Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
the divine enchantments of Venus, nor have the lips ever closed on
mine, that could kindle the spark to set my breast afire with longing."
"Ah me!" she continued, speaking as though she thought aloud. "Will
Hekaté ever grant me to find amongst these husks of passion and
plotting that great love whereof once I dreamed, that love which I am
seeking and which ever flits before me, disembodied and unattainable,
like a ghost in the purple twilight? Or, must I wander, ever loved yet
unloving, until I am gathered to the realms of shadows, robbed of my
desire by Death's cold hand?"
She paused, her lips a-quiver, the while Basil watched her with
half-closed eyes, filled with sudden and ominous brooding.
"Who is the favored one?" he queried darkly, "who came and saw and
conquered, while others of long-tried loyalty are starving at the
fount?"
She gave him an inscrutable glance, then answered quickly:
"A man willing to risk life and honor and all to serve me as I would be
served."
Basil gave her a baffled look.
"Can he achieve the impossible?"
Theodora gave a shrug.
"To him who truly loves nothing is impossible. You are the trusted
friend of the Senator who encompasses my undoing--need I say more?"
"Were I not, Lady Theodora, in seeming,--who knows, but that your blood
would long have dyed this Roman soil, or some dark crypt contained your
wonderful beauty? Bide but the time--"
An impatient wave of Theodora's hand interrupted the speaker.
"Time has me now! Will there ever be an end to this uncertainty?"
"You have not yet told me the name of him whose sudden advent on the
stage has brought about so marvellous a transformation," Basil said
with an air of baffled passion and rage.
"What matters the name, my lord?" Theodora interposed with a sardonic
smile.
"A nameless stranger then," he flashed with a swiftness that staggered
even the woman, astute as she was.
"I said not so--"
"A circumstance that should recommend him to our consideration," he
muttered darkly. "I shall find him--and bring him to the feast--"
There was something in his voice that roused the tigress in the woman.
"By the powers of hell," she turned on the man whose fatal guess had
betrayed her secret, "if you but dare touch one hair of his head--"
Basil raised his hand disdainfully.
"Be calm, Lady Theodora! The Grand Chamberlain soils not his steel with
such carrion," he said with a tone of contempt that struck home. "And
now I will be plain with you, Lady Theodora. All things have their
price. Will you grant to me what I most desire in return for that which
is ever closest to your heart?"
Theodora gave a tantalizing shrug.
"Like the Fata Morgana of the desert, I am all things to all men," she
said. "Remember, my lord, I must look for that which I desire wherever
I may find it, since life and the future are uncertain."
There was a silence during which each seemed intent upon fathoming the
secret thoughts of the other.
It was Basil who spoke.
"What of that other?"
Theodora had arisen.
"Bring him to me--three days hence--as my guest. Thrice has he crossed
my path.--Thrice has he defied me!--I have that in store for him at
which men shall marvel for all time to come!"
Basil bent over the white hand and kissed it. Then he took his leave.
Had he seen the expression in the woman's eyes as the heavy curtains
closed behind him, it would have made the Grand Chamberlain pause.
Theodora passed to where the bronze mirror hung and stood long before
it, with hands clasped behind her shapely head, wrapt in deepest
thought.
And while she gazed on her mirrored loveliness, an evil light sprang up
in her eyes and all her mouth's soft lines froze to a mould of dreaming
evil, as she turned to where the image of Hekaté gazed down upon her
with inhuman calm upon its face, and, holding out shimmering, imploring
arms, she cried:
"Help me now, dread goddess of darkness, if ever you looked with love
upon her whose prayers have been directed to you for good and for evil.
Fire the soul of him I desire, as he stands before me, that he lose
reason, honor, and manhood, as the price of my burning kisses--that he
become my utter slave."
She clapped her hands and Persephoné appeared from behind the curtains.
"For once Fate is my friend," she turned with flashing eyes to the
Circassian. "Before his departure to the shrines of the Archangel,
Alberic has appointed this nameless stranger captain of Castel San
Angelo. Go--find him and bring him to me! Now we shall see," she added,
"if all this beauty of mine shall prevail against his manhood. Your
eyes express doubt, my sweet Persephoné?"
Theodora had raised herself to her full height. She looked regal
indeed--a wonderful apparition. What man lived there to resist such
loveliness of face and form?
Persephoné, too, seemed to feel the woman's magic, for her tone was
less confident when she replied:
"Such beauty as the Lady Theodora's surely the world has never seen."
"I shall conquer--by dread Hekaté," Theodora flashed, flushed by
Persephoné's unwitting tribute. "He shall open for me the portals of
the Emperor's Tomb, he shall sue at my feet for my love--and obtain his
guerdon. Not a word of this to anyone, my Persephoné--least of all, the
Lord Basil. Bring the stranger to me by the postern--"
"But--if he refuse?"
There was something in Persephoné's tone that stung Theodora's soul to
the quick.
"He will not refuse."
Persephoné bowed and departed, and for some time Theodora's dark
inscrutable eyes brooded on the equally inscrutable face of the goddess
of the Underworld, which was just then touched by a fugitive beam of
sunlight and seemed to nod mysteriously.
CHAPTER X
A SPIRIT PAGEANT
When, on the day succeeding his appointment Tristan returned to the
Inn of the Golden Shield he felt as one in a trance. Like a puppet of
Fate he had been plunged into the seething maelstrom of feudal Rome.
He hardly realized the import of the scene in which he had played so
prominent a part. He had acted upon impulse, hardly knowing what it was
all about. Dimly at intervals it flashed through his consciousness,
dimly he remembered facing two youths, the one the Senator of Rome--the
other the High Priest of Christendom, even though a prisoner in the
Lateran. Vaguely he recalled the words that had been spoken between
them, vaguely he recalled the fact that the Senator of Rome had
commended him for having saved the city, offering him appointment,
holding out honor and preferment, if he would enter his service.
Vaguely he remembered bending his knee before the proud son of Marozia
and accepting his good offices.
In the guest-chamber Tristan found pilgrims from every land assembled
round the tables discoursing upon the wonders and perils hidden in the
strange and shifting corridors of Rome. Not a few had witnessed the
scene in which he had so conspicuously figured and, upon recognizing
him, regarded him with shy glances, while commenting upon the
prevailing state of unrest, the periodical seditions and outbreaks of
the Romans.
Tristan listened to the buzz and clamor of their voices, gleaning here
and there some scattered bits of knowledge regarding Roman affairs.
He could now review more calmly the events of the preceding day.
Fortune seemed to have favored him indeed, in that she had led him
across the path of the Senator of Rome.
Thus Tristan set out once again, to make the rounds of worship and
obedience. These absolved, he wandered aimlessly about the great city,
losing himself in her ruins and gardens, while he strove in vain to
take an interest in what he beheld, rather distracted than amused by
the Babel-like confusion which surrounded him on all sides.
Nevertheless, once more upon the piazzas and tortuous streets of Rome,
his pace quickened. His pulses beat faster. At times he did not feel
his feet upon those stony ways which Peter and Paul had trod, and many
another who, like himself, had come to Rome to be crucified. People
stared at his dark and sombre form as he passed. Now and then he was
retarded by chanting processions, that wound their interminable coils
through the tortuous streets, pilgrims from all the world, the various
orders of monks in the habits peculiar to their orders, wine-venders,
water-carriers, men-at-arms, sbirri, and men of doubtful calling.
Sacred banners floated in the sunlit air and incense curled its
graceful spiral wreaths into the cloudless Roman ether.
Surely Rome offered a wide field for ambition. A man might raise
himself to a certain degree by subservience to some powerful prince,
but he must continue to serve that prince, or he fell and would never
aspire to independent domination, where hereditary power was recognized
by the people and lay at the foundation of all acknowledged authority.
It was only in Central Italy, and especially in Romagna and the States
of the Church, where a principle antagonistic to all hereditary claims
existed in the very nature of the Papal power, so that any adventurer
might hope, either by his individual genius or courage, or by services
rendered to those in authority, to raise himself to independent rule or
to that station which was only attached to a superior by the thin and
worn-out thread of feudal tenure.
Rome was the field still open to the bold spirit, the keen and
clear-seeing mind. Rome was the table on which the boldest player was
sure to win the most. With every change of the papacy new combinations,
and, consequently, new opportunities must arise. Here a man may, as
elsewhere, be required to serve, in order at length to command. But, if
he did not obtain power at length, it was his fault or Fortune's, and
in either event he must abide the consequences.
Revolving in his mind these matters, and wondering what the days to
come would hold, Tristan permitted himself to wander aimlessly through
the desolation which arose on all sides about him.
Passing by the Forum and the Colosseum, ruins piled upon ruins, he
wandered past San Gregorio, where, in the garden, lie the remains of
the Servian Porta Capena, by which St. Paul first entered Rome. The Via
Appia, lined with vineyards and fruit-trees, shedding their blossoms
on many an ancient tomb, led the solitary pilgrim from the memories of
the present to the days, when the light of the early Christian Church
burned like a flickering taper hidden low in Roman soil.
The ground sweeping down on either side in gentle, but well-defined
curves, led the vision over the hills of Rome and into her valleys.
Beneath a cloudless, translucent sky the city was caught in bold shafts
of crystal light, revealing her in so strong a relief that it seemed
like a piece of exquisite sculpture.
Fronting the Coelian, crowned with the temple church of San Stefano
in Rotondo, fringed round with tall and graceful poplars, rose the
immeasurable ruins of Caracalla's Baths, seeming more than ever the
work of titans, as Tristan saw them, shrouded in deep shadows above
the old churches of San Nereo and San Basilio, shining like white
huts, a stone's throw from the mighty walls. Beyond, as a beacon of
the Christian world in ages to come, on the site of the ancient Circus
of Nero, arose the Basilica of Constantine, still in its pristine
simplicity, ere the genius of Michel Angelo, Bramanté and Sangallo
transformed it into the magnificence of the present St. Peter's.
For miles around stretched the Aurelian walls, here fallen in low
ruins, there still rising in their proud strength. Weathered to every
shade of red, orange, and palest lemon, they still showed much of
their ancient beauty near the closed Latin gate. High towers, arched
galleries and battlements cast a broad band of shade upon a line of