Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome

For a time there was silence. Hellayne, utterly exhausted from the recital of a past, which had reopened every wound in her heart, causing it to bleed anew, anxious, afraid, doubting and wondering how far her protectress might go, stood before the woman who seemed to hold in her hand both her own fate and that of her lover. "I will retire to my cell and pray to the Blessed Virgin for light to guide my steps," the Abbess said at last, laying her hand on Hellayne's head. "Do not venture away too far," she enjoined, "and come to me after the Ave Maria. Perchance I may then know what to counsel." Hellayne bowed her head and kissed the hem of the Abbess' robe. After she had left, Hellayne remained standing where she was, transfixed with anxiety and grief. What forces of gloom and evil encompassed her on all sides? The man to whom she had given her youth and beauty, who had plucked the flower which others had vainly desired, instead of cherishing the gift she had bestowed upon him, had trampled the delicate blossom in the dust. He, to whom her heart belonged ever since she had power to think, was doomed for a deed too terrible to name. She had been ruthlessly sacrificed by the one, and now the other had failed her, and a third tried to encompass her ruin. And she was alone--utterly alone! What was she to do? To request an audience of the Cardinal-Archbishop was little short of madness. In her own heart Hellayne doubted seriously that the Abbess would concern herself any further about her or her distress. Nevertheless she felt that something must be done. This inertia which was creeping over her would drive her mad. But first of all she must know the nature of the charge placed against the man she loved before she would determine what to do. In vain she taxed her tired brain for a ray of hope in the encompassing gloom. The long lights of the afternoon crossed and recrossed the sanctuary of Santa Maria in Trastevere when Hellayne, after an hour of fervent prayer, emerged from its portals and took the direction of the Tiber, where she sat on her accustomed seat and brooded over her misery. At last the sunset came. The ashen color of the olive trees flashed out into silver. The mountain peaks of distant Alba became faintly flushed and phantom fair as, in a tempest of fire, the sun sank to rest. The forests of ilex and arbutus on the Janiculum Hill seemed to tremble with delight as the long red heralds touched their topmost boughs. The whole landscape seemed to smile farewell to departing day. As she sat there, Hellayne's attention was attracted to a woman who had paused near the river's edge. There was nothing remarkable either in her carriage or apparel. It was a wrinkled hag, swart, snake-locked, cowled, her dress jingling with sequins, her right hand clawed upon a crooked staff. She appeared, in fact, just an old Levantine hoodie-crow of the breed which was familiar enough in Rome in those cataclysmic days, when all sorts of queer, tragic fowl were being driven northward from over seas before the tidal wave of invading Islam. Her speech as well as her manners and dress betrayed Oriental origin. As she hobbled up to where Hellayne was seated she stopped and asked some trifling question about her way, which Hellayne pointed with some hesitation, explaining that she was herself a stranger in Rome, and knew not the direction of the city. The old crone seemed interested. "In yonder cloister--yet not of it?" she queried, pointing with the crooked staff to the convent walls that towered darkly behind them in the evening dusk. Her penetration startled Hellayne. "How did you guess, old mother?" she queried with a look of awe, which was not unremarked by the other. "Ay--there is lore enough under these faded locks of mine to turn the foulest cesspool in Rome as clear as crystal, or to change this staff whereon I lean into a thing that creeps and hisses," she said with a low laugh. Hellayne shrank back from her with a gesture of dismay. Believing implicitly in their power, she felt a deadly fear of those who professed the black arts. The old woman read her thoughts. "My daughter," she said, "be not afraid of the old woman's secret gifts. Mine is a harmless knowledge, gained by study of the scrolls of wise men, in my own native land. Fear not, I say, for I, who have pored over those mystic characters till me eyes grew dim, can read your sweet pale face as plainly as the brazen tablets in the Forum, and I can see in it sorrow and care and anxiety for one you love." Hellayne gave a start. It was true! But how had the old crone found it out! She glanced wistfully at her companion, and the latter, satisfied she was on the right track, proceeded to answer that questioning glance.-- "You think he is in danger, or in grief," she continued mysteriously, "and you wonder why he does not come. What would you not give, my poor child, to see him this very moment--to look into his face--his eyes. And I can show him to you, if you will. I am not ungrateful, even for a slight service." The blood mounted to Hellayne's brow, and a strange light kindled in her eyes, while a soft radiance swept over her face such as comes into every countenance when the heart vibrates with an illusion to its happiness, as though the silver cord thrilled to the touch of an angel's wing. It was no clumsy guess of the wise woman to infer that the woman before her loved. "What mean you?" asked Hellayne eagerly. "How can you show him to me? What do you know of him? Where is he? Is he safe?" The wise woman smiled. Here was a bird flying blindly into the net. Take her by her affections, there would be little difficulty in the capture. "He is in danger--in grave danger," she replied. "But you could save him, if you only knew how. He might be happy, too, if he would. But--with another!" To do Hellayne justice, she heard only the first sentence. "In grave danger," she repeated. "I knew it! And I could save him! Oh, tell me where he is, and what I can do for him?" The wise woman pulled a small mirror from her bosom. "I cannot tell you," she replied. "But I can show him to you. Only not here, where the shadow of any chance passer-by might destroy the charm. Let us turn aside into yonder ruins. There is no one near, and you shall gaze without interruption into the face of him you love--" It was but a short way off, though the ruins which surrounded it made the place lonely and secluded. Had it been twice the distance however, Hellayne would have accompanied her new acquaintance for Tristan's sake, in the eagerness to obtain tidings of his fate. As she approached the ruins she could not repress a faint sigh, which was not lost on her companion. "It was here you parted," she said. "It is here you shall see him again." This was scarcely a random shaft, for it required little penetration to discover that Hellayne had some tender association connected with a spot, the solitude of which appealed to her in so great a degree. Nevertheless the utterance convinced Hellayne of her companion's supernatural power and, though it roused alarm, it excited curiosity to a still greater degree. "Take the mirror in your hand," whispered the wise woman, when they reached the portico, casting a searching glance around. "Shut your eyes while I speak the charm that calls him three times over, and then look steadily on its surface till I have counted ten." Hellayne obeyed these instructions implicitly. Standing in the centre of the ruin with the mirror in her hand, she shut her eyes and listened intently to the low solemn tones of the woman's chanting, while from the deep shadows of the ruin there stole out a muffled form and at the same time a half dozen sbirri rose from their different hiding places among the ruins. Ere the incantation had been twice repeated, the leader threw a scarf over Hellayne's head, muffling her so completely that an outcry was impossible. Resistlessly she felt herself taken up and carried to a chariot, which was waiting a short space away. A moment later the driver whipped the horses into a gallop and the vehicle with its occupants and burden disappeared in the gathering dusk. CHAPTER IV A LYING ORACLE It was an eventful night in Rome and, although for that reason well adapted to deeds of violence, the tumult and confusion exacted great caution from those who wished to proceed without interruption along the streets. A storm had burst as out of a clear sky, and was sweeping in its fury throughout a large portion of the city. Like all similar outbreaks, it gathered force from many sources unconnected with its original course. Rome was the theatre that night of a furious strife between the great feudal houses which lorded it over the city. The Leonine city with its protecting walls did not exist until some decades later. Thus, not only hordes of marauding Saracens, but Franks and Teutons used to make occasional inroads to the very gates of the city. On this evening Pandulph of Benevento, having taken umbrage at some decision of the Sacred Consistory regarding the lands he held as fief of the Church, conferring upon him a title which was disputed by Wido of Prænesté, had broken into the city and a bloody and obstinate conflict was being waged between his forces and the soldiers of the Church. The Roman nobles, ever restless and ready to revolt alike from the authority of the Emperor or of the Church, would not let this glorious opportunity pass without reminding those in power that they had built upon a volcano. They joined in the fray, some taking the part of the invader, others of the Church. An hour or two before sunset an undisciplined horde of mercenaries, armed cap-a-pie, and formidable chiefly for the wild fury with which they seemed inspired, attacked the Mausoleum of the Flavian Emperor. The assailants, having no engines of war either for protection or assault, suffered severely from the missiles showered upon them by the besieged. Being repulsed after repeated assaults, they threw flaming torches into the houses that lined the river on the opposite shore and withdrew. From another quarter of the city a large body of Epirotes, who had hoisted the standard of the Lord Gisulph of Salerno and had already suffered one defeat, which rather roused their animosity than quelled their ardor, were advancing in good order. Before the Lateran they met the forces of Pandulph of Benevento, and a terrible hand-to-hand encounter ensued. Nor was man the only demon on the scene. Unsexed women with bare bosoms, wild eyes and streaming hair, the very outcast of the Roman scum, their feet stained with blood, flew to and fro, stimulating each other to fresh atrocities with wine, caresses and ribald mirth. It was a feast of Death and Sin. She had wreathed her white arms about the spectral king and crowned his fleshless head with her gaudy garlands, wrapped him in a mantle of flame and pressed the blood-red goblet to his lips, maddening him with her shrieks of wild, mocking mirth, the while mailed feet trampled out the lives of their victims on the flagstones of Rome. Through a town in such a state of turmoil and confusion Tebaldo took it upon himself to conduct in safety the prize he had succeeded in capturing, not, it must be confessed, without many hearty regrets that he had ever embarked on the enterprise. It was indeed a difficult and perilous task. He had been compelled to dismiss his men long ago, in order not to attract attention. There was but room for himself and one stout slave, beside the charioteer and his captive. The latter had struggled violently and required to be held down by sheer force, nor, in muffling her screams, was it easy to