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

depths of unhappy thoughts,

and followed through the quivering gloom.

 

“Where should I find the Cardinal?” he asked.

 

“His palace lies in the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, any will tell

you the way, sir.” The novice opened the door. “God be with you.”

 

“And with you;” the stranger stepped into the open and the church door

was locked behind him.

 

The purple after-glow still lingered over Rome; it was May and sweetly

warm; as the stranger crossed the Piazza of St. Peter the breeze was

like the touch of silk on his face; he walked slowly and presently

hesitated, looking round the ruined temples, broken palaces and walls;

there were people about, not many, mostly monks; the man glanced back

at the Vatican, where the lights had begun to sparkle in the windows,

then made his way, as rapidly as his scant knowledge served, across

the superb and despoiled city.

 

He reached the Via Sacra; it was filled with a gay and splendid crowd,

in chariots, on foot, and on horse, that mingled unheeding with the

long processions of penitents winding in and out the throng, both here

and in the Appian Way. He turned towards the Arch of Titus; the ladies

laughed and stared as he passed; one took a flower from her hair and

threw it after him, at which he frowned, blushed, and hastened on; he

had never been equal to the admiration he roused in women, though he

disliked neither them nor their admiration; he carried still on his

wrist the mark of a knife left there by a Byzantine Princess who had

found his face fair and his wooing cold; the laughter of the Roman

ladies gave him the same feeling of hot inadequacy as when he felt

that angry stab.

 

Passing the fountain of Meta Sudans and the remains of the Flavian

Amphitheatre, he gained the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano leading to

the C�limontana Gate.

 

Here he drew a little apart from the crowd and looked about him; in

the distance the Vatican and Castel San Angelo showed faintly against

the remote Apennines; he could distinguish the banner of the Emperor

hanging slackly in the warm air, the little lights in St. Peter’s.

 

Behind him rose the Janiculum Hill set with magnificent palaces and

immense gardens, beneath the city lay dark in the twilight, and the

trees rising from the silent temples made a fair murmur as they shook

in their tipper branches.

 

The stranger sighed and stepped again into the crowd, composed now of

all ranks and all nationalities; he touched a young German on the

shoulder.

 

“Which is Cardinal Caprarola’s palace?”

 

“Sir, the first.” He pointed to a gorgeous building on the slope of

the hill.

 

The stranger caught a glimpse of marble porticoes half obscured by

soft foliage.

 

With a “Thank you” he turned in the direction of the Palatine.

 

A few moments brought him to the magnificent gates of the Villa

Caprarola; they stood open upon a garden of flowers just gleamingly

visible in the dusk; the stranger hesitated in the entrance, fixing

his gaze on the luminous white walls of the palace that showed between

the boughs of citron and cypress.

 

This Cardinal, this Prince, who was the greatest man in Rome, which

was to say in Christendom, had strangely captured his imagination; he

liked to think of him as an obscure and saintly youth devoting his

life to the service of God, rising by no arts or intrigues but by the

pure will of his Master solely until he dominated the great Empire of

the West; the stranger now at his beautiful gates had been searching

for peace for many years, in many lands, and always in vain.

 

In Constantinople he had heard of the holy Frankish priest who was

already a greater power than the old and slowly dying Pope, and it had

comforted his tired heart to think that there was one man in a high

place set there by God alone—one, too, of a pure life and a noble

soul; if any could give him promise of salvation, if any could help

him to redeem his wasted, weak life, it would be he—this Cardinal who

could not know evil save as a name.

 

With this object he came to Rome; he wished to lay his sins and

penitence at the feet of him who had been a meek and poor novice, and

now by his virtues was Luigi Caprarola as mighty as the Emperor and as

innocent as the angels.

 

Shame and awe for a while held him irresolute, how could he dare

relate his miserable and horrible story to this saint? … but God had

bidden him, and the holy were always the merciful.

 

He walked slowly between the dim flowers and bushes to the stately

columned portico; with a thickly beating heart and a humble carriage

he mounted the low wide steps and stood at the Cardinal’s door, which

stood open on a marble vestibule dimly lit with a soft roseate violet

colour; the sound of a fountain came to his ears, and pungent aromas

mingled with the perfume of the blossoms.

 

Two huge negroes, wearing silver collars and tiger-skins, were on

guard at each column of the door, and as the newcomer set foot within

the portals one of them struck the silver bell attached to his wrist.

 

Instantly appeared a slim and gorgeous youth, habited in black, a

purple flower fastened at his throat.

 

The stranger took off his cap.

 

“This is the residence of his Eminence, Cardinal Caprarola?” he asked,

and the hint of hesitation always in his manner was accentuated.

 

“Yea,” the youth bowed gracefully; “I am his Eminence’s secretary,

Messer Paolo Orsini.” “I do desire to see the Cardinal.”

 

The young Roman’s dark eyes flashed over the person of the speaker.

 

“What is your purpose, sir?”

 

“One neither political nor worldly;” he paused, flushed, then added,

“I would confess to his Eminence; I have come from Constantinople for

that—for that alone.”

 

Paolo Orsini answered courteously.

 

“The Cardinal hears confession in the Basilica.”

 

“Certes, I know, yet I would crave to see him privately, I have

matters relating to my soul to put before him, surely he will not

refuse me.” The stranger’s voice was unequal, his bearing troubled, as

the secretary curiously observed; penitents anxious for their souls

did not often trouble the Cardinal, but Orsini’s aristocratic manner

showed no surprise.

 

“His Eminence,” he said, “is ever loath to refuse himself to the

faithful; I will ask him if he will give you audience; what, sir, is

your quality and your name?”

 

“I am unknown here,” answered the other humbly; “lately have I come

from Constantinople, where I held an office at the court of Basil, but

by birth I am a Frank, of the Cardinal’s own country.”

 

“Sir, your name?” repeated the elegant secretary.

 

The stranger’s beautiful face clouded.

 

“I have been known by many…but let his Eminence have the truth—I am

Theirry, born of Dendermonde.”

 

Paolo Orsini bowed again.

 

“I will acquaint the Cardinal,” he said. “Will you await me here?”

 

He was gone as swiftly and silently as he had come; Theirry put his

hand to a hot brow and gazed about him.

 

The vestibule was composed of Numidian marble toned by time to a deep

orange hue; the capitals of the Byzantine columns were encrusted with

gold and supported a ceiling that glittered with violet glass mosaic;

gilt lamps, screened with purple or crimson silk, cast a coloured glow

down the sloping walls; a double staircase sprang from the serpentine

and malachite floor, and where the gold hand-rails ended a silver lion

stood on a cipolin pillar, holding between his paws a dish on which

burnt aromatic incense; in the space between the staircases was an

alabaster fountain—the basin, raised on the backs of other silver

lions, and filled with iridescent sea shells, over which the water

splashed and fell, changed by the lamplight to a glimmering rose

purple.

 

Either side the fountain were placed great bronze bowls of roses, pink

and white, and their petals were scattered over the marble pavement.

Against the walls ran low seats, cushioned with dark rich tapestries,

and above them, at intervals, marvellous antique statues showed white

in deep niches.

 

Theirry had seen nothing more lavishly splendid; Cardinal Caprarola

was no ascetic whatever the youth Blaise may have been, and for a

moment Theirry was bewildered and disappointed–could a saint live

thus?

 

Then he reflected; good it was to consider that God, and not the

Devil, who so often used beauty and wealth for his lures, had given a

man this.

 

He walked up and down, none to watch him but the four silent and

motionless negroes; the exquisite lights, the melody of the fountain,

the sweet odours that rose from the slow-curling blue vapours, the

gorgeous surroundings, lulled and soothed; he felt that at last, after

his changeful wanderings, his restless unhappiness, he had found his

goal and his haven.

 

In this man’s hands was redemption, this man was housed as befitted an

Ambassador of the Lord of Heaven.

 

Paolo Orsini, in person as rare and splendid as the palace, returned.

 

“The Cardinal will receive you, sir,” he said; if the message

astonished him he did not show it; he bowed before Theirry, and

preceded him up the magnificent stairs.

 

The first landing was entirely hung with scarlet embroidery worked

with peacocks’ feathers, and lit by pendent crystal lamps; at either

end a silver archway led into a chamber.

 

The secretary, slim and black against the vivid colours, turned to the

left; Theirry followed him into a long hall illuminated by bronze

statues placed at intervals and holding scented flambeaux; between

them were set huge porphyry bowls containing orange trees and

oleanders; the walls and ceiling were of rose-hued marble inlaid with

basalt, the floor of a rich mosaic.

 

Theirry caught his breath; the Cardinal must possess the fabled wealth

of India…

 

Paolo Orsini opened a gilt door and held it wide while Theirry

entered, then he bowed himself away, saying—

 

“His Eminence will be with you presently.”

 

Theirry found himself in a fair-sized chamber, walls, floor and

ceiling composed of ebony and mother-of-pearl.

 

Door and window were curtained by hangings of pale colours, on which

were stitched in glittering silks stories from Ovid.

 

In the centre of the floor was a Persian carpet of a faint hue of

mauve and pink; three jasper and silver lamps hung by silken cords

from the ceiling and gave the pale glow of moonlight; an ivory chair

and table raised on an ebony step stood in one corner; on the table

was a sand clock, a blood-red glass filled with lilies and a gold book

with lumps of turkis set in the covers; on the chair was a purple

velvet cushion.

 

Opposite this hung a crucifix, a scarlet light burning beneath it; to

this, the first holy thing Theirry had seen in the palace, he bent the

knee.

 

Incense burnt in a gold brazier, the rich scent of it growing almost

insupportable in the close confined space.

 

A silver footstool and a low ebony chair completed the furniture;

against the wall facing the door was a gilt and painted shrine, of

which the glittering wings were closed, but Theirry, turning from the

crucifix, bent his head to that.

 

A great excitement crept into his blood, he could not feel that he was

in a holy or sacred place, awaiting the coming of the saint who was to

ease the burden of his sin, yet what but this feeling