Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
stranger at Theodora's board.
"You have found me, my Lord Roger," he said, after recovering from his
first surprise. "Here I may injure no one--you, my lord, least of all!
Leave me in peace!"
The stranger gave a sardonic laugh.
"That I may perchance, when you have told me the truth--the whole
truth!"
"Ask, my lord, and I will answer," Tristan replied.
"Where is the Lady Hellayne?"--
The questioning voice growled like far off thunder.
Tristan recoiled a step, staring into the questioner's face as if he
thought he had gone mad.
"The Lady Hellayne?" he stammered, white to the lips and with a dull
sinking of the heart. "How am I to know? I have not seen her since I
left Avalon--months ago. Is she not with you?"
The Lord Laval's brow was dark as a thunder cloud.
"If she were with me--would I be wasting my time asking you concerning
her?" he barked.
"Where is she, then?" Tristan gasped.
"That you shall tell me--or I have forgotten the use of this knife!"
And he laid his hand on the hilt of a long dagger that protruded from
his belt.
Tristan's eyes met those of the other.
"My lord, this is unworthy of you! I have never committed a deed I
dared not confess--and I despise your threat and your accusation as
would the Lady Hellayne, were she here."
Steps were heard approaching from the direction of the pavilion.
"I am a stranger in Rome. Doubtless you are familiar with its ways.
Some one is coming. Where shall we meet?"
Tristan pondered.
"At the Arch of the Seven Candles. Every child can point the way. When
shall it be?"
"To-morrow,--at the second hour of the night. And take care to speak
the truth!"
Ere Tristan could reply the speaker had vanished among the thickets.
For a moment he paused, amazed, bewildered. Roger de Laval in Rome! And
Hellayne--where was she? She had left Avalon--had left her consort. Had
she entered a convent? Hellayne--where was Hellayne?
Before this dreadful uncertainty all the events of the night vanished
as if they had never been.
For a long time Tristan remained where Roger de Laval had left him.
The cool air from the lake blew refreshingly on his heated brow. A
thousand odors from orange and jessamine floated caressingly about
him. The night was very still. There, in the soft sky-gloom, moved the
majestic procession of undiscovered worlds. There, low on the horizon,
the yellow moon swooned languidly down in a bed of fleecy clouds. The
drowsy chirp of a dreaming bird came softly now and again from branch
shadowed thickets, and the lilies on the surface of the lake nodded
mysteriously to each other, as if they were whispering a secret of
another world.
At last the moon sank out of sight and from afar, softened by the
distance, the chimes of convent bells from the remote regions of the
Aventine were wafted through the flower scented summer night.
END OF BOOK THE SECOND
BOOK THE THIRD
CHAPTER I
WOLFSBANE
The early summer dawn was creeping over the silent Campagna when
Tristan reached the Inn of The Golden Shield.
As one dazed he had traversed the deserted, echoing streets in the
mysterious half-light which flooded the Eternal City; a light in which
everything was sharply defined yet seemed oddly spectral and ghostlike.
Deep down in his heart two emotions were contending, appalling in their
intensity and appeal. One was an agonized fear for the woman he loved
with a love so unwavering that his love was actually himself, his whole
being, the sacrament that consecrated his life and ruled his destiny.
She had left Avalon; she had left him to whom she had plighted her
troth. Where was she and why was Roger de Laval in Rome?
An icy fear gripped his heart at the thought; a nameless dread and
horror of the terrible scene he had witnessed at the midnight feast of
Theodora.
For a time he was as one obsessed, hardly master of himself and his
actions. In an age where scenes such as those he had witnessed were
quickly forgotten the death of Roxana and young Fabio created but
little stir. Rome, just emerging from under the dark cloud of Marozia's
regime, in the throes of ever-recurring convulsions, without a helmsman
to guide the tottering ship of state, received the grim tidings with a
shrug of apathy; and the cowed burghers discussed in awed whispers the
dread power of one whose vengeance none dared to brave.
Tristan's unsophisticated mind could not so easily forget. He had
stood at the brink of the abyss, he had looked down into the murky
depths from which there was no escape once the fumes had conquered the
senses and vanquished resistance. With a shudder he called to mind,
how utterly and completely he had abandoned himself to the lure of the
sorceress, how little short of a miracle had saved him. She had led him
on step by step, and the struggle had but begun.
No one was astir at the inn.
He ascended the stairs leading to his chamber. The chill of the night
was still lingering in the dusky passages. He lighted the taper of a
tiny lamp that burnt before an image of the Mother of Sorrows in a
niche.
Then he sank upon his couch. His vitality seemed to be ebbing and his
mind clouding before the problems that began to crowd in upon him.
Nothing since he left Avalon, nothing external or merely human, had
stirred him as had his meeting with Theodora. It had roused in him
a dormant, embryonic faculty, active and vivid. What it called into
his senses was not a mere series of pictures. It created a visual
representation of the horrified creature, roused from the flattering
oblivion of death to memory and shame and dread, nothing really
forgotten, nothing past, the old lie that death ends all pitifully
unmasked.
He shuddered as he thought of the consequences of surrender from which
a silent voice out of the far off past had saved him--just in time.
His life lay open before him as a book, every fact recorded, nothing
extenuated.
A calm, relentless voice bade him search his own life, if he had done
aught amiss. He had never taken or desired that which was another's.
Yet his years had been a ceaseless perturbation. There had been endless
and desperate clutchings at bliss, followed by the swift discovery that
the exquisite light had faded, leaving a chill gloaming that threatened
a lonely night. And if the day had failed in its promise what would the
night do?
His soul cried out for rest, for peace from the enemy; peace, not this
endless striving. He was terrified. In the ignominious lament there
was desertion, as if he were too small for the fight. He was demanding
happiness, and that his own burden should rest on another's shoulders.
How silent was the universe around him! He stood in tremendous, eternal
isolation.
Pale and colorless as a moonstone at first the ghostly dawn had
quickened to the iridescence of the opal, flaming into a glory of gold
and purple in the awakening east.
And now the wall in the courtyard was no longer grey. A faint, clear,
golden light was beginning to flow and filter into it, dispelling, one
by one, the dark shadows that lurked in the corners. Somewhere in the
distance the dreamer heard the shrill silver of a lark, and a dull
monotonous sound, felt rather than heard, suggested that sleeping Rome
was about to wake.
And then came the sun. A long golden ray stabbed the mists and leaped
into his chamber like a living thing. The little sanctuary lamp before
the image of the Blessed Virgin glowed no more.
After a brief rest Tristan arose, noting for the first time with a
degree of chagrin that his dagger had not been restored to him.
It was day now. The sun was high and hot. The streets and thoroughfares
were thronged. A bright, fierce light beat down upon dome and spire
and pinnacle, flooding the august ruins of the Cæsars and the thousand
temples of the Holy Cross with brilliant radiance from the cloudless
azure of the heavens. Over the Tiber white wisps of mist were rising.
Beyond, the massive bulk of the Emperor's Tomb was revealed above the
roofs of the houses, and the olive groves of Mount Janiculum glistened
silvery in the rays of the morning sun.
It was only when, refreshed after a brief rest and frugal refreshments,
Tristan quitted the inn, taking the direction of Castel San Angelo,
that the incidents leading up to his arrival at the feast of Theodora
slowly filtered through his mind.
Withal there was a link missing in the chain of events. From the time
he had left the Lateran in pursuit of the two strangers everything
seemed an utter blank. What mysterious forces had been at work
conveying him to his destiny, he could not even fathom and, in a state
of perplexity, such as he had rarely experienced, he pursued his way,
paying little heed to the life and turmoil that seethed around him.
Upon entering Castel San Angelo he was informed that the Grand
Chamberlain had arrived but a few moments before and he immediately
sought the presence of the man whose sinister countenance held out
little promise of the solution of the mystery.
In an octagon chamber, the small windows of which, resembling
port-holes, looked out upon the Campagna, Basil was fretfully
perambulating as Tristan entered.
After a greeting which was frosty enough on both sides, Tristan briefly
stated the matter which weighed upon his mind.
The Grand Chamberlain watched him narrowly, nodding now and then by
way of affirmation, as Tristan related the experience at the Lateran,
referring especially to two mysterious strangers whom he had followed
to a distant part of the city, believing they might offer some clue to
the outrage committed at the Lateran on the previous night.
Basil regarded the new captain with a mixture of curiosity and gloom.
Perchance he was as much concerned in discovering what Tristan knew
as the latter was in finding a solution of the two-fold mystery.
After having questioned him on his experience, without offering any
suggestion that might clear up his visitor's mind, Basil touched upon
the precarious state of the city and its hidden dangers.
Tristan listened attentively to the sombre account, little guessing its
purpose.
"Much have I heard of the prevailing lawless state," he interposed at
last, "of dark deeds hidden in the silent bosom of the night, of feud
and rebellion against the Church which is powerless to defend herself
for the want of a master-hand that would evoke order out of chaos."
The dark-robed figure by his side gave a grim nod.
"Men are closely allied to beasts, giving rein to their desires and
appetites as the tigers and hyenas. It is only fear that will restrain
them, fear of some despotic invisible force that pervades the universe,
whose chiefest attribute is not so much creative as destructive. It is
only through fear you can rule the filthy rabble that reviles to-day
its idol of yesterday."
There was an undercurrent of scorn in Basil's voice and Tristan saw,
as it were, the lightning of an angry or disdainful thought flashing
through the sombre depths of his eyes.
"What of the Lady Theodora?" Tristan interposed bluntly.
Basil gave a nameless shrug.
"She bends men's hearts to her own desires, taking from them their
will and soul. The hot passion of love is to her a toy, clasped and
unclasped in the pink hollow of her hand."
And, as he spoke, Basil suited the gesture to the word, closing his
fingers in the air and again unclosing them.
"As long as she retains the magic of her beauty so long will her sway
over the Seven Hills endure," he added after a brief pause.
"What of the woman who paid the penalty of her daring?" Tristan
ventured to inquire.
Basil regarded the questioner quizzically.
"There have been many disturbances of late," he spoke after a pause.