The Duchess Joan was in high spirits. It had been judged necessary, in consultation with her chief officers, to ride a reconnaissance in person in order to ascertain whether the advancing enemy had cut Kernsberg off towards the north. On this matter Von Orseln thought that her Highness had better judge for herself. Here at last was something definite to be done. It was almost like the old foraying days, but now in a more desperate cause.

Ten days before, Joan's maidens and her aged nurse had been sent for safety into Plassenburg, under escort of Captains Boris and Jorian as far as the frontier—who had, however, returned in time to accompany the party of observation on their ride northward.

No one in all Castle Kernsberg was to know of the departure of this cavalcade. Shortly before midnight the horses were to be ready under the Castle wall. The Sparhawk was appointed to command the town during Von Orseln's absence. Ten men only were to go, and these picked and sifted riders—chosen because of their powers of silence—and because, being unmarried, they had no wives to worm secrets out of them. Sweethearts they might have, but then, in Kernsberg at least, that is a very different thing.

Finally, having written to their princely master in Plassenburg, that they were leaving on account of the war—in which, as envoys extraordinary, they did not desire to be further mixed up—Captains Boris and Jorian made them ready to accompany the reconnaissance. It proved to be a dark and desperate night of storm and rain. The stars were ever and anon concealed by the thick pall of cloud which the wind from the south drove hurtling athwart them. Joan herself was in the highest spirits. She wore a long blue cloak, which completely concealed the firmly knit slender figure, clad in forester's dress, from prying eyes.

As for Werner von Orseln, that high captain was calm and grave as usual, but the rest of the ten men were plainly nervous, as they fingered their bridle-reins and avoided looking at each other while they waited in readiness to mount.

With a clatter of hoofs they were off, none in the Castle knowing more than that Werner the chief captain rode out on his occasions. A townsman or two huddled closer among his blankets as the clatter and jingle of the horses mingled with the sharp volleying of the rain upon his wind-beaten lattice, while the long whoo of the wind sang of troublous times in the twisted chimneys overhead.

Joan, as the historian has already said, was in high spirits.

"Werner," she cried, as soon as they were clear of the town, "if we strike the enemy to-night, I declare we will draw sword and ride through them."

"If we strike them to-night, right so, my lady!" returned Werner promptly.

But he had the best of reasons for knowing that they would not strike any enemy that night. His last spy from the north had arrived not half an hour before they started, having ridden completely round the enemy's host.

Joan and her chief captain rode on ahead, Von Orseln glancing keenly about him, and Joan riding free and careless, as in the old days when she overpassed the hills to drive a prey from the lands of her father's enemies.

It was grey morning when they came to a goatherd's hut at the top of the green valley. Already they had passed the bounds of Hohenstein by half a dozen miles. The goatherd had led his light-skipping train to the hills for the day, and the rude and chaotic remains of his breakfast were still on the table. Boris and Jorian cleared these away, and, with the trained alacrity of seasoned men-at-arms, they placed before the party a breakfast prepared with speed out of what they had brought with them and those things which they had found to their hand by foraging in the larder of the goatherd—to wit, sliced neat's-tongue dried in the smoke, and bread of fine wheat which Jorian had carried all the way in a net at his saddle-bow. Boris had charge of the wine-skins, and upon a shelf above the door they found a great butter-pot full of freshly made curded goats' milk, very delicious both to taste and smell.

Of these things they ate and drank largely, Joan and Von Orseln being together at the upper end of the table. Boris and Jorian had to sit with them, though much against their wills, being (spite of their sweethearts) more accustomed to the company of honest men-at-arms than to the practice of dainty eating in ladies' society.

Joan undertook to rally them upon their loves, for whose fair fingers, as it has been related in an earlier chapter, she had given them rings.

"And how took your Katrin the ring, Boris?" she said, looking at him past the side of her glass. For Jorian had bethought him to bring one for the Duchess, the which he cleansed and cooled at the spring without. As for the others, they all drank out of one wooden whey-cog, as was most fitting.

"Why, she took it rarely," said honest Boris, "and swore to love me more than ever for it. We are to be married upon my first return to Plassenburg."

"Which, perhaps, is the reason why you are in no hurry to return thither, seeing that you stopped short at the frontier last week?" said the Duchess shrewdly.

"Nay, my lady, that grieved me sore—for, indeed, we love each other dearly, Katrin and I," persisted Captain Boris, thinking, as was his custom, to lie himself out of it by dint of the mere avoirdupois of asseveration.

"That is the greater marvel," returned the lady, smiling upon him, "because when last I spoke with you concerning the matter, her name was not Katrin, but Gretchen!"

Boris was silent, as well he might be, for even as he lied he had had some lurking suspicion of this himself. He felt that he could hope to get no further by this avenue.

The lady now turned to Jorian, who, having digested the defeat and shame of Boris, was ready to be very indignant at his companion for having claimed his sweetheart.

"And you, Captain Jorian," she said, "how went it with you? Was your ring well received?"

"Aye, marry," said that gallant captain, "better than well. Much better! Never did I see woman so grateful. Katrin, whom this long, wire-drawn, splenetic fool hath lyingly claimed as his (by some trick of tongue born of his carrying the malmsey at his saddle-bow)—Katrin, I say, did kiss and clip me so that my very soul fainted within me. She could not make enough of the giver of such a precious thing as your Highness's ring?"

Jorian in his own estimation was doing very well. He thought he could yet better it.

"Her eyes sparkled with joy. Her hands twitched—she could not keep them from turning the pretty jewel about upon her finger. She swore never to part with it while life lasted——"

"Then," said Joan, smiling, "have no more to do with her. She is a false wench and mansworn. For do not I see it upon the little finger of your left hand at this moment? Nay, do not turn the stone within. I know my gift, and will own it even if your Katrin (was it not?) hath despised it. What say you now to that, Jorian?"

"My lady," faltered Jorian, striving manfully to recover himself, "when I came again in the honourable guise of an ambassador to Kernsberg, Katrin gave it back again to me, saying, 'You have no signet ring. Take this, so that you be not ashamed among those others. Keep it for me. I myself will place it on your finger with a loving kiss.'"

"Well done, Captain Jorian, you are a somewhat better liar than your friend. But still your excuses should accord better. The ring I gave you is not a signet ring. That Katrin of yours must have been ignorant indeed."

With these words Joan of the Sword Hand rose to her feet, for the ex-men-at-arms had not so much as a word to say.

"Let us now mount and ride homeward," she said; "there are no enemy to be found on this northerly road. We shall be more fortunate upon another occasion."

Then Werner Von Orseln nerved himself for a battle more serious than any he had ever fought at the elbow of Henry the Lion of Hohenstein.

"My lady," he said, standing up and bowing gravely before her, "you see here eleven men who love you far above their lives, of whom I am the chief. Two others also there are, who, though not of our nation, are in heart joined to us, especially in this thing that we have done. With all respect, your Highness cannot go back. We have come out, not to make a reconnaissance, but to put your Grace in a place of safety till the storm blows over."

The Duchess had slowly risen to her feet, with her hand on the sword which swung at her belt.

"You have suddenly gone mad, Werner!" she said; "let us have no more of this. I bid you mount and ride. Back to Kernsberg, I say! Ye are not such fools and traitors as to deliver the maiden castle, the Eagle's Nest of Hohenstein, into the hands of our enemies?"

"Nay," said Von Orseln, looking steadily upon the ground, "that will we not do. Kernsberg is in good hands, and will fight bravely. But we cannot hold out with our few folk and scanty provender against the leaguer of thirty thousand. Nevertheless we will not permit you to sacrifice yourself for our sakes or for the sake of the women and children of the city."

Joan drew her sword.

"Werner von Orseln, will you obey me, or must I slay you with my hand?" she cried.

The chief captain yet further bowed his head and abased his eyes.

"We have thought also of this," he made answer. "Me you may kill, but these that are with me will defend themselves, though they will not strike one they love more than their lives. But man by man we have sworn to do this thing. At all hazards you must abide in our hands till the danger is overpast. For me (this he added in a deeper tone), I am your immediate officer. There is none to come between us. It is your right to slay me if you will. Mine is the responsibility for this deed, though the design was not mine. Here is my sword. Slay your chief captain with it if you will. He has faithfully served your house for five-and-thirty years. 'Tis perhaps time he rested now."

And with these words Werner von Orseln took his sword by the point and offered the hilt to his mistress.

Joan of the Sword Hand shook with mingled passion and helplessness, and her eyes were dark and troublous.

"Put up your blade," she said, striking aside the hilt with her hand; "if you have not deserved death, no more have I deserved this! But you said that the design was not yours. Who, then, has dared to plot against the liberty of Joan of Hohenstein?"

"I would I could claim the honour," said Werner the chief captain; "but truly the matter came from Maurice von Lynar the Dane. It is to his mother, who after the death of her brother, the Count von Lynar, continued to dwell in a secret strength on the Baltic shore, that we are conducting your Grace!"

"Maurice von Lynar?" exclaimed Joan, astonished. "He remains in Castle Kernsberg, then?"

"Aye," said Werner, relieved by her tone, "he will take your place when danger comes. In morning twilight or at dusk he makes none so ill a Lady Duchess, and, i' faith, his 'sword hand' is brisk enough. If the town be taken, better that he than you be found in Castle Kernsberg. Is the thing not well invented, my lady?"

Werner looked up hopefully. He thought he had pleaded his cause well.

"Traitor! Supplanter!" cried Joan indignantly; "this Dane in my place! I will hang him from the highest window in the Castle of Kernsberg if ever I win back to mine own again!"

"My lady," said Werner, gently and respectfully, "your servant Von Lynar bade me tell you that he would as faithfully and loyally take your place now as he did on a former occasion!"

"Ah," said Joan, smiling wanly with a quick change of mood, "I hope he will be more ready to give up his privileges on this occasion than on that!"

She was thinking of the Princess Margaret and the heritage of trouble upon which, as the Count von LÖen, she had caused the Sparhawk to enter.

Then a new thought seemed to strike her.

"But my nurse and my women—how can he keep the imposture secret? He may pass before the stupid eyes of men. But they——"

"If your Highness will recollect, they have been sent out of harm's way into Plassenburg. There is not a woman born of woman in all the Castle of Kernsberg!"

"Yes," mused Joan, "I have indeed been fairly cozened. I gave that order also by the Dane's advice. Well, let him have his run. We will reeve him a firm collar of hemp at the end of it, and maybe for Werner von Orseln also, as a traitor alike to his bread and his mistress. Till then I hope you will both enjoy playing your parts."

The chief captain bowed.

"I am content, my lady," he said respectfully.

"Now, good jailers all," cried Joan, "lead on. I will follow. Or would you prefer to carry me with you handcuffed and chained? I will go with you in whatsoever fashion seemeth good to my masters!"

She paused and looked round the little goatherd's hut.

"Only," she said, nodding her head, "I warn you I will take my own time and manner of coming back!"

There was a deep silence as the men drew their belts tighter and prepared to mount and depart.

"About that time, Jorian," whispered Boris as they went out, "you and I will be better in Plassenburg than within the bounds of Kernsberg—for our health's sake and our sweethearts', that is!"

"Good!" said Jorian, dropping the bars of his visor; "but for all that she is a glorious wench, and looks her bravest when she is angry!"