Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/658

 220 "But what is the heart in any fortress, if not the church? Our cathedral in Vavel is three times as large as that here."

While saying this, he indicated the fortress church, really not large, on which glittered a great mosaic figure of the Most Holy Lady on a golden background.

Again Conrad was not pleased with the turn of speech.

"You have ready but strange answers," said he.

Meanwhile they had arrived. The excellent police of the Order had evidently notified the town and the castle of the Grand Master's coming, for at the landing, in addition to a number of brothers, were trumpeters of the town, who greeted the Grand Master usually with their trumpets when he landed. Horses were waiting at the shore for him. When the party had mounted, they passed through the town and entering the Weaver's Gate at the side of the Sparrow Bastion, rode up to the First Castle. At the gate the Master was greeted by the Grand Comtur, Wilhelm von Helfenstein,—who bore only the title, since for some months his duties had been performed actually by Kuno Lichtenstein, then absent on a mission to England,—and, besides, by the Hospitaller Conrad Lichtenstein, a relative of Kuno, by the Grand Master of the Wardrobe, Rumpenheim, and the Grand Treasurer, Burghard von Wobecke, and finally by the Petty Comtur, the overseer of the workshops and the management of the castle. Besides these dignitaries there were some ordained brothers, who had charge of church affairs in Prussia, and who oppressed other cloisters grievously, as well as parish priests, whom they forced to work on roads even, and at ice-breaking. With those ordained men stood a multitude of lay brothers,—that is, knights not bound to canonical observances. Their large and strong bodies (the Order accepted no weak men), their broad shoulders, curly beard, and stern faces made them resemble the greedy robber knights of Germany more than brothers. From their eyes stared daring insolence and boundless pride. They did not like Conrad because he feared war with the might of Yagello; frequently at the Chapters they reproached him openly with cowardice, made pictures of him on the walls, and roused jesters to ridicule him to his eyes. But this time they inclined their heads with apparent humility, especially since the Master appeared in company with foreign knights; and they hurried quickly to hold his horse's bridle and the stirrups.

The Master alighted, and turned at once to Helfenstein.