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

the half-emptied glass, and looked at the

floor with troubled eyes that evaded the other’s bright eyes.

 

“How can I tell?” he asked, as if reluctant to speak at all.

 

Dirk repressed a movement of impatience.

 

“Come, you know. Shall I speak plainly?”

 

“Certes!—yes,” answered Theirry, still with averted face.

 

“There is a man in her way.”

 

Theirry looked up now; his eyes showed pale in his flushed face.

 

“Who must die as Joris of Thuringia died?” he asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

Theirry moistened his lips.

 

“Am I to help you?”

 

“Are we not one—inseparable? The reward will be magnificent.”

 

Theirry put his hand to a damp brow.

 

“Who is the man?”

 

“Hush!” whispered Dirk, peering through the halo of the candle-flame.

“It is the Emperor.” With a violent movement, Theirry pushed back his

chair and rose.

 

“Her husband! I will not do it, Dirk!”

 

“I do not think ye have a choice,” was the cold answer. “Ye gave

yourself unto the Devil and unto me—and you shall serve us both.”

 

“I will not do it,” repeated Theirry in a shuddering voice.

 

Dirk’s eyes glimmered wrathfully.

 

“Take care how you say that. There are two already—what of the monk?

I do not think you can turn back.”

 

Theirry showed a desperate face.

 

“Why have ye drawn me into this? Ye are deeper in devils’ arts than

I.”

 

“That is a strange thing to say,” answered Dirk, very pale, his lips

quivering. “You swore comradeship with me—together we were to pursue

success—fame—power—you knew the means—ay, you knew by whose aid we

were to rise, you shared with me the labours, the disgrace that fell

on both of us. Together we worked the spells that slew Joris of

Thuringia–together we stole God His gold from the monk; now–ay,

and now when I tell you our chance has come—this is your manner of

thanking me!”

 

“A chance!—to help a woman in a secret murder?”

 

Theirry spoke sullenly.

 

“Ye never thought our way would be the way of saintship—ye were not

so nice that time ye bound Ambrose of Menthon to the tree.”

 

“How often must you remind me of that?” cried Theirry fiercely. “I had

not done it but for you.”

 

“Well, say the same of this; if you be weak, I am strong enough for

two.”

 

Theirry pulled at the crimson tassels on his slashed sleeves.

 

“It is not that I am afraid,” he said, flushing.

 

“Certes! you are afraid,” mocked Dirk. “Afraid of God, of justice,

maybe of man—but I tell you that these things are nought to us.” He

paused, lifted his eyes and lowered them again. “Our destiny is not of

our shaping;—we take the weapons laid to our hands and use them as we

are bid. Life and death shall both serve us to our appointed end.”

 

Theirry came to the other side of the table and gazed, fearfully,

across at him.

 

“Who are you?” he questioned softly.

 

Dirk did not answer; an expression of dread and despair withered all

the life in his features; the extraordinary look in his suddenly

dimmed eyes sent a chill to Theirry’s heart.

 

“Ah!” he cried, stepping back with manifest loathing.

 

Dirk put his hand over his eyes and moaned.

 

“Do you hate me, Theirry? Do you hate me?”

 

“I—I do not know.” He could not explain his own sudden revulsion as

he saw the change in Dirk’s face; he paced to and fro in a tumult.

 

Dark had closed in upon them and now blackness lay beyond the window

and the half-open door; shadows obscured the corners of the long

chamber; all the light, the red gleam of the candles, the green glow

of the lamp, shone over the table and the slight figure of Dirk.

 

As Theirry stopped to gaze at him anew, Dirk suddenly lowered his

white hand, and his eyes, blinking above his long fingers, held

Theirry in a keen glance.

 

“This will make us more powerful than the Empress or the Emperor,” he

said. “Leave your thoughts of me and ponder on that.”

 

He withdrew his hand and revealed lips as pale as his cheeks.

 

“What does that mean?” cried Theirry. “I am distracted.”

 

“

 

“We shall go to Rome,” replied Dirk; there was a lulling quality of

temptation in his tone. “And you shall have your desires.”

 

“My desires!” echoed Theirry wildly. “I have trod an unholy path,

pursuing the phantom of–my desires! Do you still promise me I shall

one day grasp it?”

 

“Surely—money—and power and pleasure, these things wait you in Rome

when Ysabeau shall have placed the imperial diadem on Balthasar’s

brow. These things—and”—it seemed as if Dirk’s voice broke—“even

Jacobea of Martzburg,” he added slowly.

 

“Can one win a saint by means of devilry?” cried Theirry.

 

“She is only a woman,” said Dirk wearily. “But, since you hesitate,

and falter, I will absolve you from this league with me;—go your way,

serve your saint, renounce your sins—and see what God will give you.”

 

Theirry crossed the room with unequal steps.

 

“No—I cannot—I will not forego even the hope of what you offer me.”

His great eyes glittered with excitement; the hot blood darkened his

cheek. “And I pledged myself to you and your master. Do not think me

cowardly because I paused—who is the Emperor?” He spoke hoarsely.

“Nothing to you or to me… As you say, Joris of Thuringia died.”

 

“Now you speak like my comrade at Basle,” cried Dirk joyfully. “Now I

see again the spirit that roused me to swear friendship with you the

night we first met. Now I—ah, Theirry, we will be very faithful to

one another, will we not?”

 

“I have no choice.”

 

“Swear it,” cried Dirk.

 

“I swear it,” said Theirry.

 

He went to the window, pushed it wider open and gazed out into the

moonless night. Dirk clasped and unclasped his hands on the table,

murmuring—

 

“I have won him back—won him back!”

 

Theirry spoke, without turning his head.

 

“What do you mean to do next?”

 

“I shall see the Empress again,” answered Dirk.

 

“At present—be very secret;—that is all—there is no need to speak

of it.”

 

Now it was he that was anxious to evade the subject; his eyes, bright

under the drooping lids, marked the vehement, desperate eagerness of

Theirry’s flushing face, and he smiled to see it.

 

“Your absence may be noticed at the palace,” he said softly. “You must

return. How you can help me I will let you know.”

 

But Theirry stood irresolute.

 

“It seems I have no will when you command me,” he said, half in

protest. “I come and go as you bid me—you stir my cold blood, and

then will not give me satisfaction.”

 

“You know all that I do,” returned Dirk. He rose and raised the copper

candlestick in both hands. “I am very weary. I will light you to the

door.”

 

“Where have you been to-day?” asked Theirry.

 

“Did you see the Court returning from the tourney?”

 

The candle-flames, flaring with the movement, cast a rich glow over

Dirk’s pallid face. “No—why do you ask?” he said.

 

“I know not.” Theirry’s crimson doublet sparkled in its silk threads

as his breast rose with the irregular breaths; he walked heavily to

the door, gathering up his black mantle over his arm. “When may I come

again?” he asked.

 

“When you will,” answered Dirk. He entered the passage and held up the

heavy candlestick, so that a great circle of light was cast on the

darkness. “Ye are pledged to me whether ye come or no—are ye not?”

 

“Certes! I do think so,” said Theirry. He hesitated.

 

“Good-night,” whispered Dirk.

 

Theirry went down the passage.

 

“Good-night.”

 

He found the door and unlatched it; a soft but powerful breath of air

fluttered the candle-flames almost on to Dirk’s face; he turned back

into the room and shut himself in, leaving darkness behind him.

Theirry stepped into the street and drew the latch; a few stars were

out, but the night was cloudy. He leant against the side of the house;

he felt excited, confused, impatient; Dirk’s abrupt dismissal rankled,

he was half ashamed of the power exercised over him by his frail

comrade, half bewildered by the allurement of the reward that promised

to be so near now.

 

Rome—splendour, power—Jacobea of Martzburg—and only one stranger

between him and this consummation; he wondered why he had ever

hesitated, ever been horrified; his anticipations became so brilliant

that they mounted like winged spirits to the clouds, catching him up

with them; he could scarcely breathe in the close atmosphere of

excitement; a thousand questions to which he might have demanded

answer of Dirk occurred to him and stung with impatience his elated

heart.

 

On a quick impulse he turned to the door and tried the handle.

 

To his surprise he found it bolted from within; he wondered both at

Dirk’s caution and his softness of tread, for he had heard no sound.

 

It was not yet late, but he did not desire to attract attention by

knocking.

 

Full of his resolution to speak further with Dirk, he passed round the

house and entered the garden with the object of gaining admittance by

the low windows of the room where they had been conversing.

 

But the light had gone from the chamber, and the windows were closed.

 

With an exclamation of impatience Theirry stepped back among the rose

bushes and looked up.

 

Dirk’s bedchamber was also in darkness; black and silent the witch’s

dwelling showed against the still but stormy sky. Theirry felt a chill

run to his heart—where had the youth gone so instantly, so silently?

Who had noiselessly bolted door and windows?

 

Then suddenly a light flashed across his vision; it appeared in the

window of a room built out from the house at the side—a room that

Theirry had always imagined was used only as a store-place for

Nathalie’s drugs and herbs; he did not remember that he had ever

entered it or ever seen a light there before.

 

His curiosity was stirred; Dirk had spoken of weariness—perhaps this

was the witch herself. He waited for the light to disappear, but it

continued to glow, like a steady star across the darkness of the rose

garden.

 

The heavy scent of the half-seen blooms filled the gusty wind that

began to arise; great fragments of cloud sped above the dark roof-line

of the house; Theirry crept nearer the light.

 

It had crossed his mind many times that Dirk and Nathalie held secrets

they kept from him, and the doubt had often set him raging inwardly,

as well he knew the witch despised him as a useless novice in the

black arts; old suspicions returned to him as, advancing warily, he

drew near the light and crouched against the wall of the house. A

light curtain was pulled across the window, but carelessly, and drawn

slightly awry to avoid the light set in the window-seat.

 

Theirry, holding his breath, looked in.

 

He saw an oval room hung with Syrian tapestries of scarlet and yellow,

and paved with black and white marble; the air was thick with the blue

vapour of some perfume burning in a copper brazier, and lit by lamps

suspended from the wall, their light glowing from behind screens of a

pure pink silk. The end of the apartment was hidden by a violet velvet

curtain embroidered with grapes and swans; near this a low couch

covered with scarlet draperies