Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
unceasing dread--let the ghosts of those you have sent butchered to
their doom surround her nightly pillow, whispering strange tales into
her ears,--then, when fear grips the maddened brain and there seems no
rescue but the grave--then peals the hour."
Basil gazed thoughtfully into the wizard's cowled face.
"When may that be?"
"I will gaze into the silent pools of my forbidden knowledge with the
dark spirits that keep me company. I have mysterious rules for finding
day and hour."
"I cannot expel the passion that rankles in my blood," Basil interposed
darkly. "But I will tear out my heart strings ere I shirk the call. An
emperor's crown were worth a tenfold price, and ere I, too, descend to
the dread shadows, I mean to see it won."
"These thoughts are idle," said the wizard. "Only the weak plumb the
depths of their own soul. The strong man's bark sails lightly on
victorious tides. Your soul is pledged to the Powers of Darkness."
"And by the fiends that sit at Hell's dark gate, I mean to do their
bidding," Basil replied fiercely. "Else were I indeed the mock of
destiny. Tell me but this--how did you obtain a knowledge at which the
fiend himself would pale?"
The wizard regarded him for a moment in silence.
"You who have peered behind the curtain that screens the dreadful
boundaries--you who have seen the pale phantom of Marozia, whom you
have sent to her doom,--how dare you ask?"
Basil had raised both hands as if to ward off an evil spirit.
"This, too, then is known to you? Tell me! Was what I saw a dream?"
"What you have seen--you have seen," the cowled form replied
enigmatically. "The cocks are crowing--and the pale dawn glimmers in
the East."
Throwing his mantle about him, Basil left the turret chamber and, after
creeping down a narrow winding stair, he made for his villa on the
Pincian Hill.
CHAPTER IV
FACE TO FACE
Roger de Laval had chosen for his abode in Rome a sombre and frowning
building not far from the grim ways of the Campo Marzo, half palace
half fortalice, constructed about a huge square tower with massive
doors. Like all palace fortresses of the time which might at any
moment have to stand a siege, either at the hands of a city mob or at
those of some rapacious noble, it contained in its vaulted halls and
tower chambers all the requisites for protracted resistance as well
as aggression. On the walls between flaunting banners hung the many
quartered shields and the dark coats of chain, the tabards of the
heralds and the leathern jerkins of the bowmen. On the shelves between
the arches stood long rows of hauberks and shining steel caps. Dark
tapestries covered the walls and the bright light of the Roman day fell
muted through the narrow slits in the sombre masonry which served as
windows.
It was not to seek his wife that Roger had come to Rome, and his
meeting with Tristan in the gardens of Theodora had been purely
accidental. While his vanity and selfishness had received a severe
shock in Hellayne's departure, without even a farewell, he had not
allowed an incident in itself so trifling to disturb the even tenor of
his ways. He had loved to display her at his feasts as one displays
some exceeding handsome plaything that gives pleasure to the senses;
otherwise he and the countess had no common bond of interest. Hellayne
was the only child of one of the most powerful barons of Provence, and
had been given in marriage to the older man before she even realized
what the bonds implied. Only after meeting Tristan had the awakening
come, and youth sought youth.
That which brought every one to Rome in an age when Rome was still by
common consent the centre of the universe, such as the Saxon Chronicles
of the Millennium pronounce it, had also caused Roger de Laval to seek
the Holy Shrines, not in quest of spiritual benefit, but of temporal
aggrandizement, in the character of an investiture from the Vicar of
Christ himself. His disappointment at finding the head of Christendom a
prisoner in his own palace was perhaps only mitigated by the disclosure
that he should have to rely upon his own fertility of mind for the
realization of a long-fostered ambition.
On one of his visits to the Lateran, hoping to obtain an interview
with the Pontiff, he had met Basil as representative of the Roman
government, in the absence of Alberic, and a sinister attraction had
sprung up between them in the consciousness that each had something
to give the other lacked. This bond was even strengthened by Basil's
promise to aid the stranger in the attainment of his desires, and at
last Roger had confided in Basil the story of the shadow that had
spread its gloomy pinions over the castle of Avalon. Basil had listened
and suggested that the Lord Laval drown his sorrows at the board of
Theodora. Therein the latter had acquiesced, with the result that he
met Tristan on that night.
Hellayne was sitting alone by the window in a long silent gallery. She
could not take her eyes off the restless outline of the clouds where
head on head and face on face continued taking shape. In vain her
teased brain tried to see but clouds. Two nights ago had not a horrid
face grinned at her from out of these same clouds? The face of a wolf
it had seemed. And it had taken human shape and changed to the face of
the man who had brought her to this abode from the sanctuary where she
had fallen by the shrine.
And yet, as she looked at the sun, whose beams were fast dwindling on
the bar of the horizon, how she yearned to keep the light a little
longer, if only a few short minutes. She could have cried out to the
sun not to leave her so soon, again to wage her lonely war with the
Twilight and with Fear. For during the hours of day her lord was away.
Business of state he termed what took him from her side. With a leer he
left and with a leer he was wont to return. And with him the memory of
his meeting with Tristan!
She had found him again, the man she loved! Found him--but how? And
Hellayne covered her burning eyes with her white hands.
This other woman who had stepped in between her and Tristan, who had
laid a detaining hand upon his arm and had silently challenged her for
his possession--what was she to him?
For three days and three nights the thought had tormented her even to
the verge of madness. Had she sacrificed everything but to find him
she loved in the arms of another? Silently she had borne the taunts of
her lord, his insults, his vile insinuations. He did not understand.
He never understood. What of it? In the great balance what mattered it
after all?
She must see Tristan. She must hear the truth from his own lips. In
vain she puzzled her brain how to reach him. She remembered his last
outcry of protest. There was a mystery she must solve. Come what might,
she was once more the woman who loved. And she was going to claim the
payment of love!
As regarded that other, to whom she had bound herself, her conscience
had long absolved her of an obligation that had been forced upon her.
Had fate and fact not proved the thing impossible? Had fate not cast
them again and again into each other's arms and made mock of their
conscience? Nature had made them lovers, let it be the will of God or
the devil.
And lovers till death should they be henceforth. He belonged to her.
Away with faith--away with fear of this world, or the next. Away with
all but the dear present, in which the brutality of others had set her
free. For a moment her thoughts turned almost pagan.
Was she to return to the old, loveless life in that far corner of the
earth, while he whom she loved took up a new existence in the centre
of the world, loving another to whose ambition he might owe a great
career? She needed indeed to sit in silence, she who had done daring
things without a misgiving, as if impelled by a power not her own. She
had done them, marvelling at her own courage, at her own faith in him
she loved, and she had not faltered.
The torturing dusk was drowning every living thing in pallid waves of
shadow. One by one, through the wan gallery in which she was locked,
the motley spectres of night would pass in all their horrors, and begin
their crazy, soundless nods and becks.
Suddenly she cowered back, shuddering, with her eyes fixed on the
darkening depths of the gallery and her day dreams died, like pale
ashes crumbling on the hearth.
Roger de Laval had entered and was regarding her with a malignant leer
that almost froze the blood in her veins. She knew not what business
had taken him abroad. Nevertheless was assured that some dark deed was
slumbering in the depths of his soul.
"Are you thinking of your fine lover?" he said as he slowly advanced
towards her. "You are grieved to have your thoughts broken into by your
husband? No doubt you wish me dead--"
"Spare me this torture, my lord," she entreated. "I have answered a
thousand times--"
"Then answer again--"
"I swear before God and the Saints he is guiltless. He knew not I was
in Rome."
"Swear what you will! A woman's oath is but a wind upon one's cheek on
a warm summer day--gone ere you have felt it. The oath of a woman who
has followed her lover--"
"I have not done so!"
"You have done your best to make the world believe it."
"What of yourself?" There was a ring of scorn in her voice.
"You have brought me to shame!"
"What of the women you have shared with me?"
Hellayne's eyes met those of her tormentor.
"It is a man's part!"
"And you are a man!"
"One at least shall have cause to think so."
"Perchance you will have him murdered. Why not kill me, too? That, too,
is a man's part."
He gave a great roar.
"And who says that I shall not?"
An icy fear, not for herself, but for Tristan, gripped her heart. She
tried to hide it under a mantle of indifference.
"What have you ever done to make yourself beloved?"
"By Beelzebub--you--the runaway mistress of a fop--dares to question
me--her rightful lord?"
"Who made the laws that bound me to your keeping? They are man-made,
and God knows as little of them as he knows of you. It was your
measureless conceit, your boundless egotism, that whispered to you that
any woman should feel honored, should deem it the height of glory, to
be your wife."
"And is it not?"
She shuddered.
"You never dreamed there might be something in the depths of my soul
that cried out for more than the mere comforts and exigencies of
existence! Something that craved love, companionship, and, above all,
friendship. What have you done to waken this little slumbering voice
which died in the shadow of your tremendous egotism?"
He stared at her.
"He has taught you this speech, by God!"
"He has awakened my true self! What was I to you but part of your
magnificence, a thing to make your fellows envious--"
He roared. She continued:
"The one decent woman of your life--your world--"
His eyes glared.
"So then, this low-born churl is a better man than I?"
"At least he knew I had a soul of my own."
"Skillfully cultivated to his own sweet ends."
"His ends were innocent, else had he not fled."
"Knowing that you would follow him."
"He knew naught."
"That remains to be seen."
"It was you who brought us together!" she said with quiet scorn. "You
were so sure in your pride and your power and of my own timidity that
you thought it impossible that something might defy them. And you could
not understand that another might be so much closer to my nature, or
that I had a nature of my own. In those days I well remember, ere my
heart had strayed too far, I tried to waken you to the great danger.
I tried to speak of mine. But you would not be apprised of aught that
would seem a concession to your pride. So we are come to this!"
Her eyes filled with tears.