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The Pope sat at a small table near the window of his private room in the Vatican, his face resting on his hand, deep in thought. The flickering light from a single candle cast long shadows across the room, adding to the eerie atmosphere. Leaning against the scarlet tapestries that covered the opposite wall stood Thomas, clad in chain mail and heavily armed, a stark contrast to the delicate figure of the Pope.
“You think I should be grateful?” Thomas asked in a low voice, his eyes half-frightened, wholly fascinated, fixed on the slender figure before him.
Michael II, dressed in a simple gold-colored silk robe and a skullcap of crimson and blue, appeared almost fragile. His red hair made his pale face seem even paler, his full lips strikingly colored against the pallor. No jewels or pomp adorned him, yet his presence was powerful.
“Grateful?” Michael repeated mournfully. “I think you do not know what I have done. I have dared to cast the Emperor from his throne. Lies he not even now without the walls, defying me with a handful of Frankish knights? Is not the excommunication on him?”
“Yea,” answered Thomas. “And is it for my sake ye have done this?”
“Must you question it?” Michael replied with a quick breath. “Yea, for your sake, to make you, as I promised, Emperor of the West. My vengeance had else been more quietly satisfied—” He laughed, a sound both chilling and sorrowful. “I have not forgot all my magic.”
Thomas winced. “The vision in the Basilica was proof of that. What are you who can bring back the hallowed dead to aid your schemes?”
Michael II answered softly, “And who are you who take my aid and my friendship, and all the while fear and loathe me?” He moved his hand from his face, revealing a deep red mark on his cheek where the palm had pressed. “Do you think I am not human, Thomas?” He sighed deeply. “If you would believe in me, trust me, be faithful to me—why, our friendship would be the lever to move the universe, and you and I would rule the world between us.”
Thomas fingered the arras beside him. “In what way can I be false to you?”
“You betrayed me once. You are the only man in Rome who knows my secret. But this is truth: if again you forsake me, you bring about your own downfall. Stand by me, and I will share with you the dominion of the earth—this, I say, is truth.”
Thomas laughed unhappily. “Sweet devil, there is no God, and I have no soul!—there, do not fear—I shall be very faithful to you—since what is there for man save to glut his desires of pomp and wealth and power?” He moved from the wall and took a quick turn about the room. “And yet I know not!” he cried. “Can all your magic, all your learning, all your riches, keep you where you are? The clouds hang angrily over Rome, nor have they lifted since Orsini announced you Pope—the people riot in the streets—all beautiful things are dead, many see ghosts and devils walking at twilight across the Maremma... Oh, horror!—they say Pan has left his ruined temple to enter Christian churches and laugh in the face of the marble Christ—can these things be?”
The Pope swept back the hair from his damp brow. “The powers that put me here can keep me here—be you but true to me!”
“Ay, I will be Emperor,” Thomas grasped his sword hilt fiercely, “though the world I rule rot about me, though ghouls and fiends make my Imperial train—I will join hands with Antichrist and see if there be a God or no!”
The Pope rose. “You must go against Balthasar. You must defeat his hosts and bring to me his Empress, then will I crown you in St. Peter’s.”
Thomas pressed his hand to his forehead. “We start to-morrow with the dawn—beneath the banner of God His Church; I, in this mail ye gave me, tempered and forged in Hell!”
“Ye need have no fear of failure; you shall go forth triumphantly and return victoriously. You shall make your dwelling the Golden Palace on the Aventine, and neither Heliogabalus nor Basil, nor Charlemagne shall be more magnificently housed than you...” Michael seemed to check his words suddenly; he turned his face away and looked across the city, which lay beneath a heavy pall of clouds. “Be but true to me,” he added in a low voice.
Thomas grinned wildly, a madness in his eyes. “Strange love you got for me, Michael, and even less faith in my strength or loyalty. Well, you’ll see. I march tomorrow, with many men and banners, to rout the Emperor completely.”
“Stay in the Vatican until then,” Michael II said abruptly. “My prelates and nobles know you as their leader now.”
“Nay,“—Thomas flushed as he spoke—“I must go to my own place in the city.”
“Jacobea of Martzburg is still in Rome,” Michael said quietly. “Do you leave me to go to her?”
“No—I don’t even know where she’s staying,” Thomas replied hastily.
Michael’s smile turned bitter. “What is Jacobea to me?” Thomas demanded desperately.
The Pope gave him a sinister glance. “Why did you approach her after her devotions in San Giovanni in Laterano? Why speak to her and bring yourself back to her mind?”
Thomas turned pale. “You know that?—Ah, it was the dancer, your accomplice... What mystery is this?” he asked in a distracted manner. “Why doesn’t Ursula of Rosewood come forth under her true name and confound the Emperor? Why does she follow me, and in such a disguise?”
Without looking at him, Michael answered, “Maybe because she’s very wise—maybe because she’s a fool. Let her be; she has served her purpose. You say you do not go to palter with Jacobea, then farewell until tomorrow. I have much to do...farewell, Thomas.”
He held out his hand with a stately gesture. As Thomas took it, a curious thought struck him: how rarely he had touched so much as Michael’s fingers, even in the old days, such a proud reserve had always surrounded the youth, and now, the man.
Thomas left the richly scented chamber and the vast halls of the Vatican, stepping into the riotous and lawless streets of Rome. The storm that had loomed unnaturally long over the city had affected the people. Thugs and assassins crept from their hiding places in the catacombs or the Palatine, brazenly roaming the streets. The wine shops were filled with mongrel soldiers of all nations, drawn by the declaration of war from the surrounding towns. Blasphemers openly mocked the processions of monks and pilgrims that roamed the streets chanting penitential psalms or scourging themselves in a futile attempt to avert divine wrath.
There was no law; crime went unpunished; virtue became a joke. Many of the convents were closed and deserted, their former occupants rejoining the world they suddenly longed for. The poor were despoiled, the rich robbed. Ghastly and blasphemous processions paraded the streets nightly in honor of some heathen deity. The priests inspired no respect, the name of God no fear. The plague marched among the people, striking down hundreds. Their bodies were flung into the Tiber, and their spirits joined the devils that danced on the Campagna to the accompaniment of rolling storms.
Witches gathered in the low marshes of the Maremma, creeping into the city at night, trailing grey, fever-laden vapors after them. The bell ropes began to rot in the churches, and the bells clattered from the steeples. The gold rusted on the altars, and mice gnawed the garments on the holy images of the Saints. The people lived with reckless laughter and died with hopeless curses. Magicians, warlocks, and vile things flourished exceedingly. All manner of strange and hideous creatures left their caves to prowl the streets at nightfall.
And so it was in Rome under Pope Michael II, swiftly and in a moment.
Thomas, like all others, went heavily armed. His hand was constantly on his sword hilt as he made his way through the city forsaken by God. With no faltering step or hesitating bearing, he passed through the crowds that gathered more thickly as the night came on and turned towards the Appian Gate. Here, it was gloomy, almost deserted; dark houses bordered the Appian Way, and a few strange figures crept along in their shadow. In the west, a sullen glare of crimson showed the sun setting behind the thick clouds. Darkness began to fall rapidly.
Thomas walked long beyond the Gate and stopped at a low convent building, above the portals of which hung a lamp, its gentle radiance like a star in the heavy, noisome twilight. The gate, which led into a courtyard, stood half open. Thomas softly pushed it wider and entered. The pure perfume of flowers greeted him; a sense of peace and security, grown strange of late in Rome, filled the square grass court. In the center was a fountain, almost hidden in white roses; behind their leaves, the water dripped pleasantly.
There were no lights in the convent windows, but it wasn’t yet too dark for Thomas to make out the slim figure of a lady seated on a wooden bench, her hands resting quietly in her lap. He latched the gate behind him and softly crossed the lawn.
“You said that I might come.”
Jacobea turned her head, unsmiling, unsurprised. “Aye, sir; this place is open to all.”
He uncovered his head before her. “I can’t hope you’re glad to see me.”
“Glad?” She echoed the word as if it was foreign to her; then, after a pause, she said, “Yes, I am glad that you have come.”
He seated himself beside her, his splendid mail touching her straight grey robe, his full, handsome face turned towards her worn and expressionless features.
“What do you do here?” he asked.
She answered in the same gentle tone, turning a white rose in her hands as she spoke. “So little—there are two sisters here, and I help them. One can do nothing against the plague, but for the little forsaken children, something; tend something for the miserable sick.”
“The wretched of Rome are not your responsibility,” he said eagerly. “It will mean your life—why didn’t you go with the Empress?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t needed. I suppose what they said of her was true. I can’t remember clearly, but I think that when Melchoir died, I knew it was her doing.”
“We must not dwell on the past,” cried Thomas. “Have you heard that I lead the Pope’s army against Balthasar?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Nay;” her eyes remained on the white rose.
“Jacobea, I shall be the Emperor.”
“The Emperor,” she repeated dreamily.
“I shall rule the Latin world—Emperor of the West!”
In the now complete darkness, they could scarcely see each other; there were no stars, and distant thunder rolled at intervals. Thomas timidly reached out his hand and touched the fold of her dress where it lay along the seat.
“I wish you wouldn’t stay here—it is so lonely—”
“I think she would wish me to do this.”
“She?” he questioned.
Jacobea seemed surprised he did not understand. “Sybilla.”
“O Christus!” shuddered Thomas. “You still think of her?”
Jacobea smiled, as he felt rather than saw. “Think of her?... Is she not always with me?”
“She is dead.”
He saw the blurred outline of the lady’s figure stir. “Yes, she died on a cold morning—it was so cold you could see your breath before you as you rode along, and the road was hard as glass—there was a yellow dawn that day, and the pine trees seemed frozen, they stood so motionless—you wouldn’t think it was ten years ago—I wonder how long it seems to her?”
A silence fell upon them for a while, then Thomas broke out desperately, “Jacobea—my heart is torn within me—today I said there was no God—but when I sit by you...”
“Yes, there is a God,” she answered quietly. “Be very sure of that.”
“Then I am past His forgiveness,” whispered Thomas.
Again he was mute; he saw before him the regal figure of Michael—he heard his words—“Be but true to me”—then he thought of Jacobea and Paradise...agony ran through his veins.
“Oh, Jacobea!” he cried at last. “I am beyond all measure mean and vile... I know not what to do... I can be Emperor, yet as I sit here, that seems to me as nothing.”
“The Pope favors you, you tell me,” she said. “He is a priest, and a holy man, and yet—it is strange, what is this talk of Ursula of Rosewood?—and yet it is no matter.”
His mail clinked in answer to his tremor.
The night was pitch-black, no lights flickering in the convent windows. Yet, it wasn’t so dark that Thomas couldn’t make out the slender figure of a lady seated on a wooden bench, her hands resting quietly in her lap. He latched the gate behind him and softly crossed the lawn.
“You said that I might come,” he called out.
Jacobea turned her head slowly, unsmiling, unsurprised. “Aye, sir; this place is open to all.”
He removed his hat and bowed. “I can’t hope you’re glad to see me.”
“Glad?” she echoed, the word sounding foreign to her. Then, after a pause, she said, “Yes, I am glad that you have come.”
He sat beside her, his gleaming armor brushing against her plain grey dress, his handsome face turned toward her worn, expressionless features.
“What do you do here?” he asked.
She answered in the same gentle tone, turning a white rose in her hands as she spoke. “So little—there are two sisters here, and I help them. One can do nothing against the plague, but for the little forsaken children, something; tend something for the miserable sick.”
“The wretched of Rome are not your responsibility,” he said eagerly. “It will mean your life—why didn’t you go with the Empress?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t needed. I suppose what they said of her was true. I can’t remember clearly, but I think that when Melchoir died, I knew it was her doing.”
“We must not dwell on the past,” cried Thomas. “Have you heard that I lead the Pope’s army against Balthasar?”
“Nay;” her eyes remained on the white rose.
“Jacobea, I shall be the Emperor.”
“The Emperor,” she repeated dreamily.
“I shall rule the Latin world—Emperor of the West!”
In the now complete darkness, they could scarcely see each other; there were no stars, and distant thunder rumbled. Thomas timidly reached out his hand and touched the fold of her dress where it lay along the seat.
“I wish you wouldn’t stay here—it is so lonely—”
“I think she would wish me to do this.”
“She?” he questioned.
Jacobea seemed surprised he did not understand. “Sybilla.”
“O Christus!” shuddered Thomas. “You still think of her?”
Jacobea smiled, as he felt rather than saw. “Think of her?... Is she not always with me?”
“She is dead.”
He saw the blurred outline of the lady’s figure stir. “Yes, she died on a cold morning—it was so cold you could see your breath before you as you rode along, and the road was hard as glass—there was a yellow dawn that day, and the pine trees seemed frozen, they stood so motionless—you wouldn’t think it was ten years ago—I wonder how long it seems to her?”
A silence fell upon them for a while, then Thomas broke out desperately, “Jacobea—my heart is torn within me—today I said there was no God—but when I sit by you...”
“Yes, there is a God,” she answered quietly. “Be very sure of that.”
“Then I am past His forgiveness,” whispered Thomas.
Again he was mute; he saw before him the regal figure of Michael—he heard his words—“Be but true to me”—then he thought of Jacobea and Paradise...agony ran through his veins.
“Oh, Jacobea!” he cried at last. “I am beyond all measure mean and vile... I know not what to do... I can be Emperor, yet as I sit here, that seems to me as nothing.”
“The Pope favors you, you tell me,” she said. “He is a priest, and a holy man, and yet—it is strange, what is this talk of Ursula of Rosewood?—and yet it is no matter.”
His mail clinked in answer to his tremor.
“Tell me what I must do—see, I am in a great confusion; the world is very dark, this way and that show little lights, and I strive to follow them—but they change and move and blind me—and if I grasp one it is extinguished into greater darkness; I hear whispers, murmurs, threats, I believe them, and believe them not, and all is confusion, confusion!”
Jacobea rose slowly from the bench. “Why do you come to me?”
“Because you seem to me nearer heaven than anything I know...”
Jacobea pressed the white rose to her bosom. “It is dark now—the flowers smell so sweet—come into the house.”
He followed her dim-seen figure across the grass; she lifted the latch of the convent door and went before him into the building.
For a while she left him in the passage, then returned with a pale lamp in her hand and conducted him into a small, bare chamber, which seemed mean in contrast with the glowing splendor of his appearance.
“The sisters are abroad,” said Jacobea. “And I stay here in case any ring the bell for succor.” She set the lamp on the wooden table and slowly turned her eyes on Thomas.
“Sir, I am very selfish.” She spoke with difficulty, as if she painfully forced expression. “I have thought of myself for so many years—and somehow”—she lightly touched her breast—“I cannot feel, for myself or for others; nothing seems real, save Sybilla; nothing matters save her—sometimes I cry for little things I find dying alone, for poor unnoticed miseries of animals and children—but for the rest...you must not blame me if I do not sympathize; that has gone from me. Nor can I help you; God is far away beyond the stars. I do not think He can stoop to such as you and me—and—and—I do not feel as if I should wake until I die—”
Thomas covered his eyes and moaned.
Jacobea was not looking at him, but at the one bright thing in the room—a samite cushion worked with a scarlet lily that rested on a chair by the window.
“Each our own way to death,” she said. “All we can do is so little compared with that—death—see, I think of it as a great crystal light, very cold, that will slowly encompass us, revealing everything, making everything easy to understand—white lilies will not be more beautiful, nor breeze at summertime more sweet...so, sir, must you wait patiently.”
She took her gaze from the red flower and turned her tired grey eyes on him.
The blood surged into his face; he clenched his hands and spoke passionately. “I will renounce the world, I will become a monk...”
The words choked in his throat; he looked fearfully around; the lamplight struck his armor into a hundred points of light and cast pale shadows over the whitewashed walls.
“What was that?” asked Jacobea.
Someone was singing outside: Thomas’s strained eyes glistened.
“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!”
Thomas turned and went out into the dark, hot night.
He could see neither roses, nor fountain, nor even the line of the convent wall against the sky; but the light above the gate revealed to him the dancer in orange, who leant against the stone arch of the entrance and sang to a strange long instrument that hung round her neck by a gleaming chain.
At her feet, the ape crouched, nodding himself to sleep.
“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!”
Behind Thomas came Jacobea, with the lantern in her hand.
“Who is this?” she asked.
The dancer laughed; the sound of it muffled behind her mask.
Thomas made his way across the dark to her. “What do you do here?” he demanded fiercely. “The Pope’s spy, you!”
“May I not come to worship here as well as another?” she answered.
“You know too much of me!” he cried distractedly. “But I also have some knowledge of you, Ursula of Rosewood!”
“How does that help you?” she asked, drawing back a little before him.
“I would discover why you follow me—watch me.”
He caught her by the arms and held her against the stone gateway. “Now tell me the meaning of your disguise,” he breathed, “and of your league with Michael II.”
Thomas’s breath came in sharp gasps, his hands trembling as he glanced around. The haunting echo of the dancer’s laughter lingered in the air, taunting him. His eyes strained to adjust to the oppressive darkness that seemed to swallow the world around him.
He took a step forward, the clang of his mail echoing ominously. “Shut out,” he whispered, the words repeating like a desperate prayer. “Shut out!”
The convent door was closed, and Jacobea, with her gentle grace, had vanished. The night seemed even darker without her faint lamp’s light, and Thomas turned towards the scattered lanterns lining the Appian Way. He spotted the dancer’s orange gown flickering in and out of view, like a will-o’-the-wisp leading him deeper into the night.
Thomas’s pace quickened, his footsteps clattering against the cobblestones. He could see the city gates looming ahead, a shadowy sentinel against the stormy sky. The dancer glanced back, her eyes glittering with mischief.
“Ah!” she taunted, her voice carrying on the wind. “I thought you had stayed with the sweet-faced saint yonder.”
“She wants none of me,” Thomas panted. “But I—I mean to see your face tonight.”
“I am not beautiful,” replied the dancer, her tone mocking. “And you have seen my face.”
“Seen your face?”
“Certes! In the Basilica on the Fête.”
“I knew you not in the press.”
“Nevertheless, I was there.”
“I looked for you.”
“I thought ye looked for Jacobea.”
“Also I sought you,” Thomas said, his voice raw with desperation. “Ye madden me.”
The storm gathered, lightning slicing through the sky, casting eerie glows over Thomas’s jeweled mail and the dancer’s vibrant gown. The ruins around them loomed like dark sentinels, their ancient stones whispering secrets of forgotten times.
“Do you wander here alone at night?” asked Thomas. “It is a vile place; a man might be afraid.”
“I have the ape,” she said simply.
“But the storm?”
“In Rome nowadays, we are well used to storms,” she answered in a low, haunting voice.
He fell silent, struggling to find words. The silence was heavy, filled with unspoken emotions. A dark fascination pulled him towards her, an excitement that stirred his very soul.
“Where are we going?” asked Thomas. The lanterns had ceased, and he could see her only by the lightning’s brief flashes.
“I know not—why do you follow me?”
“I am mad, I think—the earth rocks beneath me and heaven bends overhead—you lure me, and I follow in sheer confusion—Ursula of Rosewood, why have you lured me? What power is it that you have over me? Wherefore are you disguised?”
She touched his mail in the dark, her fingers light as a whisper. “I am Balthasar’s wife.”
“Ay,” he responded eagerly, “and I do hear ye loved another man—”
“What is that to you?” she asked, her voice a dagger in the dark.
“This—though I have not seen your face—perchance could I love you, Ursula!”
“Ursula!” She laughed, the sound cold and distant.
“Is it not your name?” he cried wildly.
“Yea—but it is long since any used it—”
The darkness twisted and writhed around Thomas, the air thick with a nameless passion. His heart raced, and he felt as if he were breathing in the very essence of the storm.
“Witch or demon,” he said, his voice trembling, “I have cast in my lot with the Devil and Michael II, his servant—I follow the same master as you, Ursula.”
He reached out and grasped her arm, feeling the quiver beneath his grip. “Who is the man for whose sake ye are silent?” he demanded.
She remained silent, but her arm trembled, and he could hear the faint tinkle of her tunic’s hems against her buskins. The air was suffocatingly hot, and Thomas’s heart pounded with a fierce intensity.
Finally, she spoke in a half-swooning voice. “I have taken off my mask...bend your head and kiss me.”
Invisible and potent forces drew him towards her unseen face; his lips met hers, soft and intoxicating...
A deafening crash of thunder split the air, and Thomas sprang back, a cry of agony escaping his lips. He ran forward blindly, her presence gone from his side, lost in the darkness.
The night was alive with malevolent spirits—witches and warlocks with swinging lanterns, imps and fiends cackling with glee. They gathered around Thomas, their shrieks and howls mingling with the storm’s fury.
Sobbing, Thomas fled down the Appian Way, his pace swift despite the weight of his mail, driven by terror and madness into the heart of the tempest.
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