The Prince Commands: Being Sundry Adventures of Michael Karl, Sometime Crown Prince & Pretender to the Thrown of Morvania (10 page)

“D'ye ride, lad?” he interrupted himself to ask suddenly.

“Yes.”

“That is good. I'll show ye a couple o’ fillies that'll make ye long to get a let up on ‘em. It's a pity the Duke don't care for racin’ any more. In the old days his stables was one o’ the sights o’ the country, but now he's taken to cars like the rest o’ ‘em.”

“Does the Duke come out often?” Michael Karl had no desire to be caught by the Duke this late in the day.

Ultmann shook his head. “No, seems like he don't care for the country no more. He's a big man in Rein since the old king died. He was sort o’ out o’ favor before then; supported the Prince who ran off and married a foreigner, and the king sent him off to enjoy his estates. And from what I've heard tell, the Prince that the Duke liked was the best o’ the lot; he was the only one o’ ‘em all who dared to stand up to old Karl when he was in one o’ his tantrums. A regular old pepper pot, the king was.”

“Did you ever see the Prince?” asked Michael Karl. So the Duke had supported his father and had been exiled to his estates for doing so. Faith, he was learning more family history from this Ultmann than he would have ever learned from history books.

Ultmann shook his head regretfully. “I didn't come until after the king had packed him off abroad and sent all his friends, the Duke included, away from court. It was then that the Duke took to horses, and he sent to England for a man to manage his stables. That's when I came. Me father was a Morvanian what settled in England, and he was at the huntin’ stables of Lord Westingham. Brought me up right, he did, an’ learned me a good trade into the bargain. That's how I come here. And now, Lad, here we are.”

They turned off the main road onto a narrow, hedge-bordered drive, and Ultmann got out to open the five-barred gate before them. Some horses in a neighboring field trotted up to watch them curiously. Ultmann waved his hand toward them.

“They be beauties,” he said and grinned with pride when Michael Karl heartily agreed with him. “They always wants to see what a man be a-doin’, bad as children, they be.”

He climbed stiffly back into the car and drove through the open gate. Michael Karl volunteered to close it.

“That be right helpful of ye, Lad. I'm not so limber as I uster to be. Marthe will be right glad to see ye come in for dinner. She was remarkin’ this mornin’ that company was mighty few and far between for us.”

Michael Karl wondered who Marthe was. “But,” he said slowly, “I must see the roses.”

Ultmann favored Michael Karl with a slow closing of the left eye. “The roses will keep until after dinner, Lad. I'll be a-thinkin’ that ye won't find Marthe's cookin’ amiss.”

He steered the car around a bend in the road and into a farmyard. Some distance away from the haystack, the busy chickens and the pack of excited dogs which thrust themselves upon Ultmann, was a small, neat house with a hint of freshly laundered curtains at the windows and a budding rosebush by the door.

“The rose garden's on the other side,” Ultmann informed him, “an’ the stable's over there.” He pointed with the stem of his stubby pipe to the long gray building a field away from them.

“An’ here's Marthe, Lad.”

A small woman in the neatest of print dresses stepped out of the door to welcome them.

“Franz, ye're late agin,” she chided the man softly as he came up the paved walk.

“I had reason, m'dear. This lad has come about some yellow roses an’ he'd like some dinner too, I'll be a-thinkin’. Such dinners as ye have, Marthe, are treats such as even the old king never got in his life.”

The little lady dimpled and smiled at Michael Karl. “Ye'll come in an’ wash, both of ye, and then maybe I'll be a-findin’ somethin’ in the oven for ye.”

Ultmann led Michael Karl to a sunny bedroom and poured him a basin of cool water.

“The soap and towels be here, Lad.” He swung open the door in the lower part of the washstand.

“Thank you.” Michael Karl was already shedding his warm tunic and rolling up his shirt sleeves.

Washed and brushed as neatly as he could be without either comb or clothes brush he walked into the tiny parlor a few minutes later to find his hostess setting the last of a mammoth array of steaming dishes on a table. She smiled as he came in.

“Franz will be here directly. It is nice of ye to visit us. So far are we from town that we have few callers. Now, Franz,” she said to Ultmann as he came in, “the boy must stay with us awhile.”

Ultmann shook his head. “He is a-huntin’ yellow roses, Marthe,” he answered simply.

Marthe looked up with real fear in her eyes. “But,” she protested to Michael Karl, “ye're too young to—to—”

“Search for yellow roses?” Michael Karl supplied for her. “But then I've been hunting for them for some time. However, there are quite a few people,” he thought of the Duke, “who feel the same way you do about it.”

Ultmann sampled the soup before him. “Didn't I tell ye, Lad, that Marthe is the best cook in the country?”

Michael Karl looked up from his fast emptying plate. “I agree with you heartily.”

But the praise failed to bring a smile to Marthe's worried face. “I don't like it,” she murmured, still looking at Michael Karl.

He laughed. “I'll be back safe and sound, never fear, and the yellow roses with me, on the sixteenth.”

Marthe still was doubtful, nor did her face clear when Michael Karl finished his dinner and prepared to follow his guide to the last trail of the yellow roses.

Chapter X

Into The Mountains At Once

Michael Karl gathered up his coat and discarded cap and was about to start down the walk after the now impatient Ultmann when Marthe came hurrying in to press a packet neatly done up in the cleanest of linen napkins into his hand.

“A little somethin’ to eat. The mountains be cruel sometimes, Laddie. What will thy mother be a-thinkin’ to let ye go?”

Michael Karl looked at her very gravely and then stooped to kiss her wrinkled hand. “Thank you very much. You see, my mother isn't here to worry any more.”

He went quickly out of the door and joined Ultmann in the yard.

“We cross to the stables, Lad. It is a good thing ye can ride for I'll have to be givin’ ye Lady Spitfire, and she be none too gentle with a stranger.”

They tramped across the field and into the dirt lane which led to the stables. A groom was busy rubbing down a muddy horse and a boy was whistling through his teeth as he unloaded bales of straw from a farm wagon. But for these two, a sleepy black cat and a pair of uneasy but very plump pigeons, the stable yard was empty.

“Hans!” shouted Michael Karl's guide.

The groom dropped his brush and turned with a half salute to answer.

“Bring out the Lady and the light huntin’ saddle. This young man be of a mind to try her.”

The groom led his horse into an empty stall and disappeared. In a minute or two he was back leading a dainty black mare who picked her way disdainfully with her small hooves and sneered at the groom by her head.

“Here she be, Herr Ultmann. Is the young Dominde wishful for to try her on the round track?”

Ultmann shook his head. “No. He will be a-takin’ her for the afternoon. He comes with orders from His Grace. Now, then, saddle her, Hans.”

He followed Hans into the saddle room while the boy with the straw bales held the Lady. When he returned, he had a pair of small saddle bags over his arm.

“Will ye be so kind as to drop these at the head shepherd's hut, Lad? The mountain trail leads by it.”

“Of course.” Michael Karl answered as he mounted.

The Lady was inclined to be skittish, and Michael Karl found that he needed a steady hand to bring her down to business.

“Follow the path through the orchard,” Ultmann said, “and when ye're through the pass give the mare her head. Good-by and good luck to ye, Lad.”

“Good-by!” shouted Michael Karl over his shoulder. He could hold the dancing Lady no longer and they were off down the orchard path.

A regular shower of fragrant petals rained down upon them to tangle in the mare's-short mane and powder Michael Karl's shoulders. The heavy, sweet scent of plum blossoms years after could always make him see again the dancing mare and the dirt track winding among the flowering trees. There was at least a mile of the orchard road and the mare settled down to a steady trot.

Michael Karl pulled the leather coat more comfortably across the saddle horn so that the pistol pocket lay on top. The saddle bags seemed empty and he guessed that they were to be his passport to some guardian of the hill ways.

A gate gaped before them, and they were out on a stony track which stumbled its way into a wood and so up the mountain side. The mare picked her path as daintily as a cat on a wet day and seemed to know her way. They entered the wood, and Michael Karl was grateful for the shade. The afternoon sun was decidedly warm on his shoulders.

The wood was so still about him that he dared to whistle a song that he had heard a street musician play a day or two before. It had been just at twilight, and he had shared the upper balcony with Ericson when the man had come wandering along playing the violin and singing softly.

“Listen,” Ericson had gripped his arm, “he's singing one of the mountain songs which you rarely hear nowadays.”

The lilting air was very sweet and they had both tossed him coins as he had passed beneath them. And now Michael Karl tried to remember the notes.

Gradually the forest thinned out, and the trees became shrubs, the shrubs pasture land. Here and there a newly clipped sheep, its pink skin still shining through the scanty, dirty wool, stared stupidly after them or went on grazing. A wary, tangle-coated dog barked at Michael Karl sharply from the top of a rock where he had established his lookout over his master's flock.

As if the dog's bark had summoned him, a gaunt man, whose shoulders bent forward under a heavy sheepskin coat, appeared around the base of the watchdog's rock and stood quietly waiting for Michael Karl to come up to him. Michael Karl unfastened the saddle bags.

“Good day,” he said pleasantly. The man stared at him and then at the worn saddle bags Michael Karl was holding out to him.

He reached for them slowly. “Ye come from Ultmann,” he asked rustily as if he had not had occasion to speak for a long time.

“Yes, I do,” answered Michael Karl. The mare was restless, suspicious of the dog who had left his place and come down to sniff around her ankles.

“Ye go straight up to the long peak,” the shepherd pointed up the mountain, “cross the pass and down, then over the river and tell the sentry ‘Rein Post.’”

He nodded curtly in answer to Michael Karl's thanks and turned away, calling his curious dog sharply to heel as he disappeared behind the rock with the saddle bags over his arm.

Michael Karl dismounted; the slope was too steep to force the mare to carry him. He hooked the reins over his arm and started to climb. It was an hour before they reached the long peak, a shaft of solid rock like a giant's needle. A faint path wound around beneath its shadow. This must be the pass, Michael Karl thought.

He stood awhile to rest. The valley of Rein, he could see the Fortress towers and the Cathedral spire easily, lay behind him and the mysterious hunting ground of the Werewolf sloped downward from his feet before him. The mare sighed and sniffed at the downward track.

Swinging into the saddle Michael Karl obeyed Ultmann's instructions and gave the mare her head. With a right good will she started downwards. Almost immediately they were swallowed up in a forest ten times as thick and wild as that on the other side of the mountain, and yet a faint track led them on. It was the faintest of trails, but Michael Karl placed his trust in the Lady's knowledge and she seemed to know her way very well. Evidently it wasn't the first time she had used the mountain path.

The shadows were growing, and here in the forest there was a chill in the air. It wasn't long before Michael Karl was glad to slip into the leather coat he had had the forethought to bring along.

The mare halted and sniffed the air and then turned aside confidently. Within the screening bush a spring bubbled cool and clear, and she buried her nose deep in the water while Michael Karl hastened to dismount and drink from his cupped hands.

He pulled a wisp of the coarse grass and rubbed down the mare's thin legs and flanks. She was content to stand for awhile, so he pulled out the napkin-wrapped lunch Marthe had given him and ate two of the thick, satisfying sandwiches. The ride over the mountain through the crisp air had whetted his appetite.

Thrusting remains of the lunch back in his pocket, he caught the reins and swung into the saddle. It must be growing late; the shadows were very deep now. They continued their way down the slope, the mare picking her way very carefully, measuring her distances as she went.

The forest was growing thinner. Once they came upon a rude stack of wood and there were scars of recent cuttings all about them. The sun shone hot in the clearings, but the mare avoided the open spaces and kept to the tangle of trees and vines.

They were on level ground at last and through the trees Michael Karl could hear the river. He halted the mare and bent over the saddle to pull up the campaign boots. It was a good thing after all that he had raided the royal wardrobe, the ford might be deep.

Out of the trees unto a sloping bank they came at last. The mare turned downstream a hundred feet or so and then walked out cautiously in the pebble-bottomed stream. Almost at once she was beyond her depth and swimming strongly with the water rippling around her powerful shoulders and lapping unpleasantly over Michael Karl's boot tops.

As suddenly as it had fallen beneath them the bottom arose again. The mare found her footing, sneezed and stepped to shore where she stopped and shook herself tike a dog. Michael Karl leaned forward to turn down his boots when some one on the bank above him spoke softly.

“Good girl, Lady. Well done!”

The mare whinnied and Michael Karl looked up. A man, in the same drab uniform that the Duke had worn the night before, was looking down, but his eyes were all for the mare instead of her rider.

Then he appeared to remember that the Lady might have a rider and the rifle which hung so comfortably in the crook of his arm pointed towards Michael Karl. This then was the sentry.

“Rein Post,” said Michael Karl swiftly.

“Who to?” asked the man coolly.

“I am interested in yellow roses,” answered Michael Karl deliberately, “and would like to meet any one who is interested in the same thing.” Great guns, he thought, that sounded just like one of those advertisements one puts in the back of magazines asking for correspondents.

“Yellow roses,” the man laughed. “If you will come up here, friend, I think I can find you some one who is interested in yellow roses.”

Without waiting to see if Michael Karl followed he turned away. The mare, with a little urging from her rider, scrambled up the bank and followed their guide. This bank of the river looked almost civilized. A broad road ran along it, and the gravel-filled ruts testified not only to its use, but also to the care spent in keeping it up.

The sentry swung along it easily until he came to a mammoth oak tree where he stopped and, putting his fingers to his mouth, whistled shrilly. Out of the bush, almost at their feet, appeared a youngster whose drab blouse was crossed by two well filled cartridge belts and who had a long-barreled rifle slung over his shoulder by a strap.

“Messenger to see
him,”
the sentry indicated Michael Karl with a thrust of a dirty thumb. “Take him in.”

Without another word the sentry turned back to his post by the river, and the boy came forward to take the mare's loose reins. He stared at Michael Karl curiously but did not speak.

Michael Karl longed to ask him if he were one of the wolf pack and if the American had arrived safely for his meeting with the Werewolf, who might or might not be the King of Morvania. But the guide forged straight ahead and gave him no opening. Almost unconsciously Michael Karl began to hum the mountain air which had attracted him.

The boy stopped. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Michael Karl answered with the old formula, “A seeker of yellow roses.”

His questioner refused to be satisfied with that. “But that isn't their signal, that is the password of the—” Then he stopped suddenly and hurried on, deaf to Michael Karl's questions.

The road curved away from the river back into the forest, and they plodded on. Little spurts of dust arose from between the mare's hooves and the soldier's boots. Michael Karl shivered and drew the coal closer, the last warmth of the sun disappeared, and only a pale gold in the west remained. He was learning just how cool a May night in the mountains might be.

Then they came into the camp. Five tiny cabins grouped in a rough circle was the nucleus of a large city of brush huts and weather-stained tents. Before each crackled a fire fed by countless hurrying shadows. It was the camp of a large army. The Werewolf was evidently more of a power in the land than the Council guessed.

Michael Karl and his guide were noticed almost at once, and a young man in a black uniform from which all badges of rank had been removed held a whispered conversation with the soldier.

“If you will please’ dismount and come with me,” the newcomer said at last and, as Michael Karl hesitated, added, “Reptmann will see after the horse.”

Michael Karl obediently slid down from the saddle. His stiff legs moved woodenly, and he stumbled when he tried to walk. It appeared that this was the price for hours in the saddle when there were three months between this and the last ride.

He reeled in the wake of the newcomer towards the largest of the cabins. A soldier lounging near the door pulled himself up stiffly and saluted the young man smartly.

The cabin was small but it wasn't dark. Two lamps, lighted, Michael learned later, from storage batteries, stood on the table among some badly rolled maps, part of one of the huge round loaves of black bread, a bottle of the sour mountain wine and a greasy tin plate with a gnawed chicken leg on it.

A middleaged man with very tidy gray hair and a small, neatly waxed mustache was absent- mindedly nibbling at a chunk of bread while he listened to a long list being read droningly aloud by a thick-lipped young man with a too-tight collar.

He looked up quickly as they entered and Michael Karl knew, by the little sigh of relief he gave, that he was very glad indeed to be interrupted.

“Well, Urich?” he asked as Michael Karl's companion saluted.

“A messenger, Colonel Haupthan.”

“From whom?” The Colonel leaned forward and stared in a puzzled way at Michael Karl's face.

“Duke Johann,” answered Michael Karl. Lukrantz had sent him but Johann was head of the Rein party.

“What is it?”

“I am afraid,” Michael Karl said respectfully, “that I must decline to answer. I am to deliver my message directly to Mr. Ericson.”

Colonel Haupthan frowned. “What do you mean? There is no Mr. Ericson with us.”

Michael Karl mentally kicked himself. It was very probable that Ericson went under some other name when visiting the royal forces.

He began again. “My message is to the American who is negotiating with the Werewolf.”

The Colonel arose slowly. They were all staring at him now.

“There is no American in this camp,” said the Colonel.

Michael Karl's companion spoke harshly. “He claims to be one of the Yellow Roses and yet he used the signal of the Black Coats. What—”