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

CHAPTER III
THE LURE

For three whole days Hellayne consumed herself waiting for Tristan, and she began to feel listless and dispirited. She had long acknowledged to herself the necessity of his presence, and how much his love had influenced her thoughts and actions ever since she had known him – a period that now seemed of infinite length. She found herself perpetually recalling the origin and growth of this love. She dwelt with a strange pleasure on her terrible plight, when, believing she was dead, he had remained with her body. As evening approached she strolled down to the Tiber, with a strange persistency and the vague expectation of Tristan's return. She now trusted him utterly, since that last and most potent proof of his love for her.

On the first day this dreamy, imaginative existence was delightful. The region of the Trastevere at the period of our story was but sparsely populated, and the great convent, with its church of Santa Maria, dominated the lowly fisher huts, scattered over its precincts. Hellayne, during these quiet evening hours, when only the sounds of far-off chimes from churches and convents smote the silence with their silver tongues, and during which hours the Abbess of Santa Maria permitted her to leave the silent walls of her asylum for a short walk to the Tiber's edge, rarely ever saw a human being. Only at dusk, when the fishermen and boatmen returned from their daily routine, she saw them pass in the distance, like phantoms that come and go and vanish in the evening glow.

On the second day there came a feeling of want; the consciousness that there was a void which it would be a great happiness to fill. This grew to a longing for those hours which had glided by so quickly and sweetly. At intervals there came the startling thought: if she should never see him again! Then her heart stopped beating, and her cheek paled with the thought of the bare possibility.

Thus the third day sped, and when Hellayne still remained without tidings from Tristan her anxiety slowly changed to a great fear. She could hardly contain herself during the long hours of the day, and though she spent hours and hours in prayer for his return, her heart seemed to sink under the weight of her fear and sorrow. She was alone – alone in Rome – exposed to dangers which her great beauty rendered even more grave than those that beset an ordinary person. She feared lest Basil was scouring the city for the woman who had so mysteriously baffled his desires, and she dreaded the hatred of Theodora, whose infatuation for her lover had rather increased than diminished in the face of Tristan's resistance. How long would he be able to withstand, if Theodora had decreed his undoing?

There were moments when a mad jealousy and despair surged up in Hellayne's heart, yet she hesitated to confide her fears and anxiety to the Abbess, voicing only her disquietude at Tristan's prolonged absence. Then only the latter informed Hellayne of a strange rumor which had found its way into the Trastevere. Three nights ago a terrible sacrilege had been committed at the Lateran, during the small hours of the night, and on the following morning, during an inspection by some high prelates of the Church, the criminal had been discovered in the person of a captain of the Senator's guard, who had but recently arrived in Rome, and had been placed in high command by the Senator himself, whom he had so cruelly betrayed.

Three nights ago! It was on the night of the terrible crime from whose consequences she had been saved just in the nick of time. With painful minuteness Hellayne recalled, or tried to recall, every incident, every detail, every utterance of her lover. But there was nothing at which she could clutch save – but it was sheer madness. Surely it was some horrid nightmare. Again she sought the Abbess, later in the day, questioning her regarding the name of him who had been taken in the commission of so heinous an offence. It was some time ere the Abbess could recall a name strange in her own land, and Hellayne, with the persistency of desperation, withheld any aid, so as not to offer a clue to the one she dreaded to hear. But the strain proved too great. Almost with a shriek she demanded to know if, perchance, the name was Tristan. The Abbess regarded her questioner strangely. "Tristan is the name. Do you know this man, my child?"

Hellayne was on the point of fainting. Everything grew black before her eyes, and she would have fallen, had not the Abbess supported her.

"A countryman of mine," she said, dreading lest by revealing their connection she might herself be held in custody. "He came to Rome on a pilgrimage. Surely there is some horrible mistake! He could not! He could not!"

The Abbess placed an arm round the trembling girl.

"If he can prove that he is innocent, the Cardinal-Archbishop will not suffer a hair of his head to be touched," she tried to console Hellayne whose head rested on her shoulder. She seemed utterly crushed. Surely – it was too monstrous – too unbelievable. Yet as the moments sped on, an icy, sickening fear gripped her heart. She recalled an incident of that last evening with Tristan which, but for what had happened or was rumored to have happened, she would have utterly ignored. She had noted her lover's restlessness, and his apparent haste in leaving her at the convent gates. She recalled now that he repeatedly glanced at the moon and did, at one time, comment upon the lateness of the hour. He had not seemed anxious to prolong their tete-a-tete, and he had not been heard from in three days. Surely, no matter where he was, he could have sent a message, verbal or otherwise. And the crime had happened during the small hours of the night – after he had left her! It was too horrible to ponder upon!

That there was some dreadful mystery which surrounded this deed of darkness and Tristan's share therein, Hellayne did not question. But how was she, a woman, a stranger, alone in Rome, to aid in clearing it up and reveal her lover's innocence? There was no doubt in her mind, but that he was the victim of some devilish conspiracy – perchance a thread of that same web which had entangled her to her undoing. But how to convince the Cardinal-Archbishop of Tristan's innocence, when the facts surrounding the terrible discovery were unknown to her?

"This man is, no doubt, very dear to you," said the Abbess at last.

Hellayne shrank before the questioner and averted her face. But the Abbess was resolved to know more, once her suspicions were aroused.

"Could it perchance be he who brought you here three nights ago – your brother?" she queried with a kind, though penetrating glance at the woman who was trembling like an aspen, her face colorless, her eyes dimmed with tears.

A silent nod convinced the Abbess of the truth of her surmise. She stroked Hellayne's silken hair.

"It is a dreadful crime of which he stands accused, one for which there is no remission – no pardon here or hereafter," she said sorrowfully.

"He is innocent," sobbed Hellayne. "He is as pure as the light, as the flowers. There is some dreadful mistake. He must be saved before it is too late! Oh – dear mother – could you not intercede for him with His Eminence?"

The Abbess regarded her as if she thought her protege had suddenly lost her reason. To intercede with the Cardinal-Archbishop for one who stood committed of so heinous an offence, taken in the very act, – one who, perchance, was implicated in all those other terrible outrages committed in the various sanctuaries of Rome! Nevertheless she made allowance for Hellayne's hysterical plea.

"Has he never mentioned these matters to you?" She queried kindly, hoping to draw the girl out.

"What matters?" Hellayne queried, with wide eyes, and the question convinced the Abbess that the woman knew nothing.

"These dark practices," replied the Abbess. "For this is not the first offence. Even within this very moon cycle the Holy Host has been taken from the Church of Our Blessed Lady yonder. And all efforts to discover the guilty one have failed."

"I had not heard of it," said Hellayne. "I have not been long in Rome. Nor has he. About a month, I should say."

"A month?"

"And he knew nothing of this. Nor knew he even one person in this whole city."

"Wherefore then came he?"

Hellayne explained and the Abbess listened. Hellayne's account, which was impersonal, impressed her protectress in so far as she knew she spoke truth. For, if here was an impostor, it was the cleverest she had ever faced and, while a stranger to the world and to worldly affairs, the stamp of truth was too indelibly written upon Hellayne's brow to even permit of the shadow of a doubt. Perhaps it was for this reason the Abbess refrained from questioning her farther, for she had been somehow curious of the relation between the woman and the man who had brought her here.

Here was matter for thought indeed. For, if the man was guilty and, notwithstanding Hellayne's protestations, the Abbess was in her own mind convinced that the Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna could not be deceived in matters of this kind, what was to become of the woman he had placed in her charge? There were also other matters equally grave which oppressed the Abbess' mind. Hellayne's connection with one who had committed the unspeakable crime might militate against her remaining at the convent. Yet she hesitated to send her out into the world, unprotected and alone.

For a time there was silence. Hellayne, utterly exhausted from the recital of a past, which had reopened every wound in her heart, causing it to bleed anew, anxious, afraid, doubting and wondering how far her protectress might go, stood before the woman who seemed to hold in her hand both her own fate and that of her lover.

"I will retire to my cell and pray to the Blessed Virgin for light to guide my steps," the Abbess said at last, laying her hand on Hellayne's head. "Do not venture away too far," she enjoined, "and come to me after the Ave Maria. Perchance I may then know what to counsel."

Hellayne bowed her head and kissed the hem of the Abbess' robe.

After she had left, Hellayne remained standing where she was, transfixed with anxiety and grief.

What forces of gloom and evil encompassed her on all sides? The man to whom she had given her youth and beauty, who had plucked the flower which others had vainly desired, instead of cherishing the gift she had bestowed upon him, had trampled the delicate blossom in the dust. He, to whom her heart belonged ever since she had power to think, was doomed for a deed too terrible to name. She had been ruthlessly sacrificed by the one, and now the other had failed her, and a third tried to encompass her ruin. And she was alone – utterly alone!

What was she to do? To request an audience of the Cardinal-Archbishop was little short of madness. In her own heart Hellayne doubted seriously that the Abbess would concern herself any further about her or her distress. Nevertheless she felt that something must be done. This inertia which was creeping over her would drive her mad. But first of all she must know the nature of the charge placed against the man she loved before she would determine what to do. In vain she taxed her tired brain for a ray of hope in the encompassing gloom.

The long lights of the afternoon crossed and recrossed the sanctuary of Santa Maria in Trastevere when Hellayne, after an hour of fervent prayer, emerged from its portals and took the direction of the Tiber, where she sat on her accustomed seat and brooded over her misery.

At last the sunset came. The ashen color of the olive trees flashed out into silver. The mountain peaks of distant Alba became faintly flushed and phantom fair as, in a tempest of fire, the sun sank to rest. The forests of ilex and arbutus on the Janiculum Hill seemed to tremble with delight as the long red heralds touched their topmost boughs. The whole landscape seemed to smile farewell to departing day.

As she sat there, Hellayne's attention was attracted to a woman who had paused near the river's edge. There was nothing remarkable either in her carriage or apparel. It was a wrinkled hag, swart, snake-locked, cowled, her dress jingling with sequins, her right hand clawed upon a crooked staff. She appeared, in fact, just an old Levantine hoodie-crow of the breed which was familiar enough in Rome in those cataclysmic days, when all sorts of queer, tragic fowl were being driven northward from over seas before the tidal wave of invading Islam. Her speech as well as her manners and dress betrayed Oriental origin.

As she hobbled up to where Hellayne was seated she stopped and asked some trifling question about her way, which Hellayne pointed with some hesitation, explaining that she was herself a stranger in Rome, and knew not the direction of the city.

The old crone seemed interested.

"In yonder cloister – yet not of it?" she queried, pointing with the crooked staff to the convent walls that towered darkly behind them in the evening dusk.

Her penetration startled Hellayne.

"How did you guess, old mother?" she queried with a look of awe, which was not unremarked by the other.

"Ay – there is lore enough under these faded locks of mine to turn the foulest cesspool in Rome as clear as crystal, or to change this staff whereon I lean into a thing that creeps and hisses," she said with a low laugh.

Hellayne shrank back from her with a gesture of dismay. Believing implicitly in their power, she felt a deadly fear of those who professed the black arts.

The old woman read her thoughts.

"My daughter," she said, "be not afraid of the old woman's secret gifts. Mine is a harmless knowledge, gained by study of the scrolls of wise men, in my own native land. Fear not, I say, for I, who have pored over those mystic characters till me eyes grew dim, can read your sweet pale face as plainly as the brazen tablets in the Forum, and I can see in it sorrow and care and anxiety for one you love."

Hellayne gave a start.

It was true! But how had the old crone found it out! She glanced wistfully at her companion, and the latter, satisfied she was on the right track, proceeded to answer that questioning glance. —

"You think he is in danger, or in grief," she continued mysteriously, "and you wonder why he does not come. What would you not give, my poor child, to see him this very moment – to look into his face – his eyes. And I can show him to you, if you will. I am not ungrateful, even for a slight service."

The blood mounted to Hellayne's brow, and a strange light kindled in her eyes, while a soft radiance swept over her face such as comes into every countenance when the heart vibrates with an illusion to its happiness, as though the silver cord thrilled to the touch of an angel's wing. It was no clumsy guess of the wise woman to infer that the woman before her loved.

"What mean you?" asked Hellayne eagerly. "How can you show him to me? What do you know of him? Where is he? Is he safe?"

The wise woman smiled. Here was a bird flying blindly into the net. Take her by her affections, there would be little difficulty in the capture.

"He is in danger – in grave danger," she replied. "But you could save him, if you only knew how. He might be happy, too, if he would. But – with another!"

To do Hellayne justice, she heard only the first sentence.

"In grave danger," she repeated. "I knew it! And I could save him! Oh, tell me where he is, and what I can do for him?"

The wise woman pulled a small mirror from her bosom.

"I cannot tell you," she replied. "But I can show him to you. Only not here, where the shadow of any chance passer-by might destroy the charm. Let us turn aside into yonder ruins. There is no one near, and you shall gaze without interruption into the face of him you love – "

It was but a short way off, though the ruins which surrounded it made the place lonely and secluded. Had it been twice the distance however, Hellayne would have accompanied her new acquaintance for Tristan's sake, in the eagerness to obtain tidings of his fate. As she approached the ruins she could not repress a faint sigh, which was not lost on her companion.

"It was here you parted," she said. "It is here you shall see him again."

This was scarcely a random shaft, for it required little penetration to discover that Hellayne had some tender association connected with a spot, the solitude of which appealed to her in so great a degree.

Nevertheless the utterance convinced Hellayne of her companion's supernatural power and, though it roused alarm, it excited curiosity to a still greater degree.

"Take the mirror in your hand," whispered the wise woman, when they reached the portico, casting a searching glance around. "Shut your eyes while I speak the charm that calls him three times over, and then look steadily on its surface till I have counted ten."

Hellayne obeyed these instructions implicitly. Standing in the centre of the ruin with the mirror in her hand, she shut her eyes and listened intently to the low solemn tones of the woman's chanting, while from the deep shadows of the ruin there stole out a muffled form and at the same time a half dozen sbirri rose from their different hiding places among the ruins.

Ere the incantation had been twice repeated, the leader threw a scarf over Hellayne's head, muffling her so completely that an outcry was impossible.

Resistlessly she felt herself taken up and carried to a chariot, which was waiting a short space away. A moment later the driver whipped the horses into a gallop and the vehicle with its occupants and burden disappeared in the gathering dusk.

CHAPTER IV
A LYING ORACLE

It was an eventful night in Rome and, although for that reason well adapted to deeds of violence, the tumult and confusion exacted great caution from those who wished to proceed without interruption along the streets.

A storm had burst as out of a clear sky, and was sweeping in its fury throughout a large portion of the city. Like all similar outbreaks, it gathered force from many sources unconnected with its original course.

Rome was the theatre that night of a furious strife between the great feudal houses which lorded it over the city.

The Leonine city with its protecting walls did not exist until some decades later. Thus, not only hordes of marauding Saracens, but Franks and Teutons used to make occasional inroads to the very gates of the city. On this evening Pandulph of Benevento, having taken umbrage at some decision of the Sacred Consistory regarding the lands he held as fief of the Church, conferring upon him a title which was disputed by Wido of Prænesté, had broken into the city and a bloody and obstinate conflict was being waged between his forces and the soldiers of the Church. The Roman nobles, ever restless and ready to revolt alike from the authority of the Emperor or of the Church, would not let this glorious opportunity pass without reminding those in power that they had built upon a volcano. They joined in the fray, some taking the part of the invader, others of the Church.

An hour or two before sunset an undisciplined horde of mercenaries, armed cap-a-pie, and formidable chiefly for the wild fury with which they seemed inspired, attacked the Mausoleum of the Flavian Emperor. The assailants, having no engines of war either for protection or assault, suffered severely from the missiles showered upon them by the besieged. Being repulsed after repeated assaults, they threw flaming torches into the houses that lined the river on the opposite shore and withdrew. From another quarter of the city a large body of Epirotes, who had hoisted the standard of the Lord Gisulph of Salerno and had already suffered one defeat, which rather roused their animosity than quelled their ardor, were advancing in good order. Before the Lateran they met the forces of Pandulph of Benevento, and a terrible hand-to-hand encounter ensued. Nor was man the only demon on the scene. Unsexed women with bare bosoms, wild eyes and streaming hair, the very outcast of the Roman scum, their feet stained with blood, flew to and fro, stimulating each other to fresh atrocities with wine, caresses and ribald mirth. It was a feast of Death and Sin. She had wreathed her white arms about the spectral king and crowned his fleshless head with her gaudy garlands, wrapped him in a mantle of flame and pressed the blood-red goblet to his lips, maddening him with her shrieks of wild, mocking mirth, the while mailed feet trampled out the lives of their victims on the flagstones of Rome.

Through a town in such a state of turmoil and confusion Tebaldo took it upon himself to conduct in safety the prize he had succeeded in capturing, not, it must be confessed, without many hearty regrets that he had ever embarked on the enterprise.

It was indeed a difficult and perilous task. He had been compelled to dismiss his men long ago, in order not to attract attention. There was but room for himself and one stout slave, beside the charioteer and his captive. The latter had struggled violently and required to be held down by sheer force, nor, in muffling her screams, was it easy to observe the happy medium between silence and suffocation. Also, it was indispensable in the present state of lawlessness to avoid observation, and the spectacle of a golden chariot with a woman prisoner, gagged and veiled, the whole drawn by four spirited black steeds, was not calculated to avoid suspicion and comment. Stefano, Tebaldo's underling, had indeed suggested a litter, but this had been overruled by his comrade on the score of speed, and now the congestion of the streets made speed impossible. To be sure, this enabled his escort to keep up with them at a distance, but a fight at this present moment was little to Tebaldo's taste. The darkness which should have favored him was dispelled by the numerous conflagrations in the various parts of the city, and when the chariot was stopped and forced to run into a by-street, to avoid a crowd running toward the Campo Marzo, Tebaldo felt his heart sink within him in an access of terror such as even he had rarely felt before.

Up one street, down another, avoiding the main thoroughfares, now rendered impassable by the throngs, the charioteer directed his steeds towards Basil's palace on the Pincian Hill.

Hellayne seemed to have either fainted, or resigned herself to her fate, for she had ceased to struggle and cowered on the floor of the chariot, silent and motionless. Tebaldo hoped his difficulties were over, and promised himself never again to be concerned in such an affair. Already he imagined himself safe on his patron's porch, claiming his reward, when his advance was stopped by a pageant, which promised a protracted and hazardous delay.

Winding its slow way along, with all the pomp and splendor attending it, a procession of chariots crossed in front of Tebaldo's steeds, and not a man in Rome would have dared to break in upon the train of Theodora, who was abroad to view the strife of the factions, utterly indifferent to the perils of the venture.

It may be that something whispered to Hellayne that, of the two perils confronting her, what she contemplated was the lesser, and no sooner did the car stop to let the chariots pass, than, tearing away the bandage, she uttered a piercing scream, which brought it to a halt at once, while Tebaldo, trying to wear a bold front, quaked in every limb.

At a signal from the woman in the first chariot her giant Africans seized the shaking Tebaldo and surrounded his chariot. Already a crowd of curious spectators was gathering, and the glare of the bonfires, kindled here and there, shed its light on their dark, eager faces, contrasting strangely with the veiled form of a woman, cold and immobile as marble.

Two of the Africans seized Tebaldo, and buffeted him unceremoniously to within a few paces of the occupant of the chariot. Here he stood, speechless and trembling, anger and fear contending for the mastery, which changed to dismay as the woman raised her veil with a hand gleaming white as ivory.

"Do you know me?"

Whatever he had intended to say, the words died on Tebaldo's lips.

"The Lady Theodora!"

"You still have your wits about you," replied the woman. "Whom have you there?"

The cold sweat stood on the brow of Basil's henchman.

"The runaway mistress of my lord," he said, looking from right to left for some one to prompt him, some escape from the dilemma.

"Who is your master?" Theodora queried curtly.

"The Lord Basil – "

"The Lord Basil!" shrilled Theodora. "Indeed I knew not he had lost a mistress. Yet I saw him within the hour and had speech with him." —

Stefano had meanwhile come up, composed and sedate, little guessing the quality of his companion's interlocutor, with the air of a man confident in the justice of his case.

"Where are you taking this woman?" Theodora queried.

Tebaldo attempted to speak, but Stefano anticipated him.

"To the palace of my Lord Basil on the Pincian Hill, noble lady," he said with many obese bows. "Suffer us to proceed, for the streets are becoming more unsafe every moment and our lord will not be trifled with in matters of this kind."

"Indeed," Theodora interposed. "Is his heart so much set upon this prize? Ho there, Bahram – Yussuff – bring the woman here!"

Tebaldo tried to worm himself out of the clutch of the black giants, in order to prevent them from obeying Theodora's order, but he found the situation hopeless and was about to address Theodora when the latter bade him be silent. —

"The woman shall speak for herself," she said in a tone that suffered no contradiction and, in another moment, Hellayne, lifted by four muscular arms from the chariot of her abductors, stood, released of her bandages, before Theodora.

All color left the Roman's face as she gazed into the pallid and anguished features of the woman whom of all women on earth she feared and hated most, the woman who dared to enter the arena with her for the love of the one man whom she was determined to possess, if the universe should crumble to atoms. Hellayne's fear upon beholding Theodora gave way to her pride as she met the dark eyes of the Roman in which there might have been a gleam of pity or a flash of scorn.

But, ere Hellayne could speak, finding herself, caught like a poor hunted bird, in one net, ere she had well escaped the other, Theodora turned to Tebaldo.

"Tell the Lord Basil, the woman he craves is under Theodora's roof, and – if so he be inclined – he may claim her at my hands – "

The gleaming white arm went out, and ere Hellayne knew what happened, she found herself raised into the second chariot, where sat a tall girl of great beauty, Persephoné, the Circassian.

A signal to the charioteer and the pageant moved with slightly increased speed towards the Aventine, while Tebaldo and Stefano, outwitted and non-plussed, stared after the vanishing procession as if they were encompassed by a nightmare. Then, simultaneously, they broke out into such a chorus of vituperation that the by-standers shrank back from them in horror, and they soon found themselves, their chariot and its driver, almost the only human beings in the now deserted thoroughfare.

Hellayne meanwhile sat, utterly dazed, next to Persephoné. Terrified by the danger she had escaped, and scarcely reassured by the manner of her rescue she seemed as one in a stupor, unable to think, unable to speak.

Persephoné regarded her with a strange fascination, not unmingled with curiosity. Hellayne's fair and wonderful beauty appealed strangely to the Circassian, while, with her native intuition, she wondered whether Theodora's act was prompted by kindness or revenge.

Hellayne seemed, for the first time, to note her companion. Looking into Persephoné's eyes she shuddered.

"Where are we going?" she whispered, gazing about in a state of bewilderment, as the procession slowly wound up the slopes of the Mount of Cloisters, and the broad ribbon of the Tiber gleamed below in the moonlight.

A strange smile curved Persephoné's lips.

"To the Groves of Enchantment," she replied. "You are the guest of the Lady Theodora."

Hellayne brushed back the silken hair from her brow as if she were waking from a troubled dream.

She gave a swift glance to her companion, another to the winding road and, suddenly rising from her seat, started to leap from the chariot.

Ere she could carry out her intent, she was caught in the Circassian's arms.

A silent, but terrible struggle ensued. Notwithstanding her harrowing experiences of the past days, despair had given back to Hellayne the strength of youth. But in the lithe Circassian she found her match and, after a few moments, she sank back exhausted, Persephoné's arms encircling her like coils of steel, while her smiling eyes sank into her own.

The palace of Theodora rose phantom-like from among its environing groves in the moonlight, and the chariots dashed through the portals of the outer court, which closed upon the fantastic procession.