Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen (good novels to read TXT) đź“•
Dirk slightly smiled.
"Should I know more than you?"
The Margrave's son flushed.
"What you do know?--tell me."
Dirk's smile deepened.
"She was one Ursula, daughter of the Lord of Rooselaare, she was sent to the convent of the White Sisters in this town."
"So you know it all," said Balthasar. "Well, what else?"
"What else? I must tell you a familiar tale."
"Certes, more so to you than to me."
"Then, since you wish it, here is your story, sir."
Dirk spoke in an indifferent voice well suited to the peace of the chamber; he looked at neither of his listeners, but always out of the window.
"She was educated for a nun and, I think, desired to become one of the Order of the White Sisters. But when she was fifteen her brother died and she became her father's heiress. So many entered the lists for her hand--they contracted her to you."
Balthasar pulled at the orange tassels on his slee
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He shivered again, closed the window and flung himself along the
cushions in the niched seat. Lying there, where Jacobea had sat, he
thought of her; she was more present to his mind than all the crowded
incidents of the past day; his afternoon passed in the sunny library,
his evening before the beautiful witch fire, the wild escape into the
night, the flight through the wet forest, the sombre arrival at the
castle, were but flitting backgrounds to the slim figure of the
chatelaine.
Certainly she had a potent personality; she was exquisite, a thing
shut away in sweet fragrancy. He thought of her as an ivory pyx filled
with red flowers; there were her trembling passionate emotions, her
modest secrets, that she guarded delicately.
It was his intention to tear open this tabernacle to wrench from her
her treasures and scatter them among blood and ruin; he meant to bring
her to utter destruction; not her body, perhaps, but her soul.
And this because she had interfered with the one being on earth he
cared about—Theirry; not because he hated her for herself.
“How beautiful she is!” he said aloud, almost tenderly.
The last candle fluttered up and sank out; Dirk, lying luxuriously
among the cushions, looked into the complete blackness with half-closed eyes.
“How beautiful!” he repeated; he felt he could have loved her himself;
he thought of her now, lying in her white bed, her hair unbound; he
wished himself kneeling beside her, caressing those yellow locks; a
desire possessed him to touch her curls, her soft cheek, to have her
hand in his and hear her laugh surely she was a sweet thing, made to
be loved.
Yet the power that had brought him here tonight had made plain that
if he did not take the chance of her destruction set in his way, she
would win Theirry from him for ever.
He had made the first move; in the dark face of Sebastian the steward
he had seen the beginning of–the end.
But thinking of her he felt the tears come to his eyes; suddenly he
fell into weary weeping, thinking of her, and sobbed sadly, face
downwards, on the cushion.
Her yellow hair, mostly he thought of that, her long, fine, soft,
yellow hair, and how, before the end, it would be trailing in the dust
of despair and humiliation.
Presently he laughed at himself for his tears, and drying them, fell
asleep; and awoke from blank dreamlessness to hear his name ringing in
his ears. He sat up in the window-seat.
His eyes were hot with his late tears; the misty blue light of dawn
that he found about him hurt them; he shrank from this light that came
in a clear shaft through the arched window, and, crouching away from
it, saw Theirry standing close to him, Theirry, fully dressed and
pale, looking at him earnestly.
“Dirk, we must go now. I cannot stay any longer in this place.”
Dirk, leaning his head against the cushions, said nothing, impressed
anew with his friend’s beauty. How fine and fair a thing Theirry’s
face was in the colourless early light; in hue and line splendid, in
expression wild and pained.
“I could not sleep much,” continued Theirry. “I do not want to see
them—her—again—not like this—get up, Dirk—why did you not come to
bed? I wanted your company—things were haunting me.”
“Mostly her face?” breathed Dirk.
“Ay,” said Theirry sombrely. “Mostly her face.”
Dirk was silent again; was not her loveliness the counterpart of his
friend’s?—he imagined them together—close—touching hands, lips—and
as he pictured this he grew paler.
“The castle is open, there are varlets abroad,” cried Theirry. “Let us
go—supposing—oh, my heart! supposing one came from the college to
look for us!”
Dirk considered; he reflected that he had no desire to meet Sebastian
again; he had said all he wished to.
“Let us go,” he assented; his one regret was that he should not see
again the delicate face crowned with the yellow hair.
He rose from the seat and shook out his borrowed flame-coloured
mantle, then he closed his tired eyes as he stood, for a very
exquisite sensation rushed over him; nothing had come between him and
his friend; Theirry of his own choice had roused him—wanting him—
they were to go forth together alone.
They were wandering through the forest in an endeavour to find the
high road; the sun, nearly at its full strength, dazzled through the
pines and traced figures of gold on the path they followed.
Theirry was silent; they were hungry, without money or any hope of
procuring any, fatigued with the rough walking through the heat, and
also, it seemed, lost; these facts were ever present to his mind;
also, every step was taking him further away from Jacobea of
Martzburg, and he longed to see her again, to make her notice him,
speak to him; yet of his own desire he had left her castle
ungraciously; these things held him bitterly silent.
But Dirk, though he was pale and weary, kept a light joyous heart; he
had trust in the master he was serving.
“We shall be helped yet,” he said. “Were we not hopeless last night
when one came and gave us shelter?”
Theirry did not answer.
The forest grew up the base of the mountain chain, and after a while,
walking steadily, they came out upon a gorge some landslip had torn,
uprooting trees and hurling aside rocks; over this bare space harshly
cleared, water rippled and dripped, finding its way through fern-grown
rocks and boulders until it fell into a little stream that ran across
the open space of grass and was lost in the shadow of the trees.
By the side of it, on the pleasant stretch of grass, a small white
horse was browsing, and a man sat near, on one of the uprooted pines.
The two students paused and contemplated him; he was a monk in a blue-grey habit; his face was infinitely sweet; with his hands clasped in
his lap and his head a little raised he gazed with large, peaceful
eyes through the shifting fir boughs to the blue sky beyond them.
“Of what use he!” said Theirry bitterly; since the Church had hurled
him out the Devil was gaining such sure possession of his soul that he
loathed all things holy.
“Nay,” said Dirk, with a little smile. “We will speak to him.”
The monk, hearing their voices, looked round and fixed on them a calm
smiling gaze. “Dominus det nobis suam pacem,” he said.
Dirk replied instantly.
“Et vitam aeternam. Amen.”
“We have missed our way,” said Theirry curtly.
The monk rose and stood in a courteous, humble position.
“Can you put us on the high road, my father?” asked Dirk.
“Surely!” The monk glanced at the weary face of his questioner. “I am
myself travelling from town to town, my son. And know this country
well. Will you not rest a while?”
“Ay.” Dirk came down the slope and flung himself along the grass;
Theirry, half sullen, followed.
“Ye are both weary and in lack of food,” said the monk gently. “Praise
be to the angels that I have wherewithal to aid ye.”
He opened one of the leather bags resting against the fallen tree,
took out a loaf, a knife and a cup, cut the bread and gave them a
portion each, then filled the cup from the clear dripping water.
They disdained thanks for such miserable fare and ate in silence.
Theirry, when he had finished, asked for the remainder of the loaf and
devoured that; Dirk was satisfied with his allowance, but he drank
greedily of the beautiful water.
“Ye have come from Basle?” asked the monk.
Dirk nodded.
“And we go to Frankfort.”
“A long way,” said the monk cheerfully. “And on foot, but a pleasant
journey, certes.” “Who are you, my father?” asked Theirry abruptly. “I
saw you in Courtrai, surely.”
“I am Ambrose of Menthon,” answered the monk. “And I have preached in
Courtrai. To the glory of God.”
Both students knew the name of Saint Ambrose.
Theirry flushed uneasily.
“What do you here, father?” he asked. “I thought you were in Rome.”
“I have returned,” replied the saint humbly. “It came to me that I
could serve Christus”—he crossed himself—“better here. If God His
angel will it I desire to build a monastery up yonder–above the
snow.”
He pointed through the trees towards the mountains; his eyes, that
were blue-grey, the colour of his habit, sparkled softly.
“A house to God His glory,” he murmured. “In the whiteness of the
snows. That is my intent.” “How will you attain it, holy sir?”
questioned Theirry.
Saint Ambrose did not seem to notice the mocking tone.
“I have,” he said, “already considerable moneys. I beg in the great
castles, and they are generous to God His poor servant. We, my
brethren and I, have sold some land. I return to them now with much
gold. Deo gratias.”
As he spoke there was such a pure sweetness in his fair face that
Theirry turned away abashed, but Dirk, lying on his side and pulling
up the grass, answered—
“Are you not afraid of robbers, my father?”
The saint smiled.
“Nay; God His money is sacred even unto the evildoer. Surely I fear
nothing.”
“There is much wickedness in the heart of man,” said Dirk. And he also
smiled.
“Judge with charity,” answered Ambrose of Menthon. “There is also much
goodness. You speak, my son, with seeming bitterness which showeth a
soul not yet at peace. The wages of the world are worthless, but God
giveth immortality.”
He rose and began fastening the saddle bags on the pony; as his back
was turned Theirry and Dirk exchanged a quick look.
Dirk rose from the grass and spoke.
“May we, my father, come with you, as we know not the way?”
“Surely!” The saint looked at them, his eyes fixed half yearningly on
Theirry’s beautiful face. “Ye are most welcome to my poor company.”
The little procession started through the pine forest; Ambrose of
Menthon, erect, spare, walking lightly with untroubled face and
leading the white pony, burdened with the saddle bags containing the
gold; Theirry, sombre, silent, striding beside him, and Dirk, a little
behind, in his flame-coloured mantle, his eyes bright in a weary face.
Saint Ambrose spoke, beautifully, on common things; he spoke of birds,
of St. Hieronymus and his writings, of Jovinian and his enemy Ambrose
of Milan, of Rufinus and Pelagius the Briton, of Vigilantius and
violets, with which flowers, he said, the first court of Paradise was
paved.
Dirk answered with a learning, both sacred and profane, that surprised
the monk; he knew all these writers, all the fathers of the Church and
many others, he quoted from them in different tongues; he knew Pagan
philosophies and the history of the old world; he argued theology like
a priest and touched on geometry, mathematics, astrology.
“Ye have a vast knowledge,” said Saint Ambrose, amazed; and in his
heart Theirry was jealous.
And so they came, towards evening, on to the road and saw in a valley
beneath them a little town.
All three halted.
The Angelus was ringing, the sound came sweetly up the valley.
Saint Ambrose sank on his knees and bowed his head; the students fell
back among the trees. “Well?” whispered Dirk.
“It is
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