But I forget.  Time was when I looked love, and I too had shoon, aye, with golden tips to match the armor of honor which the Prince gave me after I had led my first regiment to victory—­even as the Lady Ysolinde had said.  And noble shoes of price they were.

And I could make love, too, when I had the chance.  But, nevertheless, not more than one day in six—­spending the rest in the new training of my men, the perfecting of their equipment, the choosing of their horses, and the providing for their stores.

God wot—­it was a good time.  I mind me the year when the Prince fell out with Duke Casimir, and we played over again the old tricks with him.

Never was I gladder of any quest than that to ride within sight of the Red Tower, and wave the blue and yellow of my master under the very ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and almost within hearing of the inhuman howling of its blood-hounds.

“Singe his beard!” said my master.  And with a hundred riders I did it too.  For though the burghers clattered to their gates, I rode to the very walls of the Wolfsberg, which for bravado I summoned to surrender.  And the best of it was that no man knew me.  For I had grown soldierlike and strong, and was most unlike the lad who had ridden away so meekly and almost in tears out of the gate of that very Wolfsberg.

Of my father, thank God, I saw nothing—­though I doubt not he observed my troop.  For doubtless he would be with his master—­aged now, soured, and prone to cower about behind his guard, fearing the dagger or the poisoned bowl, seeing an enemy in every shadowy corner, and hearing the whistle of the assassin’s bullet in every wind.

And, save when an honest burgher was slain by the Black Riders, the beasts of the kennels were fed on diet more ordinary than of old.

So we rode back with our prisoners, and as much plunder as we could screw out of old Burgomeister Texel and his citizens by threats of sacking the city—­a deed which I was main sorry for afterwards, in the light of that which happened at a later day.  But I knew not the future then, and it was as well.  For the guilders paid nobly for the new-fashioned ordnance which stood us in such good stead that autumn, when we had sterner work in hand than singeing the gray beard of Duke Casimir.

Within Schloss Plassenburg things went on much as usual.  Perhaps I was lax in my wooing—­I cannot tell; I loved sincerely enough, of a certainty.  Nor, after this, was I backward in telling Helene of it, and sometimes she would love me well enough, and then again she would not.  So that I could not tell what she would be at.

Looking back upon everything now, I see clearly how that the rankling secret thorn was the accursed understanding with the Prince, that for his peace’s sake I was to abide friendly with the Princess and let her try her fool experiments on me.  Which she did, God wot, innocently enough—­that is, for all the harm they did me.  But, nevertheless, without knowing it, I kept the Little Playmate with a sore and aching heart for many and many a day.