Chapter II

THE CHAMPION.

The Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, the husband of the falsely accused empress, was one of the bravest and most unfortunate princes who ever sat upon a throne. He had succeeded his father, Henry the Black, in 1056, at the age of six years, and the diet had given to Agnes of Aquetaine the administration of the affairs of state during his minority. But the princes and barons of Germany feeling themselves humiliated by their subjection to a foreign female, revolted against the empire, and Otho, Margrave of Saxony, commenced that series of civil wars, in which the emperor was destined to consume his life. Thus Henry IV. was always engaged in contests, first with his uncles, and then with his son; sometimes an emperor, sometimes a fugitive; to-day a proscriber, to-morrow proscribed; but always a “man of war and wo,” even in his greatest triumphs. After having deposed Pope Gregory VII.—after having, in expiation of that sacrilege, crossed the Apennines on foot, his staff in his hand, like a mendicant, in the depth of winter—after having waited three days in the court of the Castle of Canassa without clothes, without fire, without food, till it pleased his highness to admit him to his presence, he kissed his feet, and swore on the cross to submit himself to his authority; for at this price alone would the pope absolve the imperial penitent of the guilt of sacrilege; but the humiliation of the emperor displeased and disgusted the Lombards, who accused him of cowardice. Threatened by them with deposition, if he did not break the shameful league he had made with the pope, he purchased peace with the Lombards by renouncing his submission to Gregory. His acceptance of these terms set him at variance with the German barons, who elected Rodolphe, of Suabia, in his place. Henry, who had gone to Italy as a supplicant, returned to Germany a soldier, though under the ban of the church, for his rival, Rodolphe, had received from Pope Gregory a crown of gold, in token of his investiture by him of temporal dominion, and a bull invoking the malediction of heaven upon his enemy. Henry defeated and slew Rodolphe at the battle of Wolskieur, near Gera, after which he returned victorious and furious into Italy, bringing with him the Bishop Guibert, whom he had made pope. This time it was for Gregory to tremble, who could not expect more mercy than he had shown to Henry. He shut himself up in Rome, and when the emperor appeared under the walls, sent a legate to make up the quarrel, by the offer of the investiture of the crown, and absolution and reconciliation to the church. Henry’s only reply was the capture of the city. The pope fled to the Castle of St. Angelo, where he was put in a state of blockade by Henry, who placed upon the papal throne the Anti-Pope Guibert, from whose hand he received the imperial crown. He had scarcely done this before he received the annoying intelligence that the Saxons had elected in his room, Hermann, Count of Luxembourg. Henry repassed the Apennines, beat the Saxons, subdued Thuringia, and took Hermann prisoner, whom he permitted to live and die unknown in an obscure corner of his empire. He once more re-entered Italy, where he caused his son Conrad to be elected King of the Romans. Believing he had settled peace on a firm basis, he came back to Germany, and turned his arms against the Bavarians and Suabians, who still remained in a state of revolt.

His son, whom he had just made king of the Romans, and who aspired to the empire, conspired at that time against his father, raised an army, and got Pope Urban II. to excommunicate him a second time. Henry upon this convoked the diet to Aix-la-Chapelle, laid open before it his paternal grief, and displayed the wounds of a heart wrung by filial ingratitude, and demanded that his second son, Henry, should be acknowledged for king of the Romans, in the place of his brother. In the midst of the sitting, he received a mysterious intimation that his presence was required at Cologne, where, he was told, an important secret would be made known to him. Henry quitted the diet in great haste; and found two of the noblest barons in the empire, Guthram de Falkenbourg and Walter de Than, waiting for him at the gates of his palace. The emperor invited them to enter with him, and led them into his chamber, when perceiving sadness and gloom painted on their faces, he demanded “why they appeared so thoughtful and sorrowful!”

“Because the majesty of the throne is in danger,” replied Guthram, with some abruptness.

“Who has endangered the throne?” demanded the emperor.

“The Empress Praxida, your wife,” said Guthram.

No other tidings would have made Henry of Germany turn pale, for he had only been married to the empress two years, for whom he felt the tenderness of a parent, and the faithful love of a husband. His union with this angelic young woman had given him the only happy hours he had passed during his stormy and unfortunate life. He had not courage at this miserable moment even to ask what his wife had done, but was gathering the strength of a failing heart to do so, when Guthram broke the ominous silence, by saying, “she has done what we cannot pass by unnoticed, for the honor of the imperial throne, and we should deserve the name of traitors to our sovereign lord, if we should hesitate to make her misconduct known to him.”

“What has she done?” again demanded the emperor, growing paler than before.

“In your absence she has encouraged the love of a young knight, and that so openly,” replied Guthram, “that if she gives birth to a son, however the people may rejoice in that event, your nobility will mourn; for though any master is good enough for the multitude, none but the noblest in the empire can command the highest nobles in the world, who will render homage to none but the son of an emperor.”

Henry supported himself against the chair of state on which he leaned, or he would have fallen to the floor, for he remembered that only a month before, the empress had written to him to announce her maternal hopes, with the pleasure natural to a young woman about to become a mother.

“What has become of the knight?” asked the emperor.

“He quitted Cologne as suddenly as he entered it, without any person knowing from whence he came, or whither he is going. His country and name are secrets with which we are unacquainted, but you had better ask the empress, she perhaps, can satisfy your majesty.”

“Very well,” replied the emperor, “Enter, gentlemen, that cabinet.” Then the emperor summoned his chamberlain, and bade him conduct the empress to his chamber. As soon as the emperor was alone, he threw himself into the chair, like a man who had lost his personal strength and mental firmness. He who had endured with unbending fortitude civil and foreign wars, the ban of the church, and the filial revolt, yielded to a doubt. His head, which had borne the weight of a crown for five-and-forty years, without bending beneath the burden, grew feeble under the weight of a suspicion, and hung down as if the hand of a giant was upon it. In a moment the man, who had scarcely passed his full meridian of intellect, forgot every thing—empire, ban, malediction, revolt. He remembered nothing but his wife, the only human being who possessed his entire confidence, and who had deceived him more basely than any other creature had yet done. Much as he had experienced, throughout his long regnal life, of disloyalty and guile, tears fell from his eyes, for the rod of misfortune, like that of Moses, had struck the rock so forcibly, that it had drawn these drops from a source hitherto sealed up and barren.

The empress entered unseen, for her light step had not been heard by her unhappy husband. Fair, blooming, and blue-eyed, with a graceful form, of tall and slender proportions, this daughter of a northern clime approached her lord with a sweet smile, and with almost filial reverence united to conjugal affection, imprinted a chaste kiss on the troubled brow of her lord, who shrank and shuddered as if the touch of her rosy lips had been the fangs of a serpent.

“What is the matter, my lord?” asked the empress, in a tone of alarm.

“Woman,” replied the emperor, raising his head and showing her his tearful eyes, “you have seen me for four years carrying a heavy cross; you have seen my crown a crown of thorns; you have seen my face bathed in the sweat of toil, my brow in blood; but you never saw my eyelids moistened with tears. Well, behold me now—and see me weep!”

“And why do you weep, my dearly-beloved lord?” replied the empress, in a tone of sorrowful inquiry.

“Because, abandoned by my people, denied by my vassals, cursed by the church, and proscribed by my son, I had nothing but you in the world—and you, Praxida, you too have betrayed me.”

The empress stood like a statue, only her complexion, varying from red to pale, betrayed her feelings. “My lord,” said she, “it is not true. You are my liege lord and my sovereign master; but if any other man than yourself had dared to utter such words, I would answer that he lied through envy or malice.”

The emperor turned in the direction of cabinet, and in a loud voice said, “Come in.” The door opened, and Guthram de Falkenbourg, and Walter de Than entered the imperial chamber. The empress, at the sight of her enemies, trembled all over. They advanced to the other side of the emperor’s chair, and, holding up their hands, prepared to make their unjust accusation good upon the first sign he might give.

He motioned them to speak, and they were not slow to avail themselves of his permission.

“Sire,” said they, “what we have told you is true; and we are ready to support the charge at the peril of our bodies and souls, two against two, against any knights who may dare to dispute the truth of our impeachment of the empress.”

“Do you hear what they say, madam! for it shall be done as they have demanded; and if, in a year and a day, you cannot find any knights to clear your fame by a victorious combat, you will be burned alive in the great square of Cologne, in the face of the people, and by the torch of the common hangman.”

“My lord, I invoke the aid of God,” replied the empress, “and I hope, by His grace, my truth and innocence will find vindicators, and will be completely established.”

“Well, be it so,” said the emperor; and he summoned his guards, to whose wardship he consigned his empress. By his command she was conveyed to the lowest apartment in the castle, which differed in nothing from a prison but in name.

She had been imprisoned nearly a twelve-month, and had given birth to a son, condemned, like herself, to the pile. This babe she nourished at her own bosom, and reared with her own hands, like one of the wives of the people. None of her women paid her any attention or rendered her the smallest service, but Douce, Marchioness of Provence, who, having abandoned her own country, then the theatre of civil war, to seek an asylum at the court of her suzerain, had remained faithful to her mistress in her misfortunes. The empress, who had diligently exerted herself, by letters and promises, to procure champions for her ordeal by battle, had been hitherto completely unsuccessful. The renown of her accusers, their prowess in war and revengeful dispositions, had outweighed all her entreaties and largesses. Only three days of the time allowed by the emperor now remained, and the envoy sent by the fair Marchioness of Provence had not yet returned. She began to despair herself—she who had always soothed the despondency of the injured empress with hope.

As to the poor emperor, no one suffered like him; struck by this blow at once as sovereign, husband, and father, he had vowed publicly to join the Crusades, in the hope of averting the wrath of heaven; and the day he had fixed for the vindication or execution of the empress, would bring to him as severe a trial as to that unfortunate and injured princess. He had, at length, given the matter into the care of heaven, and, immuring himself in the most private apartments in his palace of Cologne, gave up all business, whether public or private, having no heart to attend to any thing, whatever. Such was the state of his mind when the dawn of the three hundred and sixty-fifth day found him still miserable, and his accused empress championless.

At noon, he had scarcely quitted his oratory when he was told that a foreign knight, from a distant country, wished to speak to him. The emperor was agitated, for, at the bottom of his heart, he secretly wished that heaven would yet send the unfortunate Praxida a champion; and he received him in the same chamber in which, sitting in the same chair, he had commanded the arrest of the empress. The knight entered, and bent his knee to the ground. The emperor bade him rise, and declare the occasion of his visit to his court.

“My lord,” replied the unknown knight, “I am a Spanish count. I was told at matins that the empress, your spouse, was accused by two knights of your court, and that if, within the space of a year and a day, she could not find a champion to defend her by battle, she would be publicly burned. Now, I have heard so much good said of this lady, and she is so renowned for piety throughout the world, that I am come from my own distant land to undertake her quarrel against both her accusers.”

“Count, you are welcome,” replied the emperor. “Certainly you show great friendship for the accused, or a great desire for renown. You are yet in time to save her, for there still remains one day before the sentence to which the laws of Germany condemn the adultress can be put in force against her.”

“Sire,” said the count, “I have a favor to ask you, which I hope you will courteously grant me. I wish to see the empress, for in this interview I should be able to form some opinion of her guilt or innocence; for, if I think her guilty, I will not imperil my body and soul in battle for her, but if she is innocent, I will fight, not only with one of her accusers, but with both, and indeed, will undertake her defense against every knight in Germany.”

“It is but justice on my part,” replied the emperor, “to grant your request, Sir Count.”

The unknown bowed, and retreated toward the door, but the emperor recalled him. “My lord count, have you made a vow to keep your visor down, and conceal your face?”

“No, sire,” replied the knight.

“Then you will do me the favor to raise your visor, that I may engrave on my memory the features of him who is about to imperil his life to save my honor?”

The knight took off his helmet, and the emperor saw the dark-complexioned, but expressive features of a young man of eighteen or nineteen years. His forehead and head were finely formed, and indicative of talent and power. The monarch regarded the youthful countenance of the champion with a sigh, and remembered with regret that the accusers of Praxida, his empress, were men not only well-skilled in war, but in the prime of manly strength. “May God preserve you, lord count,” said he, “for you appear to me full young for success in the difficult enterprise you have undertaken. Reflect, for there is still time to withdraw your promise.”

“Do me the honor to let me see the empress,” replied the knight, who had no intention of abandoning without cause an unfortunate lady.

The emperor gave him his signet-ring. “Go then, Sir Knight; this seal will open for you the doors of her prison.”

The knight kissed, on his knee, the hand which offered him the ring; then rose, saluted the monarch, and departed.

The sight of the emperor’s signet opened, as he had said, the guarded apartment of the empress, and in ten minutes the youthful champion found himself in the presence of the accused lady, for whom he was about to risk his life.

The empress was seated on her bed, nursing her infant. Accustomed to the entrance of her jailors, and for a long time abandoned by her women, she never even raised her head when the door was opened, only, by the instinct of modesty, she covered with her mantle her unveiled bosom, still continuing the plaintive hymn by which she lulled her babe to rest, accompanying the air with the movement of a nurse who rocks her babe to sleep.

The knight contemplated for some minutes, in tearful silence, this moving picture of fallen greatness, till, perceiving that the empress seemed unconscious of his vicinity, he accosted her in these words: “Madam, deign to raise your eyes, and honor with your notice, a man whom the renown of your virtue has led from a distant land, to vindicate your honor, defamed, he trusts, by false accusation; but before I undertake your cause, it is absolutely necessary that I should learn from you whether you are innocent of the charge laid against you. For, madam, I require a clear conscience, as well as a strong arm, since a trial by battle is an appeal to God, the judge of all, to decide the cause by the victory or fall of the champion. In the name of heaven, I entreat you to speak the truth; in which case, if you can prove your innocence to me, I swear by my knighthood that I will defend you to the last drop of my blood; trusting that the Lord will strengthen me to do your battle with such power as will clear your honor, and preserve my own life.”

“First, let me thank you, Sir Knight,” replied the empress, shedding tears of joy; “but, before I clear up my fame in your hearing, I pray you tell me your name, and permit me to see your face.”

“My face, madam, may be seen by every body,” said the count; “but my name is a different thing, since I have sworn to tell it to none but you.” He removed his helmet, and displayed to her sight his noble and ingenuous countenance, full of the fire and intelligence of upright youth verging upon manhood.

“Your name and quality, then, be pleased to show me,” replied the empress.

“I am a prince of Spain: Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona.”

At that name, so celebrated from father to son for lofty generosity and heroic deeds, the empress clasped her hands together, while a smile of joy lighted up her beautiful features through her tears, like a sunbeam breaking through a watery cloud.

“My lord, I can never repay you for the consolation you have afforded me this day; but you have demanded the truth from me—the whole truth: I ought to tell it you, and I will not disguise it from your knowledge. It is true that there came, in my husband’s absence, to the court of Cologne, a young and handsome knight, who, perhaps, was under some vow, either to his sovereign or the lady of his heart, to conceal his name and rank; for he told them to no one, not even to me. It was supposed, from his magnificence and generosity, that he was the son of a king; but we called him, from the gem he wore on his finger, the Knight of the Emerald. It is true that he sometimes conversed with me; but with so much respect, that I could not distance him without appearing to consider his attention as a matter of more consequence than it really was. Still he made a point of attending me on every public occasion. It happened one day, when we were hawking on the borders of the Rhine, and were got as far as Lusdorf, without meeting any game, till at last a heron rose, and I unhooded and cast off my falcon, who immediately soared; and, as he was a fine one, of true Norwegian breed, he soon reached the quarry, and I put my horse to a full gallop, to be in at the death. Carried away by my ardor, I leaped a stream, followed by none of my ladies but Douce, for they were timid horsewomen. The wicked knights, who have falsely slandered me, could not take the leap on their heavy steeds, but led my ladies to a fordable part of the rivulet. While making to the spot where the game had fallen, we saw a mounted cavalier fly from it like a phantom, and reënter a wood along the shore. The heron we found fluttering in the agonies of death, for the falcon had pierced his brain; but he still held an emerald ring in his beak, which Douce, as well as myself, immediately recognised as the one we had often seen on the finger of the unknown knight, whom we rightly supposed to be the cavalier who had galloped into the wood. I was wrong, I will own, to do as I then did; but women are vain and thoughtless. So, instead of throwing the jewel into the stream, as I ought, perhaps, to have done, I put it on my finger, and displaying it to my suite as they came up, related the adventure, without being aware of my own imprudence. Nobody, however, doubted the truth of my recital but Guthram and Walter, who smiled incredulously, in a manner that seemed to ask explanations which would have compromised my dignity, without allaying their unjust suspicions. I put on my glove, replaced my falcon on my wrist, without meeting with any other extraordinary discovery. At mass, however, I again met the knight of the emerald, and then perceived that he was without his ring, which, from that moment, I resolved to return to him upon the first suitable opportunity. A week after this adventure, the festival of Cologne was held. You are aware that this feast attracts a concourse of people from all parts of Germany: minstrels, players, and jongleurs of course abound. Among these last, there was a man who showed wild beasts, which he displayed on a theatre built for the occasion, in the grand square, where the spectators could gaze without danger on a lion from Barbery, and a tiger from India. Seated in a gallery, raised fifteen feet above them—I was there with my ladies—when, happening to discover the knight of the emerald among the company, I was going to give the ring to Douce, in order to restore it to him, when a spring from the tiger, accompanied by a dreadful roar, so terrified me, that I dropped the jewel from my finger into the cage of the lion, which was immediately below the balcony in which I was placed. Instantly, before I could utter a word, I saw the knight in the theatre, sword in hand. The tiger remained for a moment quiet, apparently astonished at the unparalleled boldness of the action, before he sprung upon the dauntless stranger; then we saw what appeared like a flash of lighting, and the head of the monster rolled upon the sand, upon which his immense body and terrible paws were deeply impressed. The knight took a diamond agraffe from his cap, flung it to the wild-beast man, and thrusting his arm through the bars of the lion’s cage, took up the ring I had dropped, and brought it to me, while the air rang with the acclamations of the spectators; but, as I had resolved to return it to him, I put back his hand, and said—‘No, my lord knight; this ring has cost you too dear for me to retain. Keep it in remembrance of me.’ These were the last words I ever addressed to him; for fearing the adventure would make more noise, I dispatched Douce with a message to the knight of the emerald, beseeching him in my name to quit Cologne. He departed the same evening, without informing me of his name or quality, or telling me whence he came, or whither he was going. This, my lord count, is the whole truth. And if I have been imprudent, I have, I think, paid dearly for my fault, by a twelve-month’s imprisonment, and a false accusation, that imperils my life.”

The count drew his sword, and turning the cross of the handle most reverently toward the empress, said—

“Swear to me, madam, upon this blade, that what you have just now related to me is perfectly true.”

“I swear,” replied the empress, “that I have told you nothing but the truth.”

“Well, by this sword, and the help of God, you shall be delivered from this prison, in which you have been confined a year, and be cleared also from the deadly accusation that clouds your fame.”

“May God grant it!” said the pious empress.

“Now, madam, will you bestow upon me one of your jewels, in token that you accept me for your knight?”

“My lord count, take this gold chain, the only relic of my former state that I still possess. This pledge will serve as a proof that I have chosen you for my champion.”

“Madam, I take it with thanks,” replied the Count of Barcelona, returning, as he spoke, his sword to its scabbard, and replacing his helmet on his head. He bowed courteously to the fair prisoner, and rejoined the emperor, who was anxiously expecting his return.

“Sire,” said the count, “I have seen her majesty, the empress, and am satisfied with her explanations. Will you, therefore, be pleased to inform her accusers, that I am ready to do battle in her cause with one or both—either together, or by single combat.”

“My lord count,” replied the emperor, “you shall engage them separately; for it shall never be said that a knight who undertook the cause of an accused lady in so noble a manner did not find noble enemies.”

[To be continued.