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

"At the palace of Theodora?" he cried. "How is this known to you?"

"Little transpires in Rome which I do not know," Odo replied darkly. "It seems that those whom the Lord Basil entrusted with the task of abducting the woman were in turn outwitted by Theodora who, in rescuing her from a fate worse than death at the hands of the Grand Chamberlain, has perchance consigned her to one equally, if not more, cruel."

A moan broke from Tristan's lips. Then he was seized with a terrible fit of rage.

"Then it is Theodora's hand that has sundered us in the flesh as her witches' beauty had estranged our hearts. More merciless than a beast of prey she did not strike Hellayne with death, so that I might have sentinelled her hallowed tomb, and with her sweet memory for company might have watched for the coming of my own hour to join her again! I have lost my love – my honor – my manhood – at the hands of a wanton."

Odo tried for a time, though in vain, to calm him by reminding him that Hellayne would rather suffer death than dishonor. As regarded himself, he was convinced that Theodora would have moved heaven and earth to have set him free, had not his supposed crime concerned the Church and the Cardinal-Archbishop was adamant.

"Oft, in my visions," he concluded, speaking lower, as if his mind strove with some vague elusive memory, "have I heard the voice of Theodora's doom cried aloud. A cruel fate is yours indeed – and we can but pray to the saints that the worst may be averted from the woman who has suffered so much."

"Something must be done," Tristan interposed, his fierce mood gaining the mastery over every other feeling. "I care not if the minions of the devil take me back to the prison that leads to death, so I snatch her prey from this arch-courtesan of the Aventine."

Odo laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

"Madman! You are but planning your own destruction. And, if you die, wherein will it benefit the woman who is left to her fate? You are weak from the night's work and your nerves are overwrought. Follow me into the adjoining room even though the repast be meagre. We will devise some means to rescue the Lady Hellayne from the powers of darkness and, trusting in Him who died that we may live, we shall succeed."

Pointing to the drooping form of the crucified Christ on the opposite wall of his improvised oratory, Odo beckoned to Tristan to follow him, and the latter accompanied the Benedictine into the adjoining rock chamber, where he did ample justice to the frugal repast which Odo placed before him, and of which the monk himself partook but sparingly.

CHAPTER VI

FROM DREAM TO DREAM

Theodora's sleep had been broken and restless. She tossed and turned upon her pillow. It was weary work to lie gazing with eyes wide open at the fantastic shadows cast by the flickering night lamp. It was still less productive of sleep to shut them tight and abandon herself to the visions thus created which stood out in life-like colors and refused to be dispelled. Do what she would to forget him, Tristan ever and ever stood before her, towering like a demigod above the mean, effeminate throng that surrounded her. She could no longer analyze her feelings. She believed herself to be bewitched. She had not reached the prime of womanhood without having sounded, as she thought, every chord of the human heart. Descendant from a family of courtesans, such as had ruled Rome during the tenth century, she had tasted every cup, as she thought, that promised gratification and excitement. She had been flattered, courted, loved, admired. Yet she had remained utterly cold to all these experiences, and none of her lovers could boast that her passion had endured beyond the hour. The terrible fascination she exercised over all men made them slaves in her hands, blind instruments of her will. But, as the years went by, the utter disgust she felt with these hordes of beasts that thronged her bowers, was only equalled by a mad desire for power, a struggle, which alone could bring to her oblivion. To rule had become a passion with the woman, who had no heart interest that made life worth living. The fleeting passion for Basil had long ceased to kindle a responsive fire in her veins. Fit but to be her tool, she was determined to rid herself of him as soon as her ambition should have been realized.

Suddenly the unbelievable had come to pass. She had met a man. Not one of those crawling, fawning reptiles who nightly desecrated her groves, but a man who might have steered her life into different channels, who might have directed the flight of her soul to regions of light, instead of chaining it to the dark abyss among the shadows. It was a new sensation altogether. This intense and passionate longing she had never felt before. But in its novelty it was absolutely painful. For the man whom she craved with all the fibres of her being, to whom her soul went out as it had never gone out to mortal, had scorned her.

Her fame had proved more potent than her beauty.

Tristan's continued indifference had roused in her all the demons in her nature. Her first impulse had been revenge at any price. Her compact with Basil was the fruit of her first madness. Even now she would have rescinded it had Tristan but shown a softer, kindlier feeling towards her. Some incongruous whim had prompted her to choose for her instrument the very man whom in her heart she loathed, whose attentions were an insult to her. For, in her own heart, Theodora held herself to be some God-decreed thing, like the Laides and Thaides and Phrynes of old. She could not escape her destiny.

With all her self-command Theodora's feelings had almost overpowered her. Ever since the tidings of Tristan's supposed crime and captivity had reached her ear, she had taxed her brain, though in vain, to bring about his rescue. For once her efforts were baffled and she met a resistance which all the tigerish ferocity of her nature could not overcome. Tristan was in the custody of the Church. In his guilt Theodora did not believe, rather did she suspect foul play at the hands of one of whom she would demand a terrible reckoning. She thought of Tristan night and day, and she was determined to save him, whatever the hazard, – save him for herself and her love. Her spies were at work, but meanwhile she must sit idly by and wait – wait, though the blood coursed like lava through her veins. She dared confide in none, nor could she even have speech with the man she loved. She had managed to curb her feelings and to preserve an outward calm, while Persephoné prepared her for repose. The latter was much puzzled by her mistress's mood, but she retired to her own couch carefree, while Theodora writhed in an agony such as she had never known before.

Yet, fate had been kind to her, – kinder than she had dared to hope. By some fatal throw of chance the woman Tristan loved – her rival – had fallen into her hands. While this circumstance did not in itself take the sting of Tristan's insult from the wound, she would, at least, be revenged upon the cause of her suffering.

When, on that memorable evening at the Arch of the Seven Candles, she had first met Hellayne face to face, when first the truth had flashed upon her and she knew herself rejected for that white lily from the North, a hatred such as she had never known had crept into her heart, a hatred to which fresh fuel was added from the consciousness of her rival's beauty, her strength, her youth. With all the fire of her southern temperament she longed to meet this woman, to conquer her, to take from her the man she loved.

Morning brought in its wake its unfailing accession of clear-sightedness and practical resolve. Long before she rose she had made up her mind where and how to strike. Nothing remained but to choose the weapon and to put a keener edge upon the steel.

When Persephoné came to assist her mistress, she wondered how the mood of the evening had passed. While attiring Theodora, the Circassian could not but wonder at the marvellous beauty of this woman who had bent the hearts of men to her desires like wind blown reeds, only to break them and cast them at their feet. Only on the previous day a new wooer had entered the lists; a man rude of speech and manner, vain withal and self-satisfied, had laid gifts at Theodora's feet. Roger de Laval was the great man's name. He came from some far away, fabled land, and it was rumored that he had come to Rome to seek his truant wife. Having surprised her in the arms of her lover, whom she had followed, he had killed both. Such a temper was to the liking of Persephoné, and, as her soft white fingers played around her mistress' throat, in the endeavor to fasten her rose-colored tunic, she could hardly restrain herself from encircling that white throat and strangling the woman who had spurned the attentions of one for whose love she would have sacrificed her soul.

"What of the Lady Hellayne?" Theodora broke the heavy silence.

"She remains in the chamber which the Lady Theodora has assigned to her." Persephoné replied.

"Are the eunuchs at their post?"

"Before her door and beneath her windows."

Theodora gave a nod.

"Bring the Lady Hellayne here!"

"The Lady Theodora has not breakfasted."

"I know! Yet I would not delay this meeting longer."

Persephoné hesitated.

"The Lady Hellayne is in a perilous mood – "

"I should love nothing better than to find her so," Theodora replied, extending her two snowy arms, whose steely strength Persephoné knew so well. "I long for the conflict with this marble statue as I have never longed for anything in my life. I could find it in my heart to be happy if she destroyed me with those white hands that rival mine, if she but stepped out of her reserve, her marble calm, if her soul ignited from mine."

"If I know aught about her kind, the Lady Theodora will do well to be wary," Persephoné replied demurely.

The covert taunt had its instantaneous effect.

"Deem you I fear this white siren from the North?" Theodora flashed, regarding herself in the bronze mirror and brushing a stray lock of hair from her white brow.

"What will you do with her, Lady Theodora?" Persephoné purred.

Theodora's face was very white.

"There are times when nothing but the physical touch will satisfy. And now go and fetch hither the Lady Hellayne that I may hear from her own lips how she fared under the roof of her rival."

Persephoné departed from the room, while Theodora arose and, stepping to the casement, looked out into the blossoming gardens that encircled her palace.

Her beauty was regal indeed, as she stood there brooding, her bare arms dropping by her side. But for the expression of the eyes, in which a turmoil of passion seemed to seethe, the wonderful face in repose would have seemed that of an angel rather than a woman meditating the destruction of another.

After a time Persephoné returned. By her side walked Hellayne.

Her beauty seemed even enhanced by the expression of suffering revealed in the depths of her blue eyes. She wore a dark robe, almost severe in its straight lines. The loose sleeves revealed her white arms. Her hair was tied in a Grecian knot.

At a sign from Theodora Persephoné left the room.

For a moment the two women faced each other in silence, fixing each other with their gaze, each trying to read the thoughts of the other.

It was Hellayne who spoke.

"The Lady Theodora has desired my presence."

"It was my anxiety for your welfare, Lady Hellayne," Theodora replied, inviting her to a seat, while she seated herself opposite her visitor. "After the trying experiences of yesterday I do not wonder at the shadows that creep under your eyes. They but prove that my anxiety was well founded. May I ask if you rested well?"

"I owe you thanks, Lady Theodora, for your timely aid," Hellayne replied in cold, passionless accents. "They tell me I was in dire straits, though I cannot conceive who should care to abduct one who would so little repay the effort."

"Enough to infatuate him, whoever he was, with a beauty as rare as it is wonderful," Theodora replied, forced to an expression of her own admiration at the sight of the exquisite face, the white throat, the wonderful arms and hands of her rival. "I but did what any woman would do for another whose life she saw imperilled. Your wonderful youth and strength will soon restore you to your former self. Deign then to accept the hospitality of this abode until such a time."

There was a pause during which each seemed to search the soul of the other.