Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen (good novels to read TXT) 📕

he had done sickened and frightened him; was not

his being here the most horrible blasphemy of all?—he had no right;

he had made false confessions to the priest, he had received

absolution on lies; daily he had come here worshipping God with his

lips and Satan with his heart. A groan broke from him, he bowed his

beautiful face in his hands and his shoulders shook. He thought of

Joris of Thuringia writhing in the agony caused by their unhallowed

spells, of the eager devils crowding to their service—and far away,

in a blinding white mist, he seemed to see the arc of the saints and

angels looking down on him while he fell away further, further, into

unfathomable depths of darkness. With an uncontrollable movement of

agony he looked up, and his starting eyes fell on the figure of Dirk

kneeling in front of him. The youth’s calm both horrified and soothed

him; there he knelt, who had but a little while before been playing

with devils, with a face as unmoved as a sculptured saint, with a

placid brow, quiet eyes and hands folded on his breviary.

 

He seemed to feel Theirry’s intense gaze, for he looked swiftly round

and a look of caution, of warning shot under his white lids.

 

Theirry’s glance fell; his companions were singing with uplifted

faces, but he could not join them; the pillars with their foliated

capitals oppressed him by their shadow, the saints glowing in mosaic

on the drums of the arches frightened him with the unforgiving look in

their long eyes.

 

“Laudate, pueri Dominum.

 

Laudate nomen Domini.

 

Sit nomen Domini benedictum, Ex hoc nunc et usque in saecuium.

 

A Solis ortu usque ad occasum Laudabile nomen Domini.”

 

The fresh young voices rose lustily.; the church was full of incense

and music; Theirry rose with the hymn ringing in his head and left the

chapel.

 

The singers cast curious glances at him as he passed, and when he

reached the door he heard a patter of feet behind him and turned to

see Dirk at his elbow.

 

“I have done with it,” he said hoarsely.

 

Dirk’s eyes were flaming.

 

“Do you want to make public confession?” he demanded, breathing hard.

“Remember, it is our lives to pay, if they discover.”

 

Theirry shuddered.

 

“I cannot pray. I cannot stay in the church. For days I have felt the

blessing scorch me.” “Come upstairs,” said Dirk.

 

As they went down the long hall they met one who was a friend of Joris

of Thuringia. Dirk stopped.

 

“Hast come from the sick man?”

 

“Yea.”

 

“He is mending?”

 

Theirry stared with wild eyes, waiting the answer.

 

“I know not,” said the youth. “He lies in a swoon and pants for

breath.”

 

He passed on, something abruptly.

 

“Did ye hear that?” whispered Theirry. “If he should die!”

 

They went up to Dirk’s bare little chamber; the clouds had completely

overspread the sky, and neither moon nor stars were visible.

 

Dirk lit the lamp, and Theirry sank on to the bed with his hands

clasped between his knees. “I cannot go on,” he said. “It is too

horrible.”

 

“Art afraid?” asked Dirk quietly.

 

“Yea, I am afraid.”

 

“So am not I,” answered Dirk composedly.

 

“I cannot stay here,” breathed Theirry, with agonised brows.

 

Dirk bit hisforefinger.

 

“Nay, for we have but little money and know all these pedants can

teach us. ‘Tis time we began to lay the corner-stones of our fortune.”

 

Theirry rose, twisting his fingers together.

 

“Talk not to me of fortunes. I have set my soul in deadly peril. I

cannot pray, I cannot take the names of holy things upon my lips.”

 

“Is this your courage?” said Dirk softly. “Is this your ambition, your

loyalty to me? Would you run whining to a priest with a secret that is

mine as well as yours? Is this, O noble youth, what all your dreams

have faded to?”

 

Theirry groaned.

 

“I know not. I know not.”

 

Dirk came slowly nearer.

 

“Is this to be the end of comradeship—our league?”

 

He took the other’s slack hand in his, and as he seldom offered or

suffered a touch, Theirry thrilled at it as a great mark of affection,

and at the feel of the smooth, cool fingers, the fascination, the

temptation that this youth stood for stirred his pulses; still he

could not forget the stern angel he thought he had seep upon the

altar, and the way his tongue had refused to move when he had striven

to pray.

 

“Belike, I have gone too far to turn back,” he panted, with

questioning eyes.

 

Dirk dropped his hand.

 

“Be of me or not with me,” he said coldly. “Surely I can stand alone.”

 

“Nay,” answered Theirry. “Certes, I love thee, Dirk, as I have never

cared for any do I care for thee…”

 

Dirk stepped back and looked at him out of half-closed eyes.

 

“Well, do not stop to palter with talk of priests. Certainly I will be

faithful to you unto death and damnation, and be you true to me.”

 

Theirry made a movement to answer, but a sudden and violent knock on

the door checked him. They looked at each other, and the same swift

thoughts came to each; the students had suspected, had come to take

them by surprise—and the consequences—

 

For a second Dirk shook with suppressed wrath.

 

“Curse the Magian spell!” he muttered. “Curse Zerdusht and his foul

brews, for we are trapped and undone!”

 

Theirry sprang up and tried the inner door.

 

“‘Tis secure,” he said; he was now quite calm. “I have the key.” Dirk

laid his hand on his breast, then snatched a couple of volumes from

the shelf and flung them on the table. The knock was repeated.

 

“Unbolt the door,” said Theirry; he seated himself at the table and

opened one of the volumes.

 

Dirk slipped the bolt, the door sprang back and a number of students,

headed by a monk bearing a crucifix, surged into the room.

 

“What do you want?” demanded Dirk, fronting them quietly. “You

interrupt our studies.” The priest answered sternly—

 

“There are strange and horrible accusations against you, my son, that

you must disprove.”

 

Theirry slowly closed his book and slowly rose; all the terror and

remorse of a few moments ago had changed into wrath and defiance, and

the glow his animal courage sent through his body at the prospect of

an encounter; he saw the eager, excited faces of his fellow-students,

crowding in the doorway, the hard and unforgiving countenance of the

monk, and he felt unaccountably justified in his own eyes; he did not

see his antagonists standing for Good, and himself for Evil, he saw

mere men whose evident enmity roused his own.

 

“What accusations?” asked Dirk; his demeanour appeared to have changed

as completely as Theirry’s had done; he had lost his assured calm; his

defiant bearing was maintained by an obvious effort, and his lips

twitched with agitation.

 

The students murmured and forced further into the room; the monk

answered–“Ye are suspected of procuring the dire illness of Joris of

Thuringia by spells.”

 

“It is a lie,” said Dirk faintly, and without conviction, but Theirry

replied boldly–“Upon what do you base this charge, father?”

 

The monk was ready.

 

“Upon your strange and close behaviour—the two of you, upon our

ignorance of whence you came—upon the suddenness of the youth’s

illness after words passed between him and Master Dirk.”

 

“Ay,” put in one of the students eagerly. “And he lapped water like a

dog.”

 

“I have seen a light here well into the night,” said another.

 

“And why left they before the vespers were finished?” demanded a

third.

 

Theirry smiled; he felt that they were discovered, but fear was far

from him.

 

“These are childish accusations,” he answered. “Get you gone to find a

better.”

 

Dirk, who had retreated behind the table, spoke now. “Ye smirch us

with wanton words,” he said pantingly. “It is a lie.”

 

“Will you swear to that?” asked the monk quickly.

 

Theirry interposed.

 

“Search the chamber, my father—I warrant you have already been

peering through mine.” “Yea.”

 

“And you found—?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Then are you not content?” cried Dirk.

 

The murmur of the students swelled into an angry cry.

 

“Nay—can ye not spirit away your implements if ye be wizards?”

 

“Great skill do you credit us with,” smiled Theirry. “But on nothing

you can prove nothing.” Although he knew that he could never allay

their suspicions, it occurred to him that it might be possible to

prevent the discovery of what the locked room held, and in that case,

though they might have to leave the college, their lives would be

safe; he snatched up the lantern and held it aloft.

 

“See you anything here?”

 

They stared round the bare walls with eager, straining eyes; one came

to the table and turned over the volumes there.

 

“Seneca!” he flung them down with disappointment; the priest advanced

and gazed about him; Dirk stood silent and scornful, Theirry was bold

to defy them all.

 

“I see no holy thing,” said the monk. “Neither Virgin, nor saint, nor

prie-Dieu, nor holy water.” Dirk’s eyes flashed fiercely.

 

“Here is my breviary;” he pointed to it on the table.

 

One of the students cried—

 

“Where is the key? To the inner chamber!”

 

There were three or four of them about the door; Dirk, turning to see

them striving with the handle, went ghastly pale and could not speak,

but Theirry broke out into great wrath. “The room is disused. No

affair of mine or Dirk. We know nothing of it.”

 

“Will you swear?” asked the priest.

 

“Certes—I will swear.”

 

But the student struggling with the door cried out—

 

“Dirk Renswoude asked for this room for his studies! I do know it, and

he had the key.” Dirk gave a great start.

 

“Nay, nay,” he said hurriedly, “I have no key.”

 

“Search, my sons,” said the priest.

 

Their blood was up; some ten or twelve had crowded into the chamber;

they hurled the books off the shelf, scattered the garments out of the

coffer, pulled the quilt off the bed and turned up the mattress.

 

Finding nothing they turned on Dirk.

 

“He has the key about him!”

 

All eyes were fixed now on the youth, who stood a little in front of

Theirry, he continuing to hold the lamp scornfully aloft to aid them

in their search.

 

The light rested on Dirk’s shoulders, causing the bright silk to

glitter, and flickered in his short waving hair; there was no trace of

colour in his face, his brows were raised and gathered into a hard

frown.

 

“Have you the key of that chamber?” demanded the priest.

 

Dirk tried to speak, but could not find his voice; he moved his head

stiffly in denial. “But answer,” insisted the monk.

 

“What should it avail me if I swore?” The words seemed wrenched from

him. “Would ye believe me?” His eyes were bright with hate of all of

them.

 

“Swear on this.” The monk proffered the crucifix.

 

Dirk did not touch it.

 

“I have no key,” he said.

 

“There is your answer,” flashed Theirry, and set the lamp on the

table.

 

The foremost student laughed.

 

“Search him,” he cried. “His garments—belike he has the key in his

breast.”

 

Again Dirk gave a great start; the table was between him and