Black Magic - Marjorie Bowen (book recommendations website .TXT) 📗

our chance,” frowned Theirry in the same tone. “I have been

thinking of it all day—” “I also; there is much money…”

 

“We could get it without…blood?”

 

“Surely, but if need be even that.”

 

Their eyes met; in the pleasant green shade they saw each other’s

excited faces.

 

“It is God His money,” murmured Theirry.

 

“What matter for that, if the Devil be stronger?”

 

“Hush! the Angelus ends.”

 

“Now—we join him.”

 

They sank on their knees, to rise as the saint got to his feet and

glanced about him; at the edge of the wood they joined him and looked

down at the town below.

 

“Now we can find our way,” said Dirk in a firm, suddenly changed

voice.

 

Ambrose of Menthon considered him over the little white pony.

 

“Will you not bear me company into the town?” he asked wistfully; he

did not notice that Theirry had slipped behind him.

 

Dirk’s eyes flashed a signal to his companion. “We will into the

town,” he said, “but without thy company, Sir Saint, now!”

 

Theirry flung his mantle from behind and twisted it tightly over the

monk’s head and face, causing him to stagger backwards; Dirk rushed,

seized his thin hands, and strapped them together with the leather

belt he had just loosened from his waist, and between them they

dragged him into the trees.

 

“My ears are weary of thy tedious talk,” said Theirry viciously, “my

eyes of thy sickly face.” They took the straps from the pony and bound

their victim to a tree; it was an easy matter, for he made no

resistance and no sound came from under the mantle twisted over his

face.

 

“There is much evil in the heart of man,” mocked Dirk. “And much

folly, oh, guileless, in the hearts of saints!”

 

Having seen to it that he was securely fastened the two returned to

the pony and examined their plunder.

 

In one bag there were parchments, books, and a knotted rope, in the

other numerous little linen sacks of varying sizes.

 

These they turned out upon the grass and swiftly unfastened the

strings.

 

Gold—each one filled with gold, fine, shining coins with the head of

the Emperor glittering on them.

 

Dirk retied the sacks and replaced them in the saddle bags; neither of

them had seen so much gold together before; because of it they were

silent and a little trembling.

 

Theirry, as he heard the good yellow money chink together, felt his

last qualms go; for the first time since he had entered into league

with the spirits of evil he had plain evidence it was a fine thing to

have the Devil on his side. A stupefying pleasure and exaltation came

over him, he did not doubt that Satan had sent this saintly man their

way, and he was grateful; to find himself possessed of this amount of

money was a greater delight than any he had known, even a more

delightful thing than seeing Jacobea of Martzburg lean across the

stream towards him.

 

As they reloaded the pony, managing as best they might without the

straps, Dirk fell to laughing.

 

“I will get my mantle,” said Theirry; he went up to Ambrose of

Menthon, telling himself he was not afraid of meeting the saint’s

eyes, and unwound the heavy mantle from his head. The saint sank

together like the dead.

 

Dirk still laughed, mounted on the white pony, flourishing a stick.

 

“The fellow has swooned,” said Theirry, bewildered.

 

“Well,” answered Dirk over his shoulder, “you can bring the straps,

which we need, surely.” Theirry unfastened the monk and laid his slack

body on the grass; as he did so he saw that the grey habit was stained

with blood, there was wet blood, too, on the straps.

 

“Now what is this?” he cried, and bent over the unconscious man to see

where he was wounded.

 

His searching hand came upon cold iron under the rough robe; Ambrose

of Menthon wore a girdle lined with sharp points, that at every

movement must have been torture, and that, at their brutal binding of

him, had entered his flesh with an agony unbearable.

 

“Make haste!” cried Dirk.

 

Theirry straightened his back and looked down at the sweet face of

Saint Ambrose; he wished that their victim had cried out or moaned,

his silence being a hard thing to think of—and he must have been in a

pain.

 

“Be quick!” urged Dirk.

 

Theirry joined him.

 

“What shall we do with—that man?” he said awkwardly; his blood was

burning, leaping.

 

“‘Tis a case for the angels, not for us,” answered Dirk. “But if ye

feel tenderly (and certainly he was pleasant to us) we can tell, in

the town, that we found him. ‘Deo gratias,’” he mocked the saintly,

low calm voice, but Theirry did not laugh.

 

A splendid yellow sunset was shimmering in their eyes as they came

slowly down into the valley and passed through the white street of the

little town.

 

They visited the hostel, fed the white pony there and recounted how

they had seen a monk in the wood they had just traversed, whether

unconscious in prayer or for want of breath they had not the leisure

to examine.

 

Then they went on their way, eschewing, by common consent this time,

the accommodation of the homely inn, and taking with them a basket of

the best food the town afforded.

 

Clearing the scattered cottages they gained the heights again and

paused on the grassy borders of a mighty wood that spread either side

the high road.

 

There they spread a banquet very different from the saint’s poor

repast; they had yellow wine, red wine, baked meats, cakes, jellies, a

heron and a basket of grapes, all bought with the gold Ambrose of

Menthon had toiled to collect to build God’s house amid the snows.

 

Arranging these things on the soft grass they sat in the pleasant

shade, luxuriously, and laughed at each other over their food.

 

The heavens were perfectly clear, there was no cloud in all the great

dome of sky, and, reflecting on the night before, and how they had

stood shivering in the wet, they laughed the more.

 

Then were they penniless, with neither hope nor prospect and in danger

of pursuit. Now they were on the high road with more gold in their

possession than they had ever seen before, with a horse to carry their

burdens, and good food and delicate wine before them.

 

Their master had proved worth serving. They toasted him in the wine

bought with God His money and made merry over it; they did not mention

Ambrose of Menthon.

 

Dirk was supremely happy; everything about him was a keen delight, the

fragrant perfume of the pine woods, the dark purple depths of them,

the bright green grass, the sky changing into a richer colour as the

sun faded, the mountain peaks tinged with pearly rose, the whole

beautiful, silent prospect and his comrade looking at him with a smile

on his fair face. A troop of white mountain goats driven by a shepherd

boy went past, they were the only living things they saw.

 

Dirk watched them going towards the town, then he said—

 

“The chatelaine…Jacobea of Martzburg—” he broke off. “Do you

remember, the first night we met, what we saw in the mirror? A woman,

was it not? Her face—have you forgotten it?” “Nay,” answered Theirry,

suddenly sombre.

 

Dirk turned to look at him closely.

 

“It was not Jacobea, was it?”

 

“It was utterly different,” said Theirry. “No, she was not Jacobea.”

 

He propped a musing face on his hand and stared down at the grass.

 

Dirk did not speak again, and after a while of silence Theirry slept.

 

With a start he woke, but lay without moving, his eyes closed; some

one was singing, and it was so beautiful that he feared to move lest

it should be in his dreams only that he heard it. A woman’s voice, and

she sang loud and clearly, in a passion of joyous gaiety; her notes

mounted like birds flying up a mountain, then sank like snowflakes

softly descending.

 

After a while the wordless song died away and Theirry sat up,

quivering, in a maze of joy. “Who is that?” he called, his eager eyes

searching the twilight.

 

No one…nothing but the insignificant figure of Dirk, who sat at the

edge of the wood gazing at the stars.

 

“I dreamt it,” said Theirry bitterly, and cursed his waking.