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

by Nathan Gallizier

  CHAPTER I

  WOLFSBANE

  The early summer dawn was creeping over the silent Campagna whenTristan reached the Inn of The Golden Shield.

  As one dazed he had traversed the deserted, echoing streets in themysterious half-light which flooded the Eternal City; a light in whicheverything was sharply defined yet seemed oddly spectral and ghostlike.

  Deep down in his heart two emotions were contending, appalling in theirintensity and appeal. One was an agonized fear for the woman he lovedwith a love so unwavering that his love was actually himself, his wholebeing, the sacrament that consecrated his life and ruled his destiny.

  She had left Avalon; she had left him to whom she had plighted hertroth. Where was she and why was Roger de Laval in Rome?

  An icy fear gripped his heart at the thought; a nameless dread andhorror of the terrible scene he had witnessed at the midnight feast ofTheodora.

  For a time he was as one obsessed, hardly master of himself and hisactions. In an age where scenes such as those he had witnessed werequickly forgotten the death of Roxana and young Fabio created butlittle stir. Rome, just emerging from under the dark cloud of Marozia'sregime, in the throes of ever-recurring convulsions, without a helmsmanto guide the tottering ship of state, received the grim tidings with ashrug of apathy; and the cowed burghers discussed in awed whispers thedread power of one whose vengeance none dared to brave.

  Tristan's unsophisticated mind could not so easily forget. He hadstood at the brink of the abyss, he had looked down into the murkydepths from which there was no escape once the fumes had conquered thesenses and vanquished resistance. With a shudder he called to mind,how utterly and completely he had abandoned himself to the lure of thesorceress, how little short of a miracle had saved him. She had led himon step by step, and the struggle had but begun.

  No one was astir at the inn.

  He ascended the stairs leading to his chamber. The chill of the nightwas still lingering in the dusky passages. He lighted the taper of atiny lamp that burnt before an image of the Mother of Sorrows in aniche.

  Then he sank upon his couch. His vitality seemed to be ebbing and hismind clouding before the problems that began to crowd in upon him.

  Nothing since he left Avalon, nothing external or merely human, hadstirred him as had his meeting with Theodora. It had roused in hima dormant, embryonic faculty, active and vivid. What it called intohis senses was not a mere series of pictures. It created a visualrepresentation of the horrified creature, roused from the flatteringoblivion of death to memory and shame and dread, nothing reallyforgotten, nothing past, the old lie that death ends all pitifullyunmasked.

  He shuddered as he thought of the consequences of surrender from whicha silent voice out of the far off past had saved him--just in time.

  His life lay open before him as a book, every fact recorded, nothingextenuated.

  A calm, relentless voice bade him search his own life, if he had doneaught amiss. He had never taken or desired that which was another's.Yet his years had been a ceaseless perturbation. There had been endlessand desperate clutchings at bliss, followed by the swift discovery thatthe exquisite light had faded, leaving a chill gloaming that threateneda lonely night. And if the day had failed in its promise what would thenight do?

  His soul cried out for rest, for peace from the enemy; peace, not thisendless striving. He was terrified. In the ignominious lament therewas desertion, as if he were too small for the fight. He was demandinghappiness, and that his own burden should rest on another's shoulders.How silent was the universe around him! He stood in tremendous, eternalisolation.

  Pale and colorless as a moonstone at first the ghostly dawn hadquickened to the iridescence of the opal, flaming into a glory of goldand purple in the awakening east.

  And now the wall in the courtyard was no longer grey. A faint, clear,golden light was beginning to flow and filter into it, dispelling, oneby one, the dark shadows that lurked in the corners. Somewhere in thedistance the dreamer heard the shrill silver of a lark, and a dullmonotonous sound, felt rather than heard, suggested that sleeping Romewas about to wake.

  And then came the sun. A long golden ray stabbed the mists and leapedinto his chamber like a living thing. The little sanctuary lamp beforethe image of the Blessed Virgin glowed no more.

  After a brief rest Tristan arose, noting for the first time with adegree of chagrin that his dagger had not been restored to him.

  It was day now. The sun was high and hot. The streets and thoroughfareswere thronged. A bright, fierce light beat down upon dome and spireand pinnacle, flooding the august ruins of the Caesars and the thousandtemples of the Holy Cross with brilliant radiance from the cloudlessazure of the heavens. Over the Tiber white wisps of mist were rising.Beyond, the massive bulk of the Emperor's Tomb was revealed above theroofs of the houses, and the olive groves of Mount Janiculum glistenedsilvery in the rays of the morning sun.

  It was only when, refreshed after a brief rest and frugal refreshments,Tristan quitted the inn, taking the direction of Castel San Angelo,that the incidents leading up to his arrival at the feast of Theodoraslowly filtered through his mind.

  Withal there was a link missing in the chain of events. From the timehe had left the Lateran in pursuit of the two strangers everythingseemed an utter blank. What mysterious forces had been at workconveying him to his destiny, he could not even fathom and, in a stateof perplexity, such as he had rarely experienced, he pursued his way,paying little heed to the life and turmoil that seethed around him.

  Upon entering Castel San Angelo he was informed that the GrandChamberlain had arrived but a few moments before and he immediatelysought the presence of the man whose sinister countenance held outlittle promise of the solution of the mystery.

  In an octagon chamber, the small windows of which, resemblingport-holes, looked out upon the Campagna, Basil was fretfullyperambulating as Tristan entered.

  After a greeting which was frosty enough on both sides, Tristan brieflystated the matter which weighed upon his mind.

  The Grand Chamberlain watched him narrowly, nodding now and then byway of affirmation, as Tristan related the experience at the Lateran,referring especially to two mysterious strangers whom he had followedto a distant part of the city, believing they might offer some clue tothe outrage committed at the Lateran on the previous night.

  Basil regarded the new captain with a mixture of curiosity and gloom.Perchance he was as much concerned in discovering what Tristan knewas the latter was in finding a solution of the two-fold mystery.After having questioned him on his experience, without offering anysuggestion that might clear up his visitor's mind, Basil touched uponthe precarious state of the city and its hidden dangers.

  Tristan listened attentively to the sombre account, little guessing itspurpose.

  "Much have I heard of the prevailing lawless state," he interposed atlast, "of dark deeds hidden in the silent bosom of the night, of feudand rebellion against the Church which is powerless to defend herselffor the want of a master-hand that would evoke order out of chaos."

  The dark-robed figure by his side gave a grim nod.

  "Men are closely allied to beasts, giving rein to their desires andappetites as the tigers and hyenas. It is only fear that will restrainthem, fear of some despotic invisible force that pervades the universe,whose chiefest attribute is not so much creative as destructive. It isonly through fear you can rule the filthy rabble that reviles to-dayits idol of yesterday."

  There was an undercurrent of scorn in Basil's voice and Tristan saw,as it were, the lightning of an angry or disdainful thought flashingthrough the sombre depths of his eyes.

  "What of the Lady Theodora?" Tristan interposed bluntly.

  Basil gave a nameless shrug.

  "She bends men's hearts to her own desires, taking from them theirwill and soul. The hot passion of love is to her a toy, clasped andunclasped in the pink hollow of her hand."

  And, as he spoke, Basil suited the gesture to the word, closing h
isfingers in the air and again unclosing them.

  "As long as she retains the magic of her beauty so long will her swayover the Seven Hills endure," he added after a brief pause.

  "What of the woman who paid the penalty of her daring?" Tristanventured to inquire.

  Basil regarded the questioner quizzically.

  "There have been many disturbances of late," he spoke after a pause."Roxana's lust for Theodora's power proved her undoing. Theodora willsuffer no rival to threaten her with Marozia's fate."

  "I have heard it whispered she is assembling about her men who areready to go to any extreme," Tristan interposed tentatively, thrown offhis guard by Basil's affability of manner.

  The latter gave a start, but recovered himself.

  "Idle rumors. The Romans must have something to talk about. Odo ofCluny is thundering his denunciations with such fervid eloquence thatthey cannot but linger in the rabble's mind."

  "The hermit of Mount Aventine?" Tristan queried.

  "Even he! He has a strange craze, a doctrine of the End of Time, tobe accomplished when the cycle of the saeculum has run its course. Adoctrine he most furiously proclaims in language seemingly inspired,and which he promulgates to farther his own dark ends."

  "A theory most dark and strange," Tristan replied with a shudder, forhe was far from free of the superstition of the times.

  Basil gave a shrug. His tone was lurid.

  "What shall it matter to us, who shall hardly tread this earth when thefateful moment comes?"

  "If it were true nevertheless?" Tristan replied meditatively.

  A sombre fire burnt in the eyes of the Grand Chamberlain.

  "Then, indeed, should we not pluck the flowers in our path, defyingdarkness and death and the fiery chariot of the All-destroyer that isto sweep us to our doom?"

  Tristan shuddered.

  Some such words he had indeed heard among the pilgrim throngs withoutclearly grasping their import. They had haunted his memory and had,for the time at least, laid a restraining hand upon his impulses.

  But the mystery of the Monk of Cluny weighed lightly against themystery of the woman who held in the hollow of her hand the destiniesof Rome.

  Basil seemed to read Tristan's thoughts.

  Reclining in his chair, he eyed him narrowly.

  "You, too, but narrowly escaped the blandishments of the Sorceress,blandishments to which many another would have succumbed. I marvel atyour self-restraint, not being bound by any vow."

  The speaker paused and waited, his eyes lying in ambush under the darkstraight brows.

  The memory still oppressed Tristan and the mood did not escape Basil,who stored it up for future reckoning.

  "Perchance I, too, might have succumbed to the Lady Theodora's beauty,had not something interposed at the crucial moment."

  "The memory of some earlier love, perchance?" Basil queried with asmile.

  Tristan gave a sigh. He thought of Hellayne and the impending meetingwith Roger de Laval.

  His questioner abandoned the subject. Master in dissimulation he hadread the truth on Tristan's brow.

  "Pray then to your guardian saint, if of such a one you boast," hecontinued after a pause, "to intervene, should temptation in its mostalluring form face you again," he said with deliberate slowness. "Youwitnessed the end of Fabio of the Cavalli?"--

  Tristan shuddered.

  "And yet there was a time when he called all these charms his own, andhis command was obeyed in Theodora's gilded halls."

  "Can love so utterly vanish?" Tristan queried with an incredulousglance at the speaker.

  Basil gave a soundless laugh.

  "Love!" he said. "Hearts are but pawns in Theodora's hands. Herambition is to rule, and he who can give to her what her heart desiresis the favorite of the hour. Beware of her! Once the poison of herkisses rankles in your blood nothing can save you from your doom."

  Basil watched the effect of his words upon his listener and for thenonce he seemed content. Tristan would take heed.

  When Tristan had taken his leave a panel in the wall opened noiselesslyand Il Gobbo peered into the chamber.

  Basil locked and bolted the door which led into the corridor, and thesinister, bat-like form stepped out of its dark frame and approachedthe inmate of the chamber with a fawning gesture.

  "If your lordship will believe me," he said in a husky undertone, "I amat last on the trail."

  "What now?"

  "I may not tell your nobility as yet."

  "Do you want another bezant, dog?"

  "It is not that, my lord."

  "Then, who does he consort with?"

  "I have tracked him as a panther tracks its prey--he consorts with noone."

  "Then continue to follow him and see if he consorts with any--woman."

  "A woman?"

  "Why not, fool?"

  "But had your nobility said there was a woman--"

  "There always is."

  "Your nobility let him go--and yet--one word--"

  "I must know more, before I strike. I knew he would come. There is moreto this than we wot of. Theodora is infatuated with his austerity. Hehas jilted her and she smarts under the blow. She will move heaven andearth to bring him to her feet. Meanwhile there are weightier mattersto be considered. Perchance I shall pay you an early call in your nobleabode. Prepare fitly and bid the ghosts troop from their haunted caves.And now be off! Your quarry has the start!"

  Il Gobbo bowed grotesquely and receded backward towards the panel whichclosed soundlessly behind him.

  Basil remained alone in the octagon cabinet.

  He strode slowly towards one of the windows that faced to southward andgazed long and pensively out upon the undulating expanse of the RomanCampagna.

  "Three messengers, yet none has returned," he muttered darkly. "Can itbe that I have lost my clutch on destiny?"