The Greatest Occult & Supernatural Tales of Marjorie Bowen. Bowen Marjorie
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rocks.
As they must wait for the horse to get a foothold on the slippery stones, for the servant to go ahead and cast the lantern light across the blackness, their progress was slow, but neither of the three spoke until they halted before a gate in a high wall that appeared to rise up, suddenly before them, out of the night.
The servant handed the lantern to his master and clanged the bell that hung beside the gate. Theirry could see by the massive size of the buttresses that flanked the entrance that it was a large castle the night concealed from him; the dwelling, certainly, of some great noble. The gates were opened by two men carrying lights. The horseman rode through, the two students at his heels.
“Tell my lady,” said he to one of the men, “that I bring two who desire her hospitality;” he turned and spoke over his shoulder to Theirry, “I am the steward here, my lady is very gentle-hearted.”
They crossed a courtyard and found themselves before the square door of the donjon.
Dirk looked at Theirry, but he kept his eyes lowered and was markedly silent; their guide dismounted, gave the reins to one of the varlets who hung about the door, and commanded them to follow him.
The door opened straight on to a large chamber the entire size of the donjon; it was lit by torches stuck into the wall and fastened by iron clamps; a number of men stood or sat about, some in a livery of bright golden-coloured and blue cloth, others in armour or hunting attire; one or two were pilgrims with the cockle-shells round their hats.
The steward passed through this company, who saluted him with but little attention to his companions, and ascended a flight of stairs set in the wall at the far end; these were steep, damp and gloomy, ill lit by a lamp placed in the niche of the one narrow deep-set window; Dirk shuddered in his soaked clothes; the steward was unfastening his mantle; it left trails of wet on the cold stone steps; Theirry marked it, he knew not why.
At the top of the stairs they paused on a small stone landing.
“Who is your lady?” asked Theirry.
“Jacobea of Martzburg, the Emperor’s ward,” answered the steward. He had taken off his mantle and his hat, and showed himself to be young and dark, plainly dressed in a suit of deep rose colour, with high boots, spurred, and a short sword in his belt.
As he opened the door Dirk whispered to Theirry, “It is the lady — ye met today?” “To-day!” breathed Theirry. “Yea, it is the lady.”
They entered by a little door and stepped into an immense chamber; the great size of the place was emphasised by the bareness of it and the dim shifting light that fell from the circles of candles hanging from the roof; facing them, in the opposite wall, was a high arched window, faintly seen in the shadows, to the left a huge fire-place with a domed top meeting the wooden supports of the lofty beamed roof, beside this a small door stood open on a flight of steps and beyond were two windows, deep set and furnished with stone seats.
The brick walls were hung with tapestries of a dull purple and gold colour, the beams of the ceiling painted; at the far end was a table, and in the centre of the hearth lay a slender white boarhound, asleep.
So vast was the chamber and so filled with shadows that it seemed as if empty save for the dog; but Theirry, after a second discerned the figures of two ladies in the furthest window-seat. The steward crossed to them and the students followed.
One lady sat back in the niched seat, her feet on the stone ledge, her arm along the window-sill; she wore a brown dress shot with gold thread, and behind her and along the seat hung and lay draperies of blue and purple; on her lap rested a small grey cat, asleep.
The other lady sat along the floor on cushions of crimson and yellow; her green dress was twisted tight about her feet and she stitched a scarlet lily on a piece of red samite.
“This is the chatelaine,” said the steward; the lady in the window-seat turned her head; it was Jacobea of Martzburg, as Theirry had known since his eyes first rested on her. “And this is my wife, Sybilla.”
Both women looked at the strangers.
“These are your guests until tomorrow, my lady,” said the steward.
Jacobea leant forward.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, and flushed faintly. “Why, you are welcome.”
Theirry found it hard to speak; he cursed the chance that had made him beholden to her hospitality.
“We are leaving the college,” he answered, not looking at her. “And for to-night could find no shelter.”
“Meeting them I brought them here,” added the steward.
“You did well, Sebastian, surely,” answered Jacobea. “Will it please you sit, sirs?”
It seemed that she would leave it at that, with neither question nor comment, but Sybilla, the steward’s wife, looked up smiling from her embroidery.
“Now wherefore left you the college, on foot on a wet night?” she said.
“I killed a man — or nearly,” answered Theirry curtly.
Jacobea looked at her steward.
“Are they not wet, Sebastian?”
“I am well enough,” said Theirry quickly; he unclasped his mantle. “Certes, under this I am dry.”
“That am not I!” cried Dirk.
At the sound of his voice both women looked at him; he stood apart from the others and his great eyes were fixed on Jacobea.
“The rain has cut me to the skin,” he said, and Theirry crimsoned for shame at his complaining tone.
“It is true,” answered Jacobea courteously. “Sebastian, will you not take the gentle clerk to a chamber — we have enough empty, I wot — and give him another habit?”
“Mine are too large,” said the steward in his indifferent voice.
“The youth will fall with an ague,” remarked his wife. “Give him something, Sebastian, I warrant he will not quarrel about the fit.”
Sebastian turned to the open door beside the fireplace.
“Follow him, fair sir,” said Jacobea gently; Dirk bent his head and ascended the stairs after the steward.
The chatelaine pulled a red bell-rope that hung close to her, and a page in the gold and blue livery came after a while; she gave him instructions in a low voice; he picked up Theirry’s wet mantle, set him a carved chair and left.
Theirry seated himself; he was alone with the two women and they were silent, not looking at him; a sense of distraction, of uneasiness was over him — he wished that he was anywhere but here, sitting a dumb suppliant in this woman’s presence.
Furtively he observed her — her clinging gown, her little velvet shoes beneath the hem of it, her long white hands resting on the soft grey fur of the cat on her knee, her yellow hair, knotted on her neck, and her lovely, meek face.
Then he noticed the steward’s wife, Sybilla; she was pale, of a type not greatly admired or belauded, but gorgeous, perhaps, to the taste of some; her russet red hair was splendid in its gleam through the gold net that confined it; her mouth was a beautiful shape and colour, but her brows were too thick, her skin too pale and her blue eyes over bright and hard.
Theirry’s glance came back to Jacobea; his pride rose that she did not speak to him, but sat there idle as if she had forgotten him; words rose to his lips, but he checked them and was mute, flushing now and then as she moved in her place and still did not speak.
Presently the steward returned and took his place on a chair between Theirry and his wife, for no reason save that it happened to be there, it seemed.
He played with the tagged laces on his sleeves and said nothing.
The mysterious atmosphere of the place stole over Theirry with a sense of the portentous;