Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen (romantic novels in english .TXT) 📖
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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and discomfiture.
What hour was it?
The day was of a drowsing heat; the glare of the sun had taken all
colour out of the walls opposite, the grass and vines; they all blazed
together, a shimmer of gold.
“So I blow off my loves like the thistledown And ride from the gates
of Courtrai town”…
Theirry descended.
He found Balthasar in the workshop; there were the remains of a meal
on the table, and the Knight, red and fresh as a rose, was polishing
up his sword handle, singing the while, as if in pleased expression of
his own thoughts.
In the corner sat Dirk, drawn into himself and gilding the devil.
Theirry was conscious of a great dislike to Balthasar; ghosts nor
devils, nor the thought of them had troubled his repose; there was
annoyance in the fact that he had slept well, eaten well, and was now
singing in sheer careless gaiety of heart; yet what other side of life
should a mere animal like Balthasar know?
Dirk looked up, then quickly down again; Theirry sank on a stool by
the table.
Balthasar turned to him.
“Are you sick?” he asked, wide-eyed.
The scholar’s dishevelled appearance, haggard eyes, tumbled locks and
peevish gathering of the brows, justified his comment, but Theirry
turned an angry eye on him.
“Something sick,” he answered curtly. Balthasar glanced from him to
Dirk’s back, bending over his work.
“There is much companionship to be got from learned men, truly!” he
remarked; his blue eyes and white teeth flashed in a half amusement;
he put one foot on a chair and balanced his glittering sword across
his knee; Theirry averted a bitter gaze from his young splendour, but
Balthasar laughed and broke into his song again.
“My heart’s a nun within my breast, So proud is she, so hard and
proud, Absolving me, she gives me rest”…
“We part ways here,” said Theirry.
“So soon?” asked the Knight, then sang indifferently—
“So I blow off my loves like the thistledown.
And ride through the gates of Courtrai town.”…
Theirry glanced now at his bright face, smooth yellow hair and
gorgeous vestments. “Ay,” he said. “I go to Basle.”
“And I to Frankfort; still, we might have kept company a little
longer.”
“I have other plans,” said Theirry shortly.
Balthasar smiled good-humouredly.
“You are not wont to be so evil-tempered,” he remarked.
Then he looked from one to the other; silent both and unresponsive.
“I will even take my leave;” he laid the great glittering sword across
the table.
Dirk turned on his stool with the roll of gilding in his hand.
At his cold gaze, that seemed to hold something of enmity and an
unfriendly knowledge, Balthasar’s dazzlingly fresh face flushed deeper
in the cheeks.
“Since I have been so manifestly unwelcome,” he said, “I will pay for
what I have had of you.” Dirk rose.
“You mistake,” he answered. “I have been pleased to see you for many
reasons, Balthasar of Courtrai.”
The young Knight thrust his hands into his linked belt and eyed the
speaker.
“You condemn me,” he said defiantly. “Well, Theirry is more to your
mind—”
He opened his purse of curiously cut and coloured leather, and taking
from it four gold coins laid them on the corner of the table.
“So you may buy masses for the soul of Ursula of Rooselaare.” He
indicated the money with a swaggering gesture.
“Think you her soul is lost?” queried Dirk.
“A choired saint is glad of prayers,” returned Balthasar. “But you are
in an ill mood, master, so good-bye to you and God send you sweeter
manners when next we meet.”
He moved to the door, vivid blue and gold and purple; without looking
back he flung on his orange hat.
Theirry roused himself and turned with a reluctant interest.
“You are going to Frankfort?” he asked.
“Ay,” Balthasar nodded pleasantly. “I shall see in the town to the
hire of a horse and man–mine own beast being lamed, as you know,
Theirry.”
The scholar rose.
“Why do you go to Frankfort?” he asked. He spoke with no object, in a
half-sick envy of the Knight’s gaiety and light-heartedness, but
Balthasar coloured for the second time.
“All men go to Frankfort,” he answered. “Is not the Emperor there?”
Theirry lifted his shoulders.
“‘Tis no matter of mine.”
“Nay,” said Balthasar, who appeared to have been both disturbed and
confused by the question, “no more than it is my affair to ask you—
why go you to Basle?”
The scholar’s eyes gleamed behind his thick lashes.
“It is very clear why I go to Basle. To study medicine and
philosophy.”
They quitted the room, leaving Dirk looking covertly after them, and
were proceeding through the dusty, neglected rooms.
“I do not like the place,” said Balthasar. “Nor yet the youth. But he
has served my purpose.” And now they were in the hall.
“We shall meet again,” said Theirry, opening the door.
The Knight turned his bright face.
“Like enough,” he answered easily. “Farewell.” With that and a smile
he was swinging off across the cobbles, tightening his sword straps.
Against the sun-dried, decayed houses, across the grass-grown square
his vivid garments flashed and his voice came over his shoulder
through the hot blue air—
“So I blew off my loves like the thistledown And rode through the
gates of Courtrai town.”
Theirry watched him disappear round the angle of the houses, then
bolted the door and returned to the workroom.
Dirk was standing very much as he had left him, half resting against
the table with the roll of gilding in his white fingers.
“What do you know of that man?” he asked as Theirry entered. “Where
did you meet him?” “Balthasar?”
“Yea.”
Theirry frowned.
“At his father’s house. I taught his sister music. There was, in a
manner, some friendship between us…we both wearied of Courtrai…so
it came we were together. I never loved him.” Dirk returned quietly to
the now completely gilded devil.
“Know you anything of the woman he spoke of?” he asked.
“Did he speak of one?”
Dirk looked over his shoulder.
“Yea,” he said; ‘besides, I was thinking of another woman.’ “They were
his words.” Theirry sat down; he felt faint and weak.
“I know not. There were so many. As we travelled together he made his
prayers to one Ysabeau, but he was secret about her—never his way.”
“Ysabeau,” repeated Dirk. “A common name.”
“Ay,” said Theirry indifferently.
Dirk suddenly raised his hand, and pointed out of the window at the
daisies and the broken fountain.
“What had he done if she had been living?” he asked, then without
waiting for a reply he began swiftly on another subject.
“I have finished my work. I wished to leave it complete—it was for
the church of St. Bavon, but I shall not give it them. Now, we can
start when you will.”
Theirry looked up.
“What of your house and goods?” he asked.
“I have thought of that. There are some valuables, some money; these
we can take—I shall lock up the house.”
“It will fall into decay.”
“I care not.” With a clear flame of eagerness alight in his eyes he
flashed a full glance at Theirry, and, seeing the young scholar pale
and drooping, disappointment clouded his face. “Do you commence so
slackly?” he demanded. “Are you not eager to be abroad?” “Yea,”
answered Theirry. “But—”
Dirk stamped his foot.
“We do not begin with ‘buts’!” he cried passionately. “If you have no
heart for the enterprise—”
Theirry half smiled.
“Give me some food, I pray you,” he said. “For I ate but little
yesterday.”
Dirk glanced at him.
“I forgot,” he answered, and set about re-arranging the remains of the
meal he and Balthasar had shared in silence.
Theirry sat very still; the door into the next room was open as he had
left it on his return, and he could see the line of the trapdoor; he
felt a great desire to raise it, to descend into the vault and gaze at
the cracked mirror, the brazier of dead coals and the mystic circles
on the floor. Looking up, his eyes met Dirk’s, and without words his
thought was understood.
“Leave it alone now,” said the sculptor softly. “Let us not speak of
it before we reach Basle.”
At these words Theirry felt a great relief; the idea of discussing,
even with the youth who so fascinated him, the horrible, alluring
thing that was an intimate of his thoughts but a stranger to his lips,
had filled him with uneasiness and dread. While he ate the food put
before him, Dirk picked up the four gold coins Balthasar had left and
looked at them curiously.
“Masses for her soul!” he cried. “Did he think that I would enter a
church and bargain with a priest for that!”
He laughed, and flung the money out of the window at the nodding
daisies.
Theirry gave him a startled glance.
“Why, till now I had thought that you felt tenderly towards the maid.”
Dirk laughed.
“Not I. I have never cared for women.”
“Nor I,” said Theirry simply; he leant back in his chair and his
dreamy eyes were grave. “When young they are ornaments, it is true,
but pleasant only if you flatter them, when they are overlooked they
become dangerous—and a woman who is not young is absorbed in little
concerns that are no matter to any but herself.”
The smile, still lingering on Dirk’s face, deepened derisively, it
seemed.
“Oh, my fine philosopher!” he mocked. “Are you well fed now, and
preaching again?”
He leant against the wall by the window, and the intense sunlight made
his dull brown hair glitter here and there; he folded his arms and
looked at Theirry narrowly.
“I warrant your mother was a fair woman,” he said. “I do not remember
her. They say she had the loveliest face in Flanders, though she was
only a clerk’s wife,” answered the young man. “I can believe it,” said
Dirk.
Theirry glanced at him, a little bewildered; the youth had such abrupt
changes of manner, such voice and eyes unfathomable, such a pale,
fragile appearance, yet such a spirit of tempered courage.
“I marvel at you,” he said. “You will not always be unknown.”
“No,” answered Dirk. “I have never meant that I should be soon
forgotten.”
Then he was beside Theirry, with a strip of parchment in his hand.
“I have made a list of what we have in the place of value—but I care
not to sell them here.” “Why?” questioned Theirry.
Dirk frowned.
“I want no one over the threshold. I have a reputation—not one for
holiness,” his strange face relaxed into a smile.
Theirry glanced at the list.
“Certes! How might one carry that even to the next town? Without a
horse it were impossible.” Silver ware, glass, pictures, raiment, were
marked on the strip of parchment.
Dirk bit his finger.
“We will not sell these things Master Lukas left to me,” he said
suddenly. “Only a few. Such as the silver and the red copper wrought
in Italy.”
Theirry lifted his grave eyes.
“I will carry those into the town if you give me
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