The Sorceress of Rome

CHAPTER XI

NILUS OF GAËTA

Agrand high mass in honour of the pilgrims was on the following eve to be celebrated in the ancient Basilica of St. Peter's. But vast as was its extent, only a part of the pilgrims could be contained and the bronze gates were thrown open to allow the great multitude which filled the square to share the benefits and some of the glories of the ceremony.

The Vatican Basilica of the tenth century, far from possessing its present splendour, was as yet but the old consecrated palace, hallowed by memories of the olden time, in which Charlemagne enjoyed the hospitality of Leo III, when at his hands he received the imperial crown of the West. Similar to the restored church of St. Paul fuori le Mure, as we now see it, it was some twenty feet longer and considerably wider, having five naves divided off by four rows of vast monolith columns. There were ninety-six columns in all, of various marbles, differing in size and style, for they had been the first hasty spoils of antique palaces and temples. The walls above the order of columns were decorated with mosaics such as no Roman hand could then produce or even restore. A grand arch, such as we see at the older Basilicas to-day, inlaid with silver and adorned with mosaic, separated the nave from the chancel, below which was the tribune, an inheritance from the prætor's court of old. It now contained the high altar and the sedile of the Vicar of Christ. Before the altar stood the Confession, the vault wherein lay the bones of St. Peter, with a screen of silver crowned with images of saints and virgins. And the whole was illumined by a gigantic candelabrum holding more than a thousand lighted tapers.

The chief attraction, however, was yet wanting, for the pontiff and his court still tarried in the Vatican receiving the homage of the foreign pilgrims. While listlessly noting the preparations from his chosen point of vantage, Eckhardt discovered himself the object of scrutiny on the part of a monk, who had been listlessly wandering about and who disappeared no sooner than he had caught the eye of the great leader.

Unwilling to continue the target of observation on the part of those who recognized him despite his closed visor, Eckhardt entered the Basilica and took up his station near a remote shrine, whence he could witness the entrance of the pontifical procession, without attracting undue attention to his person. When the pontifical train did appear, it seemed one mass of glitter and sumptuous colour, as it filed down the aisles of the Basilica. The rich copes of the ecclesiastics, stiff with gold and gorgeous brocade, the jewelled mantles of the nobles, the polished breast plates and tasselled spears of the guards passed before his eyes in a bewildering confusion of splendour. In his gilded chair, under a superb canopy, Gregory, the youthful pontiff, was borne along, surrounded by a crowd of bishops, extending his hands in benediction as he passed the kneeling worshippers.

An infinite array of officials followed. Then came pilgrims of the highest rank, each order marching in separate divisions, in the fantastic costumes of their respective countries. In their wake marched different orders of monks and nuns, the former carrying torches, the latter lighted tapers, although the westering sun still flamed down the aisles in cataracts of light. After these fraternities and sisterhoods, Crescentius, the Senator, was seen to enter with his suite, conspicuous for the pomp of their attire, the taste of Crescentius being to sombre colours.

Descending from his elevated station, Gregory proceeded to officiate as High Priest in the august solemnity. Come with what prejudices one might, it was not in humanity to resist the impressions of overwhelming awe, produced by the magnificence of the spectacle and the sublime recollections with which the solemnity itself in every stage is associated. Despite his extreme youth, Gregory supported all the venerableness and dignity of the High Priest of Christendom and when at the conclusion of the high mass he bestowed his benediction on all Christendom, Eckhardt was kneeling with the immense multitude, perhaps more convinced than the most enthusiastic pilgrim, that he was receiving benediction direct from heaven.

The paroxysm only subsided, when raising his head, he beheld a gaunt monk in the funereal garb of the brotherhood of Penitent Friars ascend the chancel. He was tall, lean as a skeleton and from his shrivelled face two eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, burnt with the fire of the fanatic. This was the celebrated hermit, Nilus of Gaëta, of whose life and manners the most wonderful tales were current. He was believed to be of Greek extraction, perhaps owing to his lengthy residence in Southern Italy, near the shrines of Monte Gargano in Apulia. In the pursuit of recondite mysteries of the Moorish and Cabalistical schools, he had attained such proficiency, that he was seized with a profound disgust for the world and became a monk. Several years he spent in remote and pagan lands, spreading the tidings of salvation, until, as it was whispered, he received an extraordinary call to the effect, as was more mysteriously hinted, to turn the church from diverse great errors, into which she had fallen, and which threatened her downfall. Last, not least, he was to prepare the minds of mortal men for the great catastrophe of the Millennium, – the End of Time, the end of all earthly vanity. Special visions had been vouchsafed him, and there was that in his age, in his appearance and his speech which at once precluded the imposter. Nilus of Gaëta himself believed what he preached.

There was a brief silence, during which the Romans acquainted their foreign guests in hurried whispers with the name and renown of the reputed hermit. The latter stood motionless in the chancel and seemed to offer up a silent prayer, ere he pronounced his harangue.

His sermon was delivered in Latin, still the common language of Italy, even in its corrupt state, and its quality was such as to impress at once the most skeptical with the extraordinary gifts of the preacher.

The monk began with a truly terrific picture of the state of society and religion throughout the Christian world, which he delineated with such gloom and horror, that but for his arabesque entanglement and his gorgeousness of imagery one might have believed him a spirit of hell, returned to paint the orb of the living with colours borrowed from its murkiest depths. But with all the fantastic convolutions of his reasoning the fervour of a real eloquence soon began to overflow the twisted fountains, in which the scholastic rhetoric of the time usually confined its displays. These qualities Nilus especially exhibited when describing the pure dawn of Christianity, in which the pagan gods had vanished like phantoms of night. He declared that they were once more deified upon earth and the clear light all but extinguished. And treating the antique divinities as impersonations of human passions and lusts, the monk's eloquence suddenly took the most terrible tints, and considering the nature of some of the crimes which he thus delineated and anathematized, his audience began to suspect personal allusions of the most hideous nature.

After this singular exordium, the monk proceeded in his harangue and it seemed as if his words, like the lava overflow from a volcano, withered all that was green and flowery in their path. The Universe in his desponding eloquence seemed but a vast desolation. All the beautiful illusions which the magic of passion conjures into the human soul died beneath his touch, changing into the phantoms, which perhaps they are. The vanity of hope, the shallowness of success, the bitterness which mingles with the greatest glory, the ecstasy of love, – all these the monk painted in the most powerful colours, to contrast them with the marble calm of that drooping form crucified upon the hill of Calvary.

Spellbound, the immense multitude listened to the almost superhuman eloquence of the friar. As yet his attacks had dealt only in generalities. The Senator of Rome seemed to listen to his words with a degree of satisfaction. A singularity remarked in his character by all his historians, which, by some, has been considered as proof of a nature not originally evil, was his love of virtue in the abstract. Frequent resolutions and recommendations to reform were perhaps only overcome by his violent passions, his ambition and the exigencies of his ambiguous state between church and empire. But as the monk detailed the crimes and monstrosities of the age, the calm on the Senator's face changed to a livid, satirical smile, and occasionally he pointed the invectives of the friar by nodding to those of his followers who were supposed to be guilty of the crimes alleged, as if to call upon them to notice that they were assailed, and many a noble shrank behind his neighbour whose conscience smote him of one or all the crimes enumerated by Nilus.

In one of his most daring flights the monk suddenly checked himself and announcing his vision of impending judgment, he bid his listeners prepare their souls in a prophetic and oracular tone, which was distinctly audible, amid all the muttering which pervaded the Basilica.

A few moments of devout silence followed. The monk was expected to kneel, to offer up a prayer for divine mercy. But he stood motionless in the chancel, and after waiting a short time, Gregory turned to an attendant:

"Go and see what ails the disciple of Benedict, – we will ourselves say the Gratias."

After rising, he stepped to the altar with the accustomed retinue of cardinals and prelates and chanted the benediction. At the conclusion Crescentius approached the altar alone, demanded permission to make a duteous offering and emptied a purse of gold on the salver.

"A most princely and regal benefaction," muttered the Pontifical Datary – "a most illustrious example."

"Charlemagne gave more, but so will I, when like him I come to receive the crown of the West," muttered the Senator of Rome. His example was immediately followed, and in a few moments the altar was heaped round with presents of extraordinary magnificence and bounty. Sacks of gold and silver were emptied out, jewels, crucifixes, relics, amber, gold-dust, ivories, pearls and rare spices were heaped up in promiscuous profusion, and in return each donor received a branch of consecrated palm from the hand of the Datary, whose keen eyes reflected the brightness of the treasures whose receipts he thus acknowledged.

The chant from various chapels now poured down the aisles its torrents of melody, the vast multitudes joining in the Gloria in Excelsis. Eckhardt's remote station had not permitted him to witness all that had happened. His gaze was still riveted on the friar, who was now staggering from the pulpit, when a terrific event turned and absorbed his attention.

The great bell of the Basilica was tolling and the vibration produced by so many sounds shook the vast and ancient pile so violently that a prodigious mass of iron, which formed one of the clappers of the bell, fell from the belfry in the airy spire and dashing with irresistible force through every obstruction, reached the floor at the very feet of the Pontiff, crushing a deep hole in the pavement and throwing a million pieces of shattered marble over him and his retinue.

The vast assembly was for a moment motionless with terror and surprise, expecting little less than universal destruction in the downfall of the whole edifice on their heads, with all its ponderous mass of iron and stone. A cry arose that the Pontiff had been killed, which was echoed in a thousand varying voices, according as men's fears or hopes prevailed. But in the first moment of panic, when it was doubtful whether or not the entire center of the Basilica would crumble upon the assembly, Eckhardt had rushed from the comparative safety of his own station to the side of the Pontiff as if to shield him, when with the majesty of a prophet interposing between offended heaven and the object of its wrath, Gerbert of Aurillac uttered with deep fervour and amid profound silence a De Profundis. The multitudes were stilled from their panic, which might have been attended with far more serious consequences than the accident itself. There was a solemn pause, broken only by a sea-like response of "Amen" – and a universal sigh of relief, which sounded like the soughing of the wind in a great forest.

All distinctions of rank seemed blotted out in that supreme moment. Then the voice of Nilus was heard thundering above the breathless calm, while he held aloft an ebony crucifix, in which he always carried the host:

"The summits of St. Peter still stand! When they too fall, pilgrims of the world – even so shall Christendom fall with them."

At a sign from the Pontiff his attendants raised aloft the canopy, under which he had entered. But he refused to mount the chair and heading the bishops and cardinals, he left the church on foot. The Datary gave one look of hopeless despair, as the masses crowded out of the Basilica, and abandoned all hope of restoring order. In an incredibly short time the vast area was emptied, Crescentius being one of the last to remain in its deepening shadows. With a degree of vacancy he gazed after the vanishing crowds, more gorgeous in their broken and mingled pomp, as they passed out of the high portals, than when marshalled in due rank and order.

He too was about to leave, when he discerned a monk who stood gazing, as it were, incredulously at the shattered altar-pavement and the mass of iron deeply embedded in it. Hastily he advanced towards him, but as he approached he was struck by observing the monk raise his eyes, sparkling with mad fury, to the lighted dome above and clench his hands as if in defiance of its glory.

"Thou seemest to hold thy life rather as a burden than a blessing, monk, since thus thou repayest thy salvation," Crescentius addressed the friar, somewhat staggered by his attitude.

"Ay! If I have done Heaven a temporal injury, – be comforted, ye saints – for ye have wrought me an eternal one!" growled the monk between clenched teeth.

"Heaven?" questioned Crescentius, almost tempted to the conclusion that the monk, whoever he was, was out of his senses.

"Even Heaven," replied the monk. "One cubit nearer the altar, – I thought the struggle over in my soul between the dark angel and the bright – I had strung my soul to its mighty task, – yet I shrank from it, a second, and more cowardly Judas."

Crescentius gazed at the friar without grasping his meaning.

"Take thy superior out of the church, he is mad and blasphemes," he turned to the monk's companion who listened stolidly to his raving.

"Ay!" spoke the strange monk, gnashing his teeth and shaking his fist towards heaven, "even the church shall anon be rent in twain and form a chasm, down which countless generations shall tumble into the abyss – 'twere just retribution!"

"Tell me but this, monk, how could Heaven itself throw obstacles in the way of thine intent?" questioned Crescentius, perceiving that the monk had turned to depart and more convinced than ever that he was speaking to a madman.

"How? How? Oh, thou slow of understanding, – how?"

And the monk pointed downward, to the crushed and shattered marble of the pavement, in which the iron clapper of the bell lay embedded.

Crescentius receded involuntarily before the fierce, insane gleam in the monk's eyes, while the terrible import of his speech suddenly flashed upon his understanding. Crossing himself, he left the strange friar to himself and passed swiftly through the motley crowds which were waiting their turn of admission to the subterranean chapel of the Grand Penitentiarius.

Another had remained in the dense gloom of the Basilica, though he had not witnessed the scene which had just come to a close. After the Pontiff's departure, Eckhardt had retired to the shrine of Saint Michael, where he knelt in silent prayer. His mind was filled with fantastic imaginings, inspired chiefly by his recent pilgrimage to the shrines of Monte Gargano. The deep void within him made itself doubly felt in this hour and more than ever he felt the need of divine interposition in order to retain that consciousness of purpose which was to guide his future course.

At last he arose. A remote chant fell upon his ears, and he saw a procession moving slowly from the refectory into the nave of the Basilica. By the dusky glare of the torches, which they carried, Eckhardt distinguished a number of penitent friars, bearing aloft the banner, destined in after-generations to become the standard of the Holy Inquisition, a Red Cross in a black field with the motto: "In Hoc Signo Vinces." Among them and seemingly the chief personage, strode the strange friar. With down-cast head and eyes he walked, eyes which, while they seemed fixed on the ground in self-abasement, stealthily scanned the features of those he passed.

"I marvel the holy saints think it worth while to trouble themselves about the soul of every putrid, garlic-chewing knave," said an old beggar on the steps of the Cathedral to an individual with whose brief review Eckhardt was much struck. He was a man past the middle-age, with the sallow complexion peculiar to the peasants of the marshes. His broad hat, garnished with many coloured ribbons, was drawn over his visage, though not sufficiently so, to conceal the ghastly scars, with which it was disfigured. His lurking, suspicious eye and the peculiar manner with which, from habit, he carried his short cloak drawn over his breast, as if to conceal the naked stiletto, convinced Eckhardt that, whatsoever that worthy might assume to be, he was one of those blackest of the scourges of Italy, which the license of the times had rendered fearfully numerous, the banditti and bravi.

"Whether the saints care or no," that individual returned, "the monk is competent to convert the fiend himself. What an honour for the brotherhood to have produced such a saint."

Scarcely bestowing more than a thought upon so usual an evidence of social disorder, which neither pontifical nor imperial edicts had been able to correct, Eckhardt passed out, without noticing that he had himself attracted at least equal attention from the worthy described, who after having satisfied his curiosity, slunk back among the crowds and was lost to sight.

CHAPTER XII

RED FALERNIAN

The palace of Theodora resounded with merriment, though it was long past midnight.

Round a long oval table in the great hall sat a score or more of belated revellers, their Patrician garbs in disorder, and soiled with wine, their faces inflamed, their eyes red and fiery, their tongues heavy and beyond the bounds of control. Here and there a vacant or overturned chair showed where a guest had fallen in the debauch, and had been permitted to remain on his self-chosen bed of repose. A band of players hidden in a remote gallery still continued to fill up the pauses in the riotous clamour with their barbaric strains.

At the head of the table, first in place as in rank sat Benilo, the Chamberlain. He seemed to take little interest in the conversation, for, resting his head on his hands, he stared into his untouched goblet, as if he endeavoured to cast some augury from the rising and vanishing bubbles of the wine.

Next to him sat Pandulph, Lord of Spoleto and Beneventum. His low, though well-set figure, dark hair, keen, black eyes and swarthy features bespoke his semi-barbaric extraction. His countenance was far from comely, when in repose, even ugly and repulsive, but in his eyes lay the force of a powerful will and a depth and subtlety of intellect, that made men fear, when they could not love him. On the right of the Count sat the Lord of Civitella, a large, sensual man, with twinkling grey eyes, thick nose and full red lips. His broad face, flushed with wine, glowed like the harvest moon rising above the horizon. Opposite him sat the Patricius Ziazo, crafty and unscrupulous, a parasite who flattered whosoever ministered to his pleasure. The Patricius was conversing with an individual who outshone Pandulph in rapine, the Lord of Civitella in coarseness and himself in sycophancy, Guido of Vanossa, an arrogant libertine, whose pinched features and cunning leer formed the true index to his character. The Lords of Sinigaglia, Torre del Grecco, Bracciano, Cavallo and Caetano swelled the roll of infamy on the boards of Theodora, – worthy predecessors of the Orsini and Savelli, who were to oppress the city in after time.

Among those who had marked the beginning of the evening by more than ordinary gaiety, Benilo had by his splendid dissipation excited the general envy and admiration among his fellow revellers. His face was inflamed, his dark eyes were glittering with the adder tongues of the serpent wine, and his countenance showed traces of unlimited debauchery. It seemed to those present, as if the ghost of the girl Nelida, whom he had killed in this very hall, was haunting him, so madly did he respond to the challenges from all around, to drink. But as the wine began to flood every brain, as the hall presented a scene of riotous debauch, his former reckless mood seemed for the nonce to have changed to its very opposite. Through the fumes of wine the dead girl seemed to regard him with sad, mournful eyes.

"Fill the goblets," cried Pandulph, with a loud and still clear voice. "The lying clock says it is day. But neither cock-crows nor clock change the purple night to dawn in the Groves of Theodora, save at the will of the Goddess herself. Fill up, companions! The lamp-light in the wine cup is brighter than the clearest sun that ever shone."

"Well spoken, Pandulph! Name the toast and we will pledge it, till the seven stars count fourteen and the seven hills but one," said the Cavallo looking up. "I see four hour glasses even now and every one of them lies, if it says it is dawn."

"You shall have my toast," said Pandulph, raising his goblet. "We have drunk it twenty times already, but we will drink it twenty times more: – the best prologue to wine ever devised by wit of man – Woman."

A shadow moved in the dusky background and peered unseen into the hall.

"And the best epilogue," replied the Lord of Civitella, visibly drunk. "But the toast – my cup is waiting."

"To the health – wealth – and love by stealth of Theodora!" yelled Pandulph, gulping down the contents of his goblet.

Benilo's face turned ashen pale, but he smiled.

"To Theodora!"

Every tongue repeated the name, the goblets were drained.

"My Lord, it is your turn now," said Pandulph, turning to the Lord of Civitella. "The good folks of Urbino have not yet rung the fire-bells against you, but some say they soon will. Who shall it be?"

The Lord of Civitella filled up his cup with unsteady hand, until it was running over and propping his body against the table as he stood up, he said:

"A toast to Roxané! And as for my foragers – they sweep clean."

The toast was drunk with rapturous applause.

"Right you are," bellowed the Cavallo. "Better brooms were never made on the Posilippo, – not a straw lies in your way."

"Did you accomplish it without fight?" sneered the Lord of Bracciano.

"Fight? Why fight? The burghers never resist a noble! We conjure the devil down with that. When we skin our eels, we don't begin at the tail."

"Better to steal the honey, than to kill the bees that make it."

"But what became of the women and children after this swoop of your foragers?" asked the Lord of Bracciano, who appeared to entertain some few isolated ideas of honour floating on the top of the wine he had gulped down.

"The women and children?" replied the Lord of Civitella with a mocking air, crossing his thumbs, like the peasants of Lugano, when they wish to inspire belief in their words. "They can breakfast by gaping! They can eat wind, like the Tarentines, – it will make them spit clear."

The Lord of Bracciano, irritated at the mocking sign and proverbial allusion to the gaping propensities of the people round the Lago, started up in wrath and struck his clenched fist on the table.

"My Lord of Civitella," he cried, "do not cross your damned thumbs at me, else I will cut them off! The people of Bracciano have still corn in plenty, until your thieving bands scorch their fingers in the attempt to steal it."

Andrea Cavallo interposed to stop the rising quarrel.

"Do not mind the Lord of Civitella," he whispered to Bracciano. "He is drunk!"