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“Your Eminence will forgive me,” he began.
The Cardinal pressed his handkerchief to his lips.
“Well, Orsini?”
“A messenger has just come from the Vatican, my lord—”
“Ah!—his Holiness?”
“Was found dead in his sleep an hour ago, your Eminence.”
The Cardinal paled and fixed his burning eyes on the secretary.
“Thank you, Orsini; I thought he would not last the spring; well, we
must watch the Conclave.” He moved his handkerchief from his mouth and
twisted it in his fingers.
The secretary was taking his dismissal, when the Cardinal recalled
him.
“Orsini, it is desirable we should have an audience with the Empress,
she has many creatures in the Church who must be brought to heel;
write to her, Orsini.”
“I will, my lord.”
The young man withdrew, and Luigi Caprarola stood very still, staring
at the gleaming walls of his gorgeous cabinet.
THE EMPRESS
Ysabeau, wife of Balthasar of Courtrai and Empress of the West, waited
in the porphyry cabinet of Cardinal Caprarola.
It was but little after midday, and the sun streaming through the
scarlet and violet colours of the arched window, threw a rich and
burning glow over the gilt furniture and the beautiful figure of the
woman; she wore a dress of an orange hue; her hair was bound round the
temples with a chaplet of linked plates of gold and hung below it in
fantastic loops; wrapped about her was a purple mantle embroidered
with ornaments in green glass; she sat on a low chair by the window
and rested her chin on her hand. Her superb eyes were grave and
thoughtful; she did not move from her reflective attitude during the
time the haughty priest kept her waiting.
When at last he entered with a shimmer and ripple of purple silks, she
rose and bent her head. “It pleases you to make me attendant on your
pleasure, my lord,” she said.
Cardinal Caprarola gave her calm greeting.
“My time is not my own,” he added. “God His service comes first,
lady.”
The Empress returned to her seat.
“Have I come here to discuss God with your Eminence?” she asked, and
her fair mouth was scornful. “This text was stolen from someone who
worked hard to get it to you.”
The Cardinal crossed to the far end of the cabinet and slowly took his
place in his carved gold chair.
“It is of ourselves we will speak,” he said, smiling. “Certes, your
Grace will have expected that.”
“Nay,” she answered. “What is there we have in common, Cardinal
Caprarola?”
“Ambition,” said his Eminence, “which is known alike to saint and
sinner.”
Ysabeau looked at him swiftly; he was smiling with lips and eyes,
sitting back with an air of ease and power that discomposed her; she
had never liked him.
“If your talk be of policy, my lord, it is to the Emperor you should
go.”
“I think you have as much influence in Rome as your husband, my
daughter.”
There was a dazzling glitter of coloured light as the Empress moved
her jewelled hands. “It is our influence you wish, my lord—certes, a
matter for the Emperor.”
His large keen eyes never left her face.
“Yea, you understand me.”
“Your Eminence desires our support in the Conclave now sitting,” she
continued haughtily.
“But have you ever shown so much duty to us, that we should wish to
see you in St. Peter’s seat?” She thought herself justified in
speaking thus to a man whose greatness had always galled her, for she
saw in this appeal for her help an amazing confession of weakness on
his part. But Luigi Caprarola remained entirely composed.
“You have your creatures in the Church,” he said, “and you intend one
of them to wear the Tiara—there are sixteen Cardinals in the
Conclave, and I, perhaps, have half of them. Your Grace, you must see
that your faction does not interfere with what these priests desire—
my election namely.”
“Must?” she repeated, her violet eyes dilating. “Your Eminence has
some reputation as a holy man—and you suggest the corruption of the
Conclave.”
The Cardinal leant forward in his chair.
“I do not play for a saintly fame,” he said, “and as for a corrupted
Conclave—your Grace should know corruption, seeing that your art, and
your art alone, achieved the election of Balthasar to the German
throne.”
Ysabeau stared at him mutely; he gave a soft laugh.
“You are a clever woman,” he continued. “Your husband is the first
King of the Germans to hold the Empery of the West for ten years and
keep his heel on the home lands as well; but even your wits will
scarcely suffice now; Bohemia revolts, and Basil stretches greedy
fingers from Ravenna, and to keep the throne secure you desire a man
in the Vatican who is Balthasar’s creature.”
The Empress rose and placed her hand on the gilded ribbing of the
window-frame.
“Your Eminence shows some understanding,” she flashed, pale beneath
her paint; “we gained the West, and we will keep the West, so you see,
my lord, why my influence will be against you, not with you, in the
Conclave.”
The Cardinal laid his hand lightly over his heart.
“Your Grace speaks boldly—you think me your enemy?”
“You declare yourself hostile, my lord.”
“Nay, I may be a good friend to you—in St. Peter’s.”
She smiled.
“The Conclave have not declared their decision yet, your Eminence; you
are a great prince, but the Imperial party have some power.”
The Cardinal sat erect, and his intense eyes quelled her despite
herself.
“Some power—which I ask you to exert in my behalf.”
She looked away, though angry with herself that his gaze overawed her.
“You have declared your ambition, my lord; your talents and your
wealth we know—you are too powerful already for us to tolerate you as
master in Rome.”
“Again you speak boldly,” smiled the Cardinal. “Perhaps too boldly—I
think you will yet help me to the Tiara.”
Ysabeau gave a quick glance at his pale, handsome face framed in the
red hair.
“Do you seek to bribe me, my lord?” She remembered the vast riches of
this man and their own empty treasury.
“Nay,” said Luigi Caprarola, still smiling. “I threaten.”
“Threaten!” At once she was tempestuous, panting, furious; the jewels
on her breast sparkled with her hastened breathing.
“I threaten that I will make you an outcast in the streets unless you
serve mc well.”
She was the tiger-cat now, ready to turn at bay, Marozia
Porphyrogentris of Byzantium.
“I know that of you,” said the Cardinal, “that once revealed, would
make the Emperor hurl you from his side.”
She sucked in her breath and waited. “Melchoir of Brabant died by
poison and by witchcraft.” “All the world knows that”—her eyes were
long and evil; “he was bewitched by a young doctor of Frankfort
College who perished for the deed.”
The Cardinal looked down at the hand on his lap.
“Yea, that young doctor brewed the potion—you administered it.”
Ysabeau took a step forward into the room. “You lie…I am not afraid
of you—you lie most utterly…”
Luigi Caprarola sprang to his feet.
“Silence, woman! speak not so to me! It is the truth, and I can prove
it!”
She bent and crouched; the plates of gold on her hair shook with her
trembling.
“You cannot prove it”—the words were forced from her quivering
throat; “who are you that you should dare this—should know this?”
The Cardinal still stood and dominated her.
“Do you recall a youth who was scrivener to your Chamberlain and
friend of the young doctor of rhetoric—Theirry his name, born of
Dendermonde?”
“Yea, he is now dead or in the East…”
“He is alive, and in Rome. He served you well once, Empress, when he
came to betray his friend, and you were quick to seize the chance—it
suited him then to truckle to you…I think he was afraid of you…he
is not now; he knows, and if I bid him he will speak.”
“And what is his bare word against my oath and the Emperor’s love?”
“I am behind his word—I and all the power of the Church.”
Ysabeau answered swiftly.
“I am not of a nation easily cowed, my lord, nor are the people of our
blood readily trapped—I can tear your reputed saintship to rags by
spreading abroad this tale of how you tried to bargain with me for the
Popedom.”
The Cardinal smiled in a way she did not care to see.
“But first I say to the Emperor—your wife slew your friend that she
might be your wife, your friend Melchoir of Brabant—you loved him
better than you loved the woman—will you not avenge him now?”
The Empress pressed her clenched hands against her heart and, with an
effort, raised her eyes to her accuser’s masterful face.
“My lord’s love against it all,” she said hoarsely. “He knows
Melchoir’s murderer perished in Frankfort in the flames, he knows
that I am innocent, and he will laugh at you—weave what tissue of
falsehoods you will, sir, I do defy you, and will do no bargaining to
set you in the Vatican.”
The Cardinal rested his finger-tips on the arm of the chair, and
looked down at them with a deepening smile.
“You speak,” he answered, “as one whom I can admire—it requires great
courage to put the front you do on guilt—but I have certain knowledge
of what I say; come, I will prove to you that you cannot deceive me—
you came first to the house of a certain witch in Frankfort on a day
in August, a youth opened the door and took you into a room at the
back that looked on to a garden growing dark red roses; you wore, that
day, a speckled green mask and a green gown edged with fur.”
He raised his eyes and looked at her; she moved back against the wall,
and outspread her hands either side her on the gleaming porphyry.
“You threatened the youth as I threaten you now—you knew that he had
been driven from Basle College for witchcraft, even as I know you
compassed the death of your first husband, and you asked him to help
you, even as I ask you to help me now.”
“Oh!” cried the Empress; she brought her hands to her lips. “How can
you know this?”
The Cardinal reseated himself in his gold chair and marked with
brilliant, merciless eyes the woman struggling to make a stand against
him.
“Hugh of Rooselaare died,” he said with sudden venom—“died basely for
justly accusing you, and so shall you die—basely—unless you aid me
in the Conclave.”
He watched her very curiously; he wondered how soon he would utterly
break her courage, what new turn her defiance would take; he almost
expected to see her at his feet.
For a few seconds she was silent; then she came a step nearer; the
veins stood out on her forehead and neck; she held her hands by her
side—they were very tightly clenched, but her beautiful eyes were
undaunted.
“Cardinal Caprarola,” she said, “you ask me to use my influence to
bring about your election to the Popedom—knowing you as I know you
now I cannot fail to see you are a man who would stop at nought…if I
help you I shall help my husband’s enemy—once you are in the Vatican,
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