In The Fire Of The Forge, Volume 1.

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IN THE FIRE OF THE FORGE

A ROMANCE OF OLD NUREMBERG

By Georg Ebers

Volume 1.

Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford

CHAPTER I.

On the eve of St. Medard's Day in the year 1281, the moon, which had just
risen, was shining brightly upon the imperial free city of Nuremberg; its
rays found their way into the street leading from the strong Marienthurm
to the Frauenthor, but entrance to the Ortlieb mansion was barred by a
house, a watchtower, and--most successfully of all--by a tall linden
tree. Yet there was something to be seen here which even now, when
Nuremberg sheltered the Emperor Rudolph and so many secular and
ecclesiastical princes, counts, and knights, awakened Luna's curiosity.
True, this something had naught in common with the brilliant spectacles
of which there was no lack during this month of June; on the contrary, it
was very quiet here. An imperial command prohibited the soldiery from
moving about the city at night, and the Frauenthor, through which during
the day plenty of people and cattle passed in and out had been closed
long before. Very few of the worthy burghers--who went to bed betimes
and rose so early that they rarely had leisure to enjoy the moonlight
long--passed here at this hour. The last one, an honest master weaver,
had moved with a very crooked gait. As he saw the moon double--like
everything else around and above him--he had wondered whether the man up
there had a wife. He expected no very pleasant reception from his own at
home. The watchman, who--the moon did not exactly know why--lingered a
short time in front of the Ortlieb mansion, followed the burgher. Then
came a priest who, with the sacristan and several lantern bearers, was
carrying the sacrament to a dying man in St. Clarengasse.

There was usually more to be seen at this hour on the other side of the
city--the northwestern quarter--where the fortress rose on its hill,
dominating the Thiergartenthor at its foot; for the Emperor Rudolph
occupied the castle, and his brother-in-law, Burgrave Friedrich von
Zollern, his own residence. This evening, however, there was little
movement even there; the Emperor and his court, the Burgrave and his
train, with all the secular and ecclesiastical princes, counts, and
knights, had gone to the Town Hall with their ladies. High revel was
held there, and inspiring music echoed through the open windows of the
spacious apartment, where the Emperor Rudolph also remained during the
ball. Here the moonbeams might have been reflected from glittering steel
or the gold, silver, and gems adorning helmets, diadems, and gala robes;
or they might surely have found an opportunity to sparkle on the ripples
of the Pegnitz River, which divided the city into halves; but the
heavenly wanderer, from the earliest times, has preferred leafy hidden
nooks to scenes of noisy gaiety, a dim light to a brilliant glare. Luna
likes best to gaze where there is a secret to be discovered, and mortals
have always been glad to choose her as a confidante. Something exactly
suited to her taste must surely be going on just now near the linden
which, in all the splendour of fullest bloom, shaded the street in front
of the Ortlieb mansion; for she had seen two fair girls grow up in the
ancient dwelling with the carved escutcheon above the lofty oak door, and
the ample garden--and the younger, from her earliest childhood, had been
on especially intimate terms with her.

Now the topmost boughs of the linden, spite of their dense foliage,
permitted a glimpse of the broad courtyard which separated the patrician
residence from the street.

A chain, which with graceful curves united a short row of granite posts,
shut out the pedestrians, the vehicles and horsemen, the swine and other
animals driven through the city gate. In contrast with the street, which
in bad weather resembled an almost impassable swamp, it was always kept
scrupulously clean, and the city beadle might spare himself the trouble
of looking there for the carcasses of sucking pigs, cats, hens, and rats,
which it was his duty to carry away.

A young man with an unusually tall and powerful figure was standing in
this yard, gazing up at a window in the second story. The shadow of the
linden concealed his features and his dress, but the moon had already
seen him more than once in this very spot and knew that he was a handsome
fellow, whose bronzed countenance, with its prominent nose and broad
brow, plainly indicated a strong will. She had also seen the scar
stretching from the roots of his long brown locks across the whole
forehead to the left cheek-bone, that lent the face a martial air. Yet
he belonged to no military body, but was the son of a noble family of
Nuremberg, which boasted, it is true, of "knightly blood" and the right
of its sons to enter the lists of the tournament, but was engaged in
peaceful pursuits; for it carried on a trade with Italy and the
Netherlands, and every male scion of the Eysvogel race had the birthright
of being elected a member of the Honourable Council and taking part in
the government of Nuremberg.

The moon had long known that the young man in the courtyard was an
Eysvogel, nor was this difficult to discover. Every child in Nuremberg
was familiar with the large showy coat of arms lately placed above the
lofty doorway of the Eysvogel mansion; and the nocturnal visitor wore a
doublet on whose left breast was embroidered the same coat of arms, with
three birds in the shield and one on the helmet.

He had already waited some time in vain, but now a young girl's head
appeared at the window, and a gay fresh voice called his Christian name,
"Wolff!"

Waving his cap, he stepped nearer to the casement, greeted her warmly,
and told her that he had come at this late hour to say good-night, though
only from the front yard.

"Come in," she entreated. "True, my father and Eva have gone to the
dance at the Town Hall, but my aunt, the abbess, is sitting with my
mother."

"No, no," replied Wolff, "I only stopped in passing. Besides, I am
stealing even this brief time."

"Business?" asked the young girl. "Do you know, I am beginning to be
jealous of the monster which, like an old spider, constantly binds you
closer and closer in its web. What sort of dealing is this?--to give the
whole day to business, and only a few minutes of moonlight to your
betrothed bride!

"I wish it were otherwise," sighed Wolff. "You do not know how hard
these times are, Els! Nor how many thoughts beset my brain, since my
father has placed me in charge of all his new enterprises."

"Always something new," replied Els, with a shade of reproach in her
tone. "What an omnivorous appetite this Eysvogel business possesses!
Ullmann Nutzel said lately: 'Wherever one wants to buy, the bird--
[vogel]--has been ahead and snapped up everything in Venice and Milan.
And the young one is even sharper at a bargain,' he added."

"Because I want to make a warm nest for you, dearest," replied Wolff.

"As if we were shopkeepers anxious to secure customers!" said the girl,
laughing. "I think the old Eysvogel house must have enough big stoves to
warm its son and his wife. At the Tuckers the business supports seven,
with their wives and children. What more do we want? I believe that we
love each other sincerely, and though I understand life better than Eva,
to whom poverty and happiness are synonymous, I don't need, like the
women of your family, gold plates for my breakfast porridge or a bed of
Levantine damask for my lapdog. And the dowry my father will give me
would supply the daughters of ten knights."

"I know it, sweetheart," interrupted Wolff dejectedly; "and how gladly I
would be content with the smallest--"

"Then be so!" she exclaimed cheerily. "What you would call 'the
smallest,' others term wealth. You want more than competence, and I--the
saints know-would be perfectly content with 'good.' Many a man has been
shipwrecked on the cliffs of 'better' and 'best.'"

Fired with passionate ardour, he exclaimed, "I am coming in now."

"And the business?" she asked mischievously. "Let it go as it will," he
answered eagerly, waving his hand. But the next instant he dropped it
again, saying thoughtfully: "No, no; it won't do, there is too much at
stake."

Els had already turned to send Katterle, the maid, to open the heavy
house door, but ere doing so she put her beautiful head out again, and
asked:

"Is the matter really so serious? Won't the monster grant you even a
good-night kiss?"

"No," he answered firmly. "Your menservants have gone, and before the
maid could open----There is the moon rising above the linden already.
It won't do. But I'll see you to-morrow and, please God, with a lighter
heart. We may have good news this very day."

"Of the wares from Venice and Milan?" asked Els anxiously.

"Yes, sweetheart. Two waggon trains will meet at Verona. The first
messenger came from Ingolstadt, the second from Munich, and the one from
Landshut has been here since day before yesterday. Another should have
arrived this morning, but the intense heat yesterday, or some cause--at
any rate there is reason for anxiety. You don't know what is at stake."

"But peace was proclaimed yesterday," said Els, "and if robber knights
and bandits should venture----But, no! Surely the waggons have a strong
escort."

"The strongest," answered Wolff. "The first wain could not arrive before
to-morrow morning."

"You see!" cried the girl gaily. "Just wait patiently. When you are
once mine I'll teach you not to look on the dark side. O Wolff, why is
everything made so much harder for us than for others? Now this evening,
it would have been so pleasant to go to the ball with you."

"Yet, how often, dearest, I have urged you in vain----" he began, but she
hastily interrupted "Yes, it was certainly no fault of yours, but one of
us must remain with my mother, and Eva----"

"Yesterday she complained to me with tears in her eyes that she would be
forced to go to this dance, which she detested."

"That is the very reason she ought to go," explained Els. "She is
eighteen years old, and has never yet been induced to enter into any of
the pleasures other girls enjoy. When she isn't in the convent she is
always at home, or with Aunt Kunigunde or one of the nuns in the woods
and fields. If she wants to take the veil later, who can prevent it, but
the abbess herself advises that she should have at least a glimpse of the
world before leaving it. Few need it more, it seems to me, than our
Eva."

"Certainly," Wolff assented. "Such a lovely creature! I know no girl
more beautiful in all Nuremberg."

"Oh! you----," said his betrothed bride, shaking her finger at her lover,
but he answered promptly,

"You just told me that you preferred 'good' to 'better,' and so doubtless
'fair' to 'fairer,' and you are beautiful, Els, in person and in soul.
As for Eva, I admire, in pictures of madonnas and angels, those wonderful
saintly eyes with their uplifted gaze and marvellously long lashes, the
slight droop of the little head, and all the other charms; yet I gladly
dispense with them in my heart's darling and future wife. But you, Els--
if our Lord would permit me to fashion out of divine clay a life
companion after my own heart, do you know how she would look?"

"Like me--exactly like Els Ortlieb, of course," replied the girl
laughing.

"A correct guess, with all due modesty," Wolff answered gaily. "But take
care that she does not surpass your wishes. For you know, if the little
saint should meet at the dance some handsome fellow whom she likes better
than the garb of a nun, and becomes a good Nuremberg wife, the excess of
angelic virtue will vanish; and if I had a brother--in serious earnest--
I would send him to your Eva."

"And," cried Els, "however quickly her mood changes, it will surely do
her no harm. But as yet she cares nothing about you men. I know her,
and the tears she shed when our father gave her the costly Milan
suckenie, in which she went to the ball, were anything but tears of joy."

[Suckenie--A long garment, fitting the upper part of the body
closely and widening very much below the waist, with openings for
the arms.]

"I only wonder," added Wolff, "that you persuaded her to go; the pious
lamb knows how to use her horns fiercely enough."

"Oh, yes," Els assented, as if she knew it by experience; then she
eagerly continued, "She is still just like an April day."

"And therefore," Wolff remarked, "the dance which she began with tears
will end joyously enough. The young knights and nobles will gather round
her like bees about honey. Count von Montfort, my brother-in-law
Siebenburg says, is also at the Town Hall with his daughter."

"And the comet Cordula was followed, as usual, by a long train of
admirers," said Els. "My father was obliged to give the count lodgings;
it could not be avoided. The Emperor Rudolph had named him to the
Council among those who must be treated with special courtesy. So he was
assigned to us, and the whole suite of apartments in the back of the
house, overlooking the garden, is now filled with Montforts, Montfort
household officials, menservants, squires, pages, and chaplains.
Montfort horses and hounds crowd our good steeds out of their stalls.
Besides the twenty stabled here, eighteen were put in the brewery in the
Hundsgasse, and eight belong to Countess Cordula. Then the constant
turmoil all day long and until late at night! It is fortunate that they
do not lodge with us in the front of the house! It would be very bad for
my mother!"

"Then you can rejoice over the departure all the more cordially,"
observed Wolff.

"It will hardly cause us much sorrow," Els admitted. "Yet the young
countess brings much merriment into our quiet house. She is certainly a
tireless madcap, and it will vex your proud sister Isabella to know that
your brother-in-law Siebenburg is one of her admirers. Did she not go to
the Town Hall?"

"No," Wolff answered; "the twins have changed her wonderfully. You saw
the dress my mother pressed upon her for the ball--Genoese velvet and
Venetian lace! Its cost would have bought a handsome house. She was
inclined, too, to appear as a young mother at the festival, and I assure
you that she looked fairly regal in the magnificent attire. But this
morning, after she had bathed the little boys, she changed her mind.
Though my mother, and even my grandmother, urged her to go, she insisted
that she belonged to the twins, and that some evil would befall the
little ones if she left them."

"That is noble!" cried Els in delight, "and if I should ever---. Yet no,
Isabella and I cannot be compared. My husband will never be numbered
among the admirers of another woman, like your detestable brother-in-law.
Besides, he is wasting time with Cordula. Her worldliness repels Eva,
it is true, but I have heard many pleasant things about her. Alas! she
is a motherless girl, and her father is an old reveller and huntsman,
who rejoices whenever she does any audacious act. But he keeps his purse
open to her, and she is kind-hearted and obliging to a degree----"

"Equalled by few," interrupted Wolff, with a sneer. "The men know how
to praise her for it. No paternoster would be imposed upon her in the
confessional on account of cruel harshness."

"Nor for a sinful or a spiteful deed," replied Els positively. "Don't
say anything against her to me, Wolff, in spite of your dissolute
brother-in-law. I have enough to do to intercede for her with Eva and
Aunt Kunigunde since she singed and oiled the locks of a Swiss knight
belonging to the Emperor's court. Our Katterle brought the coals. But
many other girls do that, since courtesy permits it. Her train to the
Town Hall certainly made a very brave show; the fifty freight waggons you
are expecting will scarcely form a longer line."

The young merchant started. The comparison roused his forgotten anxiety
afresh, and after a few brief, tender words of farewell he left the
object of his love. Els gazed thoughtfully after him; the moonlight
revealed his tall, powerful figure for a long time. Her heart throbbed
faster, and she felt more deeply than ever how warmly she loved him.
He moved as though some heavy burden of care bowed his strong shoulders.
She would fain have hastened after him, clung to him, and asked what
troubled him, what he was concealing from her who was ready to share
everything with him, but the Frauenthor, through which he entered the
city, already hid him from her gaze.

She turned back into the room with a faint sigh. It could scarcely be
solely anxiety about his expected goods that burdened her lover's mind.
True, his weak, arrogant mother, and still more his grandmother, the
daughter of a count, who lived with them in the Eysvogel house and still
ruled her daughter as if she were a child, had opposed her engagement to
Wolff, but their resistance had ceased since the betrothal. On the other
hand, she had often heard that Fran Eysvogel, the haughty mother,
dowerless herself, had many poor and extravagant relations besides her
daughter and her debt-laden, pleasure-loving husband, Sir Seitz
Siebenburg, who, it could not be denied, all drew heavily upon the
coffers of the ancient mercantile house. Yet it was one of the richest
in Nuremberg. Yes, something of which she was still ignorant must be
oppressing Wolff, and, with the firm resolve to give him no peace until
he confessed everything to her, she returned to the couch of her invalid
mother.

CHAPTER II.

Wolff had scarcely vanished from the street, and Els from the window,
when a man's slender figure appeared, as if it had risen from the earth,
beside the spurge-laurel tree at the left of the house. Directly after
some one rapped lightly on the pavement of the yard, and in a few minutes
the heavy ironbound oak doors opened and a woman's hand beckoned to the
late guest, who glided swiftly along in the narrow line of shadow cast by
the house and vanished through the entrance.

The moon looked after him doubtfully. In former days the narrow-
shouldered fellow had been seen near the Ortlieb house often enough, and
his movements had awakened Luna's curiosity; for he had been engaged in
amorous adventure even when work was still going on at the recently
completed convent of St. Clare--an institution endowed by the Ebner
brothers, to which Herr Ernst Ortlieb added a considerable sum. At that
time--about three years before--the bold fellow had gone there to keep
tryst evening after evening, and the pretty girl who met him was
Katterle, the waiting maid of the beautiful Els, as Nuremberg folk called
the Ortlieb sisters, Els and Eva. Many vows of ardent, changeless love
for her had risen to the moon, and the outward aspect of the man who made
them afforded a certain degree of assurance that he would fulfil his
pledges, for he then wore the long dark robe of reputable people, and on
the front of his cap, from which a net shaped like a bag hung down his
back, was a large S, and on the left shoulder of his long coat a T, the
initials of the words Steadfast and True. They bore witness that the
person who had them embroidered on his clothing deemed these virtues the
highest and noblest. It might have been believed that the lean fellow,
who scarcely looked his five-and-thirty years, possessed these lofty
traits of character; for, though three full years had passed since his
last meeting with Katterle at the building site, he had gone to his
sweetheart with his wonted steadfastness and truth immediately after the
Emperor Rudolph's entry.

He had given her reason to rely upon him; but the moon's gaze reaches
far, and had discovered the quality of Walther Biberli's "steadfastness
and truth."

In one respect it proved the best and noblest; for among thousands of
servitors the moon had not seen one who clung to his lord with more loyal
devotion. Towards pretty young women, on the contrary, he displayed his
principal virtues in a very singular way; for the pallid nocturnal
wanderer above had met him in various lands and cities, and wherever he
tarried long another maid was added to the list of those to whom Biberli
vowed steadfastness and truth.

True, whenever Sir Long Coat's travels led him back to any one to whom he
had sworn eternal love, he went first to her, if she, too, retained the
old affection. But Katterle had cause to care for him most, for he was
more warmly devoted to her than to any of the others, and in his own
fashion his intentions were honest. He seriously intended, as soon as
his master left the imperial court--which he hoped would not happen too
soon--and returned to his ancestral castle in his native Switzerland, to
establish a home of his own for his old age, and no one save Katterle
should light the hearth fire. Her outward circumstances pleased him, as
well as her disposition and person. She was free-born, like himself--the
son of a forest keeper--and, again like him, belonged to a Swiss family;
her heritage (she was an orphan), which consisted of a house and arable
land in her home, Sarnen, where she still sent her savings, satisfied his
requirements. But above all she believed in him and admired his
versatile mind and his experience. Moreover, she gave him absolute
obedience, and loved him so loyally that she had remained unwedded,
though a number of excellent men had sought her in marriage.

Katterle had met him for the first time more than three years before
when, after the battle of Marchfield, he remained several weeks in
Nuremberg. They had sat side by side at a tournament, and, recognising
each other as Swiss-born by the sharp sound of the letters "ch" and the
pronunciation of other words, were mutually attracted.

Katterle had a kind heart; yet at that time she almost yielded to the
temptation to pray Heaven not to hasten the cure of a brave man's wounds
too quickly, for she knew that Biberli was a squire in the service of the
young Swiss knight Heinz Schorlin, whose name was on every lip because,
in spite of his youth, he had distinguished himself at the battle of
Marchfield by his rare bravery, and that the young hero would remain in
Nuremberg only until his severe injuries were completely healed. His
departure would bring to her separation from his servant, and sometimes
when homesickness tortured her she thought she would be unable to survive
the parting. Meanwhile Biberli nursed his master with faithful zeal, as
if nothing bound him to Nuremberg, and even after his departure Katterle
remained in good health.

Now she had him again. Directly after the Emperor Rudolph's entrance,
five days before, Biberli had come openly to the Ortlieb house and
presented himself to Martsche,--[Margaret]--the old house keeper, as the
countryman and friend of the waiting maid, who had brought her a message
from home.

True, it had been impossible to say anything confidential either in the
crowded kitchen or in the servants' hall. To-night's meeting was to
afford the opportunity.

The menservants, carrying sedan chairs and torches, had all gone out with
their master, who had taken his younger daughter, Eva, to the dance.
They were to wait in front of the Town Hall, because it was doubtful
whether the daughter of the house, who had been very reluctant to go to
the entertainment, might not urge an early departure. Count von
Montfort, whose quarters were in the Ortlieb mansion, and his whole train
of male attendants, certainly would not come back till very late at night
or even early morning, for the Countess Cordula remained at a ball till
the close, and her father lingered over the wine cup till his daughter
called him from the revellers.

All this warranted the lovers in hoping for an undisturbed interview.
The place of meeting was well chosen. It was unsatisfactory only to the
moon for, after Biberli had closed the heavy door of the house behind
him, Luna found no chink or crevice through which a gliding ray might
have watched what the true and steadfast Biberli was saying to Katterle.
There was one little window beside the door, but it was closed, and the
opening was covered with sheepskin. So the moon's curiosity was not
gratified.

Instead of her silver rays, the long entry of the Ortlieb house, with its
lofty ceiling, was illumined only by the light of three lanterns, which
struggled dimly through horn panes. The shining dots in a dark corner of
the spacious corridor were the eyes of a black cat, watching there for
rats and mice.

The spot really possessed many advantages for the secret meeting of two
lovers, for as it ran through the whole width of the house, it had two
doors, one leading to the street, the other into the yard. In the right
wall of the entry there were also two small doors, reached by a flight of
steps. At this hour both closed empty rooms, for the office and the
chamber where Herr Ernst Ortlieb received his business friends had not
been occupied since sunset, and the bathroom and dressing-room adjoining
were used only during the day.

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