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

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СКАЧАТЬ garb stamped him as one claimed by the Church. He had braved her anger in refusing to accompany Persephoné. He had closed his eyes to Theodora's beauty, had sealed his ears to the song of the siren.

      "A man at last!" she said half aloud, and Persephoné, looking up from her occupation, gave her an inquisitive glance.

      The splash of hidden fountains diffused a pleasant coolness in the chamber. Spiral wreaths of incense curled from a bronze tripod into the flower-scented ether. The throbbing of muted strings from harps and lutes, mingling with the sombre chants of distant processions, vibrated through the sun-kissed haze, producing a weird and almost startling effect.

      After a pause of some duration, apparently oblivious of the fact that the announced caller was waiting without, Theodora turned to Persephoné, brushing with one white hand a stray raven lock from the alabaster forehead.

      "Can it be the heat or the poison miasma that presages our Roman fever? Never has my spirit been so oppressed as it is to-day, as if the gloomy messengers from Lethé's shore were enfolding me in their shadowy pinions. I saw his face in the dream of the night" – she spoke as if soliloquizing – "it was as the face of one long dead – "

      She paused with a shudder.

      "Of whom does my lady speak?" Persephoné interposed with a swift glance at her mistress.

      "The pilgrim who crossed my path to his own or my undoing. Has he been heard from again?"

      A negative gesture came in response.

      "His garb is responsible for much," replied the Circassian. "The city fairly swarms with his kind – "

      The intentional contemptuous sting met its immediate rebuke.

      "Not his kind," Theodora flashed back. "He has nothing in common with those others save the garb – and there is more beneath it than we wot of – "

      "The Lady Theodora's judgment is not to be gainsaid," the Circassian replied, without meeting her mistress' gaze. "Do they not throng to her bowers by the legion – "

      "A pilgrimage of the animals to Circé's sty – each eager to be transformed into his own native state," Theodora interposed contemptuously.

      "Perchance this holy man is in reality a prince from some mythical, fabled land – come to Rome to resist temptation and be forthwith canonized – "

      Persephoné's mirth suffered a check by Theodora's reply.

      "Stranger things have happened. All the world comes to Rome on one business or another. This one, however, has not his mind set on the Beatitudes – "

      "Nevertheless he dared not enter the forbidden gates," the Circassian ventured to object.

      "It was not fear. On that I vouch. Perchance he has a vow. Whatever it be – he shall tell me – face to face – and here!"

      "But if the holy man refuse to come?"

      Theodora's trained ear did not miss the note of irony in the Circassian's question.

      "He will come!" she replied laconically.

      "A task worthy the Lady Theodora's renown."

      "You deem it wonderful?"

      "If I have read the pilgrim's eyes aright – "

      "Perchance your own sweet eyes, my beautiful Persephoné, discoursed to him something on that night that caused misgivings in his holy heart, and made him doubt your errand?" Theodora purred, extending her white arms and regarding the Circassian intently.

      Persephoné flushed and paled in quick succession.

      "On that matter I left no doubt in his mind," she said enigmatically.

      There was a brief pause, during which an inscrutable gaze passed between Theodora and the Circassian.

      "Were you not as beautiful as you are evil, my Persephoné, I should strangle you," Theodora at last said very quietly.

      The Circassian's face turned very pale and there was a strange light in her eyes. Her memory went back to an hour when, during one of the periodical feuds between Marozia and her younger sister, the former had imprisoned Theodora in one of the chambers of Castel San Angelo, setting over her as companion and gaoler in one Persephoné, then in Marozia's service.

      The terrible encounter between Theodora and the Circassian in the locked chamber, when only the timely appearance of the guard saved each from destruction at the hands of the other, as Theodora tried to take the keys of her prison from Persephoné, had never left the latter's mind. Brave as she was, she had nevertheless, after Marozia's fall, entered Theodora's service, and the latter, admiring the spirit of fearlessness in the girl, had welcomed her in her household.

      "I am ever at the Lady Theodora's service," Persephoné replied, with drooping lids, but Theodora caught a gleam of tigerish ferocity beneath those silken lashes that fired her own blood.

      "Beware – lest in some evil hour I may be tempted to finish what I left undone in the Emperor's Tomb!" she flashed with a sudden access of passion.

      "The Lady Theodora is very brave," Persephoné replied, as, stirred by the memory, her eyes sank into those of her mistress.

      For a moment they held each other's gaze, then, with a generosity that was part of her complex nature, Theodora extended her hand to Persephoné.

      "Forgive the mood – I am strangely wrought up," she said. "Cannot you help me in this dilemma, where I can trust in none?"

      "There dwells in Rome one who can help my lady," Persephoné replied with hesitation; "one deeply versed in the lore and mysteries of the East."

      "Who is this man?" Theodora queried eagerly.

      "His name is Hormazd. By his spells he can change the natural event of things, and make Fate subservient to his decrees."

      "Why have you never told me of him before?"

      "Because the Lady Theodora's will seemed to do as much for her as could, to my belief, the sorcerer's art!"

      The implied compliment pleased Theodora.

      "Where does he abide?"

      "In the Trastevere."

      "What does he for those who seek him?"

      "He reads the stars – foretells the future – and, with the aid of strange spells of which he is master, can bring about that which otherwise would be unattainable – "

      "You rouse my curiosity! Tell me more of him."

      An inscrutable expression passed over Persephoné's face.

      "He was Marozia's trusted friend."

      A frozen silence reigned apace.

      "Did he foretell that which was to happen?" Theodora spoke at last.

      "To the hour!"

      "And yet – forewarned – "

      "Marozia, grown desperate in the hatred of her lord, derided his warnings."

      "It СКАЧАТЬ