CHAPTER IX

THE FEAST OF THEODORA

A fairy-like radiance pervaded the great pavilion in the sunken gardens

of Theodora on Mount Aventine.

It was a vast circular hall, roofed in by a lofty dome of richest

malachite, from the centre of which was suspended a huge globe of

fire, flinging blood-red rays on the amber colored silken carpets and

tapestries that covered floors and walls. The dome was supported by

rows upon rows of tall tapering crystal columns, clear as translucent

water and green as the grass in spring, and between and beyond these

columns were large oval shaped casements set wide open to the summer

night, through which the gleam of a broad lake, laden with water

lilies, could be seen shimmering in the yellow radiance of the moon.

The centre of the hall was occupied by a long table in the form of a

horseshoe, upon which glittered vessels of gold, crystal and silver

in the sheen of the revolving globe of fire, heaped with all the

accessories of a sumptuous banquet, such as might have been spread

before the ancient gods of Olympus in the heyday of their legendary

prime.

Strange scents assailed the nostrils: pomegranate and frankincense,

myrrh, spikenard and saffron, cinnamon and calamus mingled their

perfume with the insidious distillations of the jasmine, and spiral

clouds of incense rose from tripods of bronze to the vaulted ceiling.

Inside the horseshoe, black African slaves, attired in fantastic

liveries of yellow and blue, crimson and white, orange and green,

carried aloft jewelled flagons and goblets, massive gold dishes and

great platters of painted earthenware.

There were wines from Cyprus and Malvasia, from Montepulciano and the

sunny slopes of Hymettus, Chianti and Lacrymae Christi.

The almost incredible brilliancy of the assembled company, contrasting

with the fantastic background, caught the eye as with a stab of pain,

held the gaze for a single instant of frozen incredulity, then gripped

the throat in a choking sensation by reason of its wonder.

Lounging on divans of velvet and embroidered satin from the looms of

fabled Cathay, set in the old Roman fashion round the table, eating,

drinking, gossiping and occasionally bursting into wild snatches of

song, were a company of distinguished looking personages, richly

and brilliantly attired, bent upon enjoying the pleasures offered

by the immediate hour. All who laid claim to any distinction in the

seven-hilled city were there, the lords of the Campagna and of the

adjacent fiefs of the Church. Strangers from all parts of the inhabited

globe were there, steeping their bewildered brain in the splendors

that assailed their eyes on every point; from Africa and Iceland, from

Portugal and India, from Burgundy and Aquitaine, from Granada and from

Greece, from Germania and Provence, from Persia and the Baltic shores.

Their fantastic and semi-barbaric costumes seemed to enhance the

grotesque splendor of the banquet hall.

The Romans were acquainting their guests with the exalted rank of

the woman who ruled the city as surely as ever had Marozia from the

Emperor's Tomb. And the strangers listened wide-eyed and with bated

breath.

Near the raised dais which Theodora was to occupy, at the head of

the table, there were three couches reserved for guests who, like the

hostess, had not yet arrived.

Below these, by the side of a martial stranger with the air of one

who would fain sweep the board clear of his neighbors on either

hand, devouring his food in fierce silence, sat the Prefect of Rome,

endeavoring to expound the qualities of his countrymen to the silent

guest, interspersing his encomiums now and then with a rapturous eulogy

of Theodora.

"Monstrous times have robbed us Romans of the power of the sword.

But they cannot rob us of the power of the spirit, which will endure

forever."

The stranger replied with a stony stare of contempt.

Beside the Lord Atenulf of Benevento sat a tall girl with heavy coils

of blue black hair, eyes that smouldered with a sombre light, curved

carnation lips set in a perfect, oval face, and seeming more scarlet

than they were, owing to her ivory pallor, the tint of the furled

magnolia bud which is, perhaps, only seen to perfection in Italy and

especially in Rome.

She looked at the grave-faced guest with quickened eyes.

Snatching some vine leaves from a pyramid of grapes, as purple as the

tapestries of Tyre, she arose and laying her hand on the stranger's

arm, said laughingly:

"Oh, what a brow! Dark as a thundercloud in June. Let me crown you with

the leaves of the vine! Perchance the hour will evoke the mood!"

She twisted the leaves into a wreath and dropped them lightly on his

head. The eyes of the silent guest, set in a face of sanguine color,

leered viciously, with the looks of one who believes himself, however

mistakenly, master of himself. There was a contemptuous curl about his

lips. They were thick lips and florid.

"Ah!" he turned to the girl in a barbarous jargon, "you are one of

those who go veiled in the streets."

And as he spoke his eyes leered with yet livelier malice.

The girl shrank back.

"Those who go veiled know more than ordinary folk," she replied, then

mingled with the other guests.

A young woman of great beauty, with light hair and blue eyes, sat

beside young Fabio of the Cavalli. Her bare arms, white as snow, and of

exquisite contour, encircled his neck, while he drank and drank. Now

and then she sipped of the wine, Lacrymae Christi from Viterbo, of the

greenish straw color of the chrysoberyl.

Some one had put red poppy leaves in Roxana's hair, and as she sat by

the side of the youth, she had the air and appearance of a Corybante.

Now and then she gave a glance at the purple curtain in the background,

and one who watched her closely might have seen a strange sparkle in

the depths of her clear blue eyes. With a look of disappointment she

turned away, as not a ripple of air stirred the curtain's heavy fold.

Then her arms stole anew round the youth, who drained one goblet after

another, as if each succeeding one yielded up a new secret to him.

Roxana marked it well.

Her eyes danced to his, whenever Fabio's gaze stole towards the purple

curtain which screened the mysterious garden beyond, in which the spray

of a fountain cast silvery showers into branch-shadowed thickets,

hidden retreats and silent, leafy alcoves, where flowers swooned in the

moonlight and gave up their perfume for love.

From the immobile sable hangings the youth's eyes wandered back to

Roxana's face, but there lurked something strange in their depths.

"Am I not more beautiful than Theodora?" whispered the woman by his

side, extending her marble arms before her lover.

"You are beautiful, my Roxana," he stammered. "But Theodora is the most

beautiful woman on earth."

Roxana turned very white at his words.

"She has challenged me to come to her feast," she said in a low tone,

audible only to Fabio. "Let her look to herself!"

And her eyes were alight with the desire of the meeting.

On an adjoining couch reclined the huge jelly of a man who looked like

Pan, enormously swollen and bloated. His paunch bellied out over the

table like a full blown sail. His face was stained with many a night

of wine. The mulberry eyes twinkled merrily. The swollen lips babbled

incessantly.

It was the Lord Boso of Caprara.

"They say that seven devils were cast out of Magdalene--" he turned to

Roxana--

The Lord of Norba interposed.

"De mortuis nil nisi bene! Natura abhorret vacuum! I drink to the

thirst to come!"

And he raised his goblet and tossed it off.

The Lord Atenulf rose to his feet, swaying and supporting himself with

one hand on the table. His great swollen face, big as a ham, creased

itself into merriment.

"Let the wine ferret out the thirst!" he shouted, and drained off his

tankard.

"Argus hath a hundred eyes! A butler ought to have a hundred hands!"

shouted the Lord of Camerino. "Wine,--slaves! Wine,--fill up in the

name of Lucifer!"

"My tongue is peeling!"

"Wine! Wine!"

The Africans filled up the empty tankards.

"Privatio praesupponit habitum!" opined the Prefect of Rome.

"We drink to Life and the fleeting Hour."

"Pereat Mors."

And the goblets clanged.

"Who speaks of Death?" shrieked young Fabio of the Cavalli, attempting

to rise. The wine was taking effect on his brain.

Roxana drew him back on the couch beside her.

"Fill the goblets! A brimmer of Chianti, red as blood--"

"Or the poppies in Roxana's hair!"

"Wine from Samos--sweetened with honey."

"A decoction of Nectar and Ambrosia."

The strangers who crowded the vast hall began to join in the mirth and

jollity of their Roman hosts, their Oriental apathy or frozen stolidity

melting slowly in the fumes of the wines.

A curtain had parted and a bevy of girls clad in diaphanous gowns of

finest silver gauze made their way into the banquet hall and took their

seats, as choice directed, beside the guests. Peals of laughter echoed

through the vaulted dome, and excited voices were raised in clamorous

disputations and contentious arguments. The wine began to flow more

lavishly. The assembled guests grew more and more careless of their

utterances. They flung themselves full length upon their luxurious

couches, now pulling out handfuls of flowers from the tall malachite

jars that stood near, and pelting the dancing girls for idle diversion,

now summoning the attendant slaves to refill their wine cups, while

they lay lounging at ease among the silken cushions.

There was a moment's silence, sudden, unexplained, like the presage of

some dark event.

The slow solemn boom of a bell sounded the hour of midnight.

The voices had ceased.

With one accord, as though drawn by some magnetic spell, all turned

their eyes towards the purple curtain through which Theodora had just

entered, and, rising from their seats, they broke into boisterous

welcome and acclaim. Young Fabio of the Cavalli whose flushed face

had all the wanton, effeminate beauty of a pictured Dionysos, reeled

forward, goblet in hand and, tossing the wine in the air, so that it

splashed down at his feet, staining his garments, he shouted:

"Vanish dull moon and be ashamed, for a fairer planet

rules the midnight sky! To Theodora--the Queen of Love!"

[Illustration: "Pelting the dancing girls for idle diversion"]

He staggered a few paces towards her, holding the empty goblet in

his hand. His hair tossed back from his brows and entangled in a

half-crushed wreath of vine-leaves, his garments disordered, his

demeanor that of one possessed of a delirium of the senses, he stared

at the wonderful apparition when, meeting Theodora's icy glance, he

started as if he had been suddenly stabbed. The goblet fell from his

hand and a shudder ran through his supple frame.

By the side of the Grand Chamberlain, who was garbed in black from head

to toe, Theodora descended the steps that led from the raised platform

into the brilliant hall.

Greeting her guests with her inscrutable smile, she moved as a queen

through a crowd of courtiers, the changing lights of crimson and green

playing about her like living flame, her head, wreathed with jewelled

serpents, rising proudly erect from her golden mantle, her eyes

scintillating with a gleam of mockery which made them look so lustrous,

yet so cold.

Thus she strode towards the dais, draped in carnation-colored silks and

surmounted by an arch of ebony.

For the space of a moment she paused, surveying her guests. A film

seemed to pass over her eyes as her gaze rested upon one who had slowly

arisen and was facing her in white silence.

With a slight bend of the head Roxana acknowledged Theodora's silent

greeting; then, amidst loud shouts of acclaim she sank languidly upon

her couch, trying to soothe young Fabio, who had raised his fallen

goblet and held it out to a passing slave. The latter refilled it with

wine, which he gulped down thirstily, though the purple liquid brought

no color to his drawn and ashen cheek.

Theodora paid no heed to the youth's discomfiture, but Roxana's face

was white as death, and her lips were set as the lips of a marble mask

as she gazed towards the ebony arch, upon which the eyes of all present

were riveted.

With a rustle as of falling leaves Theodora's gorgeous mantle had

released itself from its jewelled clasps, and had slowly fallen on the

perfumed carpet at her feet.

A sigh quivered audibly through the hall, whether of joy, hope, desire

or despair it was difficult to tell. The pride and peril of matchless

loveliness was revealed in all its fatal seductiveness and invincible

strength. In irresistible perfection she stood revealed before her

guests in a robe of diaphanous silver gauze, which clung like a pale

mist about the wonderful curves of her form and seemed to float about

her like a summer cloud. Her dazzling white arms were bare to the

shoulders. A silver serpent with a head of sapphires girdled her waist.

Sinking indolently among the silken cushions of the dais, where she

gleamed in her wonderful whiteness like a glistening pearl, set in

ebony, Theodora motioned to her guests to resume their places at the

board.

She was instantly obeyed.

The Grand Chamberlain took what appeared to be his accustomed seat

at her right, the seat at her left remaining vacant. For a moment

Theodora's gaze rested thereon with a puzzled air, then she seemed to

pay no farther heed.

But a close observer might have noted a shade of displeasure on the

brow of the Grand Chamberlain, which no attempt at dissimulation could

dispel.

A triumphant peal of music, the clash of mingled flutes, hautboys,

tubas and harps rushed through the dome like a wind sweeping in from

tropical seas.

Basil turned to Theodora with a searching glance.

"One couch still awaits its guest."

She nodded languidly.

"Tristan--the pilgrim. He is late. Know you aught of him, my lord?"

There was an air of mockery in her tone, not unmingled with concern.

Basil's thin lips straightened.

"Perchance the holy man hath other sheep in mind. What is he to you,

Lady Theodora? Your concern for him seems of the suddenest."

"What is it to you, my lord?" she flashed in return. "Am I accountable

to you for the moods that sway my soul?"

A mocking laugh startled both the Grand Chamberlain and Theodora.

Low as the words between them had been spoken, they had reached the ear

of Roxana. Watchful of every shade of expression in Theodora's face,

she was resolved to take up the gauntlet her hated rival had thrown to

her, to draw her out of her defences into open conflict, for which she

longed with all the fire of her soul. Determined to wrest the dominion

of Rome from Marozia's beautiful sister, she was resolved to stake her

all, counting upon the effect of her wonderful beauty and her physical

perfection, which was a match for Theodora's in every point.

This desire on Roxana's part was precipitated by the strange demeanor

of young Fabio of the Cavalli. From the moment Theodora had entered

the banquet hall his fevered gaze had devoured her wonderful beauty.

A feverish restlessness had taken possession of the youth and he had

rudely repelled Roxana when she tried to soothe his wine-besotten brain.

"Perchance," she turned to Theodora, "remembering how Circé of old

changed her lovers into swine, the sainted pilgrim no longer worships

at Santa Maria of the Aventine."

Theodora started at the sound of her rival's hated voice as if an asp

had stung her.

"Perchance the well-known blandishments of our fair Roxana might

accomplish as much, if report speaks true," she replied, returning the

smouldering challenge in the other woman's eyes.

"And why not?" came the purring response. "Am I not your match in body

and soul?"

Every vestige of color had faded from Theodora's cheeks. For a moment

the two women seemed to search each other's souls, their bosoms

heaving, their eyes alight with the desire for the conflict.

Roxana slowly arose and strode toward the vacant seat at Theodora's

left.

"When you circled the Rosary on yesternight, fairest Theodora," she

purred, "was he not there--waiting for you?"

Instead of Theodora, it was Basil who made reply.

"Of whom do you speak?"

Again the silvery ripple of Roxana's laughter floated above the din.

"Perchance, my Lord Basil, our fair Theodora should be able to

enlighten you on that point--"

"Of whom do you speak?" Basil turned to the woman.

There was something ominous in his eyes. His face was pale.

Theodora regarded him contemptuously, her dark slumbrous eyes turning

from him to the woman.

"Beware lest I be tempted to strangle you," she spoke in a low tone,

her white hands opening and closing convulsively.

"Like Persephoné, your Circassian,--in the Emperor's Tomb?" came the

taunting reply.

Theodora's face was white as lightning.

"I should not leave the work undone!"

"Neither should I," came the purring reply, as Roxana extended her

wonderful hands and arms. "Meanwhile--will you not inform your guests

of the story of the pilgrim, who wellnigh caused Marozia's sister to

enter a nunnery?"

A group of listeners had gathered about.

Basil was swaying to and fro in his seat with suppressed fury.

"One convent at least would be damned from gable to refectory," he

muttered, emptying the tankard which one of the Africans had just

replenished.

Theodora regarded him icily. Her inscrutable countenance gave no hint

of her thoughts. She did not even seem to hear the questions which fell

thick and fast about her, but there was something in the velvet depths

of her eyes that would have caused even the boldest to tremble in the

consciousness of having incurred her anger.

The Lord of Norba reeled towards the couch, where Roxana had taken her

seat, blinking out of small watery eyes and flirting with his lordly

buskins.

"How came it about?"

"What was he like?"

Theodora turned slowly from the one to the other. Then with a voice

vibrant with contempt she said:

"A man!"

"And you were counting your beads?" shouted the Lord Atenulf in so

amazed a tone, that the guests broke out into peals of laughter.

"It was then it happened," Roxana related, without relating.

"How mysterious," shivered some one.

"Will you not tell us?" Roxana challenged Theodora anew.

Their eyes met. Roxana turned to her auditors.

"Our fair Theodora had been suddenly touched by the spirit," she began

in her low musical voice. "Withdrawing from the eyes of man she gave

herself up to holy meditations. In this mood she nightly circled the

Penitent's Rosary at Santa Maria of the Aventine, praying that the

saint might take compassion upon her and deliver unto her keeping a

perfect, saintly man, pure and undefiled. And to add weight to her

own prayers, we, too, circled the Rosary; Gisla, Adelhita, Pamela and

myself. And we prayed very earnestly."

She paused for a moment and looked about, as if to gauge the impression

her tale was producing on the assembled guests. Her smiling eyes swept

the face of Theodora who was listening as intently as if the incident

about to be related had happened to another, her sphinx-like face

betraying not a sign of emotion.

"And then?"

It was Basil's voice, hoarse and constrained.

"Then," Roxana continued, "the miracle came to pass before our very

eyes. Behind one of the monolith pillars there stood one in a pilgrim's

garb, young and tall of stature. His gaze followed our rotations, and

each time we circled about him our fair Theodora offered thanks to the

saint for granting her prayer--"

She paused and again her gaze mockingly swept Theodora's sphinx-like

face.

"And then?" spoke the voice of Basil.

"When our devotions had come to a close," Roxana turned to the speaker,

"Theodora sent Persephoné to conduct the saintly stranger to her

bowers. And then the unlooked for happened. The saintly stranger fled,

like Joseph of old. He did not even leave his garb."

There was an outburst of uproarious mirth.

"But do these things ever happen?" fluted the Poet Bembo.

"In the realms of fable," shouted the Lord of Norba.

"Now men have become wiser."

"And women more circumspect."

Theodora turned to the speaker.

"Perchance traditions have been merely reversed."

"Some recent events do not seem to support the theory," drawled the

Grand Chamberlain.

Theodora regarded him with her strange inscrutable smile.

"Who knows,--if all were told?"

"The fact remains," Roxana persisted in her taunts, "that our fair

Theodora's power has its limits; that there is one man at least whom

she may not drug with the poison sweetness of her song."

In Theodora's eyes gleamed a smouldering fire, as she met the

insufferable taunts of the other woman.

"Why do you not try your own charms upon him, fairest Roxana?" she

turned to her tormentor. "Charms which, I grant you, are second not

even to mine."

Roxana's bosom heaved. A strange fire smouldered in her eyes.

"And deem you I could not take him from you, if I choose?" she replied,

the pupils of her eyes strangely dilated.

"Not if I choose to make him mine!" flashed Theodora.

Roxana's contemptuous mirth cut her to the quick.

"You have tried and failed!"

"I have neither tried nor have I failed."

"Then you mean to try again, fairest Theodora?" came the insidious,

purring reply.

"That is as I choose!"

"It shall be as I choose."

"What do you mean, fairest Roxana?"

"I mean to conquer him--to make him mine--to steep his senses in so

wild a delirium that he shall forget his God, his garb, his honor. And,

when I have done with him, I shall send him to the devil--or to you,

fairest Theodora--to finish, what I began. This to prove you a vain

boaster, who has failed to make good every claim you have put forth--"

Theodora was very pale. In her voice there was an unnatural calm as she

turned to the other woman.

"You have boasted, you will make this austere pilgrim your own, body

and soul--you will cast the tatters of his soiled virtue at my feet.

I did not desire him. But now"--her eyes sank into those of the other

woman, "I mean to have him,--and I shall--with you, fairest Roxana, and

all your power of seduction against me! I shall have him--and when I

have done with him, not even you shall desire him--nor that other, whom

you serve--"

Both women had risen to their feet and challenged each other with their

eyes.

"By the powers of darkness, you shall not!" Roxana returned, pale to

the lips.

"Take him from me--if you can!" Theodora flashed. "I shall conquer

you--and him!"

At this point the Grand Chamberlain interposed.

"Were it not wise," he drawled, looking from the one to the other, "to

acquaint this holy man with the perils that beset his soul, since the

two most beautiful and virtuous ladies in Rome seem resolved to guide

him on his Way of the Cross?"

There was a moment of silence, then he continued in the same drawl,

which veiled emotions he dared not reveal in this assembly.

"Deem you, the man who journeyed hundreds of leagues to obtain

absolution for having kissed a woman in wedlock has aught to fear from

such as you?"

Ere Theodora could make reply the tantalizing purring voice of Roxana

struck her ear.

"Surely this is no man--"

"A man he is, nevertheless," Basil retorted hotly. "One night I

wandered out upon the silent Aventine. Losing myself among the ruins,

I heard voices in the abode of the Monk of Cluny. Fearing, lest some

one should attempt to harm this holy friar," he continued, with a side

glance at Theodora, "I entered unseen. I overheard his confession."

There was profound silence.

It seemed too monstrously absurd. Absolution for a kiss!

Roxana spoke at last, and her veiled mockery strained her rival's

temper to the breaking point. Her words stung, as needles would the

naked flesh.

"Then," she said with deliberate slowness, "if our fair Theodora

persist in her unholy desire, what else is there for me to do but to

take him from her just to save the poor man's soul?"

Theodora's white hands yearned for the other woman's throat.

"Deem you, your charms would snare the good pilgrim, should I will to

make him mine?" she flashed.

"Why not?" Roxana purred. "Shall we try? Are you afraid?"--

"Of you?" Theodora shrilled.

A strange fire burnt in Roxana's eyes.

"Of the ordeal! Once upon a time you took from me the boy I loved. Now

I shall take from you the man you desire!"

"I challenge you!"

"To the death!" Roxana flashed, appraising her rival's charms against

her own. Her further utterance was checked by the sudden entrance of

one of the Africans, who prostrated himself before Theodora, muttering

some incoherent words at which both the woman and Basil gave a start.

"Have him thrown into the street," Basil turned to Theodora.

"Have him brought in," Theodora commanded.

For the space of a few moments intense silence reigned throughout the

pavilion. Then the curtains at the farther end parted, admitting two

huge Africans, who carried between them the seemingly lifeless form of

a man.

An imperious gesture of Theodora directed them to approach with their

burden, and a cry of surprise and dismay broke from her lips as she

gazed into the white, still features of Tristan.

He was unconscious, but faintly breathing, and upon his garb were

strange stains, that looked like blood. The Africans placed their

burden on the couch from which Roxana had arisen, and Theodora summoned

the Moorish physician Bahram from the lower end of the table, where he

had indulged in a learned dispute with a Persian sage. The other guests

thronged about, curious to see and to hear.

The Grand Chamberlain changed color when his gaze first lighted on

the prostrate form and he felt inclined to make light of the matter

hinting at the effect of Italian wines upon strangers unaccustomed

to the vintage. The ashen pallor of Tristan's cheeks had not remained

unremarked by Theodora, as she turned from the unconscious victim of a

villainy to the man beside her, whom in some way she connected with the

deed.

Basil's comment elicited but a glance of contempt as, approaching the

couch whereon he lay, Theodora eagerly watched the Moorish physician

in his efforts to revive the unconscious man. Tristan's teeth were so

tightly set that it required the insertion of a steel bar to pry them

apart.

Bahram poured some strong wine down the throat of the still unconscious

man, then placed him in a sitting position and continued his efforts

until, with a violent fit of coughing, Tristan opened his eyes.

It was some time, however, until he regained his faculties sufficiently

to manifest his emotions, and the bewilderment with which his gaze

wandered from one face to the other, would have been amusing had not

the mystery which encompassed his presence inspired a feeling of awe.

The Moorish physician, upon being questioned by Theodora, stated, some

powerful poison had caused the coma which bound Tristan's limbs and

added, in another hour he would have been beyond the pale of human

aid. More than this he would not reveal and, his task accomplished, he

withdrew among the guests.

From the Grand Chamberlain, whose stony gaze was riveted upon him,

Tristan turned to the woman who reclined by his side on the divan. His

vocal chords seemed paralyzed, but his other faculties were keenly

alive to the strangeness of his surroundings. Perceiving his inability

to reply to her questions, Theodora soothed him to silence.

Vainly endeavoring to speak, Tristan partook but sparingly of the

refreshments which she offered to him with her own hands. She was

now deliberately endeavoring to enmesh his senses, and her exotic,

wonderful beauty could not but accomplish with him what it had

accomplished with all who came under its fatal spell. An insidious,

sensuous perfume seemed to float about her, which caused Tristan's

brain to reel. Her bare arms and wonderful hands made him dizzy. Her

eyes held his own by their strange, subtle spell. Unfathomed mysteries

seemed to lurk in their hidden depths. Without endeavoring to engage

him in conversation, much as she longed to question him on certain

points, she tried to soothe him by passing her cool white hands over

his fevered brow. And all the time she was pondering on the nature of

his infliction and the author thereof, as her gaze pensively swept the

banquet hall.

The guests had, one by one, returned to their seats. Theodora also had

arisen, after having made Tristan comfortable on the couch assigned to

him.

Unseen, the heavy folds of the curtain behind her parted. A face peered

for a moment into her own, that seemed to possess no human attributes.

Theodora gave a hardly perceptible nod and the face disappeared.

The Grand Chamberlain took his seat by her side and Roxana flinging

Theodora a glittering challenge seated herself beside Tristan.