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

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СКАЧАТЬ absorbed in prayer under her hood. Two watchful eyes seemed to consider him with a suggestiveness that no man could mistake, and her thoughts seemed to be very far from heaven.

      Once or twice Tristan started to leave the sanctuary, but some invisible hand seemed to detain him as with a magic hold.

      In due season the woman finished her devotions and stood with her hood turned back, looking at Tristan across the church. Her women had gathered about her and outside the gates Tristan saw the spear points of her guard. Turning, with a glance cast at him over her shoulder, she swept in state out of the church, her women following her, all save one tall girl, who loitered at the door.

      Suddenly it flashed upon Tristan, as he stood there with his back leaning against the pillar. Was not this the woman he had met by the fountain, the woman who had spoken strange words to him in the Navona?

      Had she recognized him? Her eyes had challenged him unmistakably when first they had met his own, and now again, as she left the church. They puzzled Tristan, these same eyes. Far in their depths lurked secrets he dreaded to fathom. Her scented garments perfumed the very aisles.

      Tristan was roused from his reverie by a woman's hand plucking at his sleeve. By his side stood a tall girl. She was very beautiful, but her eyes were evil. She looked boldly at Tristan and gave her message.

      "Follow my mistress," were her words.

      Tristan looked at her, his face almost invisible in the gloom. Only the moonlight touched his hair.

      "Whom do you serve?" he replied.

      "The Lady Theodora!" came the answer.

      Tristan's heart froze within him. Theodora – the woman who had succeeded to Marozia's dread estate!

      In order to conceal his emotions he brought his face closer to the fair messenger, forcing his voice to appear calm as he spoke.

      "What would your mistress with me?"

      The girl glanced up at him, as if she regarded the question strangely superfluous.

      "You are to come with me!" she persisted, touching his arm.

      Tristan's mouth hardened as he considered the message, without relinquishing his station by the pillar.

      What was he to Theodora – Theodora to him? She was a woman, evil, despite her ravishing beauty, so he had gathered during the days of his journey. The spell she had cast over him on the previous evening had vanished before the memory of Hellayne. Her sudden appearance, her witch-like beauty had, for the time, unmanned him. The hardships and privations of a long journey had, for the moment, caused his senses to run rampant, and almost hurled him into the arms of perdition. Yet he had not then known. And now he remembered how they all had fallen away from him, as from one bearing on his person the germs of some dread disease. The terrible silence in the Navona seemed visualized once again in the silence which encompassed him here. Yet she was all powerful, so he had heard. She ruled the men and the factions. In some vague way, he thought, she might be of service to him.

      Tossed between two conflicting impulses, Tristan slowly followed the girl from the church and, crossing the great, moonlit court that lay without, entered the gardens which seemed to divide the sanctuary from some hidden palace. Mulberry trees towered above the lawns, studded with thick, ripening fruit. Weeping ashes glittered in the moonlight. Cedars and oaks cast their shade over broad beds of mint and thyme.

      The girl watched Tristan closely, as she walked beside him, making no effort to conceal her own charms before eyes which she deemed endowed with the power of judgment in matters of this kind. Her mistress had not put her trust in her in vain. She studied Tristan's race in order to determine, whether or not he would waver in his resolve and – she began to speak to him as they crossed the gardens with a simplicity, an interest that was well assumed.

      "A good beginning indeed!" she said. "You are in favor, my lord! To have seen her fair face is no small boast, but to be summoned to her presence – I cannot remember her so gracious to any one, since – " she paused suddenly, deliberately.

      Tristan regarded her slantwise over his shoulder, without making response. At last, irritated, he knew not why, he asked curtly: "What is your mistress?"

      The girl's glance wandered over the great trees and flowers that overshadowed the plaisaunce.

      "She bears her mother's name," she replied with a shrug, "and, like her mother, the blood that flows in her veins is mingled with the fire that glitters in the stars in heaven, a fire affording neither light nor heat, but serving to dazzle, to bewilder. – I am but a woman, but – had I your chance of fortune, my lord, I should think twice, ere I bartered it for a vow, an empty dream."

      He gave her a swift glance, wondering at her woman's wit, yet resenting her speech.

      "You would prosper?" she queried tentatively at last, casting about in her mind, how she might win his confidence.

      "I have business of my own," he replied, evading her question.

      She looked up at him, her eyes trembling into his.

      "How tall and strong you are! I could almost find it in my heart to love you myself!"

      The flattery seemed so spontaneous that it would have puzzled one possessed of greater guile than Tristan to have uncovered her cunning. Nor was Tristan unwilling to seem strong to her; for the moment he was almost tempted to continue questioning her regarding her mistress.

      "You may make your fortune in Rome," the girl said with a meaning smile.

      "How so?"

      "Are you blind? Do you not know a woman's ways? My mistress loves a strong arm. You may serve her."

      "That is not possible!"

      The girl stared at him and for the moment dropped the mask of innocence.

      "What was possible once, is possible again," she said.

      Then she added:

      "Are you not ambitious?"

      "I have a task to perform that may not permit of two masters! Why are you so concerned?"

      The question came almost abruptly.

      "I serve my lady!" she said, edging towards him. "Is it so strange a thing to serve a woman?"

      They had left the garden and had arrived before a high stone wall that skirted the precincts of Theodora's palace. Cypresses and bays raised their tops above the stones. Great cedars cast deep shadows. In the wall there was a door studded with heavy iron nails. The girl took a key that dangled from her girdle, unlocked the door and beckoned to Tristan to enter.

      Tristan stood and gazed. In the light of the moon which drenched all things he saw a garden in which emerald grass plots alternated with beds of strange-tinted orchids, flowers purple and red. At the end of the plaisaunce there opened an orange thicket and under the trees stood a woman clad in crimson, her white arms bare. She wore sandals of silver, and her dusky hair was confined in a net of gold.

      As Tristan was about to yield to the overmastering temptation the memory of Hellayne conquered all other emotions. He turned back from the door and looked full into the girl's dark eyes.

      "You will speak to your mistress for me," he said to her, casting a swift glance into the moonlit garden.

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