The Mercenary Part 30

Nigel chafed at the inevitable delay till they should be ordered into action. For at least two hours the cannon along the ridge thundered over their heads and seemed to make little impression upon either Swedes or Saxons.

Then Pappenheim with his two thousand cuira.s.siers launched forth again against Gustavus himself, who commanded the right wing of the Swedes.

And Nigel marked that the Swedish right were wheeling towards the north, and that their fire was fierce and evenly sustained.

At last the little general with the red feather gave orders for the centre to attack, and Nigel gripped his saddle tighter with his knees, and led his regiment down on to the plain, keeping within the interval between two great double battalions of musketeers and pikemen. It was slow at first, till they drew near the enemy, and then came the turn of his troopers. The infantry having delivered their fire advanced slowly, while Nigel's regiment and the other cavalry rode to the front rapidly, halted, fired, and fell back. This they did many times, but still the Swedes did not give way. Tilly felt not only the fire of the Swedes in front but that of Gustavus' right wing on his flank, so to avoid this and partly perhaps because the thing looked tempting, he took ground to the right, and ordered a rapid attack upon the Saxons, who perhaps by accident had drawn rather towards Tilly than to Count Furstenberg.

Tilly was right in the one thing. He bore down upon the Saxons, and the Saxon army showed its rawness; for it gave way on all sides, and only a few regiments maintained their ground; the rest fled, and even John George himself.

Nigel's spirits rose with Tilly's. Tilly swept round again to fall upon the left wing of the Swedes. But only to find that Gustavus, apprised of the Saxon flight, had reinforced his left with three more regiments, and that Pappenheim on Tilly's left was battling for dear life against Gustavus himself, unable to maintain his ground.

Desperately did Tilly endeavour to overcome. Again and again and again he led his still unbroken ma.s.ses against Horn, the Swedish general, and again and again the Swedes hurled them back.

Again and again Hildebrand and Nigel charged with their rough-riders, who were no cowards, meeting alike musketeers and pikemen and even Horn's cuira.s.siers. But it was of no avail.

Then came the news that Pappenheim's men had broken and fled. Then that the artillery on the hills were in the hands of Gustavus, a fact that they soon became aware of. In face of them was the Swedish left, behind them were their own guns, and on their left flank Gustavus, marching through the _debris_ of Pappenheim's host, was sweeping down upon them.

The day was over. Nigel and Hildebrand rallied their tattered remnant of fifty saddles and rode after Tilly to act as his bodyguard. Nigel scanned the field with a quick eye and caught sight of him. A Swedish captain of horse was on the point of taking the little general prisoner when Nigel, spurring his horse, rode the Swede down.

Nigel's sword went through him. The man rolled over with the onset, and then fell with his upturned face grinning at his slayer in the very spasm of death. There was one final flash of recognition between four eyes. It was enough. Nigel was out of his saddle in an instant, an instant of deadly peril, ransacked the man's doublet, took out a bulky letter, and sprang to horse again. They had remounted Count Tilly, who was barely able to sit his horse by reason of his wounds. Nigel bade two st.u.r.dy troopers hold him on by any means; and taking the lead, rallying whatever troopers came his way, and sending word to the few remaining foot-regiments to follow, he pressed with all speed towards the open country to the northward. It was a miserable remnant of a mighty army which bivouacked at Halle.

The last glimpse of the field of battle that Nigel caught had shown him Pastor Rad, with a regiment of Swedes on their knees before him, offering up in stentorian tones a thanksgiving for the Swedish victory over his German and Catholic brethren.

CHAPTER XXVI.

AT HALBERSTADT.

It was the evening of the third day after Breitenfeld. Vague rumours of disaster had travelled across the intervening country of Halberstadt, city, bishopric, and independent state in one, a stronghold for, rather than of, the Empire, the domain and seat of Leopold the Bishop, a Habsburger and cousin of Ferdinand. The city was not strong enough to resist for long an attack by Gustavus, should he choose to make one, but it was strong enough to serve for a short while as a rallying-place for Tilly's fugitives.

Leopold the Bishop and his spoiled favourite niece, as he chose to call her, the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie, stood on the flat roof of the tallest tower of the palace looking along the road to the southernward. On the face of Leopold, a proud ecclesiastical face, rather rotund than ascetic, sat an extreme anxiety, and his sharp eyes roved restlessly from the road to the city walls, where men were mustered and ordnance trained, and officers bustled to and fro with an air of urgency. For who knew what a few hours might reveal, whether the banners of Sweden, or of Saxony, of Brandenburg or Hesse Ca.s.sel, would come swaying and fluttering from the pa.s.ses in the hills.

The Archd.u.c.h.ess for the most part kept her gaze fixed upon the road, though, woman-like, she lost little of what went on below. Her eyes glistened with eagerness, but her features betrayed little of the drawn look that the Bishop's wore. If the Bishop noticed it, he said nothing, putting her apparent lack of anxiety down to the score of youth. But absorbed as he was in the inward contemplation of the stakes at issue, he did not closely scrutinise the face of his niece. For him the turn of events meant a very possible siege, a defence of sorts, a storming and a sack, or a judicious submission, but in any case a great inroad into his treasure-chests. It promised indignities falling short of bodily suffering, but hard to bear, and an ultimate disposal of his lands and possessions in ways that would at once reduce his princely bishopric to the dimensions of a paltry benefice, until the Lutheran tide should recede and the Church take her own again.

For the niece it meant excitement, peril, but peril that would pa.s.s.

Princesses might be held to ransom, but no more. She might be expected to sympathise with her father in the defeat of his armies, to feel aggrieved at Fortune, who had dealt so hard a blow at her house, but not to be prostrated by her grief. She would still be the beautiful Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie, and in the clash of armies and in the affairs of a hazardous campaign there was like to be scant attention paid to the matrimonial projects of Maximilian. Was this all? A cry broke from her lips, and she pointed to the farthest bend of the road visible from the tower.

"Now we shall know!" said the Bishop, clenching his lips firmly as if to make sure they did not tremble.

Round the bend came thirty or forty troopers, and the first man carried a yellow pennon.

"Tilly's men!" the Bishop exclaimed fervently. "To Thee be thanks, O Lord!"

The Archd.u.c.h.ess's eyes were riveted. Whether her emotion had really been restrained hitherto by pride or not, her eyes filled with tears: tears that she hastily brushed away, leaving her eyes again free to discern what they might.

This time it was a group of officers, and in the middle could be distinguished the famous red feather, drooping, it is true, but there.

"Count Tilly himself, Uncle!"

Behind the little cavalcade came a regiment of foot, still preserving a martial appearance, with its pikemen and its musketeers, and after it another and yet another.

It was almost pitiful to hear the proud Bishop, secure except for the ears of his niece, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. his thankfulness, as each addition to his possible defenders came in sight.

Then as the cavalcade of officers approached the town gates the lips of the Archd.u.c.h.ess murmured, "Holy Mother, I thank thee!" and she put her slender fingers into her uncle's as if to communicate to him something of what she felt.

It was true that she had recognised Colonel Nigel Charteris among the war-worn leaders as they rode through the gate of Halberstadt, but why should the saving of this man's life more than those of a thousand others elicit her cry of devotion?

Within an hour Leopold in his episcopal robes received Tilly and his officers. Beside him, arrayed in all her richest attire, sat the Archd.u.c.h.ess Stephanie. The little general, the stains of his forced march removed as far as possible, his left arm in a sling, his head disfigured by the uncouth bandages of his barber surgeon, strode forward with a gallant air, but with an unmistakable limp. He had been wounded at Breitenfeld full a half-dozen times, and only his dauntless spirit and his stalwart supporters had helped him to sustain the toils of the retreat.

The Bishop received him with great compa.s.sion and honour, giving him great praise for his courage and placing him beside him in a n.o.ble chair: not, however, before the general had bowed as low as his wounds permitted and kissed the hand of the Archd.u.c.h.ess, whose eyes melted at the sight of her father's faithful soldier, to whom fortune had shown herself so froward.

"Battered, your Highness, beaten, but with G.o.d's grace I will face Gustavus again!" he said to her.

Came Nigel's turn. He presented himself, in default of a better, in the suit he had worn at Breitenfeld. He was thin and yellowish for a man of his natural colouring. A day of battle and three days' flight before the pursuers had drained his vitality over and above his actual wounds, which had happily left his face unmarred and his limbs uncrippled.

The Archd.u.c.h.ess claimed him.

"Colonel Nigel Charteris, Uncle. He came to Vienna with despatches from Magdeburg. A Scottish gentleman who has doubtless done good service in the battle!" She turned her eyes inquiringly towards Count Tilly.

"But for him I might not have left the field!" said Tilly briefly. "I scarce know whether he did me service or disservice, your Highness," he added, with something between a grunt and a sigh. "He fights like a wild boar!"

"A pity we had not a legion of such angels!" said the Bishop as he laid his hand in fatherly fas.h.i.+on on his shoulder.

The Archd.u.c.h.ess motioned Nigel to her side.

"Believe me, Colonel Charteris, I am mighty glad that you have come through the battle unscathed; though you make not the figure of bravery you did at Vienna!"

"I am ashamed, your Highness, to meet your eye in such mean clothing, but the Swede gave us no time to pack our valises, and, after all, one's own skin with a live man within is better than a coat of many colours upon a corpse."

The sun broke out in the eyes of the Archd.u.c.h.ess.

"How you do take me at my word! You say nothing of surprise at finding me at Halberstadt? Does nothing surprise you?"

"Your Highness spoke of nunneries at our last meeting, and I find you in a Bishop's palace. In a nunnery I could not picture your radiance. Here you are in your own place, and under the tutelage of the Church, no less."

"Still the courtier of our camps! And have you met again our cousin Ottilie?" She flung the question at him carelessly, or so it seemed, as if she were indifferent as to the answer.

"That have I, your Highness!" he answered, looking straightly into the eyes of the Archd.u.c.h.ess. And whether it was that he was fordone with his toils, his sudden remembrance of the Wartburg brought the colour back into his pale cheeks.

"So!" said the Archd.u.c.h.ess. "There have been pa.s.sages of arms between you! Ottilie is fortunate that she is not an Archd.u.c.h.ess." There was a shadowy pretence of petulance in the princess's tone. "Did we not stipulate that you were our own cavalier?"

"In all liege service, yes, your Highness! Even to the death! Have I not fought for you at Breitenfeld? Have I not felt the Lady Ottilie pour out hot scorn upon me almost to the limit of man's forbearance, because I served the Emperor, and in serving him, your Highness?"

"I should not have deemed you one to brook over much scorn," she said, veiling her eyes, then flooding his face with their searching gaze.