The Heart of Princess Osra.
by Anthony Hope.
CHAPTER I.
The Happiness of Stephen the Smith.
"Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!"
The impatient cry was heard through all the narrow gloomy street, where the old richly-carved house-fronts bowed to meet one another and left for the eye"s comfort only a bare glimpse of blue. It was, men said, the oldest street in Strelsau, even as the sign of the "Silver Ship" was the oldest sign known to exist in the city. For when Aaron Lazarus the Jew came there, seventy years before, he had been the tenth man in unbroken line that took up the business; and now Stephen Nados, his apprentice and successor, was the eleventh. Old Lazarus had made a great business of it, and had spent his savings in buying up the better part of the street; but since Jews then might hold no property in Strelsau, he had taken all the deeds in the name of Stephen Nados; and when he came to die, being unable to carry his houses or his money with him, having no kindred, and caring not a straw for any man or woman alive save Stephen, he bade Stephen let the deeds be, and, with a last curse against the Christians (of whom Stephen was one, and a devout one), he kissed the young man, and turned his face to the wall and died. Therefore Stephen was a rich man, and had no need to carry on the business, though it never entered his mind to do anything else; for half the people who raised their heads at the sound of the cry were Stephen"s tenants, and paid him rent when he asked for it; a thing he did when he chanced to remember, and could tear himself away from chasing a goblet or fashioning a little silver saint; for Stephen loved his craft more than his rents; therefore, again, he was well liked in the quarter.
"Stephen! Stephen!" cried Prince Henry, impatiently hammering on the closed door with his whip. "Plague take the man! Is he dead?"
The men in the quarter went on with their work; the women moved idly to the doors; the girls came out into the street and cl.u.s.tered here and there, looking at the Prince. For although he was not so handsome as that scamp Rudolf, his brother, who had just come back from his travels with half a dozen wild stories spurring after him, yet Henry was a comely youth, as he sat on his chestnut mare, with his blue eyes full of impatience, and his chestnut curls fringing his shoulders. So the girls cl.u.s.tered and looked. Moreover Stephen the smith must come soon, and the sight of him was worth a moment"s waiting; for he buried himself all day in his workshop, and no laughing challenge could lure him out.
"Though, in truth," said one of the girls, tossing her head, "it"s thankless work to spend a glance on either, for they do not return it.
Now when Rudolf comes----"
She broke off with a laugh, and her comrades joined in it. Rudolf left no debts of that sort unpaid, however deep he might be in the books of Stephen Nados and of the others who furnished his daily needs.
Presently Stephen came, unbolting his door with much deliberation, and greeting Prince Henry with a restrained courtesy. He was not very well pleased to see his guest, for it was a ticklish moment with the nose of Saint Peter, and Stephen would have liked to finish the job uninterrupted. Still, the Prince was a prince, a gentleman, and a friend, and Stephen would not be uncivil to him.
"You ride early to-day, sir," he observed, patting the chestnut mare.
"I have a good reason," answered Henry. "The Lion rages to-day."
Stephen put up his hand to shelter his eyes from a ray of sunshine that had evaded the nodding walls and crept in; it lit up his flaxen hair, which he wore long and in thick waves, and played in his yellow beard; and he looked very grave. For when the Lion raged, strange and alarming things might happen in the city of Strelsau. The stories of his last fit of pa.s.sion were yet hardly old.
"What has vexed the King?" he asked; for he knew that Prince Henry spoke of his father, Henry surnamed the Lion, now an old man, yet as fierce as when he had been young. "Is it your brother again?"
"For a marvel, no. It is myself, Stephen. And he is more furious with me than he has ever been with Rudolf; aye, even more than he was at all the stories that followed my brother home."
"And what is the cause of it all, sir, and how is it in my power to help?"
"That you will find out very soon," said the Prince with a bitter laugh.
"You will be sent for to the palace in an hour, Stephen."
"If it is about the King"s ring, the ring is not finished," said Stephen.
"It is not about the ring. Yet indeed it is, in a way, about a ring. For you are to be married, Stephen. This very day you are to be married."
"I think not, sir," said Stephen mildly. "For it is a thing that a man himself hears about if it be true."
"But the King thinks so; Stephen, have you remarked, among my sister Osra"s ladies, a certain dark lady, with black hair and eyes? I cannot describe her eyes."
"But you can tell me her name, sir," suggested Stephen, who was a practical man.
"Her name? Oh, her name is Hilda--Hilda von Lauengram."
"Aye, I know the Countess Hilda. I have made a bracelet for her."
"She is the most beautiful creature alive!" cried Prince Henry, in a sudden rapture and so loudly (being carried away by his pa.s.sion) that the girls heard him and wondered of whom he spoke with so great an enthusiasm.
"To those to whom she seems such," observed Stephen. "But, pray, how am I concerned in all this, sir?"
The Prince"s smile grew more bitter as he answered:
"Why, you are to marry her. It was an idle suggestion of Osra"s, made in jest; my father is pleased to approve of it in earnest."
Then he bent in his saddle and went on in a hurried urgent whisper: "I love her better than my life, Stephen--better than heaven; and my faith and word are pledged to her; and last night I was to have fled with her--for I knew better than to face the old Lion--but Osra found her making preparations and we were discovered. Then Osra was scornful, and the King mad, and Rudolf laughed; and when they talked of what was to be done to her, Osra came in with her laughing suggestion. It caught the King"s angry fancy, and he swore that it should be so. And, since the Archbishop is away, he has bidden the Bishop of Modenstein be at the palace at twelve to-day, and you will be brought there also, and you will be married to her. But, by heavens, I"ll have your blood if you are!" With this sudden outbreak of fury the Prince ended. Yet a moment later, he put out his hand to the smith, saying: "It"s not your fault, man."
"That"s true enough," said the smith; "for I have no desire to marry her; and it is not fitting that a lady of her birth should mate with a smith; she is of a great house, and she would hate and despise me."
Prince Henry was about to a.s.sent when his eye chanced to fall on Stephen the smith. Now the smith was a very handsome man--handsomer, many said, than Prince Rudolf himself, whom no lady could look on without admiration; he stood six feet and two inches in his flat working shoes; he was very broad, and could leap higher and hurl a stone farther than any man in Strelsau. Moreover he looked kind and gentle, yet was reputed to grow angry at times, and then to be very dangerous. Therefore Prince Henry, knowing (or thinking that he knew) the caprices of women, and how they are caught by this and that, was suddenly seized with a terrible fear that the Countess Hilda might not despise Stephen the smith. Yet he did not express his fear, but said that it was an impossible thing that a lady of the Countess"s birth (for the House of Lauengram was very n.o.ble) should wed a silversmith, even though he were as fine a fellow as his good friend Stephen; to which gracious speech Stephen made no reply, but stood very thoughtful, with his hand on the neck of the chestnut mare. But at last he said: "In any case it cannot be, for I am bound already."
"A wife? Have you a wife?" cried the Prince eagerly.
"No; but my heart is bound," said Stephen the smith.
"The King will make little of that. Yet who is she? Is she any of these girls who stand looking at us?"
"No, she is none of these," answered Stephen, smiling as though such an idea were very ludicrous.
"And are you pledged to her?"
"I to her, but not she to me."
"But does she love you?"
"I think it most unlikely," said Stephen the smith.
"The Lion will care nothing for this," groaned the Prince despondently.
"They will send for you in half an hour. For heaven"s sake spare her, Stephen!"
"Spare her, sir?"
"Do not consent to marry her, however urgently the King may command you."
The smith shook his head, smiling still. Prince Henry rode sorrowfully away, spending not a glance on the bevy of girls who watched him go; and Stephen, turning into his house, shut the door, and with one great sigh set to work again on the nose of Saint Peter.
"For anyhow," said he, "a man can work." And after a long pause he added, "I never thought to tell any one; but if I must, I must."
Now, sure enough, when the clock on the Cathedral wanted a quarter of an hour of noon, two of the King"s Guard came and bade Stephen follow them with all haste to the palace; and since they were very urgent and no time was to be lost, he followed them as he was, in his ap.r.o.n, without washing his hands or getting rid of the dust that hung about him from his work. However he had finished Saint Peter"s nose and all had gone well with it, so that he went in a contented frame of mind, determined to tell the whole truth to King Henry the Lion sooner than be forced into a marriage with the Countess Hilda von Lauengram.
The Lion sat in his great chair; he was a very thin old man, with a face haggard and deeply lined; his eyes, set far back in his head, glowed and glowered, and his fingers pulled his spa.r.s.e white beard. On his right Prince Rudolf lolled on a low seat, smiling at the play; on his left sat that wonderfully fair lady, the Princess Osra, then in the first bloom of her young beauty; and she was smiling scornfully. Prince Henry stood before his father, and some yards from him was the Countess Hilda, trembling and tearful, supported by one of her companions; and finally, since the Archbishop was gone to Rome to get himself a Scarlet Hat, the Bishop of Modenstein, a young man of n.o.ble family, was there, most richly arrayed in choicest lace and handsomest vestments, ready to perform the ceremony. Prince Rudolf had beckoned the Bishop near him, and was jesting with him in an undertone. The Bishop laughed as a man laughs who knows he should not laugh but cannot well help himself; for Rudolf owned a pretty wit, although it was sadly unrestrained.
The King"s fury, having had a night and a morning to grow cool in, had now settled into a cold ironical mood, which argued no less resolution than his first fierce wrath. There was a grim smile on his face as he addressed the smith, who, having bowed to the company, was standing between the Countess and Prince Henry.