The Red Axe, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK

  Just as clearly do I remember the next morning. The Little Playmate layby me on my bed, wrapped in one of my childish night-gowns--which oldHanne had sought out for her the night before. It was a brisk, chill,nippy daybreak, and I had piled most of the bedclothes upon her. I lay atthe nether side clipped tight in my single brown blanket. It wasperishing cold. Out of the heaped coverings I saw presently a pair ofeyes, great and dark, regarding me.

  Then a little voice spoke, sweetly and clearly, but yet strangelysounding to me who had never before heard a babe speak.

  "I want my father--tell him to send Grete, my maid, to attend on me, andthen to come himself to sit by the bed and amuse me!"

  Alas! her father--well I knew what had come to him--that which in themercy of the Duke Casimir and in the crowning mercy of the Red Axe, I hadseen come to so many. The dogs did not howl at all that morning. They,too, were tired with the hunting and sated with the quarry.

  All the same, I tried to answer my companion.

  "Little Maid!" said I, "let me be your maid and your father. I willgladly get you all you want. But your good father has gone on a wearyjourney, and it will be long ere he can hope to return."

  "Well," she said, "send lazy Grete, then. I will scold her soundly fornot bringing the sop of hot milk-and-bread, which, indeed, is not foodfor a lady of my age. But my father insists upon it. He is dreadfullyobstinate."

  Now there was no one but our old deaf Hanne in the kitchen of the RedTower. She stayed only for cooking and keeping the house clean. My fathernever paid her wages, and she never asked any. She did her work and tookthat which she needed out of the household purse without check orquestion. It was long before I guessed that Hanne also owed her life tomy father's care. I had noticed, indeed, when he had upon him the redheadman's dress, which fitted him like a flame climbing up a tall backlog on the winter's fire, that old Hanne trembled from head to foot andshrank away into her den under the stairs. Many a time have I seen herpeeping round the corner of the kitchen-door and tottering back when sheheard him come down the stair from the garret. And I guessed so well thereason of her fear that I used to cry to her:

  "Come out, good Hanne; the Red Axe is gone."

  Then would she run, pattering like a scared rabbit over the uneven floor,to the window, and watch my father stalking, grim and tall, across theopen spaces of the yard towards the Judgment Hall of Duke Casimir, themen-at-arms avoiding him with deft reverence. For though they hated himalmost as much as did the fat burghers, they feared him, too. And thatbecause Gottfried Gottfried was deep in the confidence of the Duke; and,besides, was no man to stand in the ill-graces of when one lived withinthe walls of the Wolfsberg.

  So this morning it was to the ancient Hanne that I ran down and told herhow, as quickly as she might, she must bring milk and bread to thelittle one.

  "But," said she, "there is none save that which is to be sodden for yourfather's breakfast and your own."

  "Do as you are bid, bad Hanne!" cried I, being, like all solitarychildren, quickly made angry, "or I will tell my father to drive youbefore him when next he goes forth clad in red to the Hall of Justice."

  At which the poor old woman gave vent to a sharp, screechy cry and caughtat her skinny throat with twitching, bony fingers.

  "Oh, but you know not what you say, cruel boy!" she gasped. "For the loveof God, speak not such words in the house of the Red Axe!"

  But, like an ill-governed child, I was cruel because I knew my power, andso made sure that Hanne would do what I asked.

  "Well, then, bring the sop quickly," said I, "or by Peter-and-Paul I willspeak to my father. He and I can well be doing with beaten cakes madecrisp on the iron girdle. In these you have great skill."

  This last I said to cheer her, for she loved compliments on her cooking.Though, strange to tell, I never saw her eat anything herself all theyears she remained in our house.

  When I was gone up-stairs again I looked about for the Little Playmate.She was not to be seen anywhere. There was only a tiny cosey-hole downamong the blankets, which was yet warm when I thrust my hand within it.But it was empty and the top a little fallen in, as if the occupant hadset her knee on it when she crawled out. A baby stocking lay outside iton the floor.

  "Little maid!" I cried, "where are you?"

  But I heard nothing except a hissing up on the roof, and then a greatslithering rumble down below, which boomed like the distant cannons theMargraf sent to besiege us. I listened and shuddered; but it was only thesnow from the tall roof of the Red Tower which had slipped off and fallento the ground. Then I had a vision of a slender little figure clamberingon the leads and the treacherous snow striking her out into the air, andthen--the cruel stones of the pavement.

  "Little maid, little maid!" I cried out again, beginning to weep myselffor pity at my thought, "where are you? Speak to me. You are myplaymate."

  Then I ran to the roof, and, though the stones chilled me to the bone andthe frost-bitten iron hasps of the fastenings burned me like fire, Iopened the trap-door and looked out. There above me was the crow-steppedgable of the Red Tower, with the axe set on the pinnacle rustily brightin the coming light of the morning--all swept clean of snow. But nolittle maid.

  I ran to the verge and peered down. I saw a great heap of frozen snowfallen on its edge and partly canted over, half covering a deep red stainwhich was turning black and horrid in the daylight. But no little maid.

  Then I ran all over the house calling to her, but could not find heranywhere. I was just beginning to bethink me that she might be a fairychild, one that came at night and vanished like the dream gold which isforever turning to withered leaves in the morning. At last I bethought meof my father's room, where even I, his son, had never been at night, andindeed but seldom in the day. For it was the Hereditary Justicer's fancyto lodge himself in the high garret which ran right across the top of theRed Tower, and was entered only by a little ladder from the first turningof the same staircase by which I had run out upon the leads.

  I went to the bottom of the garret turnpike. The little barred door stoodopen, and I heard--I was sure that I heard--light, irregularly patteringfootsteps moving about above.

  It gave me strange shakings of my heart only to listen. For, though I wasnoways afraid of my father myself, yet since I had never seen any man,woman, or child (save the Duke only) who did not quail at his approach,it was a curious feeling to think of the lonely little child skippingabout up there, where abode the axe and the block--the axe which haddone, I knew so well what, to her father only the night before.

  So I mustered all my courage--not from any fear of Gottfried Gottfried,but rather from the uncertainty of what I should see, and quickly mountedthe stair.

  I shall never forget what I saw as I stood with my feet on the ricketyhand-rail of the ladder. The long dim garret was already half-lighted bythe coming day. Red cloaks swung and flapped like vast, deadly, wingedbats from the rafters, and reached almost to the ground. There was noglass in any of the windows of the garret, for my father minded neitherheat nor cold. He was a man of iron. Summer's heat nor winter's coldneither vexed nor pleasured him. So it was no marvel that at thechamber's upper end, and quite near to my father's bed, lay a wreath ofsnow, with a fine, clean-cut, untrampled edge, just as it had blown in atthe gable window when the storm burst from the east.

  My father lay stretched out on his bed, his head thrown back, his neckbare--almost as if he had done justice on himself, or at least as if hewaited the stroke of another Red Axe through the eastern skylight whichthe morning was already crimsoning. His scarlet sheathings of garmentrylay upon a black oaken stool, trailing across the floor lank and hideous,one of the cuffs which had been but recently dyed a darker hue making awet sop upon the boards.

  All this I had seen many a time before. But that which made me tremblefrom head to foot with more and worse than cold, was the little whitefigure that danced about his bed--for all the wor
ld like a crisped leafin late autumn which whirls and turns, skipping this way and spinningthat in the wanton breezes. It was the Little Playmate. But I could notform a word wherewith to call her. My tongue seemed dried to the roots.

  She had taken the red eye-mask which came across my father's face when hedid his greater duties and tied it about her head. Her great, innocent,childish eyes looked elfishly through the black socket holes, sparklingwith a fairy merriment, and her tangled floss of sunny hair escaped fromthe string at the back and fell tumultuously upon her shoulders.

  And even as I looked, standing silent and trembling, with a littlebalancing step she danced up to the Red Axe itself where it stood angledagainst the block, and seizing it by the handle high up near the head shestaggered towards the bed with it.

  Then came my words back to my mouth with a rush.

  "For the Holy Virgin's sake, little maid, put the Red Axe down!" I cried,whisperingly. "You know not what you do!"

  Then even as I spoke I saw that my father had drawn himself up in bed,and that he too was staring at the strange, elfish figure. GottfriedGottfried, as I remember him in these days, was a tall, dark, heavilybrowed man, with a shock of bushy blue-black hair, of late silvering atthe temples--grave, sombre, quiet in all his actions.

  But what was my surprise as the little maid came nearer to the bedwith her pretty dancing movement, carrying the axe much as if it hadbeen an over-heavy babe, to see the Duke's Justicer suddenly skip overthe far side of the bedstead and stand with his red cloak about him,watching her.