Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/20

 its lookout view of both the highway and the river, so that no merchant floating goods to market and no farmer with wains of provender for man and beast could pass without the count's permission and the payment of such boot as he was pleased to levy. It had no barbican or outworks, nor any moat or drawbridge, for the hill fell steeply on three sides so that nothing without wings might scale its height, while approach was by a causeway barely wide enough for two mailed men to ride abreast. Who sought to singe Count Otto's beard must come upon him two by two and brave a storm of arrows from the loopholes set above the gate, then batter down a coulisse made of timbers thick as a man's girth and studded with great harrow spikes of sharpened iron. Around the castle's base a stain of shadow showed as black as ink, but through the tunneled entranceway a light gleamed feebly, and by it could be seen a dolphin-headed horn chained to the post beside the postern.

The rider blew a blast upon the trumpet; then, as there came no answer to his hail, sucked in his breath and sounded such a call as set the echoes bellowing among the crags. The tread of iron-shod feet came clumping down the passageway in answer to his second hail, a bearded, unkempt face scowled at him through the wicket.

"What want'st thou, sirrah?" the porter growled. "We feed no beggars here. This is no hospice——" His eye fell on the woman and a grimace of amusement spread across his porcine features. "Ha, Lady Basta, hast been picking florets in the gentle night?" he queried jocularly. "These hills be dangerous for rare morsels. Wot, ye not——"

"Open up thy gate, thou crop-eared knave," the rider interrupted, "or by Veronique herveil, I'll have thee whipped for incivility. Go tell thy master, an he be not in his cups too deep to understand the niceties of gentle usage, that a knight and lady wait without. And mark ye, fellow, let him understand that though I wait, I do not wait with patience."

Surprizingly, the porter broke into a loud guffaw, but he swung the postern back and louted low as the horseman and his saddlemate rode down the entry to the courtyard.

"Be not afeared," she whispered as they left the tunnel and halted while a hostler shambled forward for his bridle. "I thank thee civilly for thy good service, and will protect thee if harm comes——"

"Afeared—I?" he laughed as he swung her to the ground. "Marry, while my sword hangs at my side I have small fear of anything——"

"Thy sword may not be always ready to thy hand," she murmured as a pike-blade swung a glimmering arc behind him and he fell face forward to the kidney stones.

TTO VON WOLFBERG, twelfth owner of the title and least favored of a line* to all of whom the gift of beauty was denied, sat in his hall at meat. The table was ten ells in length and spread with plate of gold and silver, cream of the spoil a dozen generations of the wolf's breed levied on the commerce of the highway and the river. Beside him, right and left, his captains and commanders sat, an uncouth, loutish lot with unshorn hair and beards that grew as rankly as a churl's. All were men of mighty stature, great-boned, wide-shouldered, barrel-chested, with hands as huge and red as fresh-smoked hams. Shock-headed pages passed the wine and beer horns, and shoved platters bearing meats before the company, to every man a joint of beef or leg of mutton, or a haunch of half-baked brawn or venison. But there was neither bread nor green thing on the table, no