CHAPTER V.

LOVE AND HATE AGREE.

Again we fly from Germany's spring back to the North's winter. Before we go further on the bloody path of the Thirty Years' War, we will pay a visit to two of the chief personages of this narrative high up in East Bothnia.

It was about Advent time, 1632. A violent storm with heavy snow beat against the old ramparts of Korsholm, and drove the waves of the Baltic against the ice-covered shores. All navigation for the year had ceased. The newly conscripted soldiers had gone to Stralsund by way of Stockholm, at the end of July, and were impatiently waiting for news from the war. Then it happened in the middle of November that a rumour was spread about the country of the king's death. Such reports fly through the air, one does not know how or where they come from. Great misfortunes are known at a distance as presentiments, just as an earthquake far beyond its own circle causes a qualm in the mind. But this report had more than once been spread and refuted. The people relied upon King Gustaf Adolf's good fortune, and when corroboration did not arrive, the whole matter was forgotten, all thinking it was a false story.

It is an ordinary fact in life that, as we hate those to whom we have occasioned a wrong, so we feel well disposed towards persons whom we have had the opportunity of serving. Lady Marta of Korsholm was not a little proud of her brave defence against the drunken soldiers, and did not hesitate to attribute the preservation of the castle to the heroism she had then displayed. That she had saved Regina's life gave the latter great importance in her eyes; and neither could she refuse her admiration for the courage and self-sacrifice which the young girl had shown on the same occasion. The high-born prisoner was her pride; and she did not omit to watch her steps like an Argus; but she gave Regina a larger room, let her have old Dorthe again as a waiting woman, and provided her with an abundance of good food. Regina also was less proud and cold, she would sometimes answer Lady Marta with a word or a nod; but of all the nice things that were offered her, the choice meats, the strong beer, etc., she took little or nothing; she had sunk apparently into a state of indifference, told her beads devoutly, but in other respects let one day pass as another.

Lady Marta held the deep conviction that her prisoner, if not precisely the Roman Emperor's own daughter, was, nevertheless, a princess of the highest birth. She therefore hit upon the unlucky idea of trying to convert so distinguished a person from her papistical heresy, on the supposition that she would thereby accomplish something very remarkable when the war was ended and Regina was exchanged. Regina thus became exposed to the same proselytizing attempts which she herself had undertaken with the great Gustaf Adolf; but Lady Marta's were not so delicate or refined in their application as her own. She overwhelmed the poor girl with Lutheran sermons, psalm-books, and tracts, also often made long speeches interspersed with proverbs, and when this was without avail, she sent the castle chaplain to preach to the prisoner. Of course all this occurred to deaf ears. Regina was sufficiently firm in her faith to listen with patience, but she suffered from it; her stay at Korsholm became more unbearable every day, and who can blame her, if with secret longings she sighed for the day when she could regain her freedom.

Dorthe, on the contrary, flamed up every time the heretic preacher or the plucky old lady began their sermons, and rattled through a whole string of prayers and maledictions both in Latin and Low German, the result generally being that she was shut up for two or three days in the dungeon of the castle, until her longing for her lady's company once more made her tractable.

And so passed a half-year of Lady Regina's captivity.

A better product of Lady Marta's goodwill was, that Regina was allowed to embroider, and fine materials were ordered for her in the autumn from Stockholm. Thus it became possible for her to work a large piece of silk with the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ in silver and gold. Lady Marta in her innocence considered the work a sacrament cloth, which Regina might present to Vasa church, as a proof of her change of sentiments. A warrior's eyes, on the other hand, would have discerned in it an intended flag, a Catholic banner, which the imprisoned girl was quietly preparing in expectation of the day when her work would wave at the head of the Catholic hosts.

Still Lady Marta was not quite satisfied with the Holy Virgin's image, which seemed to her surrounded by too large a halo to be truly Lutheran. She therefore considered how she could procure her prisoner a more suitable occupation. It happened now and then that the daughter of the Storkyro peasant king, Meri, when she was in town, made an errand to Korsholm, and in order to gain the favour of the lady of the castle, presented her with several skeins of the finest and silkiest linen floss, which no one in the whole vicinity could spin as well as Meri. Lady Marta consequently got the idea one fine day to teach her prisoner to spin, and to give her Meri as a teacher in this art. Meri on her part desired nothing better. The near connection in which the imprisoned lady had stood to the king, gave her an irresistible interest in Meri's eyes. She wished to hear something about him--the hero, the king, the great, never-to-be-forgotten man, who stood before her mind's eye with more than earthly lustre. She wished to know what he had said, what he had done, what he had loved and hated on earth; she wished for once to feel herself transported by his glory, and then to die herself--forgotten. Poor Meri!

So Meri made her second acquaintance with Lady Regina in the castle. She was received at first with coldness and indifference, and her spinning scarcely pleased the proud young lady. But gradually her submissive mild demeanour won Regina's goodwill, and a captive's natural desire to communicate with beings outside the prison walls finally made Regina more open.

They spun very little, it is true, but they talked together like mistress and maid, especially during the days when Dorthe was shut up on account of her wicked tongue, and it was quite opportune that Meri recollected some German from more brilliant days. Meri knew how to constantly lead the conversation on to the subject of the king, and she soon divined Regina's enthusiastic love. But Regina was very far from having any idea of Meri's earlier experiences; she ascribed her questions to the natural curiosity which such high personages always excite in the minds of the common people. Sometimes she seemed astonished at the delicacy and nobleness of the simple peasant woman's expressions and views. There were moments when Meri's personality appeared to her as an enigma full of contradictions, and then she asked herself whether she ought not to consider this woman as a spy. But the next instant she repented this thought; and when the spinner looked at her with her clear, mild, penetrating gaze, then there was something which said to Regina's heart, this woman does not dissemble.

They were sitting one day in the beginning of December, and Dorthe was again shut up for her unseasonable remarks to the chaplain. There was a striking contrast between these two beings whom fate had brought together from such opposite directions, but who on one point shared the same interest.

The first, young, proud, dark, flashing, and beautiful, a princess, even in captivity; the other of middle age, blonde, pale, mild, humble, and free, and yet very submissive. Regina now seventeen, could be considered twenty; Meri now thirty-six, had something so childish and innocent in her whole appearance, that at certain moments she might be taken for seventeen. She could have been Regina's mother, and yet she who had suffered so much, seemed almost like a child in comparison with the early matured southerner at her side. Lady Regina had been spinning a little, and during the operation broken many threads. Provoked and impatient, she pushed the distaff away and resumed her embroidery. This happened very often, and her instructress was accustomed to it.

"That is a pretty image," said Meri, after a look at the piece of silk. "What does it represent?"

"God's Holy Mother, Sancta Maria," answered Regina, as she made the sign of the cross, which she was always in the habit of doing when mentioning the name of the Holy Virgin.

"And what is it for?" asked Meri with a naïve familiarity.

Regina looked at her. Again a suspicion came into her mind, but it immediately passed away.

"I am embroidering the banner of the Holy Faith for Germany," replied Regina proudly. "When it one day waves, the heretics will flee before the wrath of the mother of God."

"When I think of the mother of God," said Meri, "I imagine her mild, good, and peaceful; I imagine her as a mother alone with her love." Meri said these words with a peculiar tremor in her voice.

"The mother of God is Heaven's queen; she will fight against the godless and destroy them."

"But when the mother of God takes to strife, King Gustaf Adolf will meet her with uncovered head and lowered sword, bend his knee to her, and say: 'Holy Virgin, I am not fighting for thy glory, but for that of thy son, our Saviour.' 'He that fights for my son also fights for me,' she will reply, 'because I am a mother.'"

"Your king is a heretic," excitedly answered Regina. Nothing irritated her more than opposition to the Catholic faith, of which the doctrine of the Holy Virgin as Heaven's ruler is a constituent. "Your king is a tyrant and unbeliever who deserves all the anger of the saints on his head. Do you know, Meri, that I hate your king?"

"And I love him," said Meri in a scarcely audible voice.

"Yes," continued Regina, "I hate him like sin, death, and perdition. If I were a man and had an arm and sword, it would be the aim of my life to destroy his hosts and his work. You are happy, Meri, you know nothing about the war, you do not know what Gustaf Adolf has done to the poor Catholics. But I have seen it, and my faith and my country cry out for revenge. There are moments when I could kill him."

"And when Lady Regina lifts her white hand with the gleaming dagger over the king's head, then the king will expose his breast where the great heart beats; look at her little white hand with a glance of sublime calmness and say, 'Thou delicate white hand, which worketh the image of the mother of God, strike, if thou canst, my heart is here, and it beats for the freedom and enlightenment of the world;' then the white hand will sink slowly down, and the dagger will drop from it, unnoticed, and God's mother on the cloth will smile again. She knew well that it would be so. It would have been just the same with herself. For King Gustaf Adolf none can kill, and none hate, because God's angel walks by his side and turns human beings' hate to love."

Regina forgot her work, and regarded Meri with her large, dark, moist eyes. There was so much that surprised and astonished her in these words, but she kept silent. Finally she said:

"The king wears an amulet."

"Yes," said Meri, "he wears a talisman, but it is not the copper ring that the people speak of--it is his exalted human heart which gives up everything for what is good and noble on earth. When he was still very young, and had not yet acquired fame or renown, he only possessed his blonde hair, his high brow, and his mild blue eyes. Then he wore no amulet, and yet blessing and love and happiness walked by his side. All the angels in Heaven and all human beings on earth loved him."

Regina's eyes glistened with tears.

"Did you see him when he was young?" she asked.

"Did I see him! yes."

"And you have loved him like all the others?"

"More than all the others, lady."

"And you love him still?"

"Yes, I love him much. Like you; but you would kill him and I would die for him."

Regina sprang up, burst out weeping, clasped Meri in her arms and kissed her.

"Do not think that I would kill him. Oh, Holy Virgin, I would a thousand times give my life to save his! But you do not know, Meri. It is an anguish that you cannot understand, it is a fearful conflict when one loves a man, a hero, the personification of the highest and grandest in life, and yet is commanded by a Holy Faith to hate this man, to kill him, to persecute him to the grave. You do not know, happy one, who only needs to love and bless, what it means to be tossed between love and hate, like a ship on the mighty waves; to be obliged to curse one whom you bless in your heart, to sit within the walls of a prison a prey to the battling emotions which incessantly struggle for mastery in your innermost soul. Ah! that was the night, when I tried to reconcile my love with my faith, and bring him, the mighty one, to the way of salvation. If the saints had then allowed my weak voice to convince him of his error ... Then poor Regina would have followed him with joy as his humblest servant through all his life, and received in her own breast all the lances and balls that sought his heart. But the saints did not grant me--unworthy being--so great an honour, and therefore I now sit here a prisoner on account of my faith and my love; and if an angel broke down the walls of my prison and said to me, 'Fly, your country again awaits you,' I would answer: 'It is his will, the beloved; for his sake I suffer, for his sake I remain,' and yet you believe that I wish to kill him."

Regina wept much and bitterly, with all the violence of an intense passion which had been pent up for a long time. Meri with gentle hands removed the dark locks from her brow, and looking mildly and kindly into her tearful eyes, said with prophetic inspiration:

"Do not weep so, the day will arrive when you will be able to love without being obliged to curse him at the same time!"

"That day will never come, Meri."

"Yes, that day will come, when Gustaf Adolf is dead."

"Oh, may it never come, then! Rather would I suffer all my life ... It is still for his sake."

"Yes, lady, that day will come, not because you are younger and he is older. But have you never heard anyone say of a child which is brighter, kinder, and better than others, 'that child will not live long; it is too good for this world?' So does it seem to me about King Gustaf Adolf. He is too great, too noble, too good, to live long. God's angels wish to have him before his body withers and his soul grows weary. Believe me, they will take him from us."

Regina looked at her with an alarmed air.

"Who are you that speaks such words? How your eyes shine! you are not what you seem! who are you then? Oh, Holy Virgin, protect me!"

And Regina started up with all the superstitious terror that belonged to her time. Probably she could not account for her fear, but Meri's conversation had all along seemed strange and unaccountable, coming from the mouth of an uncultivated peasant woman in this barbarous land.

"Who am I?" repeated Meri, with the same mild look. "I am a woman who loves. That is all."

"And you say that the king will die?"

"God alone presides over human destinies, and the greatest among mortals is still but a mortal."

At that moment someone opened the door, and Lady Marta entered more solemnly than usual, and also somewhat paler. She now wore, instead of her bright striped woollen jacket, a deep mourning attire, and her whole appearance indicated something unusual. Regina and Meri both started at the sight.

Meri became pale as death, went straight to Lady Marta, looked her fixedly in the face, and said mechanically with a great effort,

"The king is dead."

"Do you know it already?" answered Lady Marta, surprised. "God preserve us, the bad news came an hour ago, with a courier from Tornea."

Lady Regina sank down in a swoon.

Meri, with a broken heart, retained her self-possession, and tried to recall Regina to life.

"The king has then fallen on the battlefield in the midst of victory?" she asked.

"On the battlefield of Lützen, the 6th of November, and in the midst of a glorious victory," replied Lady Marta, more and more surprised at Meri's knowledge.

"Awake, gracious lady, he has lived and died like a hero, worthy of the admiration of the whole world. He has fallen in the hour of triumph, in the highest lustre of his glory; his name will live in all times, and his name we will both bless."

Regina opened her dreamy eyes and clasped her hands in prayer.

"Oh, Holy Virgin," she said, "I thank thee that thou hast let him go in his greatness from the world, and thus taken away the curse which rested upon my love!"

And Meri dropped down at her side in prayer.

But below in the castle yard stood a tall, white-haired old man, with his stiff features distorted by grief and despair.

"A curse upon my work!" he cried; "my plan is frustrated beforehand, and the object for which I have lived slips from my grasp. Oh, fool that I was, to count upon a human being's life, and trying to hope that the king would acknowledge his son, and live until the son of Aron Bertila's daughter had time to win a brilliant fame in war, and walk abreast with the heiress to the Swedish throne! The king is dead, and my descendant is only a boy in his minority, who will soon be mixed with the multitude. Now it is only wanting for him to gain a nobleman's coat of arms, and place himself amongst the vampires between the only true powers of the state, the king and the people. Fool, fool that I was! The king is dead! Go, old Bertila, into the grave to fraternize with King John and the destroyer of aristocracy, King Carl, and bury thy proud plans among the same worms that have already consumed Prince Gustaf and Karin Mansdotter!"

And the old man seized Meri, who just then came out, violently by the hand, and said:

"Come, we have neither of us anything more to do in the world!"

"Yes," said Meri with suppressed grief, "we both still have a son!"