“Little Maid!” said I, “let me be your maid and your father.  I will gladly get you all you want.  But your good father has gone on a weary journey, and it will be long ere he can hope to return.”

“Well,” she said, “send lazy Grete, then.  I will scold her soundly for not bringing the sop of hot milk-and-bread, which, indeed, is not food for a lady of my age.  But my father insists upon it.  He is dreadfully obstinate.”

Now there was no one but our old deaf Hanne in the kitchen of the Red Tower.  She stayed only for cooking and keeping the house clean.  My father never paid her wages, and she never asked any.  She did her work and took that which she needed out of the household purse without check or question.  It was long before I guessed that Hanne also owed her life to my father’s care.  I had noticed, indeed, when he had upon him the red headman’s dress, which fitted him like a flame climbing up a tall back log on the winter’s fire, that old Hanne trembled from head to foot and shrank away into her den under the stairs.  Many a time have I seen her peeping round the corner of the kitchen-door and tottering back when she heard him come down the stair from the garret.  And I guessed so well the reason of her fear that I used to cry to her: 

“Come out, good Hanne; the Red Axe is gone.”

Then would she run, pattering like a scared rabbit over the uneven floor, to the window, and watch my father stalking, grim and tall, across the open spaces of the yard towards the Judgment Hall of Duke Casimir, the men-at-arms avoiding him with deft reverence.  For though they hated him almost as much as did the fat burghers, they feared him, too.  And that because Gottfried Gottfried was deep in the confidence of the Duke; and, besides, was no man to stand in the ill-graces of when one lived within the walls of the Wolfsberg.

So this morning it was to the ancient Hanne that I ran down and told her how, as quickly as she might, she must bring milk and bread to the little one.

“But,” said she, “there is none save that which is to be sodden for your father’s breakfast and your own.”

“Do as you are bid, bad Hanne!” cried I, being, like all solitary children, quickly made angry, “or I will tell my father to drive you before him when next he goes forth clad in red to the Hall of Justice.”

At which the poor old woman gave vent to a sharp, screechy cry and caught at her skinny throat with twitching, bony fingers.

“Oh, but you know not what you say, cruel boy!” she gasped.  “For the love of God, speak not such words in the house of the Red Axe!”

But, like an ill-governed child, I was cruel because I knew my power, and so made sure that Hanne would do what I asked.

“Well, then, bring the sop quickly,” said I, “or by Peter-and-Paul I will speak to my father.  He and I can well be doing with beaten cakes made crisp on the iron girdle.  In these you have great skill.”