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

rose in Ysabeau to defy him with everything in her

possession, from her guards to her nails; she shuddered with

suppressed wrath, and pressed her little clenched hands against the

wall.

 

Her Chamberlain entered.

 

“Write out a pardon for the Lord of Rooselaare,” commanded Dirk, “and

haste, as you love your place.”

 

When the man had gone, Ysabeau turned with an ill-concealed savagery.

 

“What will they think! What will Balthasar think!”

 

“That must be your business,” said Dirk wearily.

 

“And Hugh himself!” flashed the Empress. The youth coloured painfully.

 

“Let him be sent to his castle in Flanders,” he said, with averted

face. “He must not remain here.”

 

“So much you give in!” cried Ysabeau. “I do not understand you.”

 

He responded with a wild look.

 

“No one will ever understand me, Ysabeau.”

 

The Chamberlain returned, and in a shaking hand the Empress took the

parchment and the reed pen, while Dirk waved the man’s dismissal.

 

“Sign,” he cried to her.

 

Ysabeau set the parchment on the table and looked out at the gathering

clouds; the Lord of Rooselaare must have already left the prison.

 

She dallied with the pen; then took a little dagger from her hair and

sharpened it; Dirk read her purpose in her lovely evil eyes, and

snatched the lingering right hand into his own long fingers.

 

The Empress drew together and looked up at him bitterly and darkly,

but Dirk’s breath stirred the ringlets that touched her cheek, his

cool grip guided her reluctant pen; she shivered with fear and

defiance; she wrote her name.

 

Dirk flung her hand aside with a great sigh of relief.

 

“Do not try to foil me again, Marozia Porphyrogentris,” he cried, and

caught up the parchment, his hat and cloak.

 

She watched him leave the room; heard the heavy door close behind him,

and she writhed with rage, thrusting, with an uncontrollable gesture

of passion, the dagger into the table; it quivered in the wood, then

broke under her hand.

 

With an ugly cry she ran to the window, flung it open and cast the

handle out.

 

When it rattled on the cobbled yard Dirk was already there; he marked

it fall, knew the gold and red flash, and smiled.

 

Showing the parchment signed by the Empress, he had commanded the

swiftest horse in the stables. He cursed and shivered, waiting while

the seconds fled; his slight figure and fierce face awed into silence

the youngest in the courtyard as he paced up and down. At last—the

horse; one of the grooms gave him a whip; he put it under his left arm

and leapt to his seat; they opened the gate and watched him take the

wind-swept street.

 

The marketplace lay at the other end of the town; and the hour for

the execution was close at hand—but the white horse he rode was fresh

and strong.

 

The thick grey clouds had obscured the sunset and covered the sky; a

few trembling flakes of snow fell, a bitter wind blew between the high

narrow houses; here and there a light sparkling in a window emphasized

the colourless cold without.

 

Dirk urged the steed till he rocked in the saddle; curtains were

pulled aside and doors opened to see who rode by so furiously; the

streets were empty–but there would be people enough in the

marketplace.

 

He passed the high walls of the college, galloped over the bridge that

crossed the sullen waters of the Main, swept by the open doors of St.

Wolfram, then had to draw rein, for the narrow Street began to be

choked with people.

 

He pulled his hat over his eyes and flung his cloak across the lower

half of his face; with one hand he dragged on the bridle, with the

other waved the parchment.

 

“A pardon!” he cried. “A pardon! Make way!” They drew aside before the

plunging steed; some answered him—

 

“It is no pardon—he wears not the Empress’s livery.”

 

One seized his bridle; Dirk leant from the saddle and dashed the

parchment into the fellow’s face, the horse snorted, and plunging

cleared a way and gained the marketplace.

 

Here the press was enormous; men, women and children were gathered

close round the mounted soldiers who guarded the scaffold; the armour,

yellow and blue uniforms and bright feathers of the horsemen showed

vividly against the grey houses and greyer sky.

 

On the scaffold were two dark, graceful figures; a man kneeling, with

his long throat bare, and a man standing with a double-edged sword in

his hands.

 

“A pardon!” shrieked Dirk. “In the name of the Emperor!”

 

He was wedged in the crowd, who made bewildered movements but could

not give place to him; the soldiers did not or would not hear.

 

Dirk rose desperately in his stirrups; as he did so the hat and cloak

fell back and his head and shoulders were revealed clearly above the

swaying mass.

 

Hugh of Rooselaare heard the cry; he looked across the crowd and his

eyes met the eyes of Dirk Renswoude.

 

“A pardon!” cried Dirk hoarsely; he saw the condemned man’s lips move.

 

The sword fell…

 

“A woman screamed,” said the monk on the scaffold, “and proclaimed a

pardon.”

 

And he pointed to the commotion gathered about Dirk, while the

executioner displayed to the crowd the serene head of Hugh of

Rooselaare.

 

“Nay, it was not a woman,” one of the soldiers answered the monk,

“‘twas this youth.” Dirk forced to the foot of the scaffold.

 

“Let me through,” he said in a terrible voice; the guard parted; and

seeing the parchment in his hand, let him mount the steps.

 

“You bring a pardon?” whispered the monk.

 

“I am too late,” said Dirk; he stood among the hurrying blood that

stained the platform, and his face was hard.

 

“Dogs! was this an end for a lord of Rooselaare!” he cried, and

clasped his hand on a straining breast. “Could you not have waited a

little—but a few moments more?”

 

The snow was falling fast; it lay on Dirk’s shoulders and on his

smooth hair; the monk drew the parchment from his passive hand and

read it in a whisper to the officer; they both looked askance at the

young man.

 

“Give me his head,” said Dirk.

 

The executioner had placed it at a corner of the scaffold; he left off

wiping his sword and brought it forward.

 

Dirk watched without fear or repulsion, and took Hugh’s head in his

slim fair hands. “How heavy it is,” he whispered.

 

The quick distortion of death had left the proud features; Dirk held

the face close to his own, with no heed to the blood that trickled

down his doublet.

 

Priest and captain standing apart, noticed a horrible likeness between

the dead and the living, but would not speak of it.

 

“Churl,” said Dirk, gazing into the half-closed grey eyes that

resembled so his own. “He spoke—as he saw me; what did he say?”

 

The headsman polished the mighty blade.

 

“Nought to do with you, or with any,” he answered, “the words had no

meaning, certes.” “What were they?” whispered the youth.

 

“Have you come for me, Ursula?’ then he said again, ‘Ursula.’”

 

A quiver ran through Dirk’s frame.

 

“She shall repent this, the Eastern witch!” he said wildly. “May the

Devil snatch you all to bitter judgment!”

 

He turned to the captain, with the head held against his breast.

 

“What are you going to do with this?”

 

“His wife has asked for his head and his body that he may be buried

befitting his estate.” “His wife!” echoed Dirk; then slowly, “Ay, he

had a wife—and a son, sir?”

 

“The child is dead.”

 

Dirk set the head down gently by the body.

 

“And his lands?” he asked.

 

“They go, sir, by favour of the Empress, to Balthasar of Courtrai, who

married, as you may know, this lord’s heiress, Ursula, dead now many

years.”

 

The snow had scattered the crowd; the soldiers were impatient to

begone; the blood stiffened and froze about their feet; Dirk looked

down at the dead man with an anguished and hopeless expression.

 

“Sir,” said the officer, “will you return with me to the palace, and

we will tell the Empress how this mischance arose, how you came too

late.”

 

“Nay,” replied Dirk fiercely. “Take that good news alone.”

 

He turned and descended the scaffold steps in a proud, gloomy manner.

 

One of the soldiers held his horse; he mounted in silence and rode

away; they who watched saw the thick snowflakes blot out the solitary

figure, and shuddered with no cause they understood.