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

should be in Rome to-day,” she said. “The Conclave come

to their decision this afternoon; do you wish to hear it announced

from the Vatican?”

 

“Nay,” smiled Theirry. “I would rather see you dance.”

 

Her answer was mocking.

 

“You care nothing for my dancing—I would wager to stir any man in

Rome sooner than you!” Theirry flushed.

 

“Why did you follow me?” he asked in a half-indifferent dislike.

 

She seated herself on the other end of his marble bench.

 

“My reasons are better than my dancing, and would, could I speak them,

have more effect on you.”

 

The light hot wind ruffled back the gauze from her beautiful arms and

shoulders; her bright hair and masked face were in shadow, but her

gold-sandalled foot, which rested lightly on the wild, sweet violets,

blazed in the sunshine.

 

Theirry looked at her foot as he answered—

 

“I am a stranger to Rome and know not its customs, but if you are what

you seem you can have no serious reason in following me.”

 

The dancing girl laughed.

 

“A stranger! then that is why you are the only man in Rome not waiting

eagerly to know who the new Pope will be.”

 

“It is curious for a wandering minstrel to have such interest in holy

matters,” said Theirry.

 

She leant towards him across the length of the bench, and the perfume

of her orange garments mingled with the odour of the violets.

 

“Take me for something other than I appear,” she replied, in a

mournful and passionate voice. “In being here I risk an unthinkable

fate—I stake the proudest hopes…the fairest fortune…” “Who are

you?” cried Theirry. “Why are you masked?”

 

She drew back instantly, and her tone changed to scorn again.

 

“When there are many pilgrims in Rome the monks bid us poor fools wear

masks, lest, with our silly faces, we lure souls away from God.”

 

Theirry stared at the proud city beneath him. “Could I find God,” he

said bitterly, “no fair face should beguile me away—but God is bound

and helpless, I think, at the Devil’s chair.” The dancer crushed her

bright foot down on the violets.

 

“I cannot imagine,” she said intensely, “how a man can spend his life

looking for God and saving his own soul—is not the world beautiful

enough to outweigh heaven?”

 

Theirry was silent.

 

The dancing girl laughed softly.

 

“Are you thinking of—her?” she asked.

 

He turned with a start.

 

“Thinking of whom?” he demanded.

 

“The lady in the Byzantine chariot—Jacobea of Martzburg.”

 

He sprang up.

 

“Who are you, and what do you know of me?”

 

“This, at least—that you have not forgotten her!–Yet you would be

Emperor, too, would you not?”

 

“

 

Theirry drew back from her stretched along the marble seat, until his

crimson robe touched the dark trunks of the cypress trees.

 

“Ye are some witch,” he said.

 

“I come from Thessaly, where we have skill in magic,” she answered.

 

And now she sat erect, her yellow dress casting a glowing reflection

into the marble.

 

“And I tell you this,” she added passionately. “If you would be

Emperor, let that woman be—she will do nought for you—let her go!—

this is a warning, Theirry of Dendermonde!” His face flushed, his eyes

sparkled.

 

“Have I a chance of wearing the Imperial crown?” he cried. “May I—I,

rule the West?—Tell me that, witch!”

 

She whistled the ape to her side.

 

“I am no witch—but I can warn you to think no more of Jacobea of

Martzburg.” He answered hotly.

 

“I love not to hear her name on your tongue; she is nothing to me; I

need not your warning.” The dancer rose.

 

“For your own sake forget her, Theirry of Dendermonde, and you may be

indeed Emperor of the West and C�sar of the Romans.”

 

The gold gleaming on her robe, her sandals, in her hair, confused and

dazzled him, the hideous ape gave him a pang of terror.

 

“How came you by your knowledge?” he asked, and clutched the cypress

trunk.

 

“I read your fortune in your eyes,” she answered. “We in Thessaly have

skill in these things, as I have said… Look at the city beneath us—

is it not worth much to reign in it?”

 

The gold vapour that lay about the distant hills seemed to be

resolving into heavy, menacing clouds.

 

Theirry, following the direction of her slender pointing finger, gazed

at the city and saw the clouds beyond.

 

“A storm gathers,” he said, and knew not why he shivered suddenly

until his pearl earrings tinkled on the collar round his neck.

 

The dancer laughed, wildly and musically.

 

“Come with me to the Piazza of St. Peter,” she said, “and you shall

hear strange words.” With that she caught hold of his blood-red

garments and drew him towards the city.

 

The perfume from her dress and her hair stole into his nostrils; the

hem of her tunic made a delicate sound as it struck her sandals, the

violet ribbon in her fillet touched his face…he hated the black,

expressionless mask; he had strange thoughts under her touch, but he

came silently.

 

As they went down the road that wound through the glorious desolation

Theirry heard the sound of pattering feet, and looked over his

shoulder.

 

It was the ape who followed them; he walked on his hind legs…how

tall he was!—Theirry had not thought him so large, nor of such a

human semblance.

 

The dancer was silent, and Theirry could not speak; when they entered

the city gates the dun-coloured clouds had swallowed up the gold

vapour and half covered the sky; as they crossed the Tiber and neared

the Vatican the last beams of the sun disappeared under the shadow of

the oncoming storm.

 

Enormous crowds were gathered in the Piazza of St. Peter; it seemed as

if all Rome had assembled there; many faces were turned towards the

sky, and the sudden gloom that had overspread the city seemed to

infect the people, for they were mostly silent, even sombre.

 

The enormous and terrible ape cleared an easy way for himself through

the crowd, and Theirry and the dancing girl followed until they had

pushed through the press of people and found themselves under the

windows of the Vatican.

 

The heavy, ominous clouds gathered and deepened like a pall over the

city; black, threatening shapes rolled up from behind the Janiculum

Hill, and the air became fiery with the sense of impending tempest.

 

Suspense, excitement and the overawing aspect of the sky kept the

crowd in a whispering stillness.

 

Theirry heard the dancing girl laugh; she was thrust up close against

him in the press, and, although tall, was almost smothered by a number

of Frankish soldiers pressing together in front of her.

 

“I cannot see,” she said—“not even the window—”

 

He, with an instinct to assist her, and an impulse to use his

strength, caught her round the waist and lifted her up.

 

For a second her breast touched his; he felt her heart beating

violently behind her thin robe, and an extraordinary sensation took

possession of him.

 

Occasioned by the touch of her, the sense of her in his arms, there

was communicated, as if from her heart to his, a high and rapturous

passion; it was the most terrible and the most splendid feeling he had

ever known, at once an agony and a delight such as he had never

dreamed of before; unconsciously he gave an exclamation and loosened

his hold. She slipped to the ground with a stifled and miserable cry.

 

“Let me alone,” he said wildly. “Let me alone

 

“Who are you?” he whispered excitedly, and tried to catch hold of her

again; but the great ape came between them, and the seething crowd

roughly pushed him.

 

Cardinal Maria Orsini had stepped out on to one of the balconies of

the Vatican; he looked over the expectant crowd, then up at the black

and angry sky, and seemed for a moment to hesitate.

 

When he spoke his words fell into a great stillness.

 

“The Sacred College has elected a successor to St. Peter in the person

of Louis of Dendermonde, Abbot of the Brethren of the Sacred Heart in

Paris, Bishop of Ostia and Cardinal Caprarola, who will ascend the

Papal throne under the name of Michael II.”

 

He finished; the cries of triumph from the Romans, the yells of rage

from the Franks were drowned in a sudden and awful peal of thunder;

the lightning darted across the black heavens and fell on the Vatican

and Castel San’ Angelo. The clouds were rent in two behind the temple

of Mars the Avenger, and a thunderbolt fell with a hideous crash into

the Forum of Augustus.

 

Theirry, whipped with terror, turned with the frightened crowd to

flee…he heard the dancing girl laugh, and tried to snatch at her

orange garments, but she swept by him and was lost in the surge.

 

Rome quivered under the onslaught of the thunder, and the lightning

alone lit the murky, hot gloom.

 

“The reign of Antichrist has begun!” shrieked Theirry, and laughed

insanely.