Theirry looked up.
“What of your house and goods?” he asked.
“I have thought of that. There are some valuables, some money; these we can take—I shall lock up the house.”
“It will fall into decay.”
“I care not.” With a clear flame of eagerness alight in his eyes he flashed a full glance at Theirry, and, seeing the young scholar pale and drooping, disappointment clouded his face.
“Do you commence so slackly?” he demanded. “Are you not eager to be abroad?”
“Yea,” answered Theirry. “But——”
Dirk stamped his foot.
“We do not begin with ‘buts’!” he cried passionately. “If you have no heart for the enterprise——”
Theirry half smiled.
“Give me some food, I pray you,” he said. “For I ate but little yesterday.”
Dirk glanced at him.
“I forgot,” he answered, and set about re-arranging the remains of the meal he and Balthasar had shared in silence.
Theirry sat very still; the door into the next room was open as he had left it on his return, and he could see the line of the trap-door; he felt a great desire to raise it, to descend into the vault and gaze at the cracked mirror, the brazier of dead coals and the mystic circles on the floor.
Looking up, his eyes met Dirk’s, and without words his thought was understood.
“Leave it alone now,” said the sculptor softly. “Let us not speak of it before we reach Basle.”
At these words Theirry felt a great relief; the idea of discussing, even with the youth who so fascinated him, the horrible, alluring thing that was an intimate of his thoughts but a stranger to his lips, had filled him with uneasiness and dread. While he ate the food put before him, Dirk picked up the four gold coins Balthasar had left and looked at them curiously.
“Masses for her soul!” he cried. “Did he think that I would enter a church and bargain with a priest for that!”
He laughed, and flung the money out of the window at the nodding daisies.
Theirry gave him a startled glance.
“Why, till now I had thought that you felt tenderly towards the maid.”
Dirk laughed.
“Not I. I have never cared for women.”
“Nor I,” said Theirry simply; he leant back in his chair and his dreamy eyes were grave. “When young they are ornaments, it is true, but pleasant only if you flatter them, when they are overlooked they become dangerous—and a woman who is not young is absorbed in little concerns that are no matter to any but herself.”
The smile, still lingering on Dirk’s face, deepened derisively, it seemed.
“Oh, my fine philosopher!” he mocked. “Are you well fed now, and preaching again?”
He leant against the wall by the window, and the intense sunlight made his dull brown hair glitter here and there; he folded his arms and looked at Theirry narrowly.
“I warrant your mother was a fair woman,” he said.
“I do not remember her. They say she had the loveliest face in Flanders, though she was only a clerk’s wife,” answered the young man.
“I can believe it,” said Dirk.
Theirry glanced at him, a little bewildered; the youth had such abrupt changes of manner, such voice and eyes unfathomable, such a pale, fragile appearance, yet such a spirit of tempered courage.
“I marvel at you,” he said. “You will not always be unknown.”
“No,” answered Dirk. “I have never meant that I should be soon forgotten.”
Then he was beside Theirry, with a strip of parchment in his hand.
“I have made a list of what we have in the place of value—but I care not to sell them here.”
“Why?” questioned Theirry.
Dirk frowned.
“I want no one over the threshold. I have a reputation—not one for holiness,” his strange face relaxed into a smile.
Theirry glanced at the list.
“Certes! How might one carry that even to the next town? Without a horse it were impossible.”
Silver ware, glass, pictures, raiment, were marked on the strip of parchment.
Dirk bit his finger.
“We will not sell these things Master Lukas left to me,” he said suddenly. “Only a few. Such as the silver and the red copper wrought in Italy.”
Theirry lifted his grave eyes.
“I will carry those into the town if you give me a merchant’s name.”
Dirk mentioned one instantly, and where his house might be found.
“A Jew, but a secretive and wealthy man,” he added. “I carved a staircase in his mansion.”
Theirry rose; the ache in his head and the horror in his heart had ceased together; the sense of coming excitement crept through his veins.
“There is much here that is worthless,” said Dirk, “and many things dangerous to reveal, yet a few of those that are neither might bring a fair sum—come, and I will show you.”
Theirry followed him through the dusty, sunny chambers to the store-rooms on the upper floor. Here Dirk brought treasures from a press in the wall; candlesticks, girdles with enamel links, carved cups, crystal goblets.
Selecting the finest of these he put them in a coffer, locked it and gave the key to Theirry.
“There should be the worth of some gulden there,” he said, red in the face from stooping, and essayed to lift the coffer but failed.
Theirry, something amazed, raised it at once.
“ ’Tis not heavy,” he said.
“Nay,” answered Dirk, “but I am not strong,” and his eyes were angry.
Theirry was brought by this to give him some closer personal scrutiny than as yet he had.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty-five,” Dirk answered curtly.
“Certes!” Theirry’s hazel eyes flew wide. “I had said eighteen.”
Dirk swung on his heel.
“Oh, get you gone,” he said roughly, “and be not over long—for I would be away from this place at once—do you hear?—at once.”
They left the room together.
“You have endured this for years,” said Theirry curiously. “And suddenly you count the hours to your departure.”
Dirk ran lightly ahead down the stairs, and his laugh came low and pleasant.
“Untouched, the wood will lie for ever,” he answered, “but set it alight and it will flame to the end.”
CHAPTER V.
COMRADES
They had been a week on the road and now were nearing the borders of Flanders. The company of the other had become precious to each; though Theirry was grave and undemonstrative, Dirk, changeable, and quick of temper; to-day, however, the silence of mutual discontent was upon them.
Open disagreement had happened once before, at the beginning of their enterprise, when the young sculptor resolutely refused, foolishly it seemed to Theirry, to sell his house and furniture, or even to deliver at the church of St. Bavon the figures of St. Michael and the Devil, though the piece was finished.
Instead, he had turned the key on his possessions, leaving them the prey of dust, spiders and rats, and often Theirry would think uneasily of the shut-up house in the deserted square, and how the merciless sunlight must be streaming over the empty workroom and the daisies growing upon the grave of Balthasar’s wife.
Nevertheless, he was in thrall to the attraction of Dirk Renswoude; never in his life had he been so at ease with any one, never before felt his aims and ambitions understood and shared by another.
He knew nothing of his companion’s history nor did he care to question it; he fancied that Dirk was of noble birth; it seemed in his blood to live gently and softly; at the hostel where they rested, it was he who always insisted upon the best of accommodation, a chamber to himself, fine food and humble service.
This nicety of his it was that caused the coolness between them now.
At the little town they had just left a fair was in holding, and the few inns were full; lodging had been offered them in a barn with some merchants’ clerks, and this Theirry would have accepted gladly, but Dirk had refused peremptorily, to the accompaniment of much jeering from those who found this daintiness amusing in a poor traveller on foot.
After an altercation between the landlord and Theirry, a haughty silence of flashing eyes and red cheeks from Dirk, they had turned away through the gay fair, wound across the town and out on to the high road.
This led up a steep, mountainous incline; they were carrying their possessions in bundles on their backs, and when they reached the top of the hill they turned off from the road on to the meadows that bordered it, and sank on the grass exhausted.
Theirry, though coldly angry with the whim that had brought them here to sleep under the trees, could not but admit it was an exquisite place.
The evening sun overspread it all with a soft yet sparkling veil of light; the fields of long grass that spread to right and left were more golden than green; close by was a grove of pine-trees, whose tall red trunks shone delicately; above them, piled up rocks starred with white flowers mounted against the pale blue sky, beneath them the hillside sloped to the valley where lay the little town.
The streets of it were built up and down the slopes of the hill, and Theirry could see the white line of them and the irregular shapes and colours of the roofs; the church spire sprang from the midst like a spear head, strong and delicate, and here and there pennons fluttered; they could see the Emperor’s flag stirring slowly above the round tourelles of the city gate.
Theirry found the prospect very pleasant; he delighted in the long flowering grass that, as he lay stretched out, with his face resting in his hand, brushed against his cheek; in the clear-cut grey rocks and the hardy yet frail-looking white flowers growing on the face of them; in the up-springing lines of the pine-trees and the deep green of their heavy foliage, intensified by the fading blue beyond. Then, as his weariness was eased, he glanced over his shoulder at Dirk; not being passionate by nature, and controlled by habit, his tempers showed themselves in a mere coldness, not sullenness, the resort of the fretful.
Dirk sat apart, resting his back against the foremost of the pine-trees; he was wrapped in a dark red cloak, his pale profile turned towards the town lying below; the evening air just stirred the heavy, smooth locks on his uncovered head; he was sitting very still.
The cause of the quarrel had ceased to be any matter to Theirry; indeed he could not but admit it preferable to lie here than to herd with noisy beer-drinking clerks in a close barn, but recollection of the haughty spirit Dirk had discovered held him estranged still.
Yet his companion occupied his thoughts; his wonderful skill in those matters he himself was most desirous of fathoming, the strange way in which they had met, and the pleasure of having a companion—so different from Balthasar—of a kindred mind, however whimsical his manner.
At this point in his reflections Dirk turned his head.
“You are angry with me,” he said.
Theirry answered calmly.
“You were foolish.”
Dirk frowned and flushed.
“Certes!—a fine comrade!” his voice was vehement. “Did you not swear fellowship with me? How do you fulfil that compact by being wrathful the first time our wills clash?”
Theirry turned on his elbow and gazed across the flowering grass.
“I am not wrathful,” he smiled. “And you have had many whims… none of them have I opposed.”
Dirk answered angrily.
“You make me out a fantastical fellow—it is not true.”
Theirry sat up and gazed at the lazy sunset slowly enveloping the distant town and the hills beyond in crimson light.
“It is true you are as nice as a girl,” he answered. “Many a time I would have slept by the kitchen hearth—ay, and have done, but you must always lie soft as a prince.”
Dirk was scarlet from brow to chin.
“Well, if I choose,” he said defiantly. “If I choose, as long as I have money in my pocket, to live gently.…”
“Have I interfered?” interrupted Theirry. “You are of a lordly birth, belike.”
“Yea, I am of a great family,” flashed Dirk. “Ill did they treat me. No more of them… are you still angry with me?”
He rose; the red cloak slipped from his shoulders to the ground; he stood with his hand on his hip, looking down at Theirry.
“Come,” he said gravely. “We must not quarrel, my comrade, my one friend… when shall we find another with such aims as ours… we are bound to each other, are we not? Certes! you swore it.”
Theirry lifted his beautiful face.
“I do like you greatly,” he answered. “And in no wise blame you because you are weakly and used to luxury. Others have found me over gentle.”
Dirk looked at him out of the corners of his eyes.
“Then I am pardoned?”
Theirry smiled.
“Nay, I do regret my evil humour. The sun was fierce and the bundles heavy to drag up the hill.”
Dirk sank down upon the grass beside him.
“Truly I am wearied to death!”
Theirry considered him; panting a little, Dirk stretched himself his full length on the blowing grass. The young scholar, used and indifferent to his own great beauty, was deadened to the effect of it in others, and to any eye Dirk could be no more than well-looking; but Theirry was conscious of the charm of his slender make, his feet and hands of feminine delicacy, his fair, full throat, and pale, curved mouth, even the prominent jaw and square chin that marred the symmetry of the face were potent to attract in their suggestion of strength and the power to command.
His near presence, too, was fragrant; he breathed a faint atmosphere of essences and was exquisite in his clothes.
As Theirry studied him, he spoke.
“My heart! it is sweet here—oh, sweet!”
Faint airs wafted from the pine, and the wild flowers hidden in the woods below them stole through the grass; a glowing purple haze began to obscure the valley, and where it melted into the sky the first stars shone, pale as the moon. Overhead the dome of heaven was still blue, and in the tops of the pines was a continuous whispering of the perfumed boughs one to another.
“Now wish yourself back in the town among their drinking and swearing,” said Dirk.
“Nay,” smiled Theirry. “I am content.”
The faint purple colour slowly spread over everything; the towers of the town became dark, and little sharp lights twinkled in them.
Dirk drew a great breath.
“What will you do with your life?” he asked.
Theirry started.
“In what manner?”
“Why, if we succeed—in any way—if we obtain great power… what would you do with it?”
Theirry felt his brain spin at the question; he gazed across the world that was softly receding into darkness and his blood tingled.
“I would be great,” he whispered. “Like Flaccus Alcuin, like Abelard—like St. Bernard.”
“And I would be greater than any of these—as great as the Master we serve can make his followers.”
Theirry shuddered.
“These I speak of were great, serving God.”
Dirk looked up quickly.
“How know you that? Many of these holy men owe their position to strange means. I, at least, would not be content to live and die in woollens when I could command the means to clothe me in golden silks.”
The beautiful darkness now encompassed them; below them the lights of the town, above them the stars, and here, in the meadow land, the night breeze in the long grass and in the deep boughs of pine.
“I am but a neophyte,” said Theirry after a pause. “Very little have I practised of these things. I had a book of necromancy and learnt a little there… but…”
“Why do you pause?” demanded Dirk.
“One may not do these things,” answered Theirry slowly, “without—great blasphemy——”
Dirk laughed.
“I care nothing for all the angels and all the saints.…”
“Ah, peace!” cried Theirry, and he put his hand to his brow growing damp with terror.
The other was silent a while, but Theirry could hear his quick breathing rising from the grass. At length he spoke in a quiet voice.
“I desire vast wealth, huge power. I would see nations at my footstool… ah! … but I have a boundless ambition.…” He sat up, suddenly and softly, and laid his hand on Theirry’s arm. “If… they… the evil ones… offered you that, would you not take it?”
Theirry shuddered.
“You would! you would!” cried Dirk. “And pay your soul for it—gladly.”
The scholar made no answer, but reclined motionless, gazing over the human lights in the valley to the stars beyond them; Dirk continued—
“See what a liking I have for you that I tell you this—that I give you the secret of my power to come.…”
“ ’Tis my secret also,” answered Theirry hastily. “I have done enough to bring the everlasting wrath of the Church upon me.”
“The Church,” repeated Dirk musingly; he was of a daring that knew not the word fear, and at this moment his thoughts put into words would have made his companion shudder indeed.
Gradually, by ones and twos, the lights in the town were extinguished and the valley was in darkness.
Theirry folded up his cloak as a pillow for his head and lay down in the scented grass; as he fell into a half sleep the great sweetness of the place was present to his mind, torturing him.
He knew by the pictures he had seen that Paradise was like this, remote and infinitely peaceful. Meadows and valleys spreading beneath a tranquil sky… he knew it was desirable and that he longed for it, yet he must meddle with matters that repelled him, even as they drew him, with their horror.
He fell into heavy dreams, moaning in his sleep.
Dirk rose from beside him and walked up and down in the dark; the dew was falling, his head uncovered; he stooped, felt for his mantle, found it and wrapped it about him, pacing to and fro with calm eyes defying the dark.
Then finally he lay down under the pines and slept, to awake suddenly and find himself in a sitting posture.
The dawn was breaking, the landscape lay in mists of purple under a green sky, pellucid and pale as water; the pines shot up against it black, clear cut, and whispering still in their upper branches.
Dirk rose and tiptoed across the wet grass to Theirry, looking at him asleep for the second time.
The scholar lay motionless, with his head flung back on his violet cloak; Dirk looked down at the beautiful sleeping face with a wild and terrible expression on his own.
Like wine poured into a cup, light began to fill the valley and the hollows in the hills; faint mystic clouds gathered and spread over the horizon. Dirk shudderingly drew his mantle closer; Theirry sighed and woke.
Dirk gave him a distracted glance and turned away so rapidly and softly that Theirry, with the ugly shapes of dreams still riding his brain, cried out—
“Is that you, Dirk?” and sprang to his feet.
Dirk stayed his steps half-way to the pines.
“What is the matter?” he asked in an odd voice.
Theirry pushed the hair away from his forehead.
“I know not—nothing.”
The air seemed suddenly to become colder; the hills that on all sides bounded their vision rose up stark from grey mists; an indescribable tension made itself felt, like a pause in stillness.
Dirk stepped back to Theirry and caught his arm; they stood motionless, in an attitude of expectancy.
A roll of thunder pealed from the brightening sky and faded slowly into silence; they were looking along the hills with straining eyes.
On the furthest peak appeared a gigantic black horseman outlined against the ghostly light; he carried a banner in his hand; it was the colour of blood and the colour of night; for a moment he sat his horse, motionless, facing towards the east; then the low thunder pealed again; he raised the banner, shook it above his head, and galloped down the hillside.
Before he reached the valley he had disappeared, and at that instant the sun rose above the horizon and sparkled across the country.
Theirry hid his face in his sleeve and trembled terribly; but Dirk gazed over his bent head with undaunted eyes.
CHAPTER VI.
THE LADY
Through the blunt-pointed arches that gave on to the sunny gardens a thin stream of students issued from the lecture-room.
Behind the castellated roof of the university the mountains appeared, snow cold against the sun-lit sky; at the bottom of the gently sloping garden lay the town of Basle with the broad blue Rhine flowing between the glittering houses.
The students came in twos and threes and little groups, laughing together over the doctor who had been lecturing them, over some point in their studies that had roused their amusement, or merely because it was a relief after being confined for hours in the dark hall.
The long straight robes, dark shades of purple, blue and violet, fluttered behind them in the summer wind as they gradually dispersed to right and left among the trees.
Theirry, walking with two others, looked about him for Dirk, who had not attended the lecture.
“We are going up the river,” said one of his companions. “We have a fair sailing boat—it will be pleasant, by Ovid!”
“Will you come?” asked the other.
Theirry shook his head.
“Nay, I cannot.”
They both laughed.
“See how he is given to meditation! He will be a great man, certes!”
“I have a matter that commands my time,” said Theirry.
“Dear lover of rhetoric! Hark to him—he will even sit in the shade and muse!”
“ ’Tis cooler,” smiled Theirry.
They came to a pathway bordered with laurels and dark glossy plants, and from a seat amid them Dirk rose at their approach.
He was distinguished from the others by the greater richness of his dress; his robe, very voluminous and heavy, was of brown silk; he wore a gold chain twisted round his flat black cap, and his shirt was of fine lawn, laced and embroidered.
The two students doffed their hats in half-mocking recognition of the exquisite air of aloofness that was his habitual manner.
He gave them a steady look out of half-closed eyes.
“Hast learnt much to-day?” he asked.
“Aristotle is not comprehended in an afternoon,” answered the student, smiling. “And I was at the back—Master Joris of Thuringia yawned and yawned, and fell off his stool asleep! The Doctor was bitter!”
“It was amusing,” said the other. “Yet he was not asleep, but swooned from the heat. Mass! but it was hot! Where were you?”
“Improving my Latin in the library. This afternoon I have put the story of Tereus and Philomena into the vulgar tongue.”
“Give you good even.” The two linked arms. “We know a joyful inn up the river.”
As they disappeared Dirk turned sharply to Theirry.
“Did they ask your company?”
“Yea.”
Dirk frowned.
“You should have gone.”
“I had no mind to it. They are foolish.”
“Ay, but we are beginning to be remarked for closeness in our habits. It would not be pleasant should they—suspect.”
“ ’Tis not possible,” said Theirry hastily.
“It must not be,” was the firm answer. “But be not churlish or over reserved.”
“I wish for no company but thine,” replied Theirry. “What have I in common with these idlers?”
Dirk gave him a bright tender look.
“We need not stay here over long,” he answered. “I do think we know all this school can teach us.”
Theirry put back the laurel bough that swung between them.
“Where would you go?” he asked; it was noticeable how in all things he had begun to defer to the younger man.
“Paris! Padua!” flashed Dirk. “Would you consider that? One might attain a reputation, and then—or one might lecture—in any large town—Cologne, Strasbourg.”
“Meanwhile——?”
“Meanwhile I progress,” was the whispered answer. “I have essayed—some things. Will you come to my chamber to-night?”
“Ay—secretly?”
Dirk nodded; his grave young face under the student’s flat hat was slightly flushed; he laid his hand on Theirry’s arm.
“I have something to tell you. Here it is scarcely wise to speak. There is one who hates me—Joris of Thuringia. Now, good-bye.”
His great eyes lit with a look of strong affection that was flashed back in Theirry’s glance; they clasped hands and parted.
Theirry looked after the brown, silk-clad figure, as it moved rapidly towards the university, then he took his own way, out of the gardens on to the hill-side, away from the town.
With his hands clasped behind his back, and his handsome head bent, he followed aimlessly a little path, and as he wound his way through the trees wild day-dreams stirred his blood.
He was on the eve of putting himself in possession of immense power; these evil spirits whom he would force to serve him could give him anything in the world—anything in the world!
The phantasmagoria of golden visions that arose to blind and intoxicate him, the horror of the means employed, dread of the unthinkable end to come, were not to be put into any words.
He sat down at length on a fallen tree trunk and gazed with rapt eyes down the silent forest path.
He did not know where he was; certainly he had come farther than ever before, or else taken a strange turn, for through the pine-stems he could perceive castle walls, the gates rising from the piled-up rocks, and it was unknown to him.
Presently he rose and walked on, because his galloping thoughts would not allow his body to rest, and still giving no heed to the way, he wandered out of the forest into a green valley shaded by thick trees.
Down the centre ran a stream, and the grass, of a deep green colour, was thickly sown with daisies white as the snow shining on the far-off mountains.
Here and there down the edge of the stream grew young poplar trees, and their flat gold leaves fluttered like a gipsy’s sequins, even in the breezeless air.
Theirry, absorbed and withdrawn into himself, walked by the side of the water; he was unconscious of the shadowed hush and quiet of the valley, of the voices of birds falling softly from the peace of the trees, and the marvellous sunlight on the mountains, the castle, rising beyond its circle of shade up into the crystal blue; before his eyes danced thrones and crowns, gold and painted silks, glimpses of princely dwellings and little winged, creeping fiends that offered him these things.
Presently a human sound forced itself on his senses, insistently, even through his abstraction.
The sound of weeping, sobbing.
He started, gazed about him with dazed eyes, like a blind man recovering sight, and discerned a lady upon the other side of the stream, seated on the grass, her head bowed in her right hand.
Theirry paused, frowned, and hesitated.
The lady, warned of something, glanced up and sprang to her feet; he saw now that she held a dead bird in her left hand; her face was flushed with weeping, her long yellow hair disordered about her brow; she gazed at him with wet grey eyes, and Theirry felt it imperative to speak.
“You are troubled?” he asked, then flushed, thinking she might term it insolence.
But she answered simply and at once.
“About him I am”—she held the little brown bird out on her palm; “he was on the small poplar tree—and singing—he held his head up so”—she lifted her long throat—“and I could see his heart beating behind the feathers—I listened to him, oh! with pleasure”—fresh tears started to the eyes that she turned on Theirry—“then my miserable cat that had followed me leapt on him—and slew him. Oh, I chased them, but when I got him back he was dead.”
Theirry was extraordinarily moved by this homely tragedy; it could not have occurred to him that there was matter for tears in such a common thing; but as the lady told the story, holding out, as if secure of his sympathy, the poor little ruffled body, he felt that it was both pitiful and monstrous.
“You may chastise the cat,” he said, for he saw the elegant soft animal rubbing itself against the stem of the poplar.
“I have beaten her,” she confessed.
“You can hang her,” said Theirry, thinking to console still more.
But the lady flushed up.
“She is an agreeable cat,” she answered. “She cannot help her nature. Oh, it would be an odious cruelty to hang her!—see, she does not understand!”
Theirry, rebuked, was at a loss; he stood looking at the lady, feeling helpless and useless.
She wiped her eyes with a silk handkerchief, and stood in a piteous meek silence, holding her dead bird in a trembling hand.
“If you buried it——” suggested Theirry desperately. “I do think it would have wished to be buried here——”
To his joy she brightened a little.
“You think so?” she asked wistfully.
“Certes!” he reassured her eagerly. “See, I have a knife—I will make a pleasant grave.”
She stepped to the edge of the stream as near as she could to him, and because she came unconsciously, with no thought for anything save the bird in her hand, Theirry thrilled with a great pleasure, as should a wild deer come fearlessly.
“I cannot cross—the water is too wide,” she said. “But will you take him and make his grave?”
She went on one knee among the sorrel leaves and daisies. Theirry had a swift picture of her as she leant forward, stretching her arm towards him over the stream that divided them. He had seen fair women in Courtrai, he saw in her the most admired points of these, glass grey eyes, small features, an arched red mouth, white skin and yellow hair; she was no more beautiful than many ladies who had left him cold, but he found himself anxious to please her, and he had so far never tried to win a woman’s favour.
Her pale red dress rippled about her on the grass; her curls and her veil were blown back from her face; Theirry knelt and held out his hand.
Over mid-stream their fingers touched; he took the bird, and she drew back hastily.
As he, still on his knees, looked at her, he saw that she was no longer unconscious; she stood erect as if commanding herself not to fly, and (as she was very slender) he likened her to the pale crimson pistil of a lily which has yellow on the head—her hair, he told himself.
“I am vexed to trouble you”—she spoke haltingly.
There were so many things he wished to say in answer to this that he said nothing, but took his knife from his belt and cut a little square of turf.
“You are a clerk from the college?” she asked.
“Ay,” he answered, and wished fiercely he could have given himself a finer name.
“There are many learned men there,” she said courteously.
He would not have believed it possible to find in himself such care over a trivial thing as he now took over this little bird’s grave, for he knew she watched him with judgment in her eyes.
The unholy day-dreams that had vexed and enthralled him were completely forgotten in this new feeling.
The lines of a verse he had not noticed when he read it came back to him, beating in his head.
“Pleasant is she of a fair white favour,
Sweet her caress as the ripe grape’s flavour,
And her lips are like the rose in their savour.Seeing her my pulses quicken,
I turn from common things and sicken,
For the quiet wood where the May buds thicken.Hearing her my breath is taken,
My bold heart bowed and shaken,
And I from sloth at last awaken.”
He dug into the soft brown earth with the point of his knife, lined the grave with leaves, and picked up the little bird.
For a moment he held it in his hand as she had done.
And he dared not look at her.
Then he laid it in the ground and replaced the grass and daisies.
When he raised his head, his face flushed from stooping, he saw that she was no longer watching him, but she had turned sideways and was gazing at the distant woods.
He had leisure now to mark the details of her appearance.
Though slender she was of a full make and tall; her brows were very arched and darker than her hair, her mouth dipped at the corners and was firmly set; she seemed of a grave manner and very modest in her bearing.
Theirry rose from his knees; she turned.
“I thank you,” she said; then, on a quick breath—“do you often come here?”
He answered foolishly.
“Nay—never before—I did not know the place.”
“That is my home yonder,” said the lady.
“Yours?” and he pointed to the castle walls.
“Yea. I am an orphan, and the Emperor’s ward.”
She looked at the point of her shoe showing beneath her pale crimson robe. “What town do you come from?” she asked.
“Courtrai.”
“I know no town save Frankfort.”
A silence fell between them; the wicked grey cat walked in a stately manner along the edge of the stream.
“I shall lose her,” said the lady. “Good even, gentle clerk. My name is Jacobea of Martzburg. Perhaps I shall see you again.”
He had never felt more desirous of speaking, never less capable; he murmured—
“I do hope it,” and coloured burningly at his awkwardness.
She gave him a half look, a flash from grave grey eyes, instantly veiled, and with an unsmiling mouth bade him again, “Good even.”
Then she was gone after the cat.
He saw her hasten down the side of the stream, her dress bending the grasses and leaves; he saw her stoop and snatch up the creature, and, holding it in her arms, take the path towards those lordly gates. He hoped she might look back and see that he gazed after her, but she did not turn her head, and when the last flutter of pale red had disappeared he moved reluctantly from the place.
The sky was gay with sunset; as he walked through the wood, bars of orange light fell athwart the straight pine trunks and made a glitter on his path; he thought neither of those things that had occupied him when he had passed through these trees before, nor of the lady he had left; in his mind reigned a golden confusion, in which everything was unformed and exquisite; he had no wish and no ability to reduce this to definite schemes, hopes or fears, but walked on, enwrapped with fancies.
On the slopes that adjoined the garden of the college Theirry came upon a little group of students lying on the grass.
Just beyond them the others were standing; Dirk noticeable by his rich dress and elegant bearing, and another youth whom Theirry knew for Joris of Thuringia.
A glance told him there were words between them; even from where he stood he could see Dirk was white and taut, Joris hot and flushed.
He crossed the grass swiftly; he knew that it was their policy to avoid quarrels in the college.
“Sirs, what is this?” he asked.
The students looked at him; some seemed amused, some excited; his heart gave a sick throb as he saw that their glances were both unfriendly and doubtful.
One gave him half-scornful information.
“Thy friend was caught with an unholy forbidden book, though he denies it; he cast it into the river sooner than allow us a sight of it, and now he is bitter with Joris’ commentary thereon.”
Dirk saw Theirry, and turned his pale face towards him.
“This churl insulted me,” he said; “yea, laid hands on me.”
A burst of half angry, half good-humoured laughter came from Joris.
“I cannot get the little youth to fight—by Christus his Mother! he is afraid because I could break his neck between my finger and thumb!”
Dirk flashed burning eyes over him.
“I am not afraid, never could I fear such as thee; but neither my profession nor my degree permit me to brawl—be silent and begone.”
The tone could not fail to rouse the other.
“Who art thou,” he shouted—“to speak as if thou wert a noble’s son? I did but touch thy arm to get the book——”
The rest joined in.
“Certes, he did no more, and what was the book?”
Dirk held himself very proudly.
“I will no more be questioned than I will be touched.”
“Fine words for a paltry Flemish knave!” jeered one of the students.
“Words I can make good,” flashed Dirk, and turned towards the college.
Joris was springing after him when Theirry caught his arm.
“ ’Tis but a peevish youth,” he said.
The other shook himself free and stared after the bright figure in silk.
“He called me ‘son of a Thuringian thief!’ ” he muttered.
A laugh rose from the group.
“How knew he that?—from the unholy book?”
Joris frowned heavily; his wrath flared in another direction.
“Ya! Silence! Son of a British swineherd, thou, red face!”
The group seethed into fisticuffs; Theirry followed Dirk across the gardens.
CHAPTER VII.
SPELLS
Theirry found Dirk as he was passing under the arched colonnade.
“Prudence!” he quoted. “Where is your prudence now?”
Dirk turned quickly.
“I had to put on a bold front. Certes, I hate that knave. But let him go now. Come with me.”
Theirry followed him through the college, up the dark stairway into his chamber.
It was a low arched room, looking on to the garden, barely furnished, and containing only the bed, a chair and some books on a shelf.
Dirk opened the window on the sun-flushed twilight.
“The students are jealous of me because of my reputation with the doctors,” he said, smiling. “One told me to-day I was the most learned youth in the college. And how long have we been here? But ten months.”
Theirry was silent; the triumph in his companion’s voice could find no echo in his heart; neither in his legitimate studies nor in his secret experiments had he been as successful as Dirk, who in ancient and modern lore, in languages, algebra, theology, oratory had far outshone all competitors, and who had progressed dangerously in forbidden things.
Theirry shook off the feeling of jealousy that possessed him, and spoke on another subject.
“Dirk, I saw a lady to-day—such a lady!”
In their constant, close and tender companionship neither had ever failed in sympathy, therefore it was with surprise that Theirry saw Dirk perceptibly harden.
“A lady!” he repeated, and turned from the window so that the shadows of the room were over his face.
Theirry must have a listener, must loosen his tongue on the subject of his delicate adventure, so he proceeded.
“Ay—’twas in the valley—a valley, I mean—which I had never seen before. Oh, Dirk!” he was leaning against the end of the bed, gazing across the dusk. “ ’Twas a lady so sweet—she had——”
Dirk interrupted him.
“Certes!” he cried angrily; “she had grey eyes belike, and yellow hair—have they not always yellow hair?—and a mincing mouth and a manner of glancing sideways, and cunning words, I’ll warrant me——”
“Why, she had all this,” answered Theirry, bewildered. “But she was pleasant, had you but seen her, Dirk.”
The youth sneered.
“Who is she—thy lady?”
“Jacobea of Martzburg.” He took obvious pleasure in saying her name. “She is a great lady and gracious.”
“Out on ye!” exclaimed Dirk passionately. “What is she to us? Have we not other matters to think of? I did not think ye so weak as to come chanting the praises of the first thing that smiles on ye!”
Theirry was angered.
“ ’Tis not the first time—and what have I said of her?”
“Oh enough—ye have lost your heart to her, I doubt not—and what use will ye be—a love-sick knave!”
“Nay,” answered Theirry hotly. “You have no warrant for this speech. How should I love the lady, seeing her once? I did but say she was fair and gentle.”
“ ’Tis the first woman you have spoken of to me—in that voice—did ye not say—‘such a lady’?”
Theirry felt the blood stinging his cheeks.
“Could you have seen her,” he repeated.
“Ay, had I seen her I could tell you how much paint she wore, how tight her lace was——”
Theirry interrupted.
“I’ll hear no more—art a peevish youth, knowing nothing of women; she was one of God’s roses, pink and white, and we not fit to kiss her little shoes—ay, that’s pure truth.”
Dirk stamped his foot passionately.
“Little shoes! If you come home to me to rave of her little shoes, and her pink and white, you may bide alone for me. Speak no more of her.”
Theirry was silent a while; he could not afford to lose Dirk’s companionship or to have him in an ill temper, nor did he in any way wish to jeopardise the good understanding between them, so he quelled the anger that rose in him at the youth’s unreasonableness, and answered quietly—
“On what matter did you wish to see me?”
Dirk struggled for a moment with a heaving breast and closed his teeth over a rebellious lip, then he crossed the room and opened the door of an inner chamber.
He had obtained permission to use this apartment for his studies; the key of it he carried always with him, and only he and Theirry had ever entered it.
In silence, lighting a lamp, and placing it on the window-sill, he beckoned Theirry to follow him.
It was a dismal room; piled against the walls were the books Dirk had brought with him, and on the open hearth some dead charred sticks lay scattered.
“See,” said Dirk; he drew from a dark corner a roughly carved wooden figure some few inches high. “I wrought this to-day—and if I know the spells aright there is one will pay for his insolence.”
Theirry took the figure in his hand.
“ ’Tis Joris of Thuringia.”
Dirk nodded sombrely.
The room was thick with unhealthy odours, and a close stagnant smoke seemed to hang round the roof; the lamp cast a pulsating yellow light over the dreariness and threw strange shaped shadows from the jars and bottles standing about the floor.
“What is this Joris to you?” asked Theirry curiously.
Dirk was unrolling a manuscript inscribed in Persian.
“Nothing. I would see what skill I have.”
The old evil excitement seized Theirry; they had tried spells before, on cattle and dogs, but without success; his blood tingled at the thought of an enchantment potent to confound enemies.
“Light the fire,” commanded Dirk.
Theirry set the image by the lamp, and poured a thick yellow fluid from one of the bottles over the dead sticks.
Then he flung on a handful of grey powder.
A close dun-coloured vapour rose, and a sickly smell filled the room; then the sticks burst suddenly into a tall and beautiful flame that sprang noiselessly up the chimney and cast a clear and unnatural glow round the chamber.
Theirry drew three circles round the fire, and marked the outer one with characters taken from the manuscripts Dirk held.
Dirk was looking at him as he knelt in the splendid glow of the flames, and his own heavy brows were frowning.
“Was she beautiful?” he asked abruptly.
Theirry took this as an atonement for the late ill temper, and answered pleasantly—
“Why, she was beautiful, Dirk.”
“And fair?”
“Certes, yellow hair.”
“No more of her,” said the youth in a kind of fierce mournfulness. “The legend is finished?”
“Yea.” Theirry rose from his knees. “And now?”
Dirk was anointing the little image of the student on the breast, the eyes and mouth with a liquid poured from a purple phial; then he set it within the circle round the flame.
“ ’Tis carved of ash plucked from a churchyard,” he said. “And the ingredients of the fire are correct. Now if this fails, Zerdusht lies.”
He stepped up to the fire and addressed an invocation in Persian to the soaring flame, then retreated to Theirry’s side.
The whole room was glowing in the clear red light cast by the unholy fire; the cobweb-hung rafters, the gaunt walls, the books and jars on the bare floor were all distinctly visible, and the two could see each other, red, from head to foot.
“Look,” said Dirk, with a slow smile.
The image lying in the magic circle and almost touching the flames (though not burnt or even scorched), was beginning to writhe and twist on its back like a creature in pain.
“Ah!” Dirk showed his teeth. “The Magian spell has worked.”
A sensation of giddiness seized Theirry; he heard something beating loud and fast in his ear, it seemed, but he knew it was his heart that thumped so, up and down.
The figure, horribly like Joris with its flat hat and student’s robe, was struggling to its feet and emitting little moans of agony.
“It cannot get out,” breathed Theirry.
“Nay,” whispered Dirk, “wherefore did ye draw the circle?”
The flame was a column of pure fire, and it cast a glow of gold on the thing imprisoned in the ring Theirry had made; Dirk watched in an eager way, with neither fear nor compunction, but Theirry felt a wave of sickness mount to his brain.
The creature was making useless endeavours to escape from the fiery glare; it groaned and fell on its face, twisted on its back and made frantic attempts to cross the line that imprisoned it.
“Let it out,” whispered Theirry faintly.
But Dirk was elate with success.
“Ye are mad,” he retorted. “The spell works bravely.”
On the end of his words came a sound that caused both to wince; even in the lurid light Dirk saw his companion pale.
It was the bell of the college chapel ringing the students to the vespers.
“I had forgotten,” muttered Dirk. “We must go—it would be noticed.”
“We cannot put the fire out,” cried Theirry.
“Nay, we must leave it—it must burn out,” answered Dirk hurriedly.
The creature, after rushing round the circle in an attempt to escape had fallen, as if exhausted with its agony, and lay quivering.
“We will leave him, too,” said Dirk unpleasantly.
But Theirry had a tearing memory of a lady kneeling among green grasses and bending towards him with a dead bird in her hand—tears for it on her cheeks—a dead bird, and this——
He stooped and snatched up the creature; it shrieked dismally as he touched it, and he felt the quick flame burn his fingers.
Instantly the fire had sunk into ashes, and he held in his hand a mere morsel of charred wood.
With a sound of disgust he flung this on the ground.
“Should have let it burn,” said Dirk, with the lamp held aloft to show him the way across the now dark chamber. “Perchance we cannot relight it, and I have not finished with the ugly knave.”
They stepped into the outer chamber and Dirk locked the door; Theirry gasped to feel the fresher air in his nostrils, and a sense of terror clouded his brain; but Dirk was in high spirits; his eyes narrowed with excitement, his pale lips set in a hard fashion.
They descended into the hall.
It was a close and sultry evening; through the blunt arches of the window, dark purple clouds could be seen, lying heavily across the horizon; the clang of the vesper bell came persistently and with a jarring note; though the sun had set it was still light, which had a curious effect of strangeness after the dark chambers upstairs.
Without a word to each other, but side by side, the two students passed into the ante-chamber that led into the chapel.
And there they stopped.
The pale rays of a candle dispersed the gathering dark and revealed a group of men standing together and conversing in whispers.
“Why do they not enter the church?” breathed Theirry, with a curious sensation at his heart. “Something has happened.”
Some of the students turned and saw them; they were forced to come forward; Dirk was silent and smiling.
“Have you heard?” asked one; all were sober and subdued.
“A horrible thing,” said another. “Joris of Thuringia is struck with a strange illness. Certes! he fell down amongst us as if in the grip of hell fire.”
The speaker crossed himself; Theirry could not answer, he felt that they were all looking at him suspiciously, accusingly, and he trembled.
“We carried him up to his chamber,” said another. “He shrieked and tore at his flesh, imploring us to keep the flames off. The priest is with him now—God guard us from unholy things.”
“Why do you say that?” demanded Theirry fiercely. “Belike his disease was but natural.”
A look passed round the students.
“I know not,” one muttered. “It was strange.”
Dirk, still smiling and silent, turned into the chapel; Theirry and the others, hushing their surmises, followed.
There were candles on the altar, six feet high, and a confusion of the senses came over Theirry, in which he saw them as white angels with flaming haloes coming grievingly for his destruction. A wave of fear and sorrow rushed over him; he sank on his knees on the stone floor and fixed his eyes on the priest, whose chasuble was gleaming gold through the dimness of the incense-filled chapel.
The blasphemy and mortal sin of what he had done sickened and frightened him; was not his being here the most horrible blasphemy of all?—he had no right; he had made false confessions to the priest, he had received absolution on lies; daily he had come here worshipping God with his lips and Satan with his heart.
A groan broke from him, he bowed his beautiful face in his hands and his shoulders shook. He thought of Joris of Thuringia writhing in the agony caused by their unhallowed spells, of the eager devils crowding to their service—and far away, in a blinding white mist, he seemed to see the arc of the saints and angels looking down on him while he fell away further, further, into unfathomable depths of darkness. With an uncontrollable movement of agony he looked up, and his starting eyes fell on the figure of Dirk kneeling in front of him.
The youth’s calm both horrified and soothed him; there he knelt, who had but a little while before been playing with devils, with a face as unmoved as a sculptured saint, with a placid brow, quiet eyes and hands folded on his breviary.
He seemed to feel Theirry’s intense gaze, for he looked swiftly round and a look of caution, of warning shot under his white lids.
Theirry’s glance fell; his companions were singing with uplifted faces, but he could not join them; the pillars with their foliated capitals oppressed him by their shadow, the saints glowing in mosaic on the drums of the arches frightened him with the unforgiving look in their long eyes.
“Laudate, pueri Dominum,
Laudate nomen Domini,
Sit nomen Domini benedictum,
Ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum.A Solis ortu usque ad occasum
Laudabile nomen Domini.”
The fresh young voices rose lustily; the church was full of incense and music; Theirry rose with the hymn ringing in his head and left the chapel.
The singers cast curious glances at him as he passed, and when he reached the door he heard a patter of feet behind him and turned to see Dirk at his elbow.
“I have done with it,” he said hoarsely.
Dirk’s eyes were flaming.
“Do you want to make public confession?” he demanded, breathing hard. “Remember, it is our lives to pay, if they discover.”
Theirry shuddered.
“I cannot pray. I cannot stay in the church. For days I have felt the blessing scorch me.”
“Come upstairs,” said Dirk.
As they went down the long hall they met one who was a friend of Joris of Thuringia.
Dirk stopped.
“Hast come from the sick man?”
“Yea.”
“He is mending?”
Theirry stared with wild eyes, waiting the answer.
“I know not,” said the youth. “He lies in a swoon and pants for breath.”
He passed on, something abruptly.
“Did ye hear that?” whispered Theirry. “If he should die!”
They went up to Dirk’s bare little chamber; the clouds had completely overspread the sky, and neither moon nor stars were visible.
Dirk lit the lamp, and Theirry sank on to the bed with his hands clasped between his knees.
“I cannot go on,” he said. “It is too horrible.”
“Art afraid?” asked Dirk quietly.
“Yea, I am afraid.”
“So am not I,” answered Dirk composedly.
“I cannot stay here,” breathed Theirry, with agonised brows.
Dirk bit his forefinger.
“Nay, for we have but little money and know all these pedants can teach us. ’Tis time we began to lay the corner-stones of our fortune.”
Theirry rose, twisting his fingers together.
“Talk not to me of fortunes. I have set my soul in deadly peril. I cannot pray, I cannot take the names of holy things upon my lips.”
“Is this your courage?” said Dirk softly. “Is this your ambition, your loyalty to me? Would you run whining to a priest with a secret that is mine as well as yours? Is this, O noble youth, what all your dreams have faded to?”
Theirry groaned.
“I know not. I know not.”
Dirk came slowly nearer.
“Is this to be the end of comradeship—our league?”
He took the other’s slack hand in his, and as he seldom offered or suffered a touch, Theirry thrilled at it as a great mark of affection, and at the feel of the smooth, cool fingers, the fascination, the temptation that this youth stood for stirred his pulses; still he could not forget the stern angel he thought he had seen upon the altar, and the way his tongue had refused to move when he had striven to pray.
“Belike, I have gone too far to turn back,” he panted, with questioning eyes.
Dirk dropped his hand.
“Be of me or not with me,” he said coldly. “Surely I can stand alone.”
“Nay,” answered Theirry. “Certes, I love thee, Dirk, as I have never cared for any do I care for thee.…”
Dirk stepped back and looked at him out of half-closed eyes.
“Well, do not stop to palter with talk of priests. Certainly I will be faithful to you unto death and damnation, and be you true to me.”
Theirry made a movement to answer, but a sudden and violent knock on the door checked him.
They looked at each other, and the same swift thoughts came to each; the students had suspected, had come to take them by surprise—and the consequences——
For a second Dirk shook with suppressed wrath.
“Curse the Magian spell!” he muttered. “Curse Zerdusht and his foul brews, for we are trapped and undone!”
Theirry sprang up and tried the inner door.
“ ’Tis secure,” he said; he was now quite calm.
“I have the key.” Dirk laid his hand on his breast, then snatched a couple of volumes from the shelf and flung them on the table.
The knock was repeated.
“Unbolt the door,” said Theirry; he seated himself at the table and opened one of the volumes.
Dirk slipped the bolt, the door sprang back and a number of students, headed by a monk bearing a crucifix, surged into the room.
“What do you want?” demanded Dirk, fronting them quietly. “You interrupt our studies.”
The priest answered sternly—
“There are strange and horrible accusations against you, my son, that you must disprove.”
Theirry slowly closed his book and slowly rose; all the terror and remorse of a few moments ago had changed into wrath and defiance, and the glow his animal courage sent through his body at the prospect of an encounter; he saw the eager, excited faces of his fellow-students, crowding in the doorway, the hard and unforgiving countenance of the monk, and he felt unaccountably justified in his own eyes; he did not see his antagonists standing for Good, and himself for Evil, he saw mere men whose evident enmity roused his own.
“What accusations?” asked Dirk; his demeanour appeared to have changed as completely as Theirry’s had done; he had lost his assured calm; his defiant bearing was maintained by an obvious effort, and his lips twitched with agitation.
The students murmured and forced further into the room; the monk answered—
“Ye are suspected of procuring the dire illness of Joris of Thuringia by spells.”
“It is a lie,” said Dirk faintly, and without conviction, but Theirry replied boldly—
“Upon what do you base this charge, father?”
The monk was ready.
“Upon your strange and close behaviour—the two of you, upon our ignorance of whence you came—upon the suddenness of the youth’s illness after words passed between him and Master Dirk.”
“Ay,” put in one of the students eagerly. “And he lapped water like a dog.”
“I have seen a light here well into the night,” said another.
“And why left they before the vespers were finished?” demanded a third.
Theirry smiled; he felt that they were discovered, but fear was far from him.
“These are childish accusations,” he answered. “Get you gone to find a better.”
Dirk, who had retreated behind the table, spoke now.
“Ye smirch us with wanton words,” he said pantingly. “It is a lie.”
“Will you swear to that?” asked the monk quickly.
Theirry interposed.
“Search the chamber, my father—I warrant you have already been peering through mine.”
“Yea.”
“And you found——?”
“Nothing.”
“Then are you not content?” cried Dirk.
The murmur of the students swelled into an angry cry.
“Nay—can ye not spirit away your implements if ye be wizards?”
“Great skill do you credit us with,” smiled Theirry. “But on nothing you can prove nothing.”
Although he knew that he could never allay their suspicions, it occurred to him that it might be possible to prevent the discovery of what the locked room held, and in that case, though they might have to leave the college, their lives would be safe; he snatched up the lantern and held it aloft.
“See you anything here?”
They stared round the bare walls with eager, straining eyes; one came to the table and turned over the volumes there.
“Seneca!” he flung them down with disappointment; the priest advanced and gazed about him; Dirk stood silent and scornful, Theirry was bold to defy them all.
“I see no holy thing,” said the monk. “Neither Virgin, nor saint, nor prie-Dieu, nor holy water.”
Dirk’s eyes flashed fiercely.
“Here is my breviary;” he pointed to it on the table.