Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen (good novels to read TXT) 📕
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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“You dream,” answered Dirk in a low voice. “Do you think I have enough
power to raise such shapes?”
“I think ‘twas some love of yours from Hell–whence you came—”
“My love is not in Hell, but on the earth,” answered Dirk quietly—
“yet shall we go together into the pit—as for the woman, it was a
dream—there is no gorgeous chamber there.” He crossed the room and
flung open a little door in the wall.
“See—old Nathalie’s closet—full of herbs and charms—”
Theirry peered into an ill-lit apartment fitted with shelves
containing jars and bottles.
“The enchantment that could bring the woman could change the room,” he
muttered, unconvinced.
Dirk gave a slow, strange look.
“Was she beautiful?”
“Yea—but—”
“More beautiful than Jacobea of Martzburg?”
Theirry laughed.
“I cannot compare Satan’s handmaiden with a lily from Paradise.”
Dirk closed the closet door.
“Theirry,” he said falteringly, “do not leave me—you are the only
thing in all the universe can move me to joy or pain—I love you,
utterly.”
“Out on such affection that would steal my soul—”
He was turning away when Dirk laid a timid hand upon his sleeve.
“I will make you great, ay, very great…do not hate me—”
But Theirry gazed fearfully at the youth’s curious pale face.
“I will have none of you.”
“You do not know how dear I hold you,” insisted Dirk in a trembling
voice; “come back to me, and I will let your lady be—”
“She can scorn ye…defy ye…as I do now!”
And he flung off the slim hand from his arm and strode away down the
long room. Dirk drew himself together and crouched against the wall.
“Will she? certes, I wonder, will she?” he cried. “You will have none
of me, you say, you reject me; but for how long?”
“For ever,” answered Theirry hoarsely.
“Or until Jacobea of Martzburg falls.”
Theirry swung round.
“That leaves it still for ever.”
“Maybe, however, only for a few poor weeks—your lily is very fragile,
Theirry, so look to see it broken in the mud—”
“If you harm her,” cried Theirry fiercely, “if you blast her with your
hellish spells—” “Nay—I will not; of herself she shall come to
ruin.”
“When that is, I will return to you, so—farewell for ever—”
He made a passionate gesture with his hand as if he swept aside Dirk
and all thoughts of him, and turned quickly towards the door.
“Wait!” Dirk called to him. “What of this that you know of me?”
Theirry paused.
“So much I owe you—that I should be silent.”
“Since, if you speak, you bring to light your own history,” smiled
Dirk. “But—about the Emperor?”
“God helping me I will prevent that.”
“How will you prevent it?” Dirk asked quietly; “would you betray me as
a first offering to your outraged God?”
Theirry pressed his hand to his brow in a bewildered, troubled manner.
“No, no, not that; but I will take occasion to warn him—to warn some
one of the Empress.” Dirk hunched his shoulders scornfully.
“Ah, begone, ye are a foolish creature—go and put them on their
guard.”
Theirry flushed.
“Ay, I will,” he answered hotly. “I know one honest man about the
Court—Hugh of Rooselaare.”
A quick change came over Dirk’s face.
“The Lord of Rooselaare?” he said. “I should remember him, certes; his
daughter was Balthasar’s wife—Ursula.”
“She was, and he is the Emperor’s friend, and opposed to the schemes
of Ysabeau.”
Dirk returned to the table and took up one of the books lying there;
mechanically he turned the pages, and his eyes were bright on
Theirry’s pallid face.
“Warn whom you will, say what you will; save, if ye can, Melchoir of
Brabant; begone, see, I seek not to detain you. One day you shall come
back to me, when yon soft saint fails, and I shall be waiting for you;
till then, farewell.”
“For ever farewell,” answered Theirry. “I take up your challenge; I go
to save the Emperor.” Their eyes met; Theirry’s were the first to
falter; he muttered something like a malediction on himself, lifted
the latch and strode away.
Dirk sank into his chair; he looked very young and slight in his plain
brown silk; his brow was drawn with pain, his eyes large and grieved;
he turned the books and parchments over as though he did not see them.
He had not been long alone when the door was pushed open and Nathalie
crept in. “He has gone?” she whispered, “and in enmity?”
“Ay” answered Dirk slowly. “Renouncing me.”
The witch came to the table, took up the youth’s passive hand and
fawned over it. “Let him go,” she said in an insinuating voice. “He is
a fool.”
“Why, I have put no strain on him to stay,” Dirk smiled faintly. “But
he will return.” “Nay,” pleaded Nathialie, “forget him.”
“Forget him!” repeated Dirk mournfully. “But I love him.”
Nathalie stroked the still, slim fingers anxiously.
“This affection will be your ruin,” she moaned.
Dirk gazed past her at the autumn sky and the overblown red roses.
“Well, if it be so,” he said pantingly, “it will be his ruin also; he
must go with me when I leave the world—the world! after all,
Nathalie”—he turned his strange gaze on the witch—“it does not
matter if she hold him here, so long as he is mine through eternity.”
His cheeks flushed and quivered, the long lashes drooped over his
eyes; then suddenly he smiled.
“Nathalie, he has good intentions; he hopes to save the Emperor.”
The witch blinked up at him.
“But it is too late?
“Certes; I conveyed the potion to Ysabeau this morning.” And Dirk’s
smile deepened.
“Balthasar,” said the Emperor, in pity of his friend’s sullen face, “I
will send ye to Rome to make treaty with the Pope since it goes so
heavily with you to stay in Frankfort.”
The Margrave bit the ends of his yellow hair and made no answer.
The Empress half hay along the seat against the wall. She wore a white
and silver gown; on the cushion, where her elbow rested to support her
head, lay a great cluster of crimson roses.
On low stools near her sat her maidens sewing, three of them
embroidering between them a strip of scarlet silk.
It was the dining hall, the table laid already with rudely magnificent
covers; through the low windows, from which the tapestry was looped
back, was to be seen a red sunset sky flaming over Frankfort.
“Nay, be pleasant with me,” smiled the Emperor; he laid his arm
affectionately round the Margrave’s huge shoulders. “Certes, since I
took this resolution not to go to Rome, I have nought but sour looks
from all, save Hugh.”
Balthasar’s good-humoured face cleared.
“Ye are wrong, my Prince; but God wot, I am not angered—we can manage
without Rome”–he heroically stifled his sigh—“and who knows that ye
may not change yet?” he added cheerfully. Ysabeau looked at them as
they paced up and down, their arms about each other, the golden locks
and the black almost touching, the gorgeous purple and red habit of
the Margrave against the quiet black garments of the Emperor.
She yawned as she looked, but her eyes were very bright; slowly she
rose and stretched her slender body while the red roses fell softly to
the ground, but she took no heed of them, fixing her gaze on the two
men; her husband seemed not to know of her presence, but the Margrave
was hotly conscious of her eyes upon him, and though he would not turn
his upon her, nevertheless, she marked it and, in a half-smiling way,
came and leant on the table that divided them.
The sunset flashed final beams that fell in flushing rosy lines on the
gold and silver goblets and dishes, struck the Empress’s embroideries
into points of vivid light, and shone marvellously through Balthasar’s
brilliant locks.
“Surely we are late tonight,” said the Emperor.
“Yea,” answered Balthasar; “I do not love to wait.”
He stopped to pour himself a tankard of amber wine and drank it at a
draught.
Ysabeau watched him, then snatched up the fallen roses and laid them
on the cloth.
“Will not my lord also drink?” she asked; the fingers of her right
hand were hidden in the red flowers, with her left she raised a chased
flagon in which the sunlight burnt and sparkled. “As you please,
Princess,” answered Melchoir, and gazed towards the light
indifferently. “Ye might have poured for me,” murmured the Margrave in
a half voice.
Her hand came from the roses and touched a horn glass bound with
silver, it lingered there a moment, then rose to her bosom; Balthasar,
absorbing her face, did not notice the gesture.
“Another time,” she answered, “I will serve you, Balthasar of
Courtrai.” She filled the glass until the wine bubbled at the brim.
“Give it to my lord,” she said.
Balthasar laughed uneasily; their fingers touched upon the glass, and
a few drops were spilled. “Take care!” cried the Empress.
Melchoir turned and took the goblet.
“Why did you say—take care?” he asked.
“Between us we upset the wine,” said Ysabeau.
Melchoir drank.
“It has an ugly taste,” he said.
She laughed.
“Is it the cupbearer, perchance?”
“The wine is good enough,” put in Balthasar.
The Emperor drank again, then set it down.
“I say it is strange—taste it, Balthasar.”
In an instant the Empress intervened.
“Nay”—she caught up the glass with a movement swifter than the
Margrave’s—“since I poured, the fault—if fault there be—is mine.”
“Give it to me!” cried Balthasar.
But she made a quick motion aside, the glass slipped from her fingers
and the wine was lost on the floor.
As Balthasar stooped to pick up the goblet, the Emperor smiled.
“I warn you of that flagon, Margrave.”
The pages and varlets entered with the meats and set them on the
table; they who sat at the Emperor’s board came to take their places;
Theirry followed his master and fixed quick eyes on the Emperor.
He knew that Melchoir had been abroad all day at the hunt and could
not have long returned, hardly could their designs upon him be put in
practice tonight; after the supper he meant to speak to Hugh of
Rooselaare, this as an earnest of his final severance with Dirk.
As the beautiful shining crowd settled to their seats, the young
secretary, whose place was behind his master’s chair, took occasion to
note carefully the lord who was to receive his warning.
The candles, hanging in their copper circlets, were lit, and the ruddy
light shone over the company, while bright pages drew the curtains
over the last sunset glow.
Theirry marked the Empress, sitting languorously and stripping a red
rose of its petals; Melchoir, austere, composed, as always; Balthasar,
gay and noisy; then he turned his gaze on Hugh of Rooselaare.
That noble sat close to the Emperor. Theirry had not, so far, studied
his personal appearance though acquainted with his reputation;
observing him intently he saw a tall, well-made man dressed with
sombre elegance, a man with a strong, rather curious face framed in
straight, dull brown hair.
There was something in the turn of the features, the prominent chin,
dark, clear eyes,
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