Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
appearance upon the stage of a woman, who, in point of beauty, spirit
and daring bade fair to constitute a terrible rival, roused all the
dormant passions in Theodora's soul and when Roxana openly boasted
that she would wrest the power from the hands of her rival and rule in
the Emperor's Tomb in spite of the Pontiff, of Alberic and Marozia's
blood-kin, the soul of Theodora leaped to the challenge of the other
woman and she craved for the conflict as she had never longed for
anything in her life, save perchance, a love of which she had but
possessed the base counterfeit.
No one knew whence Roxana had come, nor how long she had been in Rome,
when an incident at San Lorenzo in Lucina had brought the two women
face to face. Both, with their trains, had simultaneously arrived
before the portals of the sanctuary when Roxana barred Theodora's way.
Some mysterious instinct seemed to have informed each of the person
and ambition of the other. For a moment they faced each other white
to the lips. Then Roxana and her train had entered the church, and as
she passed the other woman, a deadly challenge had flashed from her
blue eyes into Theodora's dark orbs. The populace applauded Roxana's
daring, and, in order to taunt her rival, she had established her court
on desert Aventine, assembling about her the disgruntled lovers of
Theodora and others, whom her disdain had driven to seek oblivion and
revenge.
The land of Roxana's birth was shrouded in mystery. Some reported her
from the icy regions of the North, others credited her with being the
fugitive odalisque of some Eastern despot, a native of Kurdistan, the
beauty and fire of whose women she possessed to a high degree.
Such was Roxana, who had challenged Theodora for the possession of the
Emperor's Tomb.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SHRINE OF HEKATÉ
Athwart the gleaming balconies of the east the morning sun shone
golden and the shadows of the white marble cornices and capitals and
jutting friezes were blue with the reflection of the cloudless sky.
Far below Mount Aventine the soft mists of dawn still hovered over the
seven-hilled city, whence the distant cries of the water carriers and
fruit venders came echoing up from the waking streets.
A fugitive sunbeam stole through a carelessly closed lattice of a
chamber in the palace of Theodora, and danced now on the walls, bright
with many a painted scene, now on the marble inlaid mosaic of the
floor. Now and then a bright blade or the jewelled rim of a wine cup of
eastern design would flash back the wayward ray, until its shaft rested
on a curtained recess wherein lay a faintly outlined form. Tenderly
the sunbeams stole over the white limbs that veiled their chiselled
roundness under the blue shot webs of their wrappings, which, at the
capricious tossing of the sleeper, bared two arms, white as ivory and
wonderful in their statuesque moulding.
The face of the sleeper showed creamy white under a cloud of dark,
silken hair, held back in a net of gold from the broad smooth forehead.
Dark, exquisitely pencilled eyebrows arched over the closed,
transparent lids, fringed with lashes that now and then seemed to
flicker on the marble pallor of the cheeks, and the proudly poised head
lay back, half buried in the cushions, supported by the gleaming white
arms that were clasped beneath it.
Then, as if fearful of intruding on the charms that his ray had
revealed, the sunbeam turned and, kissing the bosom that swelled and
sank with the sleeper's gentle breathing, descended till it rested on
an overhanging foot, from which a carelessly fastened sandal hung by
one vermilion strap.
Of a sudden a light footfall was audible without and in an instant the
sleeper had heard and awakened, her dark eyes heavy with drowsiness,
the red lips parted, revealing two rows of small, pearly teeth, with
the first deep breath of returning consciousness.
At the sound one white hand drew the silken wrappings over the limbs,
that a troubled slumber and the warmth of the Roman summer night had
bared, while the other was endeavoring to adjust the disordered folds
of the saffron gossamer web that clung like a veil to her matchless
form.
"Ah! It is but you! Persephoné," she said with a little sigh, as a
curtain was drawn aside, revealing the form of a girl about twenty-two
years old, whose office as first attendant to Theodora had been firmly
established by her deep cunning, a thorough understanding of her
mistress' most hidden moods and desires, her utter fearlessness and a
native fierceness, that recoiled from no consideration of danger.
Persephoné was tall, straight as an arrow, lithe and sinuous as a
snake. Her face was beautiful, but there was something in the gleam
of those slightly slanting eyes that gave pause to him who chanced to
cross her path.
She claimed descent from some mythical eastern potentate and was a
native of Circassia, the land of beautiful women. No one knew how she
had found her way to Rome. The fame of Marozia's evil beauty and her
sinister repute had in time attracted Persephoné, and she had been
immediately received in Marozia's service, where she remained till the
revolt of Alberic swept her mistress into the dungeons of Castel San
Angelo. Thereupon she had attached herself to Theodora who loved the
wild and beautiful creature and confided in her utterly.
"Evil and troubled have been my dreams," Theodora continued, as the
morning light fell in through the parted curtains. "At the sound of
your footfall I started up--fearing--I knew not what--"
"For a long time have I held out against his pleadings and commands,"
Persephoné replied in a subdued voice, "knowing that my lady slept. But
he will not be denied,--and his insistence had begun to frighten me. So
at last I dared brave my lady's anger and disturb her--"
"Frighten you, Persephoné?" Theodora's musical laughter resounded
through the chamber. "You--who braved death at these white hands of
mine without flinching?"
She extended her hands as if to impress Persephoné with their beauty
and strength.
Whatever the circumstance referred to, Persephoné made no reply. Only
her face turned a shade more pale.
The draped figure had meanwhile arisen to her full height, as she
stretched the sleep from her limbs, then, her question remaining
unanswered, she continued:
"But--of whom do you speak? A new defiance from Roxana? A new insult
from the Senator of Rome? I would have it understood," this with a
slight lift of the voice, "that even were the end of the world at hand,
of which they prate so much of late, and heaven and earth to crumble
into chaos, I would not be disturbed to listen to shallow plaints and
mock heroics."
"It is neither the one nor the other," replied Persephoné with an
apprehensive glance of her slanting eyes over her shoulder, "but my
Lord Basil, the Grand Chamberlain. He waits without where the eunuchs
guard your slumber, and his eyes are aflame with something more than
impatience--"
At the mention of the name a subtle change passed over the listener's
face, and a sombre look crept into her eyes as she muttered:
"What can he be bringing now?"
Then, with a sudden flash, she added, tossing back her beautiful head:
"Let the Lord Basil wait! And now, Persephoné, remove from me the
traces of sleep and set the couches in better order."
Silently and quickly the Circassian sprang forward and rolled back the
curtains from the lattices, letting a stronger but still subdued light
enter the chamber, revealing, as it did, many a chased casket, and
mirrors of polished steel and bronze, and lighting up exquisite rainbow
hued fabrics, thrown carelessly over lion-armed chairs, with here and
there an onyx table wonderfully carved.
The chamber itself looked out upon a terrace and garden, a garden
filled with such a marvellous profusion of foliage and flowers, that,
looking at it from between the glistening marble columns surrounding
the palace, it seemed as though the very sky above rested edgewise on
towering pyramids of red and white bloom. Awnings of softest pale blue
stretched across the entire width of the spacious outer colonnade,
where a superb peacock strutted majestically to and fro, with
boastfully spreading tail and glittering crest, as brilliant as the
gleam of the hot sun on the silver fringe of the azure canopies, amidst
the gorgeousness of waving blossoms that seemed to surge up like a sea
to the very windows of the chamber.
Filling an embossed bowl with perfumed water, Persephoné bathed the
hands of her mistress, who had sunk down upon a low, tapestried
couch. Then, combing out her luxuriant hair, she bound it in a
jewelled netting that looked like a constellation of stars against the
dusky masses it confined. Taking a long, sleeveless robe of amber,
Persephoné flung it about her subtle form and bound it over breast and
shoulders with a jewelled band. But Theodora's glance informed her that
something was still wanting and, following the direction of her gaze,
Persephoné's eye rested on a life-size statue of Hekaté that stood with
deadly calm on its inexorable face and slightly raised hands, from one
of which hung something that glittered strangely in the subdued light
of the recess.
Obeying Theodora's silent gesture, Persephoné advanced to the image and
took from its raised arm a circlet fashioned of two golden snakes with
brightly enamelled scales, bearing in their mouths a single diamond,
brilliant as summer lightning. This she gently placed on her mistress'
head, so that the jewel flamed in the centre of the coronet, then,
kneeling down, she drew together the unlatched sandals.
Persephoné's touch roused her mistress from a day dream that had set
her features as rigid as ivory, as she surveyed herself for a moment
intently in a great bronze disk whose burnished surface gave back her
flawless beauty line for line.
In Persephoné's gaze she read her unstinted admiration, for, beautiful
as the Circassian was, she loved beauty in her own sex, wherever she
found it.
Theodora seemed to have utterly forgotten the presence of the Grand
Chamberlain in the anteroom, yet, in an impersonal way, her thoughts
occupied themselves with the impending tete-a-tete.
Her life had been one constant round of pleasure and amusement, yet she
was not happy, nor even contented.
Day by day she felt the want of some fresh interest, some fresh
excitement, and it was this craving probably, more than innate
depravity, which plunged her into those disgraceful and licentious
excesses that were nightly enacted in the sunken gardens behind her
palace. Lovers she had had by the scores. Yet each new face possessed
for her but the attraction of novelty. The favorite of the hour had
small cause to plume himself on his position. No sooner did he believe
himself to be secure in the possession of Theodora's love, than he
found himself hurled into the night of oblivion.
A strange pagan wave held Rome enthralled. Italy was in the throes of
a dark revulsion. A woman, beautiful as she was evil, had exercised
within the past decade her baleful influence from Castel San Angelo.
Theodora had taken up Marozia's tainted inheritance. Members of a
family of courtesans, they looked upon their trade as a hereditary
privilege and, like the ancient Aspasias, these Roman women of the
tenth century triumphed primarily by means of their feminine beauty
and charms over masculine barbarism and grossness. It was an age
of feudalism, when brutal force and murderous fury were the only
divinities whom the barbarian conqueror was compelled to respect.
Lombards and Huns, Franks and Ostrogoths, Greeks and Africans, the
savage giants issuing from the deep Teutonic forests, invading the
classic soil of Rome, became so many Herculeses sitting at the feet of