But nevertheless I loved them and yearned to tell them so, even when they mocked me.

So I watched this little one in the man's arms.
Then came the Duke along the line, and behind him, like the Shadow of Death, paced my father Gottfried Gottfried, habited all in red from neck to heel, and carrying for his badge of office as Hereditary Justicer to the Dukes of the Wolfmark that famous red-handled, red-bladed axe, the gleaming white of whose deadly edge had never been wet save with the blood of men and women.
The guard pushed the captives rudely into line as the Duke Casimir strode along the front.

The women he passed without a sign or so much as a look.
They were kept for another day.

But the men were judged sharp and sudden, as the Duke in his black armor passed along, and that scarlet Shadow of Death with the broad axe over his shoulder paced noiselessly behind him.
For as each man looked into the eyes of Casimir of the Wolfsberg he read his doom.

The Duke turned his wrist sharply down, whereupon the attendant sprites of the Red Shadow seized the man and rent his garment down from his neck--or the hand pointed up, and then the man set his hand to his heart and threw his head back in a long sigh of relief.
It came the turn of the man who carried the babe.
Duke Casimir paused before him, scowling gloomily at him.
"Ha, Lord Prince of so great a province, you will not set yourself up any more haughtily.