Then she had spoken of Wallenstein, and he could recall her tones, proud, indignant: "What think you that Ottilie von Thüringen can have in common with that cold seeker after power?"
Yet she had stood by him, Nigel, full of taunts as he ransacked von Teschen's saddle-bags, knowing that, or at least expecting, that he would find a letter for her under Wallenstein's own hand and seal.
Was the Erfurt episode a piece of acting, and was she then Wallenstein's mistress, or bound to him by some tie of chivalry, some mimicry of the romances of Torquato Tasso?
Mistress? At the very thought Nigel dug his spurs so savagely into his horse that the animal, disgusted and outraged, performed such a curvet as nearly threw him. No! Such supreme and noble loveliness had never soiled its freshness by any breath of desire! This Nigel would have sworn, and made good his oath, as any paladin of old time, with sword against sword. More, he would have sworn that his own lips in that frenzy, and gentle even in that frenzy, had been the first to ruffle the sweet fragrance and surprise the dewiness of hers, unconscious as she was that she had not merely suffered what she could not help. By that kiss he had sealed her his. And insensibly he began to regard her as in some measure two women,--one the star of his desire and worship, the other the mysterious ally of the Emperor's enemies, against whom he must plot to unravel her designs and those of the arch-plotter Wallenstein.
From this point his thought jumped at a bound to that other mistress, the Archduchess Stephanie, whose loveliness, no less than Ottilie's, impressed itself upon him, mingled with something of awe of the great Habsburgs. She too was interested in the destiny of Wallenstein. But of Wallenstein himself or his plans she had told him nothing. The mystic circles and ovals interested or amused her perhaps, but of any intimate understanding between her and the Duke of Friedland Nigel could not remember a trace. Doubtless at the Court of Vienna there was a Wallenstein party as well as a Maximilian party. It was almost certain; and the Archduchess Stephanie might, as princesses have done, have flattered herself that she was leading a party, while in reality her name for a few aspiring nobles was merely a lure used by wire-pullers, who let her know nothing of their real machinations.