CHAPTER I

WOLFSBANE

The early summer dawn was creeping over the silent Campagna when

Tristan reached the Inn of The Golden Shield.

As one dazed he had traversed the deserted, echoing streets in the

mysterious half-light which flooded the Eternal City; a light in which

everything was sharply defined yet seemed oddly spectral and ghostlike.

Deep down in his heart two emotions were contending, appalling in their

intensity and appeal. One was an agonized fear for the woman he loved

with a love so unwavering that his love was actually himself, his whole

being, the sacrament that consecrated his life and ruled his destiny.

She had left Avalon; she had left him to whom she had plighted her

troth. Where was she and why was Roger de Laval in Rome?

An icy fear gripped his heart at the thought; a nameless dread and

horror of the terrible scene he had witnessed at the midnight feast of

Theodora.

For a time he was as one obsessed, hardly master of himself and his

actions. In an age where scenes such as those he had witnessed were

quickly forgotten the death of Roxana and young Fabio created but

little stir. Rome, just emerging from under the dark cloud of Marozia's

regime, in the throes of ever-recurring convulsions, without a helmsman

to guide the tottering ship of state, received the grim tidings with a

shrug of apathy; and the cowed burghers discussed in awed whispers the

dread power of one whose vengeance none dared to brave.

Tristan's unsophisticated mind could not so easily forget. He had

stood at the brink of the abyss, he had looked down into the murky

depths from which there was no escape once the fumes had conquered the

senses and vanquished resistance. With a shudder he called to mind,

how utterly and completely he had abandoned himself to the lure of the

sorceress, how little short of a miracle had saved him. She had led him

on step by step, and the struggle had but begun.

No one was astir at the inn.

He ascended the stairs leading to his chamber. The chill of the night

was still lingering in the dusky passages. He lighted the taper of a

tiny lamp that burnt before an image of the Mother of Sorrows in a

niche.

Then he sank upon his couch. His vitality seemed to be ebbing and his

mind clouding before the problems that began to crowd in upon him.

Nothing since he left Avalon, nothing external or merely human, had

stirred him as had his meeting with Theodora. It had roused in him

a dormant, embryonic faculty, active and vivid. What it called into

his senses was not a mere series of pictures. It created a visual

representation of the horrified creature, roused from the flattering

oblivion of death to memory and shame and dread, nothing really

forgotten, nothing past, the old lie that death ends all pitifully

unmasked.

He shuddered as he thought of the consequences of surrender from which

a silent voice out of the far off past had saved him--just in time.

His life lay open before him as a book, every fact recorded, nothing

extenuated.

A calm, relentless voice bade him search his own life, if he had done

aught amiss. He had never taken or desired that which was another's.

Yet his years had been a ceaseless perturbation. There had been endless

and desperate clutchings at bliss, followed by the swift discovery that

the exquisite light had faded, leaving a chill gloaming that threatened

a lonely night. And if the day had failed in its promise what would the

night do?

His soul cried out for rest, for peace from the enemy; peace, not this

endless striving. He was terrified. In the ignominious lament there

was desertion, as if he were too small for the fight. He was demanding

happiness, and that his own burden should rest on another's shoulders.

How silent was the universe around him! He stood in tremendous, eternal

isolation.

Pale and colorless as a moonstone at first the ghostly dawn had

quickened to the iridescence of the opal, flaming into a glory of gold

and purple in the awakening east.

And now the wall in the courtyard was no longer grey. A faint, clear,

golden light was beginning to flow and filter into it, dispelling, one

by one, the dark shadows that lurked in the corners. Somewhere in the

distance the dreamer heard the shrill silver of a lark, and a dull

monotonous sound, felt rather than heard, suggested that sleeping Rome

was about to wake.

And then came the sun. A long golden ray stabbed the mists and leaped

into his chamber like a living thing. The little sanctuary lamp before

the image of the Blessed Virgin glowed no more.

After a brief rest Tristan arose, noting for the first time with a

degree of chagrin that his dagger had not been restored to him.

It was day now. The sun was high and hot. The streets and thoroughfares

were thronged. A bright, fierce light beat down upon dome and spire

and pinnacle, flooding the august ruins of the Cæsars and the thousand

temples of the Holy Cross with brilliant radiance from the cloudless

azure of the heavens. Over the Tiber white wisps of mist were rising.

Beyond, the massive bulk of the Emperor's Tomb was revealed above the

roofs of the houses, and the olive groves of Mount Janiculum glistened

silvery in the rays of the morning sun.

It was only when, refreshed after a brief rest and frugal refreshments,

Tristan quitted the inn, taking the direction of Castel San Angelo,

that the incidents leading up to his arrival at the feast of Theodora

slowly filtered through his mind.

Withal there was a link missing in the chain of events. From the time

he had left the Lateran in pursuit of the two strangers everything

seemed an utter blank. What mysterious forces had been at work

conveying him to his destiny, he could not even fathom and, in a state

of perplexity, such as he had rarely experienced, he pursued his way,

paying little heed to the life and turmoil that seethed around him.

Upon entering Castel San Angelo he was informed that the Grand

Chamberlain had arrived but a few moments before and he immediately

sought the presence of the man whose sinister countenance held out

little promise of the solution of the mystery.

In an octagon chamber, the small windows of which, resembling

port-holes, looked out upon the Campagna, Basil was fretfully

perambulating as Tristan entered.

After a greeting which was frosty enough on both sides, Tristan briefly

stated the matter which weighed upon his mind.

The Grand Chamberlain watched him narrowly, nodding now and then by

way of affirmation, as Tristan related the experience at the Lateran,

referring especially to two mysterious strangers whom he had followed

to a distant part of the city, believing they might offer some clue to

the outrage committed at the Lateran on the previous night.

Basil regarded the new captain with a mixture of curiosity and gloom.

Perchance he was as much concerned in discovering what Tristan knew

as the latter was in finding a solution of the two-fold mystery.

After having questioned him on his experience, without offering any

suggestion that might clear up his visitor's mind, Basil touched upon

the precarious state of the city and its hidden dangers.

Tristan listened attentively to the sombre account, little guessing its

purpose.

"Much have I heard of the prevailing lawless state," he interposed at

last, "of dark deeds hidden in the silent bosom of the night, of feud

and rebellion against the Church which is powerless to defend herself

for the want of a master-hand that would evoke order out of chaos."

The dark-robed figure by his side gave a grim nod.

"Men are closely allied to beasts, giving rein to their desires and

appetites as the tigers and hyenas. It is only fear that will restrain

them, fear of some despotic invisible force that pervades the universe,

whose chiefest attribute is not so much creative as destructive. It is

only through fear you can rule the filthy rabble that reviles to-day

its idol of yesterday."

There was an undercurrent of scorn in Basil's voice and Tristan saw,

as it were, the lightning of an angry or disdainful thought flashing

through the sombre depths of his eyes.

"What of the Lady Theodora?" Tristan interposed bluntly.

Basil gave a nameless shrug.

"She bends men's hearts to her own desires, taking from them their

will and soul. The hot passion of love is to her a toy, clasped and

unclasped in the pink hollow of her hand."

And, as he spoke, Basil suited the gesture to the word, closing his

fingers in the air and again unclosing them.

"As long as she retains the magic of her beauty so long will her sway

over the Seven Hills endure," he added after a brief pause.

"What of the woman who paid the penalty of her daring?" Tristan

ventured to inquire.

Basil regarded the questioner quizzically.

"There have been many disturbances of late," he spoke after a pause.

"Roxana's lust for Theodora's power proved her undoing. Theodora will

suffer no rival to threaten her with Marozia's fate."

"I have heard it whispered she is assembling about her men who are

ready to go to any extreme," Tristan interposed tentatively, thrown off

his guard by Basil's affability of manner.

The latter gave a start, but recovered himself.

"Idle rumors. The Romans must have something to talk about. Odo of

Cluny is thundering his denunciations with such fervid eloquence that

they cannot but linger in the rabble's mind."

"The hermit of Mount Aventine?" Tristan queried.

"Even he! He has a strange craze, a doctrine of the End of Time, to

be accomplished when the cycle of the sæculum has run its course. A

doctrine he most furiously proclaims in language seemingly inspired,

and which he promulgates to farther his own dark ends."

"A theory most dark and strange," Tristan replied with a shudder, for

he was far from free of the superstition of the times.

Basil gave a shrug. His tone was lurid.

"What shall it matter to us, who shall hardly tread this earth when the

fateful moment comes?"

"If it were true nevertheless?" Tristan replied meditatively.

A sombre fire burnt in the eyes of the Grand Chamberlain.

"Then, indeed, should we not pluck the flowers in our path, defying

darkness and death and the fiery chariot of the All-destroyer that is

to sweep us to our doom?"

Tristan shuddered.

Some such words he had indeed heard among the pilgrim throngs without

clearly grasping their import. They had haunted his memory and had,

for the time at least, laid a restraining hand upon his impulses.

But the mystery of the Monk of Cluny weighed lightly against the

mystery of the woman who held in the hollow of her hand the destinies

of Rome.

Basil seemed to read Tristan's thoughts.

Reclining in his chair, he eyed him narrowly.

"You, too, but narrowly escaped the blandishments of the Sorceress,

blandishments to which many another would have succumbed. I marvel at

your self-restraint, not being bound by any vow."

The speaker paused and waited, his eyes lying in ambush under the dark

straight brows.

The memory still oppressed Tristan and the mood did not escape Basil,

who stored it up for future reckoning.

"Perchance I, too, might have succumbed to the Lady Theodora's beauty,

had not something interposed at the crucial moment."

"The memory of some earlier love, perchance?" Basil queried with a

smile.

Tristan gave a sigh. He thought of Hellayne and the impending meeting

with Roger de Laval.

His questioner abandoned the subject. Master in dissimulation he had

read the truth on Tristan's brow.

"Pray then to your guardian saint, if of such a one you boast," he

continued after a pause, "to intervene, should temptation in its most

alluring form face you again," he said with deliberate slowness. "You

witnessed the end of Fabio of the Cavalli?"--

Tristan shuddered.

"And yet there was a time when he called all these charms his own, and

his command was obeyed in Theodora's gilded halls."

"Can love so utterly vanish?" Tristan queried with an incredulous

glance at the speaker.

Basil gave a soundless laugh.

"Love!" he said. "Hearts are but pawns in Theodora's hands. Her

ambition is to rule, and he who can give to her what her heart desires

is the favorite of the hour. Beware of her! Once the poison of her

kisses rankles in your blood nothing can save you from your doom."

Basil watched the effect of his words upon his listener and for the

nonce he seemed content. Tristan would take heed.

When Tristan had taken his leave a panel in the wall opened noiselessly

and Il Gobbo peered into the chamber.

Basil locked and bolted the door which led into the corridor, and the

sinister, bat-like form stepped out of its dark frame and approached

the inmate of the chamber with a fawning gesture.

"If your lordship will believe me," he said in a husky undertone, "I am

at last on the trail."

"What now?"

"I may not tell your nobility as yet."

"Do you want another bezant, dog?"

"It is not that, my lord."

"Then, who does he consort with?"

"I have tracked him as a panther tracks its prey--he consorts with no

one."

"Then continue to follow him and see if he consorts with any--woman."

"A woman?"

"Why not, fool?"

"But had your nobility said there was a woman--"

"There always is."

"Your nobility let him go--and yet--one word--"

"I must know more, before I strike. I knew he would come. There is more

to this than we wot of. Theodora is infatuated with his austerity. He

has jilted her and she smarts under the blow. She will move heaven and

earth to bring him to her feet. Meanwhile there are weightier matters

to be considered. Perchance I shall pay you an early call in your noble

abode. Prepare fitly and bid the ghosts troop from their haunted caves.

And now be off! Your quarry has the start!"

Il Gobbo bowed grotesquely and receded backward towards the panel which

closed soundlessly behind him.

Basil remained alone in the octagon cabinet.

He strode slowly towards one of the windows that faced to southward and

gazed long and pensively out upon the undulating expanse of the Roman

Campagna.

"Three messengers, yet none has returned," he muttered darkly. "Can it

be that I have lost my clutch on destiny?"