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Updated: May 8, 2025
Now, it would be vain to place my little Thekla in her care, for Trautbach would easily feign my death, and claim his niece, nor are you of age to be made her guardian as head of our house. But, if this marriage rite were solemnized, then would her person and lands alike be yours, and I could leave her with an easy heart." "But," said the confused, surprised Ebbo, "what can I do?
As to Wildschloss and his nephew of Trautbach, in spite of their relationship they had a sharp combat on the borders of their own estates, in which both were severely wounded; but Sir Kasimir, with the misericorde in his grasp, forced Lassla to retract whatever he had said in dispraise of the Lady of Adlerstein.
He had delayed his distasteful marriage as long as possible, and it had caused him nothing but trouble and strife; his children would not live, and Thekla, the only survivor, was, as his sole heiress, a mark for the cupidity of her uncle, the Count of Trautbach, and his almost savage son Lassla; while the right to the Wildschloss barony would become so doubtful between her and Ebbo, as heir of the male line, that strife and bloodshed would be well-nigh inevitable.
"Moreover, if she turn out like the spiteful Trautbach folk," said Maximilian, rather wickedly, "plenty of holes can be picked in a baby-wedding. No fear of its over-firmness. I never saw one come to good; only he must keep firm hold on the lands."
That insolent fellow, Lassla von Trautbach, hath already demanded to espouse the poor babe; he a blood-stained, dicing, drunken rover, with whom I would not trust a dog that I loved! Yet my death would place her at the disposal of his father, who would give her at once to him.
The Trautbach family had heard of Wildschloss's designs, and they had set abroad such injurious reports respecting the Lady of Adlerstein, that Sir Kasimir was in the act of inditing a cartel to be sent by Count Kaulwitz, to demand an explanation not merely as the lady's suitor, but as the only Adlerstein of full age.
Next month, when I am out of sight, comes Trautbach, just when his head is full of keeping the French out of Italy, or reforming the Church, or beating the Turk, or parcelling the empire into circles, or, maybe, of a new touch-hole for a cannon nay, of a flower-garden, or of walking into a lion's den.
They had no intercourse with the outer world, except that once a pursuivant arrived with a formal intimation from their kinsman, the Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss, of his marriage with the noble Fraulein, Countess Valeska von Trautbach, and a present of a gay dagger for each of his godsons.
Now, if Ebbo had heard of the rumour, he would certainly have given the lie direct, and taken the whole defence on himself; and it may be feared that, just as his cause might have been, Master Gottfried's faith did not stretch to believing that it would make his sixteen-year-old arm equal to the brutal might of Lassla of Trautbach.
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