Black Magic, Marjorie Bowen [100 books to read TXT] 📗

>your mask? I say you shall.”

 

She trembled between a sigh and a laugh.

 

“Perhaps my face is not worth gazing at,” she answered on a breath.

 

“I wot ye are a fair woman,” replied Dirk, who heard the consciousness

of it in her alluring voice.

 

Still she hesitated.

 

“Know ye many about the Court?” she asked.

 

“Nay. I have not concerned myself with the Court.”

 

“Well, then—and since I must trust you—and like you”—her voice rose

and fell—“look at me and remember me.”

 

She loosened her cloak, flung back the hood and quickly unfastening

the mask, snatched it off. The disguise flung aside, she was revealed

to the shoulders, clearly in the warm twilight.

 

Dirk’s first impression was, that this was beauty that swept from his

mind all other beauty he had ever beheld; his second, that it was the

same face he and Theirry had seen in the mirror. “Oh!” he cried.

“Well?” said the lady, the hideous mask in her band.

 

Now she was disclosed, it was as if another presence had entered the

dusky chamber, so difficult was it to associate this brilliance with

the cloaked figure of a few moments since.

 

Certainly she was of a great beauty, smiting into breathlessness, a

beauty not to be realised until beheld; Dirk would not have believed

that a woman could be so fair.

 

If Jacobea’s hair was yellow, this lady’s locks were pale, pure

glittering gold, and her eyes a deep, soft, violet hue; the throwing

back of her cloak revealed her round slender throat, and the glimmer

of a rich bodice.

 

The smile faded from her lips, and her gorgeous loveliness became

grave, almost tragic. “You do not know me?” she asked.

 

“No,” answered Dirk; he could not tell her that he had seen her before

in his devil’s mirror. “But you will recognise me again?”

 

Dirk laughed quietly.

 

“You were not made to be forgotten. Strange with such a face ye should

have need of witchcraft!”

 

The lady replaced the mottled mask, that looked the more horrible

after that glimpse of gleaming beauty, and drew her mantle over her

shoulders.

 

“I shall come to you or send to you, sir. Think on what I have said,

and on what I know.”

 

She was obscured again, hidden in her green cloak. Dirk proffered no

question, made no comment, but preceded her down the dark passage and

opened the door; she passed out; her footstep was light on the path;

Dirk watched her walk rapidly down the street then closed the door and

bolted it. After a pause of breathless confusion and heart-heating

excitement, he ran to the back of the house and out into the garden.

 

It was just light enough for the huge dusky roses to be visible as

they nodded on their trailing bushes; Dirk ran between them until he

reached a gaunt stone statue half concealed by laurels; in front of

this were flags irregularly placed; in the centre of one was an iron

ring; Dirk, pulling at this, disclosed a trap door that opened at his

effort, and revealed a flight of steps; he descended from the soft

pure evening and the red roses into the witch’s kitchen, closing the

stone above him.

 

The underground chamber was large and lit by lamps hanging from the

roof, revealing smooth stone walls and damp floor; in one side a

gaping blackness showed where a passage twisted to the outer air; on

another was a huge alchemist’s fireplace; before this sat the witch,

about her a quantity of glass vessels, retorts and pots of various

shapes.

 

Either side this fireplace hung a human body, black and withered,

swinging from rusted ropes and crowned with wreaths of green and

purple blotched leaves.

 

On a table set against the wall was a brass head that glimmered in the

feeble light. Dirk crossed the floor with his youthful step and

touched Nathalie on the shoulder. “One came to see me,” he said

breathlessly. “A marvellous lady.”

 

“I know,” murmured the witch. “And was it to play into thy hands?”

 

The air was thick and tainted with unwholesome smells; Dirk leant

against the wall and stared down the chamber, his hand to his brow.

 

“She threatened me,” he said, “and for a moment I was afraid; for,

certes, I do not wish to leave Frankfort…but she wished me to serve

her—which I will do—for a price.” “Who is she?” blinked the witch.

 

“That I am come to discover,” frowned Dirk. “And who it is she spoke

of—also somewhat of Jacobea of Martzburg”—he coughed, for the foul

atmosphere had entered his nostrils. “Give me the globe.”

 

The witch handed him a ball of a dark muddy colour, which he placed on

the floor, flinging himself beside it; Nathalie drew a pentagon round

the globe and pronounced some words in a low tone; a slight tremor

shook the ground, though it was solid earth they stood on, and the

globe turned a pale, luminous, blue tint.

 

Dirk pushed back the damp hair from his eyes, and, resting his face in

his hands, his elbows on the ground, he stared into the depths of the

crystal, the colour of which brightened until it glowed a ball of

azure fire.

 

“I see nothing,” he said angrily.

 

The witch repeated her incantations; she leant forward, the yellow

coins glistening on her pale forehead.

 

Rays of light began to sparkle from the globe. “Show me something of

the lady who came here to-day,” commanded Dirk.

 

They waited.

 

“Do ye see anything?” breathed the witch.

 

“Yea—very faintly.”

 

He gazed for a while in silence.

 

“I see a man,” he said at last. “The spells are wrong…I see nothing

of the lady—” “Watch, though,” cried the witch. “What is he like?”

 

“I cannot see distinctly…he is on horseback…he wears armour…now

I can see his face—he is young, dark—he has black hair—”

 

“Do ye know him?”

 

“Nay—I have never seen him before.” Dirk did not lift his eyes from

the globe. “He is evidently a knight . .. he is magnificent but

cold…ah!”

 

His exclamation was at the change in the ball; slowly it faded into a

faint blue, then became again dark and muddy.

 

He flung it angrily out of the pentagon.

 

“What has that told me?” he cried. “What is this man?”

 

“Question Zerdusht,” said the witch, pointing to the brass head.

“Maybe he will speak tonight.”

 

She flung a handful of spices on to the slow-burning fire, and a faint

smoke rose, filling the chamber.

 

Dirk crossed to the brass head and surveyed it with eager hollow eyes.

 

“The dead men dance,” smiled the witch. “Certes, he will speak tonight.”

 

Dirk turned his wild gaze to where the corpses hung. Their shrivelled

limbs twisted and jerked at the end of their chain, and the horrid

lurid colour of their poisonous wreaths gleamed through the smoke and

shook with the nodding of their faceless heads.

 

“Zerdusht, Zerdusht,” murmured Dirk. “In the name of Satan, his

legions, speak to thy servant, show or tell him something of the woman

who came here to-day on an evil errand.”

 

A heavy stillness fell with the ending of the words; the smoke became

thick and dense, then suddenly cleared.

 

At that instant the lamps were extinguished and the fire fell into

ashes.

 

“Something comes,” whispered the witch.

 

Through the dark could be heard the dance of the dead men and the

grind of their bones against the ropes.

 

Dirk stood motionless, his straining eyes fixed before him.

 

Presently a pale light spread over the end of the chamber, and in it

appeared the figure of a young knight; his black hair fell from under

his helmet, his face was composed and somewhat haughty, his dark eyes

fearless and cold.

 

“‘Tis he I saw in the crystal!” cried Dirk, and as be spoke the light

and the figure disappeared. Dirk beat his breast.

 

“Zerdusht! ye mock me! I asked ye of this woman! I know not the man.”

 

The brass head suddenly glowed out of the darkness as if a light shone

behind it; the lids twitched, opened, and glittering red eyeballs

stared at Dirk, who shouted in triumph. He fell on his knees.

 

“A year ago to-day I saw a woman in the mirror; to-day she came to

me…who is she?…Zerdusht—her name?”

 

The brass lips moved and spoke.

 

“Ysabeau.”

 

What did this tell him?

 

“Who was the knight ye have shown me?” he cried.

 

“Her husband,” answered the head.

 

“Who is the man she seeks my aid to…to…who is it of whom she spoke

to me?” The flaming eyeballs rolled.

 

“Her husband.”

 

Dirk gave a start.

 

“Make haste,” came the witch’s voice through the swimming blackness.

“The light fades.” “Who is she?”

 

“The Empress of the West,” said the brass head. A cry broke from Dirk

and the witch; Dirk shrieked another question.

 

“She wishes to put another in the Emperor’s place?”

 

“Yea;” the light was growing fainter; the eyelids flickered over the

red eyes.

 

“Whom?” cried Dirk. Faint, yet distinct came the answer—

 

“The Lord of Ursula of Rooselaare, Balthasar of Courtrai .”

 

The lids fell and the jaws clicked, the light sank into nothingness,

and the lamps sprang again into dismal flame that disclosed the black

bodies of the dead men, hanging slackly with their wreaths touching

their chests, the witch crouching by the hearth—

 

And in the centre of the floor Dirk, smiling horribly.