Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
whole frame.
Odo tried to soothe him.
"This is hardly the spirit I expected of one who has hitherto shown
so brave a front, and whose aim it is not to anticipate the blows of
chance."
"Nevertheless, Father, it is more than I can bear. I have no lust for
life, and care not what fate has in store for me, for my heart is heavy
within me, and all the fountains of my hopes are dried up, until I know
the fate of the Lady Hellayne--and know from her own lips that she does
not believe this devilish calumny."
A troubled look passed into Odo's face.
"If she still is at the convent of the Blessed Sisters of Trastevere
she is undoubtedly safe," he said, but there was something in his tone
which struck Tristan's ear with dismay.
"You are keeping something from me, Father," he said falteringly. "Tell
me the worst! For this anxiety is worse than death. Where is the Lady
Hellayne? Is she--dead?"
"Would she were," replied the monk gloomily. "I wished to spare you the
tidings! She was taken from the convent on some pretext--the nature of
which I know not. At present she is at the palace of Theodora on Mount
Aventine."
Tristan sat up as if electrified.
"At the palace of Theodora?" he cried. "How is this known to you?"
"Little transpires in Rome which I do not know," Odo replied darkly.
"It seems that those whom the Lord Basil entrusted with the task of
abducting the woman were in turn outwitted by Theodora who, in rescuing
her from a fate worse than death at the hands of the Grand Chamberlain,
has perchance consigned her to one equally, if not more, cruel."
A moan broke from Tristan's lips. Then he was seized with a terrible
fit of rage.
"Then it is Theodora's hand that has sundered us in the flesh as her
witches' beauty had estranged our hearts. More merciless than a beast
of prey she did not strike Hellayne with death, so that I might have
sentinelled her hallowed tomb, and with her sweet memory for company
might have watched for the coming of my own hour to join her again! I
have lost my love--my honor--my manhood--at the hands of a wanton."
Odo tried for a time, though in vain, to calm him by reminding him that
Hellayne would rather suffer death than dishonor. As regarded himself,
he was convinced that Theodora would have moved heaven and earth to
have set him free, had not his supposed crime concerned the Church and
the Cardinal-Archbishop was adamant.
"Oft, in my visions," he concluded, speaking lower, as if his mind
strove with some vague elusive memory, "have I heard the voice of
Theodora's doom cried aloud. A cruel fate is yours indeed--and we can
but pray to the saints that the worst may be averted from the woman who
has suffered so much."
"Something must be done," Tristan interposed, his fierce mood gaining
the mastery over every other feeling. "I care not if the minions of
the devil take me back to the prison that leads to death, so I snatch
her prey from this arch-courtesan of the Aventine."
Odo laid a detaining hand upon his arm.
"Madman! You are but planning your own destruction. And, if you die,
wherein will it benefit the woman who is left to her fate? You are weak
from the night's work and your nerves are overwrought. Follow me into
the adjoining room even though the repast be meagre. We will devise
some means to rescue the Lady Hellayne from the powers of darkness and,
trusting in Him who died that we may live, we shall succeed."
Pointing to the drooping form of the crucified Christ on the opposite
wall of his improvised oratory, Odo beckoned to Tristan to follow him,
and the latter accompanied the Benedictine into the adjoining rock
chamber, where he did ample justice to the frugal repast which Odo
placed before him, and of which the monk himself partook but sparingly.
CHAPTER VI
FROM DREAM TO DREAM
Theodora's sleep had been broken and restless. She tossed and turned
upon her pillow. It was weary work to lie gazing with eyes wide open
at the fantastic shadows cast by the flickering night lamp. It was
still less productive of sleep to shut them tight and abandon herself
to the visions thus created which stood out in life-like colors and
refused to be dispelled. Do what she would to forget him, Tristan ever
and ever stood before her, towering like a demigod above the mean,
effeminate throng that surrounded her. She could no longer analyze her
feelings. She believed herself to be bewitched. She had not reached
the prime of womanhood without having sounded, as she thought, every
chord of the human heart. Descendant from a family of courtesans, such
as had ruled Rome during the tenth century, she had tasted every cup,
as she thought, that promised gratification and excitement. She had
been flattered, courted, loved, admired. Yet she had remained utterly
cold to all these experiences, and none of her lovers could boast that
her passion had endured beyond the hour. The terrible fascination she
exercised over all men made them slaves in her hands, blind instruments
of her will. But, as the years went by, the utter disgust she felt with
these hordes of beasts that thronged her bowers, was only equalled by
a mad desire for power, a struggle, which alone could bring to her
oblivion. To rule had become a passion with the woman, who had no heart
interest that made life worth living. The fleeting passion for Basil
had long ceased to kindle a responsive fire in her veins. Fit but to
be her tool, she was determined to rid herself of him as soon as her
ambition should have been realized.
Suddenly the unbelievable had come to pass. She had met a man. Not one
of those crawling, fawning reptiles who nightly desecrated her groves,
but a man who might have steered her life into different channels, who
might have directed the flight of her soul to regions of light, instead
of chaining it to the dark abyss among the shadows. It was a new
sensation altogether. This intense and passionate longing she had never
felt before. But in its novelty it was absolutely painful. For the man
whom she craved with all the fibres of her being, to whom her soul went
out as it had never gone out to mortal, had scorned her.
Her fame had proved more potent than her beauty.
Tristan's continued indifference had roused in her all the demons
in her nature. Her first impulse had been revenge at any price. Her
compact with Basil was the fruit of her first madness. Even now she
would have rescinded it had Tristan but shown a softer, kindlier
feeling towards her. Some incongruous whim had prompted her to choose
for her instrument the very man whom in her heart she loathed, whose
attentions were an insult to her. For, in her own heart, Theodora held
herself to be some God-decreed thing, like the Laides and Thaides and
Phrynes of old. She could not escape her destiny.
With all her self-command Theodora's feelings had almost overpowered
her. Ever since the tidings of Tristan's supposed crime and captivity
had reached her ear, she had taxed her brain, though in vain, to
bring about his rescue. For once her efforts were baffled and she met
a resistance which all the tigerish ferocity of her nature could
not overcome. Tristan was in the custody of the Church. In his guilt
Theodora did not believe, rather did she suspect foul play at the hands
of one of whom she would demand a terrible reckoning. She thought of
Tristan night and day, and she was determined to save him, whatever the
hazard,--save him for herself and her love. Her spies were at work, but
meanwhile she must sit idly by and wait--wait, though the blood coursed
like lava through her veins. She dared confide in none, nor could she
even have speech with the man she loved. She had managed to curb her
feelings and to preserve an outward calm, while Persephoné prepared her
for repose. The latter was much puzzled by her mistress's mood, but she
retired to her own couch carefree, while Theodora writhed in an agony
such as she had never known before.
Yet, fate had been kind to her,--kinder than she had dared to hope.
By some fatal throw of chance the woman Tristan loved--her rival--had
fallen into her hands. While this circumstance did not in itself take
the sting of Tristan's insult from the wound, she would, at least, be
revenged upon the cause of her suffering.
When, on that memorable evening at the Arch of the Seven Candles, she
had first met Hellayne face to face, when first the truth had flashed
upon her and she knew herself rejected for that white lily from the
North, a hatred such as she had never known had crept into her heart,
a hatred to which fresh fuel was added from the consciousness of her
rival's beauty, her strength, her youth. With all the fire of her
southern temperament she longed to meet this woman, to conquer her, to
take from her the man she loved.
Morning brought in its wake its unfailing accession of
clear-sightedness and practical resolve. Long before she rose she had
made up her mind where and how to strike. Nothing remained but to
choose the weapon and to put a keener edge upon the steel.
When Persephoné came to assist her mistress, she wondered how the mood
of the evening had passed. While attiring Theodora, the Circassian
could not but wonder at the marvellous beauty of this woman who had
bent the hearts of men to her desires like wind blown reeds, only
to break them and cast them at their feet. Only on the previous day
a new wooer had entered the lists; a man rude of speech and manner,
vain withal and self-satisfied, had laid gifts at Theodora's feet.
Roger de Laval was the great man's name. He came from some far away,
fabled land, and it was rumored that he had come to Rome to seek his
truant wife. Having surprised her in the arms of her lover, whom she
had followed, he had killed both. Such a temper was to the liking
of Persephoné, and, as her soft white fingers played around her
mistress' throat, in the endeavor to fasten her rose-colored tunic, she
could hardly restrain herself from encircling that white throat and
strangling the woman who had spurned the attentions of one for whose
love she would have sacrificed her soul.
"What of the Lady Hellayne?" Theodora broke the heavy silence.
"She remains in the chamber which the Lady Theodora has assigned to
her." Persephoné replied.
"Are the eunuchs at their post?"
"Before her door and beneath her windows."
Theodora gave a nod.
"Bring the Lady Hellayne here!"
"The Lady Theodora has not breakfasted."
"I know! Yet I would not delay this meeting longer."
Persephoné hesitated.
"The Lady Hellayne is in a perilous mood--"
"I should love nothing better than to find her so," Theodora replied,
extending her two snowy arms, whose steely strength Persephoné knew
so well. "I long for the conflict with this marble statue as I have
never longed for anything in my life. I could find it in my heart to
be happy if she destroyed me with those white hands that rival mine,
if she but stepped out of her reserve, her marble calm, if her soul
ignited from mine."
"If I know aught about her kind, the Lady Theodora will do well to be
wary," Persephoné replied demurely.
The covert taunt had its instantaneous effect.
"Deem you I fear this white siren from the North?" Theodora flashed,
regarding herself in the bronze mirror and brushing a stray lock of
hair from her white brow.
"What will you do with her, Lady Theodora?" Persephoné purred.
Theodora's face was very white.
"There are times when nothing but the physical touch will satisfy. And
now go and fetch hither the Lady Hellayne that I may hear from her own
lips how she fared under the roof of her rival."
Persephoné departed from the room, while Theodora arose and, stepping
to the casement, looked out into the blossoming gardens that encircled
her palace.