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

Cardinal; a dozen times he had gone over every word,

every little incident of his strange interview in the palace on the

Palatine with a wild desire to assure himself of its truth; had he not

been promised the Imperial crown?—impossible that seemed, yet no more

impossible than that Dirk Renswoude should have become a Prince of the

Church and the greatest man in Rome.

 

He could not think of those two as the same; different forms of the

same devil, but not actually the same man, the same flesh and

blood…black magic!…it was a terrible thing and a wonderful; if he

had served the fiend better what might it not have done for him, what

might not it still do? Neither could he understand Dirk’s affection or

tenderness; even after the betrayal his one-time comrade was faithful

to those long-ago vows. .

 

He looked at the Golden Palace on the Aventine—Emperor of the West!

 

Balthasar reigned there now…well, why not he?…with the Devil as an

ally…and there was no God.

 

His beautiful face grew sombre with thought; he walked thoughtfully

round the base of the hill, remarked by those coming and going from

the palace for his splendid appearance and rich Eastern dress.

 

A little Byzantine chariot, gilt, with azure curtains and drawn by a

white horse, came towards him; the occupant was a lady in a green

dress; the grooms ran either side the horse’s head to assist it up the

hill; the chariot passed Theirry at a walking pace.

 

“

 

The lady was unveiled, and the sun was full on her face.

 

It was Jacobea of Martzburg.

 

She did not see him; her car continued its slow way towards the

palace, and Theirry stood staring after it.

 

He had last seen her ten years, and more, ago, in her steward’s arms

in the courtyard of Castle Martzburg; beyond them Sebastian’s wife…

 

He wondered if she had married the steward, and smiled to think that

he had once considered her a saint; ten years ago, and he had not yet

learnt his lesson; many men had he met and none holy, many women and

none saintly, and yet he had been fool enough to come to Rome because

he believed God was triumphant in the person of Luigi Caprarola…

 

A fool’s reward had been his; Heaven’s envoy had proved the Devil

incarnate, and he had been mocked with the sight of the woman for

whose sake he had made pitiful attempts to be cleansouled; the woman

who had, for another man’s love, defied the angels and taken her fate

into her own hands.

 

For another man’s sake!—this the bitterest thought of all bitter

thoughts yet—and yet—he did not know if he had ever loved her, or

only the sweet purity she was a false symbol of—he was sure of

nothing. This way and that his mind went, ever hesitating, ever

restless—his heart was ready as water to take the colour of what

passed it, and his soul was as a straw before the breath of good and

evil.

 

The sound of cymbals and laughter roused him from his agitated

thoughts.

 

He looked along the road that wound by the Tiber and saw a little

crowd approaching, evidently following a troupe of jugglers or

mountebanks.

 

As they came nearer to where he loitered, Theirry, ever easily

attracted by any passing excitement or attraction, could not choose

but give them a half-sullen attention.

 

The centre of the group was a girl in an orange gown, they who

followed her the mere usual citizens of Rome, some courtiers of the

Emperor’s, soldiers, merchants’ clerks, and the rabble of children,

lazy mongrel foreigners and Franks.

 

The dancer stopped and spread a scarlet carpet on the roadway; the

crowd gathered about it in a circle, and Theirry drew up with the

rest, interested by what interested them—the two facts, namely, that

marked the girl as different from her kind.

 

Firstly, she affected the unusual modesty or coquetry of a black mask

that completely covered her face, and, secondly, she was attended only

by an enormous and hideous ape.

 

She wore a short robe in the antique style, girdled under her bosom,

and fastened on her shoulders with clasps of gold; gilt sandals,

closely laced, concealed her feet and ankles; round her bust and arms

was twisted a gauze scarf of the same hue as her gown, a deep, bright

orange, and her hair, which was a dark red gold, was gathered on the

top of her head in a cluster of curls, and bound with a violet fillet.

 

Although the mask concealed her charms of face, it was obvious that

she was young, and probably Greek; her figure was tall, full, and

splendidly graceful; she held a pair of brass cymbals and struck them

with a stormy joyousness above her proud head.

 

The ape, wearing a collar of bright red stones and a long blue jacket

trimmed with spangles, curled himself on the corner of the carpet and

went to sleep.

 

The girl began dancing; she had no music save her cymbals, and needed

none.

 

Her movements were quick, passionate, triumphant; she clashed the

brass high in the air and leapt to meet the fierce sound; her gold-shod feet twinkled like jewels, the clinging skirt showed the

beautiful lines of her limbs, and the gauze floating back revealed her

fair white arms and shoulders. Suddenly she lowered the cymbals,

struck them together before her breast, and looked from right to left.

Theirry caught the gleam of her dark eyes through the holes in her

mask.

 

For a while she crouched together, panting, then drew herself erect,

and let her hands fall apart. The burning sun shone in her hair, in

the metal hems of her robe, in her sandals, and changed the cymbals

into discs of fire.

 

She began to sing; her voice was deep and glorious, though muffled by

the mask.

 

Slowly she moved round the red carpet, and the words of her song fell

clearly on the hot air.

 

“If Love were all!

 

His perfect servant I would be.

 

Kissing where his foot might fall, Doing him homage on a lowly knee.

 

If Love were all!

 

If Love were all!

 

And no such thing as Pride nor Empery, Nor, God, nor sins or great or

small, If Love were all!

 

She passed Theirry, so close, her fluttering robe touched his slack

hand; he looked at her curiously, for he thought he knew her voice; he

had heard many women sing, in streets and in palaces, and, somewhere,

this one.

 

“If Love were all!

 

But Love is weak.

 

And Hate oft giveth him a fall.

 

And Wisdom smites him on the cheek, If Love were all!

 

If Love were all!

 

I had lived glad and meek, Nor heard Ambition call And Valour speak.

 

If Love were all!

 

The song ended as it had begun on a clash of cymbals; the dancer swung

round, stamped her foot and called fiercely to the ape, who leapt up

and began running round the crowd, offering a shell and making an ugly

jabbering noise.

 

Theirry flung the hideous thing a silver bezant and moved away; he was

thinking, not of the dancer with the unknown memory in her voice, but

of the lady in the gilt chariot behind the azure curtains how little

she had changed!

 

A burst of laughter made him look round; he saw a quick picture: the

girl’s orange dress flashing in the strong sunlight, the ape on her

shoulder hurling the contents of the shell in the air, which glittered

for a second with silver pieces, and the jesting crowd closing round

both.

 

He passed on moodily into the centre of the town; in the unrest and

agitation of his thoughts he had determined to seek Cardinal

Caprarola, since the Cardinal gave no sign of sending for him.

 

even of remembering him; but to-day it was useless to journey to the

Palace on the Palatine, for the Conclave sat in the Vatican, and the

Cardinal would be of their number.

 

The streets, the wine shops, the public squares were full of a mixed

and excited mob; the adherents of the Emperor, who wished to see a

German pontiff, and they who were ardent Romans or Churchmen came,

here and there, to open brawls; the endless processions that crossed

and re-crossed from the various monasteries and churches were

interrupted by the lawless jeers of the Frankish inhabitants, who,

under a strong Emperor and a weak Pope, had begun to assume the

bearing of conquerors.

 

Theirry left them all, too concerned, as always, in his own small

affairs to have any interest in larger issues; he turned into the Via

Sacra, and there, under the splendid but broken arch of Constantine,

he saw again the dancing girl and her ape.

 

She looked at him intently; of that he could have no doubt, despite

her mask, and, as he turned his hesitating steps towards the Palatine,

she rose and followed him.

 

As he ascended the narrow grey road that wound above the city, he kept

looking over his shoulder, and she was always there, following, with

the ape on her shoulder.

 

They passed scattered huts, monasteries, decaying temples and villas,

and came out on to the deserted stretches of the upper Palatine, where

the fragmentary glories of another world lay under the cypress and

olive trees.

 

Here Theirry paused, and again looked, half fearfully, for the bright

figure of the dancer.

 

She stood not far from him, leaning against a slender shaft of marble,

the sole remaining column of a temple to some heathen god; behind it a

blue-green grove of cypress arose, and behind them the city lay wrapt

in the sparkling mist of noonday, through which, at intervals, gleamed

the dusky waters of the Tiber.

 

The mighty walls showed brown and dark against the houses they

enclosed, and the dusty vineyards scorched in the sun that blazed on

the lantern of St. Peter and the angel on Castel del’ Angelo.

 

The stillness of great heat was over city and ruins, noiseless

butterflies fluttered over the shattered marble, and pale narcissi

quivered in the deep grass; the sky, a bronze gold over the city and

about the mountainous horizon, was overhead a deep and burning blue; a

colour that seemed reflected in the clusters of violets that grew

about the fallen masonry.

 

Theirry flung himself on a low marble seat that stood in the shade of

a cypress, and his blood-red robe was vivid even in the shadow; he

looked at the veiled city at his feet, and at the dancing girl resting

against the time-stained, moss-grown column.

 

She loosened the cymbals from her hands and flung them on the ground;

the ape jumped from her shoulder and caught them up.

 

Again she sang her passionate little song.

 

“If Love were all!

 

His faithful servant I would be.

 

Kissing where his foot might fall, Doing him homage on a lowly knee.

 

If Love were all!”

 

As she sang, another and very different scene was suddenly brought to

Theirry’s mind; he remembered a night when he had slept on the edge of

a pine forest, in Germany—many years ago—and had suddenly awoke—

nay, he had dreamt he heard singing, and a woman’s singing…if it

were not so mad a thought he would have said—this woman’s singing.

 

He turned bitter, dark eyes towards her—why had she followed him?

 

Swiftly and lightly she came across the grass, glittering from head to

foot in the sunlight, and paused before him.

 

“Certes, you