CHAPTER IX
THE NET OF THE FOWLER
The appearance of Basil who had emerged from the kiosk and regardedTheodora with a look in his pale, passion distorted features thatseemed to light up recesses in his own heart and soul which he himselfhad never fathomed, caused the woman to turn. But she looked at theman with an almost unknowing stare. Notwithstanding a self-controlwhich she rarely lost, she had not found herself. The incredible hadhappened. When she seemed absolutely sure of the man, he had deniedher. Her ruse had been her undoing. For Hellayne's presence hadbeen neither accidental, nor had Hellayne herself brought it about.The messenger who had summoned Tristan had skillfully absolved bothcommissions. He was to have brought the woman to the tryst, that shemight, with her own eyes, witness her rival's triumph. In her flightshe had vanquished Theodora.
Stealthily as a snake moves in the grass, Basil came nearer and nearer.When he had reached Theodora's side he took the white hand and raisedit, unresisting, to his lips. His eyes sought those of the woman, but amoment or two elapsed ere she seemed even to note his presence.
He bent low. There was love, passion, adoration in his eyes and therewas more. Theodora had over-acted her part. He had seen the firein her eyes and he knew. It was more than the determination to makeTristan pliable to her desires in the great hour when she was to enterCastel San Angelo as mistress of Rome. He saw the abyss that yawned athis own feet, and in that moment two resolves had shaped themselves inBasil's mind, shadowy, but gaining definite shape with each passingmoment, and, while his fevered lips touched Theodora's hand, all theevil passions in his nature leaped into his brain.
Suddenly Theodora, glancing down at him, as if she for the first timenoted his presence, spoke.
"Acknowledge, my lord, that I have attained my ends! For, hadit not been for the appearance of that woman, I should haveconquered--ay--conquered beyond a doubt."
But when she looked at him she hardly recognized in him the man sheknew, so terribly had rage and jealousy distorted his countenance.
"How can I gainsay that you have conquered, fairest Theodora," he said,"when I heard the soft accents of your endearments and your pantingbreath, as you drowned his soul in fiery kisses? 'Tis but anotherpoor fool swallowed up in the unsatisfied whirlpool of your desires,another victim marked for the holocaust that is to be. But why did theLady Theodora cry out and bring the tender love scene to a close allunfinished?"
"By pale Hekate, I had almost forgot the woman! Why did I permit herto go without strangling her on the spot?" she cried, the growinganger which the man's speech had aroused, brought to white heat in thereminder.
"The honor of being strangled by the fair hands of the Lady Theodoramay be great," sneered Basil. "Yet I question if the Lady Hellaynewould submit without a struggle even to so fair an opponent."
"Why do you taunt me?" Theodora flashed.
"Why?" he cried. "Because I witnessed another reaping the fruit ofthe deeds I have sown--another stealing from me the love of the womanI have possessed,--one, too, held in silken bondage by another's wife.Rather would I plunge this knife into my own heart and--"
Theodora's bosom heaved convulsively.
"Put up your dagger, my lord," she said, with a wave of her hand. "For,ere long, it shall drink its fill. Strange it is that I--the like ofwhose beauty, as they tell me, is not on earth--should be conquered bya woman from the North--that the fires of the South should be quenchedby Northern ice. I could almost wish that matters had run differentlybetween her and myself, for she is brave, else had she not faced me asshe did."
"What else can you look for, Lady Theodora, from one sprung from such arace?" replied the man sullenly. "I tell you, Lady Theodora, if you donot ward yourself against her, she will vanquish you utterly, body andsoul."
"The future shall decide between us. I am still Theodora, and it willgo hard with you, if you interpret my will according to your owndesires. I foresee that we shall have need of all our resources whenthe hour tolls that shall see Theodora set upon the throne that is herown, and then--let deeds speak, not words."
"Since when have you found occasion to doubt the sureness of my blade,Lady Theodora?" answered Basil, a dark look in his furtive eyes.
"Peace, my lord!" interposed Theodora. "Why do you raise up the ghostof that which has been between us? Bury the past, for the last throwthat is in the hands of destiny ends the game which has been playedround this city of Rome these many weary days."
"And had you, Theodora, of a truth won over this Tristan," came thedark reply, "so that one hour's delight in your arms would have causedhim to forget the world about him--what of me who has given to you thelove, the devotion of a slave?"
At the words Theodora flung wide her shimmering arms and cried:
"I tell you, my lord, that as I hold you and every man captive on whommy charms have fallen, so shall I hold in chains the soul of thisTristan, even though he resist--to the last."
"Full well do I know the potency of your spell," answered Basil withlowering eyes, "and, I doubt me, if such is the case. Nevertheless,I warn you, Lady Theodora, not to place too great a share of thisdesperate venture on the shoulders of one you have never proved."
A contemptuous smile curved Theodora's lips as she rose from her seat.With a single sweep her draperies fell from her like mist from asnow-clad peak, and for the space of a moment there was silence, brokenonly by Basil's panting breath. At last Theodora spoke.
"Man's honor is so much chaff for the burning, when the darts of lovepierce his brain. With beauty's weapons I have fought before, and onceagain the victory shall be mine!"
There was an ominous light in Basil's eyes.
"Beware, lest the victory be not purchased with the blood of one whomyour fickleness has chosen to sit in the empty seat of the discarded.At the bidding of a mad passion have you been defeated."
A flood of words surged irresistibly to Basil's lips, but at the sightof Theodora's set face the words froze in the utterance. But when thewoman stared into space, her face showing no sign that she had evenheard his speech, he continued:
"And when you are stretched out on a bed of torment and call for deathto ease your pain, let the bitterest pang be that, had you enlisted myblade and cherished the devotion I bore you, this night's work wouldhave set the seal of victory on our perilous venture."
"Blinded I have been," said Theodora, a strange light leaping to hereyes, "to all the devotion which now I begin to fathom more clearly.Answer me then, my lord! Is it only to slake the pangs of mad jealousythat you taunt me with words which no man has dared to speak--and live?"
The sheen of a drawn dagger flashed above his head. Basil faced thedeath that lurked in Theodora's uplifted arm and he replied in anunmoved voice:
"Lady Theodora, if you harbor one single doubt in your mind of him whohas worked your will on those you consigned to their doom and laidtheir proud heads low in the dust of the grave, let your blade descendand quit me according to what I have deserved. Nay--Lady Theodora," hecontinued, as her white arm still hovered tense above him, "it is quiteevident your love I never had, your trust I have lost! Therefore sendmy soul to the dim realms of the underworld, for I have no longer anydesire for life."
He was gazing up at her with eyes full of passionate devotion, whenof a sudden the blade dropped from her grasp, tinkling on the stonebeneath, and, burying her face in her hands, Theodora burst into anagony of tears that shook her form with piteous sobbing.
"By all the saints, dear lady, weep not," Basil pleaded, placing gentlehands upon her shoulders. "Rather let your dagger do its work and drinkmy blood, than that grief should thus undo you."
"Truly had some evil spirit entered into me," she spoke at length inbroken accents, "else had I not so madly suspected one whose devotionto me has never wavered. Can you forgive me, my lord, most trusted anddoubted of my friends?"
With a fierce outcry the man cast himself at her feet, and, bendinglow, kissed her hands, while, in tones, hoarse with passion, hesta
mmered:
"Let me then prove my love, Lady Theodora, most beautiful of all womenon earth! Set the task! Show me how to win back that which I havelost! Let me become your utter slave."
And, so saying, he swept the unresisting woman into his grasp, and asher body lay motionless against his breast the sight of her lips soclose to his own sent the hot blood hurtling through his fevered brain.
Theodora shuddered in his embrace.
He kissed her, again and again, and her wet lips roused in him all thedemoniacal passions of his nature.
"Speak," he stammered, "what must I do to prove to you the love whichis in my heart--the passion that burns my soul to crisp, as the firesof hell the souls of the damned?"
Theodora's eyes were closed, as if she hesitated to speak the wordsthat her lips had framed. He, Tristan, had brought her to this pass.He had denied, insulted her, he had made a mock of her in the eyes ofthis man, who was kneeling at her feet, bond slave of his passions. Byhis side no task would have seemed too great of accomplishment. Andwhatever the fruits of her plotting he was to have shared them. Howshe hated him; and how she hated that woman who had come between them.As for him whose stammering words of love tumbled from his drunkenlips, Theodora could have driven her poniard through his heart withoutwincing in the act.
"If you love me then, as you say," she whispered at last, "revenge meon him who has put this slight upon me!"
A baleful light shone in Basil's eyes.
"He dies this very night."
She raised her hands with a shudder.
"No--no! Not a quick death! He would die as another changes hisgarment--with a smile.--No! Not a quick death! Let him live, but wishhe were dead a thousand times. Strike him through his honor. Strike himthrough the woman he loves."
For a pace Basil was silent. Could Theodora have read his thoughts atthis moment the weapon would not have dropped from her nerveless grasp.
"Ah!" he said, and a film seemed to pass over his eyes in theutterance. "There is nothing that shall be left undone--through hishonor--through the woman he loves."
She utterly abandoned herself to him now, suffering his endearments andkisses like a thing of stone and thereby rousing his passions to theirhighest pitch. She could have strangled him like a poisonous reptilethat defiled her body, but, after having suffered his embrace for atime, she suddenly shook herself free of him.
"My lord--what of our plans? How much longer must I wait ere theclarions announce to Rome that the Emperor's Tomb harbors a newmistress? What of Alberic? What of Hassan Abdullah, the Saracen?"
Basil was regarding her with a mixture of savage passion, doubt,incredulity and something like fear.
"The death-hounds are on Alberic's scent," he said at last, withan effort to steady his voice, and hold in leash his feelings,which threatened to master him, as his eyes devoured the woman'sbeauty.--"Hassan Abdullah is even now in Rome."
"Can we rely upon him and his Saracens when the hour tolls that shallsee Theodora mistress of Rome?"
"Weighing a sack of gold against the infidel's treachery, it is safe topredict that the scales will tip in favor of the bribe--so it be largeenough."
"Be lavish with him, and if his heart be set on other matters--"
She paused, regarding the man with an inscrutable look. Shrewd as hewas, he caught not its meaning.
"Why not entrust to his care the Lady Hellayne?"
The devilish suggestion seemed to find not as enthusiastic a receptionas she had anticipated.
"After having seen the Lady Theodora," Basil said, his eyes avoidingthose of the woman, "I fear the Lady Hellayne will appear poor inHassan Abdullah's eyes."
Theodora had grown pensive.
"I do not think so. To me she seemed like a snow-capped volcano. Allice without, all fire within. Perchance I should bow to your betterjudgment, my lord, and perchance to Hassan Abdullah's, whose good tastein preferring the Lady Theodora cannot be gainsaid. But, our guests arebecoming impatient. Take me to the palace."
Basil barred the woman's way.
"And when you have reached the summit of your desire, will you remembercertain nuptials consummated in a certain chamber in the Emperor'sTomb, between two placed as we are and mated as we?"
Theodora's lips curved in one of those rare smiles which brought him towhom 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.
Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome Page 33