But the Duke's next words effectually roused me.

"A dead man!" repeated Casimir. "I have not a friend in all the realm of
the Mark besides yourself. And there is none of all that take my bounty
or eat my bread that is sorry for me. See here," he said, querulously,
"twice have I been stricken at to-day--once a tile fell from a roof and
dinted the crown of my helmet, and the second time a young man struck at
my breast with a dagger."

"Did he wound you, Duke Casimir?" asked my father, speaking for the first
time, but in a strangely easy and equal voice, not with the distance and
deference which he showed to his lord in public.

"Nay, Gottfried," replied Duke Casimir; "but he bruised my shirt of mail
into my breast."

And I heard plainly enough the clinking of the rings of chain-armor as
the Duke showed his hurt to my father. Presently I heard his voice again.

"And the Bishop has touched me in a new place," he said. "He declares
that he will lay his interdict upon me and my people--ill enough to hold
in hand as they are even now. When that is done they will rise in
rebellion. My very men-at-arms and knights I cannot depend upon--only
upon you and the Black Riders."

"In the matter of the Bishop's interdict, or in other matters, do you
mean that you can trust my counsel, Duke Casimir?" asked my father.

"'Tis in the burial of the dead that the shoe will pinch first with these