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

When the top receded he could not repress an outcry. A chill coursed coldly through his veins. His breath came and went in sobs, as from one half drowned.

He only glanced at what was before him for the fraction of a second. But he knew what had made the very soul within him shudder and his bones grind, as if in mortal agony.

It was as though Hell itself had opened the gates. He staggered back in a paroxysm of horror. —

With a grim, set face Tristan closed the top of the cabinet and replaced it on the rocky ledge. Thus he stood, his face buried in his hands. Could the All-seeing God permit such an outrage and let the perpetrators live?

But there was no time for reflection. At any moment one of the muffled phantoms might return, and indeed he thought he heard steps approaching through one of the rock galleries. He crouched in breathless, agonized suspense, for it did not suffer him longer in these caverns of crime and death.

He dimly remembered the direction in which the nocturnal company had departed and, after some research, he discovered a narrow corridor that seemed to slope upward through the gloom. His lantern having been broken to atoms, the taper held out little promise of life beyond a brief space of time during which he must find the entrance of the cavern, if he did not wish to meet a fate even worse than death in the event of discovery.

Grimly resolved Tristan raised the flickering taper and entered the gallery on his left. The Stygian gloom almost extinguished the feeble light, though he noted every object he passed, every turn in the tortuous ascent.

After some time which seemed eternity he at last perceived a dim glow at the extremity of the gallery, and soon found himself before the outer cavity of the stone wall, in a region of the city that seemed miles removed from the place where he had entered.

It was near daybreak. The moon shone faintly in the grey heavens and a vaporous mist was sinking from shapeless clouds that hovered over the course of the Tiber.

Tristan looked about his solitary lurking place, but beheld no human being in its lonely recesses. Then his eyes fixed themselves with a shudder upon the glooming vault from which he had made his escape.

He was on the track of a terrible mystery, a mystery which shunned the light of day and of heaven. He must fathom it, whatever the risk. A strange new energy possessed him. His life at last seemed to have a purpose. He was no longer a rolling stone. There was work ahead. His future course stood out clearly defined, as Tristan turned his back upon the Catacombs of St. Calixtus and took the direction of the Aventine. To Odo, the Monk of Cluny, he must confide the terrible discovery he had made in the mephitic caverns of the Catacombs. To him he must turn for counsel, of which he stood sorely in need. And in some way which he could not account for to himself, Tristan felt as if the fate of Hellayne was bound up in these dreadful mysteries. At first the thought seemed absurd, but somehow it gained upon him and began to add new weight to his burden. Could he but see her! Could he but have speech with her. A great dread seized him at the thought of what might be her fate at the present hour. What would she think of him who seemed to have abandoned her in the hour of dire distress, when she needed him above all men on earth?

Did her intuition, did her heart inform her that he had roamed the city for days in the hope of finding her? Had her heart informed her that, like a spirit judged and condemned, he found neither rest nor peace in his vain endeavors to discover her abode? Was she sinking under her loneliness, perishing from uncertainty of her fate, doubts of his allegiance? To what perils and miseries had he exposed her, and to what end? He groaned in despair, as his mind reverted from the dark present to the happy past. A past, forever gone! —

A faint streak of light crept across the East, permeating the grey dawn with roseate hues as Tristan re-entered the Emperor's Tomb to partake of an hour or two of much needed rest, ere the business of the new-born day claimed him its own.

CHAPTER VII

A BOWER OF EDEN

After some hours of much needed rest Tristan started out to find the Monk of Cluny. The task he had set himself was not one easy of execution, since the Benedictine friar was wont to visit the Roman sanctuaries following the promptings of the spirit without adhering to a definite routine. Thus the greater part of the day was consumed in a futile quest of him of whose counsel he stood sorely in need.

At the hour of sunset Tristan set anew upon his quest. His feet carried him to a remote region of the city, and when he regained his bearings he found himself before the convent of Santa Maria del Priorata with its environing groves of oleander and almond trees.

The moon was floating like a huge pearl of silver through vast seas of blue. The sleeping flowers were closed, like half-extinguished censers, breathing faint incense on the night's pale brow. From some dark bough a nightingale was shaking down a flood of song. The fountains from their stone basins leaped moonward in the passion of their love and seemed to fall sobbing back to earth. The night air breathed hot and languorous across the gardens of the Pincian Mount. Lutes tinkled here and there. And the magic of the night thrilled Tristan's soul. As in a trance his gaze followed the white figure that was moving noiselessly down a moss grown path. A thick hedge of laurel concealed her now. Then she paused as if she, too, were enraptured by the magic of the night.

The moon illumined the central lawn and the whispering fountains. Tall cypresses seemed to intensify the shade. In the distance he could faintly discern the white balustrade, crowning a terrace where green alleys wound obscurely beneath the canopy of darkest oak, and moss and violet made their softest bed. In the very centre of it was a small domed temple, a shrine to Love.

Tristan's senses began to swoon. Was it a hallucination – was it reality? A moon maiden she seemed, made mortal for a night, to teach all comers love in the sacred grove.

"Hellayne! Hellayne!"

His voice sounded strange to his own ears.

As in a dream he saw her come towards him. She came so silent and so pale in the spectral light that he feared lest it was the spectre of his mind that came to meet him. And once more the voice cried "Hellayne!" and then they lay in each other's arms. All her reluctance, all her doubts seemed to have flown at the sound of her name from his lips.

"Hellayne! Hellayne!" he whispered deliriously, kissing her eyes, her hair, her sweet lips, and folding her so close to him, as if he would never again part from her he loved better than life. "At last I have found you! How came you here? Speak! Is it indeed yourself, or is it some mocking spirit that has borrowed your form?"

And again he kissed her and their eyes held silent commune.

"It is I who have just refound you!" she whispered, as he looked enraptured into the sweet girlish face, the face that had not changed since he had left Avalon, though she seemed to have become more womanly, and in her eyes lay a pathetic sorrow.

What a rapture there was in that clear tone. But she trembled as she spoke. Would he understand? Would he believe?

"But – why – why – are you here?" he stammered.

"I have sought you long."

"You have followed me? You are not then a nun?"

"You see I am not."

"But why – oh why, – have you done this thing?"

She made no answer.

"You are here in Rome – and he is here. And you did not know?"

"I knew!" she replied with a little nod, like a questioned child.

"You knew! And he believes that I knew!"

"That is a small matter, dear. For he knows, that you knew not."

The endearment startled him. It seemed to cast her faith upon him.

"What are you doing here?" he said.

"I came because I had to come! I had no choice – !"

"No choice! Then why did you send me away?"

She gave a little shrug.

"I knew not how much I loved you."

"And yet, dearest, you cannot remain here. You know his moods better than any one else – and you know if he finds us – for your own sake, dearest, you cannot remain."

In the warmth of his entreaty he had used as endearing words as she. They were precious to her ears.

"Let him come!" she said, nestling close to him. "Let him come and kill me!"

She glanced about. He pointed to the castellated building that rose darkly beyond the holm-oaks.

"Yonder – is yonder your abode?" he stammered.

Suddenly the woman in her gained the mastery.

"Oh no! No! No! Let us hide! Wretch that I am, to risk your life with mine."

She had flung herself upon him. Around them rioted roses in wild profusion. To him it seemed like a bosquet of Eden. Upon his breast she sobbed. But no consideration of past or present could restrain his hand from gently soothing her silken hair.

"Oh, why did you leave me?" she cried. "Why could we not have loved without all this? Surely two souls can love – if love they must – without doing wrong to any one."

His arms stole about her.

"Speak to me! Speak to me!" she whispered with upturned face.

"Had I known that this would happen, I should have known that I did foolishly," he replied. "You should have known, dearest. You thought to kill our love by cutting it to earth. You have but made its roots grow deeper down into the present and the future!"

She nodded dreamily.

"Perchance you speak truth!" she said. "You see me here by your side, having crossed leagues and leagues to seek your soul, my home – my only home forever. And as surely as the bee goes back to its one hallowed oak have I refound you. And as surely as the ocean knows that every breath of vapor lifted from its face shall some day come back to its breast, so surely did you know that your love must return to you."

"Unless," he said, "it sinks into the unseen springs that are so deep that they are lost from sight forever."

"Lost – nothing is lost. The deepest water shall break out some day and reach the lake – the river. Then, why not now? I am one who cannot wait for eternity."

"And yet, eternity I fear, is waiting for us!"

There was a deep silence, lasting apace.

"Ah, I know," she said at last. "I know I ought to think as you do. I should be conscience stricken now, as I was then. I should be glad that you left me. But I am not – I am not. I am here, dearest, to ask you if you love me still?" —

"Love you?" he replied in a transport, holding her close, while he covered her eyes and her upturned face with kisses. "I love you as never woman was loved – as the night loves the dew in the cups of the upturned flowers – as the nightingale loves the dream that weaves its phantom webs about her bowers. I love you above everything in heaven or on earth. You knew the answer, dearest. Why did you ask?"

"I see it in your eyes. You love me still," she crooned, her beautiful white arms about his neck, "notwithstanding – "

He started. And yet, after the scene she had witnessed on that night, her doubts were but too well-founded. Yet she had not queried before.

"Strange fortunes crossed my path since I came here," he said. "Ambition lured – I followed, as one who lost his way. Would you have had me do otherwise?"

In his eyes she read the truth. Yet the shadow of that other woman had come between them as a phantom.

"Oh, no, – although I never thought that you were made for statecraft."

"I am in the service of the Senator. And the Senator of Rome is her foe."

"And you?"

"I am his servant."

She laughed nervously.

"I never thought you would come to this, my love."

"Nor ever should I have thought so. But fate is strange. The Holy Father is imprisoned in the Lateran. To him I wended my way. But the only service I did him was to prevent his escape – unwittingly. I visited the sanctuaries. But though prayers hovered on my lips, repentance was not in my heart. And then it came to pass. And I feel like one borne in a bark that has neither sail nor rudder. And if, instead of being far-floated to these Roman shores, I am headed for a port where all is security and peace, can I prevent it? I am borne on! I close my eyes and try to think that Fate has intended it for my good."

"For your good!" she said bitterly.

"For yours no less, perchance."

"How so, dearest? What good can come to me from your soul's security? To me, who believe our love is rightful?"

"And yet you sent me from you – into darkness – loneliness – despair?"

She stroked his hair.

"It was fear as well as conscience that prompted. You once said that all things are right, that may not be escaped. You said, that if God was at the back of all things, all things were pure – "

"I know I said it! But, what I meant, I know not now. I saw things strangely then."

"There were days when I, too, lost my vision," she said softly, "when I said to myself: there is truth and truth – the higher and the lower. It was the higher, if you like to call it so, Tristan, that prompted the deed. Since then I have come down to earth, and the lower truth, more fit for beings of clay, proclaims my presence here – "

"What will you do?" he queried anxiously.

"I know not – I know not! I came here to be with you – without ever a thought of meeting him again whom I have wronged – if wronged indeed I have. He has vowed to kill you! Oh, to what a pass have I brought you – my love – my love! Let us fly from Rome! Let us leave this city. He will never know. And as for me – he but loves me because I am fair to look upon, and lovable in the eyes of another. What I have suffered in the silence, in the darkness, you will never know. You shall take me with you – anywhere will I go – so we shake the dust of this city from our feet."

She leapt at him again and flung her arms about his neck, her face upturned. He had neither will nor power to release himself. He scarcely had the strength to speak the words which he knew would stab her to the heart.

Even ere he spoke she fell away from him as if she had read his mind.

"So you persuaded him of your repentance," she cried. "You are friends over the body of your murdered love! And I – who gave all – am left alone, – the foe of either. It was nobly done."

He stared at her as if he thought she had gone mad.

"Listen, Hellayne," he urged, taking her hands in his, in the endeavor to soothe her. "What spirit of evil has whispered this madness into your ears? Even just now you said, he has sworn to kill me. How could there be reconciliation between Roger de Laval and myself – who love his wife?"

"Then what is it?" she queried, her eyes upon his lips as if she were waiting sentence to be pronounced upon her.

"I am the Senator's man!"

The words fell upon her ears like the knell of doom.

"He will release you! I will go to him – if your pride is greater, than your love."

She was all woman now, deaf to reason and entreaty, thinking of nothing but her great love of him.

He drew her down beside him on the marble seat.

"Listen, Hellayne! You do not understand – you wrong me cruelly. Naught is there in this world that I would not do to make you happy – you, whose love and happiness are my one concern while life endures. But this thing may not be. The Senator of Rome is away on a pilgrimage. He has chosen me to watch over this city till his return. Danger lurks about me in every guise. Its nature I know not. But I do know that there is some dark power at work plotting evil. There is one I do not trust – the Lord Basil."

Hellayne gave a start.

"The bosom friend, so it would seem, of the Count Laval."

The color had left Tristan's face.

"You have met?"

"He appears to have taken a great liking to my lord. Almost daily does he call, and they seem to have some secret matter between them."

Tristan gripped Hellayne's hand so fiercely that she hardly suppressed an outcry.

"Have you surprised any utterance?"

"Only a name. They thought I was out of earshot."

"What name?"

"Theodora!"

She watched him narrowly as she spoke the word.

He gave a start.

"Theodora," Hellayne repeated slowly. "She who saved your life when my poor efforts failed."

There was a tinge of bitterness in her tone which did not escape Tristan's ear. Ere he could make reply, she followed it up with the question:

"What is there between you and her?"

"For aught I know it is some strange whim of the woman, call it infatuation if you will," he replied, "which, though I have repelled her, still maintains. It was at her feast I first met the Lord Roger face to face."

"How came you there?" she questioned with pained voice.

Tristan recounted the circumstances, concealing nothing from the time of his arrival in Rome to the present hour. Hellayne listened wearily, but the account he gave seemed rather to irritate than to reconcile her to him, who thus laid bare his heart before her.

"And so soon was I forgot?" she crooned.

"Never for a moment were you forgot, my Hellayne," he replied with all the fervor of persuasion at his command. "At all times have I loved you, at all times was your image enshrined in my heart. Theodora is all-powerful in Rome, as was Marozia before her. The magistrates, the officers of the Senator's court, are her creatures, – Basil no less than the rest. Would that the Lord Alberic returned, for the burden he has placed upon my shoulders is exceeding heavy. But you, my Hellayne, what will you do? I cannot bear the thought of knowing you with him who has wrecked your life, your happiness."

In Hellayne's blue eyes there was a great pain.

"Why mind such trifles since you but think of yourself?"

"You do not understand!" he protested. "Can I with honor abandon the trust which the Senator has imposed? What if the dreadful thing should happen? What if sudden sedition should sweep his power into the night of oblivion? Could I stand face to face with him, should he ask: 'How have you kept your trust?'"

Steps were approaching on the greensward.

Hellayne turned pale and Tristan's arm closed about her, determined to defend her to the death against whosoever should dare intrude.

Then it was as if some impalpable barrier had arisen between the man and the woman. It seemed the last hard malice of Fate to have brought them so near to what was not to be.

Hardly had Tristan drawn her throbbing bosom to his embrace when a dark shadow fell athwart their path and, looking up, he became aware of a forbidding form that stood hard by, wrapped in a black mantle that reached to his heels. From under a hood which was drawn over his face two beady eyes gleamed with smouldering fire, while the hooked nose gave the face the semblance of a bird of prey, which illusion the cruel mouth did little to dispel.

Hellayne, too, had seen this phantom of ill omen and was about to release herself from Tristan's arms, her face white as her robe, when the speech of the intruder arrested her movement.

"A message from the Lady Theodora."

A hot flush passed over Tristan's face, giving way to a deadly pallor as, hesitating to take the proffered tablet, he replied with ill-concealed vexation:

"Whom does the Lady Theodora honor by sending so ill-favored a messenger?"

The cowled figure fixed his piercing eyes first upon Tristan then upon Hellayne.

"The Lord Tristan will do well to pay heed to the summons, if he values that which lies nearest his heart."

But ere he, for whom the message was intended, could take it, Hellayne had snatched it from the messenger, had broken the seal and devoured its contents by the light of the moon which made the night as bright as day.

Then, with a shrill laugh, she cast it at Tristan's feet and, ere the latter could recover himself, both the woman and the messenger had gone and he stood alone in the bosquet of roses, vainly calling the name of her who had left him without a word to his misery and despair.

CHAPTER VIII

AN ITALIAN NIGHT

The palace of Theodora on Mount Aventine was aglow with life and movement for the festivities of the evening. The lights of countless cressets were reflected from the marble floor of the great reception hall and shone on the rich panelling, and the many-hued tapestries which decked the walls.

In the shadow of the little marble kiosk which rose, a relic of a happier age, among oleander and myrtles, shadowed by tall cypresses, silent guardians of the past, Theodora and Basil faced each other. The white, livid face of the man gave testimony to the passions that consumed him, as his burning gaze swept the woman before him.

"I have spoken, my Lord Basil! Should some unforeseen mischance befall him I have summoned hither, look to it that I require not his blood at your hands."

Theodora's tone silenced all further questioning. After a pause she continued: "And if you desire farther proof that this man shall not stand against my enchantments, pass into yonder kiosk and through its carven windows shall you be able to witness all that passes between us."

She ceased with quivering lips, the while Basil regarded her from under half-shut lids, filled with sudden brooding, and for a space there was silence. At last he said in a low, unsteady voice:

"So I did not err when my hatred rose against this puppet of the Senator's, who came to Rome to do penance for a kiss. You love him, your foe, while I, your utter slave, must stand by and, with aching heart, see your mad desire bring all our schemes to naught."

His hand closed on his dagger hilt, but Theodora's eyes flashed like bared swords as with set face she said:

"Fool! – to see but that which lies in your path, not the intricate nets which are spread in the darkness. I mean to make this man my very own! His fevered lips shall close on mine, and in my embrace he shall climb to the heaven of the Gods. He shall be mine! He shall do my bidding utterly. He shall open for me the gates of the Emperor's Tomb. He shall stand beside me when I am proclaimed mistress of Rome! For my love he shall defy the world that is – and the world that is not."

"And what of the woman he loves?" Basil snarled venomously, and the pallor of Theodora's face informed him that the arrow he had sped had hit the mark.

She held out her wonderful statuesque arms, then, raising herself to her full height, she said:

"Is the pale woman from his native land a match for me? What rare sport it shall be to make of this Hellayne a mock, and of her name a memory, and put Theodora's in its high place. Do you doubt my power to do as I say?"

"Verily I do believe that you love this pilgrim," Basil said sullenly. "And while I am preparing the quake that shall tumble Alberic's dominion into dust and oblivion, you are making him the happiest of mortals. And deem you I will stand by and see yon dotard reap the fruits of my endeavors and revel where I, your slave, am starving for a look?"

"Well have you chosen the word, my lord – my slave! For then were Theodora indeed the puppet of a lust-bitten subject did she heed his mad ravings and his idle plaints. Know, my lord, that my love is his to whom I choose to give it, his who gives to me that in return which I desire. And though I have drunk deep of the goblet of passion, never has my heart beat one jot the faster, nor has the fire in my soul been kindled until I met him whom this night I have summoned."

"And deem you, fairest Theodora, that the sainted pilgrim will come?" Basil interposed with an evil leer.

An inscrutable smile curved Theodora's crimson lips.

"Let that be my affair, my lord, but – that everything may be clear between us – know this: when I summoned him, after he had spurned me on the night when I intended to make him the happiest of men, it was to torture him, to make a mock of him, to arouse his passions till they overmastered all else, till in very truth he forgot his God, his honor, and the woman for whose kisses he does such noble penance – but now – "

"But now?" came the echo from Basil's lips.

"Who says I shall not?" Theodora replied with her inscrutable smile. "Who shall gainsay me? You – my lord?"

There was a strange light in Basil's eyes, kindled by her mockery.

"And when he kneels at your feet, drunk with passion – laying bare his soul in his mad infatuation – who shall prevent this dagger from drinking his heart's blood, even as he peers into the portals of bliss?"