Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/273

Rh convince themselves whether he was really as terrible as people declared him.

The starosta, it is true, opposed, referring to the peace between the Order and the princes of Mazovia; but at last, in the hope, perhaps, of freeing himself from a terrible neighbor, he determined not only to look at the affair through his fingers, but to let men at arms go also.

The knights sent a challenge to Yurand, who accepted it eagerly on condition that they would send away their men, and they three fight with him and two comrades on the very boundary of Prussia and Spyhov. When they were unwilling to dismiss their men at arms and withdraw from the lands of Spyhov, he fell upon them, slew their men at arms, thrust a spear through Meinegger, took Bregov prisoner and threw him into the dungeon of Spyhov. De Fourcy alone was unhurt, and after wandering three days through Mazovian forests, he learned from a tar-boiler that Knights of the Cross were tarrying in Tsehanov; he made his way to these knights so as to complain with them to the majesty of the prince, pray for punishment, and a command to free Bregov.

These tidings obscured at once the good relations between Prince Yanush and the guests, for not only did the two brothers who arrived then, but also Danveld and Siegfried von Löwe demand of the prince insistently to do justice to the Order, free the boundary of a robber, and mete out punishment with usury for all his offences. Danveld, especially, having with Yurand his own old accounts, the remembrance of which burnt him with pain and with shame, demanded vengeance almost threateningly.

"A complaint will go to the Grand Master," said he, "and if we obtain no justice from your Princely Grace, he will be able to find it, even should all Mazovia take the part of that murderer."

The prince, though mild by nature, grew angry, and said:

"What justice are ye asking for? If Yurand had been the first to attack you, if he had burnt villages, driven away herds, and killed people, I should summon him to judgment, and measure out punishment. But it was ye who attacked him. Your starosta let armed men go on the expedition; but what did Yurand do? He accepted your challenge, and only asked you to send off your serving men. How am I to punish him for that, or to summon him to judgment? Ye attacked a dreadful man, feared by all, and of your own choice brought down on your own heads disaster. What do