and Schleswig rushed
on each other and the Austrian unhorsed his foe, I scarce looked on
the jousting-place on which all other eyes were fixed as though held by
chains and bonds. Mine were set on the spot where Ursula and Ann were
sitting, and with them the young knight from Brandenburg, Sir Apitz of
Rochow, and my brother Herdegen. Junker Henning had his part to play
in the tournament. To Rochow the tourney was all in all; Herdegen gazed
only at Ann. She, to be sure, made no return, but still he would fix his
eyes on her and speak with her. Ursula had turned paler, and meseemed
she had eyes only for him and his doings. What went forward in the
pauses of the tilting I could not mark, inasmuch as my eyes and ears
were their Majesties' alone.

Now, two more knights sprang forth. What cared I of what nation they
were, what arms they bore and what they and their horses might do; I had
somewhat else to think of. Ursula and I had long been at war, but to-day
I felt nought but compassion for her: and indeed, on this very day, when
she believed she had won the victory, she more needed pity than when
she had so besought Heaven to grant her Herdegen's love, inasmuch as
my brother sat whispering to Ann with his hand on his heart. And Ann
herself had put away all false seeming; and while she gazed into her
lover's eyes with soft passion, Ursula sat bending her fan as though she
purposed to break it.

To think of Ursula as ruling in our house, and of Ann pining with heart
sickness was cruel grief, and yet were these two things almost less
hard to endure than the shameless flightiness and strange demeanor of my
noble brother, the pride of my heart.

The town council had voted eight hundred gulden to King Sigismund, and
four hundred to the Queen; two hundred and thirty to Porro the jester,
and great gifts to many of the notables and knights as a free offering
from the city; and now, in a pause in the jousting, his Majesty
announced his great delight at the faithful, bountiful, and overflowing
hand held out to him by his good town of Nuremberg, which had ever been
dear to his late beloved father King Charles. And then he pointed to the
gentlemen of the council, who made a goodly and reverend show indeed
in their long flowing hair and beards, their dark velvet robes bordered
with fine fur, and thin gold chains; and he spoke of their noble and
honorable dealing. I heard him say that each one of them was to be
respected as joint ruler