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In a dilapidated villa, ravaged by invaders and eroded by time, sat Ysabeau the Empress, gazing out over the sunless Maremma. A sparse cluster of olive trees provided scant shade over the desolate expanse of marshy terrain, where murky pools veiled in noxious mists faintly shimmered under the oppressive clouds. Abandoned convent roofs and deserted palace pillars punctuated the desolation, devoid of any human presence.
A few birds, harbingers of desolation, swooped low over the marshes, their cries piercing through the eerie silence that enveloped the forsaken landscape. Sometimes, one would venture into the villa, only to be met with Ysabeau’s fierce repudiation, accompanied by hurling stones and harsh words.
The villa’s once-elegant marble, now stained and overgrown with reeds and wildflowers, bore witness to its decay. A vine, struggling for life, wound itself around two slender columns. And there, cloaked and huddled, sat the Empress, her gaze fixed upon the desolate marshes.
For three days, Ysabeau had made this desolation her abode. Each sunrise brought a daring peasant girl, defying the excommunication, to bring her sustenance before fleeing in fear. Death loomed before Ysabeau, but she refused to succumb to the ignoble fate of starvation.
Unaware of Balthasar’s defeat at Tivoli or Thomas’ ascension to the throne, Ysabeau’s thoughts dwelled solely on her husband, pondering how she might yet serve him in his absence. She harbored no hope of reunion or return; leaving behind a confession upon fleeing his camp, she acknowledged the irreconcilable divide between them, exacerbated by their foreign origins amidst the Saxons.
The stifling heat of the day became intolerable, prompting Ysabeau to seek refuge in the inner sanctum of the villa. There, amidst marigold roots breaking through the stone floor, and a remnant of the roof casting a feeble shade, she settled upon a broken column’s capital, succumbing to a languid weariness that subdued her once-proud spirit, leading her into slumber.
As the sun dipped low, bathing the landscape in a soft crimson glow, Ysabeau stirred from her rest. Her senses sharpened as faint voices and a man’s tread echoed from the outer chamber. Holding her breath, she cautiously approached the shattered doorway, peering into the adjoining room.
Seated beneath the vine-twisted columns, a colossal knight in battered armor attended to a slumbering child upon a crimson cloak. Ysabeau’s voice quivered as she spoke, “Balthasar.”
Startled, he turned to face her. “Tell me, my lord,” she implored, “as you would a stranger, what misfortune has brought you here?”
Rising softly, his face flushed with emotion, Balthasar confessed, “I am ruined. Another has been elected Emperor. Now, it matters not.”
Ysabeau’s gaze drifted to the child, her heart heavy with unspoken questions. “Is he unwell?”
“No, just weary from our travels since Tivoli,” Balthasar replied, his eyes fixed on her with a fervor that spoke volumes.
“I must depart,” Ysabeau declared.
“Must you?” Balthasar’s laughter echoed through the desolation.
“I am an outcast—I cannot share your trials,” she explained.
“I have sought you desperately, Ysabeau,” Balthasar confessed.
“Sought me?”
In the eerie quiet of the moonless night, Balthasar and Ysabeau stood in the shadows of their forsaken home, a dilapidated structure haunted by echoes of their past. Balthasar’s gaze drifted away from Ysabeau, his heart heavy with the weight of their shared sins.
“I thought my heart would burst when I found ye had gone to Rome,” he confessed, his voice tinged with sorrow.
“But you found the writing?” Ysabeau’s voice trembled with urgency.
“Aye,” he replied solemnly.
“You know—I slew him?” Her words hung heavy in the air, laden with the guilt of a life taken.
“I know you went to give your life for me,” Balthasar acknowledged, his tone carrying a mix of reverence and pain.
“I am accursed!” Ysabeau’s anguish echoed through the desolate night.
“You have been faithful to me,” Balthasar reassured her, his voice a beacon of steadfastness amidst the darkness.
“Oh, Balthasar!—does it make no difference?” Ysabeau’s desperation was palpable.
“It cannot,” he said, his voice heavy with resignation. “You are my wife—part of me; I have given you my heart to keep, and nothing can alter it.”
“You do not mock me?” Ysabeau’s fear seeped into her words.
“I do not speak for Him,” Balthasar admitted hoarsely, “but for myself—”
Ysabeau was at a loss for words, her turmoil too deep for easy expression.
“Ysabeau,” Balthasar’s voice softened with tenderness, “could you have lived apart from me?”
“Nay,” she whispered, her confession a bittersweet admission of their entwined fates. “I meant to die.”
“That I might be forgiven!” Balthasar’s anguish mirrored hers.
“What else could I do! Would they had slain me and taken the curse from you!” Ysabeau’s lament was filled with regret.
Balthasar drew her close, his embrace a shield against the world’s judgment. “There is no curse while we are together, Ysabeau.”
As they stood in the ghostly moonlight, their bond forged anew amidst the ruins of their lives, Ysabeau’s hand in Balthasar’s was a symbol of their shared resilience.
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“Tell me of yourself,” Ysabeau’s voice broke the silence, seeking solace in their shared history.
And in the darkness, Balthasar recounted their defeats, their losses, and the ascension of Thomas of Dendermonde as Emperor—a bitter reminder of their shattered dreams.
Her eyes blazed with indignation. “I have ruined you,” she confessed, her voice heavy with remorse.
“If you knew how little I care, for myself—certes, for you,” Balthasar’s smile was tinged with sorrow.
“Could I have held a throne without you, Ysabeau?” His words carried the weight of a thousand regrets.
Her fingers trembled in his, a silent acknowledgment of their intertwined destinies.
“Would I had been a better woman, for your sake, Balthasar,” Ysabeau’s lament was filled with self-reproach.
“All I grieve for, Ysabeau, is—God,” Balthasar’s voice wavered with uncertainty.
“God?” Ysabeau’s wonder mingled with fear.
“If He should not forgive?” Balthasar’s troubled thoughts spilled into the night air.
Their shared destiny weighed heavily upon them, and yet, amidst the darkness, they found solace in each other’s presence.
In the fading light of the setting sun, Ysabeau and Balthasar sat in the desolation of their surroundings, shadows creeping over the worn features of their faces and the sleeping form of Wencelaus. The ancient marble whispered tales of forgotten glory as vine leaves rustled in the evening breeze, and distant cries of wild-fowl echoed across the eerie marshes.
“Who is this Pope that he should hate us so?” pondered Ysabeau. “And who is this Thomas of Dendermonde that he should claim the throne of the West?”
“He is to be crowned in the Basilica today,” replied Balthasar.
“While we languish here!”
“I cannot fathom it. Nor do I now, Ysabeau,” Balthasar looked at her, “greatly care—”
“But you must care!” she exclaimed. “If I mean everything to you, then I must see you reclaim the throne; we shall go to Basil’s Court. This Thomas of Dendermonde shall not rest tonight in the gilded palace!”
“We have found each other,” the Emperor said simply.
She lifted his hand, kissed it, and silence settled between them, broken only by the gathering mist that veiled the Maremma and drained the sky of its rich colors.
“Who is that?” Ysabeau suddenly pointed across the murky marshland.
A figure, dark and spectral against the mist, darted frantically, a puppet of unseen forces, gyrating between the pools and throwing wild gestures towards the darkening sky.
“A madman,” declared Balthasar. “See how he runs, aimlessly, as if pursued—”
Ysabeau drew closer, chilled by the sight. “Is it a specter?” she whispered, “I feel a strange horror creeping over me—”
The Emperor made the sign of the Cross. “Perhaps part of the curse,” he muttered.
As suddenly as it had begun, the man’s frenzied dance halted, his figure etched against the dying sun until the thickening vapors obscured him from view.
“Why should we be surprised?” Balthasar mused. “There are many souls wandering, both Saxon and Roman—”
“Yet, his movements were unnatural,” she murmured, “and in three days, I have seen no one else.”
“We must depart,” Balthasar decided firmly. “This place is cursed.”
“At dawn, a girl brings food,” Ysabeau reminded him, her voice tinged with fear. “Enough for Wencelaus.”
“I have provisions,” Balthasar said, “given by one who did not know of our excommunication.”
Ysabeau’s senses sharpened. “I heard a step.”
Balthasar peered into the mist. “The man,” he whispered.
Out of the swirling mists emerged a figure, stumbling toward them, his clothes soaked and filthy, his eyes hollow and haunted.
“Thomas of Dendermonde!” Balthasar exclaimed.
Ysabeau gasped, clutching Wencelaus protectively. “The Emperor,” the newcomer croaked weakly.
Balthasar’s fury erupted. “Am I still your Emperor? You, who were to be crowned today in St. Peter’s church?”
Ysabeau’s eyes gleamed with vindication. “Rome has rejected you; they rose against such a king!”
Thomas shivered, his voice a whisper. “I fled Rome willingly, that den of iniquity!”
Balthasar stared, incredulous. “Is this the man who shattered our forces at Tivoli?”
“Is this the one who dared aspire to the throne of the West?” Ysabeau’s disdain was palpable.
“You are the Emperor,” Thomas conceded weakly, “and I renounce these false honors, nor do I serve Antichrist any longer—”
“He is mad!” Balthasar thundered.
In the midst of the tempest, Ysabeau’s voice cut through the chaos. “Listen to him,” she urged.
Thomas groaned. “I have nothing to say—just give me a place to rest.”
“Through you, we have no place ourselves,” Balthasar retorted grimly. “No shelter except these shattered walls you see; but now that you’ve returned to your loyalty, you must tell us of this Antichrist—”
Thomas straightened, his eyes burning with a strange intensity. “The one who reigns in Rome is Antichrist, Michael, who was once Edward Bensouda—”
“He perished,” the Emperor said, his face drained of color, “and the Pope was Blaise of Dendermonde.”
“That was the Devil’s doing, black magic!” Thomas’s voice rose to a feverish pitch. “The youth Blaise died a decade ago, and Edward Bensouda took his place.”
“It’s true!” Ysabeau exclaimed. “By what he said to me, I know it’s true—now I see it all so clearly.”
But Balthasar remained puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
A bolt of lightning tore through the broken wall, illuminating a solitary winged creature that flapped over the roofless villa.
Thomas began his tale, his voice thick and devoid of emotion. He spoke of Edward Bensouda, omitting Ursula of Rosewood. As his words unfolded, the storm intensified until darkness shrouded them, broken only by the blinding flashes of lightning and the deafening roar of thunder that reverberated in the oppressive air.
In the lulls between the strikes of lightning, they huddled together, unseen by each other, while Wencelaus sobbed on his mother’s chest, and the owls echoed eerie calls through the marble crevices.
Then, Thomas’s voice gained strength. “Rally against Rome, for all men will join your cause—an army of Lombards marches from Trastevere, and Saxons gather beyond the city walls.”
A blue flash revealed his strained face as he collapsed.
Balthasar hurried to him through the darkness. “He has fainted,” he said with fear, “is he perhaps mad?”
“He speaks the dreadful truth,” Ysabeau whispered.
Suddenly, at the peak of the storm’s fury, it ceased. The air turned cool, carrying a faint fragrance, and a bright moon emerged from the retreating clouds.
Its silver glow bathed the Maremma, the pools, the reeds, the ruins that sheltered them, revealing Thomas’s pallid face against the marble floor.
Balthasar glanced at his wife, neither daring to speak. Wencelaus, sensing the lifting darkness, spoke up. “A company approaches from the marsh—”
A sense of awe and fear held them mute as the moon’s radiance enveloped them like a spell.
Slowly, two knights and two ladies advanced, seeming to glide without movement across the marshland. The knights’ armor gleamed like glass, and the ladies wore silver garments adorned with wreaths of red and white roses.
As they reached the villa’s threshold, a cold, pure breeze swept in. The lady with golden hair and white violets spoke, her voice echoing like the sea in a conch shell.
They paused, casting a brilliant light that made Balthasar retreat and Ysabeau shield her eyes, recognizing some of them.
On earth, they had been known as Melchoir, Sebastian, Jacobea, and Sybilla.
“Balthasar,” the foremost knight said, “we come from the courts of Paradise to urge you to march against Rome. Evil reigns there, allowed to chastise a sinful populace, but its time has come. Proceed to Viterbo, where you will find the Cardinal of Narbonne, ordained by God as Pope, and an army. Lead them to storm Rome, and all will join in dismantling Antichrist.”
Balthasar fell to his knees. “And the curse?” he cried.
“It’s not God’s curse upon you,” the knight reassured. “Therefore, be comforted, Balthasar of Nola, and hasten to Viterbo at dawn.”
With that, they faded into the radiant light that transformed the Maremma.
Balthasar rose, shouting, “I am no longer excommunicated! I will be Emperor again. The curse is lifted!”
The moonlight dimmed, the clouds returned...
Balthasar seized Thomas’s shoulder. “Did you see the vision? The angels?”
Thomas, trembling from his faint, muttered, “I saw nothing—Ursula...Ursula...”