Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
but skilled in their profession in the highest degree.
The first chariot, drawn by two milk-white steeds of the Berber breed,
was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, with gilded spokes and trappings that
glistened in the light of a thousand colored lanterns and torches, like
a vehicle from fairyland. The reins were in the hands of a youth hardly
over sixteen years of age, garbed in a snow white tunic, but the skill
with which he drove the shell-shaped car through the surging crowds
argued for uncommon dexterity.
Tristan, from his station by the fountain, was enabled to take in
every detail of the strange pageant which moved swiftly towards him, a
glittering, fantastic procession, as if drawn out of dreamland; and so
enthralled were his senses that he did not note the terrible silence
which had suddenly fallen upon the multitude.
As a half-slumbering man may note a sudden brilliant gleam of sunshine
flashing on the walls of his chamber, Tristan gazed in confused
bewilderment, when suddenly his stupefied senses were aroused to hot
life and pulsation, as he fixed his straining gaze on the supreme fair
form of the woman in the first car, standing erect like a queen,
surveying her subjects.
In the silence of a great multitude there is always something ominous.
But Tristan noted it not. Indeed he was deaf and blind to everything,
save the apparition in the shell-shaped car, as it bounded lightly over
the unevenly laid tufa of the Navona.
Was it a woman, or a goddess? A rainbow flame in mortal shape, a spirit
of earth, air, water or fire?
He saw before him a woman combining the charm of the girl with the
maturity of the thirties, dark-haired, exquisitely proportioned, with
clear-cut features and dark slumbrous eyes.
She wore a diaphanous robe of pale silk gauze. Her wonderful arms,
white as the fallen snow, were encircled by triple serpentine coils
of gold. Else, she was unadorned, save for a circlet of rubies which
crowned the dusky head.
Her sombre eyes rested drowsily on the swarming crowds, while a smile
of disdain curved the small red mouth, as her chariot proceeded through
the frozen silence.
Suddenly her eye caught the admiring gaze of Tristan, who had indeed
forgotten heaven and earth in the contemplation of this supremest
handiwork of the Creator. A word to the charioteer and the chariot came
to a stop.
Tristan and the woman faced each other in silence, the man with an
ill-concealed air of uneasiness, such as one may experience who finds
himself face to face with some unknown danger.
With utter disregard for the gaping crowds which had gathered around
the fountain she bent her gaze upon him, surveying him from head to
foot.
"Who are you?" she spoke at last, and he, confused, bewildered,
trembling, gazed into the woman's supremely fair face and stammered:
"A pilgrim!"
Her lips parted in a smile that revealed two rows of small white, even
teeth. There was something unutterable in that smile which brought the
color to Tristan's brow.
"A Roman?"
"From the North!"
"Why are you here?"
"For the salvation of my soul!"
He blushed as he spoke.
Again the strange smile curved the woman's lips, again the inscrutable
look shone in her eyes.
"For the salvation of your soul!" she repeated slowly after him. "And
you so young and fair. Ah! You have done some little wickedness, no
doubt?"
He started to reply, but she checked him with a wave of her hand.
"I do not wish to be told. Do you repent?"
Tristan's throat was dry. His lips refused utterance. He nodded
awkwardly.
"So much the worse! These little peccadillos are the spice of life!
What is your name?"
She repeated it lingeringly after him.
"From the North--you say--to do penance in Rome!"
She watched him with an expression of amusement. When he started back
from her, a strange fear in his heart, a wave of her hand checked him.
"Let me whisper a secret to you!" she said with a smile.
He felt her perfumed breath upon his cheek.
Inclining his ear he staggered away from her dizzy, bewildered.
Presently, with a dazzling smile, she extended one white hand and
Tristan, trembling as one under a spell, bent over and kissed it. He
felt the soft pressure of her fingers and his pulse throbbed with a
strange, insidious fire, as reluctantly he released it at last.
Raising his eyes, he now met her gaze, absorbing into his innermost
soul the mesmeric spell of her beauty, drinking in the warmth of those
dark, sleepy orbs that flashed on him half resentfully, half mockingly.
Then the charioteer jerked up the reins, the chariot began to move.
Like a dream the pageant vanished--and slowly, like far-away thunder,
the voice of the multitudes began to return, as they regarded the lone
pilgrim with mingled doubt, fear and disdain.
With a start Tristan looked about. He was as one bewitched. He felt he
must follow her at all risks, ascertain her name, her abode.
Dashing through the crowds that gave way before him, wondering and
commenting upon the unseemly haste of one wearing so austere a garb,
Tristan caught a last glimpse of the procession as it entered the
narrow gorge that lies between Mount Testaccio and Mount Aventine.
With a sense of great disappointment he slowly retraced his steps,
walking as in the thrall of a strange dream, and, after inquiring the
direction of his inn of some wayfarers he chanced to meet, he at last
reached the Inn of the Golden Shield, situated near the Flaminian Gate,
and entered the great guest-chamber.
The troubled light of a melancholy dusk was enhanced by the glimmer of
stone lamps suspended from the low and dirty ceiling.
Notwithstanding the late hour, the smoky precincts were crowded with
guests from many lands, who were discussing the events of the day. If
Tristan's wakeful ear had been alive to the gossip of the tavern he
might have heard the incident in the Navona, in which he played so
prominent a part, discussed in varied terms of wonder and condemnation.
Tristan took his seat near an alcove usually reserved for guests of
state. The unaccustomed scene began to exercise a singular fascination
upon him, stranger as he was among strangers from all the earth, their
faces dark against the darker background of the room. Brooding over
a tankard of Falernian of the hue of bronze, which his oily host had
placed before him, he continued to absorb every detail of the animated
picture, while the memory of his strange adventure dominated his mind.
Tristan's meagre fund of information was to be enriched by tidings of
an ominous nature. He learned that the Pontiff, John XI, was imprisoned
in the Lateran Palace, by his step-brother Alberic, the Senator of Rome.
While this information came to him, a loyal son of the Church, as a
distinct shock, Tristan felt, nevertheless, strangely impressed with
the atmosphere of the place. Even in the period of her greatest decay,
Rome seemed still the centre of the universe.
Thus he sat brooding for hours.
When, with a start, he roused himself at last, he found the vast
guest-chamber well-nigh deserted. The pilgrims had retired to their
respective quarters, small, dingy cells, teeming with evil odors, heat
and mosquitoes, and the oily Calabrian host was making ready for the
morrow.
The warmth of the Roman night and the fatigue engendered after many
leagues of tedious travel on a dusty road, under the scorching rays of
an Italian sky, at last asserted itself and, wishing a fair rest to his
host, who was far from displeased to see his guest-chamber cleared for
the night, Tristan climbed the crooked and creaking stairs leading to
the chamber assigned to him, which looked out upon the gate of Castello
and the Tiber, where it is spanned by the Bridge of San Angelo.
The window stood open to the night air, on which floated the perfumes
from oleander and almond groves. The roofs of the Eternal City formed a
dark, shadowy mass in the deep blue dusk, and the cylindrical masonry
of the Flavian Emperor's Tomb rose ominously against the deep turquoise
of the night sky.
Soon the events of the day and the scenes of the evening began to melt
into faint and indistinct memories.
Sleep, deep and tranquil, encompassed Tristan's weary limbs, but in his
dreams the events of the evening were obliterated before scenes of the
past.
CHAPTER III
THE DREAM LADY OF AVALON
Like a disk of glowing gold the sun had set upon hill
and dale. The gardens of Avalon lay wrapt in the mists of evening. Like
flowers seemed the fair women who thronged the winding paths. From
fragrant bosquets, borne on the wings of the night wind came the faint
sounds of zitherns and lutes.
He, too, was there, mingling joyous, carefree, with the rest, gathering
the white roses for the one he loved. Dimly he recalled his delight, as
he saw her approach in the waning light through the dim ilex avenue, an
apparition wondrous fair in the crimson haze of slowly departing day,
entering his garden of dreams. With strangely aching heart he saw them
throng about her in homage and admiration.
At last he knelt before her, kissing the white hand that lay passive
within his own.
How wonderful she was! Never had he seen anything like her, not even
in this land of flowers and of beautiful women. Her hair was warm
as if the sun had entered into it. Her skin had the tints of ivory.
The violet eyes with the long drooping lashes seemed to hold the
memories of a thousand love thoughts. And the small, crimson mouth, so
witch-like, so alluring, seemed to hold out promise of fulfilment of
dizzy hopes and desires.
"It is our golden hour," she smiled down at him, and the white fingers
twined the rose in her hair, wove a girdle of blossoms round her
exquisite, girlish form.
To Tristan she seemed an enchantment, an embodied rose. Never had he
seen her so fair, so beautiful. On her lips quivered a smile, yet there
was a strange light in her eyes, that gave him pause, a light he had
never seen therein before.
She beckoned him away from the throng. "Come where the moonlight
dreams."
Her smile and her wonderful eyes were his beacon light. He rose to his
feet and took her hand. And away they strayed from the rest of the
crowd, far away over green lawns, emerald in the moonlight, with, here
and there, the dark shadow of a cypress falling across the silvery
brightness of their path. Little by little the gardens were deserted.
Fainter and fainter came the sounds of lutes and harps. The shadows of
the grove now encompassed them, as silently they strode side by side.
"This is my Buen Retiro," she spoke at last. "Here we may rest--for
awhile--far from the world."
They entered the rose-bower, a wilderness, blossoming with roses and
hyacinths and fragrant shrubs--a very paradise for lovers.--
The bells of a remote convent began to chime. They smote the silence
with their silvery peals. The castle of Avalon lay dark in the
distance, shadowy against the deep azure of the night sky.
When the chimes of the Angelus had died away, she spoke.
"How wonderful is this peace!"
Her tone brought a sudden chill to his heart.
As she moved forward, he dropped his wealth of flowers and held out his
hands entreatingly.
"Dearest Hellayne," he said, "tarry but a little longer--"
She seemed to start at his words, and leaned over the back of the stone
bench, which was covered with climbing roses. And suddenly under this
new light, sad and silent, she seemed no longer his fair companion of
the afternoon, all youth, all beauty, all light. Motionless, as if
shadowed by some dire foreboding, she stood there and he dared not
approach. Once he raised his hand to take her own. But something in her
eyes caused the hand to fall as with its own weight.