The Mercenary Part 9

"You were with me in the late wars?" was his question, not in the abrupt military fas.h.i.+on, though there were no more words, but in a tone which bespoke a certain graciousness and a certain distance.

"I was, your Grace--lieutenant, then captain of musketeers!"

"And are now with Count Tilly? You were at Magdeburg?"

"Yes! I am now riding with despatches to the Emperor!"

This was the second time he had implied that he had the despatches to deliver, knowing in fact that he had none. He had lied boldly to Gordon, the commandant who should have been a shopkeeper, and thought nothing of it. Besides, Gordon was a Protestant. He did not like lying even by implication to Wallenstein, but he had the wish not to give the great commander an ill opinion of his capacity.

"It is well!" said Wallenstein. "I do not ask you to show them to me.

But I should like to know something of Count Tilly's dispositions. I am out of harness. I am enriched and decorated with t.i.tles, and put aside.

The Jesuits would like to use me as a flail to beat the Protestants, but they do not want the flail for itself, or to beat them. The flail is a pa.s.sably good flail, and will not wear out yet. How many men has Count Tilly?"

"Twenty thousand foot; two thousand horse!" said Nigel promptly.

"And artillery?"

"Fifty pieces of all kinds!"

"And powder and ball and matches?"

"Sufficient store!"

"Ah!" said Wallenstein. "If Saxony and Brandenburg together make up their minds they can find work for Count Tilly. And then there is Gustavus! Who is to oppose him, and with what? Where do they say Gustavus is?"

"In Pomerania, your Grace!"

"So I have heard, and is negotiating a treaty with France! If the Protestants but knew it, they could beset Tilly and ruin the Emperor."

"But you forget the Elector Maximilian?"

"He is forgettable! He is a Jesuit, who should have been a priest, but was unhappily born a prince. He has an arm, and that arm is Pappenheim.

With men enough Pappenheim could face Gustavus. But Pappenheim is with Tilly. An army can have but one head."

"When the Emperor's advisers grow frightened they will send again for your Grace!" said Nigel.

"They must pay dearly!" was Wallenstein's grim remark, with a curl of his thick lower lip. Then he asked abruptly, in a tone which suggested an amused contempt for such toys, "Do you believe in the stars?"

Had Nigel been sitting over a flagon with Hildebrand von Hohendorf instead of with Albrecht von Waldstein he would have laughed out a "No."

But two experiences, the sudden apparition of Ottilie outside Hradschin, a possible delusion of the sense of sight, and the disappearance of his despatches from beneath his head in defiance of sentries and all his senses, which was no delusion, had shaken his. .h.i.therto light esteem for witchcraft, star-gazing, horoscopes, alchemy, and all the other ingenious paltering with past and future. It had been whispered too among the armies that Wallenstein had commanded that he, like many other great ones of the time, devout Catholics all, consulted necromancers, and this came to Nigel's mind. He made a cautious reply.

"I have never had my horoscope cast. Nor do I know anything of the science of the stars. It is an old belief that the stars affect the destinies of the great ones of the earth, and it would be a presumption in me, who am n.o.body but a poor Scots gentleman, to treat it lightly."

"Destiny? What is it?" Wallenstein asked. "Man makes his own path out of the best materials to his hand or lets others buffet him into nothingness. There is no third way. But every man who carves his own pathway would fain learn by what implements he can arrive at the summit, so that he may use them at the earliest."

"And suppose," said the other, "the end be a cannon-ball that cuts one in two, what better is a man for knowing it two years before?"

"In truth," and into the eyes of Wallenstein came a strange look, "I know not, but there is always the grim feeling that one may stumble upon a most exact presage of fatality. It draws one on."

"Then you have made some experiments, your Grace?"

"One must do something when one has too much leisure. There is a learned master, a Jew, I think, but he tells little of his origin, who is to be found sometimes at Vienna, sometimes elsewhere, who calls himself Pietro Bramante. He commended himself to me because he hates the Jesuits. He showed skill in casting my horoscope, and has on several occasions given me good intelligence. He is here now."

Nigel involuntarily made the sign of the Cross.

Wallenstein noticed it.

"He does not traffic in devils, nor meddle with holy things. But he professes great skill in the mathematics, which he says are the root of all divination. He is learned in the Cabal, the unwritten tradition of the Jews, whereby Solomon came to know the beginning, mediety, and consummation of times."

The chamberlain of the household now came in, and bowing low said, "The learned Pietro Bramante bids me to acquaint you, my lord, that the constellations are in a favourable aspect for you to enter the House of Knowledge, but that the stranger must enter also, for the orbit of his star conjoins with your lords.h.i.+p's."

"Come!" said Wallenstein, his eyes lighting up into a curious eagerness, curious that is, in a man of his years, and more so to a Scot such as Nigel Charteris was, for the Scots are not given to appearing eager,--even of good fortune. And if the Scot were forty-eight, which was the tale of Wallenstein's years, and he were told that some one was ready to give him good news or bad, he would say, "Weel! weel! it'll no lose in the tellin'," and never move his legs an inch faster.

"Come! Let us see what this diviner has to say!"

Nigel was in truth by no means pleased. For he was a devout Catholic, and hated alike Jews and witchcraft, and thought little of horoscopes.

The stars were a good guide on a clear night crossing a moor or in a strange country. That was all. But Wallenstein had once held all the German lands in his hands, and might again. It was a waste of opportunity not to second his whimsies: and if there was nothing in divination but hocus-pocus, why, there was no harm could come of it.

So he rose to his feet and followed: and Wallenstein led him upstairs to a long gallery, and at the farther end was a curtain drawn across.

Portraits of many kings and princesses were ranged along the one wall, and upon the other where the windows were not. The windows looked out upon a balcony and the balcony upon a pleasaunce, but of this, it being now night, Nigel could see little. At long intervals were lighted candles, and many unlit between. And their footfalls, soldier-like and decided, echoed by walls and ceiling, made a great noise in Nigel's ear.

So they came to the curtain and a voice bade draw, and Pietro Bramante stood there and moved not a whit. There were no candles alight near him, and all the light that was came from a copper bowl in which he burned some tow with a blue and now a green flame.

The sage began a recitation in which he made much mention of the seventh house and divers stars and constellations being in opposition or in conjunction, and of this Abracadabra Nigel made nothing. The blue and green flame played upon his naturally brownish face and it was grey, and from Wallenstein's all colour seemed to be gone; instead was his face like a parchment full of lines, all but the eyes, which glittered blackly, never losing gaze upon the sage's face. Except for the latter's utterances there was deep silence, and the three seemed to be alone, for the chamberlain had retired, having ushered them into the gallery.

Then the sage blew out the flame, and his finger faintly glowing began to be visible writing on a wall, or some flat upright surface, and the figure he made was a circle, as truly drawn an O as Messire Michelangelo Buonarrotti might have made. And the circle was of light and glowed through more strongly in one part than another.

"Behold the orbit of the life of Albrecht von Waldstein, a perfect circle. Those lines are perfect circles that make a multiple of ten. It is in every tenth year that great causes may affect them--great upliftings of Fortune, or great fatalities.

"Now regard truly this...o...b..t of another life, which pa.s.seth through the centre of the first," and again with unerring finger he drew another curve, which may have been a section of a greater circle, or of an elliptical figure, or of a parabola, but it was a true curve, and cut the circle at its centre. "This...o...b..t pa.s.seth through the field of Mars and ariseth beyond the plane of the first orbit, and this signifieth that it is the life of a stranger by blood and nation."

So the original glowed upon the void darkness, and the new line that came from afar and pa.s.sed through the centre of the circle glowed; and yet another line Pietro Bramante drew, and this time it was an oval.

"Behold now the orbit of yet another life. It is an oval and signifieth the life of a woman. An oval hath two foci, and the one is the centre of the orbit of Albrecht von Wallenstein and the other is upon the circ.u.mference of the same circle. Now the actions of woman proceed from two foci, the heart and the intelligence, and the heart focus is upon the centre of the circle and the other focus of the mind is upon the circ.u.mference or pathway of the same circle. Wherefore I deduce that this woman, whoever she be, hath her affections firmly set upon the very essence which is the spirit of Albrecht von Wallenstein, and her intelligence is set steadfastly on the orbit of his destiny so that it may go fast or slow as she willeth.

"Now, sir!" he addressed Nigel, "what was the day and hour of your birth?"

"The year 1603. The month July. The day the 7th, and the hour 7!"

"Behold figures full of portent," said Pietro. "The year's numerals added together give ten, which is a complete number. Sixteen hundred and three is a multiple of seven. The month is the seventh month. The day is the seventh. The hour is the seventh. They are propitious times and should give a favourable horoscope. Now I will cast it, and calculate the orbit."

Pietro turned to his copper vessel, and by means which neither of his onlookers could guess the flame sprang up again, and taking a sheet of parchment he made calculations, and set down the fixed points his calculations showed. As the light burned, so the geometrical figures he had drawn before faded from sight.

The two sat silently. Nigel thus far was impressed against his will by the mathematical methods of the learned doctor. He stole a swift glance now and again at Wallenstein, who sat stiffly, absorbed in the doings.

Nigel was more interested in the figures of the circle and of the ellipse as they applied to Wallenstein, for Wallenstein of all men was as little to be swayed by any feminine influence as any man. He had married twice. In both cases he had married a woman of n.o.ble birth, and of moderate, almost of great, fortune. But no one called Wallenstein uxorious or accused him of careless living in the article of women. No one had imputed to him that he had mistresses, or that either of his wives had ruled him. His face betrayed no tendency to pa.s.sion. The eyes had no amorousness. As to the lips, if the lower lip spoke of the senses, it was rather of good living. The many lines upon his brow spoke of thought and ambition.

A smile or the semblance of a smile, and that sardonical, had pa.s.sed across his face when the doctor had spoken of the mysterious woman who was to influence his life.