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

"I, too, have not been idle. We must lull them in security! We must appear utterly paralyzed. Our terror will increase their boldness. Their ultimate object is still hidden. We must be wary. The Lord Alberic must be informed. We must spike the bait."

"I have despatched a trusty messenger in the guise of a peasant to the shrine of the Archangel," Tristan interposed.

"God grant that he arrive not too late," Odo replied. "And now, my son, listen to my words. A great soul and a stout heart must he have who sets himself to such a task as is before you! We are surrounded by the very fiends of Hell in human guise. Speak to no one of what you have seen. If you are in need of counsel, come to me!"

Odo raised his hands, pronouncing a silent blessing over the kneeling visitor and Tristan departed, dazed and trembling, wide-eyed and with pallid lips.

As he passed Mount Aventine the dark-robed form of a hunchback suddenly rose like a ghost from the ground beside him and, approaching Tristan, muttered some words in an unintelligible jargon. Believing he was dealing with a beggar, Tristan was about to dismiss the ill-favored gnome with a gift, which the latter refused, motioning to Tristan to incline his ear.

With an ill-concealed gesture of impatience Tristan complied, but his strange interlocutor had hardly delivered himself of his message when Tristan recoiled as if he had seen a snake in the grass before him, every vestige of color fading from his face.

"At the Lateran?" he chokingly replied to the whispered confidence of the hunchback.

The latter nodded.

"At the Lateran."

Ere Tristan could recover from his surprise, his informant had disappeared among the ruins.

For some time he stood as if rooted to the spot.

It was too monstrous – too unbelievable and yet – what could prompt his informant to invent so terrible a tale?

At midnight, two nights hence, the consecrated wafer was to be taken from the tabernacle in the Lateran!

Perchance he had spoken even to one of the sect who had, at the last moment, repented of his share in the contemplated outrage.

If it were granted to him to deliver Rome and the world from this terror! A strange fire gleamed in his eyes as he returned to Castel San Angelo.

Himself, he would keep the watch at the Lateran and foil the plot.

CHAPTER XI

BY LETHE'S SHORES

Basil the Grand Chamberlain was giving one of his renowned feasts in his villa on the Pincian Mount. But on this evening he had limited the number of his guests to two score. On his right sat Roger de Laval, the guest of honor, on his left the Lady Hellayne. Over the company stretched a canopy of cloth of gold. The chairs were of gilt bronze, their arms were carved in elaborate arabesques. The dishes were of gold; the cups inlaid with jewels. There was gayety and laughter. Far into the night they caroused.

Hellayne's face was the only apprehensive one at the board. She was pale and worn, and her countenance betrayed her reluctance to be present at a feast into the spirit of which she could not enter. She was dimly conscious of the fact that Basil devoured her with his eyes and her lord seemed to find more suited entertainment with the other women who were present than with his own wife. Only by threats and coercion had he prevailed upon her to attend the Grand Chamberlain's banquet. With a brutality that was part of his coarse nature he now left her to shift for herself, and she tolerated Basil's unmistakable insinuations only from a sense of utter helplessness.

Her beauty had indeed aroused the host's passion to a point where he threw caution to the winds. The exquisite face, framed in a wealth of golden hair, the deep blue eyes, the marble whiteness of the skin, the faultless contours of her form – an ensemble utterly opposed to the darker Roman type – had aroused in him desires which soon swept away the thin veneer of dissimulation and filled Hellayne with a secret dread which she endeavored to control. Her thoughts were with the man by whom she believed herself betrayed, and while life seemed to hold nothing that would repay her for enduring any longer the secret agonies that overwhelmed her, it was to guard her honor that her wits were sharpened and, believing in the adage that danger, when bravely faced, disappears, she entered, though with a heavy heart, into the vagaries of Basil, but, like a premonition of evil, her dread increased with every moment.

And now the host announced to his guests his intention of leaving Rome on the morrow for his estate in the Rocca, where an overpunctilious overseer demanded his presence.

Raising his goblet he pledged the beautiful wife of the Count de Laval. It was a toast that was eagerly received and responded to, and even Hellayne was forced to appear joyous, for all that her heart was on the point of breaking.

She raised her goblet, a beautiful chased cup of gold, in acknowledgment. But she did not see the ill-omened smile that flitted over the thin lips of Basil, and she wished for Tristan as she had never wished for him before.

After a time the guests quitted the banquet hall for the moonlit garden, and Basil's attentions became more and more insistent. It was in vain Hellayne's eyes strained for her lord. He was not to be found. —

It was on the following morning when the horrible news aroused the Romans that the young wife of the strange lord from Provence had, during the night, suddenly died at the banquet of the Grand Chamberlain. From a friar whom he chanced to pass on his way to the Lateran Tristan received the first news.

Fra Geronimo's face was white as death, and his limbs shook as with a palsy. He had been the confessor of the Lady Hellayne, the only visitor allowed to come near her.

"Have you heard the tidings?" he cried in a quavering voice, on beholding Tristan.

"What tidings?" Tristan returned, struck by the horror in the friar's face.

"The Lady Hellayne is dead!" he said with a sob.

Tristan stared at him as if a thunderbolt had cleft the ground beside him. For a moment he seemed bereft of understanding.

"Dead?" he gasped with a choking sensation. "What is it you say?"

"Well may you doubt your ears," the friar sobbed. "But Mater Sanctissima, it is the truth! Madonna Hellayne is dead. They found her dead – early this morning – in the vineyard of the Lord Basil."

"In the vineyard of the Lord Basil?" came back the echo from Tristan's lips.

"There was a feast, lasting well into the night. The Lady Hellayne took suddenly ill. They fetched a mediciner. When he arrived it was all over."

"God of Heaven! Where is she now?"

"They conveyed her to the palace of the Lord Laval, to prepare her for interment."

Without a word Tristan started to break away from the friar, his head in a whirl, his senses benumbed. The latter caught him betime.

"What would you do?"

Tristan stared at him as one suddenly gone mad.

"I will see her."

"It is impossible!" the friar replied. "You cannot see her."

From Tristan's eyes came a glare that would have daunted many a one of greater physical prowess than his informant.

"Cannot? Who is to prevent me?"

"The man whom fate gave her for mate," replied the friar.

"That dog – "

"A brawl in the presence of death? Would you thus dishonor her memory? Would she wish it so?"

For a moment Tristan stared at the man before him as if he heard some message from afar, the meaning of which he but faintly guessed.

Then a blinding rush of tears came to his eyes. He shook with the agony of his grief regardless of those who passed and paused and wondered, while the friar's words of comfort and solace fell on unmindful ears.

At last, heedless of his companion, heedless of his surroundings, heedless of everything, he rushed away to seek solitude, where he would not see a human face, not hear a human voice.

He must be alone with his grief, alone with his Maker. It seemed to him he was going mad. It was all too monstrous, too terrible, too unbelievable.

How was it possible that one so young, so strong, so beautiful, should die?

Friar Geronimo knew not. But his gaze had caused Tristan to shiver as in an ague.

He remembered the discourse of Basil and his companion in the galleries of the Emperor's Tomb.

Twice was he on the point of warning Hellayne not to attend Basil's banquet.

Each time something had intervened. The warning had remained unspoken.

Would she have heeded it?

He gave a groan of anguish.

Hellayne was dead! That was the one all absorbing fact which had taken possession of him, blotting out every other thought, every other consideration.

She was dead – dead – dead! The hideous phrase boomed again and again through his distracted mind. Compared with that overwhelming catastrophe what signified the Hour, the Why and the When. She was dead – dead – dead!

For hours he sat alone in the solitudes of Mount Aventine, where no prying eyes would witness his grief. And the storm which had arisen and swept the Seven Hilled City with the vehemence of a tropical hurricane seemed but a feeble echo of the tempest that raged within his soul.

She was dead – dead – dead. The waves of the Tiber seemed to shout it as they leapt up and dashed their foam against the rocky declivities of the Mount of Cloisters. The wind seemed now to moan it piteously, now to shriek it fiercely, as it scudded by, wrapping its invisible coils about him and seeming intent on tearing him from his resting place.

Towards evening he rose and, skirting the heights, descended into the city, dishevelled and bedraggled, yet caring nothing what spectacle he might afford. And presently a grim procession overtook the solitary rambler, and at the sight of the black, cowled and visored forms that advanced in the lurid light of the waxen tapers, Tristan knelt in the street with head bowed till her body had been borne past. No one heeded him. They carried her to the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and thither he followed presently, and, in the shadow of one of the pillars of the aisle, he crouched, while the monks chanted the funeral psalms.

The singing ended the friars departed, and those who had formed the cortege began to leave the church. In an hour he was alone, alone with the beloved dead, and there on his knees he remained, and no one knew whether, during that horrid hour, he prayed or blasphemed.

It may have been toward the third hour of the night when Tristan staggered up, stiff and cramped, from the cold stone. Slowly, in a half-dazed condition, he walked down the aisle and gained the door of the church. He tried to open it, but it resisted his efforts, and he realized it was locked for the night.

The appreciation of his position afforded him not the slightest dismay. On the contrary, his feelings were rather of relief. At least there was none other to share his grief! He had not known whither he should repair, so distracted was his mind, and now chance or fate had settled the matter for him by decreeing that he should remain.

Tristan turned and slowly paced back, until he stood beside the great, black catafalque, at each corner of which a tall wax taper was burning. His steps rang with a hollow sound through the vast, gloomy spaces of the cold and empty church. But these were not matters to occupy his mind in such a season, no more than the damp, chill air which permeated every nook and corner. Of all of these he remained unconscious in the absorbing anguish that possessed his soul.

Near the foot of the bier there was a bench, and there he took his seat and, resting his elbows on his knees, took his dishevelled head between his trembling hands. His thoughts were all of her whose poor, murdered clay lay encased above him. In turn he reviewed each scene of his life where it had touched upon her own. He evoked every word she had spoken to him since they had again met on that memorable night.

Thus he sat, clenching his hands and torturing his dull inert brain while the night wore slowly on. Later a still more frenzied mood obsessed him, a burning desire to look once more upon the sweet face he had loved so well. What was there to prevent him? Who was there to gainsay him?

He arose and uttered aloud the challenge in his madness. His voice echoed mournfully along the aisles and the sound of the echoes chilled him, though his purpose gathered strength.

Tristan advanced, and, after a moment's pause, with the silver embroidered hem of the pall in his hands, suddenly swept off that mantle of black cloth, setting up such a gust of wind as all but quenched the tapers. He caught up the bench upon which he had been sitting and, dragging it forward, mounted it and stood, his chest on a level with the coffin lid. His trembling hands fumbled along its surface. He found it unfastened. Without thought or care how he went about the thing, he raised it and let it crash to the ground. It fell on the stone flags with a noise like thunder, booming and reverberating through the gloomy vaults.

A form all in purest white lay there beneath his gaze, the face covered by a white veil. With deepest reverence, and a prayer to her departed soul to forgive the desecration of his loving hands, he tremblingly drew the veil aside.

How beautiful she was in the calm peace of death! She lay there like one gently sleeping, the faintest smile upon her lips, and, as he gazed, it was hard to believe that she was truly dead. Her lips had lost nothing of their natural color. They were as red as he had ever seen them in life.

How could this be?

The lips of the dead are wont to assume a livid hue.

Tristan stared for a moment, his awe and grief almost effaced by the intensity of his wonder. This face, so ivory pale, wore not the ashen aspect of one that would never wake again. There was a warmth about that pallor. And then he bit his nether lip until it bled, and it seemed a miracle that he did not scream, seeing how overwrought were his senses.

For it had seemed to him that the draperies on her bosom had slightly moved, in a gentle, almost imperceptible heave, as if she breathed. He looked – and there it came again!

God! What madness had seized upon him, that his eyes should so deceive him! It was the draught that stirred the air about the church, and blew great shrouds of wax down the taper's yellow sides. He manned himself to a more sober mood and looked again.

And now his doubts were all dispelled. He knew that he had mastered any errant fancy, and that his eyes were grown wise and discriminating, and he knew, too, that she lived! Her bosom slowly rose and fell; the color of her lips, the hue of her cheek, confirmed the assurance that she breathed!