Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen (romantic novels in english .TXT) đź“–
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talked of Antichrist! What if I am he?’…so I thought.”
“And so you shall be,” breathed the witch.
Dirk’s great eyes glowed above his smiling lips.
“Could any but a demon have such thoughts?…then Theirry came, and I
saw in his face that he did what I did—knew what I knew; and—and”—
his voice faltered—“I mind me how I went and watched him as he
slept—and then I thought after all I was no demon, for I was aware
that I loved him. I had terrible thoughts—if I love, I have a soul,
and if I have a soul it is damned;—but he shall go with me–if I
came from hell I shall return to hell, and he shall go with me;—if I
am damned, he shall be damned and go hand in hand with me into the
pit!”
The smile faded from his face, and an intense, ardent expression took
its place; he seemed almost in an ecstasy.
“She may make fight with me for his soul—if he love her she might
draw him to heaven—with her yellow hair! Did I not long for yellow
locks when I saw my bridal?…I have forgotten what I spoke of—I
would say that she does not love him…”
“Yet she may,” said the witch; “for he is gay and beautiful.”
Dirk slowly turned his darkening eyes on Nathalie.
“She must not.”
The witch fondled her fingers.
“We can control many things—not love nor hate.”
Dirk pressed a swelling bosom.
“Her heart is in the hand of another man—and that man is her steward,
ambitious, poor and married.”
He came up to the witch, and, slight as he was, beside the withered
Eastern woman, he appeared marvellously fresh, glowing, and even
splendid.
“Do you understand me?” he said.
The witch blinked her shining eyes. “I understand that there is little
need of witchcraft or of black magic here.”
“No,” said Dirk. “Her own love shall be her poison…she herself shall
give him back to me.”
Nathalie moved, the little coins shaking in her hair. “Dirk, Dirk, why
do you make such a point of this man’s return?” she said, between
reproach and yearning. She fondled the cold, passive and smiling youth
with her tiny hands. “You are going to be great;” she mouthed the
words greedily. “I may never have done much, but you have the key to
many things. You will have the world for your footstool yet—let him
go.”
Dirk still smiled.
“No,” he answered quietly.
The witch shrugged her shoulders and turned away.
“After all,” she said in a half whine, “I am only the servant now. You
know words that can compel me and all my kind to obey you. So let it
be; bring your Theirry back.”
Dirk’s smile deepened.
“I shall not ask your aid. Alone I can manage this matter. Ay, even if
it jeopardise my chance of greatness, I will have my comrade back.”
“It will not be difficult,” nodded the witch. “A silly maid’s
influence against thine!” she laughed.
“There is another will seek to detain him at the Court,” said Dirk
reflectively. “His old-time friend, the Margrave’s son, Balthasar of
Courtrai, who shines about the Emperor. I saw him not long ago—he
also is my enemy.”
“Well, the Devil will play them all into thy hands,” smiled the witch.
Dirk turned an absent look on her and she crept away.
It grew to the hour of sunset; the red light of it trembled
marvellously in the red roses and filled the low, dark chamber with a
sombre crimson glow.
Dirk stood by the window biting his forefinger, revolving schemes in
which Jacobea, her steward, Sybilla and Theirry were to be entangled
as flies in a web; desperate devilry and despairing human love mingled
grotesquely, giving rise to thoughts dark and hideous.
The clear peal of a bell roused him, and he started with remembrances
of when last this sound through an empty house had broken on his
thoughts—of how he had gone and found Theirry without his door.
Then he left the room and sought the witch; she had disappeared; he
did not doubt that the summons was for her; not infrequently did she
have hasty and secret visitors, but as she came not he crossed the
dark passage and himself opened the door on to the slip of garden that
divided the house from the cobbled street—opened it on a woman in a
green hood and mantle, who stood well within the shadow of the porch.
“Whom would you see?” he asked cautiously.
The stranger answered in a low voice.
“You. Are you not the young doctor who lectures publicly on—many
things? Constantine they call you.
“Yea,” said Dirk; “I am he.”
“I heard you to-day. I would speak to you.”
She wore a mask that as completely concealed her face as her cloak
concealed her figure. Dirk’s keen eyes could discover nothing of her
person.
“Let me in,” she said in an insistent, yet anxious voice.
Dirk held the door wide, and she stepped into the passage, breathing
quickly.
“Follow after me,” smiled Dirk; he decided that the lady was Jacobea
of Martzburg.
YSABEAU
Dirk and the lady entered the room he had just quitted; he set a chair
for her near the window and waited for her to speak, but kept his eyes
the while on her shrouded figure.
She wore a mask such as he had often seen on ladies; fantastic Italian
taste had fashioned them in the likeness of a plague-stricken
countenance, flecked green and yellow, and more lively fancy had
nicknamed them “melons” from their similarity to an unripe melon skin;
these masks, oval-shaped, with a slit for the mouth and eyes, and
extending from the brow to the chin, were an effective concealment of
every feature, and high favourites among ladies.
For the rest, the stranger’s hood was pulled well forward so that not
a lock of hair was visible, and her mantle was gathered close at her
throat; it was of fine green cloth edged with miniver; she wore thick
gauntlets so that not an inch of her skin was visible.
“You are well disguised,” said Dirk at last, as she made no sign of
speaking. “What is your business with me?”
He began to think that she could not be Jacobea since she gave no
indication of revealing herself; also, he fancied that she was too
short.
“Is there any one to overhear us or interrupt?” the lady spoke at
last, her voice muffled a little by the mask.
“None,” answered Dirk half impatiently. “I beg that you tell me who
you are.”
“Certes, that can wait;” her eyes sparkled through their holes in
contrast with the ghastly painted wood that made her face immovable.
“But I will tell you who you are, sir.” “You know?” said Dirk coldly.
It seemed as if she smiled.
“The student named Dirk Renswoude who was driven forth from Basle
University for practising the black arts.”
For the first time in his life Dirk was taken aback, and hopelessly
disconcerted; he had not believed it possible for any to discover the
past life of the learned doctor Constantine; he went red and white,
and could say nothing in either defence or denial.
“It was only about three months ago,” continued the lady. “And both
students and many other in the town of Basle would still know you,
certes.”
A rush of anger against his unknown accuser nerved Dirk.
“By what means have you discovered this?” he demanded. “Basle is far
enough from Frankfort, I wot…and how many know…and what is the
price of your silence, dame?”
The lady lifted her head.
“I like you,” she said quietly. “You take it well. No one knows save
I. I have made cautious inquiries about you, and pieced together your
story with my own wit.”
“My story!” flashed Dirk. “Certes! Ye know nought of me beyond Basle.”
“No,” she assented. “But it is enough. Joris of Thuringia died.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Dirk.
The lady sat very still, observing him.
“So I hold your life, sir,” she said.
Dirk, goaded, turned on her impetuously.
“Ye are Jacobea of Martzburg—”
“No”—she started at the name. “But I know her—”
“She told you this tale—”
Again the lady answered—
“No.”
“She is from Basle,” cried Dirk.
“Believe me,” replied the stranger earnestly, “she knows nothing of
you—I alone in Frankfort hold your secret, and I can help you to keep
it…it were easy to spread a report of Dirk Renswoude’s death.”
Dirk bit his finger, his lip, glared out at the profusion of roses, at
the darkening sky, then at the quiet figure in the hideous speckled
mask; if she chose to speak he would have, at the best of it, to fly
Frankfort, and that did not suit his schemes.
“Another youth lives here,” said the lady. “I think he also fled from
Basle.”
Dirk’s face grew pale and cunning; he was quick to see that she did
not know Theirry was compromised.
“He was here—now he has gone to Court—he was at Basle, but innocent,
he came with me out of friendship. He is silly and fond.”
“I have to do with you,” answered the lady. “Ye have a great, a
terrible skill, evil spirits league with you…your spells killed a
man—” She stopped.
“Poor fool,” said Dirk sombrely.
The stranger rose; her calm and self-possession had suddenly given way
to fierce only half-repressed passion; she clasped her hands and
trembled as she stood.
“Well,” she cried thickly. “You could do that again—a softer, more
subtle way?” “For you?” he whispered.
“For me,” she answered, and sank into the window-seat, pulling at her
gloves mechanically.
A silence, while the dying red sunlight fell over the Eastern cushions
and over her dark mantle and outside the red roses shook and whispered
in the witch’s garden.
“I cannot help you if you tell me nothing,” said Dirk at length in a
grim manner.
“I will tell you this,” answered she passionately. “There is a man I
hate, a man in my way—I do not talk wildly; that man must go, and if
you will be the means—”
“You will be in my power as I am now in yours,” thought Dirk,
completing the broken sentence.
The lady looked out at the roses.
“I cannot convey to you what nights of horror and days of bitterness,
what resolutions formed and resolutions broken—what hate, and what—
love have gone to form the impulse that brought me here to-day—nor
does it concern ye; certes enough I am resolved, and if your spells
can aid me—” She turned her head sharply. “I will pay you very well.”
“You have told me nothing,” repeated Dirk. “And though I can discover
what you are and who is your enemy, it were better that you told me
with your own lips.”
She seemed, now, in an ill-concealed agitation.
“Not to-day will I speak. I will come again. I know this
place…meanwhile, certes, your secret is safe with me—think over
what I have said.”
She rose as if to take a hasty departure; but Dirk was in her way.
“Nay,” he said firmly. “At least show your face–how shall I know you
again? And what confidence have you in me if you will not take off
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