Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/478

40 old knight raised moist eyes, as blue as star thistles, and said,—

"God reward him, but I would rather he were living." Matsko turned to her and said: "Be quiet, for thou wilt make shame for thyself."

But he stopped suddenly; astonishment gleamed in his eyes; then his face grew stern and wolf-like, for at a distance, near the side of the door through which Princess Alexandra was entering at that moment, he saw Kuno Lichtenstein, bent in courtly client fashion, that same man through whom Zbyshko came near his death in Cracow.

Yagenka in her life had never seen such a Matsko; his face wrinkled like the jaw of an angry mastiff, and under his mustaches the teeth glittered. In one moment he tightened the belt around his waist, and moved toward the hated Knight of the Order. But half-way he restrained himself, and drew his broad hand along his hair. He remembered in season that perhaps Lichtenstein was at the court of Plotsk as a guest, or more likely an envoy, and that if he wished without making inquiry to fight with him, he would act just as Zbyshko had acted on the road from Tynets.

So, having more reason and experience than Zbyshko, he restrained himself, loosened his belt, made his face affable, and when the princess, after greeting Lichtenstein, spoke with the bishop, he approached her, bent low, reminded her who he was, and said that he considered her his benefactress because of the letter with which on a time she had furnished him.

The princess barely remembered his face, but she recalled the letter easily and the whole affair connected with it. She knew besides what had happened at the neighboring Mazovian court: she had heard of Yurand, and the kidnapping of his daughter, the marriage of Zbyshko and his deadly duel with Rotgier. Her curiosity was roused greatly by all these details, just as it would have been by a narrative of knighthood, or by one of those ballads which were sung by minstrels among the Germans, or by choristers in Mazovia. It is true that the Knights of the Cross were not so hateful to her as to Anna Danuta, the wife of Prince Yanush, especially since they, wishing to win her to their side, surpassed one another in flattery and homage, and showered gifts on the lady richly; but this time her heart was on the side of the lovers. She was ready to aid them; and moreover it pleased her to have