Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
who clattered past, bound upon some feudal adventure.
Weary of walking, distracted by the ever increasing clamor, oppressed
with a sense of loneliness amidst the surging crowds, whose festal
spirit he did not share, Tristan made his way towards the fountain and,
seating himself on the margin, regardless of the chattering groups,
which intermittently clustered about it, he felt his mood gradually
calm in the monotony of the gurgling flow of the water, which spurted
from the grotesque mouths of lions and dolphins.
The stars sparkled in subdued lustre above the dark, towering cypresses
which crowned the adjacent eminence of Monte Testaccio, and the
distant palaces and ruins stood forth in distinctness of splendor and
desolation beneath the luminous brightness of the moonlit heavens.
White shreds of mist, like sorrowing spirits, floated above the winding
course of the Tiber, and enveloped in a diaphanous haze the cloisters
upon St. Bartholomew's Island at the base of Mount Aventine.
For a time Tristan's eyes roamed over the kaleidoscopic confusion which
met his gaze on every turn. His ear was assailed by the droning sound
of many voices that filled the air about him, when he was startled by
the approach of two men, who, but for their halting gait, might have
passed unheeded in the rolling sea of humanity that ebbed and flowed
over the Piazza.
Basil, the Grand Chamberlain, was endowed with the elegance of the
effeminate Roman noble of his time. Supple as an eel, he nevertheless
suggested great physical strength. The skin was of a deep olive tinge.
The black, beady eyes were a marked feature of the countenance.
Inscrutable and steadfast in regard, with a hint of mockery and
cynicism, coupled with an abiding alertness, they seemed to penetrate
the very core of matter.
He wore a black mantle reaching almost to his feet. Of his features,
shaded by a hood, little was to be seen, save his glittering minx-eyes.
These he kept alternately fixed upon the crowds that surged around him
and on his companion, a hunchback garbed entirely in black, from the
Spanish hat, which he wore slouched over his face, to the black hose
and sandals that encased his feet. A large red scar across the low
forehead heightened the repulsiveness of his countenance. There was
something strangely sinister in his sunken, cadaverous cheeks, the low
brow, the inflamed eyelids, and his limping gait.
Without perceiving or heeding the presence of Tristan they paused as by
some preconcerted signal.
As the taller of the two pushed back the hood of his pilgrim garb, as
if to cool his brow in the night breeze, Tristan peered into a face not
lacking in sensuous refinement. Dark supercilious eyes roved from one
object to another, without dwelling long on any particular one. There
was somewhat of a cynical look in the downward curve of the eyebrows,
the thin straight lips and the slightly aquiline nose, which seemed to
imbue him with an air of recklessness and daring, that ill consorted
with his monkish garb.
Their discourse was at first almost unintelligible to Tristan. The
language of the common people had, at this period of the history of
Rome, not only lost its form, but almost the very echo of the Latin
tongue.
After a time, however, Tristan distinguished a name, and, upon
listening more attentively, the burden of the message began to unfold
itself.
"Why then have you ventured out of your hell-hole of iniquity, when
discovery means death or worse?" said Basil, the Grand Chamberlain. "Do
the keeps and dungeons of the Emperor's Tomb so allure you? Or do you
trust in some miraculous delivery from its vermin-haunted vaults?"
At these words Rome's most dreaded bravo, Il Gobbo of the Catacombs,
snarled contemptuously.
"You are needlessly alarmed, my lord. They will not look for Il Gobbo
in this company, though even a mole may walk in the shadow of a saint."
Basil regarded the speaker with mingled pity and contempt.
"There is room for all the world in Rome and the devil to boot."
Il Gobbo chuckled unpleasantly.
"Besides--folk about here show a great reverence for a holy garb--"
"Always with fitting reservations," interposed the Grand Chamberlain
sardonically. "I have had it in mind at some time or other to relieve
the Grand Penitentiary. The good man's lungs must be well nigh bursting
with the foul air down there by the Tomb of the Apostle. He will
welcome a rest!"
"Requiescat," chanted the bravo, imitating the nasal tone of the clergy.
Basil nodded approval.
"He at one time did me the honor of showing some concern in my
spiritual welfare. Know you what I replied?"--
The bravo gave a shrug.
"'Father,' I said, when he urged me to confess, 'pray shrive some one
worthier than myself. But--if you must needs have a confession--I shall
whisper into your holy ear so many interesting little episodes, so many
spicy peccadillos, and--to enhance their interest--mention some names
so high in the grace of God--'"
"And the reverend father?"
"Looked anathema and vanished"--
Basil paused for a moment, after which he continued with a sigh:
"It is too late! The Church is to be purified. Not even the pale shade
of Marozia will henceforth be permitted to haunt the crypts of Castel
San Angelo--merely for the sake of decorum. There is nothing less well
bred than memory!"
For a moment they relapsed into silence, watching the shifting crowds,
then Basil continued:
"Compared with this virtuous boredom the last days of Ugo of Tuscany
were a carnival. One could at least speed the travails of some one who
required swift absolution."
"Can you contrive to bring about this happy state?" queried Il Gobbo.
"It is always the unexpurgated that happens," Basil replied
sardonically.
"I hope to advance in your school," Il Gobbo interposed with a smile.
"I have long had you in mind. If you are in favor with yourself you
will become an apt pupil. Remember! He who is dead is dead and long
live the survivor."
"In very truth, my lord, breath is the first and last thing we draw--"
rejoined the bravo, evidently not relishing the thought that death
might be standing unseen at his elbow.
"Who would end one's days in odious immaculacy," Basil interposed
grandiloquently, "even though you will not incur that reproach from
those who know you from report, or who have visited your haunts? But
to the point. There are certain forces at work in Rome which make
breathing in this fetid air a rather cumbersome process."
"I doubt me if they could teach your lordship any new tricks," Il Gobbo
replied, somewhat dubiously.
The Grand Chamberlain smiled darkly.
"Good Il Gobbo, the darkest of my tricks you have not yet fathomed."
"Perchance then the gust of rumor blows true about my lord's palace on
the Pincian Hill?"
"What say they about my palatial abode?" Basil turned suavely to the
speaker.
There was something in the gleam of his interrogator's eyes that caused
Il Gobbo to hesitate. But his native insolence came to the rescue of
his failing courage.
"Ask rather, what do they not say of it, my lord! It would require less
time to recite--"
"Nevertheless, I am just now in a frame of mind to shudder soundly.
These Roman nights, with their garlic and incense, are apt to befuddle
the brain,--rob it of its power to plot. Perchance the recital of these
mysteries would bring to mind something I have omitted."
The bravo regarded the speaker with a look of awe.
"They whisper of torture chambers, where knife and screw and pulley
never rest--of horrors that make the blood freeze in the veins--of
phantoms of fair women that haunt the silent galleries--strange wails
of anguish that sound nightly from the subterranean vaults--"
"A goodly account that ought vastly to interest the Grand
Penitentiary--were it--with proper decorum--whispered in his ear. It
would make him forget--for the time at least--the dirty Roman gossip.
Deem you not, good Il Gobbo?"
"I am not versed in such matters, my lord," replied the bravo, ill at
ease. "Perhaps your lordship will now tell me why this fondness for my
society?"
"To confess truth, good Il Gobbo, I did not join you merely to meditate
upon the pleasant things of life. Rather to be inspired to some
extraordinary adventure such as my hungry soul yearns for. As for the
nature thereof, I shall leave that to the notoriously wicked fertility
of your imagination."
The lurid tone of the speaker startled the bravo.
"My lord, you would not lay hands on the Lord's anointed?"
Il Gobbo met a glance that made the blood freeze in his veins.
"Is it the thing you call your conscience that ails you, or some sudden
indigestion? Or is the bribe not large enough?"
The bravo doggedly shook his head.
"Courage lieth not always in bulk," he growled. "May my soul burn to
a crisp in the everlasting flames if I draw steel against the Lord's
anointed."
"Silence, fool! What you do in my service shall not burden your soul!
Have you forgotten our compact?"
"That I have not, my lord! But since the Senator of Rome has favored me
with his especial attention, I too have something to lose, which some
folk hereabout call their honor."
"Your honor!" sneered the Grand Chamberlain. "It is like the skin of an
onion. Peel off one, there's another beneath."
"My skin then--" the bravo growled doggedly. "However--if the lord
Basil will confide in me--"
"Pray lustily to your patron saint and frequent the chapel of the
Grand Penitentiary," replied Basil suavely, beckoning to Il Gobbo to
follow him. "But beware, lest in your zeal to confess you mistake my
peccadillos for your own."
With these words the two worthies slowly retraced their steps in the
direction of Mount Aventine and were soon lost to sight.
CHAPTER II
THE WEAVING OF THE SPELL
After they had disappeared Tristan stood at gaze,
puzzled where to turn, for the spectacle had suddenly changed.
New bands of revellers had invaded the Piazza Navona, and it seemed
indeed as if the Eve of St. John were assuming the character of the
ancient Lupercalia, for the endless variety of costumes displayed
by a multitude assembled from every corner of Italy, Spain, Greece,
Africa, and the countries of the North, was now exaggerated by a wild
fancifulness and grotesque variety of design.
Tristan himself did not escape the merry intruders. He was immediately
beset by importunate revellers, and not being able to make himself
understood, they questioned and lured him on, imploring his good
offices with the Enemy of Mankind.
Satyrs, fauns and other sylvan creatures accosted him, diverting
their antics, when they found themselves but ill repaid for their
efforts, and leaving the solitary stranger pondering the expediency of
remaining, or wending his steps toward the Inn of the Golden Shield,
where he had taken lodging upon his arrival.
These doubts were to be speedily dispelled by a spectacle which
attracted the crowds that thronged the Piazza, causing them to give
way before a splendid procession that had entered the Navona from the
region of Mount Aventine.
Down the Navona came a train of chariots, preceded by a throng of
persons, clad in rich and fantastic Oriental costumes, leaping, dancing
and making the air resound with tambourines, bells, cymbals and gongs.
They kept up an incessant jingle, which sounded weirdly above the
droning chant of distant processions of pilgrims, hermits and monks,
traversing the city from sanctuary to sanctuary.
The occupants of these chariots consisted of a number of young women in
the flower of youth and beauty, whose scant apparel left little to the
imagination either as regarded their person or the trade they plied.
The charioteers were youths, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty,