Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
his side no task would have seemed too great of accomplishment. And
whatever the fruits of her plotting he was to have shared them. How
she hated him; and how she hated that woman who had come between them.
As for him whose stammering words of love tumbled from his drunken
lips, Theodora could have driven her poniard through his heart without
wincing in the act.
"If you love me then, as you say," she whispered at last, "revenge me
on him who has put this slight upon me!"
A baleful light shone in Basil's eyes.
"He dies this very night."
She raised her hands with a shudder.
"No--no! Not a quick death! He would die as another changes his
garment--with a smile.--No! Not a quick death! Let him live, but wish
he were dead a thousand times. Strike him through his honor. Strike him
through the woman he loves."
For a pace Basil was silent. Could Theodora have read his thoughts at
this moment the weapon would not have dropped from her nerveless grasp.
"Ah!" he said, and a film seemed to pass over his eyes in the
utterance. "There is nothing that shall be left undone--through his
honor--through the woman he loves."
She utterly abandoned herself to him now, suffering his endearments and
kisses like a thing of stone and thereby rousing his passions to their
highest pitch. She could have strangled him like a poisonous reptile
that defiled her body, but, after having suffered his embrace for a
time, she suddenly shook herself free of him.
"My lord--what of our plans? How much longer must I wait ere the
clarions announce to Rome that the Emperor's Tomb harbors a new
mistress? What of Alberic? What of Hassan Abdullah, the Saracen?"
Basil was regarding her with a mixture of savage passion, doubt,
incredulity and something like fear.
"The death-hounds are on Alberic's scent," he said at last, with
an effort to steady his voice, and hold in leash his feelings,
which threatened to master him, as his eyes devoured the woman's
beauty.--"Hassan Abdullah is even now in Rome."
"Can we rely upon him and his Saracens when the hour tolls that shall
see Theodora mistress of Rome?"
"Weighing a sack of gold against the infidel's treachery, it is safe to
predict that the scales will tip in favor of the bribe--so it be large
enough."
"Be lavish with him, and if his heart be set on other matters--"
She paused, regarding the man with an inscrutable look. Shrewd as he
was, he caught not its meaning.
"Why not entrust to his care the Lady Hellayne?"
The devilish suggestion seemed to find not as enthusiastic a reception
as she had anticipated.
"After having seen the Lady Theodora," Basil said, his eyes avoiding
those of the woman, "I fear the Lady Hellayne will appear poor in
Hassan Abdullah's eyes."
Theodora had grown pensive.
"I do not think so. To me she seemed like a snow-capped volcano. All
ice without, all fire within. Perchance I should bow to your better
judgment, my lord, and perchance to Hassan Abdullah's, whose good taste
in preferring the Lady Theodora cannot be gainsaid. But, our guests are
becoming impatient. Take me to the palace."
Basil barred the woman's way.
"And when you have reached the summit of your desire, will you remember
certain nuptials consummated in a certain chamber in the Emperor's
Tomb, between two placed as we are and mated as we?"
Theodora's lips curved in one of those rare smiles which brought him to
whom she gave it to her feet, her abject slave.
"I shall remember, my lord," she said, and, linking her arm in his,
they strode towards the palace.
CHAPTER X
DEVIL WORSHIP
The dawn of the following day brought in its wake consternation and
terror. From the churches of the two Egyptian Martyrs, Sts. Cosmas
and Damian, the Holy Host had been taken during the preceding night.
Frightened beyond measure, the ministering priests had suffered the
terrible secret to leak out, and this circumstance, coupled with the
unexplained absence of the Senator, the tardiness of the Prefect to
start his investigations, and the captivity of the Pontiff, threw the
Romans into a panic. It was impossible to guard every church in Rome
against a similar outrage, as the guards of the Senator were inadequate
in number, and, consisting chiefly of foreign elements, could not be
relied upon.
The early hours of the morning found Tristan in the hermitage of Odo of
Cluny. To him he confided the incidents of the night and his adventure
in the Catacombs. To him he also imparted the terrible discovery he had
made.
Odo of Cluny listened in silence, his face betraying no sign of the
emotion he felt. When Tristan had concluded his account he regarded him
long and earnestly.
"I, too, have long known that all is not well, that there is something
brewing in this witches' cauldron which may not stand the light of
day.--"
"But what is it?" cried Tristan. "Tell me, Father, for a great fear as
of some horrible danger is upon me; a fear I cannot define and which
yet will not leave me."
Odo's face was calm and grave. The Benedictine monk had been listening
intently, but with a detached interest, as to some tale which, even if
it concerned himself, could not in the least disturb his equanimity.
With his supernormal quickness of perception he knew at once the powers
with which he had to cope. Tristan had told him of the devilish face in
the panel during the night of his first watch at the Lateran.
"The powers of Evil at work are so great that only a miracle from
heaven can save us," he said at last. "Listen well, and lose not a word
of what I am about to say. Have you ever heard of one Mani, who lived
in Babylonia some seven hundred years ago and founded a religion in
which he professed to blend the teachings of Christ with the cult of
the old Persian Magi?"
A negative gesture came in response. Tristan's face was tense with
anxiety. Odo continued:
"According to his teachings there exist two kingdoms: the kingdom of
Light and the kingdom of Darkness. Light represents the beneficent
primal spirit: God. Darkness is likewise a spiritual kingdom: Satan and
his demons were born from the kingdom of Darkness. These two kingdoms
have stood opposed to each other from all eternity--touching each
other's boundaries, yet remaining unmingled. At last Satan began to
rage and made an incursion into the kingdom of Light. Now, the God of
Light begat the primal man and sent him, equipped with the five pure
elements, to fight against Satan. But the latter proved himself the
stronger, and the primal man was, for the time, vanquished. In time
the cult of the Manichæans spread. The seat of the Manichæan pope was
for centuries at Samarkand. From there, defying persecutions, the sect
spread, and obtained a foothold in northern Africa at the time of St.
Augustine. Thence it slowly invaded Italy."
Tristan listened with deep attention.
"The original creed had meanwhile been split up into numerous sects,"
Odo of Cluny continued. "The followers of Mani believed there were
two Gods,--the one of Light, the other of Darkness, both equally
powerful in their separate kingdoms. But lately one by the name of
Bogumil proclaims that God never created the world, that Christ had
not an actual body, that he neither could have been born, nor that he
died, that our bodies are evil, a foul excrescence, as it were, of the
evil principle. Maintaining that God had two sons--Satan the older
and Christ the younger--they refuse homage to the latter, Regent of
the Celestial World, and worship Lucifer. And they hold meetings and
perform diabolical ceremonies, in which they make wafers of ashes and
drink the blood of a goat, which their devil-priests administer to them
in communion."
Odo of Cluny paused and took a long breath, fixing Tristan with his
dark eyes. And when Tristan, stark with horror, dared not trust himself
to speak, Odo concluded:
"This is the peril that confronts us! And Holy Church is without a
head, and the cardinals cannot cope with the terrible scourge. It is
this you saw, my son, and, had your presence been discovered, you would
never again have greeted the light of day."
At last Tristan found his tongue.
"God forbid that there should be such a thing, that men should worship
the Fiend."
"Nevertheless they do," Odo replied, "and other things too awful for
mortal mind to credit."
The perspiration came out on Tristan's brow. Although he was prepared
for matters of infinite moment and knew that this interview might
well be one of the decisive moments of his life, he yet possessed the
detached attitude of mind which was curious of strange learning and
information, even in a crisis.
"And you have known this, Father?" he said at last, "and you have done
nothing to check the evil?"
"We are living in evil times, my son," Odo replied. "I have long known
of the existence of this black heresy, which has slowly spread its
baleful cult, until it has reached our very shores. But that they would
dare to establish themselves in the city of the Apostle, this I was not
prepared to accept, until the terrible crime at the Lateran removed the
last doubt. And now I know that the foul thing has obtained a footing
here, and more than that, I know that some high in power are affiliated
with this society of Satan, that would establish the reign of Lucifer
among the Seven Hills. Did you not tell me, my son, of one, terrible
of aspect, who peered through the panel in the Capella Palatina on the
night of that first and most horrible outrage?"
"One who looked as the Fiend might look, did he assume human guise,"
Tristan confirmed with a nod.
"The high priest of Satan," Odo returned, "a familiar of black
magic--the most terrible of all heinous crimes against Holy Church. A
wave of crime is rolling its crimson tide over the Eternal City such as
the annals of the Church have never recorded. It started in the reign
of Marozia, and Theodora is leagued with the fiend, as was her sister
before her."
Odo paused for a moment, breathing deep, while Tristan listened
spellbound.
"Have you ever pondered," he continued with slow emphasis, "why the
Lord Alberic entrusted to you, a stranger, so important a post as the
command of the Emperor's Tomb? That there may be one he does not trust
and who that one may be?"
Tristan gave a start.
"There is one I do not trust--one who seems to wrap himself in a poison
mist of evil--the Lord Basil."
"Be wary and circumspect. Has he of late come to the Tomb?"
"Three days ago--in company with a stranger from the North--one I may
not meet and again look upon heaven."
"The woman's husband?" Odo queried with a penetrating glance.
Tristan colored.
"How these two met I cannot fathom."
"Remember one thing, my son, their alliance portends evil to some one.
What did they in the crypts?"
"The Lord Basil seems to have taken a fancy to exploring the cells,"
Tristan replied. "Those who have followed him report that he holds
strange converse with the ghost of some mad monk whom he starved into
eternity."
"And this converse--what is its subject?" Odo queried with awakening
interest.
"A prophecy and a woman," Tristan replied. "Though those who heard them
were so terror stricken at their infectious madness that they fled--not
daring to tarry longer lest they would find themselves in the clutches
of the fiend."
"A prophecy and a woman," Odo repeated pensively. "The Lord Alberic has
confided much in me--his fears--his doubts! For even he knows not, how
his mother came to her untimely end."
"The Lady Marozia?"
"The tale is known to you?"
"Rumors--flimsy--intangible--"
"One night she was mysteriously strangled. The Lord Alberic was almost
beside himself. But the mystery remained unsolved."
After a pause Odo continued: