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Updated: June 23, 2025
"Did you not know that the great Duke Casimir is dead, and that the black flag flies for him, and must fly on the Wolfsberg till his successor be crowned." "And who is his successor?" said I. "Who but young Otho, the worst of the Wolfs litter. But perhaps you are his friend?"
All in mighty striking contrast to the bare stark strength of our Red Tower on the Wolfsberg with its walls fourteen feet thick. Nevertheless, carpets of wondrous hue were here in the house of Master Gerard, scarlet and blue, and so thick of ply that the foot sank into them as if reluctant ever to rise again.
After this the city thrilled and murmured worse than ever, humming like an angry hive. But the Wolfsberg kept its counsel. Not yet had deliverance arrived for the captives within its cells. And the dread morning was coming fast. At last, wearied out with crowding emotions, I went and cast me down on my bed, and, instantly falling asleep, I slept like a log till one touched me on the shoulder.
"I have no one to speak for me. I have nothing to say, save that which I have said so often, that before God, who knows all things, I am innocent of thought, word, or deed against any man, and most of all against Duke Casimir of the Wolfsberg." And as she spoke the multitude was stirred, and voices broke out here and there: "No witch!" "She is innocent!" "The guilty are among the judges!"
"I must come and see this Little Playmate of yours," she said. "It is an ill-done thing that so fair a maid should be shut up in the tower of such a pagan castle the Wolfsberg; it is indeed well named. Word has reached me to-day that the Princess of Plassenburg has need of a bower maiden. Now the Princess can make her choice from many noble families.
"I tell you," she cried, scornfully and disdainfully, "there is nothing interesting about you but the blueness of your eyes, and that any monk can make upon parchment, aye, and deeper and bluer, with his lapis-lazuli. An experiment! Why should I, Ysolinde of Plassenburg, experiment with you, the son of the Red Axe of the Wolfsberg ?"
For pity is so weak and love so strong that all my nature was now on the strain forward towards Helene and the Wolfsberg, like an eager hound that pulls at the unslipped leash. "My love! my love!" I cried in my heart, "I am coming to you, I am going out to find you! Though I give my life for it, I shall at least see and touch you ere I die."
How she would teach me me, the Red Axe of Thorn how to dance that first night, and how totteringly she carried the Red Axe? The little one took heart that night. She will have a happy future, I know; so blessed, far away from this dark and damned place of the Wolfsberg. I am glad she is not here to see me die. That is a sight for men, not for fair young loving women."
It lies there under the Wolfsberg. With a few cannon like Paul Grete, the Margrave's treasure, Duke Casimir could lay our houses in ruins. Therefore, in the meantime, let us not break out against Duke Casimir. But one day there will come an end to the tyrant Duke. Tiles will not always break harmless on helmets, nor the point of steel always be turned aside by links of chain-armor.
Why, lad, before there was a Duke at all in the Wolfsberg, before he and his folk came out of the land of the Poles to fight with the Ritterdom of the North, we, the Gottfrieds of Thorn, wore the sign of the Red Axe and dwelt apart from all the men of the Mark. For fourteen generations have we worn it!"
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