CHAPTER XXVII.

THE RESTLESSNESS OF STEPHANIE.

The next few days passed at Halberstadt in transforming the mass of fugitives into the semblance of an army. Cavalry and infantry were re-mustered under their regimental standards, where a nucleus existed in the shape of an old regiment. Where there was none, a new one was formed. All found an entry on some roster. The defences of the city were improved in all possible ways and provisions were got in. The little general busied himself in sending messages to all the imperial garrisons within reach to concentrate at a spot named, by the river Weser, and it was from this source that he expected to collect another army rather than from any fresh enlistments. Tilly with a bite and a sup would gladly have passed on. He fretted under the inaction which his numerous wounds made absolutely necessary: the more so that as yet he had no certain knowledge of the trend of the plans of his great adversary. Sometimes he talked as though he had done with war. These were the days when his wounds did not look like healing. Nigel knew the old war-dog well enough to ask, "Who shall succeed?" That stiffened the Count von Tzerclaës quickly enough. He was one of those men who do not breed successors.

But by the first days of October it was announced and confirmed that Gustavus had turned to march westward, and that the Elector of Saxony was to march upon Prague. Tilly's plans soon took a definite shape. He, too, would march westward, but along the plains of Lower Saxony into Brunswick, then towards the Rhine, gathering garrisons as he went, till he could turn and meet Gustavus with a force sufficient to annihilate him.

Nigel's rough-riders became the nucleus of a regiment, which was given to Hildebrand von Hohendorf, and he himself was again chosen by Tilly for a confidential journey to the Emperor. This time nothing was committed to writing save the commendations General Tilly thought fit to make of Nigel's conduct in the battle and during the retreat. Tilly's plans for the future conduct of the campaign, and such requests as he had to make, were carefully committed to Nigel's memory. A small escort was given him, for the task of getting from Halberstadt to Vienna without falling into the arms of Gustavus's rearguard, or some of the widely-spread Saxon contingents moving, as doubtless many of them would be doing, eastward, was one requiring great vigilance, skill, and, above all, speed, and numbers would have availed less than nothing. His plan was to make his way as straightly as possible to the nearest point of the Bavarian border, and once across that, the roads to Vienna were for the present likely to be free from Swede and Saxon alike.

The only document he carried, in addition to Count Tilly's letter to the Emperor, was the extraordinary letter from Wallenstein taken from the dead Count von Teschen. This the Archduchess Stephanie had returned to him privately, with these few words inscribed upon the inside of the paper that enveloped them--

"_The ardour of a great loyalty createth a cloud of smoke, seen through which other men's actions may be distorted out of the natural semblance of beauty. So doth the ardour of a great love._"

* * * * *

Pondering over this, Nigel set out.

As to the Archduchess Stephanie, no sooner was Nigel set out than she began to feel a great restlessness, which manifested itself in very desultory marches, to the wearying of her ladies, up and down in the palace, with occasional forays out into the city and along the ramparts, in the course of which she pursued the officers of high rank with puzzling questions as to the possible course of the war.

"But it is impossible, your Highness, to give a guess!" said a grave and stout general officer. "When we know what force we have to dispose of----"

"Yes! Yes!" said the impatient princess. "But still, what do you think?"

"No one can say, your Highness!"

Her Highness left him to growl at his fellow-officers at the extraordinary habit of woman, even lovely woman, even a Habsburger, to ask questions which did not admit of an answer, and in any case did not concern her. Then she attacked the next she met with similar results.

She even dared to beard the old general in his quarters, beginning with sympathetic inquiries after his wounds. The old general, taciturn and not over gracious by force of habit, unbent a little to the Emperor's daughter.

"Give me time, your Highness, and I shall beat the Swede."

"How?"

"Look you, your Highness! The farther the Swede marches from the Baltic the longer must be his chain of garrisons in his rear, for if he once sustain a great defeat he must retreat. By the time he reaches the Rhine his army of Swedes must be greatly diminished, and his force consist largely of German Protestants, recruited as he goes."

"And do not Protestants fight as well as Catholics?"

"When they are trained and disciplined!"

"And where will _you_ get trained soldiers?"

"From the Imperial garrisons! Then there are the Spaniards in the Rhenish Palatinate, the best infantry in the world."

"And if Richelieu launches the French soldiers at them?"

"It would be the devil!" Count Tilly became very thoughtful. "It is not to be expected that a Catholic power would give aid to the Swedes. Was it not Richelieu who turned the scales against Wallenstein at Ratisbon?"

"But," objected the princess, "what did that prove? Did it not result in the dispersal of Wallenstein's army, and the weakening of the Catholic power, of the Imperial power?"

"I am not politician, your Highness! I hate cardinals and politicians equally. I am a soldier. If I have a moderate measure of fortune, and Pappenheim does not make any more blunders, it is odds but we beat the Swede, Richelieu or no Richelieu."

The Archduchess showed by her manner that she thought otherwise.

"There is Saxony! There is Brandenburg! There is Weimar!"

"Confound them all!" growled Count Tilly, who had done nothing else but look at the astonishing problem he proposed to face, and he at present tied by the leg with a mere eight or ten battalions under his banner. "And," this was an after-thought born of sheer impatience, "your Highness, there is a lady who calls herself Ottilie von Thüringen, who takes a great interest in the Lutheran cause."

"Indeed!" said the Archduchess.

"She was taken prisoner at Magdeburg and sent under escort of Colonel Charteris to Erfurt! I saw her and had some words with her."

"Yes?" said the Archduchess.

"She bore a singular likeness to your Highness! I was wondering if you had any relative of that name!"

"I have never heard of one!" said the Archduchess.

"A mere coincidence, doubtless!" said the general.

"By the way, Count, I am thinking of leaving Halberstadt."

"Leaving Halberstadt! Does your Highness propose to ride with me to raise an army?"

"I might be of less use elsewhere!" she said, smiling, to tease the old general, whose dislike of petticoats was well known.

"Where is elsewhere?"

"Vienna!"

"And how do you propose to get there?"

"You can lend me an escort?"

"Impossible! You would want six battalions to fight off the rearguard of Gustavus, or the left wing of the Saxons."

"But you have just let Colonel Charteris go with a mere handful!"

"He will ride the faster! Colonel Charteris is a soldier, and the very devil for getting into trouble and out of it."

"But the Emperor's daughter?"

"Your Highness, were you the daughter of twenty emperors it would still be impossible."

"You think that I should not arrive at Vienna in safety!"

"Except as a prisoner. But your Highness came hither of your own choice."

"Assuredly! I intend to leave it of my own choice too."

Count Tilly tugged at his long moustaches in despair. "Princess!" And in addition to all his other cares! There was really only one princess, but she appeared to him by reason of her self-will to be at least half a dozen. She still stood there gazing at him out of those wonderful dancing black eyes. ("Confound her eyes," Tilly said to himself.)

"Perhaps Gustavus or John George might give me a safe-conduct if I required it."

"There are more unlikely things, your Highness! Particularly if your Highness made your request in person!"

"They could not be more obdurate than Count Tilly!"

"At the present time, your Highness, they are in better posture to afford courtesies than I am to spare men."

Her Highness pouted and went in search of her uncle, the Bishop. She thought to win him over before Count Tilly had seen him.

But her uncle Leopold, now that it seemed as if the tide of war was to sweep away from Halberstadt, was not willing to part with his niece. Even a Bishop of the Holy Roman Church, vowed to celibacy as he was, was not indifferent to ties of familial affection, and Stephanie's beauty and youth and intelligence were all living and pleasant things, not to be lightly set aside.

"You are as safe here, Stephanie, as in Vienna!".

"But I am not afraid! I would rather be where my father is!"

"But you came here to avoid marrying Maximilian or going into a nunnery, which was it?"

"Both, uncle. But Maximilian will be too busy for marrying for a long time to come. He has to find an army and beat Gustavus."

"In the next place, you can't get to Vienna!"

"Hardly without an escort! But you could persuade Count Tilly to give me a hundred men and two officers."

"It seems to me that Count Tilly would as soon go himself as part with half a company."

"He does not seem very willing, but I am relying on your persuasion, uncle."

"It is evident, Stephanie, that you cannot go at once. In a week or two more men may have come in. In a week or two the roads may be clear of the enemy. Promise me, dear niece, that you will defer the matter for ten days. You cannot grudge your old uncle ten days of your pleasant company!" The Bishop looked affectionately at her.

"For ten days longer, then, my uncle! Then escort or no escort, I must go."

"I will see what can be done!" said the Bishop.

The restlessness of the Archduchess was by no means allayed. For in her mind events were singing "Wallenstein." Now or never, surely, did the portents point to Wallenstein. Where was the Emperor going to lay his hands on a weapon to defend himself even against Saxony? The Saxons were about to pour down into Bohemia. And after that Vienna lay defenceless.

As to Wallenstein's letter to Gustavus, so far from regarding it as evidence of treachery or of ingratitude, at the least she saw in it only design, design to lure Gustavus on to his own destruction by making him think that the greatest army-leader in all German lands was willing to serve him.

The Archduchess told herself that the desire to see Wallenstein, to know his plans, to further them, was at the root of her eagerness to depart. At Vienna she felt sure that in this crisis she would be strong enough to fight Father Lamormain on his own territory, and bring about the recall of the hero of her political dreams.

The Archduchess repeated it to herself with an unnecessary insistence that bespoke questions arising within. When a woman acts from a single strong motive, the motive becomes less something perceived in the mind than felt in the heart, something that makes no room for gainsaying.

Whereas there was Nigel, this Scots colonel, this soldier without a fortune, who was so full of this thing, this vaporous thing, loyalty. Colonel Charteris had not been brought up at court, still less any court in Europe. He had not acquired the ethics of the petty warfare that went on within every court, nor the still more elastic code of right and wrong as applied to the rivalries between court and court, nor a sympathy for the uncloaked knavery that dictated the moves in the game of treaties and alliances and attacks, provoked or unprovoked, that went on between the powers of France, of the United Provinces, of Spain, of Italy. To her all these things had been familiar. This soldier from the north country had seemed astounded that Wallenstein could act as he to all appearances had done. He had shown indignation, which not even her own royal presence had quelled. What a fiery soul beneath how noble a surface of manhood! She pictured him again and again with something of admiration, and admiration led her on, Archduchess as she was, to ask which was the more commendable, the spirit of loyalty which was Nigel's, or the spirit of entirely personal ambition which she herself was fanning in Wallenstein. This question she answered by a subterfuge that loyalty was commendable in Nigel, the more so that nothing engaged him to it but his precious pay, but that personal ambition was the crown and essence of Wallenstein, and in him entirely laudable.

As to her ability to reach Vienna, the Archduchess had no doubt. Whether she had an escort of six, or sixty, or six thousand, her daring and resolute mind would convey her body there in safety. Of that she was confident. A supremely beautiful woman, of high rank, possessed of money and of such resources of speech and intelligence as hers, would in the end defeat the Saxon, Swede, or Brandenburger who should endeavour to stay her path. The real danger of the journey lay more in ignorant soldiery or lawless freebooters than in generals or politicians. For this and this only she would continue to press for an escort.