that good fortune, we expected to engage ourselves as escorts to
merchant caravans. By this kind of employment we hoped to be housed and
fed upon our travels and to receive at each journey's end a good round
sum of gold for our services. But we might find neither tournament nor
merchant caravan. Then there would be trouble and hardship for us, and
perhaps, at times, an aching void under our belts. I had often
suffered the like.

Ours, you see, was not to be a flower-strewn journey of tinselled prince
to embowered princess. Before our return to Styria, Max would probably
receive what he needed to make a man of him--hard knocks and rough
blows in the real battle of life. Above all, he would learn to know the
people of whom this great world is composed, and would return to
Hapsburg Castle full of all sorts of noxious heresies, to the
everlasting horror of the duke and the duchess. They probably would
never forgive me for making a real live man of their son, but I should
have my reward in Max.

To Max, of course, the future was rosy-hued. Caravans were waiting for
our protection, and princes were preparing tournaments for our special
behoof. _We_ want for food to eat or place to lay our heads? Absurd! Our
purses would soon be so heavy they would burden us; we should soon need
squires to carry them. If it were not for our desire to remain
incognito, we might presently collect a retinue and travel with herald
and banner. But at the end of all was sweet Mary of Burgundy waiting to
be carried off by Maximilian, Count of Hapsburg.

Just what the boy expected to do in Burgundy, I did not know. For the
lady's wealth I believe he did not care a straw--he wanted herself. He
hoped that Charles, for his own peace, would not be too uncivil and