Chapter XXX: The Hand of Forli

It is told in the Gospels how Our Lord and His disciples ascended upon the Mount of Transfiguration, where were scenes passing the imaginings of man, even the apparition of Moses and Elias out of Paradise. Then after the cloud, the divine voice and the glory, they must needs go down from the mountain, and lo! the world was not changed, men were still eating, sorrowing, blundering as of old, and the father of the demoniac boy was waiting to tell of his miserable burden. So in small measure it was even with us after that afternoon in Worms. The next morning we looked forth, expecting, as it were, to behold a new heaven and a new earth, but half to our astonishment we were in the former bustling, tale-mongering, intriguing city, the Spanish courtiers were idling near the palace gate, the Swiss halberdmen were over their beer in the taverns even as before. We were in the same imperfect world as ever, and if the vision of glory did not vanish from memory, surely the brightness of its reality was a little tarnished.

I awoke late, and rubbed an aching head. I could at least comfort myself that I was not paying the price of a carouse. Amsdorf was silent and moody when we breakfasted, Andrea, who served us, was heavy-eyed; even Dr. Luther (who joined us when we were nearly finished) had little to say, although he professed to have slept tolerably. Our remarks were very commonplace. Later in the morning I wrote a long letter to my deputy at the Regenstein, touching the new road I was causing to be built around my snug dominions, and idled away an hour with an armorer who tried to sell me a new fowling cross-bow. Even the report that there was another meeting of the Diet called for that same day to deliberate on Dr. Luther’s answer did not rouse my interest. My master had spoken his word, and I knew that he had enshrined himself forever in the hearts of Germany. What the Diet, dominated by a half-Flemish, half-Spanish Emperor, and a great coterie of horrified prince-bishops might resolve, did not for the moment greatly matter. If it voted Luther a heretic, the German nation would thunder back the answer. As I sat toying with the new cross-bow, I caught myself levelling it nonchalantly at imaginary Spanish pikemen, who were striving to storm Wittenberg, and my mind revelled in vast imaginary slaughter.

But about noon I had a visitor who shook me quickly enough out of my lethargy,--Moritz von Blankenburg. The sight of that honest, heavy-handed, hard-working young nobleman was ever welcome to me, let alone his kinship to my Lady Ilsa. He had been one of the spectators in the great hall of audience, had seen me in Luther’s company, and had found our lodgings without trouble. Our first words were naturally full of enthusiasm over the words and deeds of my master.

“Ah! Walter,” spoke he, while his hand closed over mine, “the black crows shall not have Germany in their talons again till every graf and ritter in the North Country is in a bloody grave. I know my people. We do not have the million words and gestures of those apes of the South, but our arms are strong; I know all I say. I am going back to Blankenburg to make ready my lands and castle for the war. In a month it will be on us.”

But by this time my belligerent day-dreams had been chased away, and I shook my head.

“Nobly said, Moritz, and nobly done too if needs be. But it will not come to that, God willing. We must bethink us; you, I, every friend of Dr. Luther, for a way to save him, yet keep the peace. The Cause must prevail, and shall, against all fiends, but not by culverins and poleaxes save as last resort. Give us a little respite, a few months even, and all will be well.”

Von Blankenburg laughed derisively. “You have not been to the Diet this morning. The Emperor has caused a solemn statement to be read setting forth that he and his Imperial ancestors have been loyal sons of the Church and foes of heresy, that Luther has been clearly proved obstinate in his errors and worthy of all punishment as a ‘true and evident heretic,’ and the Estates are admonished to give their judgment as to how to deal with him. The Papal Legates are beside themselves with glee, the prince-bishops are snarling for blood like jackals. Elector Frederick and the other friends of the friar sit moody and without a word. Are we then to say ‘peace, peace,’ while Luther is banned and burned?”

I checked his vehemence with a restraining hand. “You ask a very witless question, Moritz. But hear my answer. That Luther should be banned at the behest of the Emperor and bishops astonishes me not at all, but burning is a different matter. He will in any case be suffered to return to Wittenberg, unless Charles violate the safe-conduct and enkindle the fury of Germany. And once out of Worms, few will make haste to burn him. Do you know what will happen?”

“What?”

“I have been watching the foreign clouds, and hearing all the rumors. Francis of France is about to seize our fine Kaiser by the throat. There is a great war impending. One month, two, three, four, how many I know not, but it will not be for very long. Once set the armies of His Imperial Majesty and of the Most Christian King to marching, and it will be a long day before the Emperor has much time or hankering to embroil himself with his German subjects whose spears and taxes will be very useful. If now Dr. Luther might be hidden away, might vanish like a bird, captured not by his foes, but by his friends, and remain hidden and safe for a little season, all will be well. Germany will find herself. The Cause will be too firmly rooted to be shaken, though all the winds of hell blow against it. When peace with France comes, Pope and Emperor will find the task too great for them.”

Moritz stroked his blond mustache reflectively. “I would be glad to see Luther in such an owl’s nest. There is one place possible, if the Saxon court will suffer it;--the Wartburg.”

“The great castle of Thuringia? Nothing safer. But who is its governor?”

“My own uncle, Von Steinitz; transferred from Wittenberg. Have you not heard it?”

“Better friend to Luther does not breathe. What if the thing could be managed! But, praise heaven, we have a respite, and my wits are too dull to-day to outwit a sheep, much less the Monsignori. Let us talk of other things.”

Then I asked him about his journey to Worms, and the welfare of his aunt and sister, whereat his brow clouded, but he told me readily. The abbess had need to visit Worms on the business of her order, some appeal to the Pope’s Legates as to a new “tenth” laid by the Vatican upon the Abbey lands. She had, he thought, taken Ilsa with her as travelling companion more because she distrusted leaving the young nun alone at Quedlinburg, than because she found her company congenial. She could not well refuse Moritz’s proffered escort, because it was notorious that the roads were infested by “free ritters,” to whom an abbess was no more sacred than a fat burgomaster; but all the way she had taken pains that Moritz and Ilsa should speak together as little as possible.

As for the abbess’s opinion of Luther, it had been one of uncompromising hostility. On the afternoon of the great ordeal she, with Ilsa and many other ladies, had listened to the great heretic through a grille above the hall. She had professed loud expectations that at the last “his father the devil” would forsake the friar, and leave him recanting and confounded. After the audience Moritz had seen his aunt and sister, and in the enthusiasm of the moment had heaped all manner of praise on Luther. His words had been flint against the abbess’s steel. A bitter dialogue had followed. Ilsa had taken sides warmly with her brother and incidentally with the heretic. Her aunt had turned on her in fury, had charged her with violating her sacred vows, “in hope, and thought, and everything but deed,” and finally had forbidden her “on her obedience as a nun,” to speak again to her “blasphemous and heretical brother.” The scene had ended with the abbess suddenly quitting the inn where the party had lodged, and seeking apartments at the castle. And as for Moritz, he, poor fellow, could only “bite his thumbs and look sour while his sister was led away.” The abbess, he hoped, would presently relent, “but sometimes he thought it more profitable to beseech a stone horse-post than his holy Aunt Theckla.”

“Moritz,” said I, directly, “is your sister Ilsa happy?”

“Happy?” he reëchoed, “I think she is one of the most miserable creatures in all the world.”

“Moritz,” I continued, “you believe in God. You believe that He is kindly, compassionate, forgiving; that if He is merciful to our sins, He is still more merciful to our blunders. Do you think it for His honor and glory, and do you think He is well pleased that when one of His children has taken upon herself vows for a life for which she is all unfitted, a life which makes herself and one she truly loves miserable beyond words, that those vows should be kept forever?”

He looked at me distractedly an instant, then his eyes opened in a mingled wonder and dread. “Holy Christ!” he swore, “you do not mean--”

With him I knew there was no way better than perfect frankness. “I mean full soon to ride into the Regenstein with your sister my true and honored wife.”

He was somewhat slow of thought; at last he spoke, though all over he was a-tremble.

“Yesterday at this hour I would have vowed ‘impossible.’ To-day, after hearing Dr. Luther’s great words, after feeling that the old priests’ faith was dying, that the better men’s faith was at hand--what shall I say? She is my sister. Who shall guard her honor save I?--” A long pause, and then, “You shall have her, Walter, if but Dr. Luther bless your wedding; and then God keep and bless us all!”

We pressed hands silently. A little later Andrea came to say that a strange man in burgher’s dress demanded to see me, and I went to the outer chamber.

* * * * *

It all befell very simply. I had gone to my fate as blindly as an ox to the slaughter. A decently dressed fellow of few words had asked me to visit a certain obscure inn situate near the Rhine gate, “Where he believed he could reveal to me a conspiracy against Dr. Luther.” I had followed him unhesitatingly, without even a word of explanation to Moritz. My informant declared I must come alone, or the plotters would grow suspicious. Possessed by the single thought that my master might be in some new danger, I had gone out into the street with barely the word to Andrea “To watch Dr. Luther like gold till I returned.” As for myself, I had not the least anxiety in the world. Was I not surely as safe as the hundred other German nobles attending the Diet? I had followed my conductor through circuitous and noisome alleys, until we passed into a narrow court before a tall, but very decrepit ancient mansion. Throwing open the narrow battered door the fellow motioned me to enter.

“This is a strange place to bring me,” I remarked with a shrug, for the first time debating the good faith of his errand.

“Your Lordship will discover in a moment the object of bringing you hither,” came the complacent answer. “You will have opportunity to hear the converse of some of Luther’s most malignant enemies.”

“After all,” I reflected, “conspirators must choose uncanny holes!” And so I stepped inside. The instant I had done so, however, I turned on my conductor sharply. “Fellow, you declared you would bring me to an inn. This silent house is no more an inn than it is a cathedral.”

Before I could receive his answer, I was startled by the rush of feet down the dark passage. At least four men were on me, and the door was instantly closed behind, cutting off nearly all the light. I struggled desperately to draw my walking rapier, but the odds were too great. In a moment I was on my back, with some sort of a shawl closely pressed over my head, stifling my outcries.

“Lie quiet, Excellency,” spoke a guttural voice which I recognized as possibly Hans Lange’s, “we are rough valets, but your life is in no danger if you but submit quietly.”

Having exerted myself to the very limit of my powers, I was fain to yield, being in fact too bruised and out-of-breath to think connectedly, and presently I was rudely hoisted to my feet with a muffler tied across my mouth, a dark handkerchief across my eyes, and my arms pinioned together not very gently. In this condition I was perforce led some distance through what I conceived to be, by the smell, musty apartments, and then again out into the open air; next I was thrust, or rather cast, upon the straw of what seemed a wagon. My captors beyond a doubt had been entirely prepared to deal with me, for the instant I was in the vehicle I felt them all clambering in beside me, and the former speaker ordered huskily “To close the wagon cover, and drive away.”

I heard the cracking of a whip, and in a moment we were off, bumping and rattling over the merciless cobbles of the city streets until every bone of my body, already sorely bruised, ached as if on the rack. Speech was forbidden to me, and my custodians said little, save that one cursed at times “that I had nigh bitten off his ear whilst we struggled on the floor.” Presently we were beyond the paved streets, and to my great relief upon some kind of a more level earthern road. Forcing myself to collect my wandering wits I tried to note the turns the wagon might take, and to compute the lapse of time consumed in the driving; but any guesses were obviously futile. I could only imagine I was being conveyed to some prison at a distance from the city walls. I was too conscious of much physical pain to reason connectedly; I could only console myself that at least my kidnappers were not assassins, until a “_Jesu-Maria!_” from one of the men about me taught half the story instantly.

“Ah! Eminenza di Forli,” spoke I in my heart, “it is to you that I owe this fair hospitality: you are about to repeat with greater address those worthy deeds you attempted at Palaestro! But we shall discover.”

In fact, my spirits rose a little. After all, in dealing with Forli I was dealing with a man whose means and mental processes I thoroughly understood, and was not that half the battle?

Presently the wagon rattled over a drawbridge, and halted for a murmured conversation, possibly with a sentinel on duty; we soon drove on, up a considerable incline, as if into a castle courtyard, and the hoofs clicked on more cobbles; next I was seized like a log, stood on my feet, and hurried down a flagged passage and up two long stairways. I heard a rattling of bolts; a door creaked open; I was thrust inside. Then the mufflers were withdrawn from my eyes and mouth; the pinions from my arms. Before me stood two low-browed loutish men with great rings of keys at their waists, evidently regular jailors, and by no means my late captors and companions. I eyed them severely.

“Well, my merry masters,” said I, glad to find my tongue, “will you deign to inform me why I am so suddenly summoned to partake of your kind hospitality?”

“Your worship will know presently,” remarked one, with a very sullen reverence.

“I am glad to see that you have the grace to bow to your betters. You would do still more wisely to consider whether it is safe for you to hold a free Count of the Empire in this most unlawful custody. Because I do not rave and curse do not think I am insensible to my treatment.”

“We have high warrant. Your worship will be told presently,” was all I could get out of him, and then perhaps fearing to have me question further, they turned suddenly and quitted the cell, leaving me to my thoughts and to cultivate the captive’s slow virtue of patience.

A cell the place surely was, although not quite a dungeon. I had soon paced off its nine feet by eight. The walls were roughly smoothed limestone. A single small and heavily barred window close to the ceiling showed nothing but a blank bare wall of masonry. There was a hard pallet with a rough blanket, a hay-stuffed sack for a pillow, a three-legged stool, an earthern cruse of water. On the walls were scribblings and rude pictures, the handiwork of former prisoners, but I could not interpret them then. That was all. My explorations were soon finished. Seating myself on the edge of the pallet I began to take account of my own physical state. Fortunately I was really none the worse save for a few scratches and bruises, although my arms were very sore where the cords had chafed. My clothing had been rent to shreds in the struggle. The kidnappers had appropriated my purse and gold chain, and of course my sword. I washed myself with the water in the cruse, drank a little, and felt somewhat refreshed, but my mental condition was none the happiest. This was a far more serious bondage than that from which Andrea had nimbly extricated me at Palaestro. In addition to wrath at the actual outrage came wrath at my own simplicity. How utterly I had played the fool! Had asked almost no questions, had taken no precautions, had informed no friends. Bewitched by the magic words “A plot against Luther,” I had walked into a trap a simpleton would have scorned. Verily I deserved every misery that might be awaiting!

Thus raced my first thoughts, but after these came others more bitter. Why had I been singled out for this treatment, even by an unmoral being like Forli? The answer came quickly enough; because in removing me, there was removed one of the chiefest guardians of Luther. My kidnapping was the prelude to a fouler plot to break the safe-conduct and to work some mortal harm upon the great foe of the Vatican. So after the moments of wrath came the moments of rage, when with none to witness me I cursed, swore oaths fit, I fear, for a lanz-knecht, bade God smite me dead, mew me up in prison forever, tear me limb from limb on the rack, if only my master might be saved, and the Cause move on to its eternal triumph.

At length the passion died. Heavy-hearted, weary in mind and body, sorely perplexed, I sat down again on the bed. I realized now that I was hungry, nor was I sorry when one of the scurvy jailors opened to pass me in a small loaf and a wooden platter of ill-cooked peas and lentils. I ate them greedily, and was again sitting idly, musing on the sore perplexity my disappearance would cause to Dr. Luther, when again the bolts rattled. I saw the jailors scraping in abject servility before a personage in a bright red cloak. It was the Cardinale di Forli.... His smile was as gracious as of old, when we met casually on the Corso. His features had possibly coarsened a trifle in the past few years, and he had grown more portly, otherwise I could not detect the slightest change. There was a tinge of delicate perfume about him. His rings and the linen at his neck and wrists were exquisite. I rose and bowed with some stiffness, both mental and physical. At sight of my tattered clothes he raised his hands deprecatingly.

“Alas! my poor Gualtiero. What disarray you have caused yourself by your ill-timed resistance. I charged my worthy servitors to conduct you here as gently as possible.”

“Then I owe to you, Eminenza, the vast courtesy of this encounter, this ride and these present hardly sumptuous quarters.”

“It will be your own fault, my dear fellow,” he rejoined “if you do not speedily exchange them for better. As for your clothes, that matter shall be remedied immediately.”

“I have more serious affairs upon my mind than the state of my doublet,” I returned coldly.

“I am delighted,” he observed, ignoring my remark, “that you retain your use of the Italian tongue so perfectly. I feared your accent had been ruined by these years of hearing only barbarous German gutturals.”

“Why your particular satisfaction, Eminenza?”

“Because you are so shortly to return to Italy as a country of permanent sojourn; in short, to resume your rightful estate, character, and life as the Conte di Palaestro.”

“Whether Palaestro or Regenstein is to be my name,” I cast back, paling possibly at the implied threat, “I trust Monsignore il Cardinale will be gracious enough to let me choose for myself.”

He moved his fat hands deprecatingly, and fingered the rare cameo dangling at his neck.

“You drive me to very blunt speech, Gualtiero; but allow me to state our intentions as delicately as possible. You will doubtless recall the advice of the famous physicians of antiquity--simply to name Hippocrates and Galen,--who urge the wise professor of the art of Æsculapius not to refrain from some necessary surgery or caustic, however sharp, notwithstanding that the sick man cries out vehemently against the inevitable pain. So we, physicians for your highest weal and happiness, cannot be deterred from our wholesome ministrations by any forms of protest, which you, _carissimo_, may feel in duty bound to utter.”

“I correctly apprehend your meaning,” I returned, “yet you will pardon my impoliteness if I fail to display true gratitude. However, you will suffer me to observe that this is Germany, not Italy, this is Worms, not Rome. It may prove an awkward, nay an highly embarrassing thing for even the Cardinal Legate of the Pope to have been the promoter of the lawless kidnapping of a free Count of the Empire. You fail in your customary shrewdness if you imagine such a proceeding will advance the prestige and favor of His Holiness in Germany. If I live, I will seek ample redress for your deeds this day. If you murder me, I can at least promise sufficient vengeance.”

“You speak as lustily as a Neapolitan bravo, my dear fellow,” spoke Forli, showing his teeth most unpleasantly. “I assure you your firm front, in what is confessedly a painful predicament, does you infinite credit. I will not fail to repeat it all to the admiration of Marianna. However, to return to the present discussion; you will perhaps modify your judgment of me when I show you this.”

He drew from his sleeve a small paper. As he unrolled it, my eyes caught the red seal with the Hapsburg double eagle. He passed it to me, and I read in French.

“For high reasons of Church and State, his Eminence, the
Cardinale di Forli, is permitted to seize the person of Walter,
Graf von Regenstein, otherwise called the Conte di Palaestro, and
to keep the said Walter in such custody as he may see fit.

“Such is our Imperial pleasure.

“_Carolus Imperator._”

There seemed nothing to say. I simply bowed and returned the writing to Forli, who waited considerately for the first shock of my discomfiture to pass.

“You see we were driven to these measures, Gualtiero,” he said at length, replacing the paper. “Your attitude towards Marianna was so absolutely unconciliatory. Santo Spirito! The poor girl was completely prostrated when I found her soon after you left her. Fortunately His Majesty was moved to do me a service, but out of consideration to yourself, no less than with a view to the disturbance your public arrest might create, I caused you to be taken most privately. Marianna has begged that you be humiliated as little as possible.”

“Cardinale di Forli,” I broke in, “grant me no favors, save as you would grant them to your mortal enemy. I will not waste tongue and breath on oaths, swearing that I will neither go to Italy nor stay in Italy save as a close prisoner. You think you know me, and of a surety I know you. Therefore our relations are simpler. Yet answer if you will one thing--am I here because Marianna will not see me escape her meshes, or because I have befriended Luther? Why should the Emperor order my arrest, even at the bidding of a Papal Legate?”

I could see Forli was not glad to have me press the question. His eyes moved shiftily.

“I cannot answer you now, Gualtiero. Perhaps there was a mixture of motive. You shall see what you shall see.”

“I thank you, Eminenza,” said I, with a sarcastic shrug, “for your enlightening answer.”

Evidently he saw our conversation was leading nowhere, and he moved backward to the door, nor did I make effort to detain him.

“Addio,” spoke he, going out, “till to-morrow. I will report your gracious speeches to Marianna.”

The waiting jailor flung open for him, the door closed behind him, and the bolts rattled back. The room was already darkening with the advancing twilight. I was alone with the four gray walls and my hard pallet. Long, long I sat with my head on my hands, trying to solve the riddle of Forli’s schemes and of my own fate. That the Cardinal and Marianna should seek my mischief was likely enough; but why the Emperor, who might strike more open blows, should condescend to this dagger-thrust, was beyond my guessing. Surely, Charles had hitherto seemed an honorable foe,--a lion, not a jackal.

I was weary in mind and body. My brain refused to work clearly. The prison around me was still,--terribly still. My absolute loneliness added to the fearfulness of my predicament. I would have been glad of some veritable idiot with whom I might go through the form of taking counsel. The black wall before me was not more unscrutable than my future. Only two things could I forsee clearly. Luther was about to confront some terrible and unexpected danger, and I was removed, partly lest I prevent that danger. Again, the Cause was like to perish, and with the Cause went every hope I had so loftily vaunted to Moritz touching Ilsa. She would die a Quedlinburg nun! And I--was I to be held in Italy like a dumb sheep, till I consented again to lead the old heathen life as the lover of Marianna? But here my manhood uprose in hot revolt. I was in prison, but I had still hands, heart, head, and wits. Luther was in danger, but he was not yet dead. The Cause in peril, but not yet ruined. Wherefore had men praised my learning, physical address, prudence, and worldly wisdom if I could not use them for mighty ends? The crisis was on me. By some power I knew not, and by some voice I heard not, it was borne home to me that in the next few days would come the test of my entire life; that I was to be put in heaven’s crucible and tried, to see how much was dross, how much was gold; that I must calm myself; must speak no word lightly; do no deed rashly; and be ready for whatsoever sacrifice high Duty might demand. Then, and then only, come what might, I would redeem my soul. And whether after that I lived or died would matter very little.

Remembering the example both of my master in Worms and my other Master in heaven, I cast myself beside the bed and prayed earnestly and long.

“Lord,” I concluded, “human help is failing me. Human philosophies and wisdom profit me nothing. Send down from Heaven Thy strength that I may save Dr. Luther and the Cause. May I be true to myself, and to the trust which Ilsa has set in me. Grant only that--then do with me as Thou wilt.”

When I rose to my knees a panel of moonlight from the tiny window threw itself across the flagged floor of the cell.

“A fair omen!” I thought. Nor was I troubled because the conceit seemed pagan.