CHAPTER VIII
HOW BARON EVERHARDT WAS OUTLAWED, AND HOW WULF HEARD OF THE BABY IN THE OSIERS
One bright morning, not long after Wulf had climbed the ivy tower, there came to the Swartzburg a herald bearing a message whereat Baron Everhardt laughed long and loud. So also laughed the youngerlings of the place, when the thing came to be noised among them; albeit two or three, and in especial Wulf and Hansei, who was now head groom, laughed not, but were sore troubled.
The baron had been declared an outlaw.
For an emperor now ruled in Germany, and good folk had begun to dare hope that the evil days might be drawing to a close. The new emperor was none other than Rudolf of Hapsburg, he who had been count of that name, and since coming to the throne he had bent his whole mind and strength to the task of bringing peace and good days to the land, and order and law within reach of the unhappy common folk whose lives were now passed in hardship and fear.
To this end the Emperor Rudolf had early sent to summon all of the barons and the lesser nobles of the land to come to his help against the rebel counts Ulric and Eberhard of Würtemberg, who had joined with King Ottakar of Bohemia to defy the new ruler. The head of the Swartzburg had been summoned, with the others, but, filled with contempt for “the poor Swiss count,” as he dubbed the emperor, had defied him, and tore up the summons before the eyes of the herald who brought it.
Nevertheless, in spite of the refusal of nearly all the nobles to aid their emperor, the latter had, with his own men, gone against the two rebel counts and their kingly ally, and had beaten their armies and brought them to sue for peace. Now he was turning his attention to the larger task of putting fear of the law and of rightful authority into the hearts of the robber nobles.
Of these a goodly number were already declared outlaws, and now the baron’s turn had come. Moreover, one of the men of the Swartzburg, who had ridden beyond the mountains on a matter for the Herr Banf, had ridden back with word that the emperor, with a strong army, was already out against the outlawed strongholds, and meant soon to call at the Swartzburg.
“And a warm welcome shall we give this new emperor of ours,” boasted Conradt, on the castle terrace. “Emperor, forsooth! By the rood! Count Rudolf will have need of all his Swiss rabble if he would bring the Swartzburg’s men to knee before him!”
A chorus of assent greeted this speech. For once his hearers listened respectfully to the baron’s nephew. Right eager were all the young men for the fray that was threatening; and so great was their contempt for the emperor that they could see for it but one outcome.
“But that his Austrians were in revolt and his army divided,” declared one, “King Ottakar had never yielded to the Swiss. He of Hapsburg will find it a harder matter to yoke the German barons.” And all his hearers nodded assent to the bragging speech.
What Baron Everhardt, at council with his knights, thought of the outlook, not even Conradt, among those on the terrace, rightly knew; but a few hours later, by orders sent out through the stewards and the masters of arms and horse, the routine of the castle was being put upon a war footing, to the joy of the eager young men. All were busy, each at his own line of duty, in the work of preparation for battle, and, to Wulf’s delight, it fell to his lot to fare down the valley to the forge on an errand for Herr Werner, whose man he was.
It was a matter of some weeks since Wulf had seen Karl, and glad was he now to be going to him; for in his own mind he was sore perplexed in this matter of the new emperor’s proclamation of the baron, and he longed for the armorer’s wise and honest thought about it all.
“Thou hast seen this emperor of ours?” he said, as he sat curled, after his childish wont, in the doorway of the smithy, whence he could look, at will, within at the forge, or without adown a long green aisle of the forest.
“Ay,” said Karl, proudly; “his own man-at-arms was I, as thou knowest, and that was on the holy war. Served him have I, and gripped his hand—the hand of an honest man and a sore needed one in this land to-day.”
“Dost think he can master the barons?” the boy asked, and Karl looked troubled.
“These be ill times for thought, boy,” he said, “and worse for speech; but the emperor is ruler in the land, and if he bring not order into our midst, then in truth are the scoffers wise, and God hath forgotten us up in heaven.”
“Would I were of his train!” Wulf said quickly, and silence fell between them, during which the boy sat gazing, with troubled eyes, adown between the black trunks of the great trees. Karl, watching him, gathered rightly that he was worried as to his duty.
“An he be in truth the emperor by will of the people, and not alone of him at Rome,” Wulf added at last, “then are all true men who love Germany bound to come to his banner.”
“Ay.” Karl thrust the iron he was welding deep into the glowing coals of the forge.
“But I am of the Swartzburg’s men; and how may I be an honest one and fail at this moment when every blade is needed?”
“’Tis hard,” Karl said, “and that only thine own heart can teach thee.” He brought his hammer down upon the glowing iron till it sent out a shower of sparks. “No man may show another what honest action may be; but perhaps thou’rt nearer being the emperor’s man than the baron’s, were the truth known. An I guess rightly, ’twere ill faring if one of thy line raised blade against Rudolf of Hapsburg.”
The armorer muttered this half in his beard, nor looked at Wulf as he spoke.
“Nay, Karl,” the boy cried sharply; “make me no more riddles, but speak out plainly, man to man. What is this that thou hast ever held from me? What meanst thou by any line of mine?”
“Alas!” said the armorer, sadly. “Naught know I, in truth, and there’s the heartbreak. ’Tis a chain of which some links are missing, and ill work is it to make that blade fitten again. Would to God I did know, that I might speak of a surety that which my heart is settled upon. But this that I do know shalt thou hear to-day.” And coming over by the doorway, Karl took seat upon the great chest near by, and fell to telling Wulf of that which we already know—of his trip to the Swartzburg a dozen years before, and how he had taken him from the osiers.
“Never saw I that knight, nor naught dared I ever ask of him; but slain was he by Herr Banf, and was no noise ever made of who he was. Only this I know: that the sword Herr Banf gave me to put in order had been that stranger’s, and none other was it than one forged by these own hands for Count Wulfstanger of Hartsburg when he rode with Count Rudolf to Prussia, and he was our emperor’s heart’s friend. Three swords made I at that time, alike in temper and fashion; and one was for Count Wulfstanger, one was his who is now emperor, and one I kept and brought with me to this place—” Karl halted just here, but Wulf was too taken with the tale to note that.
“But thou knowest not that aught had I to do with that stranger knight,” he urged, longing for Karl’s answer.
“That do I not. But, lad, thou’rt fair like my Lord Bernard, as his own son might be; and tell me, how camest thou in the osiers just at that time? Oh, I have worn thin my poor wits over this thing. But naught have I been able to learn or guess. I did what I might, and if ever thou comest to thine own, and thine own be what I think—ah, boy, thou’rt fit for it!” And the old armorer’s face shone with loving pride as his eyes took in the figure in the doorway.
“I can bear arms and sit a horse and hold mine honor clean,” said Wulf, simply. “But oh, Karl, fain would I know the rights of this matter.”
He sighed, his thoughts going back to the castle, and to the memory of a fair small hand fluttering a ribband down over the heads of a rabble of scrambling youths. Truly the tinker’s lad, if such he was, was looking high.
“I wish that I might see that sword,” he said at last.
“That thou mayest.”
The armorer arose from his seat on the chest, and turned toward the cupboard; but just then there showed, riding out from the forest and up to the door of the forge, two or three riders whom Wulf knew to be from Conradt’s mongrel band of thieves and cutthroats.
They had with them a matter of work that, he quickly saw, would keep Karl busy for an hour or two; so, mindful of his errand and of the need to get back to the Swartzburg, where so great things were toward, he arose from the doorway.
What of loyalty and duty his mind might fix upon at last, he knew not yet; but the thought of one who in the trouble to come might be in danger drew him like a magnet. So, bidding Karl good-by, he went his way.
His mind was full of confused thoughts as he fared through the forest, and how long he had been walking he knew not when suddenly he heard a whistling twang, and an arrow speeding close past his head lodged in a tree not a foot from him.
Turning quick as flash, his eye caught sight of a fleeing figure beyond the nearest trees, and without an instant’s halt Wulf sped after the runner.
He was fleet of foot, and not many moments was it ere he was up with his cowardly foe, and catching him by the shoulder with one strong hand, he whirled the fellow about and stood face to face with Conradt.
The hunchback had thrown away his bow and arrows the better to run, and now put hand to sword; but ere he could draw, Wulf put forth one long leg and tripped him up, so that he lay upon his back on the turf, glaring up at Wulf, whose face glowed with unwonted anger and whose sword’s point was at the breast of the prostrate ill-doer.
“Thou again?” he asked, when he had looked Conradt well over. “And what wouldst have this time? What thou’rt likely to get is a quick shriving,” he added.
There was no reply.
“What wast after?” Wulf persisted.
“Thy life,” was the defiant answer. “To let thy tinker blood out—and to get the ribband ye stole.”
“Softly,” the other said. “That were an ugly word an any one heard it. My life thou’rt not likely to get; as for the ribband, ’tis as much mine as the other, and I am minded to keep both.”
Conradt’s only reply was a muttered curse; but his eyes rolled shiftily, glancing askance adown the woods, as seeking help.
“If thou’rt looking for thy cutthroats,” Wulf said, “they’re back at the forge, and likely to stay there an hour or so yet. Meantime, my pretty fellow,” he asked wrathfully, “what shall I do to thee?”
A look of sullen despair crept over the hunchback’s face.
“Thou’lt do what is in thee,” he snarled at last—“as I did with thee.”
Wulf raised his sword; but looking down upon the fellow who would have slain him, he saw his ill-shapen body and distorted face, and noted the lurking fear in his restless eyes, and because it was in him to be pitiful and generous, his heart stirred with compassion, and he could not smite the creature lying there. Slowly his hands fell until the point of his sword rested upon the ground; then he spurned the figure lightly with his toe.
“Get thee up and be off,” he said. “An thou bidest long here, it may not go so well with thee, after all.”
Rolling over upon his face, Conradt sprang to his feet and slunk away, curlike, into the forest. His life had been spared, but the beast that dwelt within his bad heart was not tamed. He had been given another chance, such as the strong may give the weak, whether the weakness be of body or of soul, so the strong yet ward his own strength; but this he was too base to know, but deemed that fear had held Wulf’s hand; so that he was not helped at all by the mercy that had spared him.
As for Wulf, he gave the meeting scant thought as he went on his way. The weightier matters that pressed upon his brain kept mind and heart engaged while he journeyed; but his duty seemed no clearer to him when he had reached the castle than it had done at the forge with Karl.