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

by Nathan Gallizier

  CHAPTER IX

  THE FEAST OF THEODORA

  A fairy-like radiance pervaded the great pavilion in the sunken gardensof Theodora on Mount Aventine.

  It was a vast circular hall, roofed in by a lofty dome of richestmalachite, from the centre of which was suspended a huge globe offire, flinging blood-red rays on the amber colored silken carpets andtapestries that covered floors and walls. The dome was supported byrows upon rows of tall tapering crystal columns, clear as translucentwater and green as the grass in spring, and between and beyond thesecolumns were large oval shaped casements set wide open to the summernight, through which the gleam of a broad lake, laden with waterlilies, could be seen shimmering in the yellow radiance of the moon.

  The centre of the hall was occupied by a long table in the form of ahorseshoe, upon which glittered vessels of gold, crystal and silverin the sheen of the revolving globe of fire, heaped with all theaccessories of a sumptuous banquet, such as might have been spreadbefore the ancient gods of Olympus in the heyday of their legendaryprime.

  Strange scents assailed the nostrils: pomegranate and frankincense,myrrh, spikenard and saffron, cinnamon and calamus mingled theirperfume with the insidious distillations of the jasmine, and spiralclouds of incense rose from tripods of bronze to the vaulted ceiling.

  Inside the horseshoe, black African slaves, attired in fantasticliveries of yellow and blue, crimson and white, orange and green,carried aloft jewelled flagons and goblets, massive gold dishes andgreat platters of painted earthenware.

  There were wines from Cyprus and Malvasia, from Montepulciano and thesunny slopes of Hymettus, Chianti and Lacrymae Christi.

  The almost incredible brilliancy of the assembled company, contrastingwith the fantastic background, caught the eye as with a stab of pain,held the gaze for a single instant of frozen incredulity, then grippedthe throat in a choking sensation by reason of its wonder.

  Lounging on divans of velvet and embroidered satin from the looms offabled Cathay, set in the old Roman fashion round the table, eating,drinking, gossiping and occasionally bursting into wild snatches ofsong, were a company of distinguished looking personages, richlyand brilliantly attired, bent upon enjoying the pleasures offeredby the immediate hour. All who laid claim to any distinction in theseven-hilled city were there, the lords of the Campagna and of theadjacent fiefs of the Church. Strangers from all parts of the inhabitedglobe were there, steeping their bewildered brain in the splendorsthat assailed their eyes on every point; from Africa and Iceland, fromPortugal and India, from Burgundy and Aquitaine, from Granada and fromGreece, from Germania and Provence, from Persia and the Baltic shores.Their fantastic and semi-barbaric costumes seemed to enhance thegrotesque splendor of the banquet hall.

  The Romans were acquainting their guests with the exalted rank ofthe woman who ruled the city as surely as ever had Marozia from theEmperor's Tomb. And the strangers listened wide-eyed and with batedbreath.

  Near the raised dais which Theodora was to occupy, at the head ofthe table, there were three couches reserved for guests who, like thehostess, had not yet arrived.

  Below these, by the side of a martial stranger with the air of onewho would fain sweep the board clear of his neighbors on eitherhand, devouring his food in fierce silence, sat the Prefect of Rome,endeavoring to expound the qualities of his countrymen to the silentguest, interspersing his encomiums now and then with a rapturous eulogyof Theodora.

  "Monstrous times have robbed us Romans of the power of the sword.But they cannot rob us of the power of the spirit, which will endureforever."

  The stranger replied with a stony stare of contempt.

  Beside the Lord Atenulf of Benevento sat a tall girl with heavy coilsof blue black hair, eyes that smouldered with a sombre light, curvedcarnation lips set in a perfect, oval face, and seeming more scarletthan they were, owing to her ivory pallor, the tint of the furledmagnolia bud which is, perhaps, only seen to perfection in Italy andespecially in Rome.

  She looked at the grave-faced guest with quickened eyes.

  Snatching some vine leaves from a pyramid of grapes, as purple as thetapestries of Tyre, she arose and laying her hand on the stranger'sarm, said laughingly:

  "Oh, what a brow! Dark as a thundercloud in June. Let me crown you withthe leaves of the vine! Perchance the hour will evoke the mood!"

  She twisted the leaves into a wreath and dropped them lightly on hishead. The eyes of the silent guest, set in a face of sanguine color,leered viciously, with the looks of one who believes himself, howevermistakenly, master of himself. There was a contemptuous curl about hislips. They were thick lips and florid.

  "Ah!" he turned to the girl in a barbarous jargon, "you are one ofthose who go veiled in the streets."

  And as he spoke his eyes leered with yet livelier malice.

  The girl shrank back.

  "Those who go veiled know more than ordinary folk," she replied, thenmingled with the other guests.

  A young woman of great beauty, with light hair and blue eyes, satbeside young Fabio of the Cavalli. Her bare arms, white as snow, and ofexquisite contour, encircled his neck, while he drank and drank. Nowand then she sipped of the wine, Lacrymae Christi from Viterbo, of thegreenish straw color of the chrysoberyl.

  Some one had put red poppy leaves in Roxana's hair, and as she sat bythe side of the youth, she had the air and appearance of a Corybante.

  Now and then she gave a glance at the purple curtain in the background,and one who watched her closely might have seen a strange sparkle inthe depths of her clear blue eyes. With a look of disappointment sheturned away, as not a ripple of air stirred the curtain's heavy fold.Then her arms stole anew round the youth, who drained one goblet afteranother, as if each succeeding one yielded up a new secret to him.

  Roxana marked it well.

  Her eyes danced to his, whenever Fabio's gaze stole towards the purplecurtain which screened the mysterious garden beyond, in which the sprayof a fountain cast silvery showers into branch-shadowed thickets,hidden retreats and silent, leafy alcoves, where flowers swooned in themoonlight and gave up their perfume for love.

  From the immobile sable hangings the youth's eyes wandered back toRoxana's face, but there lurked something strange in their depths.

  "Am I not more beautiful than Theodora?" whispered the woman by hisside, extending her marble arms before her lover.

  "You are beautiful, my Roxana," he stammered. "But Theodora is the mostbeautiful woman on earth."

  Roxana turned very white at his words.

  "She has challenged me to come to her feast," she said in a low tone,audible only to Fabio. "Let her look to herself!"

  And her eyes were alight with the desire of the meeting.

  On an adjoining couch reclined the huge jelly of a man who looked likePan, enormously swollen and bloated. His paunch bellied out over thetable like a full blown sail. His face was stained with many a nightof wine. The mulberry eyes twinkled merrily. The swollen lips babbledincessantly.

  It was the Lord Boso of Caprara.

  "They say that seven devils were cast out of Magdalene--" he turned toRoxana--

  The Lord of Norba interposed.

  "De mortuis nil nisi bene! Natura abhorret vacuum! I drink to thethirst to come!"

  And he raised his goblet and tossed it off.

  The Lord Atenulf rose to his feet, swaying and supporting himself withone hand on the table. His great swollen face, big as a ham, creaseditself into merriment.

  "Let the wine ferret out the thirst!" he shouted, and drained off histankard.

  "Argus hath a hundred eyes! A butler ought to have a hundred hands!"shouted the Lord of Camerino. "Wine,--slaves! Wine,--fill up in thename of Lucifer!"

  "My tongue is peeling!"

  "Wine! Wine!"

  The Africans filled up the empty tankards.

  "Privatio praesupponit habitum!" opined the Prefect of Rome.

  "We drink to Life and the fleeting Hour."

  "Pereat Mors."

&n
bsp; And the goblets clanged.

  "Who speaks of Death?" shrieked young Fabio of the Cavalli, attemptingto rise. The wine was taking effect on his brain.

  Roxana drew him back on the couch beside her.

  "Fill the goblets! A brimmer of Chianti, red as blood--"

  "Or the poppies in Roxana's hair!"

  "Wine from Samos--sweetened with honey."

  "A decoction of Nectar and Ambrosia."

  The strangers who crowded the vast hall began to join in the mirth andjollity of their Roman hosts, their Oriental apathy or frozen stoliditymelting slowly in the fumes of the wines.

  A curtain had parted and a bevy of girls clad in diaphanous gowns offinest silver gauze made their way into the banquet hall and took theirseats, as choice directed, beside the guests. Peals of laughter echoedthrough the vaulted dome, and excited voices were raised in clamorousdisputations and contentious arguments. The wine began to flow morelavishly. The assembled guests grew more and more careless of theirutterances. They flung themselves full length upon their luxuriouscouches, now pulling out handfuls of flowers from the tall malachitejars that stood near, and pelting the dancing girls for idle diversion,now summoning the attendant slaves to refill their wine cups, whilethey lay lounging at ease among the silken cushions.

  There was a moment's silence, sudden, unexplained, like the presage ofsome dark event.

  The slow solemn boom of a bell sounded the hour of midnight.

  The voices had ceased.

  With one accord, as though drawn by some magnetic spell, all turnedtheir eyes towards the purple curtain through which Theodora had justentered, and, rising from their seats, they broke into boisterouswelcome and acclaim. Young Fabio of the Cavalli whose flushed facehad all the wanton, effeminate beauty of a pictured Dionysos, reeledforward, goblet in hand and, tossing the wine in the air, so that itsplashed down at his feet, staining his garments, he shouted:

  "Vanish dull moon and be ashamed, for a fairer planetrules the midnight sky! To Theodora--the Queen of Love!"

  "Pelting the dancing girls for idle diversion"]

  He staggered a few paces towards her, holding the empty goblet inhis hand. His hair tossed back from his brows and entangled in ahalf-crushed wreath of vine-leaves, his garments disordered, hisdemeanor that of one possessed of a delirium of the senses, he staredat the wonderful apparition when, meeting Theodora's icy glance, hestarted as if he had been suddenly stabbed. The goblet fell from hishand and a shudder ran through his supple frame.

  By the side of the Grand Chamberlain, who was garbed in black from headto toe, Theodora descended the steps that led from the raised platforminto the brilliant hall.

  Greeting her guests with her inscrutable smile, she moved as a queenthrough a crowd of courtiers, the changing lights of crimson and greenplaying about her like living flame, her head, wreathed with jewelledserpents, rising proudly erect from her golden mantle, her eyesscintillating with a gleam of mockery which made them look so lustrous,yet so cold.

  Thus she strode towards the dais, draped in carnation-colored silks andsurmounted by an arch of ebony.

  For the space of a moment she paused, surveying her guests. A filmseemed to pass over her eyes as her gaze rested upon one who had slowlyarisen and was facing her in white silence.

  With a slight bend of the head Roxana acknowledged Theodora's silentgreeting; then, amidst loud shouts of acclaim she sank languidly uponher couch, trying to soothe young Fabio, who had raised his fallengoblet and held it out to a passing slave. The latter refilled it withwine, which he gulped down thirstily, though the purple liquid broughtno color to his drawn and ashen cheek.

  Theodora paid no heed to the youth's discomfiture, but Roxana's facewas white as death, and her lips were set as the lips of a marble maskas she gazed towards the ebony arch, upon which the eyes of all presentwere riveted.

  With a rustle as of falling leaves Theodora's gorgeous mantle hadreleased itself from its jewelled clasps, and had slowly fallen on theperfumed carpet at her feet.

  A sigh quivered audibly through the hall, whether of joy, hope, desireor despair it was difficult to tell. The pride and peril of matchlessloveliness was revealed in all its fatal seductiveness and invinciblestrength. In irresistible perfection she stood revealed before herguests in a robe of diaphanous silver gauze, which clung like a palemist about the wonderful curves of her form and seemed to float abouther like a summer cloud. Her dazzling white arms were bare to theshoulders. A silver serpent with a head of sapphires girdled her waist.

  Sinking indolently among the silken cushions of the dais, where shegleamed in her wonderful whiteness like a glistening pearl, set inebony, Theodora motioned to her guests to resume their places at theboard.

  She was instantly obeyed.

  The Grand Chamberlain took what appeared to be his accustomed seatat her right, the seat at her left remaining vacant. For a momentTheodora's gaze rested thereon with a puzzled air, then she seemed topay no farther heed.

  But a close observer might have noted a shade of displeasure on thebrow of the Grand Chamberlain, which no attempt at dissimulation coulddispel.

  A triumphant peal of music, the clash of mingled flutes, hautboys,tubas and harps rushed through the dome like a wind sweeping in fromtropical seas.

  Basil turned to Theodora with a searching glance.

  "One couch still awaits its guest."

  She nodded languidly.

  "Tristan--the pilgrim. He is late. Know you aught of him, my lord?"

  There was an air of mockery in her tone, not unmingled with concern.

  Basil's thin lips straightened.

  "Perchance the holy man hath other sheep in mind. What is he to you,Lady Theodora? Your concern for him seems of the suddenest."

  "What is it to you, my lord?" she flashed in return. "Am I accountableto you for the moods that sway my soul?"

  A mocking laugh startled both the Grand Chamberlain and Theodora.

  Low as the words between them had been spoken, they had reached the earof Roxana. Watchful of every shade of expression in Theodora's face,she was resolved to take up the gauntlet her hated rival had thrown toher, to draw her out of her defences into open conflict, for which shelonged with all the fire of her soul. Determined to wrest the dominionof Rome from Marozia's beautiful sister, she was resolved to stake herall, counting upon the effect of her wonderful beauty and her physicalperfection, which was a match for Theodora's in every point.

  This desire on Roxana's part was precipitated by the strange demeanorof young Fabio of the Cavalli. From the moment Theodora had enteredthe banquet hall his fevered gaze had devoured her wonderful beauty.A feverish restlessness had taken possession of the youth and he hadrudely repelled Roxana when she tried to soothe his wine-besotten brain.

  "Perchance," she turned to Theodora, "remembering how Circe of oldchanged her lovers into swine, the sainted pilgrim no longer worshipsat Santa Maria of the Aventine."

  Theodora started at the sound of her rival's hated voice as if an asphad stung her.

  "Perchance the well-known blandishments of our fair Roxana mightaccomplish as much, if report speaks true," she replied, returning thesmouldering challenge in the other woman's eyes.

  "And why not?" came the purring response. "Am I not your match in bodyand soul?"

  Every vestige of color had faded from Theodora's cheeks. For a momentthe two women seemed to search each other's souls, their bosomsheaving, their eyes alight with the desire for the conflict.

  Roxana slowly arose and strode toward the vacant seat at Theodora'sleft.

  "When you circled the Rosary on yesternight, fairest Theodora," shepurred, "was he not there--waiting for you?"

  Instead of Theodora, it was Basil who made reply.

  "Of whom do you speak?"

  Again the silvery ripple of Roxana's laughter floated above the din.

  "Perchance, my Lord Basil, our fair Theodora should be able toenlighten you on that point--"

  "Of whom do you speak?" B
asil turned to the woman.

  There was something ominous in his eyes. His face was pale.

  Theodora regarded him contemptuously, her dark slumbrous eyes turningfrom him to the woman.

  "Beware lest I be tempted to strangle you," she spoke in a low tone,her white hands opening and closing convulsively.

  "Like Persephone, your Circassian,--in the Emperor's Tomb?" came thetaunting reply.

  Theodora's face was white as lightning.

  "I should not leave the work undone!"

  "Neither should I," came the purring reply, as Roxana extended herwonderful hands and arms. "Meanwhile--will you not inform your guestsof the story of the pilgrim, who wellnigh caused Marozia's sister toenter a nunnery?"

  A group of listeners had gathered about.

  Basil was swaying to and fro in his seat with suppressed fury.

  "One convent at least would be damned from gable to refectory," hemuttered, emptying the tankard which one of the Africans had justreplenished.

  Theodora regarded him icily. Her inscrutable countenance gave no hintof her thoughts. She did not even seem to hear the questions which fellthick and fast about her, but there was something in the velvet depthsof her eyes that would have caused even the boldest to tremble in theconsciousness of having incurred her anger.

  The Lord of Norba reeled towards the couch, where Roxana had taken herseat, blinking out of small watery eyes and flirting with his lordlybuskins.

  "How came it about?"

  "What was he like?"

  Theodora turned slowly from the one to the other. Then with a voicevibrant with contempt she said:

  "A man!"

  "And you were counting your beads?" shouted the Lord Atenulf in soamazed a tone, that the guests broke out into peals of laughter.

  "It was then it happened," Roxana related, without relating.

  "How mysterious," shivered some one.

  "Will you not tell us?" Roxana challenged Theodora anew.

  Their eyes met. Roxana turned to her auditors.

  "Our fair Theodora had been suddenly touched by the spirit," she beganin her low musical voice. "Withdrawing from the eyes of man she gaveherself up to holy meditations. In this mood she nightly circled thePenitent's Rosary at Santa Maria of the Aventine, praying that thesaint might take compassion upon her and deliver unto her keeping aperfect, saintly man, pure and undefiled. And to add weight to herown prayers, we, too, circled the Rosary; Gisla, Adelhita, Pamela andmyself. And we prayed very earnestly."

  She paused for a moment and looked about, as if to gauge the impressionher tale was producing on the assembled guests. Her smiling eyes sweptthe face of Theodora who was listening as intently as if the incidentabout to be related had happened to another, her sphinx-like facebetraying not a sign of emotion.

  "And then?"

  It was Basil's voice, hoarse and constrained.

  "Then," Roxana continued, "the miracle came to pass before our veryeyes. Behind one of the monolith pillars there stood one in a pilgrim'sgarb, young and tall of stature. His gaze followed our rotations, andeach time we circled about him our fair Theodora offered thanks to thesaint for granting her prayer--"

  She paused and again her gaze mockingly swept Theodora's sphinx-likeface.

  "And then?" spoke the voice of Basil.

  "When our devotions had come to a close," Roxana turned to the speaker,"Theodora sent Persephone to conduct the saintly stranger to herbowers. And then the unlooked for happened. The saintly stranger fled,like Joseph of old. He did not even leave his garb."

  There was an outburst of uproarious mirth.

  "But do these things ever happen?" fluted the Poet Bembo.

  "In the realms of fable," shouted the Lord of Norba.

  "Now men have become wiser."

  "And women more circumspect."

  Theodora turned to the speaker.

  "Perchance traditions have been merely reversed."

  "Some recent events do not seem to support the theory," drawled theGrand Chamberlain.

  Theodora regarded him with her strange inscrutable smile.

  "Who knows,--if all were told?"

  "The fact remains," Roxana persisted in her taunts, "that our fairTheodora's power has its limits; that there is one man at least whomshe may not drug with the poison sweetness of her song."

  In Theodora's eyes gleamed a smouldering fire, as she met theinsufferable taunts of the other woman.

  "Why do you not try your own charms upon him, fairest Roxana?" sheturned to her tormentor. "Charms which, I grant you, are second noteven to mine."

  Roxana's bosom heaved. A strange fire smouldered in her eyes.

  "And deem you I could not take him from you, if I choose?" she replied,the pupils of her eyes strangely dilated.

  "Not if I choose to make him mine!" flashed Theodora.

  Roxana's contemptuous mirth cut her to the quick.

  "You have tried and failed!"

  "I have neither tried nor have I failed."

  "Then you mean to try again, fairest Theodora?" came the insidious,purring reply.

  "That is as I choose!"

  "It shall be as I choose."

  "What do you mean, fairest Roxana?"

  "I mean to conquer him--to make him mine--to steep his senses in sowild a delirium that he shall forget his God, his garb, his honor. And,when I have done with him, I shall send him to the devil--or to you,fairest Theodora--to finish, what I began. This to prove you a vainboaster, who has failed to make good every claim you have put forth--"

  Theodora was very pale. In her voice there was an unnatural calm as sheturned to the other woman.

  "You have boasted, you will make this austere pilgrim your own, bodyand soul--you will cast the tatters of his soiled virtue at my feet.I did not desire him. But now"--her eyes sank into those of the otherwoman, "I mean to have him,--and I shall--with you, fairest Roxana, andall your power of seduction against me! I shall have him--and when Ihave done with him, not even you shall desire him--nor that other, whomyou serve--"

  Both women had risen to their feet and challenged each other with theireyes.

  "By the powers of darkness, you shall not!" Roxana returned, pale tothe lips.

  "Take him from me--if you can!" Theodora flashed. "I shall conqueryou--and him!"

  At this point the Grand Chamberlain interposed.

  "Were it not wise," he drawled, looking from the one to the other, "toacquaint this holy man with the perils that beset his soul, since thetwo most beautiful and virtuous ladies in Rome seem resolved to guidehim on his Way of the Cross?"

  There was a moment of silence, then he continued in the same drawl,which veiled emotions he dared not reveal in this assembly.

  "Deem you, the man who journeyed hundreds of leagues to obtainabsolution for having kissed a woman in wedlock has aught to fear fromsuch as you?"

  Ere Theodora could make reply the tantalizing purring voice of Roxanastruck her ear.

  "Surely this is no man--"

  "A man he is, nevertheless," Basil retorted hotly. "One night Iwandered out upon the silent Aventine. Losing myself among the ruins,I heard voices in the abode of the Monk of Cluny. Fearing, lest someone should attempt to harm this holy friar," he continued, with a sideglance at Theodora, "I entered unseen. I overheard his confession."

  There was profound silence.

  It seemed too monstrously absurd. Absolution for a kiss!

  Roxana spoke at last, and her veiled mockery strained her rival'stemper to the breaking point. Her words stung, as needles would thenaked flesh.

  "Then," she said with deliberate slowness, "if our fair Theodorapersist in her unholy desire, what else is there for me to do but totake him from her just to save the poor man's soul?"

  Theodora's white hands yearned for the other woman's throat.

  "Deem you, your charms would snare the good pilgrim, should I will tomake him mine?" she flashed.

  "Why not?" Roxana purred. "Shall we try? Are you afraid?"--

 
; "Of you?" Theodora shrilled.

  A strange fire burnt in Roxana's eyes.

  "Of the ordeal! Once upon a time you took from me the boy I loved. NowI shall take from you the man you desire!"

  "I challenge you!"

  "To the death!" Roxana flashed, appraising her rival's charms againsther own. Her further utterance was checked by the sudden entrance ofone of the Africans, who prostrated himself before Theodora, mutteringsome incoherent words at which both the woman and Basil gave a start.

  "Have him thrown into the street," Basil turned to Theodora.

  "Have him brought in," Theodora commanded.

  For the space of a few moments intense silence reigned throughout thepavilion. Then the curtains at the farther end parted, admitting twohuge Africans, who carried between them the seemingly lifeless form ofa man.

  An imperious gesture of Theodora directed them to approach with theirburden, and a cry of surprise and dismay broke from her lips as shegazed into the white, still features of Tristan.

  He was unconscious, but faintly breathing, and upon his garb werestrange stains, that looked like blood. The Africans placed theirburden on the couch from which Roxana had arisen, and Theodora summonedthe Moorish physician Bahram from the lower end of the table, where hehad indulged in a learned dispute with a Persian sage. The other gueststhronged about, curious to see and to hear.

  The Grand Chamberlain changed color when his gaze first lighted onthe prostrate form and he felt inclined to make light of the matterhinting at the effect of Italian wines upon strangers unaccustomedto the vintage. The ashen pallor of Tristan's cheeks had not remainedunremarked by Theodora, as she turned from the unconscious victim of avillainy to the man beside her, whom in some way she connected with thedeed.

  Basil's comment elicited but a glance of contempt as, approaching thecouch whereon he lay, Theodora eagerly watched the Moorish physicianin his efforts to revive the unconscious man. Tristan's teeth were sotightly set that it required the insertion of a steel bar to pry themapart.

  Bahram poured some strong wine down the throat of the still unconsciousman, then placed him in a sitting position and continued his effortsuntil, with a violent fit of coughing, Tristan opened his eyes.

  It was some time, however, until he regained his faculties sufficientlyto manifest his emotions, and the bewilderment with which his gazewandered from one face to the other, would have been amusing had notthe mystery which encompassed his presence inspired a feeling of awe.The Moorish physician, upon being questioned by Theodora, stated, somepowerful poison had caused the coma which bound Tristan's limbs andadded, in another hour he would have been beyond the pale of humanaid. More than this he would not reveal and, his task accomplished, hewithdrew among the guests.

  From the Grand Chamberlain, whose stony gaze was riveted upon him,Tristan turned to the woman who reclined by his side on the divan. Hisvocal chords seemed paralyzed, but his other faculties were keenlyalive to the strangeness of his surroundings. Perceiving his inabilityto reply to her questions, Theodora soothed him to silence.

  Vainly endeavoring to speak, Tristan partook but sparingly of therefreshments which she offered to him with her own hands. She wasnow deliberately endeavoring to enmesh his senses, and her exotic,wonderful beauty could not but accomplish with him what it hadaccomplished with all who came under its fatal spell. An insidious,sensuous perfume seemed to float about her, which caused Tristan'sbrain to reel. Her bare arms and wonderful hands made him dizzy. Hereyes held his own by their strange, subtle spell. Unfathomed mysteriesseemed to lurk in their hidden depths. Without endeavoring to engagehim in conversation, much as she longed to question him on certainpoints, she tried to soothe him by passing her cool white hands overhis fevered brow. And all the time she was pondering on the nature ofhis infliction and the author thereof, as her gaze pensively swept thebanquet hall.

  The guests had, one by one, returned to their seats. Theodora also hadarisen, after having made Tristan comfortable on the couch assigned tohim.

  Unseen, the heavy folds of the curtain behind her parted. A face peeredfor a moment into her own, that seemed to possess no human attributes.Theodora gave a hardly perceptible nod and the face disappeared.The Grand Chamberlain took his seat by her side and Roxana flingingTheodora a glittering challenge seated herself beside Tristan.