Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
It was some time, however, until he regained his faculties sufficiently
to manifest his emotions, and the bewilderment with which his gaze
wandered from one face to the other, would have been amusing had not
the mystery which encompassed his presence inspired a feeling of awe.
The Moorish physician, upon being questioned by Theodora, stated, some
powerful poison had caused the coma which bound Tristan's limbs and
added, in another hour he would have been beyond the pale of human
aid. More than this he would not reveal and, his task accomplished, he
withdrew among the guests.
From the Grand Chamberlain, whose stony gaze was riveted upon him,
Tristan turned to the woman who reclined by his side on the divan. His
vocal chords seemed paralyzed, but his other faculties were keenly
alive to the strangeness of his surroundings. Perceiving his inability
to reply to her questions, Theodora soothed him to silence.
Vainly endeavoring to speak, Tristan partook but sparingly of the
refreshments which she offered to him with her own hands. She was
now deliberately endeavoring to enmesh his senses, and her exotic,
wonderful beauty could not but accomplish with him what it had
accomplished with all who came under its fatal spell. An insidious,
sensuous perfume seemed to float about her, which caused Tristan's
brain to reel. Her bare arms and wonderful hands made him dizzy. Her
eyes held his own by their strange, subtle spell. Unfathomed mysteries
seemed to lurk in their hidden depths. Without endeavoring to engage
him in conversation, much as she longed to question him on certain
points, she tried to soothe him by passing her cool white hands over
his fevered brow. And all the time she was pondering on the nature of
his infliction and the author thereof, as her gaze pensively swept the
banquet hall.
The guests had, one by one, returned to their seats. Theodora also had
arisen, after having made Tristan comfortable on the couch assigned to
him.
Unseen, the heavy folds of the curtain behind her parted. A face peered
for a moment into her own, that seemed to possess no human attributes.
Theodora gave a hardly perceptible nod and the face disappeared.
The Grand Chamberlain took his seat by her side and Roxana flinging
Theodora a glittering challenge seated herself beside Tristan.
CHAPTER X
THE CHALICE OF OBLIVION
A delirium of the senses such as he had never experienced to this
hour began to steal over Tristan, as he found himself seated between
Theodora, the fairest sorceress that ever triumphed over the frail
spirit of man--and Roxana, who was whispering strange words into his
bewildered ears.
Across the board the gloomy form of the Grand Chamberlain in his sombre
attire loomed up like a shadow of evil in a garden of strangely tinted
orchids.
How the time passed on, he could not tell. Peals of laughter resounded
now and then through the vaulted dome and voices were raised in
clamorous disputations that just sheered off the boundary-line of
actual quarrel.
Theodora seemed to pay but little heed to Tristan. Roxana had coiled
her white arms about him and, whenever he raised his goblet, their
hands touched and a stream of fire coursed through his veins. Only now
and then Theodora's drowsy eyes shot forth a fiery gleam from under
their heavily fringed lids.
Roxana smiled into her rival's eyes and, raising a goblet of wine to
her lips, kissed the brim and gave it to Tristan with an indescribably
graceful swaying motion of her whole form that reminded one of a tall
white lily, bowing to the breeze.
Tristan seized the cup eagerly, drank from it and returned it and, as
their hands touched again, he could hardly restrain himself from giving
way to a transport of passion. He was no longer himself. His brain
seemed to reel. He felt as if he would plunge into the crater of a
seething volcano without heeding the flames.
Even Hellayne's pale image seemed forgotten for the time.
The guests waxed more and more noisy, their merriment more and more
boisterous. Many were now very much the worse for their frequent
libations, and young Fabio particularly seemed to display a desire to
break away from all bonds of prudent reserve.
He lay full length on his silken divan, singing little snatches of
song to himself and, pulling the vine-wreath from his tumbled locks,
as though he found it too cumbersome, he flung it on the ground amid
the other debris of the feast. Then, folding his arms lazily behind
his head, he stared straight and fixedly at Theodora, surveying every
curve of her body, every slight motion of her head, every faint
smile that played upon her lips. She was listening with an air of
ill-disguised annoyance to Basil, whose wine-inflamed countenance and
passion-distorted features left little to the surmise regarding his
state of mind.
On the couch adjoining the one of Fabio of the Cavalli reclined a
nobleman from Gades, who, having partaken less lavishly of the wine
than the rest of the guests, was engaged in a dispute with the burly
stranger from the North, whose temper seemed to have undergone little
change for the better for his having filled his paunch.
In the barbarous jargon of tenth century Latin they commented upon
Theodora, upon the banquet, upon the guests and upon Rome in general,
and the Spaniard expressed surprise that Marozia's sister had failed to
revenge Marozia's death, contenting herself to spend her life in the
desert wastes of Aventine, among hermits, libertines and fools.
Notwithstanding his besotten mood Fabio had heard and understood every
word the stranger uttered. Before he, to whom his words was addressed
could make reply, he shouted insolently:
"Ask Theodora why she is content to live in her enchanted groves
instead in the Emperor's Tomb, haunted by the spectre of strangled
Marozia!"
A terrible silence followed this utterance. The eyes of all present
wandered towards the speaker. The Grand Chamberlain ground his teeth.
Every vestige of color had faded from his face.
"Are you afraid?" shouted Fabio, raising himself upon his elbows and
nodding towards Theodora.
The woman turned her splendid, flashing orbs slowly upon him. A chill,
steely glitter leaped from their velvety depths.
"Pray, Fabio, be heedful of your speech," said she with a quiver in her
voice, curiously like the suppressed snarl of a tigress. "Most men are
fools, like yourself, and by their utterance shall they be judged!"
Fabio broke out into boisterous mirth.
"And Theodora rules with a rod of iron. Even the Lord Basil is but a
toy in her hands! Behold him,--yonder."
Basil had arisen, his hand on the hilt of his poniard. Theodora laid
her white hand upon his arm.
"Nay--" she said sweetly, "this is a matter for myself to settle."
"A very anchorite," the mocking voice of Fabio rose above the silence.
A young noble of the Cætani tried to quiet him, but in vain:
"The Lord Basil is no monk."
"Wherefore then his midnight meditations in the devil's own chapel
yonder, in which our fair Theodora officiates as Priestess of Love?"
"Midnight meditations?" interposed the Spaniard, not knowing that he
was treading on dangerous ground.
"Ask Theodora," shouted Fabio, "how many lovers are worshipping at her
midnight shrine!"
The silence of utter consternation prevailed. Glances of absolute
dismay went round the table, and the stillness was as ominous as the
hush before a thunderclap. Fabio, apparently struck by the sudden
silence, gazed lazily from out the tumbled cushions, a vacant, besotten
smile upon his lips.
"What fools you are!" he shouted thickly. "Did you not hear me? I
bade you ask Theodora," and suddenly he sat bolt upright, his face
crimsoning as with an access of passion, "why the Lord Basil creeps in
and out her palace at midnight like a skulking slave? Ask him why he
creeps in disguise through the underground passage. Ay--stranger," he
shouted to Tristan, "you are near enough to our lady of Witcheries. Ask
her how many lovers have tasted of the chalice of oblivion?"
Another death-like silence ensued.
Even the attendants seemed to move with awed tread among the guests.
Theodora and Roxana had risen almost at the same time, facing each
other in a white silence.
Roxana extended her snow-white arms towards Theodora.
"Why do you not reply to your discarded lover?" she taunted her rival.
"Shall I reply for him? You have challenged me, and I return your
challenge! I am your match in all things, Lady Theodora. In my veins
flows the blood of kings--in yours the blood of courtesans. There is
not room on earth for both of us. Does not your coward soul quail
before the issue?"
Theodora turned to Roxana a face, white as marble, her eyes
preternaturally brilliant. "You shall have your wish--even to the
death. But--before the dark-winged messenger enfolds you with his sable
wings you shall know Theodora as you have never known her--nor ever
shall again."
From the woman Theodora turned to the man.
"Fabio," she said in her sweet mock-caressing tone, "I fear you have
grown altogether too wise for this world. It were a pity you should
linger in so narrow and circumscribed a sphere."
She paused and beckoned to a giant Nubian who stood behind her chair.
"Refill the goblets!"
Her behest executed she clinked goblets with Roxana. An undying hate
shone in the eyes of the two women as they raised the crystal goblets
to their lips.
Theodora hardly tasted of the purple beverage. Roxana eagerly drained
her cup, then she kissed the brim and offered the fragrant goblet to
Tristan, as her eyes challenged Theodora anew.
Ere he could raise it to his lips, Theodora dashed the goblet from
Tristan's hands and the purple wine dyed the orange colored carpet like
dark stains of blood.
White as lightning, her eyes ablaze with hidden fires, her white hands
clenched, Roxana straightened herself to her full height, ready to
bound at Theodora's throat, to avenge the insult and to settle now and
here, woman to woman, the question of supremacy between them, when she
reeled as if struck by a thunderbolt. Her hands went to her heart and
without a moan she fell, a lifeless heap, upon the floor.
Ere Tristan and the other guests could recover from their
consternation, or fathom the import of the terrible scene, a savage
scream from the couch upon which Fabio reclined, turned the attention
of every one in that direction.
Fabio, suddenly sobered, had risen from his couch and drained his
goblet. It rolled upon the carpet from his nerveless grasp. For a
moment his arms wildly beat the air, then he reeled and fell prone upon
the floor. His staring eyes and his face, livid with purple spots,
proclaimed him dead, even ere the Moorish physician could come to his
aid.
Theodora clapped her hands, and at the signal four giant Nubians
appeared and, taking up the lifeless bodies, disappeared with them in
the moonlit garden outside.
The Grand Chamberlain, rising from his seat, informed the guests that
a sudden ailment had befallen the woman and the man. They were being
removed to receive care and attention.
Though a lingering doubt hovered in the minds of those who had
witnessed the scene, some kept silent through fear, others whose brains
were befuddled by the fumes of the wine gave utterance to inarticulate
sounds, from which the view they took of the matter, was not entirely
clear.
The shock had restored to Tristan the lost faculty of speech. For a
moment he stared horrified at Theodora. Her impassive calm roused in
him a feeling of madness. With an imprecation upon his lips he rushed
upon her, his gleaming dagger raised aloft.
But ere he could carry out his intent, Theodora's clear, cold voice
smote the silence.
"Disarm him!"