The Childhood of King Erik Menved Part 63

The duke dropped his glove as desired, and, in picking it up again, also secured the letter.

"There lies one of the traitors from Norway, awaiting the gallows," he exclaimed aloud, as he threw an indignant glance towards the dungeon, and pa.s.sed on, regardless of the deep sigh that burst from the heart of the despairing prisoner.

Skirmen, who, by his master's orders, was observing every motion of the duke, was at this instant concealed in the deep shadow of a corner, near the tower. The moment the duke had disappeared, the trusty squire came forth, and was hastening to his master, when he was arrested by a voice from the grating.

"In the name of the merciful G.o.d, listen to me, young man!" exclaimed the captive knight. "Art not thou Drost Hessel's squire?"

"At your service," answered Skirmen, as he stopped.

"Inform your master, then," stammered the prisoner, "that the man who once saved Drost Peter Hessel's life and preserved his freedom, would now converse with him a moment for the sake of his own mind's peace.

Tell him that I can reveal to him something of great importance. But time presses."

"I shall deliver your message," replied Skirmen, as he hastened away.

The prisoner descended from his dangerous seat, and carefully removed the means by which he had reached the grating. He then seated himself sorrowfully on the block beneath it, and listened anxiously to every sound he heard. Some time elapsed thus, when at length the rattling of the gaoler's keys, and the withdrawing of the bolts one by one from the door, announced a visitor. In another moment Drost Peter stood in the cell with him.

The moonlight through the grating fell upon the pale face of the prisoner, who remained in a crouching posture, without daring to raise his eyes. The drost stood for an instant, silently contemplating him.

In the half-despairing countenance before him, there was that which reminded him bitterly both of Lady Inge and the brave Sir John--some of the lineaments of the n.o.ble race of Littles. Tears stood in his eyes.

"Miserable man!" he exclaimed, at length, "what can I effect for your peace? And of what have you to unburden yourself to me?"

"Tell me truly, Peter Hessel," asked the prisoner, in a trembling voice, but with a tone of parental familiarity that reminded the drost of the relation in which they had stood in his youthful days, "are thou and Cousin John to be my judges?"

"Nay, Heaven be praised! Our relations.h.i.+p to you exempts us from that duty."

"I may, then, hope for mercy; for from thee and Sir John I could expect only what you call justice. But G.o.d help us all, if we must be treated according to our deserts!"

"Sir Lave," interrupted Drost Peter, "think you, then, that there is not a powerful, perhaps an all too-powerful voice, which pleads for you both in my breast and that of old kinsman?"

"I believe it, and will prove to thee my sincerity," replied the prisoner, "since, as thou art not to sit in judgment on me, I can venture to unburden my heart to thee."

He arose, and threw on the drost a penetrating look, while he continued in the same familiar tone:--"Misfortune has now taught me what thou in vain wouldst have had me believe in time. I now perceive that no success or blessing attends rebellion against lawfully const.i.tuted authority, even when instigated by the purest attachment to freedom and fatherland. By the law, my doom is death; but the prerogative of mercy lies with the king, in whose hands I place my life and fate. I had no share in his father's death, and he can therefore pardon me. Had I seen him before, as I have seen him to-day, I should not now be in this dungeon. The stern Marsk Stig himself, I firmly believe, could not look the youthful monarch in the face and deny him the name of king.

I cannot now blame thee, Peter Hessel, who wert his tutor and weapon-master, for entertaining the greatest hopes of him. If he spare my life, I will swear fealty to him, and reveal matters of importance.

Tell him I will confess my sins to the chancellor, and atone for my crimes in a state-prison. Tell him--"

"Kind Heaven!" exclaimed Drost Peter, joyfully, as he seized Sir Lave's trembling hand, "dare I believe? Has, then, the Almighty heard my pet.i.tion, and inclined your heart to faith and honour. You will be loyal and attached to our young king--you will confess all, and swear him fealty--you will atone your treason--and he will--he must pardon you. But he does not govern alone," he added, with a sigh; "and, without the concurrence of the queen and the duke, his wishes will avail you not."

Sir Lave's pale cheeks flushed, and for an instant he remained silent.

"The duke cannot condemn me," at length he whispered, with a smile of confidence: "I have taken care of that. The will of the king I know thou canst easily determine, and a favourable word to the queen would perhaps also find a willing ear. There was a time when Peter Hessel was all-powerful with the fair Queen Agnes--"

A frown gathered on Drost Peter's brow, for the expression of Sir Lave's features did not please him. The joy he had felt at his conversion quickly disappeared, while the discovery that Skirmen had just imparted to him suddenly presented itself to his mind.

"As a man, I may perhaps venture to speak, where, as drost, I must be silent," he replied, sternly; "but I can only venture to do so when I am convinced of your sincerity, and that you are not, even here, taking counsel against the king and country."

"What! do you still doubt me, Drost Peter?" asked Sir Lave, in a tone of terror and bitterness. "I say I am converted to your state-creed.

Must you see me howl in sackcloth and ashes before you believe me?

Intercede for me, Peter Hessel! and you will find that I am not ungrateful," he continued, fawningly. "Thy father was my friend, and what I promised him on his deathbed I have not forgotten. Save my life now, as once I saved thine, and my hand shall no longer separate what a mightier than mine hath joined together."

Drost Peter was much affected; but observing a cunning smile on Sir Lave's restless features, he felt, with wounded self-esteem, how nearly he had been befooled.

"Not even for that prize, Sir Lave, shall I forfeit my fidelity," he exclaimed, warmly. "If, without self-abas.e.m.e.nt, I intercede and promise for you, I must first be convinced that we dare trust you. What connection subsists between the duke and you? and what was the purport of the letter which, but half an hour ago, you bade him pick up with his glove?"

Sir Lave became pale with terror. "Letter!--what letter?" he stammered out. But perceiving the uselessness of denial, he continued:--"Well, as you appear to be omniscient, it was so: but I swear it contained nothing but what was true--that I was an incautious fool, and had brought letters to land which would perhaps occasion the duke embarra.s.sment, if I did not explain the nature of them. I can testify that they were written by his enemies, and, being intercepted, might lay him under the suspicion of having private intercourse with the outlaws."

"Wretched man!" interrupted Drost Peter: "on the brink of a gulph you are still playing with two sharp-edged swords, both of which will fall with deadly force upon your head. I cannot--I dare not, now intercede for you. I should myself be an enemy to Denmark and the royal house, and a traitor to my country, should I do so. But I will provide for the peace of your soul. Within an hour the chancellor will visit you.

Confess yourself sincerely to him, and bethink of your eternal weal. He may then, perhaps, beg mercy for you from the pitying G.o.d."

"Alas, alas! let, then, the chancellor come, and prepare me for death!"

groaned Sir Lave, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "I must now put my hope in G.o.d, for in man there is no mercy! Alas! could my Inge see how hardhearted you are, Drost Peter, she would never love the man who can treat so cruelly her unfortunate father."

"Heaven is my witness," sorrowfully exclaimed Drost Peter, laying his hand upon his breast, "that it cuts me to the soul that I cannot trust you better. You would win the duke with false witness, and me with a false hope; and would, if you could, make my affection traitor to my loyalty. Nay, Sir Lave Little, you are not thus to be saved. Truth only can save you, the country, and us all. G.o.d give your unstable mind constancy and strength to resolve earnestly on that to which you now only pretend for the purpose of saving yourself before a human tribunal!"

With these words he left the dungeon, and Sir Lave sank with a groan upon the stone floor, where the fear of death wrung a sincere prayer from his bosom.

Half an hour afterwards, Chancellor Martinus, in his Dominican habit, with his breviary and a candle in his hand, was admitted to the anxious captive, whom he found in a state of such bewilderment and mental conflict, that the philosophical chancellor found it impossible to understand his incoherent and contradictory expressions.

"Is it you who are to prepare me for death?" asked the prisoner, starting up with a wild stare. "Ha! it is time. The wheel and stile are ready. Drost Peter will not intercede for me; and my child, my poor child, she will die of shame for her miserable father. But my punishment is just," he continued, sinking his voice to a whisper: "I nodded--see, I nodded thus--in that horrible council. That nod cost me perhaps my salvation, and King Erik Christopherson his life. Was I not among the twelve in Finnerup barn? Nay, nay, that was but a dream!"

he exclaimed, vehemently--"that night I only betrayed my master's castle--his blood is not upon my hand, and will not be visited upon my head. But I heard the woe-cry from his coffin: from the grave it came--nay, from h.e.l.l itself! It yet rings in my ears. To be doomed an outlaw by men is nothing--but outlawed, eternally outlawed from heaven, I became at that hour. I am an unfortunate man!" He paused and sighed.

"Ha! but misfortune shall not strike me down," he continued, strutting boldly across the dungeon--"I am of n.o.ble birth, and die not as a traitor, but as a patriot and the foe of tyrants. What wilt thou with me, clerk? Thou art no confessor of mine--thou art not the bold dean who bids defiance to kings and kaisers. I know thee well: thou art the book-worm from Antvorskov, the learned chancellor--thou wert the tyrants' friend, and now wouldst outlaw and put under the ban every free-minded Dane. Comest thou hither to shrive me to-night, ere thou doomest me to the wheel to-morrow? Nay, nay--that thou mayst spare thyself, my very learned sir. A wise statesman can hold his tongue, and die like a heathen, without shrift or penitence."

He continued for some time raving in this wild manner, now accusing himself as the greatest criminal, and now boasting his high birth and political sagacity, but at length recovered himself, and burst into tears.

The learned Master Martinus had several times vainly attempted to stop him, to point out the rules in _logica_ against which he was offending; but the zealous carer for souls now triumphed over the philosopher, and he seized this favourable opportunity of exhorting to repentance the despairing sinner before him; and, in the supposition that he had been among the regicides, he became stern and vehement, and thundered forth the most fearful threatenings of the law against traitors and man-slayers.

"Nay, nay!" exclaimed Sir Lave, "I am no regicide; but still I must surely perish, unless there dwells pity with Heaven and the Holy Church. Listen, and I will shrive!"

He then threw himself at the feet of the chancellor, and confessed every step he had taken, relating how he had been inveigled into the conspiracy, and protesting that he had, however, taken no share in his kinsman's sanguinary revenge.

"Drost Peter was right," he exclaimed: "the truth alone can save me and all of us. Even at that hour I would have deceived him, and he cannot trust--he cannot sue for mercy for me. Let justice, then, overtake me.

Here I must be condemned; but save, oh save my soul from the eternal death!"

"Your sin is great," answered the chancellor, who was much affected; "but those who abused your weakness, have more to atone for than you have." He then, in the blessed words of the Gospel, exhorted him to repentance, and in the name of the Holy Church granted him indulgence for his sins, should he continue firm in his repentance, and true to the change of conduct he had promised. "Even your earthly judges," he added, "I hope to soften, after this your confession. What you have confided to me no man shall know without your own permission; but allow me to reveal it to the queen and our young king, and I promise that time shall be accorded you for repentance in a bearable state-prison."

"Reveal it to all!" exclaimed Sir Lave, embracing his knees with trembling arms. "In the wall of my closet at Flynderborg is a secret depository, where lie the proofs of my greatest crime. Let all the world know it, but let me not die thus in my sin. Spare but my life--this wretched life--and I will gladly hide myself and my shame in Denmark's darkest prison. Reveal all!" he continued, in the accents of fear and anxiety--"tell them, too, that there will be a tumult here to-morrow, if they take not means to prevent it. The outlaws are here, and, with the a.s.sistance of the duke, will possess themselves of the king's person. I have even brought the duke the letter respecting it."

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed the chancellor, who, terrified, suddenly rose and knocked violently at the prison-door, which was quickly opened for him.

The prisoner attempted to escape with him; but a violent blow from the st.u.r.dy turnkey threw him backwards on the stone floor, without consciousness.

An innumerable mult.i.tude of people from all quarters of Zealand were a.s.sembled in Skielskioer, to see and do homage to the young king. All the villages in the environs were thronged, for the town, which had been half burnt down in the feud between King Christopher and Henrik aemeldorf, had not yet recovered its former prosperity, and could with difficulty accommodate but an inconsiderable portion of the strangers.

These throngs were further augmented by the friends and adherents of the outlawed n.o.blemen, who had a.s.sembled in great numbers, in consequence of the rumour that the murderers of King Erik Christopherson had been personally cited to hear their doom, and that they intended to defend their cause before the people, and protest against the sentence of outlawry.

As evening approached the tumults and contentions which occurred between these partisans and the populace became so frequent, that the town-governor was compelled to call on the royal landsknechts to a.s.sist him in keeping order.

On the following morning, when the matin-bell had rung from the lofty spire of St. Nicholas, the people were already a.s.sembled in the Thing-place, and in the large area before the Hovgaard, to witness the procession of the royal family to the Dane-court; but hour after hour elapsed, and the royal party appeared not. The castle was encircled by the royal landsknechts and a body of the burgher-guard, whilst, posted before the gate, at the head of a small party of the queen's life-horse, were Drost Peter and Count Gerhard. Both appeared thoughtful. Drost Peter still carried his right arm in a sling; but, like a skilful swordsman, he knew how to support at need his weapon with his left.