CHAPTER XXIX.

ORBIT AND FOCUS.

The best inn at Znaim was a solidly built and roomy and uncomfortable place. Znaim is on the road from Vienna to Prague, and is actually in the Mark of Mähren, neither in Austria nor Bohemia. Whether that was a reason why His Grace the Duke of Friedland should have affrighted, as much as overjoyed, the host of the Golden Fleece by his presence it is not possible to say, but he was there with an attendance of two gentlemen and six men-servants, not counting horse-boys. As he told no one why he was going to Znaim, or whether he was passing beyond Znaim, no one could satisfy the curiosity of the host, who having been warned by courier, had caused a large upper room to be swept, laid down a rug or two bought from a Hungarian trader, who had bought them from a Turk, and set a fire of logs roaring in the chimney by way of banishing the November damp.

The great man had arrived at midday, dined with his gentlemen, who had afterwards set off on some journey to the southward. Left alone, his men-servants dismissed for the time being, the Duke amused himself by making plans and calculations on sheets of paper, also by walking to and fro, and peering out of the misty casement. The innkeeper took it into his head that the Duke was expecting some one.

And in the late afternoon, just as the Duke had called for candles, the door opened and the man-servant announced "the Countess Ottilie von Thüringen."

From a hood of deep blue velvet edged with sable, a slight colour in her cheeks from the wind, the mysterious eyes looked out expectant and almost timid, if timidity had not been almost a stranger to the woman to whom they belonged.

The grave cold face of Wallenstein relaxed into a smile of welcome. He bowed and kissed her hand.

"So you are on your way, Countess Ottilie! 'Tis a long while since we met."

"Six months! Albrecht! Six months of inglorious rust!" There was an undertone of reproach, very faint, perhaps scarcely meant. She was a woman.

The brow of Wallenstein resumed its furrows.

"You at least have not rusted," he said. "Quicksilver could rust as soon. You have been busy, my confederate. But indeed I have not been exactly idle. And we may say truthfully that our efforts have succeeded."

"In so far that Protestant Germany is aroused from end to end by the torch of Gustavus, and that the Catholic League was never so downcast as now."

"You say rightly that Gustavus applied the torch, but it is we who have gathered the dry faggots together and spread them on the common hearth!"

"Then you are pleased with me, Albrecht!" The wistfulness in her tone was quite apparent. For a moment the great lady was merged into the woman seeking approval from the man who sat upon the throne of her admiration.

"You are wonderful as well as beautiful!" said the Duke, not as a lover says these things, but with the air of the connoisseur of minds, deeply surprised that he has discovered a masterpiece where he looked merely for an ordinary work of art.

She coloured at his words and smiled. They pleased her, glibly as they ran off his tongue, but with a lover's ardour to waft them into air how much more would they have pleased her!

"Yes!" She went on as if following out another thought. "Events are moving fast towards the point we aimed at, your recall."

"My recall? Yes! Six months ago I was dreaming of recall."

In an instant she leaned forward anxiously to ask--

"Of what then do you now think if not of recall? To what end are you planning? Towards what have I planned and journeyed and striven?"

Wallenstein felt the annoyance that all self-centred men feel at making others partners in their plans. But he showed nothing of it as he answered--

"Of a confederacy of all German states on the basis of complete religious liberty! It is of that I am thinking."

She threw back her hood and opened her cloak. Then she asked with an amused air--

"And for this it is necessary to _drive the Habsburgs over the Alps_?"

Something very like a gleam of impatience, if not of anger, shot into his eyes.

"Could such a confederacy take place and the Emperor Ferdinand consent?" he asked.

"No! Nor could it take place while the Order of Jesus exists."

"That also must go!" He showed plainly how indifferent it was. "But how did you learn so much of my intentions?"

"The dead gave up what the living had not sufficient trust to reveal!" she said with some air of being hurt.

"So von Teschen is dead! At Breitenfeld?"

She nodded.

"He was a useful servant, but too rash! Still, I am sorry to have lost him!"

"Was it altogether worthy of Albrecht von Waldstein to wait the issue of a battle, and then to send congratulations to the victor?" The voice of Ottilie von Thüringen conveyed sorrow. Her eyes, wide open, searched the Duke's face, which showed nothing.

"It is the handle of the sword I seek, not the point. There is nothing worthy or unworthy. Without a command I cannot sway a single state! I must begin by taking the sword by the handle."

"Your Grace seems to have forgotten the tenor of the compact made with a Habsburger, a rebel, but still a Habsburger. Let me remind you of it. The objective was the restoration of your Grace to the command of the armies of the Emperor, or of the Catholic League. To do this it was necessary to encourage the Protestant powers to attack, and the greater the danger to the Empire, the more sure would be your restoration. That accomplished, the sword once more in your hand, you were to demand the throne of Bohemia."

"And who says that my purpose does not hold?"

"Albrecht von Waldstein seems to say it. He talks of confederacies, of driving out the Habsburgs. He who aspires to sit beside a Habsburg upon a throne must first be worthy of her, and not diminish her worth in lowering the lustre of her family and her name!"

The splendid voice rang out with the pride and command of a great princess, rebuking a too aspiring courtier.

Wallenstein bowed to the utterance as to the throne itself, but raising his head again and throwing back his wide shoulders replied--

"I have not forgotten, Ottilie! But the Habsburg princess that would sit beside Wallenstein upon the throne of Bohemia derives her title from him. It is not Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, a joining of two monarchies. I confess that Europe holds but one princess, and that a Habsburger, who can be an equal mate by reason of her intelligence, her beauty, and her race, for Wallenstein, but she must learn that what he does is right. Forgive me if I set the matter out too harshly. No man ever played a greater game for greater stakes under auspices more divine; but Wallenstein must play it."

The eyes of the Countess Ottilie flashed in the light of the candles and the firelight as she turned her head to answer him.

But her answer died upon her lips, for the man-servant knocked and entered.

"A general officer from Vienna passing by with troops for Prague craves audience, your Grace!"

The Countess Ottilie resumed her hood and sat down again by the fire. Wallenstein, anticipating no long interruption, understood that she would contrive to remain incognita while he admitted this stranger to a short audience.

Nigel Charteris entered.

As he came forward into the full light the Duke of Friedland started perceptibly.

"It is an omen! The circle, the oval, and the arc once more!" he muttered.

"Ah! Major-General! So _your_ star mounts! Whilst _mine_ flickers in a far-off sky."

"I had thought to have found your Grace alone, Duke!" said Nigel, casting a glance at the hooded lady.

"She is like yourself and myself a chance traveller to Znaim. I know her. She is a friend before whom one may speak freely. What of the war?"

Nigel told briefly what was known in Vienna, what he guessed that Wallenstein already knew.

The lady spread out her long slender fingers to the fire. Nigel saw them without regarding them. He could not see her face, nor was he concerned to try. She was Wallenstein's affair.

Nigel did not wish to let the occasion slip, nor to lay too much stress upon it.

"In short," he said, after his recital of the position as a soldier understood it to explain to a soldier, "the affairs of the Emperor are in a serious plight, and he looks round for aid."

"Is not His Holiness the Pope sending him an army, or at least an aid?" asked Wallenstein.

"It is said that His Holiness has too much to occupy his troops in Italy," said Nigel. "Meantime Saxony is getting ready for the march."

"The winter will stop him!" said Wallenstein.

"He is like to winter in Prague!" said Nigel.

The lady by the fireplace may have shivered, or shrugged her shoulders in the least. A thought came to him that his prophecy might have gone home to the Duke more truly than he knew. It was at Prague that Wallenstein maintained a princely house. He must, in the event of the Saxons attacking Prague, submit to their dominance, a thing unpleasant and inconsonant with Wallenstein's character, or remove his household before their approach, or make an alliance with them and so cut himself entirely adrift from the Empire, or raise troops for the Emperor and defend the town. In any event out of the four he must make up his mind and act soon.

"To whom then does the Emperor look to save him from his enemies?"

"There is but one, your Grace, and that the Duke of Friedland!"

Again the lady at the hearth held out her fingers idly to the blaze, and Nigel's eyes following the action saw the red glow of the blood between them, and this time he marked their slenderness.

"The Emperor must needs bid high!" said the Duke. "And soon! The posture of affairs is not what it was. There must be no more talk of edicts! The time has come when there can be no more Catholic States and Protestant States but German States! If the Emperor becomes strong again through his armies, it can only be in order to be able to treat on a more equal footing. But what possible price can he offer me to forego my private peace, my ease, the enjoyment of my revenues, and submit to the harassments of raising an army? I speak not yet of a supreme command. Cæsar made war against the Gauls because he needed money before he could gratify his ambition. I do not need money."

Nigel noticed that the lady's head gave an impatient toss, as who should say, "What ails the man?"

"You do not covet the honour of the supreme command, and of driving Saxony back to his frontiers and the Swede across the Baltic?" Nigel said in genuine amazement.

"For what? To become again a private gentleman?"

"There would be the Turks next, who are even now talking of invading Hungary."

"More toil! More glory, if you like, or perhaps death in the course of the task. And again to what end if successful?"

"The great soldiers have never looked to the end when they began their campaigns," Nigel replied, glowing; "but none of them has ever rested of his own will while great victories were yet to be won."

"The Emperor would scarce like to endow me with such powers as I should demand before I listened to him. There is but one Wallenstein. When the Emperor chooses to send his request in language plain and manifest, offering to confer such absolute power to raise him an army as I consider my least due, I will consider it. Till then I lift no finger, not even if the Saxons thunder at the doors of Prague. Tilly has failed. Pappenheim has failed, Maximilian will fail."

The lady at the hearth put up her long fingers to adjust the hood more closely to her head. This time Nigel saw them. He knew them. But were they Ottilie's or Stephanie's? The cloak? Where had he seen that? His heart beat faster. For an instant he forgot Wallenstein, the Emperor, the whole of his mission in the presence, the hidden presence, of Ottilie.

He sprang to her side. A curious cold smile lit up the face of Wallenstein.

"Ottilie!" Nigel exclaimed.

She threw back her hood, rose, faced him, held out her hands--

"Ottilie is no more! I am Stephanie!"

"No more?" Nigel murmured with quivering lips. "No more?"

"Stephanie was Ottilie when she followed the star of Wallenstein, worshipped his ambition and wrought as she did even to this day for his success. But no longer! She is satisfied. She could be one with the lofty spirit of a Cæsar but not with the bargaining, bartering craft of merchant Wallenstein, who asks what reward he shall receive at the very hand that opens the gate of the Palace of Glory."

"I go to Vienna, Colonel Charteris, you to Prague. God speed you back again! Now if you will see me to my carriage I need no longer be a hindrance to the chaffering!"

It may be imagined what confusion this outburst, spoken in calm level tones, icy with suppressed passion, stirred in Nigel's mind. The pressure of her hands, the first look into his eyes, had told him that what he had ravished from a not unwilling Ottilie was his from Stephanie, Archduchess though she was, when time and season were more propitious; and the blood beat into his face.

He bowed over her hands and went towards the door to give the order to the servants.

Then the Archduchess turned to Wallenstein--

"Adieu, Duke! Our astrologer's figure holds another meaning than the one we gave it. Bid him be more exact, and take into account what he has forgotten, the beatings of our hearts, ... of those of us that have hearts!"

Wallenstein bowed low. His face showed nothing of what he felt.

"Adieu, your Highness! There is perhaps more in the spirit of Wallenstein than the merchant, more than the politician, more than the soldier. I give your Highness thanks for all your furtherance, while I deplore the rupture of the alliance, from which it is your Highness's pleasure to withdraw. Adieu!"

Nigel returned as the last word was spoken, and Wallenstein proceeded--

"Adieu also, General Charteris! My best wishes go with you! If His Imperial Majesty should inquire, you have my authority to tell him in what state of mind you have found me, and nothing of what Her Highness has indiscreetly disclosed. I know that in all things I can rely upon your discretion."

Nigel gave him the assurance, and after a parting salutation led the Archduchess to her coach.