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Updated: June 2, 2025
Besides which I judged that my father had influence enough to bring me out scathless. "That is well and bravely said!" he replied, smiling with thin lips which in all their constant writhings showed no vestige of teeth within; "but the sentiment itself is somewhat strange in the son of the Red Axe and the future Executioner of Justice in the Wolfmark."
But her most seasonable extract from the laws of the Wolfmark, which so opportunely saved the life of your fair wife, and led to this present happy consummation, I have here by me, even in my hand." And with that the Bishop drew the rolled parchment from his pocket and handed it to me, with all the original seals depending from it.
He came down immediately with an attendant. "Fear not," I said, "you will never be called in question for this kindly deed. The Duke Otho is slain, and the army of Prince Karl of Plassenburg is already at the gates." "The Duke is dead!" he gasped. "Who slew him?" "Who but the Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark should slay a traitor?" said I, smiling at his astonishment.
By daybreak the whole of Thorn was in our hands, while the gray barrens of the Wolfmark were lit for leagues by the flaming Wolfsberg, which, on its craggy height, vomited fire and sparks into the blackness of night. And the reek of this great burning hung for days after in the heavens. Thus was an end made to the iniquities of the house of the Black Duke Casimir and the Red Duke Otho.
In these days when learning has reached so great a pitch, and is so general that in a largish city there may be as many as a thousand people who can read and write, of course there are many eloquent men. But in those days it was not so, and Grerard von Sturm was counted the one Golden Mouth of the Wolfmark. And this in brief was the matter of his speech.
So soon as he was gone I rose to my feet. Across the broad, black oaken stool, whereon from boyhood it had been my habit to place my clothes neatly folded up, I found a suit of new red cloth, plain and rich, with an inscription upon a strip of vellum laid across the breast, bearing that these were a gift from the most Illustrious Duke Otho of the Wolfmark.
Then the Count presented his, as the custom then was among us of the North: "His Excellency Friedrich, Count of Cannstadt, Hereditary Cup-bearer of the Wolfmark."
The argument as to torture had been concluded on the day before, and it had been held inadmissible not because of any kindly thought for the prisoner, but because, according to the laws of the Wolfmark, in the absence of the Hereditary Executioner, there was no one legally capable of inflicting it. Then came the evidence. The first witness against the Little Playmate was old Hanne.
He looked Duke Casimir steadfastly in the eyes and spoke no word. "Great God, man, have you nothing to say to me ere you die?" cried Duke Casimir, choked with hot, sudden anger to be so crossed. The elder man gazed steadily at his captor. "God will judge betwixt me, a man about to die, and you, Casimir of the Wolfmark," he said at last, very slowly "by the eyes of this little maid He will judge!"
I saw the steely smile on Duke Otho's face. Already he was tasting the double sweetness of his revenge. "Wait," I said, within my heart, as I also smiled a little, "only wait a little, Otho, Duke of the Wolfmark. Wait till this bright edge be sullied with my sweet love's blood.
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