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

CHAPTER XI
BY LETHE'S SHORES

Basil the Grand Chamberlain was giving one of his renowned feasts in his villa on the Pincian Mount. But on this evening he had limited the number of his guests to two score. On his right sat Roger de Laval, the guest of honor, on his left the Lady Hellayne. Over the company stretched a canopy of cloth of gold. The chairs were of gilt bronze, their arms were carved in elaborate arabesques. The dishes were of gold; the cups inlaid with jewels. There was gayety and laughter. Far into the night they caroused.

Hellayne's face was the only apprehensive one at the board. She was pale and worn, and her countenance betrayed her reluctance to be present at a feast into the spirit of which she could not enter. She was dimly conscious of the fact that Basil devoured her with his eyes and her lord seemed to find more suited entertainment with the other women who were present than with his own wife. Only by threats and coercion had he prevailed upon her to attend the Grand Chamberlain's banquet. With a brutality that was part of his coarse nature he now left her to shift for herself, and she tolerated Basil's unmistakable insinuations only from a sense of utter helplessness.

Her beauty had indeed aroused the host's passion to a point where he threw caution to the winds. The exquisite face, framed in a wealth of golden hair, the deep blue eyes, the marble whiteness of the skin, the faultless contours of her form – an ensemble utterly opposed to the darker Roman type – had aroused in him desires which soon swept away the thin veneer of dissimulation and filled Hellayne with a secret dread which she endeavored to control. Her thoughts were with the man by whom she believed herself betrayed, and while life seemed to hold nothing that would repay her for enduring any longer the secret agonies that overwhelmed her, it was to guard her honor that her wits were sharpened and, believing in the adage that danger, when bravely faced, disappears, she entered, though with a heavy heart, into the vagaries of Basil, but, like a premonition of evil, her dread increased with every moment.

And now the host announced to his guests his intention of leaving Rome on the morrow for his estate in the Rocca, where an overpunctilious overseer demanded his presence.

Raising his goblet he pledged the beautiful wife of the Count de Laval. It was a toast that was eagerly received and responded to, and even Hellayne was forced to appear joyous, for all that her heart was on the point of breaking.

She raised her goblet, a beautiful chased cup of gold, in acknowledgment. But she did not see the ill-omened smile that flitted over the thin lips of Basil, and she wished for Tristan as she had never wished for him before.

After a time the guests quitted the banquet hall for the moonlit garden, and Basil's attentions became more and more insistent. It was in vain Hellayne's eyes strained for her lord. He was not to be found. —

It was on the following morning when the horrible news aroused the Romans that the young wife of the strange lord from Provence had, during the night, suddenly died at the banquet of the Grand Chamberlain. From a friar whom he chanced to pass on his way to the Lateran Tristan received the first news.

Fra Geronimo's face was white as death, and his limbs shook as with a palsy. He had been the confessor of the Lady Hellayne, the only visitor allowed to come near her.

"Have you heard the tidings?" he cried in a quavering voice, on beholding Tristan.

"What tidings?" Tristan returned, struck by the horror in the friar's face.

"The Lady Hellayne is dead!" he said with a sob.

Tristan stared at him as if a thunderbolt had cleft the ground beside him. For a moment he seemed bereft of understanding.

"Dead?" he gasped with a choking sensation. "What is it you say?"

"Well may you doubt your ears," the friar sobbed. "But Mater Sanctissima, it is the truth! Madonna Hellayne is dead. They found her dead – early this morning – in the vineyard of the Lord Basil."

"In the vineyard of the Lord Basil?" came back the echo from Tristan's lips.

"There was a feast, lasting well into the night. The Lady Hellayne took suddenly ill. They fetched a mediciner. When he arrived it was all over."

"God of Heaven! Where is she now?"

"They conveyed her to the palace of the Lord Laval, to prepare her for interment."

Without a word Tristan started to break away from the friar, his head in a whirl, his senses benumbed. The latter caught him betime.

"What would you do?"

Tristan stared at him as one suddenly gone mad.

"I will see her."

"It is impossible!" the friar replied. "You cannot see her."

From Tristan's eyes came a glare that would have daunted many a one of greater physical prowess than his informant.

"Cannot? Who is to prevent me?"

"The man whom fate gave her for mate," replied the friar.

"That dog – "

"A brawl in the presence of death? Would you thus dishonor her memory? Would she wish it so?"

For a moment Tristan stared at the man before him as if he heard some message from afar, the meaning of which he but faintly guessed.

Then a blinding rush of tears came to his eyes. He shook with the agony of his grief regardless of those who passed and paused and wondered, while the friar's words of comfort and solace fell on unmindful ears.

At last, heedless of his companion, heedless of his surroundings, heedless of everything, he rushed away to seek solitude, where he would not see a human face, not hear a human voice.

He must be alone with his grief, alone with his Maker. It seemed to him he was going mad. It was all too monstrous, too terrible, too unbelievable.

How was it possible that one so young, so strong, so beautiful, should die?

Friar Geronimo knew not. But his gaze had caused Tristan to shiver as in an ague.

He remembered the discourse of Basil and his companion in the galleries of the Emperor's Tomb.

Twice was he on the point of warning Hellayne not to attend Basil's banquet.

Each time something had intervened. The warning had remained unspoken.

Would she have heeded it?

He gave a groan of anguish.

Hellayne was dead! That was the one all absorbing fact which had taken possession of him, blotting out every other thought, every other consideration.

She was dead – dead – dead! The hideous phrase boomed again and again through his distracted mind. Compared with that overwhelming catastrophe what signified the Hour, the Why and the When. She was dead – dead – dead!

For hours he sat alone in the solitudes of Mount Aventine, where no prying eyes would witness his grief. And the storm which had arisen and swept the Seven Hilled City with the vehemence of a tropical hurricane seemed but a feeble echo of the tempest that raged within his soul.

She was dead – dead – dead. The waves of the Tiber seemed to shout it as they leapt up and dashed their foam against the rocky declivities of the Mount of Cloisters. The wind seemed now to moan it piteously, now to shriek it fiercely, as it scudded by, wrapping its invisible coils about him and seeming intent on tearing him from his resting place.

Towards evening he rose and, skirting the heights, descended into the city, dishevelled and bedraggled, yet caring nothing what spectacle he might afford. And presently a grim procession overtook the solitary rambler, and at the sight of the black, cowled and visored forms that advanced in the lurid light of the waxen tapers, Tristan knelt in the street with head bowed till her body had been borne past. No one heeded him. They carried her to the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and thither he followed presently, and, in the shadow of one of the pillars of the aisle, he crouched, while the monks chanted the funeral psalms.

The singing ended the friars departed, and those who had formed the cortege began to leave the church. In an hour he was alone, alone with the beloved dead, and there on his knees he remained, and no one knew whether, during that horrid hour, he prayed or blasphemed.

It may have been toward the third hour of the night when Tristan staggered up, stiff and cramped, from the cold stone. Slowly, in a half-dazed condition, he walked down the aisle and gained the door of the church. He tried to open it, but it resisted his efforts, and he realized it was locked for the night.

The appreciation of his position afforded him not the slightest dismay. On the contrary, his feelings were rather of relief. At least there was none other to share his grief! He had not known whither he should repair, so distracted was his mind, and now chance or fate had settled the matter for him by decreeing that he should remain.

Tristan turned and slowly paced back, until he stood beside the great, black catafalque, at each corner of which a tall wax taper was burning. His steps rang with a hollow sound through the vast, gloomy spaces of the cold and empty church. But these were not matters to occupy his mind in such a season, no more than the damp, chill air which permeated every nook and corner. Of all of these he remained unconscious in the absorbing anguish that possessed his soul.

Near the foot of the bier there was a bench, and there he took his seat and, resting his elbows on his knees, took his dishevelled head between his trembling hands. His thoughts were all of her whose poor, murdered clay lay encased above him. In turn he reviewed each scene of his life where it had touched upon her own. He evoked every word she had spoken to him since they had again met on that memorable night.

Thus he sat, clenching his hands and torturing his dull inert brain while the night wore slowly on. Later a still more frenzied mood obsessed him, a burning desire to look once more upon the sweet face he had loved so well. What was there to prevent him? Who was there to gainsay him?

He arose and uttered aloud the challenge in his madness. His voice echoed mournfully along the aisles and the sound of the echoes chilled him, though his purpose gathered strength.

Tristan advanced, and, after a moment's pause, with the silver embroidered hem of the pall in his hands, suddenly swept off that mantle of black cloth, setting up such a gust of wind as all but quenched the tapers. He caught up the bench upon which he had been sitting and, dragging it forward, mounted it and stood, his chest on a level with the coffin lid. His trembling hands fumbled along its surface. He found it unfastened. Without thought or care how he went about the thing, he raised it and let it crash to the ground. It fell on the stone flags with a noise like thunder, booming and reverberating through the gloomy vaults.

A form all in purest white lay there beneath his gaze, the face covered by a white veil. With deepest reverence, and a prayer to her departed soul to forgive the desecration of his loving hands, he tremblingly drew the veil aside.

How beautiful she was in the calm peace of death! She lay there like one gently sleeping, the faintest smile upon her lips, and, as he gazed, it was hard to believe that she was truly dead. Her lips had lost nothing of their natural color. They were as red as he had ever seen them in life.

How could this be?

The lips of the dead are wont to assume a livid hue.

Tristan stared for a moment, his awe and grief almost effaced by the intensity of his wonder. This face, so ivory pale, wore not the ashen aspect of one that would never wake again. There was a warmth about that pallor. And then he bit his nether lip until it bled, and it seemed a miracle that he did not scream, seeing how overwrought were his senses.

For it had seemed to him that the draperies on her bosom had slightly moved, in a gentle, almost imperceptible heave, as if she breathed. He looked – and there it came again!

God! What madness had seized upon him, that his eyes should so deceive him! It was the draught that stirred the air about the church, and blew great shrouds of wax down the taper's yellow sides. He manned himself to a more sober mood and looked again.

And now his doubts were all dispelled. He knew that he had mastered any errant fancy, and that his eyes were grown wise and discriminating, and he knew, too, that she lived! Her bosom slowly rose and fell; the color of her lips, the hue of her cheek, confirmed the assurance that she breathed!

He paused a second to ponder. That morning her appearance had been such that the mediciner had been deceived by it and had pronounced her dead. Yet now there were signs of life! What could it portend, but that the effects of a poison were passing off and that she was recovering?

In the first wild excess of joy, that sent the blood tingling and beating through his brain, his first impulse was to run for help. Then Tristan bethought himself of the closed doors and he realized that, no matter how loudly he shouted, no one would hear him. He must succour her himself as best he could, and meanwhile she must be protected from the chill night air of the church, cold as the air of a tomb. He had his cloak, a heavy serviceable garment, and, if more were needed, there was the pall which he had removed, and which lay in a heap about the legs of the bench.

Leaning forward Tristan slowly passed his hand under her head and gently raised it. Then, slipping it downward, he thrust his arm after it, until he had her round the waist in a firm grip. Thus he raised her from the coffin, and the warmth of her body on his arms, the ready bending of her limbs, were so many added proofs that she lived.

Gently and reverently Tristan raised the supple form in his arms, an intoxication of almost divine joy pervading him as the prayers fell faster from his lips than they had ever since he had recited them on his mother's knee. He laid her on the bench, while he divested himself of the cloak.

Suddenly he paused and stood listening with bated breath.

Steps were approaching from without.

Tristan's first impulse was to rush towards the door, shouting his tidings and imploring assistance. Then, a sudden, almost instinctive dread caught and chilled him. Who was it that came at such an hour? What would any one seek in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin at dead of night? Was the church indeed their goal, or were they but chance passers-by?

That last question remained not long unanswered. The steps came nearer. They paused before the door. Something heavy was hurled against it. Then some one spoke.

"It is locked, Tebaldo! Get out your tools and force it!"

Tristan's wits were working at fever pace. It may have been that he was swift of thought beyond any ordinary man, or it may have been a flash of inspiration, or a conclusion to which he leapt by instinct. But in that moment the whole problematical plot was revealed to him. Poisoned forsooth she had been, but by a drug that but produced for a time the outward appearance of death, so truly simulated as even to deceive the most learned of doctors. Tristan had heard of such poisons, and here, in very truth, was one of them at work. Some one, no doubt, intended secretly to bear her off. And to-morrow, when men found a broken church door and a violated bier, they would set the sacrilege down to some wizard who had need of the body for his dark practices.

Tristan cursed himself in that dark hour. Had he but peered earlier into her coffin while yet there might have been time to save her. And now? The sweat stood out in beads upon his brow. At that door there were, to judge by the sound of their footsteps and voices, some five or six men. For a weapon he had only his dagger. What could he do to defend her? Basil's plans would suffer no defeat through his discovery when to-morrow the sacrilege was revealed. His own body, lying cold and stark beside the desolated bier, would be but an incident in the work of profanation they would find; an item that in no wise could modify the conclusion at which they would naturally arrive.

CHAPTER XII
THE DEATH WATCH

A strange and mysterious thing is the working of terror on the human mind. Some it renders incapable of thought or action, paralyzing their limbs and stagnating the blood in their veins; such creatures die in anticipating death. Others, under the stress of that grim emotion have their wits preternaturally sharpened. The instinct of self-preservation assumes command and urges them to swift and feverish action.

After a moment of terrible suspense Tristan's hands fell limply beside him. At the next he was himself again. His cheeks were livid, his lips bloodless. But his hands were steady and his wits under control.

Concealment – concealment for Hellayne and himself – was the thing that now imported, and no sooner was the thought conceived than the means were devised. Slender means they were, yet since they were the best the place afforded, he must trust to them without demurring, and pray to God that the intruders might lack the wit to search. And with that fresh hope it came to him that he must find a way as to make them believe that to search would be a waste of effort.

The odds against him lay in the little time at his disposal. Yet a little time there was. The door was stout, and those outside might not resort to violent means to break it open lest the noise arouse the street.

With what tools the sbirri were at work he could not guess, but surely they must be such as to leave him but a few moments. Already they had begun. He could distinguish a crunching sound as of steel biting into wood.

Swiftly and silently Tristan set to work. Like a ghost he glided round the coffin's side, where the lid was lying. He raised it and, after he had deposited Hellayne on the ground, mounted the bench and replaced it. Next he gathered up the cumbrous pall and, mounting the bench once more, spread it over the coffin. This way and that he pulled it, until it appeared undisturbed as when he had entered.

What time he toiled, the half of his mind intent upon his task, the other half was as intent upon the progress of the workers at the door.

At last it was done. Tristan replaced the bench at the foot of the catafalque and, gathering up the woman in his arms, as though her weight had been that of a feather, he bore her swiftly out of the radius of the four tapers into the black, impenetrable gloom beyond. On he sped towards the high altar, flying now as men fly in evil dreams, with the sensation of an enemy upon them, and their progress a mere stand still.

Thus he gained the chancel, stumbling against the railing as he passed, and pausing for an instant, wondering whether those outside had heard. But the grinding sound continued and he breathed more freely. He mounted the altar stairs, the distant light behind him feebly guiding him on, then he ran round to the right and heaved a great sigh of relief upon finding his hopes realized. The altar stood a pace or so from the wall, and behind it there was just such a concealment as he had hoped to find.

Tristan paused at the mouth of that black well, and even as he paused something that gave out a metallic sound, dropped at the far end of the church. Intuition informed him that it was the lock which the miscreants had cut from the door. He waited no longer, but like a deer scudding to cover, plunged into the dark abyss.

Hellayne, wrapped in his cloak, as she was, he placed on the ground, then crept forward on hands and knees and thrust out his head, trusting to the darkness to conceal him.

He waited thus for a time, his heart beating almost audibly in the intermittent silence, his head and face on fire with the fever of sudden reaction.

From his point of vantage it was impossible for Tristan to see the door that was hidden in the black gloom. Away in the centre of the church, an island of light in that vast well of blackness, stood the catafalque with its four waxen tapers. Something creaked, and almost immediately he saw the flames of those tapers bend toward him, beaten over by the gust that smote them from the door. Thus he surmised that Tebaldo and his men had entered. Their soft foot-fall, for they were treading lightly now, succeeded, and at last they took shape, shadowy at first, then clearly defined, as they emerged within the circle of the light.

For a moment they stood in half whispered conversation, their voices a mere boom of sound in which no words were to be distinguished. Then Tristan saw Tebaldo step forward, and by his side another he knew by his great height – Gamba, the deposed captain. Tebaldo dragged away, even as Tristan had done, the pall that hid the coffin. Next he seized the bench and gave a brisk order to his men.

"Spread a cloth!"

In obedience to his command, the four who were with him spread a cloak among them, each holding one of its corners. Apparently they intended to carry away the dead body in this manner.

The sbirro now mounted the bench and started to remove the coffin lid, when a blasphemous cry of rage broke from his lips that defied utterly the sanctity of the place.

"By the body of Christ! The coffin is empty!" —

It was the roar of an enraged beast and was succeeded by a heavy crash, as he let fall the coffin lid. A second later a second crash waked the midnight echoes of that silent place.

In a burst of maniacal fury he had hurled the coffin from its trestles.

Then he leaped down from the bench and flung all caution to the winds in the rage that possessed him.

"It is a trick of the devil," he shouted. "They have laid a trap for us, and you have never even informed yourselves."

There was foam about the corners of his mouth, the veins had swollen on his forehead, and from the mad bulging of his eyes spoke fury and abject terror. Bully as Tebaldo was, he could, on occasion, become a coward.

"Away!" he shouted to his men. "Look to your weapons! Away!"

Gamba muttered something under his breath, words the listener's ear could not catch. If it were a suggestion that the church should be searched, ere they abandoned it! But Tebaldo's answer speedily relieved his fears.

"I'll take no chances," he barked. "Let us go separately. Myself first and do you follow and get clear of this quarter as best you may."

Scarcely had the echoes of his footsteps died away, ere the others followed in a rush, fearful of being caught in some trap that was here laid for them, and restrained from flying on the instant but by their still greater fear of their master.

Thanking Heaven for this miraculous deliverance, and for his own foresight in so arranging matters as to utterly mislead the ravishers, Tristan now devoted his whole attention to Hellayne. Her breathing had become deeper and more regular, so that in all respects she resembled one sunk into healthful slumber. He hoped she would waken before the elapse of many moments, for to try to bear her away in his arms would have been sheer madness. And now it occurred to him that he should have restoratives ready for the time of her regaining consciousness. Inspiration suggested to him the wine that should be stored in the sacristy for altar purposes. It was unconsecrated, and there could be no sacrilege in using it.

He crept round to the front of the altar. At the angle a candle branch protruded at the height of his head. It held some three or four tapers and was so placed as to enable the priest to read his missal at early Mass on dark winter mornings. Tristan plucked one of the candles from its socket and, hastening down the church, lighted it from one of the burning tapers of the bier. Screening it with his hand he retraced his steps and regained the chancel. Then, turning to the left, he made for a door which gave access to the sacristy. It yielded and he passed down a short, stone flagged passage and entered a spacious chamber beyond.

An oak settle was placed against one wall, and above it hung an enormous, rudely carved crucifix. On a bench in a corner stood a basin and ewer of metal, while a few vestments, suspended beside these, completed the appointments of the austere and white-washed chamber. Placing his candle on a cupboard, he opened one of the drawers. It was full of garments of different kinds, among which he noticed several monks' habits. Tristan rummaged to the bottom, only to find therein some odd pairs of sandals.

Disappointed, Tristan closed the drawer and tried another, with no better fortune. Here were undervests of fine linen, newly washed and fragrant with rosemary. He abandoned the chest and gave his attention to the cupboard. It was locked, but the key was there. Tristan's candle reflected a blaze of gold and silver vessels, consecrated chalices, and several richly carved ciboria of solid gold, set with precious stones. But in a corner he discovered a dark brown, gourd-shaped object. It was a skin of wine and, with a half-suppressed cry of joy, he seized upon it.

At that moment a piercing scream rang through the stillness of the church and startled him so that for some moments he stood frozen with terror, a hundred wild conjectures leaping into his brain.

Had the ruffians remained hidden in the church? Had they returned? Did the screams imply that Hellayne had been awakened by their hands?

A second time it came, and now it seemed to break the hideous spell that its first utterance had cast over him. Dropping the leathern bottle he sped back, down the stone passage to the door that abutted on the church.

There, by the high altar, Tristan saw a form that seemed at first but a phantom, in which he presently recognized Hellayne, the dim rays of the distant tapers searching out the white robe with which her limbs were draped. She was alone, and he knew at once that it was but the natural fear consequent upon awakening in such a place, that had evoked the cry he had heard.

"Hellayne!" he called, advancing swiftly to reassure her. "Hellayne!"

There was a gasp, a moment's silence.

"Tristan?" she cried questioningly. "What has happened? Why am I here?"

He was beside her now and found her trembling like an aspen.

"Something horrible has happened, my Hellayne," he replied. "But it is over now, and the evil is averted."

"What is it?" she insisted, pale as death. "Why am I here?"

"You shall learn presently."

He stooped, to gather up the cloak, which had slipped from her shoulders.

"Do you wrap this about you," he urged, assisting her with his own hands. "Are you faint, Hellayne?"

"I scarce know," she answered, in a frightened voice. "There is a black horror upon me. Tell me," she implored again, "Why am I here? What does it all mean?"

He drew her away now, promising to tell her everything once she were out of these forbidding surroundings. He assisted her to the sacristy and, seating her upon a settle, produced the wine skin. At first she babbled like a child, of not being thirsty, but he insisted.

"It is not a matter of quenching your thirst, dearest Hellayne. The wine will warm and revive you! Come, dearest – drink!"

She obeyed him now, and having got the first gulp down her throat, she took a long draught, which soon produced a healthier color, driving the ashen pallor from her cheeks.

"I am cold, Tristan," she shuddered.

He turned to the drawer in which he had espied the monks' habits and pulling one out, held it for her to put on. She sat there now in that garment of coarse black cloth, the cowl flung back upon her shoulder, the fairest postulant that ever entered upon a novitiate.

"You are good to me, Tristan," she murmured plaintively, "and I have used you very ill! You do not love that other woman?" She paused, passing her hand across her brow.

"Only you, dearest – only you!"

"What is the hour?" she turned to him suddenly.

It was a matter he left unheeded. He bade her brace herself, and take courage to listen to what he was about to tell. He assured her that the horror of it all was passed and that she had naught to fear.

"But – how came I here?" she cried. "I must have lain in a swoon, for I remember nothing."

And then her quick mind, leaping to a reasonable conclusion, and assisted perhaps by the memory of the shattered catafalque which she had seen, her eyes dilating with a curious affright as they were turned upon his own, she asked of a sudden:

"Did you believe that I was dead?"

"Yes," he replied with an unnatural calm in his voice. "Every one believed you were dead, Hellayne."

And with this he told her the entire story of what had befallen, saving only his own part therein, nor did he try to explain his own opportune presence in the church. When he spoke of the coming of Tebaldo and his men she shuddered and closed her eyes. Only after he had concluded his tale did she turn them full upon him. Their brightness seemed to increase, and now he saw that she was weeping.

"And you were there to save me, Tristan?" she murmured brokenly. "Oh, Tristan, it seems that you are ever at hand when I have need of you! You are, indeed, my one true friend – the one true friend that never fails me!"

"Are you feeling stronger, Hellayne?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes – I am stronger!"

She rose as if to test her strength.

"Indeed little ails me save the horror of this thing. The thought of it seems to turn me sick and dizzy."

"Sit then and rest!" he enjoined. "Presently, when you feel equal to it, we shall start out!"

"Whither shall we go?" she asked.

"Why – to the abode of your liege lord."

"Why – yes – " she answered at length, as though it had been the last suggestion she had expected. "And when he returns," she added, after a pause, "he will owe you no small thanks for your solicitude on my behalf."

There was a pause. A hundred thoughts thronged Tristan's mind.

Presently she spoke again.

"Tristan," she inquired very gently, "what was it that brought you to the church?"

"I came with the others, Hellayne," he replied, and, fearing such questions as might follow – questions he had been dreading ever since he brought her to the sacristy, he said:

"If you are recovered, we had better set out."

"I am not yet sufficiently recovered," she replied. "And, before we go, there are a few points in this strange adventure that I would have you make clear to me! Meanwhile we are very well here! If the good fathers do come upon us, what shall it signify?" —