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And our Helene smiled, well pleased, and ceased to watch my eyes or to grow silent if I checked my horse too long by the side of the Lady Ysolinde. Mostly we three rode abreast over the pleasant country. So long as we were crossing the plain of the Wolfmark we saw few tilled fields, and the farm-houses were fewer still.
I had all along been possessed with great desire to meet the Prince of so noble and well-cared-for a land, and perhaps also to see what manner of man could be the husband of so extraordinary a Princess. Yet now, when she was in her own country, and as good as any queen thereof, I found the Lady Ysolinde in no wise different from, what she had been in the city of Thorn and in her father's house.
At intervals, as it came near the hour of their mid-day meal, the blood-hounds howled in the kennels, and by their tone I knew that my father had left the Hall of Judgment where he had been detained all the morning. Also I knew very well that the Lady Ysolinde wished me to find an errand elsewhere, in order that she might talk alone with her companion.
This information, conveyed with a polite wave of the hand and a shrug of the shoulders by our landlord, seemed not unnaturally to put Jorian and Boris into a furious passion, for they drew their swords, and with a unanimous sweep of the hand cleared the capes of their leathern jacks for fighting. So, not to be outdone, I drew my weapon also, and stood by to protect Helene and the Lady Ysolinde.
"And what is there then for me?" cried the Lady Ysolinde, instantly, bending her head forward, her emerald eyes so great and clear that their shining seemed to cover all her face as a wave covers a rock at flood-tide. "What for me?" she repeated, in the silence which followed. "For you," said I, "the gladness to have saved an innocent life."
This thought of yours is but a vision, a delusion how can we speak of the thing that is not?" "I wait your answer," she said, leaving her hands still in mine, but now, as it were, on sufferance. Then, indeed, I was torn between the love that I had in my heart for my dear and the need of pleasing the Lady Ysolinde between the truth and my desire to save Helene.
Carry me not to the extreme tortures. Death clears all. And I own that for my crimes I well deserve to die. But save me from the strappado, from the torment of the rack. I am an old man and could not endure." The Lady Ysolinde looked at him, and her emerald eyes held a steely glitter in their depths.
And then then will I leap upon you, and the Red Axe shall crash deep into the brain that hatched and fostered this hellish intent. And by the gentle heart of her who is about to die, so also will I serve Gerard the lawyer, and Ysolinde, his daughter, for their treachery against the innocent. Then, amid the flash of steel and the heady whirl of battle, shall Hugo Gottfried be very content to die!"
There shall come a day when you shall abase yourself even as you have seen Ysolinde the Princess abase herself to Hugo, the son of the Red Axe of the Wolf mark. Go, I tell you! Go ere I slay you with my knife!" And she flashed a keen double-edged blade from some recess of her silken serpentine dress. "My lady, hear me," I pleaded. "Out of the depths of my heart I protest to you "
Men ran to lift the calf's head, and the owner of the axe came up to examine the edge of his weapon. I looked about. The eyes of the Lady Ysolinde were aflame with pleasure, but, on the other hand, the Little Playmate was crimson with shame. Tears stood in her beautiful eyes. She marched straight up to meet me, and, clinching her hands, she said; "Oh, I hate you !"
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