suitable a Chancellor of the Mark as Gottfried Gottfried, the fourteenth
hereditary Red Axe of Thorn!"

Then I heard him reach over his bed for something. I stole out of the
hole in the wall and crouched down till my eyes rested at the great
latchet hole through which the tang of leather to lift the bolt
ordinarily goes. I could see my father sitting on his bed and the Red
Axe lying across his knees. He took it in hand, dangling it like an
infant. He caressed it as he spoke, and ran his thumb lovingly along the
shining edge.

"Ah," he said, "my beauty, 'tis you and not your master they should make
High Chancellor of this realm. 'Tis you that have held the power of life
and death, and laid the spirit of rebellion any time these twenty years.
And well indeed wouldst thou look with a red robe about thee" (here he
reached for a cloak that swung from the rafters contiguous to his hand);
"a noble presence wouldst thou be in a tun-bellied robe and a collar of
shining gold! Bravely, great State's Chancellor of the Wolfmark, wouldst
thou then lead the processions and preside at the diets of justice--as
indeed thou dost mostly as it is."

And he made the Red Axe bow like a puppet in his hands as he swept the
cloak of red out behind the handle.

I could see Duke Casimir now. He had drawn up a stool and sat opposite my
father, with his elbows on his knees. One hand was stroking the side of
his head, and his haughtiness had all fallen from him like a forgotten
overmantle. He looked another man from the cruel, relentless Prince who
had ridden so sternly at the head of his men-at-arms and looked so
callously on at the death of men and the yet more bitter agony of women.