed, the treasure I have spent, and the territories I have lost, has it come to this?"

"It seems to be the will of Heaven," replied the duke, gloomily, "that those savage Imperialists should triumph over us, and subvert the Protestant religion of northern Europe. I have lost my dukedom, and am now an outcast; eleven of my brothers have bled in this war, for we are the hereditary and irreconcilable enemies of the House of Hapsburg. Tilly's troops are invincible; but I say unto your majesty, that had your Danes and my Germans behaved as these Scottish troops have done, the old Jesuit had told another story at Vienna."

"I thank you, gentleman," said the king, bowing to us. "Adversity is the school for soldiers and for kings; but if I suffer, Herr Donald," he added, taking our colonel by the hand, "it is in the cause of your countrywoman, my fair niece, the queen of Bohemia, who, unfortunately for herself and Protestant Europe, is the wife of a coward--the chief of a race of cowards and gluttons--who can neither fight for her, nor his electoral hat. The main column of my army is retreating fast through Juteland, and will be taken; I still have Glückstadt, where Sir David Drummond, with the Laird of Craigie's pikemen and two of Nithsdale's regiments keep the foe in check,--but that too may fall. My God! I feel the crown my brave father left me totter on my brow; but let me hope that my soul is still too soldierly to mourn departed state or empty greatness. I have now but twenty thousand men; Tilly with thirty thousand has overspread the duchies, and Wallenstein with a hundred thousand has marched against us from Hungary. Every ally has abandoned me--all on whose aid I relied when I engaged in this unequal war; and Gustavus of Sweden yet lingers in his capital, I know not why. The God we fight for, gives and takes away--and I bless his name not the less. I have still my sword, Duke Bernard; and if I cannot win me a name like my brave forefathers, Thierri the Fortunate, or Gerhard the Warlike, my fleet still remains, and after every inch of Danish ground is drenched in Danish blood and lost, I will commit myself to the ocean, like those Vikingr from whom I am descended. Better are the wild waves they loved so well, and the pure air of the wide Baltic, or the stormier Northern Sea, than the Austrian prisons of Ferdinand of Hapsburg!"

"It is said like a gallant king," replied the proud chief who led us; "the cause of the Scottish princess caused Denmark these disasters, and we, as Scottish soldiers, ought cheerfully to die for your majesty."

"Well, gentlemen and comrades, as the proverb has it, Enough for the day is the evil thereof; between us and Juteland there yet rolls the same sea wherein the Emperor Otto I. flung his lance, as the limits of his invasion against King Harald Blaatand. The Imperialists are yet far distant from our gates; so let us to dinner, comrades, and drink in German wine and Juteland beer to the hope of better times, and to the memory of those brave men who have fallen so unavailingly at Lütter, at Bredenburg, and the Boitze."