Pretty Michal was trembling in all her limbs when the housekeeper undressed and put her to bed.
Barbara Pirka went out of her way to be agreeable and obliging. She wanted to make Michal a hot salt and bran poultice and prepare her a posset of centaury, but these and sundry other good offices Michal absolutely declined, declaring that she had no fear of catching cold.
After putting the young woman to bed, she sat down beside her, and rubbed Michal"s tiny white feet between her hands. She said it was good remedy against sleeplessness and anxiety.
"My hand has power," explained Pirka; "I am a seventh child and a witch to boot."
An ill-bred person would have burst out laughing; but Michal looked at Pirka with an astonishment which had more of reverence in it than of fear. She had never seen a witch before.
It pleased Pirka to see how Michal folded her hands together as if in prayer.
"Yes. Now I"m a witch and can make and mar as I please. But even those whom I benefit must suffer for it. I was once the wife of a headsman myself. The business pleased me. The only thing that surprises me is how a judge can leave to another the torturing and execution of those he has condemned to death instead of doing it himself. If I were the Emperor I would make a decree that every judge should be his own executioner. I was always at my husband"s side when he was at work. I would not have stayed away at any price.
When the felon was a woman I used to clip off her hair with a pair of shears. What a lot of lovely hair I"ve cut off in my time! After my husband"s death (a mad dog bit him and he died from the effects of it), I continued the business with an a.s.sistant. My a.s.sistant was a lanky, awkward fellow. Once he put me to shame on the scaffold by breaking down altogether at his task, so I s.n.a.t.c.hed the sword out of his hand and finished the job myself. Then they took the business away from me and kicked me out: they said that it was not meet that a woman should wield the headsman"s sword. So I came hither and entered the service of this vihodar. He could get no other servant, and no other master would look at me. But you are shivering, my dovey! Shall I tell you some pretty tale, my pet?"
At the word "dovey" Michal suddenly recollected her favorite fantail pigeon, which she had put into her pocket, and she begged Barbara to take out the poor creature and give it meat and drink. She had brought some grain with her.
"All right, my darling! But the dove cannot remain in this house.
There are so many owls and hawks here that the timid creature would die of fright at the very sight of these savage birds of prey; and besides, don"t you know that if your little hen pigeon were to live here and lay eggs without pairing, and hatch them, the brood would be goblins instead of chickens?"
Superst.i.tion is contagious. Michal already began to believe that her dove would hatch a brood of gnomes.
She began to be tormented with a desire to know exactly how she stood, and what was going on about her. Pirka was a queer creature, certainly; but she was the only woman in the house, and women always hold together, especially in such a house as this. She was not afraid of speaking out before Pirka.
Pirka fed the dove and gave it water, and then stuck it into Michal"s pocket again.
"There now!" she said. "She feels all the better for that, I know."
Then she covered up the pretty lady with a warm counterpane and a bearskin, and while doing so caught sight of the small silk sachet which was fastened round her neck. Pirka"s eyes began to sparkle savagely. She thought it was an amulet against witchcraft; but Michal told her that it was only a talisman against the plague, nothing more. Then Pirka laughed.
"You don"t need that here. The plague never penetrates into this house. At the time of the great Egyptian sickness the headsmen were the gravediggers. Not one of them died."
"How was that?"
"Why, don"t you know? They"ve made a compact with Death."
Of course no one need take this literally, but it is certain that men with such blunted nerves as headsmen are not so liable to contagion as other people.
"It is a memento of my poor mother," said Michal, pressing the silken sachet to her lips.
"Don"t do that," said Pirka, in a warning voice. "As often as one kisses such mementos the dead person turns round in his grave."
At this Michal could not restrain her tears.
"Come, come, my pretty darling, don"t weep! Shall I tell you a pretty tale? What shall it be about?"
Michal ceased to sob. She begged Pirka to tell her the story of the lady whose dress she had worn that day.
"Alas, alas, my darling! that is a very sad story; you"ll not be able to sleep if you hear that."
But she told her about it all the same.
"There was once a wondrously beautiful lady, the only daughter of a n.o.ble house. They married her to a Polish lord whom she did not love. She loved another, a beautiful, brown Hungarian lad, and what is more she took care never to be very far away from him. One day the Polish n.o.bleman observed that his wife had on a beautiful dress of cornflower-blue silk. He asked her: "Where did you get that beautiful silk dress from?" She replied: "My mother sent it to me from Szeszko as a birthday gift." The husband did not shirk the trouble of riding all the way to Szeszko and asking his mother-in-law whether she had sent her daughter the beautiful blue dress. Back he came to his wife. "Wife, your mother has told me that she sent you that blue dress. You have lied and your mother has lied also. Confess now from whom you got that beautiful dress." Then his wife told him she had bought it at the Lemberg fair with her own money from an Armenian of Ungvar. The husband did not shirk the trouble of riding all the way to Ungvar. There he sought out the Armenian and asked if his wife had purchased from him the cornflower-blue dress. Then he came back and sent for his wife.
"Wife, wife, you have not spoken the truth, and the Armenian has lied as well as you, for he said you _did_ buy the cornflower dress from him." Then, at last, the woman confessed that she got the cornflower-blue dress from her lover. It was the death of her. She was condemned to be beheaded. She was obliged to mount the scaffold in her beautiful dress, and there take it off and put on sack-cloth. Never had so handsome a face, so majestic a figure and such a soft, swan-like neck been seen there before. It was then I met with the mishap I"ve already told you of. When my chief a.s.sistant seized the sword and saw such a beautiful creature before him, he grew green in the face, his eyes became fixed and glazed, his knees tottered, and at last, as if seized by an epileptic fit, he fell down and tumbled backward off the scaffold. Then I gave the sword to my younger a.s.sistant. He, however, sank down on his knees before the kneeling lady, held the handle of his sword in front of him like a crucifix, and began to chant an _Ave Maria_. The sheriff was filled with dismay, the Polish n.o.bleman, who stood close by, began to curse, called all who dwelt in Hungary cowardly milksops, and spat on the scaffold. Filled with fury thereat, I seized the sword and with a single blow cut off the woman"s head. Then I took up the head by its long tresses and dashed it in the n.o.bleman"s face. "You Polack," I cried, "take home what is yours!" That was why they drove me away."
A cold shudder ran through Michal"s limbs despite all her warm wrappings.
"How long Henry remains away," she whispered softly.
"I"ll go out, my pretty lambkin, and listen at the door to hear what he is saying to the old master."
So Pirka went through the dining-room and stopped to listen at the iron door and find out what was going on in the tower; and Michal, meanwhile, sang that evening hymn which had reached the ears of the headsman and his son.
Soon afterward Barbara Pirka returned, and with a sly grin whispered in Michal"s ear:
"Don"t fret, darling, the old man has made it all up, and now they are hugging and kissing each other."
But still Henry did not come back to his wife.
The howling of many dogs resounded through the courtyard below. The hideous din penetrated the thick vaults and double corridors and reached the very room where Michal lay.
"They will soon be quiet," said the housekeeper grimly.
Michal, in order to change the subject to something more agreeable, asked Pirka whether there was any garden to the house.
"You can"t keep one," answered Pirka. "Here neither tree nor flower will flourish. The master"s wife found that out long ago, when she tried to garden. The first summer after she came here, all the branches of the trees curved inwardly as if they would have crept under the ground, and the roots were devoured by worms. Nothing prospers but the black elder-tree, and even that produces red berries."
Meanwhile, the howling of the dogs grew fainter, as if the number of them was gradually growing smaller.
"What a long time Henry remains away," sighed the young wife.
"He"ll very soon be here now, my pretty sweetheart!"
By this time only two dogs were howling in the courtyard below.
Pirka smiled, and began to arch her eyebrows.
"His reverence will be here almost immediately," said she.
And now only a single dog was howling through the night.
The storm, too, furiously shook the window-cas.e.m.e.nts.
Suddenly the last dog ceased barking.
Pirka blinked, and said:
"The master will soon be here now."