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

CHAPTER X
A SPIRIT PAGEANT

When, on the day succeeding his appointment Tristan returned to the Inn of the Golden Shield he felt as one in a trance. Like a puppet of Fate he had been plunged into the seething maelstrom of feudal Rome. He hardly realized the import of the scene in which he had played so prominent a part. He had acted upon impulse, hardly knowing what it was all about. Dimly at intervals it flashed through his consciousness, dimly he remembered facing two youths, the one the Senator of Rome – the other the High Priest of Christendom, even though a prisoner in the Lateran. Vaguely he recalled the words that had been spoken between them, vaguely he recalled the fact that the Senator of Rome had commended him for having saved the city, offering him appointment, holding out honor and preferment, if he would enter his service. Vaguely he remembered bending his knee before the proud son of Marozia and accepting his good offices.

In the guest-chamber Tristan found pilgrims from every land assembled round the tables discoursing upon the wonders and perils hidden in the strange and shifting corridors of Rome. Not a few had witnessed the scene in which he had so conspicuously figured and, upon recognizing him, regarded him with shy glances, while commenting upon the prevailing state of unrest, the periodical seditions and outbreaks of the Romans.

Tristan listened to the buzz and clamor of their voices, gleaning here and there some scattered bits of knowledge regarding Roman affairs.

He could now review more calmly the events of the preceding day. Fortune seemed to have favored him indeed, in that she had led him across the path of the Senator of Rome.

Thus Tristan set out once again, to make the rounds of worship and obedience. These absolved, he wandered aimlessly about the great city, losing himself in her ruins and gardens, while he strove in vain to take an interest in what he beheld, rather distracted than amused by the Babel-like confusion which surrounded him on all sides.

Nevertheless, once more upon the piazzas and tortuous streets of Rome, his pace quickened. His pulses beat faster. At times he did not feel his feet upon those stony ways which Peter and Paul had trod, and many another who, like himself, had come to Rome to be crucified. People stared at his dark and sombre form as he passed. Now and then he was retarded by chanting processions, that wound their interminable coils through the tortuous streets, pilgrims from all the world, the various orders of monks in the habits peculiar to their orders, wine-venders, water-carriers, men-at-arms, sbirri, and men of doubtful calling. Sacred banners floated in the sunlit air and incense curled its graceful spiral wreaths into the cloudless Roman ether.

Surely Rome offered a wide field for ambition. A man might raise himself to a certain degree by subservience to some powerful prince, but he must continue to serve that prince, or he fell and would never aspire to independent domination, where hereditary power was recognized by the people and lay at the foundation of all acknowledged authority. It was only in Central Italy, and especially in Romagna and the States of the Church, where a principle antagonistic to all hereditary claims existed in the very nature of the Papal power, so that any adventurer might hope, either by his individual genius or courage, or by services rendered to those in authority, to raise himself to independent rule or to that station which was only attached to a superior by the thin and worn-out thread of feudal tenure.

Rome was the field still open to the bold spirit, the keen and clear-seeing mind. Rome was the table on which the boldest player was sure to win the most. With every change of the papacy new combinations, and, consequently, new opportunities must arise. Here a man may, as elsewhere, be required to serve, in order at length to command. But, if he did not obtain power at length, it was his fault or Fortune's, and in either event he must abide the consequences.

Revolving in his mind these matters, and wondering what the days to come would hold, Tristan permitted himself to wander aimlessly through the desolation which arose on all sides about him.

Passing by the Forum and the Colosseum, ruins piled upon ruins, he wandered past San Gregorio, where, in the garden, lie the remains of the Servian Porta Capena, by which St. Paul first entered Rome. The Via Appia, lined with vineyards and fruit-trees, shedding their blossoms on many an ancient tomb, led the solitary pilgrim from the memories of the present to the days, when the light of the early Christian Church burned like a flickering taper hidden low in Roman soil.

The ground sweeping down on either side in gentle, but well-defined curves, led the vision over the hills of Rome and into her valleys. Beneath a cloudless, translucent sky the city was caught in bold shafts of crystal light, revealing her in so strong a relief that it seemed like a piece of exquisite sculpture.

Fronting the Coelian, crowned with the temple church of San Stefano in Rotondo, fringed round with tall and graceful poplars, rose the immeasurable ruins of Caracalla's Baths, seeming more than ever the work of titans, as Tristan saw them, shrouded in deep shadows above the old churches of San Nereo and San Basilio, shining like white huts, a stone's throw from the mighty walls. Beyond, as a beacon of the Christian world in ages to come, on the site of the ancient Circus of Nero, arose the Basilica of Constantine, still in its pristine simplicity, ere the genius of Michel Angelo, Bramanté and Sangallo transformed it into the magnificence of the present St. Peter's.

For miles around stretched the Aurelian walls, here fallen in low ruins, there still rising in their proud strength. Weathered to every shade of red, orange, and palest lemon, they still showed much of their ancient beauty near the closed Latin gate. High towers, arched galleries and battlements cast a broad band of shade upon a line of peach trees whose blossoms had opened out to the touch of the summer breeze.

Beneath Tristan's feet, unknown to him, lay the sepulchral chambers of pagan patricians, and the winding passage tombs of the Scipios. Out of the sunshine of the vineyard Tristan's curiosity led him into the dusk of the Columbaria of Pomponius Hylas, full of stucco altar tombs. He descended into the lower chambers with arched corridors and vaulted roofs where, in the loculi, stood terra-cotta jars holding the ashes of the freedmen and musicians of Tiberius with their servants, even to their cook.

Returning full of wonder to the golden light of day, Tristan retraced his steps once again over the Appian Way. Passing the ruined Circus of Maxentius, across smooth fields of grass, he saw the fortress tomb of Cæcilia Metella, set grandly upon the hill. It appeared to break through the sunshine, its marble surface of a soft cream color, looking more like the shrine of some immortal goddess of the Campagna than the tomb of a Roman matron.

And, as he wandered along the Appian Way, past the site of lava pools from Mount Alba, remains of ancient monuments lay thicker by the roadside. Prostrate statues appeared in a setting of wild flowers. Sculptured heads gazed out from half-hidden tombs, while one watch-tower after another rose out of the undulating expanse of the Campagna.

To Tristan the memories of an ancient empire which clung to the place held but little significance.

Here emperors had been carried by in their litters to Albano. Victorious generals returning in their chariots from the south, drove between these avenues of cypress-guarded tombs to Rome. The body of the dead Augustus had been brought with great following from Bovilæ to the Palatine, as before him Sulla had been borne along to Rome amid the sound of trumpets and tramp of horsemen. Near the fourth milestone stood Seneca's villa, where he received his death warrant from an emissary of Nero, and nearby was that of his wife who, by her own desire, bravely shared his fate.

And, last to haunt the Appian Way in the spirit pageant of the Golden Age, a memory destined to lie dormant till the dawn of the Renaissance, was Paul the Apostle, the tent-maker from Tarsus, who entered Rome while Nero reigned in the white marble city of Augustus and suffered martyrdom for the Faith.

It was verging towards evening when Tristan's feet again bore him past the stupendous ruins of the Colosseum, through the roofless upper galleries of which streamed the light of the sinking sun.

After reaching the Forum, almost deserted by this hour, save for a few belated ramblers, he seated himself on a marble block and tried to collect his thoughts, at the same time drinking in the picture which unrolled itself before his gaze.

If Rome was indeed, as the chroniclers of the Middle Ages styled her, "Caput Mundi," the Forum was the centre of Rome. From this centre Rome threw out and informed her various feelers, farther and farther radiating in all directions, as she swelled out with greatness, drawing her sustenance first from her sacred hills and groves, then from the very marbles and granites of the mountains of Asia and Africa, from the lives of all sorts of peoples, races and nations. And like the Emperor Constantine, as we are told by Ammianus Marcellinus, on beholding the Forum from the Rostra of Domitian, stood wonder-stricken, so Tristan, even at this period of decay, was amazed at the grandeur of the ruins which bore witness to Rome's former greatness.

The sound of the Angelus, whose silvery chimes permeated the tomb-like stillness, roused Tristan from his reveries.

He arose and continued upon his way, until he found himself in the square fronting the ancient Basilica of Constantine.

Notwithstanding the fact that it was a Vigil of the Church, popular exhibitions of all sorts were set upon the broad flagstones before St. Peter's. Street dancing girls indulged on every available spot in those gliding gyrations, so eloquently condemned by the worthy Ammianus Marcellinus of orderly and historical memory. Booths crammed with relics of doubtful authenticity, baskets filled with fruits or flowers, pictorial representations of certain martyrs of the Church, basking in haloes of celestial light, tempted in every direction the worldly and unworldly spectators. Cooks perambulated, their shops upon their backs, merchants shouted their wares, wine-sellers taught Bacchanalian philosophy from the tops of their casks; poets recited spurious compositions which they offered for sale; philosophers indulged in argumentations destined to convert the wavering, or to perplex the ignorant. Incessant motion and noise seemed to be the sole aim and purpose of the crowd which thronged the square.

Nothing could be more picturesque than the distant view of the joyous scene, this Carnival in Midsummer, as it were.

The deep red rays of the westering sun cast their radiance, partly from behind the Basilica, over the vast multitude in the piazza. In unrivalled splendor the crimson light tinted the water that purled from the fountain of Bishop Symmachus. Its roof of gilded bronze, supported by six porphyry columns, was enclosed by small marble screens on which griffins were carved, its corners ornamented by gilded dolphins and peacocks in bronze. The water flowed into a square basin from out of a bronze pine cone which may have come from Hadrian's Mausoleum. Bathed in the brilliant glow the smooth porphyry colonnades reflected, chameleon-like, ethereal and varying hues. The white marble statues became suffused with delicate rose, and the trees gleamed in the innermost of their leafy depths as if steeped in the exhalations of a golden mist.

Contrasting strangely with the wondrous radiance around it, the bronze pine-tree in the centre of the piazza rose up in gloomy shadow, indefinite and exaggerated. The wide facade of the Basilica cast its great depth of shade into the midst of the light which dominated the scene.

Tristan stood for a time gazing into the glowing sky, then he slowly made his way towards the Basilica, the edifice which commemorated the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of Rome, as in its changes it has reflected every change wrought in the spirit of the new worship up to the present hour.

CHAPTER XI
THE DENUNCIATION

The Basilica of Constantine no longer retained its pristine splendor, its pristine purity as in the days, ere the revival of paganism by the Emperor Julian the Apostate had put a sudden and impressive check upon the meretricious defilement of the glory, for which it was built.

The exterior began to show signs of decay. The interior, too, had changed with the inexorable trend of the times. The solemn recesses were filled with precious relics. Many hued tapers surrounded the glorious pillars, and eastern tapestries wreathed their fringes round the massive altars.

As Tristan entered the incense-saturated dusk of St. Peter's, the first part of the service had just been concluded. The last faint echoes from the voices in the choir still hovered upon the air, and the silent crowds of worshippers were still grouped in their listening attitudes and absorbed in their devotions.

The only light was bestowed by the evening sun, duskily illuminating the emblazoned windows, or by the glimmer of lamps in distant shrines, hung with sable velvet and attended each by its own group of ministering priests.

Struck with an indefinable awe Tristan looked about. At first he only realized the great space, the four long rows of closely set columns, and the great triumphal arch which framed the mosaics of the apse, where Constantine stood in the clouds offering his Basilica to the Saviour and St. Peter. Then he looked towards the sacred shrines above the Apostle's grave, where lamps burned incessantly and cast a dazzling halo above the high altar, reflected in the silver paving of the presbytery and on the golden gates and images of the Confessio. Immediately behind the altar was revealed a long panel of gold, studded with gems and ornaments, with figures of Christ and the Apostles, a native offering from the Emperor Valentinian III. The high altar and its brilliant surroundings were seen from the nave between a double row of twisted marble columns, white as snow. A beam covered with plates of silver united them and supported great silver images of the Saviour, the Virgin and the Apostles with lilies and candelabra.

To their shrines, to do homage, had in time come the Kings from all the earth: Oswy, King of the Northumbrians, Cædwalla, King of the West Saxons, Coenred, King of the Mercians, and with him his son Sigher, King of the East Saxons. Even Macbeth is said to have made the pilgrimage. Ethelwulf came in the middle of the ninth century, and with him came his son Alfred. In the arcades beneath the columned vestibule of the Basilica, tomb succeeded tomb. Here the popes were buried, Leo I, the Great, being first in line, the Saxon Pilgrim Kings, the Emperors Honorius III and Theodosius II, regarding whom St. John Chrysostomus has written: "Emperors were proud to stand in the hall keeping guard at the fisherman's door."

During the interval between the divisions of the service, Tristan, like many of those present, found his interest directed towards the relics, which were inclosed in a silver cabinet with crystal doors and placed above the high altar. Although it was impossible to obtain a satisfactory view of these ecclesiastical treasures, they nevertheless occupied his attention till it was diverted by the appearance of a monk in the habit of the Benedictines, who had mounted the richly carved pulpit fixed between two pillars.

As far as Tristan was enabled to follow the trend of the sermon it teemed with allusions to the state of society and religion as it prevailed throughout the Christian world, and especially in the city of the Pontiff. By degrees the monk's eloquence took on darker and more terrible tints, as he seemed slowly to pass from generalities to personal allusions, which increased the fear and mortification of the great assembly with every moment.

From the shadows of the shrine, where he had chosen his station, Tristan was enabled to mark every shade of the emotions which swayed the multitudes and, as his eyes roamed inadvertently towards the chapel of the Father Confessor, he saw a continuous stream of penitents enter the dark passage leading towards the crypts, many of whom were masked.

Turning his head by chance, Tristan's glance fell upon two men who had apparently just entered the Basilica and paused a few paces away, to listen to the words which the monk hurled like thunderbolts across the heads of his listeners. Despite their precaution to wear masks, Tristan recognized the Grand Chamberlain in the one, while his companion, the hunchback, appeared rather uncomfortable in the sanctified air of the Basilica.

Hitherto Odo of Cluny's attacks on the existing state had been general. Now he glanced over the crowd, as if in quest of some special object, as with strident voice he declaimed:

"Repent! Death stands behind you! The flag of your glory shall cease to wave on the towers of your strong citadel. Destruction clamors at your palace gates, and the enemy that cometh upon you unaware is an enemy that none shall vanquish or subdue, not even they who are the mightiest among the mighty. Blood stains the earth and the sky. Its red waves swallow up the land! The heavens grow pale and tremble! The silver stars blacken and decay, and the winds of the desert make lament for that which shall come to pass, ere ever the grapes be pressed or the harvest gathered. It is a scarlet sea wherein, like a broken and deserted ship, Rome flounders, never to rise again – "

He paused for a moment and caught his breath hard.

"The Scarlet Woman of Babylon is among us!" he cried. "Hence! accursed tempter. Thou poisoner of peace, thou quivering sting in the flesh, destroyer of the strength of manhood! Theodora! – thou abomination – thou tyrannous treachery! What shall be done unto thee in the hour of darkness? Put off the ornaments of gold, the jewels, wherewith thou adornest thy beauty, and crown thyself with the crown of endless affliction. For thou shalt be girdled about with flame and fire shall be thy garment. Thy lips that have drunk sweet wine shall be steeped in bitterness! Vainly shalt thou make thyself fair and call upon thy legion of lovers. They shall be as dead men, deaf to thine entreaties, and none shall respond to thy call! None shall hide thee from shame and offer thee comfort! In the midst of thy lascivious delights shalt thou suddenly perish, and my soul shall be avenged on thy sins, queen-courtesan of the earth!"

Scarcely had the last word died to silence when a blinding flash of lightning rent the gloom followed by a tremendous crash of thunder that shook the great edifice to its foundation. The bronze portals opened as of their own accord and a terrific gust of wind extinguished every light in the thousand-jetted candelabrum. Impenetrable darkness reigned – thick, suffocating darkness, as the thunder rolled away in grand, sullen echoes.

There was a momentary lull, then, piercing the profound gloom, came the cries and shrieks of frightened women, the horrible, selfish scrambling, struggling and pushing of a bewildered multitude. A veritable frenzy of fear seemed to possess every one. Groans and sobs, entreaties and curses from those, who, intent on saving themselves, were brutally trying to force a passage to the door, the heart-rending, frantic appeals of the women – all these sounds increased the horror of the situation, and Tristan, blind, giddy and confused, listened to the uproar about him with somewhat of the affrighted, panic-stricken compassion that a stranger in hell might feel, while hearkening to the ceaseless plaints of the self-tortured damned.

Lost in a dim stupefaction of wonderment, Tristan remained where he stood, while the crowds rushed from the Basilica. As he was about to follow in their wake, his gaze was attracted towards the chapel of the Grand Penitentiary, from which came a number of masked personages while he, to whose keeping were confided crimes of a magnitude that seemed beyond the extensive powers of absolution, was barely visible under the cowl, which was drawn deeply over his forehead.

The thought occurred to Tristan to seek the ear of the Confessor, in as much as the Pontiff to whom he had hoped to lay bare his heart could not grant him an audience.

The lateness of the hour and the uncertainty of the fate of the Monk of Cluny prevented him from following the prompting of the moment and, staggering rather than walking, Tristan made for the portals of St. Peter's and walked unseeing into the gathering dusk.