In the palace on the Aventine, Balthasar stood at a window looking over Rome.
The clouds that had hung for weeks above the city cast a dull yellow glow over marble and stone; the air was hot and sultry, now and then thunder rolled over the Vatican and a flash of lightning revealed the Angel on Castel San Angelo poised above the muddy waters of the Tiber.
A furious, utter dread and terror gripped Balthasar’s heart; days had passed since his defiance of the Pope and he had heard no more of his daring, but he was afraid, afraid of Michael II, of the Church, of Heaven behind it — afraid of this woman who had risen from the dead...
He knew the number of his enemies and with what difficulty he held Rome, he guessed that the Pope intended his downfall and to put another in his place — but not this almost certain ruin disturbed him day and night, no — the thought that the Church might throw him out and consign his soul to smoky hell.
Bravely enough had he dared the Pope at the time when his heart was hot within him, but in the days that followed his very soul had fainted to think what he had done; he could not sleep nor rest while waiting for outraged Heaven to strike; he darkly believed the continual storm brooding over Rome to be omen of God’s wrath with him.
His trouble was the greater because it was secret, the first that, since they had been wedded, he had concealed from Ysabeau. As this touched her, in an infamous and horrible manner, he could neither breathe it to her nor any other, and the loneliness of his miserable apprehension was an added torture.
This morning he had interviewed the envoys from Germany and his chamberlain; tales of anarchy and turmoil in Rome, of rebellion in Germany had further distracted him; now alone in his little marble cabinet, he stared across the gorgeous, storm-wrapt city.
Not long alone; he heard some one quietly enter, and because he knew who it was, he would not turn his head.
She came up to him and laid her hand on his plain brown doublet.
“Balthasar,” she said, “will you never tell me what it is that sits so heavily on your heart?” He commanded his voice to answer.
“Nothing, Ysabeau — nothing.”
The Empress gave a long, quivering sigh.
“This is the first time you have not trusted me.”
He turned his face; white and wan it was of late, with heavy circles under the usually joyous eyes; she winced to see it.
“Oh, my lord!” she cried passionately. “No anguish is so bitter when shared!”
He took her hand and pressed it warmly to his breast; he tried to smile.
“Certes, you know my troubles, Ysabeau, the discontent, the factions — matter enough to make any man grave.”
“And the Pope,” she said, raising her eyes to his; “most of all it is the Pope.”
“His Holiness is no friend to me,” said the Emperor in a low voice. “Oh, Ysabeau, we were deceived to aid him to the tiara.”
She shuddered.
“I persuaded you...blame me...I was mad. I set your enemy in authority.”
“Nay!” he answered in a great tenderness. “You are to blame for nothing, you, sweet Ysabeau.”
He raised the hand he held to his lips; in the thought that he suffered for her sake was a sweet recompense.
She coloured, then paled.
“What will he do?” she asked. “What will he do?”
“Nay — I know not.” His fair face overclouded again.
She saw it and terror shook her.
“He said more to you that day than you will tell me!” she cried. “You fear something that you will not reveal to me!”
The Emperor made an attempt at lightness of speech.
“He is a poor knight who tells his lady of his difficulties,” he said. “I cannot come crying to you like a child.”
She turned to him the soft frail beauty of her face and took his great sword hand between hers. “I am very jealous of you, Balthasar,” she said thickly, “jealous that you should shut me out —— from anything.”
“You will know soon enough,” he answered in a hoarse voice. “But never from me.” The tears lay in her violet eyes as she fondled his band.
“Are we not as strong as this man, Balthasar!”
“Nay,” he shivered, “for he has the Church behind him — tomorrow, we shall see him again — I dread tomorrow.”
“Why?” she asked quickly. “To-morrow is the Feast of the Assumption and we go to the Basilica.”
“Yea, and the Pope will be there in his power and I must kneel humbly before him — yet not that alone —”
“Balthasar! what do you fear?”
He breathed heavily.
“Nothing — a folly, an ugly presentiment, of late I have slept so little. — Why is he quiet? — He meditates something.”
His blue eyes widened with fear, he put the Empress gently from him.
“Take no heed, sweet, I am only weary and your dear solicitude unnerves me — I must go pray Saint Joris to remember me.”
“The Saints!” she cried hotly. “A knife would serve us better could we but thrust it into this Caprarola — who is he, this man who dares menace us?”
The childishly fair face was drawn with anxious love and bitter fury; the purple eyes were wet and brilliant, under her long robe of dull yellow samite her bosom strove painfully with her breath.
The Emperor turned uneasily aside.
“The storm,” he said, raising his voice above a whisper with an effort. “I think that it oppresses me and makes me fearful — how many days — how many days, Ysabeau, since we have seen a cloudless sky!”
He moved away from her hastily and left the room with an abrupt step.
The Empress crouched against the marble columns that supported the window, and as her unseeing eyes gazed across the shadowed city a look of cunning calculation, of fierce rage came into her face; it was many years since that sinister expression had marred her loveliness, for, since her second marriage she had met no man who threatened her or menaced her path or the Emperor’s as now did his Holiness, Michael II.
She half suspected him of having broken his vile bargain with her, she rightly thought that nothing save the revelation of his first wife’s existence could have so subdued and troubled Balthasar’s joyous courage and hopeful heart; she cursed herself that she had been a frightened fool to be startled into making a pact she might have known the Cardinal would not keep; she was bitterly furious that she had helped to set him in the position he now turned against her, it had been better had she refused to buy his silence at such a price — better that Cardinal Caprarola should have denounced her than that the Pope should use this knowledge to unseat her husband.
She had never imagined that she had a friend in Michael II, but she had not imagined him so callous, cruel and false as to take her bribe and still betray her — even though the man had revealed himself to her for what he was, as ambitious, unscrupulous and hard; she had not thought he would so shamelessly be false to his word.
Angry scorn filled her heart when she considered the reputation this man had won in his youth — that indeed he still bore with some — yet it could not but stir her admiration to reflect what it must have cost a man of the Pope’s nature to play the ascetic saint for so many years. But his piety had been well rewarded — the poor Flemish youth sat in the Vatican now, lord of her husband’s fortunes and her own honour.
Then she fell to pondering over the story of Ursula of Rooselaare, wondering where she was, where she had been these years, and how she had met Cardinal Caprarola... The Empress dwelt on these things till her head ached; impatiently she thrust wider open the stained glass casement and leant from the window.
But there was no breeze abroad to cool her burning brow, and on all sides the sky was heavy with clouds over which the summer lightning played.
Ysabeau turned her eyes from the threatening prospect, and with a stifled groan began pacing up and down the tesselated floor of the cabinet.
She was interrupted by the entry of a lady tall and fair, leading a beautiful child by the hand. Jacobea of Martzburg and Ysabeau’s son.
“We seek for his Grace,” smiled the lady. “Wencelaus wishes to say his Latin lesson, and to tell the tale of the three Dukes and the sack of gold that he has lately learnt.”
The Empress gave her son a quick glance.
“You shall tell it to me, Wencelaus — my lord is not here.”
The boy, golden, large and glorious to look upon, scowled at her.
“Will not tell it you or any woman.” Ysabeau answered in a ki............