A sunny blue sky bent over the ground; albeit dark clouds came up from the west, and I found it hard to make fitting answer to their Majesties’ questions.

While the horses were pawing and neighing, and the lances rattled on the shields, nay, even when the Dukes of Austria 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 with him over that which was his own, and likewise in greater matters.  Each one was his equal in manly virtue, and the worthy peer of his Imperial self.  Then he pointed out to the Queen certain noble and goodly heads, and it was my part to make known whatsoever I could tell of their possessions and their manner of trade.  The Hallers were well known to him, and not alone my best beloved, inasmuch as they did great trading with his kingdom of Hungary; and he was well pleased to see my Hans with his father as one of the council.