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

by Nathan Gallizier

  CHAPTER X

  THE BROKEN SPELL

  Again there was feasting and high revels in the palace of Theodoraon Mount Aventine. Colored lanterns were suspended between theinterstices of orange and oleander trees; and incense rose in spiralcoils from bronze and copper vessels, concealed among leafy bowers.The great banquet hall was thronged with a motley crowd of Romans,Greeks, men from the coasts of Africa and Iceland, Spaniards, Persians,Burgundians, Lombards, men from the steppes of Sarmatia, and the ambercoast of the Baltic. Here and there groups were discussing the wines orthe viands or the gossip of the day.

  The guests marvelled at the splendor, wealth and the variegatedmosaics, the gilded walls, the profusion of beautiful marble columnsand the wonderfully groined ceiling. It was a veritable banquet ofthe senses. The fairylike radiance of the hall with its truly easternsplendor captivated the eye. From remote grottoes came the sounds offlutes, citherns and harps, quivering through the dreaming summer night.

  On ebony couches upon silver frames, covered with rare tapestriesand soft cushions, the guests reclined. Between two immense,crescent-shaped tables, made of citron wood and inlaid with ivory, rosea miniature bronze fountain, representing Neptune. From it spurtedjets of scented water, which cooled and perfumed the air.

  Not in centuries had there been such a feast in Rome. Mountain, plainand the sea had been relentlessly laid under tribute, to surrendertheir choicest towards supplying the sumptuous board.

  Nubian slaves in spotless white kept at the elbows of the guests andfilled the golden flagons as quickly as they were emptied. A powerfulCyprian wine, highly spiced, was served. Under its stimulatinginfluence the revellers soon gave themselves up to the recklessenjoyment of the hour.

  As the feast proceeded the guests cried more loudly for flagons of thefiery ecobalda. They quaffed large quantities of this wine and theirfaces became flushed, their eyes sparkled and their tongues grew moreand more free. The temporary restraint they had imposed upon themselvesgradually vanished. In proportion as they partook of the fiery vintagetheir conviviality increased.

  The roll-call was complete. None was found missing. Here was the Lordof Norba and Boso, Lord of Caprara. Here was the Lord Atenulf ofBenevento, the Lord Amgar, from the coasts of the Baltic; here wasBembo the poet, Eugenius the philosopher and Alboin, Lord of Farfa.Here was the Prefect of Rome and Roger de Laval. He, too, had joinedthe throng of idolators at the shrine of Theodora. The Lord Guaimar ofSalerno was there, and Guido, Duke of Spoleto.

  The curtain at the far end of the banquet hall slowly parted.

  On the threshold stood Theodora.

  Silent, rigid, she gazed into the hall.

  Like a sudden snow on a summer meadow, a white silence fell from herimagination across that glittering, gleaming tinselled atmosphere.Everywhere the dead seemed to sit around her, watching, as in a trance,strange antics of the grimacing dead.

  A vision of beauty she appeared, radiantly attired, a jewelled diademupon her brow. By her side appeared Basil, the Grand Chamberlain.

  When her gaze fell upon the motley crowd, a disgust, such as she hadnever known, seized her.

  She seated herself on the dais, reserved for her, and with queenlydignity bade her guests welcome.

  Basil occupied the seat of honor at her right, Roger de Laval at herleft.

  Had any one watched the countenances of Theodora and of Basil hewould have surprised thereon an expression of ravening anxiety. Tothemselves they appeared like two players, neither knowing the nextmove of his opponent, yet filled with the dire assurance that upon thismove depended the fate of the house of cards each has built upon afoundation of sand.

  At last the Count de Laval arose and whirled his glass about his head.

  "Twine a wreath about your cups," he shouted, "and drink to the gloryof the most beautiful woman in the world--the Lady Theodora."

  They rose to their feet and shouted their endorsement till the veryarches seemed to ring with the echoes. His initiative was receivedwith such favor by the others that, fired with the desire to emulatehis example, they fell to singing and shouting the praise of the womanwhose beauty had not its equal in Rome.

  Theodora viewed the scene of dissipation with serenity and composure,and, by her attitude she seemed, in a strange way, even tacitly toencourage them to drink still deeper. Faster, ever faster, the winecoursed among the guests. Some of them became more and more boisterous,others were rendered somnolent and fell forward in a stupor upon thesilken carpets.

  Theodora, whose restlessness seemed to increase with every moment, andwho seemed to hold herself in leash by a strenuous effort of the will,suddenly turned to Basil and whispered a question into his ear.

  A silent nod came in response and the next moment a clash of cymbals,stormily persistent, roused the revellers from their stupor. Then, likea rainbow garmented Peri, floating easefully out of some far-off sphereof sky-wonders, an aerial maiden shape glided into the full lustre ofthe varying light, a dancer nude, save for the glistening veil thatcarelessly enshrouded her limbs, her arms and hands being adorned withcirclets of tiny golden bells which kept up a melodious jingle as shemoved. And now began the strangest music, music that seemed to hovercapriciously between luscious melody and harsh discord, a wild andcurious medley of fantastic minor suggestions in which the imaginativesoul might discover hints of tears and folly, love and madness. Tothis uncertain yet voluptuous measure the glittering girl dancerleaped forward with a startling abruptness and, halting as it were onthe boundary line between the dome and the garden beyond, raised herrounded arms in a snowy arch above her head.

  Her pause was a mere breathing spell in duration. Dropping her armswith a swift decision, she hurled herself into the giddy mazes of adance. Round and round she floated, like an opal-winged butterflyin a net of sunbeams, now seemingly shaken by delicate tremors,as aspen leaves are shaken by the faintest wind, now assuming themost voluptuous eccentricities of posture, sometimes bending downwistfully as though she were listening to the chanting of demon voicesunderground, and again, with her waving white hands, appearing tosummon spirits to earth from their wanderings in the upper air. Herfigure was in perfect harmony with the seductive grace of her gestures;not only her feet, but her whole body danced, her very features bespokeabandonment to the frenzy of her rapid movement. Her large black eyesflashed with something of fierceness as well as languor; and her ravenhair streamed behind her like a darkly spread wing.

  Wild outbursts of applause resounded uproariously through the hall.

  Count Roger had drawn nearer to Theodora. His arms encircled her body.

  Theodora bent over him.

  "Not to-night! Not to-night! There are many things to consider.To-morrow I shall give you my answer."

  He looked up into her eyes.

  "Do you not love me?"

  His hot breath fanned her cheeks.

  Theodora gave a shrug and turned away, sick with disgust.

  "Love--I hardly know what it means. I do not think I have ever loved."

  Laval sucked in his breath between his teeth.

  "Then you shall love me! You shall! Ever since I have come to Rome haveI desired you! And the woman lives not who may gainsay my appeal."

  She smiled tauntingly.

  He had seized her hand. The fierceness of his grip made her gasp withpain.

  "And whatever brought you to Rome?" she turned to him.

  "I came in quest of one who had betrayed my honor."

  "And you found her?"

  "Both!" came the laconic reply.

  "How interesting," purred Theodora, suffering his odious embrace,although she shuddered at his touch.

  "And, man-like, you were revenged?"

  "She has met the fate I had decreed upon her who wantonly betrayed thehonor of her lord."

  "Then she confessed?"

  "She denied her guilt. What matter? I never loved her. It is you Ilove! You, divine Theodora."

  And, carried away by a gust of passion, he drew her
to him, coveringher brow, her hair, her cheeks with kisses. But she turned away hermouth.

  She tried to release herself from his embrace.

  Roger uttered an oath.

  "I have tamed women before--ay--and I shall tame you," he sputtered,utterly disregarding her protests.

  She drew back as far as his encircling arms permitted.

  "Release me, my lord!" she said, her dark eyes flashing fire. "You aremad!"

  "No heroics--fair Theodora-- Has the Wanton Queen of Rome turned into ahaloed saint?"

  He laughed. His mouth was close to her lips.

  Revulsion and fury seized her. Disengaging her hands she struck himacross the face.

  There was foam on his lips. He caught her by the throat. Now he wasforcing her beneath his weight with the strength of one insane withuncontrollable passion.

  "Help!" she screamed with a choking sensation.

  A shadow passed before her eyes. Everything seemed to swim aroundher in eddying circles of red. Then a gurgling sound. The grip onher throat relaxed. Laval rolled over upon the floor in a horribleconvulsion, gasped and expired.

  Basil's dagger had struck him through, piercing his heart.

  Slowly Theodora arose. She was pale as death. Her guests, too muchengaged with their beautiful partners, had been attracted to her plightbut by her sudden outcry.

  They stared sullenly at the dead man and turned to their formerpursuits.

  Theodora clapped her hands.

  Two giant Nubians appeared. She pointed to the corpse at her feet. Theyraised it up between them, carried it out and sank it in the Lotuslake. Others wiped away the stains of blood.

  Basil bent over Theodora's hands, and covered them with kisses,muttering words of endearment which but increased the discord in herheart.

  She released herself, resuming her seat on the dais.

  "It is the old fever," she turned to the man beside her. "You purchaseand I sell! Nay"--she added as his lips touched her own--"there is noneed for a lover's attitude when hucksters meet."

  Though the guests had returned to their seats, a strange silence hadfallen upon the assembly. The rhythmical splashing of the water in thefountain and the labored breathing of the distressed wine-Bibbie'sseemed the only sounds that were audible for a time.

  "But I love you, Theodora," Basil spoke with strangely dilated eyes."I love you for what you are, for all the evil you have wrought! You,alone! For you have I done this thing! For you Alberic lies dead insome unknown glen. For you have I summoned about us those who shallseat you in the high place that is yours by right of birth."

  Theodora was herself again. With upraised hand, that shone marble whitein the ever-changing light, she enjoined silence.

  "What of that other?" she said, while her eyes held those of the manwith their magic spell.

  "What other?" he stammered, turning pale.

  "That one!" she flashed.

  At that moment the curtain parted again and into the changing light,emitted by the great revolving globe, swayed a woman. At firstit seemed a statue of marble that had become animated and, ereconsciousness had resumed its sway, was slowly gaining life and motion,still bound up in the dream existence into which some unknown power hadplunged her.

  As one petrified, Basil stared at the swaying form of Hellayne. A whitetransparent byssus veil enveloped the beautiful limbs. Her wonderfulbare arms were raised above her head, which was slightly inclined, asin a listening attitude. She seemed to move unconsciously as under aspell or as one who walks in her sleep. Her eyes were closed. The paleface showed suffering, yet had not lost one whit of its marvellousbeauty.

  The revellers stared spellbound at what, to their superstitious minds,seemed the wraith of slain Roxana returned to earth to haunt her rival.

  Suddenly, without warning, the dark-robed form of a man dashed frombehind a pillar. No one seemed to have noted his presence. Overthrowingevery impediment, he bounded straight for Hellayne, when he saw thelithe form snatched up before his very eyes and her abductor disappearwith his burden, as if the ground had swallowed them.

  It seemed to Tristan that he was rushing through an endless successionof corridors and passages, crossing each other at every conceivableangle, in his mad endeavor to snatch his precious prey from herabductor when, in a rotunda in which these labyrinthine passagesconverged, he found himself face to face with an apparition that seemedto have risen from the floor.

  Before him stood Theodora.

  Her dark shadow was wavering across the moonlit network of light. Thered and blue robes of the painted figures on the wall glowed about herlike blood and azure, while the moonlight laid lemon colored splashesupon the varied mosaics of the floor.

  His pulses beating furiously, a sense of suffocation in his throat,Tristan paused as the woman barred his way.

  "Let me pass!" he said imperiously, trying to suit the action to theword.

  But he had not reckoned with the woman's mood.

  "You shall not," Theodora said, a strange fire gleaming in her eyes.

  "Where is Hellayne? What have you done with her?"

  Theodora regarded him calmly from under drooping lashes.

  "That I will tell you," she said with a mocking voice. "It was my goodfortune to rescue her from the claws of one who has again got her intohis power. Her mind is gone, my Lord Tristan! Be reconciled to yourfate!"

  "Surely you cannot mean this?" Tristan gasped, his face under themonk's cowl pale as death, while his eyes stared unbelievingly intothose of the woman.

  "Is not what you have seen, proof that I speak truth?" Theodorainterposed, slightly veiled mockery in her tone.

  "Then this is your deed," Tristan flashed.

  Theodora gave a shrug.

  "What if it were?"

  "She is in Basil's power?"

  "An experienced suitor."

  "Woman, why have you done this thing to me?"

  His hands went to his head and he reeled like a drunken man.

  Theodora laid her hands on Tristan's shoulders.

  "Because I want you--because I love you, Tristan," she said slowly, andher wonderful face seemed to become illumined as it were, from within."Nay--do not shrink from me! I know what you would say! Theodora--thecourtesan queen of Rome! You deem I have no heart--no soul. You deemthat these lips, defiled by the kisses of beasts, cannot speak truth.Yet, if I tell you, Tristan, that this is the first and only time in mylife that I have loved, that I love you with a love such as only thoseknow who have thirsted for it all their lives, yet have never known butits base counterfeit; if I tell you--that upon your answer depends myfate--my life--Tristan--will you believe--will you save the woman whomnothing else on earth can save?"

  "I do not believe you," Tristan replied.

  Theodora's face had grown white to the lips.

  "You shall stay--and you shall listen to me!" she said, without raisingher voice, as if she were discoursing upon some trifling matter, andTristan obeyed, compelled by the look in her eyes.

  Theodora felt Tristan's melancholy gaze resting upon her, as it hadrested upon her at their first meeting. Was not he, too, like herself,a lone wanderer in this strange country called the world! But hismanhood had remained unsullied. How she envied and how she hated thatother woman to whom his love belonged. Softly she spoke, as one speaksin a dream.

  She had gone forth in quest of happiness--happiness at any price. Andshe had paid the forfeit with a poisoned life. The desire to conquerhad eclipsed every other. The lure of the senses was too mighty to bewithstood. Yet how short are youth and life! One should snatch itspleasures while one may.

  How fleet had been the golden empty days of joy. She had drainedthe brimming goblet to the dregs. If he misjudged her motive, herself-abasement, if he spurned the love she held out to him, the onesupreme sacrifice of her life had been in vain. She would fight forit. Soul and body she would throw herself into the conflict. Her lastchance of happiness was at stake. The poison, rankling in her veins,she knew could not be expelle
d by idle sophisms. Life, the despot,claimed his dues. Had she lived utterly in vain? Not altogether! Shewould atone, even though the bonds of her own forging, which bound herto an ulcered past, could be broken but by the hand of that crownedphantom: Death.

  Now she was kneeling before him. She had grasped his hands.

  "I love you!" she wailed. "Tristan, I love you and my love is killingme! Be merciful. Have pity on me. Love me! Be mine--if but for anhour! It is not much to ask! After, do with me what you will! Tortureme--curse me before Heaven--I care not--I am yours--body and soul.--Ilove you!"

  Her voice vibrated with mad idolatrous pleading.

  He tried to release himself. She dragged herself yet closer to him.

  "Tristan! Tristan!" she murmured. "Have you a heart? Can you reject mewhen I pray thus to you? When I offer you all I have? All that I am, orever hope to be? Am I so repellent to you? Many men would give theirlives if I were to say to them what I say to you. They are nothing tome--you alone are my world, the breath of my existence. You, alone, cansave me from myself!"

  Tristan felt his senses swooning at the sight of her beauty. He triedto speak, but the words froze on his lips. It was too impossible, toounbelievable. Theodora, the most beautiful, the most powerful womanin Rome was kneeling before him, imploring that which any man in Romewould have deemed himself a thousand fold blessed to receive. And heremained untouched.

  She read his innermost thoughts and knew the supreme moment when shemust win or lose him forever was at hand.

  "Tristan--Tristan," she sobbed--and in the distant grove sobbed flutesand sistrum and citherns--"say what you will of me; it is true. I ownit. Yet I am not worse than other women who have sold their souls forpower or gold. Am I not fair to look upon? And is all this beauty ofmy face and form worthless in your eyes, and you no more than man?Kill me--destroy me--I care naught. But love me--as I love you!" andin a perfect frenzy of self-abandonment she rose to her feet and stoodbefore him, a very bacchante of wild loveliness and passion. "Look uponme! Am I not more beautiful than the Lady Hellayne? You shall not--darenot--spurn such love as mine!"

  Deep silence supervened. The expression of her countenance seemed quiteunearthly; her eyes seemed wells of fire and the tense white armsseemed to seek a victim round which they might coil themselves to itsundoing.

  The name she had uttered in her supreme outburst of passion had brokenthe spell she had woven about him.

  Hellayne--his white dove! What was her fate at this moment while he waslistening to the pleadings of the enchantress?

  Theodora advanced towards him with outstretched arms.

  He stayed her with a fierce gesture.

  "Stand back!" he said. "Such love as yours--what is it? Shame towhosoever shall accept it! I desire you not."

  "You dare not!" she panted, pale as death.

  "Dare not?"

  But she was now fairly roused. All the savagery in her nature wasawakened and she stood before him like some beautiful wild animal atbay, trembling from head to foot with the violence of her passion.

  "You scorn me!" she said in fierce, panting accents, that scarcelyrose above an angry whisper. "You make a mockery of my anguish anddespair--holding yourself aloof with your prated virtue! But you shallsuffer for it! I am your match! You shall not spurn me a third time! Ihave humbled myself in the dust before you, I, Theodora--and you havespurned the love I have offered you--you have spurned Theodora--forthat white marble statue whom I should strangle before your very eyeswere she here! You shall not see her again, my Lord Tristan. Herfate is sealed from this moment. On the altars of Satan is she to besacrificed on to-morrow night!"

  Tristan listened like paralyzed to her words, unable to move.

  She saw her opportunity. She sprang at him. Her arms coiled about him.Her moist kisses seared his lips.

  "Oh Tristan--Tristan," she pleaded, "forgive me, forgive! I know notwhat I say! I hunger for the kisses of your lips, the clasp of yourarms! Do you know--do you ever think of your power? The cruel terriblepower of your eyes, the beauty that makes you more like an angel thanman? Have you no pity? I am well nigh mad with jealousy of that otherwhom you keep enshrined in your heart! Could she love, like I? She wasnot made for you--I am! Tristan--come with me--come--"

  Tighter and tighter her arms encircled his neck. The moonbeams showedhim her eyes alight with rapture, her lips quivering with passion, herbosom heaving. The blood surged up in his brain and a red mist swambefore his eyes.

  With a supreme effort Tristan released himself. Flinging her from him,he rushed out of the rotunda as if pursued by an army of demons. If heremained another moment he knew he was lost.

  A lightning bolt shot down from the dark sky vault close beside him ashe reached the gardens, and a peal of thunder crashed after in quicksuccession.

  It drowned the delirious outburst of laughter that shrilled from therotunda where Theodora, with eyes wide with misery and madness, staredas transfixed down the path where Tristan had vanished in the night.