Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
Since we had come within the distressed and depopulated territory of the Wolfmark we had not spoken to any soul. Indeed, except a few poor, desolate peasant folk, burned black with the sun, scuttling from den to den at the sight of mounted men, we had not seen any living creatures.
"Hear me, judges, I bid you again remember the word: 'Ye shall not suffer a witch to live. And in the name of the great unbroken law of the Wolfmark, which I hold in my hand, I conclude by claiming the pains of death to pass upon the witch-woman who by her deed sent forth untimely the spirit of the most noble Duke Casimir, Lord of the city of Thorn and Duke of the Wolfmark."
I forgot all else save this lithe, serpentine maiden with the massive crown of burned and tawny gold upon her head. "I see," she began, "a long street and many men struggling on it the Wolf of the Wolfmark, the Eagle of Plassenburg are face to face. I see Red Karl the Prince. The young Wolf has the better of it. He bites his lip and drives hard. The Prince is down. He is wounded.
Duke Casimir paused before him, scowling gloomily at him. "Ha, Lord Prince of so great a province, you will not set yourself up any more haughtily. You will quibble no longer concerning tithes and tolls with Casimir of the Wolfmark." And the Duke lifted his hand and smote the man on the cheek with his open hand. Yet the captive only hushed the child that wailed aloud to see her guardian smitten.
Then first it was that I saw that my father Gottfried Gottfried was the true ruler of the Wolfmark, and that the man who had carried me on his shoulders and played with the little Helene was at least, so long as Duke Casimir lived the greatest man in all the Dukedom and first Councillor of State, whether the matter were one of peasant or Kaiser.
And there we played single-stick, smite-jacket, skittles, bowls aye, and drank deep of the city ale the very thinnest brew that was ever passed by a bribed and muzzy ale-taster. All this was mightily pleasant to me. For so soon as they knew that I had determined to be a soldier, and not the Red Axe of the Wolfmark, they complimented me greatly on my spirit.
"He says that I, even I, Hugo Gottfried, my father's son, being now hereditary Red Axe of the Wolfmark, must strike off the head of the one I love. And if I will not, then to the vilest of devils for vilest ends he will deliver her. Ah, God, and he would do it too! I saw the very flame of hell's fire in his eyes." Then I that write saw a strange appearance on the face that looked up in mine.
Looking up, I saw the Duke Otho. He had come to make sure of his vengeance the vengeance which I knew well was not his, but that of Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg. "Rise, Justicer of the Wolfmark!" said Otho, smiling mockingly upon me like a fiend. I started up and gazed about bewildered as the coming terrors of the morning broke upon me.
It was certainly a curious position; but even thus early I had begun to consider myself a sort of amateur of strange situations, and I admit that I found a certain stimulus in the thought that in an hour I might have ceased to be heir to the office of Hereditary Justicer of the ducal province of the Wolfmark.
For, though accounted severe, he had universally the name of a just and wise man, who would not rob the litigants of all their valuables and then decide in favor of neither, as was too often the way with the "justice" of the great nobles. As for Duke Casimir of the Wolfmark, no man or woman went near him on any plea whatsoever, save that of asking mercy or favor.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking