“Daughter, Peace-Renown,” said he, “don’t cry, child! “God willing, everything is going to turn out all right!”
Peace-Renown sat there immobile, aloof, uncaring, as if she had not heard.
“Forget that peasant lout! A more fortunate future awaits you. There are great things and great happiness in store for you and he . . . what is there for him? Tomorrow by noon he will have fallen dead by my sword.”
“Who?” Peace-Renown questioned, jumping to her feet with a heart-rending cry.
“Who will fall dead?” she repeated. “He, Maxim? Are you leading the Mongol attack upon Tukhlia?”
“No, of course not!” denied the boyar. “Who told you that?”
“You did yourself!” Peace-Renown accused him. “Father, tell me the truth. What are you planning to do? You need not be afraid of me! I can see for myself very well that I cannot marry Maxim! It is not because I am above him in rank that I cannot marry Maxim! Oh no, I am beneath him, I feel infinitely far beneath him because he is an upright and honorable person and I am the daughter of a traitor and perhaps even myself a traitress! So father! You were very clever, so clever that you have outwitted yourself! You claimed that you were striving for my welfare and my future happiness, but you have destroyed my happiness! Now that you’ve accomplished what you were after, what good is life to me?”
“But tell me, what are you conspiring against him?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing! He is probably right this minute climbing high into some lurking place among the mountain ranges.”
“No, no, no, I do not believe you! Tell me what plans you discussed with the Mongols.”
“We planned ways and means of reaching the border of Hungary.”
107
