Zawis and Kunigunde/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII.
ALARM AT FURSTENBERG. MISSION TO WENZEL.
During the period immediately preceding and following the departure of Zawis, Lady Ludmila discharged the duties of the household at Fürstenberg with more than ordinary grace and dignity. A queenly deportment, and possibly a consciousness of personal pre-eminence in stateliness, characterized all her movements. Not a step could be heard as she approached, and yet she always contrived to announce her coming; no bold advance marked her presence. Only the rustle of silk indicated her progress. Tall and majestic Lady Ludmila did not seem to walk. She moved as if her person obeyed one impulse, and with an active unity of progression her place was changed. A smile, a graciousness for all; an order of method that told of system well arranged; a clear, specific statement that indicated precision of thought, all rendered her task seemingly facile and light, and proffered to each a special courtesy and attention. Witek, and Wok, and Drda received the sturdy visitors, and distributed themselves among the guests of all degrees; and each felt himself of as much importance and the object of as much affability as any other in that equal company. Squire and peasant quaffed the same vintage of wine, and the same brimming beer. To all Lady Ludmila distributed pleasant compliments with impartiality; yet unusually keen observers did detect a watchfulness for Lord Drda’s comfort, a confidence of phraseology, and a willingness to confer light commissions that betokened an interest not the less because not obvious or avowed. His wax light found its place with strict regularity; a flower graced his chamber; and a water pitcher ever replenished intimated a larger interest in his personal welfare than the attention itself announced.
In the midst of all this confidence and joy the dreadful intelligence arrived from Prague;—-the lord of the castle and its dependent castles, the center of all this honor and congratulation, suddenly and with brutal violence beaten down and flung into a dungeon, at the instant when his loyal heart entrusted his person, wholly unattended, to the honor of his prince, and his liege homage spoke eloquently in the graceful gift of affectionate courtesy to his sovereign’s queen! Men felt stunned with overpowering indignation. Wrath, fury, and then suppressed resentment occupied all minds. The best lord in Bohemia, and the greatest; the noblest heart and most devoted subject; the greatest councilor, and most illustrious and successful statesman; the truest knight and most honorable upholder of Bohemian chivalry, with ineffable baseness entrapped by an appeal to his own honor, and insidiously made the victim of royal duplicity by his own loyal trustfulness! Worse than this in relation to the patriotic feelings of all the indignant company, the instructed wisdom that had restored Bohemia from prostration to comparative prosperity, the wholesome knowledge that promised to elevate the land in scientific industry and wealth, the practical education that gave life and direction to aptitude and skill, all denounced with malignant abhorrence as magic and the diabolism of the great fiend, appealed to righteous resentment, and created a loathing, a contempt for the new spirit which had invaded the palace of Bohemia that demonstrated an established divergence between the people and the deluded prince. Necessarily the first impulse turned towards gates, and walls, and barriers. Witek, a rugged soldier more than a statesman, and Wok, a cadet of the house and obeying the orders of his elders, at once visited the outposts, and summoned warders and retainers to the ramparts and drawbridges. Drda took his place where ordered, and soon the danger of surprise had passed. Stones were collected, weapons examined, and missiles placed in readiness. Visitors quickly departed, each diffusing a vague sense of danger, none able to divine what might happen first. All preparations indicated a resolute resistance.
Ere the closing of the gates, and with the departure of the most reluctant guests, glided forth in the gloom the dark figure of a veiled woman, whose presence had been scarcely heeded in the throng and the gaiety. Quickly now she sped away, and hid herself in the night.
Ere long a summons of surrender reached Fürstenberg. It contained a menace of the most rigorous punishment to be visited on all who should venture to resist the king’s troops.
The commander of the party also intimated that an imperial force had been dispatched in aid of the king; and formally required Witek to surrender all garrisons and castles under threat of the direst penalties already decided against their master in case of delay. He also declared that unconditional surrender alone could release Zawis from the dreadful doom awaiting him in case of hesitation. “You will see him severed in pieces before your walls,” said the amiable officer, “if you attempt to fight; and your only hope of seeing him again in freedom, and in his place, is to submit to the king’s mercy.”
Necessarily consultations followed. Long debates and divided sentiment distracted every garrison. In the dreadful alternative before them every soldier received a welcome to express his thoughts; every retainer enjoyed the right to elicit the best counsel by interposing his own sentiment. The fatal absence of the one mind whom all would have obeyed to the death, the disposition to look to that source alone, both from confidence and from habit, at length turned the course of debate to the question: “What would Zawis himself have done in such a conjuncture?”
“I know,” said Witek, “my brother’s face has never turned from his foe, and his hand has never failed when an enemy came before him.
“He never provoked a quarrel, nor threw down a defiance without deliberation. No wanton hostility ever showed itself in his temper; and no treachery or cruelty ever stained his knighthood. Were he now present, I believe he would undauntedly accept this challenge.
“My judgment is that we resist to the last; and if we must fall, let us fall as men who feel that their soldier’s honor is more sacred to them than all else.”
“My judgment,” said Wok, “corresponds with that of my brother. We must consider, however, that now it is not only the king but the empire that confronts us. I do not believe that any concession, and especially any weakness, will procure for our brother the least relaxation. I am sure he would never counsel us to consider him, but to sustain the honer of his house. His fate is already decided. Those who could abandon honor, degrade the name of hospitality, abjure truth, and conspire to betray, can also send to us deceitful messages and perjured promises. This offer, in terms indirect, of freedom to our brother contains no stipulation, and is only another snare intended to deceive us. No consideration of dignity or good faith can be expected from those who now compose the king’s council. The palace has become a den of infamy; the wisdom that restored Bohemia is denounced, by a contemptible superstition, as magic; and the honor we did the Austrian woman only elicits the depraved spirit that now corrupts the palace of the Premysls. Our only hope is in our hands; and by our swords alone can we expect any terms from our enemies.”
The garrisons of the different castles, Fürstenberg, Landskron, Landsberg, Hluboka, gradually constituted themselves into separate councils. Wide diversity of sentiment arose. Witek visited each in turn; and around him gathered the more resolute, and the more indignant. Self-interest prevailed with some; and temporizing controlled others.
As soon as Witek had departed from each fortress the division of opinion created numerous small parties, each clamorous for its own proposal; and these again subdivided into individuals who held strongly to their several sentiments with that centrifugal temper so strongly characteristic of the Bohemian people. That individualist and independent spirit, which made the nation the first reformers in Europe, and has longest and most persistently asserted the right of private judgment, and must do so because such tendency is inherent in their nature and cannot be eradicated, on the present occasion, as on many others, exposed the united cause to ruinous prostration. Well did the Duke of Troppau understand his countrymen when he presented to them the double source of discord, an offer of compromise, and an appeal to their nationalist sentiment as embodied in one chieftain, adulterated by a provocation of personal self-appreciation. Never yet have the Bohemians failed in exhibiting their dislike of one-man government; and never, accordingly, have they adhered to any one leader, even when that one combined in himself all that human excellence could present. They have had such on many occasions; and never did they disavow their own individualism in presence of the best leader in the best cause. Only two men have succeeded in combining the enthusiasm and the self-forgetfulness of the Bohemians; and those two had not arisen when the fate of the Lord Zawis’ castles depended on unanimity.
Cohesiveness as a nation had not yet been established among them. They were still subjects of a dynasty, and their habits of thought corresponded to that condition.
Much discussion, some dissension, left the chief garrisons undecided. The bolder spirits under Witek, Wok, Drda, resolved to defy their foes; and for this purpose they selected Witek’s fortress of Hluboka, where his personal authority commanded absolute discipline, as the scene of their final challenge.
At this juncture Solomon arrived and learned the condition of affairs. He at once volunteered his services as mediator before the court at Prague.
Through some mysterious channel Duke Nicolas acquired intimate information of the internal status at Fürstenberg. He learned its provisions, its garrisons, its divided sentiment, the names of the visitors, and their expressed abhorrence of his treachery. The king and queen evoked little but a sentiment of contempt, as being merely the ignorant dupes of crafty councilors. But Nicolas had been brought up a Bohemian in Bohemia. He had not, however, received intimation of the arrival there of Solomon, and of Lord Boppo and Prokop.
Nicolas had hitherto acted in the name of King Wenzel; and the meeting of these three persons changed his position completely. It had been the policy of Rudolph and Queen Judith to impose the entire responsibility for proposed violence against Zawis on the native dynasty. Wenzel had now, however, reached an age when his personality had acquired some maturity, and insight into men’s motives. He knew also that the emperor’s life drew to aclose; and he possessed in himself sufficient of the Premysl to feel a strong throb of individuality.
Boppo’s presence inspired resolution at Fürstenberg.
“By a strange coincidence,” he said, “three persons have met here at this juncture who individually represent the principal phases of Bohemian social constituents. Perhaps I may be permitted to say that I, in some measure, embody the military element, and the tone and sentiment that characterized it. Like myself, I fear the old knighthood of Bohemia is passing away. In its place we seem to have introduced a deceitful imitation of soldierhood that adopts the nomenclature of military rank, and incites others to perform acts of cold vengeance unmingled with any of the chivalry or forbearance of a soldier, or any of the admiration for the valor of an adversary that a soldier is always proud to acknowledge. Our knighthood is being converted to the abhorrent purpose of being executioner of decrees passed without its concurrence, on persons deserving of its respect.
“My statesman friend, the learned Rabbi ben Gerson, now in large measure represents the unrestricted associations of Bohemian enterprise with all nationalities, especially to the east and south. The new inroad from the west threatens to alter these relations and circumscribe the political as well as the commercial conditions in the future.
“My respected and reverend friend Prokop embodies the growth of thought that has marked Bohemia during four centuries; and is being rapidly effaced and obscured, but not eradicated, by new western dogmas and tendencies.
“Unitedly we represent the Bohemia of the past. But if an old man’s long experience and observation are of value, neither the one nor the other, nor yet the third can continue darkened or extinguished. The native heart of Bohemia will assert itself; and the generosity of soldierhood will exhibit manliness under heroes of Bohemian race, after the present sudden violence shall have allowed time to Bohemian manhood to recover. A wider sphere of influence shall center in Bohemia; and men shall again look to it as the inspirer of mind and hope.
“Last of all, the free intelligence and right of investigation, of research, and of judgment will reassert its native force, and Bohemian thought shall lead the van in the reformation of the world. I see this by necessary inference from the past; for you can not change the essentials of national inherent qualities.
“Permit me to suggest that we proceed as a deputation to the king’s court. If I am rightly advised the present proceedings are not of the king’s suggestion. We may at least release his name from complicity in this envenomed crime.”
The approach of these remarkable persons, each in his own peculiarity a representative of Bohemia, created much attention, and some excitement. Wenzel, hearing of this singular deputation through Jaroslav, and Ulrich, his father’s former secretary, ordered the immediate admission of the embassadors. The guard, notified of Lord Boppo’s grand character, exhibited every mark of military respect.
“It is probable that your highness does not remember me personally,” observed Boppo. “I am changed from what I was when I carried your highness on my saddle bow, when the roughness of tracks, and the weariness of travel rendered a tedious and hasty journey especially wearisome to a child of ten years. Your highness may not remember when I supplied needed refreshments often neglected even to the denial of absolute necessaries of life. Your highness may not recall the introduction of young companions to break the neglectful monotony of an abode practically a captivity. Perhaps I may add, and I doubt not with some truth, that to such attentions your highness owes your throne, together with your life. I had never anticipated such requital as I fear I must now experience; I solicit the only recognition I have ever suggested, the full release of the most gallant knight and the truest liege subject in your highness’ dominions.”
“Your highness may not be aware,” said Solomon, “that since the last unhappy effort of your illustrious father, large sums are due to members of my nation at Brünn, Olmütz, and also in Hungary. These claims have not been pressed, as we know the exhausted condition of Bohemia. They form now a serious demand which the Hungarian court has promised to enforce, all the more rigorously as the lady Judith expects of her brother vengeance for the dreadful injuries committed against her. I am authorized to grant acquittance of these claims on the same terms suggested by my lord of Osterna.”
“Your highness certainly does not recall the fact,” remarked Prokop, “and I believe it has been studiously concealed, that as the honored and lamented Queen Kunigunde’s chaplain I administered the rite of baptism that admitted the heir to the Bohemian throne into the church. Your highness, however, is aware that the lamented queen, your royal mother, as a Russian princess, favored the Greek communion, and largely aided in promoting sympathy with that expression of our faith throughout Bohemia. Her highness’ almost sudden demise deprived your royal mind of that affection, and that wise statesmanship that at once formed the solace of your life, and the power of your throne.”
With much difficulty could Wenzel reply to these addresses. His heart was profoundly touched; and with an evident feeling of intense remorse, as well as of his personal subjection, he replied with emotion, “I am not the author of these proceedings. I would gladly do myself the pleasure of acceding to the request you honor me with. To my extreme regret, the necessary orders have been issued. The imperial troops are even now on their march under imperial authority; and I would even at this late moment recall my own forces if it were possible. This day is not the least bitter of all my bitter days. I have long suspected that the whole truth was not told to me; and I fear I shall learn it only when too late. To you, my Lord Boppo, and to you, gentlemen, I return most respectful thanks. I would most gladly accede to your wishes as my most grateful acknowledgment.”:
The deputation noticed the king’s evident embarrassment and grief; and with profound sympathy they courteously withdrew.