And, afterward, I rode alone, back up the hill to the tall, dark castle, mine now, my home and the home of my vengeance. At fifteen I was the lord on the hill, and possessor of such wealth, in gold and land and antique treasures, as would make me a success in any world’s capital I chose to frequent. I chose none, however, for my heart and my passion and the wild, long history of my name held me to my home and the home in which my father had lived and died. I wished never to lose sight of that long black line against the sky that meant my castle on the hill, and, too, my promise to revenge my father’s death held me to this place.
Many days and nights I spent there alone, reading my father’s books and studying his knowledge, with only an old dumb man moving quietly (who moves more quietly than those who cannot speak?) about the darkness, bringing me what I needed and turning the world from the door. It was vengeance I was studying, and a means of it, for I was bound by that very devil lore that had killed my father, to turn it to bringing his murderers to justice. And soon it was almost a year, and I still knew nothing, and was no closer to my heart’s desire.
And it was a year to the day later that I sat in the garden, hidden below the crest of the hill by a heavy stone wall, safe, I thought, from any watcher. I was reading, and no footfall disturbed my work, but a voice spoke at my elbow.
“Is this not part my garden?” it spoke, and I leaped to my feet, the book fallen to the ground, seeing before me a tall and slim young man, ragged and tired, but with a hint of my family in his half-closed eyes.
“Who are you?” I demanded of the stranger, and he laughed.
“I am your half brother,” he said.
Then I laughed, but I fell back before the look in his eyes, so much my father that I feared him.
“Your father had more than one son,” he said, and touched the signet ring on my hand with the tip of his finger, and when I moved my hand away he laughed once more.
Then he was sober again, and his eyes were kind as he watched me. “Our father,” he said, “gave you his ring, because I am afraid that I had no legal right to it… yet.”
Then I understood. “You are the son of some poor country woman whom my father…” It was delicacy made me pause, but he laughed still more.
“I am,” he said.
I felt a great kindness growing in me toward this poor unfortunate. “I owe you something, then,” I said, and he nodded idly.
I offered him sanctuary in the castle for a day or two, until we could decide what I should do for him by way of reparation for my father’s unfortunate legacy to him. And together, almost arm in arm, we walked into the castle from the garden, and through the dark hallways, I the lord of the castle, he the beggar hoping for assistance, and we passed down the long hall from whose sides great dark portraits looked down, portraits of those who had borne us and cherished us and given us our common life.
Then, in the chamber where old Joseph had kindled a fire and set out supper, I turned to my companion to bid him be seated and eat with me.
“First, tell me,” I said. “What do they call you?”
For a long moment he stared at me from under his lids, and the firelight made his eyes sparkle. “Nicholas,” he said.
“Good.” And I waved him to bring his chair nearer the fire.
As we dined for the first time together he told me strange tales of wandering and seekings, of far lands and places that existed, I was certain, in no country but that of his moving mind. He talked of wonders he had seen, of princes he had met, and queens, and I let him talk, half listening, and half wondering what part this queer half brother of mine could play in the plans I was making. For I needed help, of that there was no doubt, and perhaps this was my help, sent to me, as it were, from my dead father himself.
So, when at last the fire was growing dim, and he had silenced himself with talking, I said to him: “Do you know how our father died?”
“He was hanged.”
“Were you there?”
“I saw it.” As he spoke, he looked long into the fire, as though seeing it again.
“I have committed myself to vengeance upon my father’s murderers,” I said. “I promised him as he died that they would suffer.”
Nicholas looked at me suddenly. “But he bade you forget his death so that he might leave you in peace.”
I shook my head, gazing in my turn into the fire. What secret faiths it held for us that night! “By my father’s death his work was broken and destroyed. By revenging him I shall recreate that work, and follow my father’s dearest dreams.”
Nicholas frowned. “But you cannot help your father’s work by harming a few blind villagers, or even by wiping out the village itself.”
“I could have put the village in flames, and the villagers into the ground, a year ago, had I wished that. They did not murder my father. It was the forces of evil and darkness and fear who gave my father into the hands of the villagers, and gave the villagers a scaffold upon which to hang him.”
Then Nicholas put back his head and laughed longer and louder than ever before. “Do you want, then, to destroy the forces of evil?”
I rose. “I will destroy the forces of evil, and for that I require your help.”
“You will require the help of the devil himself,” said Nicholas.
And so Nicholas remained in the castle with me, and there were two of us who walked the dark halls, and read the old books. But it was Nicholas who led me onto the trail of the vengeance which I sought.
“Do you know what the villagers fear?” he asked of me one day.
“They believe that a demon haunts the castle, and makes the land dark and blood-thickened, and that so long as the lord is under this demon’s claw, there will be death and destruction along the land. My father was good and kind, but he sought this demon on the hill to defeat it, and was defeated himself.”
“And you?”
“When I myself have found and destroyed this demon, then shall my father be revenged.”
“And what is your plan?” asked Nicholas.
“To seek and destroy.”
“And who will revenge you?” asked Nicholas. “If you should perish, the demon will hold sway, and his evil will be turned loose upon the land, to bring harm as he wishes.”
“Then I must marry,” I said firmly, but Nicholas laughed. “You will really go to any length to achieve your object,” he said.
Then, for the first time since my father’s death, I rode down to the village. From the sunny windows of the houses women watched me ride by, and the men in the streets narrowed their eyes and spat in my path. On the farther outskirts of the village I dismounted, for here was the family that had brought my father’s death. There had been a man to this family, a great motionless beast, and it had been he who stopped before my father and challenged the demon of the hill. When my father’s sword had taken the man’s life, it was witchcraft that helped him, they cried; not all the strength of my father’s arm nor the power of his voice could avail against their cries. And here was the cottage where the man had lived, and here the very path upon which he had awaited my father, and the dirt on which he had died. I stood, not knowing what I sought, and then a clear, cool laugh reached me, from the cottage garden.
It was a girl, young and golden-haired, and she stood watching me through the rosebushes.
“Are you counting pebbles,” she cried, “that you stand so silent and careful?”
I frowned. “Come here,” I said. She made an insolent curtsy, and with no hurrying of her steps came lazily through the garden gate to me.
“Who are you?” I said.
“Elizabeth,” she said demurely.
“And why do you live here?” I gestured at the cottage of the man who had killed my father.
“Please, sir,” she said, dimpling, “it is my father’s home, and my mother’s, I have no place else to live.”
“Your father?”
“He’s dead now, sir.”
“Are you the daughter of th
e man who died before the old lord of the hill?”
“I am, sir.”
“Do you know who I am?”
She glanced up at me from beneath her eyelashes. “You are the young lord, sir,” she said, “and a fine figure of a man, at that,” and, laughing, she turned and ran away.
I stood for a moment looking after her, and then I mounted my horse and rode back through the village and up the hill. There I found Nicholas, and I told him of Elizabeth.
And: “Bring her here,” I said.
Nicholas laughed.
“I have certainly made up my mind to marry,” I said, and then we both laughed.
And so Elizabeth came to the castle on the hill. How Nicholas brought her there I never asked, nor did he tell me what he had done. I know only that one day the door of the great study fell open, and Elizabeth stood before me, not laughing now, but proud and stubborn and lovely.
“So you came after all?” I said, genuinely pleased with my triumph.
“I had little choice,” she said.
“You make a charming addition to our family circle here,” I said.
Then, furiously angry, she cried out at me: “I am here because your devil’s hands brought me, and yet I am not afraid of you. Your devil’s hands killed my father, and he was not afraid, and I saw your father hanged and I was glad, do you hear me? And I wanted nothing more than to see your whole foul line perish, and yet I was a poor woman and could never revenge myself on you and your evil blood. But now—I am here, and I think I will see you die because of it. And I defy you and your castle and your devil, too!”
“At any rate the lady’s prayers should help you in your task,” Nicholas said, coming softly into the room, “for, if I know your devil at all, nothing will bring him more quickly than the defiance of a beautiful woman.”
And so I called Joseph and bade him keep Elizabeth prisoner in a high tower of the castle until such time as she should be more inclined to be courteous to her host.
And now suddenly Nicholas and I were feverish and hopeful of our search, for the time had come when the books my father had followed were beginning to be intelligible to me, and I could read easily the secrets they held. And one night I determined to be at this business of the devil and his will. I had caused Elizabeth to be brought to dinner, where she sat sullen and silent, and so I ordered her removed, to hide her tears in her tower prison.
The incident had left me in an evil humor, and I was ready, that night, for anything the devil might bring with him.
When Nicholas and I had finished dinner, we sat together quietly, until I said: “Nicholas, I mean to try the devil tonight.”
Nicholas laughed, as always. “Go carefully,” he said. “Our father’s ghost will be watching.”
“Will you try with me?” I asked.
Nicholas shook his head. “Sometimes, half brother,” he said, “these things are better done alone. I will be waiting to hear of your success.”
And so I sat alone in the study that had been my father’s, with one of his great books open on the table in front of me, and I drew the awful diagrams the books ordered, and mixed my secret potions, and spoke the dreadful words that were to call the devil to my side.
“In nomino lutheris, sathanus, et spiritus acherontis…”
These words the book had ordered me to speak, and as my lips formed the unholy syllables, the room rocked and a great thundering roll came from the walls and the ceiling, and from a cloud before the fire where lay my deadly potion stepped the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Aghast, I let my hand fall from the book, and I stared at this image in wonder and delight. Elizabeth? She was forgotten, and my father, and my vengeance, and the devil himself, for I had found a way to greater joy than either vengeance or love could bring. I felt myself drawn forward to the figure that stood so silently, regarding me, and I took a half step toward her. Then she held up her hand warningly.
“Walk carefully,” she said. “Come not too close to me.”
Recklessly I ran to her, and seized her hand. “Is there any danger in you that I would not willingly embrace?” I demanded, and came ever closer to her. With this, however, she laughed, and leaned her head back to look at me. “You are brave indeed…” she said.
No more than that shall I say of my lady of the fire. Let it be enough to add that for many nights, while Nicholas laughed at my anxiety, I locked myself again in the great study and from my father’s book repeated the spell that had brought her to me at first. I cannot say how the love of a being such as this will affect a man; I know only that I was mad, and, being mad, knew my madness and deliberately sought it out. No word of my father passed, those days, between Nicholas and me—everything was forgotten before the dreams of the image which came to me from the fire. Ardently as I implored her not to leave me, to stay or to take me with her, she would always reply, half smiling: “You will be with me soon enough, and we shall never be parted then.”
Such things, I know, lead to desperate deeds in a man, and yet it was Elizabeth, weary of her prison, who led me to my last disaster. For one golden afternoon, as I lay in the garden dreaming of my love, Nicholas came to me, and spoke softly and quickly: “I have given orders, half brother, that Elizabeth be released from the tower.”
Angrily, I half rose. “Who are you to be giving orders in my home?” I demanded first, and then: “And Elizabeth? Has she repented?”
“I give orders because I, too, am lord here,” Nicholas said quietly, “and Elizabeth—has repented.”
I could not speak before the mockery in his eyes. What would I have to do with Elizabeth, who was nothing before my lady from the flames? And Nicholas—he would be driven away, half brother or no, and I would have no rivals in my home.
But Nicholas said: “Elizabeth has repented, and yet, despairing of your love, she has turned her heart another way… to one not, perhaps, as wealthy, but of as noble blood.” And he made a gallant bow.
Then I was on my feet, hating him and seeing how surely he had stolen my life while I had lain idly under the curse of my spells. And I reached for my sword, but it lay in the study, by the fire, where I had cast it off and forgotten it, to kneel at the feet of my lady.
Then, afraid, I saw that I had been tricked, and that while Nicholas had stolen my life, my fair lady had held me bound in witchcraft. And I turned from Nicholas and went to the study, and, for the last time, spoke the words that brought my lady to me. And then, when she came, I did not go to her, but stood safely within the compass of my charmed circle, knowing now that to leave it was death, and I watched her, standing lovely before the fire, and I said:
“Did you, then, betray me?”
She laughed. “Are you afraid to come closer to me and ask that?”
I nearly went over to the fire when she spoke, because the enchantment in her voice was enough to turn any man’s head, except if he had in him, as I did, the warm memory of betrayal.
“I want to come no closer to you than I now know I can stand with safety,” I said.
“You will be with me soon enough.”
“And you and Nicholas…” I said. “What have I left now?”
She laughed again. “Even as I betrayed your father,” she said.
And now I knew that I could still be revenged.
“He bade you stay in peace,” she added, “and leave him in his grave!”
And then I thought, and, crying aloud to her, I made the sign of the cross, again and again, and watched her stand untouched before me. “You have no contact with the powers of good now,” she said. “Why do you invoke them against me?”
And I fell on my knees and covered my head, and she whispered: “You will be with me soon, my love, for I will be here. I will be waiting for you to come.” And when I looked up she had gone.
Then, indeed, I came out from my charmed circle, and raged as a madman at the walls and the fire, seeking her to destroy her. All the curses and invocations I could find in my mind I empl
oyed against her, and still found myself only raging against stone. And then I remember my crying: “Then I shall destroy you, if you are here, if I must destroy the whole world around you!”
And I ran into the darkness of the night outside, and knew only that there was a flaming torch in my hand, but the castle was old and the trees were dry, and there was more wood than stone that had gone to make up my home….
And as I ran down the road crying aloud, with the flames from the hill close on my heels, I thought I heard a voice crying from the tower, and I thought of Elizabeth and nearly turned back. But then, seeing the castle where it stood, a thing of flame, I fell instead on my knees and thought of Elizabeth, and called her name, and tried to return again from the powers of darkness and ask a kinder Lord to forgive me. And it was there that they found me, the villagers, and dragged me away, still crying out among themselves at my madness.
And so I die, as did my father, for the crimes of witchcraft and murder, for Elizabeth lay in the ruins of the castle. And for a day only I lay in my jail, watching the scaffold outside, and I wondered long about the madness that will take a man.
And then, with day, and as I stood (like my father so long ago; like my father!) at the foot of the scaffold and heard the crowd cry out against me, the ranks of them parted, and Nicholas came up to me where I stood.
“Ah, half brother!” he cried gaily. “You have made a pretty revenge for your father!”
But I asked him only: “How did you escape the flames in the castle?”
“My mother brought me out safely,” Nicholas said.
“Your mother?”
“Yes,” said Nicholas. “She whom you saw each night in the fire—she who betrayed our father, half brother!”
And he started away, laughing, but then he turned and came to me, and his deep eyes were serious. “Half brother,” he said, “I have one further thing to give you.” He lifted my hand as he spoke, and held it tight between his own. A wild, desperate hope leaped up within me, and I cried, thinking I might yet save myself from death: “Nicholas, help me now! What will you give me?”
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Page 22