His men-at-arms came in, doublets and pockets stuffed. They had found no wine at all events.
He bade them take two of the old pikes from the pile of arms, tear down a curtain, and with them make a rough litter.
"I must take one more look at my uncle," Elspeth murmured when her companion returned with her, and Nigel opened the door. She paid her last dues of affection, loth to leave her dead to a possibly unceremonious burial at strange hands. But Ottilie had explained the matter to her. Then she came out and lay down upon the litter.
The two musketeers lifted her as if she had weighed but a few pounds, and tramped towards the door.
Her friend walked just beside her. Nigel cast one look round and followed.
Then they made their way to the outskirts of the town beyond the ramparts and the fosses.
When Nigel had with infinite trouble found them privacy and housing for the night, the lady of Thüringen responded graciously enough to his "good night!" adding, "I am glad my dagger failed me, Sir Captain. You are too courteous to die by a woman's hand."
"So, sir, you would leave me for Wallenstein!" said the dry, wiry old man with the short grey beard resting on a charger of ruff, looking keenly out of a pair of very sharp eyes, which were the eyes of General Tilly, Count of Tzerclaës. "What in thunder made you think Wallenstein was in favour again?"
"It may prove true in time. It depends on Gustavus, on Magdeburg, on Saxony. Are you by chance a necromancer? Your calf country has produced a brood of them at times. And your King Jamie, who was father-in-law to our famous Winter King by the way, made rather a name for himself rooting out the witches, didn't he?"
Nigel Charteris knew Count Tilly's predilection for a gird at foreign officers. But as the old general was in a good vein he made no attempt to defend the memory of King Jamie, who was dead, and had died a Protestant, to Nigel in itself a proof of something lacking in his intelligence.
"Not I, General! I had it from a haughty damsel I found in the same house with the nest of Magdeburgers I brought you."
"She gave herself out to be the Lady Ottilie of Thüringen! She is of a surety highly-born. But I didn't know what to make of her. She is not given to much speech, and what there is is tart in flavour. Would she by chance be a daughter of the Landgrave? She hinted at the Wartburg."