BLAISE
Ambrose of Menthon and his meek and humble follower rested at
Châlons, on their way to Paris.
For many weeks they had begged from door to door, sleeping in some
hermit’s cell or by the roadside when the severity of the bitter
nights permitted, occasionally finding shelter in a wayside convent.
So patient, so courageous before hardship, so truly sad and
remorseful, so grateful for the distant chance of ultimate pardon was
Dirk, that the saint grew to love the penitent vagabond.
No one eager to look for it could have found any fault with his
behaviour; he was gentle as a girl, obedient as a servant, rigid in
his prayers (and he had a strangely complete knowledge of the offices
and penances of the Church), silent and sorrowful often, taking no
pleasure in anything save the saint’s talk of Paradise and holy
things.
Particularly he loved to hear of the dead youth Blaise, of his saintly
life, of his desire to join the stern Brotherhood of the Sacred Heart,
in Paris, of his fame as one beloved of God, of the convent’s wish to
receive him, of his great learning, of his beautiful death in the
snowy evening.
To all this Dirk listened with still attention, and from Saint
Ambrose’s rapt and loving recital he gathered little earthly details
of the subject of their speech.
Such as that he was from Flanders, of a noble family, that his
immediate relatives were dead, that his years were no more than
twenty, and that he was dark and pale.
For himself Dirk had little to say; he described simply his shame and
remorse after he had stolen the holy gold, his gradual sickening of
his companions, the long torture of his awakening soul, his attempts
to find the saint, and how, finally, after he had resolved to flee his
evil life and enter a convent, he had run out of Frankfort, found a
boat waiting--and so drifted to Saint Ambrose’s feet.
The saint, rejoicing in his penitence, suggested that he should enter
the convent whither they journeyed with the tidings of the holy
youth’s death, and Dirk consented with humble gratitude.
And so they passed through Châlons, and rested in a deserted hut
overlooking the waters of the Marne.
Having finished their scanty meal they were seated together under the
rough shelter; the luxury of a fire was denied their austerity; a cold
wind blew in and out of the ill-built doors, and a colourless light
filled the mean bare place. Dirk sat on a broken stool, reading aloud
the writings of Saint Jerome.
He wore a coarse brown robe, very different from his usual attire,
fastened round the waist with a rope into which was twisted a wooden
rosary; his feet were encased in rude leather boots, his hands
reddened with the cold, his face hollow and of a bluish pallor in
which his eyes shone feverishly large and dark.
His smooth hair hung on to his shoulders; he stooped, in contrast with
his usual erect carriage.
Pausing on his low and gentle reading he looked across at the saint.
Ambrose of Menthon sat on a rough-hewn bench against the rougher wall;
weariness, exposure, and sheer weakness of body had done their work at
last; Dirk knew that for three nights he had not slept… he was asleep
now or had swooned; his fair head fell forward on his breast, his
hands hung by his side.
As Dirk became assured that his companion was unconscious, he slowly
rose and set down the holy volume. He was himself half starved, cold
to the heart and shuddering; he looked round the plaster walls and the
meek expression of his face changed to one of scorn, derision and
wicked disdain; he darted a bitter glance at the wan man, and crept
towards the door.
Opening it softly, he gazed out; the scene was fair and lonely--the
distant tourelles of Châlons rose clear and pointed against the
winter clouds; near by the grey river flowed between its high banks,
where the bare willows grew and the snow-wreaths still lay.
Dirk took shivering steps into the open and turned towards the Marne;
the keen wind penetrated his poor garments and lifted the heavy hair
from his thin cheeks; he beat his breast, chafed his hands and walked
rapidly.
Reaching the bank he looked up and down the river; there was no one in
sight, neither boat nor animal nor house to break the monotony of
land, sky and water, only those distant towers of the town.
Dirk walked among the twisted willows, then came to a pause.
A little ahead of him were a black man and a black dog, both seated on
the bank and gazing towards Châlons.
The youth came a little nearer.
“Good even,” he said. “It is very cold.”
The Blackamoor looked round.
“Are you pleased with the way you travel?” he asked, nodding his head.
“And your companion?”
Dirk’s face lowered.
“How much longer am I to endure it?”
“You must have patience,” said the black man, “and endurance.”
“I have both,” answered Dirk. “Look at my hands--they are no longer
soft, but red and hard; my feet are galled and wounded in rough
boots--I must walk till I am sick, then pray instead of sleeping; I
see no fire, and scarcely do I touch food.”
The hell-hound stirred and whined among the osiers, the jewels in the
Blackamoor’s collar flashed richly, though there was no light to
strike them.
“You will be rewarded,” he said, “and revenged too--o--ho--o! it is
very cold, as you say, very cold.”
“What must I do?” asked Dirk.
The black man rubbed his hands together.
“You know--you know.”
Dirk’s pinched wan face grew intent, and eager.
“Am I to use… this?” He touched the breast of his rough habit.
“Yea.”
“Then shall I be left defenceless.” Dirk’s voice shook a little. “If
anything should happen--I would not, I could not--oh, Sathanas!--I
could not be revealed!”
The Blackamoor rose from among the willows.
“Do you trust yourself and me?” he asked.
Dirk put his thin hand over his eyes.
“Yea, master.”
“Then you know what to do. You will not see me for many years--when
you have triumphed I shall come.”
He turned swiftly and ran down the bank, the hound at his heels; one
after another they leaped into the waters of the Marne and disappeared
with an inner sound.
Dirk straightened himself and set his lips. He reentered the hut to
find Ambrose of Menthon still against the wall, now indeed wearily
asleep; Dirk came softly forward; slowly and cautiously he put his
hand into his bosom and drew out a small green-coloured phial.
With his eyes keenly on the saint he broke the seal, then crept close.
By Saint Ambrose’s side hung his rosary, every bead smooth with the
constant pressure of his lips; Dirk raised the heavy crucifix
attached, and poured on to it the precious drop contained in the
phial.
Saint Ambrose did not wake nor move; Dirk drew away and crouched
against the wall, cursing the bitter wind with fierce eyes.…
When the saint awoke, Dirk was on the broken stool reading aloud the
writings of Saint Jerome.
“Is it still light?” asked Ambrose of Menthon amazedly.
“It is the dawn,” answered Dirk.
“And I have slept the night through.” The saint dragged his stiff
limbs from the seat and fell on his knees in a misery of prayer.
Dirk closed the book and watched him; watched his long fingers twining
in the beads of his rosary, watched him kiss the crucifix, again and
again; then he, too, knelt, his face hidden in his hands.
He was the first to rise.
“Master, shall we press on to Paris?” he asked humbly.
The saint lifted dazed eyes from his devotions.
“Yea,” he said. “Yea.”
Dirk began putting together in a bundle their few books, and the
wooden platter in which they collected their broken food; this being
their all.
“I dreamt last night of Paradise,” said Saint Ambrose faintly, “the
floor was so thick-strewn with close little flowers, red, white, and
purple… and it was warm as Italy in May.…”
Dirk swung the bundle on to his shoulder and opened the door of the
hut.
“There is no sun to-day,” he remarked.
“How long it is since we have seen the sun!” said Saint Ambrose
wistfully.
They passed out into the dreary landscape and took their slow way
along the banks of the Marne.
Until midday they did not pause, scarcely spoke; then they passed
through a little village, and the charitable gave them food.
That night they slept in the open, under shelter of a hedge, and
Ambrose of Menthon complained of weakness; Dirk, waking in the dark,
heard him praying… heard, too, the rattle of the wooden rosary.
When the light came and they once more recommenced their journey the
saint was so feeble he was fain to lean on Dirk’s shoulder.
“I think I am dying,” he said; his face was flushed, his eyes burning,
he smiled continuously.
“Let me reach Paris,” he added, “that I may tell the Brethren of
Blaise.…”
The youth supporting him wept bitterly.
Towards noon they met a woodman’s cart that helped them on their way;
that night they spent in the stable of an inn; the next day they
descended into the valley of the Seine, and by the evening reached the
gates of Paris.
As the bells over all the beautiful city were ringing to vespers they
arrived at their destination, an old and magnificent convent
surrounded with great gardens set near the river bank.
The winter sky had broken at last, and wreathed and motionless clouds
curled back from a clear expanse of gold and scarlet, against which
the houses, churches and palaces rose from out the blue mist of
evening.
The straight roof of the convent, the little tower with its
slow-moving bell, the bare bent fruit trees, the beds of herbs,
sweet-smelling even now, the red lamp glowing in the dark doorway,
showed themselves to Dirk as he entered the gate,--he looked at them
all intently, and bitter distant memories darkened his hollow face.
The monks were singing the Magnificat; their thin voices came clearly
on the frosty air.
“Fecit potentiam in brachio suo:
dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.”
Ambrose of Menthon took his feeble hand from Dirk’s arm and sank on
his knees.
“Deposuit potentes de sede,
et exaltavit humiles.”
But Dirk’s pale lips curled, and as he gazed at the sunset flaming
beyond the convent walls, there was a haughty challenge in his
brooding eyes.
“Esurientes implevit bonis,
et divites dimisit inanes.
Suscepit Israel puerum suum,
recordatus misercordiae suae.”
The saint murmured the chanted words and clasped his hands on his
breast, while the sky brightened vividly above the wide waters of the
Seine.
“Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros
Abraham et semini ejus in saecula.”
The chant faded away on the still evening, but the saint remained
kneeling.
“Master,” whispered Dirk, “shall we not go in to them?”
Ambrose of Menthon raised his fair face.
“I am dying,” he smiled. “A keen flame licks up my blood and burns my
heart to ashes--‘Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus.’” His voice
failed, he sank forward and his head fell against the grey beds of rue
and fennel.
“Alas! alas!” cried Dirk; he made no attempt to bring assistance nor
called aloud, but stood still, gazing with intent eyes at the
unconscious man.
But when the monks came out of the chapel and turned two by two
towards the convent, Dirk pulled off his worn cap.
“Divinum auxilium maneat semper
nobiscum.”
“Amen,” said Dirk, then he ran lightly forward and flung himself
before the procession.
“My father!” he cried, with a sob in his voice.
The priests stopped, the “amens” still trembling on their lips.
“Ambrose of Menthon lies within your gates a dying man,” said Dirk
meekly and sadly.
With little exclamations of awe and grief the grey-clad figures
followed him to where the saint lay.
“Ah me!” murmured Dirk. “The way has been so long, so rough, so cold.”
Reverently they raised Saint Ambrose.
“He has done with his body,” said an old monk, holding up the dying
man.
The flushed sky faded behind them; the saint stirred and half opened
his eyes.
“Blaise,” he whispered. “Blaise”--he tried to point to Dirk who knelt
at his feet--“he will tell you.” His eyes closed again, he strove to
pray; the “De profundis” trembled on his lips, he made a sudden upward
gesture with his hands, smiled and died.
For a while there was silence among them, broken only by a short sob
from Dirk, then the monks turned to the ragged, emaciated youth who
crouched at the dead feet.
“Blaise, he said,” one murmured, “it is the holy youth.”
Dirk roused himself as from a silent prayer, made the sign of the
cross and rose.
“Who art thou?” they asked reverently.
Dirk raised a tear-stained, weary face.
“The youth Blaise, my fathers,” he answered humbly.
PART II.
THE POPE
CHAPTER I.
CARDINAL LUIGI CAPRAROLA
The evening service in the Basilica of St. Peter was over; pilgrims,
peasants and monks had departed; the last chant of the officiating
Cardinal’s train still trembled on the incense-filled air and the slim
novices were putting out the lights, when a man, richly and
fantastically dressed, entered the bronze doors and advanced a little
way down the centre aisle.
He bent his head to the altar, then paused and looked about him with
the air of a stranger. He was well used to magnificence, but this
first sight of the chapel of the Vatican caused him to catch his
breath.
Surrounding him were near a hundred pillars, each of a different
marble and carving; they supported a roof that glittered with the
manifold colours of mosaic; the rich walls were broken by numerous
chapels, from which issued soft gleams of purple and violet light;
mysterious shrines of porphyry and cipolin, jasper and silver showed
here and there behind red lamps. A steady glow of candles shone on a
mosaic and silver arch, beyond which the high altar sparkled like one
great jewel; the gold lamps on it were still alight, and it was heaped
with white lilies, whose strong perfume was noticeable even through
the incense.
To one side of the high altar stood a purple chair, and a purple
footstool, the seat of the Cardinal, sometimes of the Pontiff.
This splendid and holy beauty abashed, yet inspired the stranger; he
leant against one of the smooth columns and gazed at the altar.
The five aisles were crossed by various shafts of delicate trembling
light that only half dispersed the lovely gloom; some of the columns
were slender, some massive--the spoils from ancient palaces and
temples, no two of them were alike; those in the distance took on a
sea-green hue, luminous and exquisite; one or two were of deep rose
red, others black or dark green, others again pure ghostly white, and
all alike enveloped in soft shadows and quivering lights, violet, blue
and red.
The novices were putting out the candles and preparing to close the
church; their swift feet made no sound; silently the little stars
about the high altar disappeared and deeper shadows fell over the
aisles.
The stranger watched the white figures moving to and fro until no
light remained, save the purple and scarlet lamps that cast rich rays
over the gold and stained the pure lilies into colour, then he left
his place and went slowly towards the door.
Already the bronze gates had been closed; only the entrance to the
Vatican and one leading into a side street remained open.
Several monks issued from the chapels and left by this last; the
stranger still lingered.
Down from the altar came the two novices, prostrated themselves, then
proceeded along the body of the church.
They extinguished the candles in the candelabra set down the aisles,
and a bejewelled darkness fell on the Basilica.
The stranger stood under a malachite and platinum shrine that blinded
with the glimmer and sparkle of golden mosaic; before it burnt
graduated tapers; one of the novices came towards it, and the man
waiting there moved towards him.
“Sir,” he said in a low voice, “may I speak to you?”
He spoke in Latin, with the accent of a scholar, and his tone was deep
and pleasant.
The novice paused and looked at him, gazed intently and beheld a very
splendid person, a man in the prime of life, tall above the ordinary,
and, above the ordinary, gorgeous to the eyes; his face was sunburnt
to a hue nearly as dark as his light bronze hair, and his Western eyes
showed clearly bright and pale in contrast; in his ears hung long
pearl and gold ornaments that touched his shoulders; his dress was
half Eastern, of fine violet silk and embroidered leather; he carried
in his belt a curved scimitar inset with turkis, by his side a short
gold sword, and against his hip he held a purple cap ornamented with a
plume of peacocks’ feathers, and wore long gloves fretted in the palm
with the use of rein and sword.
But more than these details did the stranger’s face strike the novice;
a face almost as perfect as the masks of the gods found in the
temples; the rounded and curved features were over-full for a man, and
the expression was too indifferent, troubled, almost weak, to be
attractive, but taken in itself the face was noticeably beautiful.
Noting the novice’s intent gaze, a flush crept into the man’s dark
cheek.
“I am a stranger,” he said. “I want to ask you of Cardinal Caprarola.
He officiated here to-day?”
“Yea,” answered the novice. “What can I tell you of him? He is the
greatest man in Rome--now his Holiness is dying,” he added.
“Why, I have heard of him--even in Constantinople. I think I saw
him--many years ago, before I went to the East.”
The novice began to extinguish the candles round the shrine.
“It may be, sir,” he said. “His Eminence was a poor youth as I might
be; he came from Flanders.”
“It was in Courtrai I thought I saw him.”
“I know not if he was ever there; he became a disciple of Saint
Ambrose of Menthon when very young, and after the saint’s death he
joined the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris--you have heard that,
sir?”
The stranger lowered his magnificent eyes.
“I have heard nothing--I have been away--many years; this man,
Cardinal Caprarola--_he_ is a saint also--is he not?… tell me more of
him.”
The youth paused in his task, leaving half the candles alight to cast
a trembling glow over the man’s gold and purple splendour; he smiled.
“Born of Dendermonde he was, sir, Louis his name, in our tongue Luigi,
Blaise the name he took in the convent--he came to Rome, seven, nay,
it must be eight years ago. His Holiness created him Bishop of Ostia,
then of Caprarola, which last name he retains now he is Cardinal--he
is the greatest man in Rome,” repeated the novice.
“And a saint?” asked the other with a wistful eagerness.
“Certes, when he was a youth he was famous for his holy austere life,
now he lives in magnificence as befits a prince of the Church… he is
very holy.”
The novice put out the remaining candles, leaving only the flickering
red lamp.
“There was a great service here to-day?” the stranger asked.
“Yea, very many pilgrims were here.”
“I grieve that I was too late--think you Cardinal Caprarola would see
one unknown to him?”
“If the errand warranted it, sir.”
From the rich shadows came a sigh.
“I seek peace--if it be anywhere it is in the hands of this servant of
God--my soul is sick, will he help me heal it?”
“Yea, I do think so.”
The youth turned, as he spoke, towards the little side door.
“I must close the Basilica, sir,” he added.
The stranger seemed to rouse himself from depths of unhappy thoughts,
and followed through the quivering gloom.
“Where should I find the Cardinal?” he asked.
“His palace lies in the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, any will tell
you the way, sir.” The novice opened the door. “God be with you.”
“And with you;” the stranger stepped into the open and the church door
was locked behind him.
The purple after-glow still lingered over Rome; it was May and sweetly
warm; as the stranger crossed the Piazza of St. Peter the breeze was
like the touch of silk on his face; he walked slowly and presently
hesitated, looking round the ruined temples, broken palaces and walls;
there were people about, not many, mostly monks; the man glanced back
at the Vatican, where the lights had begun to sparkle in the windows,
then made his way, as rapidly as his scant knowledge served, across
the superb and despoiled city.
He reached the Via Sacra; it was filled with a gay and splendid crowd,
in chariots, on foot, and on horse, that mingled unheeding with the
long processions of penitents winding in and out the throng, both here
and in the Appian Way. He turned towards the Arch of Titus; the ladies
laughed and stared as he passed; one took a flower from her hair and
threw it after him, at which he frowned, blushed, and hastened on; he
had never been equal to the admiration he roused in women, though he
disliked neither them nor their admiration; he carried still on his
wrist the mark of a knife left there by a Byzantine Princess who had
found his face fair and his wooing cold; the laughter of the Roman
ladies gave him the same feeling of hot inadequacy as when he felt
that angry stab.
Passing the fountain of Meta Sudans and the remains of the Flavian
Amphitheatre, he gained the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano leading to
the Cælimontana Gate.
Here he drew a little apart from the crowd and looked about him; in
the distance the Vatican and Castel San Angelo showed faintly against
the remote Apennines; he could distinguish the banner of the Emperor
hanging slackly in the warm air, the little lights in St. Peter’s.
Behind him rose the Janiculum Hill set with magnificent palaces and
immense gardens, beneath the city lay dark in the twilight, and the
trees rising from the silent temples made a fair murmur as they shook
in their upper branches.
The stranger sighed and stepped again into the crowd, composed now of
all ranks and all nationalities; he touched a young German on the
shoulder.
“Which is Cardinal Caprarola’s palace?”
“Sir, the first.” He pointed to a gorgeous building on the slope of
the hill.
The stranger caught a glimpse of marble porticoes half obscured by
soft foliage.
With a “Thank you” he turned in the direction of the Palatine.
A few moments brought him to the magnificent gates of the Villa
Caprarola; they stood open upon a garden of flowers just gleamingly
visible in the dusk; the stranger hesitated in the entrance, fixing
his gaze on the luminous white walls of the palace that showed between
the boughs of citron and cypress.
This Cardinal, this Prince, who was the greatest man in Rome, which
was to say in Christendom, had strangely captured his imagination; he
liked to think of him as an obscure and saintly youth devoting his
life to the service of God, rising by no arts or intrigues but by the
pure will of his Master solely until he dominated the great Empire of
the West; the stranger now at his beautiful gates had been searching
for peace for many years, in many lands, and always in vain.
In Constantinople he had heard of the holy Frankish priest who was
already a greater power than the old and slowly dying Pope, and it had
comforted his tired heart to think that there was one man in a high
place set there by God alone--one, too, of a pure life and a noble
soul; if any could give him promise of salvation, if any could help
him to redeem his wasted, weak life, it would be he--this Cardinal who
could not know evil save as a name.
With this object he came to Rome; he wished to lay his sins and
penitence at the feet of him who had been a meek and poor novice, and
now by his virtues was Luigi Caprarola as mighty as the Emperor and as
innocent as the angels.
Shame and awe for a while held him irresolute, how could he dare
relate his miserable and horrible story to this saint?… but God had
bidden him, and the holy were always the merciful.
He walked slowly between the dim flowers and bushes to the stately
columned portico; with a thickly beating heart and a humble carriage
he mounted the low wide steps and stood at the Cardinal’s door, which
stood open on a marble vestibule dimly lit with a soft roseate violet
colour; the sound of a fountain came to his ears, and pungent aromas
mingled with the perfume of the blossoms.
Two huge negroes, wearing silver collars and tiger-skins, were on
guard at each column of the door, and as the new-comer set foot within
the portals one of them struck the silver bell attached to his wrist.
Instantly appeared a slim and gorgeous youth, habited in black, a
purple flower fastened at his throat.
The stranger took off his cap.
“This is the residence of his Eminence, Cardinal Caprarola?” he asked,
and the hint of hesitation always in his manner was accentuated.
“Yea,” the youth bowed gracefully; “I am his Eminence’s secretary,
Messer Paolo Orsini.”
“I do desire to see the Cardinal.”
The young Roman’s dark eyes flashed over the person of the speaker.
“What is your purpose, sir?”
“One neither political nor worldly;” he paused, flushed, then added,
“I would confess to his Eminence; I have come from Constantinople for
that--for that alone.”
Paolo Orsini answered courteously.
“The Cardinal hears confession in the Basilica.”
“Certes, I know, yet I would crave to see him privately, I have
matters relating to my soul to put before him, surely he will not
refuse me.” The stranger’s voice was unequal, his bearing troubled, as
the secretary curiously observed; penitents anxious for their souls
did not often trouble the Cardinal, but Orsini’s aristocratic manner
showed no surprise.
“His Eminence,” he said, “is ever loath to refuse himself to the
faithful; I will ask him if he will give you audience; what, sir, is
your quality and your name?”
“I am unknown here,” answered the other humbly; “lately have I come
from Constantinople, where I held an office at the court of Basil, but
by birth I am a Frank, of the Cardinal’s own country.”
“Sir, your name?” repeated the elegant secretary.
The stranger’s beautiful face clouded.
“I have been known by many… but let his Eminence have the truth--I am
Theirry, born of Dendermonde.”
Paolo Orsini bowed again.
“I will acquaint the Cardinal,” he said. “Will you await me here?”
He was gone as swiftly and silently as he had come; Theirry put his
hand to a hot brow and gazed about him.
The vestibule was composed of Numidian marble toned by time to a deep
orange hue; the capitals of the Byzantine columns were encrusted with
gold and supported a ceiling that glittered with violet glass mosaic;
gilt lamps, screened with purple or crimson silk, cast a coloured glow
down the sloping walls; a double staircase sprang from the serpentine
and malachite floor, and where the gold hand-rails ended a silver lion
stood on a cipolin pillar, holding between his paws a dish on which
burnt aromatic incense; in the space between the staircases was an
alabaster fountain--the basin, raised on the backs of other silver
lions, and filled with iridescent sea shells, over which the water
splashed and fell, changed by the lamplight to a glimmering rose
purple.
Either side the fountain were placed great bronze bowls of roses, pink
and white, and their petals were scattered over the marble pavement.
Against the walls ran low seats, cushioned with dark rich tapestries,
and above them, at intervals, marvellous antique statues showed white
in deep niches.
Theirry had seen nothing more lavishly splendid in the East; Cardinal
Caprarola was no ascetic whatever the youth Blaise may have been, and
for a moment Theirry was bewildered and disappointed--could a saint
live thus?
Then he reflected; good it was to consider that God, and not the
Devil, who so often used beauty and wealth for his lures, had given a
man this.
He walked up and down, none to watch him but the four silent and
motionless negroes; the exquisite lights, the melody of the fountain,
the sweet odours that rose from the slow-curling blue vapours, the
gorgeous surroundings, lulled and soothed; he felt that at last, after
his changeful wanderings, his restless unhappiness, he had found his
goal and his haven.
In this man’s hands was redemption, this man was housed as befitted an
Ambassador of the Lord of Heaven.
Paolo Orsini, in person as rare and splendid as the palace, returned.
“The Cardinal will receive you, sir,” he said; if the message
astonished him he did not show it; he bowed before Theirry, and
preceded him up the magnificent stairs.
The first landing was entirely hung with scarlet embroidery worked
with peacocks’ feathers, and lit by pendent crystal lamps; at either
end a silver archway led into a chamber.
The secretary, slim and black against the vivid colours, turned to the
left; Theirry followed him into a long hall illuminated by bronze
statues placed at intervals and holding scented flambeaux; between
them were set huge porphyry bowls containing orange trees and
oleanders; the walls and ceiling were of rose-hued marble inlaid with
basalt, the floor of a rich mosaic.
Theirry caught his breath; the Cardinal must possess the fabled wealth
of India.…
Paolo Orsini opened a gilt door and held it wide while Theirry
entered, then he bowed himself away, saying--
“His Eminence will be with you presently.”
Theirry found himself in a fair-sized chamber, walls, floor and
ceiling composed of ebony and mother-of-pearl.
Door and window were curtained by hangings of pale colours, on which
were stitched in glittering silks stories from Ovid.
In the centre of the floor was a Persian carpet of a faint hue of
mauve and pink; three jasper and silver lamps hung by silken cords
from the ceiling and gave the pale glow of moonlight; an ivory chair
and table raised on an ebony step stood in one corner; on the table
was a sand clock, a blood-red glass filled with lilies and a gold book
with lumps of turkis set in the covers; on the chair was a purple
velvet cushion.
Opposite this hung a crucifix, a scarlet light burning beneath it; to
this, the first holy thing Theirry had seen in the palace, he bent the
knee.
Incense burnt in a gold brazier, the rich scent of it growing almost
insupportable in the close confined space.
A silver footstool and a low ebony chair completed the furniture;
against the wall facing the door was a gilt and painted shrine, of
which the glittering wings were closed, but Theirry, turning from the
crucifix, bent his head to that.
A great excitement crept into his blood, he could not feel that he was
in a holy or sacred place, awaiting the coming of the saint who was to
ease the burden of his sin, yet what but this feeling of relief, of
righteous joy should be heating his blood now.…
The dim blue light, the strong perfumes were confusing to the senses;
his pulses throbbed, his heart leapt; it did not seem as if he could
speak to the Cardinal… then it seemed as if he could tell him
everything and leave--absolved.
Yet--and yet--what was there in the place reviving memories that had
been thrust deep into his heart for years… a certain room in an old
house in Antwerp with the August sunlight over the figure of a young
man gilding a devil… a chamber in the college at Basle and two youths
bending over a witch’s fire… a dark wet night, and the sound of a weak
voice coming to him… Frankfort and a garden blazing with crimson
roses, other scenes, crowded, horrible… why did he think of them here…
in this remote land, among strangers… here where he had come to purge
his soul?
He began to murmur a prayer; giddiness touched him, and the blue light
seemed to ripple and dim before his eyes.
He walked up and down the soft carpet clasping his hands.
All at once he paused and turned.
There was a shiver of silks, and the Cardinal stepped into the
chamber.
Theirry sank on his knees and bowed his throbbing head.
The Cardinal slowly closed the door; a low rumble of thunder sounded;
a great storm was gathering over the Tyrrhenian Sea.
CHAPTER II.
THE CONFESSION
“‘In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,’ I give you
greeting,” said the Cardinal in a low grave voice; he crossed to the
ivory chair and seated himself.
Theirry lifted his head and looked eagerly at the man who he hoped
would be his saviour.
The Cardinal was young, of the middle height, of a full but elegant
person and conveying an impression of slightness and delicacy, though
he was in reality neither small nor fragile. His face was pale, by
this light only dimly to be seen; he wore a robe of vivid pink and
violet silk that spread about the step on which his chair was placed;
his hands were very beautiful, and ornamented with a variety of costly
rings; on his head was a black skull-cap, and outside it his hair
showed, thick, curling and of a chestnut-red colour; his foot, very
small and well shaped, encased in a gold slipper, showed beneath his
gown.
He caught hold of the ivory arms of his seat and looked straight at
Theirry with intense, dark eyes.
“On what matters did you wish to speak with me?” he asked.
Theirry could not find words, a choking sense of horror, of something
dreadful and blasphemous beyond all words clutched at his heart… he
stared at the young Cardinal… he must be going mad.…
“The air--the incense makes me giddy, holy father,” he murmured.
The Cardinal touched a bell that stood by the sand clock, and motioned
to Theirry to rise.
A beautiful boy in a white tunic answered the summons.
“Extinguish the incense,” said the Cardinal, “and open the window,
Gian… it is very hot, a storm gathers, does it not?”
The youth drew apart the painted curtains and unlatched the window; as
the cooler air was wafted into the close chamber Theirry breathed more
freely.
“The stars are all hidden, your Eminence,” said Gian, looking at the
night. “Certainly, it is a storm.”
He raised the brazier, shook out the incense, leaving it smouldering
greyly, went on one knee to the Cardinal, then withdrew backwards.
As the door closed behind him Luigi Caprarola turned to the man
standing humbly before him.
“Now can you speak?” he said gravely.
Theirry flushed.
“Scarcely have I the heart… your Eminence abashes me, I have a
sickening tale to relate… hearing of you I thought, this holy man can
give me peace, and I came half across the world to lay my troubles at
your feet; but now, sir, now--I fear to speak, indeed, am scarce able,
unreal and hideous it seems in this place.”
“In brief, sir,” said the Cardinal, “ye have changed your mind--I
think ye were ever of a changeful disposition, Theirry of
Dendermonde.”
“How does your Eminence know that of me?--it is, alas! true.”
“I see it in your face,” answered the Cardinal, “and something else I
see--you are, and long have been, unhappy.”
“It is my great unhappiness that has brought me before your Eminence.”
Luigi Caprarola rested his elbow on the ivory chair arm and his cheek
on his palm; the pale, dim light was full on his face; because of
something powerful and intense that shone in his eyes Theirry did not
care to look at him.
“Weary of sin and afraid of Heaven ye have come to seek absolution of
me,” said the Cardinal.
“Yea, if it might be granted me, if by any penitence I might obtain
pardon.”
Then Theirry, whose gaze was fixed on the ground as he spoke, had an
extraordinary vivid impression that the Cardinal was laughing; he
looked up quickly, only to behold Luigi Caprarola calm and grave.
A peal of thunder sounded, and the echoes hovered in the chamber.
“The confession must come before the absolution,” said the Cardinal.
“Tell me, my son, what troubles you.”
Theirry shuddered.
“It involves others than myself.…”
“The seal of the confession is sacred, and I will ask for no names.
Theirry of Dendermonde, kneel here and confess.”
He pointed to the ivory footstool close to his raised seat; Theirry
came and humbly knelt.
The curtains fluttered in the hot wind, a flash of lightning darted in
between them and mingled with the luminous colour cast by the faint
lamps.
The Cardinal took up the gold book and laid it on his knee, his pink
silk sleeve almost touched Theirry’s lips… his garments gave out a
strange and beautiful perfume.
“Tell me of these sins of thine,” he said, half under his breath.
“I must go far back,” answered the penitent in a trembling voice, “for
your Eminence to understand my sins--they had small beginnings.”
He paused and fixed his gaze on the Cardinal’s long fair fingers
resting across the gold cover of the breviary.
“I was born in Dendermonde,” he said at length. “My father was a clerk
who taught me his learning. When he died I came to Courtrai. I was
eighteen, ambitious and clever beyond other scholars of my age. I
wished above everything to go to one of the colleges.…”
He gave a hot sigh, as if he could still recall the passionate throb
of that early desire.
“To gain a living I taught the arts I was acquainted with, among
others I gave lessons in music to the daughter of a great lord in
Courtrai… in this manner I came to know her brother, who was a young
knight of lusty desires.”
The Cardinal was listening intently; his breathing seemed hardly to
stir his robe; the hand on the gilt and turkis cover was very still.
Theirry wiped his damp forehead, and continued--
“He was, as I, restless and impatient with Courtrai… but, unlike me,
he was innocent, for I,”--he moistened his lips--“I about this time
began to practise--black magic.”
The thunder rolled sombrely yet triumphantly round the seven hills,
and the first rain dashed against the window.
“Black magic,” repeated the Cardinal, “go on.”
“I read forbidden books that I found in an old library in the house of
a Jew whose son I taught--I tried to work spells, to raise spirits; I
was very desperate to better myself, I wished to become as Alcuin, as
Saint Jerome--nay, as Zerdusht himself, but I was not skilful enough.
I could do little or nothing.…”
The Cardinal moved slightly; Theirry, in an agony of old bitter
memories, torn between horror and ease at uttering these things at
last, continued in a low desperate voice--
“The young knight I have spoken of was in love with a mighty lady who
came through Courtrai, he wished to follow her to Frankfort, she had
given him hopes that she would find him service there--he asked me to
bear him company, and I was glad to go… on the journey he told me of
his marriage to the daughter of a neighbouring lord--and--though that
is no matter here--he knew not if she were alive or dead, but he knew
of the place where she had last been known of, and we went thither--it
was in the old, half-deserted town of Antwerp.…”
“And the young knight hoped to find she was dead,” interrupted the
Cardinal. “Was she, I wonder?”
“All the world thought so. It is a strange story, not for my telling;
we found the house, and there we met a youth, who told us of the
maid’s death and showed us her grave.…”
The thunder, coming nearer, shook the palace, and Theirry hid his face
in his hands.
“What of this youth?” asked the Cardinal softly, “tell me of him.”
“He ruined me--by night he came to me and told me of his
studies--black magic! black magic!… he cast spells and raised a devil…
in a mirror he showed me visions, I swore with him faithful
friendship… he ruined my soul--he sold some of the goods in the house,
and we went together to Basle College.”
“Ye make him out your evil angel,” said the Cardinal. “Who was he?”
“I know not; he was high-born, I think, dainty in his ways and
pleasant to look upon; my faltering soul was caught by his wiles, for
he spoke of great rewards; I know not who he was, man or demon.… I
think he loved me.”
There was a little silence in the chamber, then the Cardinal spoke.
“Loved you?--what makes you think he loved you?”
“Certes, he said so, and acted so… we went to Basle College--then, I
also thought I loved him… he was the only thing in the world I had
ever spoken to of my hopes, my desires… we continued our experiments…
our researches were blasphemous, horrible, he was ever more skilful
than I… then one day I met a lady, and then I knew myself hideous, but
that very night I was drawn into the toils again… we cast a spell over
another student--we were discovered and fled the college.”
A flash of lightning pierced the blue gloom like a sword rending silk;
Theirry winced and shuddered as the thunder crashed overhead.
“Does your tale end here?” demanded the Cardinal.
“Alas! alas! no; I fell from worse sin to worse sin--we were poor, we
met a monk, robbed him of God His moneys, and left him for dead… we
came to Frankfort and lived in the house of an Egyptian hag, and I
began to loathe the youth because the lady was ever in my thoughts,
and he hated the lady bitterly because of this; he tempted me to do
murder for gain, and I refused for her sake.” Theirry’s voice became
hot and passionate. “Then I found that he was tempting her--my saint!
but I had no fear that she would fall, and while she spurned him I
thought I could also, ay, and I did… but she proved no stronger--she
loved her steward, and bid him slay his wife: ‘You staked on her
virtue,’ the Devil cried to me, ‘and you’ve lost! lost!’”
The sobs thickened his voice, and the bitter tears gathered in his
beautiful eyes.
“I was the youth’s prey again, but now I hated him for his victory… we
came back to Frankfort, and he was sweet and soft to me, while I was
thinking how I might injure him as he had injured me… I dwelt on that
picture of--her--dishonoured and undone, and I hated him, so waited my
chance, and the night we reached the city I betrayed him for what he
was, betrayed him to whom I had sworn friendship… well, half the town
came howling through the snow to seize him, but we were too late, we
found a flaming house… it burnt to ashes, he with it… I had had my
revenge, but it brought me no peace. I left the West and went to the
East, to India, Persia, to Greece, I avoided both God and the Devil, I
dreaded Hell and dared not hope for Heaven, I tried to forget but
could not, I tried to repent but could not. Good and evil strove for
me, until the Lord had pity… I heard of you, and I have come to Rome
to cast myself at your feet, to ask your aid to help throw myself on
God His mercy.”
He rose with his hands clasped on his breast and his wild eyes fixed
on the white face of Luigi Caprarola; thunder and lightning together
were rending the hot air; Theirry’s gorgeous dress glimmered in gold
and purple, his face was flushed and exalted.
“God wins, I think, this time,” he said in an unsteady voice. “I have
confessed my sins, I will do penance for them, and die at least in
peace--God and the angels win!”
The Cardinal rose; with one hand he held to the back of the ivory
chair, with the other he clasped the golden book to his breast; the
light shining on his red hair showed it in filmy brightness against
the wall of ebony and mother-of-pearl; his face and lips were very
pale above the vivid hue of his robe, his eyes, large and dark, stared
at Theirry.
Again the lightning flashed between the two, and seemed to sink into
the floor at the Cardinal’s feet.
He lifted his head proudly and listened to the following mighty roll;
when the echoes had quivered again into hot stillness he spoke.
“The Devil and his legions win, I think,” he said. “At least they have
served Dirk Renswoude well.”
Theirry fell back, and back, until he crouched against the gleaming
wall.
“Cardinal Caprarola!” he cried fearfully. “Cardinal Caprarola, speak
to me! even here I hear the fiends jibe!”
The Cardinal stepped from the ebony dais, his stiff robes making a
rustling as he walked; he laughed.
“Have I learned a mien so holy my old comrade knows me not? Have I
changed so, I who was dainty and pleasant to look upon, your friend
and your bane?”
He paused in the centre of the room; the open window, the dark beyond
it, the waving curtains, the fierce lightning made a terrific
background for his haughty figure.
But Theirry moaned and whispered in his throat.
“Look at me,” commanded the Cardinal, “look at me well, you who
betrayed me, am I not he who gilded a devil one August afternoon in a
certain town in Flanders?”
Theirry drew himself up and pressed his clenched hands to his temples.
“Betrayed!” he shrieked. “It is I who am betrayed. I sought God, and
have been delivered unto the Devil!”
The thunder crashed so that his words were lost in the great noise of
it, the blue and forked lightning darted between them.
“You know me now?” asked the Cardinal.
Theirry slipped to his knees, crying like a child.
“Where is God? where is God?”
The Cardinal smiled.
“He is not here,” he answered, “nor in any place where I have been.”
An awful stillness fell after the crash of thunder; Theirry hid his
face, cowering like a man who feels his back bared to the lash.
“Cannot you look at me?” asked the Cardinal in a half-mournful scorn;
“after all these years am I to meet you--thus? At my feet!”
Theirry sprang up, his features mask-like in their unnatural
distortion and lifeless hue.
“You do well to taunt me,” he answered, “for I am an accursed fool, I
have been seeking for what does not exist--God!--ay, now I know that
there is no God and no Heaven, therefore what matter for my soul… what
matter for any of it since the Devil owns us all!”
The storm was renewed with the ending of his speech, and he saw
through the open window the vineyards and gardens of the Janiculum
Hill blue for many seconds beneath the black sky.
“Your soul!” cried the Cardinal, as before. “Always have you thought
too much, and not enough, of that; you served too many masters and not
one faithfully; had you been a stronger man you had stayed with your
fallen saint, not spurned her, and then avenged her by my betrayal.”
He crossed to the window and closed it, the while the lightning picked
him out in a fierce flash, and waited until the after-crash had rocked
to silence, his eyes all the while not leaving the shrinking,
horror-stricken figure of Theirry.
“Well, it is all a long while ago,” he said. “And I and you have
changed.”
“How did you escape that night?” asked Theirry hoarsely; hardly could
he believe that this man was Dirk Renswoude, yet his straining eyes
traced in the altered older face the once familiar features.
As the Cardinal moved slowly across the gleaming chamber Theirry
marked with a horrible fascination the likeness of the haughty priest
to the poor student in black magic.
The straight dark hair was now curled, bleached and stained a deep red
colour, after the manner of the women of the East; eyes and brows were
the same as they had ever been, the first as bright and keen, the last
as straight and heavy; his clear skin showed less pallor, his mouth
seemed fuller and more firmly set, the upper lip heavily shaded with a
dark down, the chin less prominent, but the line of the jaw was as
strong and clear as ever; a handsomer face than it had been, a
remarkable face, with an expression composed and imperious, with eyes
to tremble before.
“I thought you burnt,” faltered Theirry.
“The master _I_ serve is powerful,” smiled the Cardinal. “He saved me
then and set me where I am now, the greatest man in Rome--so great a
man that did you wish a second time to betray me you might shout the
truth in the streets and find no one to believe you.”
The lightning darted in vain at the closed window, and the thunder
rolled more faintly in the distance.
“Betray you!” cried Theirry, wild-eyed. “No, I bow the knee to the
greatest thing I have met, and kiss your hand, your Eminence!”
The Cardinal turned and looked at him over his shoulder.
“I never broke _my_ vows,” he said softly, “the vows of comradeship I
made to you; just now you said you thought I loved you, then, I mean,
in the old days…”--he paused and his delicate hand crept over his
heart--“well, I… loved you… and it ruined me, as the devils promised.
Last night I was warned that you would come to-day and that you would
be my bane… well, I do not care since you _are_ come, for, sir, I love
you still.”
“Dirk!” cried Theirry.
The Cardinal gazed on him with ardent eyes.
“Do you suppose it matters to me that you are weak, foolish, or that
you betrayed me? You are the one thing in all the world I care for.…
Love! what was your love when you left her at Sebastian’s feet?--had
she been my lady I had stayed and laughed at all of it.…”
“It is not the Devil who has taught you to be so faithful,” said
Theirry.
For the first time a look of trouble, almost of despair, came into the
Cardinal’s eyes; he turned his head away.
“You shame me,” continued Theirry; “I have no constancy in me;
thinking of my own soul, almost have I forgotten Jacobea of
Martzburg--and yet----”
“And yet you loved her.”
“Maybe I did--it is long ago.”
A bitter little smile curved the Cardinal’s lips.
“Is that the way men care for women?” he said. “Certes, not in that
manner had I wooed and remembered, had I been a--a--lover.”
“Strange that we, meeting here like this, should talk of love!” cried
Theirry, his heart heaving, his eyes dilating, “strange that I, driven
round the world by fear of God, that I, coming here to one of God’s
own saints, should find myself in the Devil’s net again; come, he has
done much for you, what will he do for me?”
The Cardinal smiled sadly.
“Neither God nor Devil will do anything for you, for you are not
single-hearted, neither constant to good nor evil; but I--will risk
everything to serve your desires.”
Theirry laughed.
“Heaven has cast the world away and we are mad! You, _you_ famous as a
holy man--did you murder the young Blaise? I will back to India, to
the East, and die an idol-worshipper. See yonder crucifix, it hangs
upon your walls, but the Christ does not rise to smite you; you handle
the Holy Mysteries in the Church and no angel slays you on the altar
steps--let me away from Rome!”
He turned to the gilt door, but the Cardinal caught his sleeve.
“Stay,” he said, “stay, and all I promised you in the old days shall
come true--do you doubt me? Look about you, see what I have won for
myself.…”
Theirry’s beautiful face was flushed and wild.
“Nay, let me go.…”
The last rumble of the thunder crossed their speech.
“Stay, and I will make you Emperor.”
“Oh devil!” cried Theirry, “can you do that?”
“We will rule the world between us; yea, I will make you Emperor, if
you will stay in Rome and serve me; I will snatch the diadem from
Balthasar’s head and cast his Empress out as I ever meant to do, and
you shall bear the sceptre of the Cæsars, oh, my friend, my friend!”
He held out his right hand as he spoke; Theirry caught it, crushed the
fingers in his hot grasp and kissed the brilliant rings; the Cardinal
flushed and dropped his lids over sparkling eyes.
“You will stay?” he breathed.
“Yea, my sweet fiend, I am yours, and wholly yours; lo! were not
rewards such as these better worth crossing the world for than a
pardon from God?”
He laughed and staggered back against the wall, his look dazed and
reckless; the Cardinal withdrew his hand and crossed to the ivory
seat.
“Now, farewell,” he said, “the audience has been over-long; I know
where to find you, and in a while I shall send for you; farewell, oh
Theirry of Dendermonde!”
He spoke the name with a great tenderness, and his eyes grew soft and
misty.
Theirry drew himself together.
“Farewell, oh disciple of Sathanas! I, your humble follower, shall
look for fulfilment of your promises.”
The Cardinal touched the bell; when the fair youth appeared, he bade
him see Theirry from the palace.
Without another word they parted, Theirry with the look of madness on
him.…
When Luigi Caprarola was alone he put his hand over his eyes and
swayed backwards as if about to fall, while his breath came in tearing
pants… with an effort he steadied himself, and, clenching his hands
now over his heart, paced up and down the room, his Cardinal’s robe
trailing after him, his golden rosary glittering against his knee.
As he struggled for control the gilt door was opened and Paolo Orsini
bowed himself into his presence.
“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.
CHAPTER III.
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.
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 me 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,
how long will you tolerate him in Rome? You will be no man’s creature,
and, I think, no man’s ally--what chance shall we have in Rome once
you are master? Sylvester was old and meek, he let Balthasar hold the
reins--will you do that?”
“Nay,” smiled the Cardinal. “I shall be no puppet Pope.”
“I knew it,” answered the Empress with a deep breath; “will you swear
to keep my husband in his place?”
“That will not I,” said Luigi Caprarola. “If it please me I will hurl
him down and set one of my own followers up. I have no love for
Balthasar of Courtrai.”
Ysabeau’s face hardened with hate.
“But you think he can help you to the Tiara----”
“Through you, lady--you can tell him I am his friend, his ally, what
you will--or you may directly influence the Cardinals, I care not, so
the thing be done; what I shall do if it be not done, I have said.”
The Empress twisted her fingers together and suddenly laughed.
“You wish me to deceive my lord to his ruin, you wish me to place his
enemy over him--now, when we are harassed, here and in Germany, you
wish me to do a thing that may bring his fortunes to the dust--why,
you are not so cunning, my lord, if you think you can make me the
instrument of Balthasar’s downfall!”
The Cardinal looked at her with curiosity.
“Nevertheless your Grace will do it--sooner than let me say what I can
say.”
She held up her head and smiled in his face.
“Then you are wrong; neither threats nor bribery can make me do this
thing--say what you will to the Emperor, I am secure in his good
affections; blight my fame and turn him against me if you can, I am
not so mean a woman that fear can make me betray the fortunes of my
husband and my son.”
The Cardinal lowered his eyes; he was very pale.
“You dare death,” he said, “a shameful death--if my accusation be
proved--as proved it shall be.”
The Empress looked at him over her shoulder.
“Dare death!” she cried. “You say I have dared Hell for--him!--shall I
be afraid, then, of paltry death?”
Luigi Caprarola’s breast heaved beneath the vivid silk of his robe.
“Of what _are_ you afraid?” he asked.
“Of nothing save evil to my lord.”
The Cardinal’s lids drooped; he moistened his lips.
“This is your answer?”
“Yea, your Eminence; all the power I possess shall go to prevent you
mounting the throne you covet so--and now, seeing you have that answer
I will leave, my courtiers grow weary in your halls.”
She moved to the door, her limbs trembling beneath her, her brow cold,
her hands chilled and moist, and her heart shivering in her body, yet
with a regal demeanour curbing and controlling her fear.
As she opened it the Cardinal turned his head.
“Give me a little longer, your Grace,” he said softly. “I have yet
something to say.”
She reclosed the door and stood with her back against it.
“Well, my lord?”
“You boast you are afraid of nothing--certes, I wonder--you defy me
boldly and something foolishly in this matter of your guilt; will you
be so bold in the matter of your innocence?”
He leant forward in his chair to gaze at her; she waited silently,
with challenging eyes.
“You are very loyal to your husband, you will not endanger your son’s
possible heritage; these things, you tell me, are more to you than
shame or death; your lord is Emperor of the West, your son King of the
Romans--well, well--you are too proud----”
“Nay,” she flashed, “I am not too proud for the wife of Balthasar of
Courtrai and the mother of a line of Emperors--we are the founders of
our house, and it shall be great to rule the world.”
The Cardinal was pale and scornful, his narrowed eyes and curving
mouth expressed bitterness--and passion.
“Here is the weapon shall bring you to your knees,” he said, “and make
your boasting die upon your lips--you are not the wife of Balthasar,
and the only heritage your son will ever have is the shame and
weariness of the outcast.”
She gathered her strength to meet this wild enormity.
“Not his wife… why, you rave… we were married before all Frankfort…
not Balthasar’s wife!”
The Cardinal rose; his head was held very erect; he looked down on her
with an intense gaze.
“Your lord was wed before.”
“Yea, I know… what of it?”
“This--Ursula of Rooselaare lives!”
Ysabeau gave a miserable little cry and turned about as if she would
fall; she steadied herself with a great effort and faced the Cardinal
desperately.
“She died in a convent at Flanders--this is not the truth----”
“Did I not speak truth before?” he demanded. “In the matter of
Melchoir.”
A cry was wrung from the Empress.
“Ursula of Rooselaare died in Antwerp,” she repeated wildly--“in the
convent of the White Sisters.”
“She did not, and Balthasar knows she did not--he thinks she died
thereafter, he thinks he saw her grave, but he would find it
empty--she lives, she is in Rome, and she is his wife, his Empress,
before God and man.”
“How do you know this?” She made a last pitiful attempt to brave him,
but the terrible Cardinal had broken her strength; the horror of the
thing he said had chilled her blood and choked her heart-beats.
“The youth who helped you once, the doctor Constantine… from him
Balthasar obtained the news of his wife’s death, for Ursula and he
were apprenticed to the same old master--ask Balthasar if this be not
so--well, the youth lied, for purposes of his own; the maid lived
then, and is living now, and if I choose it she will speak.”
“It is not possible,” shuddered the Empress; “no--you wish to drive me
mad, and so you torture me--why did not this woman speak before?”
The Cardinal smiled.
“She did not love her husband as you do, lady, and so preferred her
liberty; you should be grateful.”
“Alive, you say,” whispered Ysabeau, unheeding, “and in Rome? But none
would know her, she could _not_ prove she was--his--Ursula of
Rooselaare.”
“She has his ring,” answered Luigi Caprarola, “and her wedding deeds,
signed by him and by the priest--there are those at Rooselaare who
know her, albeit it is near twenty years since she was there; also she
hath the deposition of old Master Lukas that she was a supposed nun
when she came to him, and in reality the wife of Balthasar of
Courtrai; she can prove no one lies buried in the garden of Master
Lukas’s house, and she can bring forward sisters of the Order to which
she belonged to show she did not die on her wedding day--this and
further proof can she show.”
The Empress bowed her head on her breast and put her hand over her
eyes.
“She came to you--sir, with… this tale?”
“That is for me to say or not as I will.”
“She must be silenced! By Christus His Mother she must be silent!”
“Secure me the casting vote in the Conclave and she will never speak.”
“I have said. I… cannot, for his sake, for my son’s sake----”
“Then I will bring forth Ursula of Rooselaare, and she shall prove
herself the Emperor’s wife--then instantly must you leave him, or both
of you will be excommunicated--your alternative will be to stay and be
his ruin or go to obscurity, never seeing his face again; your son
will no longer be King of the Romans, but a nameless wanderer--spurned
and pitied by those who should be his subjects--and another woman will
sit by Balthasar’s side on the throne of the West!”
The Empress set her shoulders against the door.
“And if my lord be loyal to me as I to him--to me and to my son----”
“Then will he be hounded from his throne, cast out by the Church and
avoided by men; will not Lombardy be glad to turn against him and
Bohemia?”
For a little while she was silent, and the Cardinal also as he looked
at her, then she raised her eyes to meet his; steadily now she kept
them at the level of his gaze, and her base, bold blood served her
well in the manner of her speech.
“Lord Cardinal,” she said, “you have won; before you, as before the
world, I stand Balthasar’s wife, nor can you fright me from that proud
station by telling of--this impostor; yet, I am afraid of you; I dare
not come to an issue with you, Luigi Caprarola, and to buy your
silence on these matters I will secure your election--and afterwards
you and my lord shall see who is the stronger.”
She opened the door, motioning him to silence.
“My lord, no more,” she cried. “Believe me, I can be faithful to my
word when I am afraid to break it… and be you silent about this woman
Ursula.” The Cardinal came from his seat towards her.
“We part as enemies,” he answered, “but I kiss the hem of your gown,
Empress, for you are brave as you are beautiful.”
He gracefully lifted the purple robe to his lips.
“And above all things do I admire a constant woman;” his voice was
strangely soft.
Her face, cold, imperial beneath the shining gold and glittering hair,
did not change.
“But, alas, you hate me!” he suddenly laughed, raising his eyes to
her.
“To-day I cannot speak further with you, sir.”
She moved away, steadying her steps with difficulty; the two
chamberlains in the ante-chamber rose as she stepped out of the
cabinet.
“Benedictus, my daughter,” smiled the Cardinal, and closed the door.
His face was flushed and bright with triumph; there was a curious
expression in his eyes; he went to the window and looked out on purple
Rome.
“How she loves him still!” he said aloud; “yet--why do I wonder?--is
he not as fair a man as----” He broke off, then added reflectively,
“Also, she is beautiful.”
His long fingers felt among his silk robes; he drew forth a little
mirror and gazed at his handsome face with the darkened upper lip and
tonsured head.
As he looked he smiled, then presently laughed.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DANCER IN ORANGE
Theirry walked slowly through the gorgeous ruins of Imperial Rome;
it was something after noon and glowingly hot; the Tiber curled in and
about the stone houses and broken palaces like a bronze and golden
serpent, so smooth and glittering it was.
He followed the river until it wound round the base of Mount Aventine;
and there he paused and looked up at the Emperor’s palace, set
splendidly on the hill.
Above the dazzling marble floated the German standard, vivid against
the vivid sky, and Frankish guards were gathered thick about the
magnificent portals.
The noble summit of Soracté dominated the distance and the city; over
the far-off Campagna quivered a dancing vapour of heat; the little
boats on the Tiber rested lazily in their clear reflections, and their
coloured sails drooped languidly.
Theirry marked with a vacant gaze the few passers-by; the mongrel
crowd of Rome--Slav, Frank, Jew or Greek, with here and there a Roman
noble in a chariot, or a German knight on horseback.
He was not considering them, but Cardinal Caprarola.
Several days now he had been in the city, but there had come no
message from the Cardinal; a dozen times he had gone over every word,
every little incident of his strange interview in the palace on the
Palatine with a wild desire to assure himself of its truth; had he not
been promised the Imperial crown?--impossible that seemed, yet no more
impossible than that Dirk Renswoude should have become a Prince of the
Church and the greatest man in Rome.
He could not think of those two as the same; different forms of the
same devil, but not actually the same man, the same flesh and blood…
black magic!… it was a terrible thing and a wonderful; if he had
served the fiend better what might it not have done for him, what
might not it still do? Neither could he understand Dirk’s affection or
tenderness; even after the betrayal his one-time comrade was faithful
to those long-ago vows.…
He looked at the Golden Palace on the Aventine--Emperor of the West!
Balthasar reigned there now… well, why not he?… with the Devil as an
ally… and there was no God.
His beautiful face grew sombre with thought; he walked thoughtfully
round the base of the hill, remarked by those coming and going from
the palace for his splendid appearance and rich Eastern dress.
A little Byzantine chariot, gilt, with azure curtains and drawn by a
white horse, came towards him; the occupant was a lady in a green
dress; the grooms ran either side the horse’s head to assist it up the
hill; the chariot passed Theirry at a walking pace.
The lady was unveiled, and the sun was full on her face.
It was Jacobea of Martzburg.
She did not see him; her car continued its slow way towards the
palace, and Theirry stood staring after it.
He had last seen her ten years, and more, ago, in her steward’s arms
in the courtyard of Castle Martzburg; beyond them Sebastian’s wife.…
He wondered if she had married the steward, and smiled to think that
he had once considered her a saint; ten years ago, and he had not yet
learnt his lesson; many men had he met and none holy, many women and
none saintly, and yet he had been fool enough to come to Rome because
he believed God was triumphant in the person of Luigi Caprarola.…
A fool’s reward had been his; Heaven’s envoy had proved the Devil
incarnate, and he had been mocked with the sight of the woman for
whose sake he had made pitiful attempts to be clean-souled; the woman
who had, for another man’s love, defied the angels and taken her fate
into her own hands.
For another man’s sake!--this the bitterest thought of all bitter
thoughts yet--and yet--he did not know if he had ever loved her, or
only the sweet purity she was a false symbol of--he was sure of
nothing. This way and that his mind went, ever hesitating, ever
restless--his heart was ready as water to take the colour of what
passed it, and his soul was as a straw before the breath of good and
evil.
The sound of cymbals and laughter roused him from his agitated
thoughts.
He looked along the road that wound by the Tiber and saw a little
crowd approaching, evidently following a troupe of jugglers or
mountebanks.
As they came nearer to where he loitered, Theirry, ever easily
attracted by any passing excitement or attraction, could not choose
but give them a half-sullen attention.
The centre of the group was a girl in an orange gown, they who
followed her the mere usual citizens of Rome, some courtiers of the
Emperor’s, soldiers, merchants’ clerks, and the rabble of children,
lazy mongrel foreigners and Franks.
The dancer stopped and spread a scarlet carpet on the roadway; the
crowd gathered about it in a circle, and Theirry drew up with the
rest, interested by what interested them--the two facts, namely, that
marked the girl as different from her kind.
Firstly, she affected the unusual modesty or coquetry of a black mask
that completely covered her face, and, secondly, she was attended only
by an enormous and hideous ape.
She wore a short robe in the antique style, girdled under her bosom,
and fastened on her shoulders with clasps of gold; gilt sandals,
closely laced, concealed her feet and ankles; round her bust and arms
was twisted a gauze scarf of the same hue as her gown, a deep, bright
orange, and her hair, which was a dark red gold, was gathered on the
top of her head in a cluster of curls, and bound with a violet fillet.
Although the mask concealed her charms of face, it was obvious that
she was young, and probably Greek; her figure was tall, full, and
splendidly graceful; she held a pair of brass cymbals and struck them
with a stormy joyousness above her proud head.
The ape, wearing a collar of bright red stones and a long blue jacket
trimmed with spangles, curled himself on the corner of the carpet and
went to sleep.
The girl began dancing; she had no music save her cymbals, and needed
none.
Her movements were quick, passionate, triumphant; she clashed the
brass high in the air and leapt to meet the fierce sound; her
gold-shod feet twinkled like jewels, the clinging skirt showed the
beautiful lines of her limbs, and the gauze floating back revealed her
fair white arms and shoulders.
Suddenly she lowered the cymbals, struck them together before her
breast, and looked from right to left.
Theirry caught the gleam of her dark eyes through the holes in her
mask.
For a while she crouched together, panting, then drew herself erect,
and let her hands fall apart.
The burning sun shone in her hair, in the metal hems of her robe, in
her sandals, and changed the cymbals into discs of fire.
She began to sing; her voice was deep and glorious, though muffled by
the mask.
Slowly she moved round the red carpet, and the words of her song fell
clearly on the hot air.
“If Love were all!
His perfect servant I would be,
Kissing where his foot might fall,
Doing him homage on a lowly knee,
If Love were all!
If Love were all!
And no such thing as Pride nor Empery,
Nor, God, nor sins or great or small,
If Love were all!”
She passed Theirry, so close, her fluttering robe touched his slack
hand; he looked at her curiously, for he thought he knew her voice; he
had heard many women sing, in streets and in palaces, and, somewhere,
this one.
“If Love were all!
But Love is weak,
And Hate oft giveth him a fall,
And Wisdom smites him on the cheek,
If Love were all!
If Love were all!
I had lived glad and meek,
Nor heard Ambition call
And Valour speak,
If Love were all!”
The song ended as it had begun on a clash of cymbals; the dancer swung
round, stamped her foot and called fiercely to the ape, who leapt up
and began running round the crowd, offering a shell and making an ugly
jabbering noise.
Theirry flung the hideous thing a silver bezant and moved away; he was
thinking, not of the dancer with the unknown memory in her voice, but
of the lady in the gilt chariot behind the azure curtains;
Jacobea--how little she had changed!
A burst of laughter made him look round; he saw a quick picture: the
girl’s orange dress flashing in the strong sunlight, the ape on her
shoulder hurling the contents of the shell in the air, which glittered
for a second with silver pieces, and the jesting crowd closing round
both.
He passed on moodily into the centre of the town; in the unrest and
agitation of his thoughts he had determined to seek Cardinal
Caprarola, since the Cardinal gave no sign of sending for him, even of
remembering him; but to-day it was useless to journey to the Palace on
the Palatine, for the Conclave sat in the Vatican, and the Cardinal
would be of their number.
The streets, the wine shops, the public squares were full of a mixed
and excited mob; the adherents of the Emperor, who wished to see a
German pontiff, and they who were ardent Romans or Churchmen came,
here and there, to open brawls; the endless processions that crossed
and re-crossed from the various monasteries and churches were
interrupted by the lawless jeers of the Frankish inhabitants, who,
under a strong Emperor and a weak Pope, had begun to assume the
bearing of conquerors.
Theirry left them all, too concerned, as always, in his own small
affairs to have any interest in larger issues; he turned into the Via
Sacra, and there, under the splendid but broken arch of Constantine,
he saw again the dancing girl and her ape.
She looked at him intently; of that he could have no doubt, despite
her mask, and, as he turned his hesitating steps towards the Palatine,
she rose and followed him.
As he ascended the narrow grey road that wound above the city, he kept
looking over his shoulder, and she was always there, following, with
the ape on her shoulder.
They passed scattered huts, monasteries, decaying temples and villas,
and came out on to the deserted stretches of the upper Palatine, where
the fragmentary glories of another world lay under the cypress and
olive trees.
Here Theirry paused, and again looked, half fearfully, for the bright
figure of the dancer.
She stood not far from him, leaning against a slender shaft of marble,
the sole remaining column of a temple to some heathen god; behind it a
blue-green grove of cypress arose, and behind them the city lay wrapt
in the sparkling mist of noonday, through which, at intervals, gleamed
the dusky waters of the Tiber.
The mighty walls showed brown and dark against the houses they
enclosed, and the dusty vineyards scorched in the sun that blazed on
the lantern of St. Peter and the angel on Castel del’ Angelo.
The stillness of great heat was over city and ruins, noiseless
butterflies fluttered over the shattered marble, and pale narcissi
quivered in the deep grass; the sky, a bronze gold over the city and
about the mountainous horizon, was overhead a deep and burning blue; a
colour that seemed reflected in the clusters of violets that grew
about the fallen masonry.
Theirry flung himself on a low marble seat that stood in the shade of
a cypress, and his blood-red robe was vivid even in the shadow; he
looked at the veiled city at his feet, and at the dancing girl resting
against the time-stained, moss-grown column.
She loosened the cymbals from her hands and flung them on the ground;
the ape jumped from her shoulder and caught them up.
Again she sang her passionate little song.
“If Love were all!
His faithful servant I would be,
Kissing where his foot might fall,
Doing him homage on a lowly knee,
If Love were all!”
As she sang, another and very different scene was suddenly brought to
Theirry’s mind; he remembered a night when he had slept on the edge of
a pine forest, in Germany--many years ago--and had suddenly
awoke--nay, he had dreamt he heard singing, and a woman’s singing… if
it were not so mad a thought he would have said--this woman’s singing.
He turned bitter, dark eyes towards her--why had she followed him?
Swiftly and lightly she came across the grass, glittering from head to
foot in the sunlight, and paused before him.
“Certes, you 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 Cæsar 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,” she 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.
CHAPTER V.
THE POPE
The chamber in the Vatican was so dimly, richly lit with jewelled
and deep-coloured lamps that at first Theirry thought himself alone.
He looked round and saw silver walls hung with tapestries of violet
and gold; pillars with columns of sea-green marble and capitals of
shining mosaic supported a roof encrusted with jasper and jade; the
floor, of Numidian marble, was spread with Indian silk carpets; here
and there stood crystal bowls of roses, white and crimson, fainting in
the close, sweet air.
At the far end of the room was a dais hung with brocade in which
flowers and animals shone in gold and silver on a purple ground; gilt
steps, carved and painted, led up to a throne on the daïs, and
Theirry, as his eyes became used to the wine-coloured gloom, saw that
some one sat there; some one so splendidly robed and so still that it
seemed more like one of the images Theirry had seen worshipped in
Constantinople than a human being.
He shivered.
Presently he could discern intense eyes looking at him out of a dazzle
of dark gold and shimmering shadowed colours.
Michael II moved in his seat.
“Again do you not know me?” he asked in a low tone.
“You sent for me,” said Theirry; to himself his voice sounded hoarse
and unnatural. “At last----”
“At last?”
“I have been waiting--you have been Pope thirty days, and never have
you given me a sign.”
“Is thirty days so long?”
Theirry came nearer the enthroned being.
“You have done nothing for me--you spoke of favours.”
Silver, gold and purple shook together as Michael II turned in his
gorgeous chair.
“Favours!” he echoed. “You are the only man in Christendom who would
stand in my presence; the Emperor kneels to kiss my foot.”
“The Emperor does not know,” shuddered Theirry; “but I do--and
knowing, I cannot kneel to you… Ah, God!--how can you dare it?”
The Pope’s soft voice came from the shadows.
“Your moods change--first this, then that; what humour are you in now,
Theirry of Dendermonde; would you still be Emperor?”
Theirry put his hand to his brow.
“Yea, you know it--why do you torture me with suspense, with waiting?
If Evil is to be my master, let me serve him… and be rewarded.”
Michael II answered swiftly.
“I was not the one to be faithless to our friendship, nor shall I now
shrink from serving you, at any cost--be you but true.”
“In what way can I be false?” asked Theirry bitterly. “I, a thing at
your mercy?”
The Pope held back the blossom-strewn brocade so that he could see the
other’s face.
“I ask of you to let Jacobea of Martzburg be.”
Theirry flushed.
“How ye have always hated her!… since I came to Rome I have seen her
the once.”
The Pope’s smooth pale face showed a stain of red from the dim beams
of one of the splendid lamps; Theirry observed it as he leant forward.
“She did not marry her steward,” he said.
The Pope’s eyes narrowed.
“Ye have been at the pains to discover that?”
Theirry laughed mournfully.
“You have won! you, sitting where you sit now, can afford to mock at
me; at my love, at my hope--both of which I placed once at stake
on--her--and lost!… and lost! Ten years ago--but having again seen
her, sometimes I must think of her, and that she was not vile after
all, but only trapped by you, as I have been… Sebastian went to
Palestine, and she has gone unwed.”
The Pope gave a quick sigh and bit his lip.
“I will make you Emperor,” he said. “But that woman shall not be your
Empress.”
Again Theirry laughed.
“Did I love her even, which I do not--I would put her gladly aside to
sit on the Imperial throne!--Come, I have dallied long enough on the
brink of devilry--let me sin grandly now, and be grandly paid!”
Michael II gave so quick a breath the jewels on his breast scattered
coloured light.
“Come nearer to me,” he commanded, “and take my hand--as you used to,
in Frankfort… I am always Dirk to you--you who never cared for me,
hated me, I think--oh, the traitors our hearts are, neither God nor
devil is so fierce to fight----”
Theirry approached the gold steps; the Pope leant down and gave him
his cool white hand, heavy with gemmed rings, and looked intently into
his eyes.
“When they announced your election--how the storm smote the city,”
whispered Theirry fearfully; “were you not daunted?”
The Pope withdrew his hand.
“I was not in the Conclave,” he said in a strange tone. “I lay sick in
my villa--as for the storm----”
“It has not lifted since,” breathed Theirry; “day and night have the
clouds hung over Rome--is not there, after all, a God?”
“Silence!” cried the Pope in a troubled voice. “You would be Emperor
of the West, would you not?--let us speak of that.”
Theirry leant against the arm of the throne and stared with an awful
fascination into the other’s face.
“Ay, let us speak of that,” he answered wildly; “can all your
devilries accomplish it? It is common talk in Rome that you secured
your election by Frankish influence because you vowed to league with
Balthasar--they say you are his ally----”
The dark intense eyes of Michael II glittered and glowed.
“Nevertheless I will cast him down and set you in his place--he comes
to-day to ask my aid against Lombardy and Bohemia; and therefore have
I sent for you that you may overhear this audience, and see how I mate
and checkmate an Emperor for your sake.”
As he spoke, he pointed to the other end of the room where hung a
sombre and rich curtain.
“Conceal yourself--behind that tapestry--and listen carefully to what
I say, and you will understand how I may humble Balthasar and shake
him from his throne.”
Theirry, not joyous nor triumphant, but agitated and trembling with a
horrible excitement, crept across the room and passed silently behind
the arras.
As the long folds shook into place again the Pope touched a bell.
Paolo Orsini entered.
“Admit the Emperor.”
The secretary withdrew; there was a soft sound in the ante-chamber,
the voices of priests.
Michael II put his hand to his heart and fetched two or three quick
panting breaths; his full lips curved to a strange smile, and a
stranger thought was behind it; a thought that, if expressed, would
not have been understood even by Theirry of Dendermonde, who of all
men knew most of his Holiness.
This it was--
“Did ever lady meet her lord like this before, or like this use him to
advance her love!”
A heavy tread sounded without, and the Emperor advanced into the
splendid glooms of the audience-chamber.
He was bare-headed, and at sight of the awe-inspiring figure, went on
his knees at the foot of the daïs.
Michael II looked at him in silence; the silver door was closed, and
they were alone, save for the unseen listener behind the arras.
At last the Pope said slowly--
“Arise, my son.”
The Emperor stood erect, showing his magnificent height and bearing;
he wore bronze-hued armour, scaled like a dragon’s breast, the high
gold Imperial buskins, and an immense scarlet mantle that flowed
behind him; his thick yellow hair hung in heavy curls on to his
shoulders, and his enormous sword made a clatter against his armour as
he moved.
Theirry, cautiously drawing aside the curtain to observe, dug his
nails into his palms with bitter envy.
Behold the man who had once been his companion--little more than his
equal, and now--an Emperor!
“You desired an audience of us,” said the Pope. “And some tedium may
be spared, for we can well guess what you have to say.”
A look of relief came into Balthasar’s great blue eyes; he was no
politician; the Empress, whose wits alone had kept him ten years on a
throne, had trembled for this audience.
“Your Holiness knows that it is my humble desire to form a firm
alliance between Rome and Germany. I have ruled both long enough to
prove myself neither weak nor false, I have ever been a faithful
servant of Holy Church----”
The Pope interrupted.
“And now you would ask her help against your rebellious subjects?”
“Yea, your Holiness.”
Michael II smiled.
“On what right does your Grace presume when you ask us to aid you in
steadying a trembling throne?”
Balthasar flushed, and came clumsily to the point.
“I was assured, Holy Father, of your friendliness before the
election--the Empress----”
Again the Pope cut him short.
“Cardinal Caprarola was not the Vicegerent of Christ, the High Priest
of Christendom, as we are now--and those whom Louis of Dendermonde
knew, become as nothing before the Pope of Rome, in whose estimate all
men are the same.”
Balthasar’s spirit rose at this haughty speech; his face turned
crimson, and he savagely caught at one of his yellow curls.
“Your Holiness can have no object in refusing my alliance,” he
answered. “Sylvester crowned me with his own hands, and I always lived
in friendship with him--he aided me with troops when the Lombards
rebelled against their suzerain, and Suabia he placed under an
interdict----”
“We are not Sylvester,” said the Pope haughtily--“nor accountable for
his doings; as you may show yourself the obedient son of the Church so
may we support you--otherwise!--we can denounce as we can uphold, pull
down as we can raise up, and it wants but little, Balthasar of
Courtrai, to shake your throne from under you.”
The Emperor bit his lip, and the scales of his mail gleamed as they
rose with his heavy breathing; he knew that if the power of the
Vatican was placed on the side of his enemies he was ruined.
“In what way have I offended your Holiness?” he asked, with what
humility he could.
The fair young face of Michael II was flushed and proud in expression;
the red curls surrounding the tonsure fell across his smooth forehead;
his red lips were sternly set and his heavy brows frowned.
“Ye have offended Heaven, for whom we stand,” he answered. “And until
by penitence ye assoil your soul we must hold you outcast from the
mercies of the Church.”
“Tell me my sins,” said Balthasar hoarsely. “And what I can do to blot
them out--masses, money, lands----”
The Pope made a scornful movement with his little hand.
“None of these can make your peace with God and us--one thing only can
avail there.”
“Tell it me,” cried the Emperor eagerly. “If it be a crusade, surely I
will go--after Lombardy is subdued.”
The Pope flashed a quick glance over him.
“We want no knight-errantry in the East; we demand this--that you put
away the woman whom you call your wife.”
Balthasar stared with dilating eyes.
“Saint Joris guard us!” he muttered; “the woman whom I call my wife!”
“Ysabeau, first wedded to the man whom you succeeded.”
Balthasar’s hand made an instinctive movement towards his sword.
“I do not understand your Holiness.”
The Pope turned in his chair so that the lamplight made his robe one
bright purple sheen.
“Come here, my lord.”
The Emperor advanced to the gold steps; a slim fair hand was held out
to him, holding, between finger and thumb, a ring set with a deep red
stone.
“Do you know this, my lord?” The Pope’s brilliant eyes were fixed on
him with an intent and terrible expression.
Balthasar of Courtrai looked at the ring; round the bezel two coats of
arms were delicately engraved in the soft red gold.
“Why,” he said in a troubled way, “I know the ring--yea, it was made
many years ago----”
“And given to a woman.
“Certes--yea----”
“It is a wedding ring.”
Again the Emperor assented, his blue eyes darkened and questioning.
“The woman to whom in your name it was given still lives.”
“Ursula of Rooselaare!” cried Balthasar.
“Yea, Ursula of Rooselaare, your wife.”
“My first wife who died before I had seen her, Holiness,” stammered
the Emperor.
The Pope’s strange handsome face was hard and merciless; he held the
wedding ring out on his open palm and looked from it to Balthasar.
“She did not die--neither in the convent, as to your shame you know,
nor in the house of Master Lukas.”
Balthasar could not speak; he saw that this man knew what he had
considered was a close secret of his own heart alone.
“Who told you she was dead?” continued the Pope. “A certain youth,
who, for his own ends, I think, lied, a wicked youth he was, and he
died in Frankfort for compassing the death of the late Emperor--or
escaped that end by firing his house, the tale grows faint with years;
’twas he who told you Ursula of Rooselaare was dead; he even showed
you her grave--and you were content to take his word--and she was
content to be silent.”
“Oh, Christus!” cried the Emperor. “Oh, Saint Joris!--but, holy
father--this thing is impossible!” He wrung his hands together and
beat his mailed breast. “From whom had you this tale?”
“From Ursula of Rooselaare.”
“It cannot be… why was she silent all these years? why did she allow
me to take Ysabeau to wife?”
A wild expression crossed the Pope’s face; he looked beyond the
Emperor with deep soft eyes.
“Because she loved another man.”
A pause fell for a second, then Michael II spoke again.
“I think, too, she something hated you who had failed her, and scorned
her--there was her father also, who died shamefully by Ysabeau’s
command; she meant, I take it, to revenge that upon the Empress, and
now, perhaps, her chance has come.”
Balthasar gave a dry sob.
“Where is this woman who has so influenced your Holiness against me?
An impostor! do not listen to her!”
“She speaks the truth, as God and devils know!” flashed the Pope. “And
we, with all the weight of Holy Church, will support her in the
maintenance of her just rights; we also have no love for this Eastern
woman who slew her lord----”
“Nay, that is false”--Balthasar ground his teeth. “I know some said it
of her--but it is a lie.”
“This to me!” cried the Pope. “Beware how ye anger God’s Vicegerent.”
The Emperor quivered, and put his hand to his brow.
“I bend my neck for your Holiness to step on--so you do not ask me to
listen to evil of the Empress.”
The Pope rose with a gleam of silk and a sparkle of jewels.
“Ysabeau is not Empress, nor your wife; her son is not your heir, and
you must presently part with both of them or suffer the extremity of
our wrath--yea, the woman shall ye give into the hands of the
executioner to suffer for the death of Melchoir, and the child shall
ye turn away from you--and with pains and trouble shall ye search for
Ursula of Rooselaare, and finding her, cause her to be acknowledged
your wife and Empress of the West. That she lives I know, the rest is
for you.”
The Emperor drew himself up and folded his arms on his breast.
“This is all I have to say,” added the Pope. “And on those terms alone
will I secure to you the throne.”
“I have but one answer,” said Balthasar. “And it would be the same did
I deliver it in the face of God--that while I live and have breath to
speak, I shall proclaim Ysabeau and none other as my wife, and our son
as an Empress’s son, and my heir and successor; kingdom and even life
may your Holiness despoil me of--but neither the armies of the earth
nor the angels of heaven shall take from me these two--this my answer
to your Holiness.”
The Pope resumed his seat.
“Ye dare to defy me,” he said. “Well--ye are a foolish man to set
yourself against Heaven; go back and live in sin and wait the
judgment.”
Balthasar’s flesh crept and quivered, but he held his head high, even
though the Pope’s words opened the prospect of a sure hell.
“Your Holiness has spoken, so also have I,” he answered. “I take my
leave.”
Michael II gazed at him in silence as he bent his head and backed
towards the silver door.
No other word passed between Pope and Emperor; the gleaming portals
opened; the mail of Balthasar’s retinue clinked without, and then soft
silence fell on the richly lit room as the door was delicately closed.
“Theirry.”
The Pope rose and descended from the daïs; the dark arras was lifted
cautiously, and Theirry crept into the room.
Michael II stood at the foot of the golden steps; despite his
magnificent and flowing draperies, he looked very young and slender.
“Well,” he asked, and his eyes were triumphant. “Stand I not in a fair
way to cast down the Emperor?”
Theirry moistened his lips.
“Yea--how dared you!--to use the thunderbolts of heaven for such
ends!”
The Pope smiled.
“The thunders of heaven may be used to any ends by those who can wield
them.”
“What you said was false?” whispered Theirry, questioning.
The jewelled light flickered over the Pope’s face.
“Nay, it was true, Ursula of Rooselaare lives.”
“Ye never told me that--in the old days!”
“Maybe I did not know--she lives, and she is in Rome;” he caught hold
of the robe across his breast as he spoke, and both voice and eyes
were touched with weariness.
“This is a curious tale,” answered Theirry in a confused manner. “She
must be a strange woman.”
“She is a strange woman.”
“I would like to see her--who is it that she loves?”
The Pope showed pale; he moved slowly across the room with his head
bent.
“A man for whose sake she puts her very life in jeopardy,” he said in
a low passionate voice. “A man, I think, who is unworthy of her.”
“She is in Rome?” pondered Theirry.
The Pope lifted an arras that concealed an inner door.
“The first move is made,” he said. “Farewell now--I will acquaint you
of the progress of your fortunes;” he gave a slight, queer smile; “as
for Ursula of Rooselaare, ye have seen her----”
“Seen her?”…
“Yea; she wears the disguise of a masked dancer in orange.”
With that he pointed Theirry to the concealed doorway, and turning,
left him.
CHAPTER VI.
SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERANO
In the palace on the Aventine, Balthasar stood at a window looking
over Rome.
The clouds that had hung for weeks above the city cast a dull yellow
glow over marble and stone; the air was hot and sultry, now and then
thunder rolled over the Vatican and a flash of lightning revealed the
Angel on Castel San Angelo poised above the muddy waters of the Tiber.
A furious, utter dread and terror gripped Balthasar’s heart; days had
passed since his defiance of the Pope and he had heard no more of his
daring, but he was afraid, afraid of Michael II, of the Church, of
Heaven behind it--afraid of this woman who had risen from the dead.…
He knew the number of his enemies and with what difficulty he held
Rome, he guessed that the Pope intended his downfall and to put
another in his place--but not this almost certain ruin disturbed him
day and night, no--the thought that the Church might throw him out and
consign his soul to smoky hell.
Bravely enough had he dared the Pope at the time when his heart was
hot within him, but in the days that followed his very soul had
fainted to think what he had done; he could not sleep nor rest while
waiting for outraged Heaven to strike; he darkly believed the
continual storm brooding over Rome to be omen of God’s wrath with him.
His trouble was the greater because it was secret, the first that,
since they had been wedded, he had concealed from Ysabeau. As this
touched her, in an infamous and horrible manner, he could neither
breathe it to her nor any other, and the loneliness of his miserable
apprehension was an added torture.
This morning he had interviewed the envoys from Germany and his
chamberlain; tales of anarchy and turmoil in Rome, of rebellion in
Germany had further distracted him; now alone in his little marble
cabinet, he stared across the gorgeous, storm-wrapt city.
Not long alone; he heard some one quietly enter, and because he knew
who it was, he would not turn his head.
She came up to him and laid her hand on his plain brown doublet.
“Balthasar,” she said, “will you never tell me what it is that sits so
heavily on your heart?”
He commanded his voice to answer.
“Nothing, Ysabeau--nothing.”
The Empress gave a long, quivering sigh.
“This is the first time you have not trusted me.”
He turned his face; white and wan it was of late, with heavy circles
under the usually joyous eyes; she winced to see it.
“Oh, my lord!” she cried passionately. “No anguish is so bitter when
shared!”
He took her hand and pressed it warmly to his breast; he tried to
smile.
“Certes, you know my troubles, Ysabeau, the discontent, the
factions--matter enough to make any man grave.”
“And the Pope,” she said, raising her eyes to his; “most of all it is
the Pope.”
“His Holiness is no friend to me,” said the Emperor in a low voice.
“Oh, Ysabeau, we were deceived to aid him to the tiara.”
She shuddered.
“_I_ persuaded you… blame me… I was mad. _I_ set your enemy in
authority.”
“Nay!” he answered in a great tenderness. “You are to blame for
nothing, you, sweet Ysabeau.”
He raised the hand he held to his lips; in the thought that he
suffered for her sake was a sweet recompense.
She coloured, then paled.
“What will he do?” she asked. “What will he do?”
“Nay--I know not.” His fair face overclouded again.
She saw it and terror shook her.
“He said more to you that day than you will tell me!” she cried. “You
fear something that you will not reveal to me!”
The Emperor made an attempt at lightness of speech.
“He is a poor knight who tells his lady of his difficulties,” he said.
“I cannot come crying to you like a child.”
She turned to him the soft frail beauty of her face and took his great
sword hand between hers.
“I am very jealous of you, Balthasar,” she said thickly, “jealous that
you should shut me out--from anything.”
“You will know soon enough,” he answered in a hoarse voice. “But never
from me.”
The tears lay in her violet eyes as she fondled his hand.
“Are we not as strong as this man, Balthasar!”
“Nay,” he shivered, “for he has the Church behind him--to-morrow, we
shall see him again--I dread to-morrow.”
“Why?” she asked quickly. “To-morrow is the Feast of the Assumption
and we go to the Basilica.”
“Yea, and the Pope will be there in his power and I must kneel humbly
before him--yet not that alone----”
“Balthasar! what do you fear?”
He breathed heavily.
“Nothing--a folly, an ugly presentiment, of late I have slept so
little.--Why is he quiet?--He meditates something.”
His blue eyes widened with fear, he put the Empress gently from him.
“Take no heed, sweet, I am only weary and your dear solicitude
unnerves me--I must go pray Saint Joris to remember me.”
“The Saints!” she cried hotly. “A knife would serve us better could we
but thrust it into this Caprarola--who is he, this man who dares
menace us?”
The childishly fair face was drawn with anxious love and bitter fury;
the purple eyes were wet and brilliant, under her long robe of dull
yellow samite her bosom strove painfully with her breath.
The Emperor turned uneasily aside.
“The storm,” he said, raising his voice above a whisper with an
effort. “I think that it oppresses me and makes me fearful--how many
days--how many days, Ysabeau, since we have seen a cloudless sky!”
He moved away from her hastily and left the room with an abrupt step.
The Empress crouched against the marble columns that supported the
window, and as her unseeing eyes gazed across the shadowed city a look
of cunning calculation, of fierce rage came into her face; it was many
years since that sinister expression had marred her loveliness, for,
since her second marriage she had met no man who threatened her or
menaced her path or the Emperor’s as now did his Holiness, Michael II.
She half suspected him of having broken his vile bargain with her, she
rightly thought that nothing save the revelation of his first wife’s
existence could have so subdued and troubled Balthasar’s joyous
courage and hopeful heart; she cursed herself that she had been a
frightened fool to be startled into making a pact she might have known
the Cardinal would not keep; she was bitterly furious that she had
helped to set him in the position he now turned against her, it had
been better had she refused to buy his silence at such a price--better
that Cardinal Caprarola should have denounced her than that the Pope
should use this knowledge to unseat her husband.
She had never imagined that she had a friend in Michael II, but she
had not imagined him so callous, cruel and false as to take her bribe
and still betray her--even though the man had revealed himself to her
for what he was, as ambitious, unscrupulous and hard; she had not
thought he would so shamelessly be false to his word.
Angry scorn filled her heart when she considered the reputation this
man had won in his youth--that indeed he still bore with some--yet it
could not but stir her admiration to reflect what it must have cost a
man of the Pope’s nature to play the ascetic saint for so many years.
But his piety had been well rewarded--the poor Flemish youth sat in
the Vatican now, lord of her husband’s fortunes and her own honour.
Then she fell to pondering over the story of Ursula of Rooselaare,
wondering where she was, where she had been these years, and how she
had met Cardinal Caprarola.… The Empress dwelt on these things till
her head ached; impatiently she thrust wider open the stained glass
casement and leant from the window.
But there was no breeze abroad to cool her burning brow, and on all
sides the sky was heavy with clouds over which the summer lightning
played.
Ysabeau turned her eyes from the threatening prospect, and with a
stifled groan began pacing up and down the tesselated floor of the
cabinet.
She was interrupted by the entry of a lady tall and fair, leading a
beautiful child by the hand.