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.
Jacobea of Martzburg and Ysabeau’s son.
“We seek for his Grace,” smiled the lady. “Wencelaus wishes to say his Latin lesson, and to tell the tale of the three Dukes and the sack of gold that he has lately learnt.”
The Empress gave her son a quick glance.
“You shall tell it to me, Wencelaus—my lord is not here.”
The boy, golden, large and glorious to look upon, scowled at her.
“Will not tell it you or any woman.”
Ysabeau answered in a kind of bitter gentleness.
“Be not too proud, Wencelaus,” and the thought of what his future might be made her eyes fierce.
The Prince tossed his yellow curls.
“I want my father.”
Jacobea, in pity of the Empress’s distracted bearing, tried to pacify him.
“His Grace cannot see you now—but presently——”
He shook his hand free of hers.
“Ye cannot put me off—my father said an hour before the Angelus;” his blue eyes were angry and defiant, but his lips quivered.
The Empress crushed back the wild misery of her thoughts, and caught the child’s embroidered yellow sleeve.
“Certes, ye shall see him,” she said quietly, “if he promised you—I think he is in the oratory, we will wait at the door until he come forth.”
The boy kissed her hand, and the shadow passed from his lovely face.
Jacobea saw the Empress look down on him with a desperate and heart-broken expression; she wondered at the anguish revealed to her in that second, but she was neither disturbed nor touched; her own heart had been broken so long ago that all emotions were but names to her.
The Empress dismissed her with a glance.
Jacobea left the palace, mounted the little Byzantine chariot with the blue curtains and drove to the church of San Giovanni in Laterano. She went there every day to hear a mass sung for the soul of one who had died long ago.
A large portion of her immense fortune had gone in paying for masses and candles for the repose of Sybilla, one time wife of Sebastian her steward; if gold could send the murdered woman there Jacobea had opened to her the doors of Paradise.
In her quiet monotonous life in a strange land, caring for none, and by none cared for, with a dead heart in her bosom and leaden feet walking heavily the road to the grave, this Sybilla had come to be with Jacobea the most potent thing she knew.
Neither Balthasar nor the Empress, nor any of their Court were so real to her as the steward’s dead wife.
She was as certain of her features, her bearing, the manner of her dress, as if she saw her daily; there was no face so familiar to her as the pale countenance of Sybilla with the wide brows and heavy red hair; she saw no ghost, she was not frightened by dreams nor visions, but the thought of Sybilla was continuous.
For ten years she had not spoken her name save in a whisper to the priest, nor had she in any way referred to her; by the people among whom she moved this woman was utterly forgotten, but in Jacobea’s bed-chamber stood a samite cushion exquisitely worked with a scarlet lily, and Jacobea looked at it more often than at anything else in the world.
She did not regard this image she had created with terror or dread, with any shuddering remorse or aversion; it was to her a constant companion whom she accepted almost as she accepted herself.
As she stepped from the chariot at the door of San Giovanni in Laterano the gathering thunder rolled round the hills of Rome; she pondered a moment on the ominous clouds that had hung so long over the city that the people began to murmur that they were under God’s displeasure, and passed through the dark portals into the dimly illuminated church.
She turned to a little side chapel and knelt on a purple cushion worn by her knees.
Mechanically she listened as the priest murmured over the mass, hurrying it a little that it might not interfere with the Angelus, mechanically she made the responses and rose when it was over with a calm face.
She had done this every day for nine years.
There were a few people in the church, kneeling for the Angelus; Jacobea joined them and fixed her eyes on the altar, where a strong purple light glowed and flickered, bringing out points of gold in the moulding of the ancient arches.
A deep hush held the scented stillness; the scattered bent figures were dark and motionless against the mystic clouds of incense and the soft bright lights.
Monks in long brown habits came and stood in the chancel; the bell struck the hour, and young novices entered singing—
“Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae,
et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.”
The monks knelt and folded their hands on their breasts; the response that still seemed very sweet to Jacobea arose.
“Ave Maria, gratia plena——”
A side door near Jacobea opened softly and a man stepped into the church.…
Now the priest was speaking.
“Ecce ancilla Domini,
fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.”
A strong sense that the new-comer was observing her made Jacobea turn, almost unconsciously, her head towards him as she repeated the “Ave Maria.”
A tall richly-dressed man was gazing at her intently; his face was in shadow, but she could see long pearls softly gleam in his ears.
“Et Verbum caro factum est,
et habitavit in nobis.”
The deep voices of the monks and the subdued tones of the worshippers again answered; Jacobea could distinguish the faltering words of the man near her.
“Ora pro nobis,
Sancta Dei Genitrix.”
Jacobea bent her head in her hands, as she replied—
“Ut digni efficiamur
promissionibus Christi.”
Priests and novices left the church, the monks filed out and the bent figures rose.
The man stepped from the shadows as Jacobea rose to her feet, and their eyes met.
“Ah—you!” said Jacobea; she had her hands on her breviary as he had seen them long ago.
She was so little moved by meeting him that she began to clasp the ivory covers, bending her head to do so.
“You remember me?” asked Theirry faintly.
“I have forgotten nothing,” she answered calmly. “Why do you seek to recall yourself to me?”
“I cannot see you and let you pass.”
She looked at him; it was a different face from the one he had known, though little changed in line or colour.
“You must hate me,” he faltered.
The words did not touch her.
“Are you free of the devils?” she asked, and crossed herself.
Theirry winced; he remembered that she believed Dirk was dead, that she thought of the Pope as a holy man.…
“Forgive me,” he murmured.
“For what?”
“Ah—that I did not understand you to be always a saintly woman.”
Jacobea laughed sadly.
“You must not speak of the past, though you may think of nothing else, even as I do—we might have been friends once, but the Devil was too strong for us.”
At that moment Theirry hated Dirk passionately; he felt he could have been happy with this woman, and with her only in the whole world, and he loathed Dirk for making it impossible.
“Well,” said Jacobea, in the same unmoved tone, “I must go back—farewell, sir.”
Theirry strove with speech in vain; as she moved towards the door he came beside her, his beautiful face white and eager.
Then, by a common impulse, both stopped.
Round one of the dark glittering pillars a brilliant figure flashed into the rich light.
The masked dancer in orange.
She stepped up to Theirry and laid her fingers on his scarlet sleeve.
“How does Theirry of Dendermonde keep his word!” she mocked, and her eyes gleamed from their holes; “is your heart of a feather’s weight that it flutters this way and that with every breath of air?”
“What does she mean?” asked Jacobea, as the man flushed and shuddered. “And what does she here in this attire?”
The dancer turned to her swiftly.
“What of one who drags his weary limbs beneath a Syrian sun in penitence for a deed ye urged him to?” she said in the same tone.
Jacobea stepped back with a quick cry, and Theirry seized the dancer’s arm.
“Begone,” he said threateningly. “I know you, or who you feign to be.”
She answered between laughter and fear.
“Let me go—I have not hurt you; why are you angry, my brave knight?”
At the sound of her voice that she in no way lowered, a monk came forward and sternly ordered her from the church.
“Why?” she asked. “I am masked, holy father, so cannot prove a temptation to the faithful!”
“Leave the church,” he commanded, “and if you would worship here come in a fitting spirit and a fitting dress.”
The dancer laughed.
“So I am flung out of the house of God—well, sir and sweet lady, will you come to the Mass at the Basilica to-morrow?—nay, do, it will be worth beholding—the Basilica to-morrow! I shall be there.”
With that she darted before them and slipped from the church.
Man and woman shuddered and knew not why.
A peal of thunder rolled, the walls of the church shook, and an image of the Virgin was hurled to the marble pavement and shivered into fragments.