Red Axe | Page 5

so, even when they mocked me. So I watched this little one
in the man's arms.
Then came the Duke along the line, and behind him, like the Shadow of
Death, paced my father Gottfried Gottfried, habited all in red from neck
to heel, and carrying for his badge of office as Hereditary Justicer to the
Dukes of the Wolfmark that famous red-handled, red-bladed axe, the
gleaming white of whose deadly edge had never been wet save with the
blood of men and women.
The guard pushed the captives rudely into line as the Duke Casimir
strode along the front. The women he passed without a sign or so much
as a look. They were kept for another day. But the men were judged
sharp and sudden, as the Duke in his black armor passed along, and that
scarlet Shadow of Death with the broad axe over his shoulder paced
noiselessly behind him.
For as each man looked into the eyes of Casimir of the Wolfsberg he
read his doom. The Duke turned his wrist sharply down, whereupon the
attendant sprites of the Red Shadow seized the man and rent his
garment down from his neck--or the hand pointed up, and then the man
set his hand to his heart and threw his head back in a long sigh of relief.
It came the turn of the man who carried the babe.
Duke Casimir paused before him, scowling gloomily at him.

"Ha, Lord Prince of so great a province, you will not set yourself up
any more haughtily. You will quibble no longer concerning tithes and
tolls with Casimir of the Wolfmark."
And the Duke lifted his hand and smote the man on the cheek with his
open hand.
Yet the captive only hushed the child that wailed aloud to see her
guardian smitten.
He looked Duke Casimir steadfastly in the eyes and spoke no word.
"Great God, man, have you nothing to say to me ere you die?" cried
Duke Casimir, choked with hot, sudden anger to be so crossed.
The elder man gazed steadily at his captor.
"God will judge betwixt me, a man about to die, and you, Casimir of
the Wolfmark," he said at last, very slowly--"by the eyes of this little
maid He will judge!"
"Like enough," cried Casimir, sneeringly. "Bishop Peter hath told me
as much. But then God's payments are long deferred, and, so far as I
can see, I can take Him into my own hand. And your little maid--pah!
since one day you took from me the mother, I, in my turn, will take the
daughter and make her a titbit for the teeth of my blood-hounds."
The man answered not again, but only hushed and fondled the little
one.
Duke Casimir turned quickly to my father, showing his long teeth like a
snarling dog:
"Take the child," he said, "and cast her into the kennels before the
man's eyes, that he may learn before he dies to dread more than God's
Judgment Seat the vengeance of Duke Casimir!"
Then all the men-at-arms turned away, heart-sick at the horror. But the
man with the child never blanched.

High perched on the top tower, I also heard the words and loved the
maid. And they tell me (though I do not remember it) that I cried down
from the leads of the Red Tower: "My father, save the little maid and
give her to me--or else I, Hugo Gottfried, will cast myself down on the
stones at your feet!"
At which all the men looked up and saw me in white, a small, lonely
figure, with my legs hanging over the top of the wall.
"Go back!" my father shouted. "Go back, Hugo! 'Tis my only son--my
successor--the fifteenth of our line, my lord!" he said to the Duke in
excuse.
But I cried all the more: "Save the maid's life, or I will fling myself
headlong. By Jesu-Mary, I swear it!"
For I thought that was the name of one great saint.
Then my father, who ever doted on me, bent his knee before his master:
"A boon!" he cried, "my first and last, Duke Casimir--this maid's life
for my son!"
But the Duke hung on the request a long, doubtful moment.
"Gottfried Gottfried," he said, even reproachfully, "this is not well done
of you, to make me go back on my word."
"Take the man's life," said my father--"take the man's life for the child's
and the fulfilling of your word, and by the sword of St. Peter I will
smite my best!"
"Aye," said the man with the babe, "even so do, as the Red Axe says.
Save the young child, but bid him smite hard at this abased neck. Ye
have taken all, Duke Casimir, take my life. But save