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

Theodora's grip tightened round the girl's wrist.

"You admire the Lady Hellayne?" she said softly, but there was a gleam in her eyes like liquid fire.

"As one brave woman admires another!" Persephoné replied fearlessly, turning her beautiful face to the speaker.

"You may require all your courage some day to face another task," Theodora replied. "Beware, lest you tempt me to do what I might regret."

Persephoné turned white. Her bosom heaved. Her eyes met Theodora's.

"I shall welcome the ordeal with all my heart!"

Theodora relapsed into silence, oppressed by dark thoughts, the memory of unresisted temptations, a chaotic world where black unscalable rocks, like circles of the Inferno, hemmed her in on every side, while devils whispered into her ears the words that gave shape and substance to her desire to destroy her rival in the love of the one man whom, in all her changeable life, she had truly desired.

"Deem you, that I have aught to fear from such as you? Deem you, that Tristan would defile his manhood with the courtesan queen of Rome?"

The words still boomed in her ears, the words and the tone in which they had been hurled in her face.

Even to this moment she knew not what restrained her from strangling Hellayne. It seemed to her that only in a physical encounter could she quench the hatred she bore this white, beautiful statue who never raised her voice while the fire of her blue eyes seared her very soul.

A thousand frightful forms of evil, stalking shapes of death, came and went before her imagination, which caused her to clutch first at one, then at another of the dire suggestions that came in crowds which overwhelmed her powers of choice. Then, like an inspiration from the very depths of Hell, a thought flashed into her mind, and, no sooner conceived, than she determined upon its execution.

The laboratory of the woman whom Theodora was seeking on this night was in an old house midway in the gorge. In a deep hollow, almost out of sight, stood a square structure of stone, gloomy and forbidding, with narrow windows and an uninviting door. Tall pines shadowed it on one side, a small rivulet twisted itself, like a live snake, half round it on the other. A plot of green grass, ill-kept and teeming with noxious weeds, fennel, thistle and foul stramonium, was surrounded by a rough wall of loose stone; and here lived the woman who supplied all those who desired her wares, and plied her nocturnal trade.

Sidonia was tall and straight, of uncertain age, though she might have been reckoned at forty. The whiteness of her skin was enhanced by her blue black hair and lustrous black eyes. Far from forbidding, she exercised a sinister charm upon those who called upon her, and who vainly tried to reconcile her trade with the traces of a great beauty. Yet her thin, cruel lips never smiled, unless she had an object to gain by assuming a disguise as foreign to her as light is to an angel of darkness.

Hardly any known poison there was, which was not obtainable at her hands. In a sombre chest, carved with fantastic figures from Etruscan designs, were concealed the subtle drugs, cabalistical formulas and alchemic preparations which were so greatly in demand during those years of darkness.

In the most secret place of all were deposited, ready for use, a few phials of a crystal liquid, every single drop of which contained the life of a man, and which, administered in due proportion of time and measure, killed and left no trace.

Here was the sublimated dust of the deadly night-shade which kindles the red fires of fever and rots the roots of the tongue. Here was the fetid powder of stramonium that grips the lungs like an asthma, and quinia that shakes its victims like the cold hand of the miasma in the Pontine Marshes. The essence of poppies, ten times sublimated, a few grains of which bring on the stupor of apoplexy, and the sardonic plant that kills its victims with the frightful laughter of madness upon their countenance, were here. The knowledge of these and many other cursed herbs, once known to Medea in the Colchian land, and transplanted to Greece and Rome with the enchantments of their use, had been handed down by a long succession of sorcerers and poisoners to the woman, who seemed endowed by nature as the legitimate inheritrix of this lore of Hell.

At last the litter of Theodora was set down by its swarthy bearers before the threshold of Sidonia's house. Theodora alighted and, after commanding the Africans to await her return, ascended the narrow stone steps alone and knocked at the door. After a brief wait, shuffling steps were heard from within, and a bent, lynx-eyed individual of Oriental origin opened the door, inviting the visitor to enter. She was ushered into a dusky hallway, in which brooded strange odors, thence into a dimly lighted room, the laboratory of Sidonia.

Hardly had she seated herself when the woman entered and stood face to face with Theodora.

The eyes of the two women instantly met in a searching glance that took in the whole ensemble, bearing, dress and almost the very thoughts of each other. In that one glance each knew and understood; each knew that she could trust the other, in evil, if not in good.

And there was trust between them. The evil spirits that possessed their hearts clasped hands, and a silent league was formed in their souls ere a word had been spoken.

Sidonia wore a long, purple robe, totally unadorned. The sleeves were wide, and revealed her white, bare arms. Her finely cut features were crossed with thin lines of cruelty and cunning. No mercy was in her eyes, still less on her lips, and none in her heart, cold to every human feeling.

"The Lady Theodora is fair to look upon," Sidonia broke the silence. "All women admit it; all men confess it." And her gaze swept the other woman, who was clad in an ample black mantle which ended in a hood.

"Can you guess why I am here?" Theodora replied. "You are wise and know a woman's desire better than she dares avow."

"Can I guess?" replied Sidonia, returning Theodora's scrutiny. "You have many lovers, Lady Theodora, but there is one who does not return your passion. And, you have a rival. A woman, more potent than yourself, has, notwithstanding your beauty, entangled the man you love, and you are here to win him back and to triumph over your rival. Is it not so, Lady Theodora?"

"More than that," replied the other, clenching her white hands and gazing into the eyes that met her own with a look of merciless triumph at what she saw reflected therein. "It is all that – and more – "

Sidonia met her eager gaze.

"You would kill your rival!" she said with a smile upon her lips. "There is death in your eyes – in your voice – in your heart! You would kill the woman. It is good in the eyes of a woman to kill her rival – and women like you are rare!"

"Your reward shall be great," Theodora said with an inquisitive glance at the woman who had read her inmost thoughts.

"To kill woman or man were a pleasure even without the profit," replied Sidonia, darkly. "I come from a race, ancient and terrible as the Cæsars, and I hate the puny rabble. I have my own joy in making my hand felt in a world I hate and which hates me!"

She held out her hands, as if the ends of her fingers were trickling poison.

"Death drops on whomsoever I send it," she continued, "subtly, secretly. The very spirits of air cannot trace whence it comes."

"I know you are the possessor of terrible secrets," Theodora replied, fascinated beyond all her experiences with the woman and her trade.

"Such secrets never die," said the poisoner. "Few men, still fewer women, are there who would not listen at the door of Hell to learn them. Let me see your hand!"

Theodora complied with her abrupt demand and laid her beautiful white hand into the no less beautiful one of the woman before her.

Her touch, though the hand was cool, seemed to burn, but Theodora's touch affected the other woman likewise for she said:

"There is evil enough in the palm of your hand to destroy the world! We are well met, you and I. You are worthy of my confidence. These fingers would pick the fruit off the forbidden tree, for men to eat and die! Lady Theodora – I may some day teach you the great secret – meanwhile I will show you that I possess it!"

With these words she walked to the chest, took from it an ebony casket and laid it upon the table.

"There is death enough in this casket," she said, "to kill every man and woman in Rome!"

Theodora fastened her gaze upon it, as if she would have drawn out the secret of its contents by the very magnetism of her eyes. For, even while Sidonia was speaking, a thought flashed through her visitor's mind – a thought which almost made her forget the purpose on which she had come. She laid her hands upon it caressingly, trembling, eager to see its contents.

"Open it!" said Sidonia. "Touch the spring and look!"

Theodora touched the little spring. The lid flew back and there flashed from it a light which for a moment dazzled her by its very brilliancy. She thrust the cabinet from her in alarm, imagining she inhaled the odor of some deadly perfume.

"Its glitter terrifies me!" she said. "Its odor sickens."

"Your conscience frightens you," sneered Sidonia.

Theodora rose to her feet, her face pale, her eyes alight with a strange fire.

"This to me?" she flashed.

For a moment the two women faced each other in a white silence.

A strange smile played upon Sidonia's lips.

"The Aqua Tofana in the hands of a coward is a gift as fatal to its possessor as to its victim!"

"You are brave to speak such words to Theodora!"

Sidonia gave her an inscrutable glance.