Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/44

20 the virtue of constancy, did not cease in fealty to her, but he married another.

Danusia's youth astonished the monks somewhat more, but not over much, for in that age youths of sixteen became castellans. The great queen Yadviga herself was only fifteen when she came from Hungary, and girls of thirteen were given in marriage. Besides, they were looking more in that moment at Zbyshko than Danusia, and were listening to Matsko, who, proud of his nephew, had begun to relate how the young man had come to possess such famous apparel.

"A year and nine weeks ago," said he, "we were invited to feasts by Saxon knights; and with them as guest was a certain knight from the distant nation of the Frisians, who dwell far away at the edge of the ocean, and he had with him his son, three years older than Zbyshko. Once at a feast that son told Zbyshko unbecomingly that he had neither beard nor moustache. Zbyshko, being quick-tempered, would not listen to this calmly, but seizing him at once by the lips plucked out all the hair from them, for which afterward we fought for death or servitude."

"How is that? Did you fight?" asked Mikolai.

"I did, for the father took his son's part, and I Zbyshko's; so we fought, four of us, in presence of the guests, on a space of trampled earth. We made an agreement of this sort, that whoso conquered should take the wagons and horses and servants of the conquered. And God favored us. We slew those Frisians, though with no little toil, for they lacked neither courage nor strength; and we took famous booty. There were four wagons, for each wagon a pair of draught-horses four immense stallions, nine servants, and two excellent suits of armor, such as one might find rarely with our people. The head-pieces we broke, it is true, in the battle, but the Lord Jesus consoled us with other things, for in a box bound famously with iron were suits of costly apparel, and that suit in which Zbyshko has now arrayed himself was with them."

At this the two nobles from Cracow, and all the Mazovians looked with greater respect on the uncle and nephew, and Mikolai, surnamed Obuh, said,—

"Ye are, I see, unyielding, stern men."

"We believe now that this young man will get the three peacock-plumes."

Matsko smiled, wherewith in his stern face there was something quite predatory.