Wallenstein experienced another thrill. This time a fresh thought leapt into being. "Mate with eagles? What could she mean?" An unwonted light broke over the cold, lined face.
"You cannot mean that in the hour of victory you will be my hostage against the Emperor, Stephanie?"
"The day you win Bohemia for your crown I share it with you!"
"Bohemia! And you, Stephanie?" Even now he could scarcely believe his ears. He saw quite clearly the immense advantage it would be to him to wed Stephanie: how it would tie the hands of the Emperor and prevent the otherwise inevitable reprisals.
"And Holy Church? I am wedded man!"
"The Church can give dispensations where she wishes. She shall wish, even if you have to march on Rome!"
"And you pledge yourself to help me counter their Jesuit plans?"
"I do, Albrecht. See, I kiss the cross! I vow it solemnly! And as earnest, let me tell you they would have me marry Maximilian!"
"G.o.d in heaven!" exclaimed Wallenstein. "That shall not be, if there be a nunnery to keep you safe on this side of the Alps."
Wallenstein made no movement of pa.s.sion. He looked at her and saw that she was desirable and lovely beyond the common allurement of women, beyond the beauty of all princesses he had seen. But he saw, too, that there was something lofty in her soul, a virgin chast.i.ty, that forbade all trivial thought of dalliance. It was a solemn compact.
He knelt at her feet. She laid one soft hand upon his head and said--
"Be my knight, Albrecht, without fear. And when all the fields are won, I await you."
He took her other hand and kissed it. The vibration of a strong emotion pa.s.sed through him. He was left alone.
CHAPTER XVI.
NIGEL"S NEW REGIMENT.
On the next day Wallenstein departed as secretly as he had come. Father Lamormain ascertained that he did not return to Eger. One rumour had it that he had gone to his estate in Friedland, which is in the north-eastern part of Bohemia, bordered by Silesia on one side and the kingdom of Saxony on the other, a remote mountainous region, spa.r.s.ely inhabited. The rumour may well have been true, for that was where the d.u.c.h.ess of Friedland lay at that time, and it had never been said that her lord neglected her for any other dame, unless it were Dame Bellona, who, ugly as she is, has in her time made many good wives jealous, and proved fatal to untold thousands of her wooers.
Three of these wooers, no longer perhaps so ardent or so able as of old, advised the Emperor in warlike matters. Colonel von Falck had taken part in the wars against the Turks in the days of the late Emperor Rudolf, and had lost an eye. He was almost patriarchal, but men said of him that he was a tremendous judge of Tokay, and unerring in his selection of officers. Of the former branch of military knowledge he gave almost daily proof, and his reputation in the latter, like many official reputations, rested on evidence which was quite irrefragable, since no one knew what it was. The second was a retired Master of Camp, a man just past middle age, who had had the misfortune to lose an arm, his left, fortunately, at the Weisser Berge. He was an acknowledged authority on waggons, horses, stores, cannon, and equipment generally.
And an officer who has lost an arm by a cannon-ball must be admitted to have some practical knowledge of artillery. The third officer was the Grand Duke Lothar, a blood relation of the Emperor, who, owing to a very real lameness, acquired in his subaltern days, had been obliged to confine his military excursions within the narrow limits of Vienna or Ratisbon. But he had stored up a profound knowledge of Caesar"s "Commentaries," and was very well acquainted with the theory of war as it was then understood.
It was the Emperor, usually in consort with the experienced Maximilian, who formed the general plan of campaign. If the Council"s opinion coincided with the Emperor"s, as it usually did, on a review of the plan, its execution was left in the hands of the general in command of the army, and the function of the council was then to take all possible steps to provide reinforcements, arms, and officers.
Before this sage professional committee Nigel was summoned.
"You have learned the manege, colonel?" was the abrupt inquiry of the oldest officer.
"What is the complete equipment of a trooper?" was that of the camp-master.
"How many troopers do you require in a regiment of dragoons, and what officers? How many squadrons could you make of it? How many troops go to a squadron?" These were Lothar"s.
Nigel, greatly wondering, answered all these readily and satisfactorily.
Then followed a catechism of the tactics of cavalry by the Grand Duke Lothar, who drew lines on a sheet of paper to ill.u.s.trate his meaning.
These also Nigel answered, for in a prolonged period of active service little had escaped his eye or his ear of what happened in any department of arms.
The three military councillors exchanged nods and whispers of approval.
"We are going to recommend his Imperial Majesty to cancel your commission in his musketeers and appoint you to the command of a new regiment of light horse!" said von Falck.
"I am forming the regiment," said the camp-master. "Bohemians, Austrians--all riders from their youth--with a sprinkling of old cavalrymen. They will need some shaping!"
"The other officers are being selected," said the Grand Duke. "You will spend the next week or two getting them equipped, and horsed, and drilled. Then your orders will be given you."
"I am at your Excellencies" service!" said Nigel.
Three days afterwards, spent in wearisome discussions, conducted on the one side in half the patois of Europe, and on the other in tolerably good German and an admixture of plain Scots, the subject being horses, Nigel was wishing devoutly that he had never seen Vienna, never become the favoured child of fortune, never----
"Well, Blick, what is it _now_?"
"Magdeburg"s wellnigh spent, colonel!"
"Is that so?" was Nigel"s rejoinder.
"Never saw such a place as Vienna," said Blick. "The beer is too light!"
"Well!" said Nigel, "you must drink more of it, or less of it."
"Yes, colonel! And the stagshorn dice are too light above and too heavy below!"
"Worse and worse! You"ll have to give up play!"
"It"ll give me up," said Blick. "And the wenches, colonel!"
"Well? Are they too light also?"
"I am not a bad-looking fellow, colonel! But if I stay here ... they"re the very devil ..." groaned Sergeant Blick.
"You want to get back to Count Tilly? Is that it?"
"Not for twenty rix-dollars!"
"Well! Tell me! What is it you want?"
"I want to be sergeant in your new regiment!"
"What do you know of cavalry?" asked Nigel.
"I know men," said Blick stubbornly. "I can drill them. I know horses. I can break them in. My father was a smith, and my uncle a horse-dealer.
My grandfather was hung for stealing horses. It"s in the blood. In three days I will have that mob of rascals at my heel. I am Sergeant Blick! I say it!"
Nigel looked at Sergeant Blick with a good deal of interest. He had looked at him before, as he had looked at interminable ranks of soldiers, and had never observed that in Blick, as in himself, although Blick knew no reading or writing, grew the stubborn thistle of ambition.