Black Magic, Marjorie Bowen [100 books to read TXT] 📗
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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enemies, it was the only protection he had; Theirry, knowing that he
must have the key upon him, saw the end and was prepared to fight it
finely.
“What are ye going to do now?” he challenged.
For answer one of them leant across the table and seized Dirk by the
arm, swinging him easily into the centre of the room, another caught
his mantle.
A yell of “Search him!” rose from the others.
Dirk bent his head in a curious manner, snatched the key from inside
his shirt and flung it on the floor; instantly they let go of him to
pick it up, and he staggered back beside Theirry. “Do not let them
touch me,” he said. “Do not let them touch me.”
“Art a coward?” answered Theirry angrily. “Now we are utterly lost…
.”
He thrust Dirk away as if he would abandon him; but that youth caught
hold of him in desperation.
“Do not leave me—they will tear me to pieces.” The students were
rushing through the unlocked door shouting for lights; the priest
caught up the lamp and followed them; the two were left in darkness.
“Ye are a fool,” said Theirry. “With some cunning the key might have
been saved…”
A horrid shout arose from those in the inner room as they discovered
the remains of the incantations…
Theirry sprang to the window, Dirk after him. “Theirry, gentle
Theirry, take me also—can see I am helpless! A—ah! I am small and
pitiful, Theirry!”
Theirry had one leg over the windowsill.
“Come, then, in the fiend’s name,” he answered. A hoarse shout told
them the students had found the little image of Joris; those still on
the stairway saw them at the window. “The warlocks escape!”
Theirry helped Dirk on to the window-ledge; the night air blew hot on
their faces and they felt warm rain falling on them; there was no
light anywhere.
The students were yelling in a thick fury as they discovered the
unholy unguents and implements. They turned suddenly and dashed to the
window. Theirry swung himself by his hands, then let go.
With a shock that jarred every nerve in his body he landed on the
balcony of the room beneath. “Jump!” he called up to Dirk, who still
crouched on the windowsill.
“Ah, soul of mine! Ah, I cannot!” Dirk stared through the darkness in
a wild endeavour to discern Theirry.
“I am holding out my arms! Jump!”
The students had knocked over the lamp and it had checked them for the
moment; but Dirk, looking back, saw the room flaring with fresh lights
and seething figures pushing up to the window.
He closed his eyes and leapt in the darkness; the distance was not
great; Theirry half caught him; he half staggered against the balcony.
A torch was thrust out of the window above them; frenzied faces looked
down.
Theirry pushed Dirk roughly through the window before them, which
opened on to the library, and followed.
“Now—for our lives,” he said.
They ran down the dark length of the chamber and gained the stairs;
the students, having guessed their design, were after them—they could
hear the clatter of feet on the upper landing. How many stairs, how
many before they reach the hall!
Dirk tripped and fell, Theirry dragged him up; a breathless youth
overtook them; Theirry, panting, turned and struck him backwards
sprawling. So they reached the hall, fled along it and out into the
dark garden.
A minute after, the pursuers bearing lights, and half delirious with
wrath and terror, surged out of the college doors.
Theirry caught Dirk’s arm and they ran; across the thick grass,
crashing through the bushes, trampling down the roses, blindly through
the dark till the shouts and the lights grew fainter behind them and
they could feel the trunks of trees impeding them and so knew that
they must have reached the forest.
Then Theirry let go of Dirk, who sank down by his side and lay sobbing
in the grass.
Theirry spoke angrily through the dark.
“Little fool, we are safe enough. They think the Devil has carried us
off. Be silent.” Dirk gasped from where he lay.
“Am not afraid. But spent…they have gone?”
“Ay,” said Theirry, peering about him; there was no trace of light
anywhere in the murky dark nor any sound; he put his hand out and
touched the wet trunk of a tree, resting his shoulder against this
(for he also was exhausted) he considered, angrily, the situation.
“Have you any money?” he asked.
“Not one white piece.”
Theirry felt in his own pockets. Nothing.
Their plight was pitiable; their belongings were in the college,
Probably by now being burnt with a sprinkling of holy water—they were
still close to those who would kill them upon sight, with no means of
escape; daylight must discover them if they lingered, and how to be
gone before daylight?
If they tried to wander in this dark likely enough they would but find
themselves at the college gates; Theirry cursed softly.
“Little avail our enchantments now,” he commented bitterly.
It was raining heavily, drumming on the leaves above them, splashing
from the boughs and dripping on the grass; Dirk raised himself feebly.
“Cannot we get shelter?” he asked peevishly. “I am all bruised, shaken
and wet—wet—” “Likely enough,” responded Theirry grimly. “But unless
the charms you know, Zerdusht’s incantations and Magian spells, can
avail to spirit us away we must even stay where we are.” “Ah, my
manuscripts, my phials and bottles!” cried Dirk. “I left them all!”
“They will burn them,” said Theirry. “Plague blast and blight the
thieving, spying knaves!” answered Dirk fiercely.
He got on to his feet and supported himself the other side of the
tree.
“Certes, curse them all!” said Theirry, “if it anything helps.”
He felt anger and hate towards the priest and his followers who had
hounded him from the college; no remorse stung him now, their action
had swung him violently back into his old mood of defiance and hard-heartedness; his one thought was neither repentance nor shame, but a
hot desire to triumph over his enemies and outwit their pursuit.
“My ankle,” moaned Dirk. “Ah! I cannot stand…”
Theirry turned to where the voice came out of the blackness.
“Deafen me not with thy complaints, weakling,” he said fiercely. “Hast
behaved in a cowardly fashion tonight.”
Dirk was silent before a new phase of Theirry’s character; he saw that
his hold on his companion had been weakened by his display of fear,
his easy surrender of the key. “Moans make neither comfort nor aid,”
added Theirry.
Dirk’s voice came softly.
“Had you been sick I had not been so harsh, and surely I am
sick…when I breathe my heart hurts and my foot is full of pain.”
Theirry softened.
“Because I love you, Dirk, I will, if you complain no more, say nought
of your ill behaviour.” He put out his hand round the tree and touched
the wet silk mantle; despite the heat Dirk was shivering.
“What shall we do?” he asked, and strove to keep his teeth from
chattering. “If we might journey to Frankfort—”
“Why Frankfort?”
“Certes, I know an old witch there who was friendly to Master Lukas,
and she would receive us, surely.”
“We cannot reach Frankfort or any place without money…how dark it
is!”
“Ugh! How it rains! I am wet to the skin…and my ankle …”
Theirry set his teeth.
“We will get there in spite of them. Are we so easily daunted?”
“A light!” whispered Dirk. “A light!”
Theirry stared about him and saw in one part of the universal darkness
a small light with a misty halo about it, slowly coming nearer.
“A traveller,” said Theirry. “Now shall he see us or no?”
“Belike he would show us on our way,” whispered Dirk.
“If he be not from the college.”
“Nay, he rides.”
They could hear now, through the monotonous noise of the rain, the
sound of a horse slowly, cautiously advancing; the light swung and
flickered in a changing oval that revealed faintly a man holding it
and a horseman whose bridle he caught with the other hand.
They came at a walking pace, for the path was unequal and slippery,
and the illumination afforded by the lantern feeble at best.
“I will accost him,” said Theirry.
“If he demand who we are?”
“Half the truth then—we have left the college because of a fight.”
The horseman and his attendant were now quite close; the light showed
the overgrown path they came upon, the wet foliage either side and the
slanting silver rain; Theirry stepped out before them.
“Sir,” he said, “know you of any habitation other than the town of
Basle?”
The rider was wrapped in a mantle to his chin and wore a pointed felt
hat; he looked sharply under this at his questioner.
“My own,” he said, and halted his horse. “A third of a league from
here.”
At first he had seemed fearful of robbers, for his hand had sought the
knife in his belt; but now he took it away and stared curiously,
attracted by the student’s dress and the obvious beauty of the young
man who was looking straight at him with dark, challenging eyes.
“We should be indebted for your hospitality—even the shelter of your
barns,” said Theirry. The horseman’s glance travelled to Dirk,
shivering in his silk.
“Clerks from the college?” he questioned.
“Yea,” answered Theirry. “We were. But I sorely wounded one in a fight
and fled. My comrade chose to follow me.”
The stranger touched up his horse.
“Certes, you may come with me. I wot there is room enow.”
Theirry caught Dirk by the arm.
“Sir, we are thankful,” he answered.
The light held by the servant showed a muddy, twisting path, the
shining wet trunks, the glistening leaves either side, the great brown
horse, steaming and passive, with his bright scarlet trappings and his
rider muffled in a mantle to the chin; Dirk looked at man and horse
quickly in silence; Theirry spoke.
“It is an ill night to be abroad.”
“I have been in the town,” answered the stranger, “buying silks for my
lady. And you—so you killed a man?”
“He is not dead,” answered Theirry. “But we shall never return to the
college.”
The horseman had a soft and curiously pleasing voice; he spoke as if
he cared nothing what he said or how he was answered.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“To Frankfort,” said Theirry.
“The Emperor is there now, though he leaves for Rome within the year,
they say,” remarked the horseman, “and the Empress. Have you seen the
Empress?”
Theirry put back the boughs that trailed across the path.
“No,” he said.
“Of what town are you?”
“Courtrai.”
“The Empress was there a year ago and you did not see her? One of the
wonders of the world, they say, the Empress.”
“I have heard of her,” said Dirk, speaking for the first time. “But,
sir, we go not to Frankfort to see the Empress.”
“Likely ye do not,” answered the horseman, and was silent.
They cleared the wood and were crossing a sloping space of grass, the
rain full in their faces; then they again struck a well-worn path, now
leading upwards among scattered rocks.
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