Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome. Gallizier Nathan
stood forth in distinctness of splendor and desolation beneath the luminous brightness of the moonlit heavens. White shreds of mist, like sorrowing spirits, floated above the winding course of the Tiber, and enveloped in a diaphanous haze the cloisters upon St. Bartholomew's Island at the base of Mount Aventine.
For a time Tristan's eyes roamed over the kaleidoscopic confusion which met his gaze on every turn. His ear was assailed by the droning sound of many voices that filled the air about him, when he was startled by the approach of two men, who, but for their halting gait, might have passed unheeded in the rolling sea of humanity that ebbed and flowed over the Piazza.
Basil, the Grand Chamberlain, was endowed with the elegance of the effeminate Roman noble of his time. Supple as an eel, he nevertheless suggested great physical strength. The skin was of a deep olive tinge. The black, beady eyes were a marked feature of the countenance. Inscrutable and steadfast in regard, with a hint of mockery and cynicism, coupled with an abiding alertness, they seemed to penetrate the very core of matter.
He wore a black mantle reaching almost to his feet. Of his features, shaded by a hood, little was to be seen, save his glittering minx-eyes. These he kept alternately fixed upon the crowds that surged around him and on his companion, a hunchback garbed entirely in black, from the Spanish hat, which he wore slouched over his face, to the black hose and sandals that encased his feet. A large red scar across the low forehead heightened the repulsiveness of his countenance. There was something strangely sinister in his sunken, cadaverous cheeks, the low brow, the inflamed eyelids, and his limping gait.
Without perceiving or heeding the presence of Tristan they paused as by some preconcerted signal.
As the taller of the two pushed back the hood of his pilgrim garb, as if to cool his brow in the night breeze, Tristan peered into a face not lacking in sensuous refinement. Dark supercilious eyes roved from one object to another, without dwelling long on any particular one. There was somewhat of a cynical look in the downward curve of the eyebrows, the thin straight lips and the slightly aquiline nose, which seemed to imbue him with an air of recklessness and daring, that ill consorted with his monkish garb.
Their discourse was at first almost unintelligible to Tristan. The language of the common people had, at this period of the history of Rome, not only lost its form, but almost the very echo of the Latin tongue.
After a time, however, Tristan distinguished a name, and, upon listening more attentively, the burden of the message began to unfold itself.
"Why then have you ventured out of your hell-hole of iniquity, when discovery means death or worse?" said Basil, the Grand Chamberlain. "Do the keeps and dungeons of the Emperor's Tomb so allure you? Or do you trust in some miraculous delivery from its vermin-haunted vaults?"
At these words Rome's most dreaded bravo, Il Gobbo of the Catacombs, snarled contemptuously.
"You are needlessly alarmed, my lord. They will not look for Il Gobbo in this company, though even a mole may walk in the shadow of a saint."
Basil regarded the speaker with mingled pity and contempt.
"There is room for all the world in Rome and the devil to boot."
Il Gobbo chuckled unpleasantly.
"Besides – folk about here show a great reverence for a holy garb – "
"Always with fitting reservations," interposed the Grand Chamberlain sardonically. "I have had it in mind at some time or other to relieve the Grand Penitentiary. The good man's lungs must be well nigh bursting with the foul air down there by the Tomb of the Apostle. He will welcome a rest!"
"Requiescat," chanted the bravo, imitating the nasal tone of the clergy.
Basil nodded approval.
"He at one time did me the honor of showing some concern in my spiritual welfare. Know you what I replied?" —
The bravo gave a shrug.
"'Father,' I said, when he urged me to confess, 'pray shrive some one worthier than myself. But – if you must needs have a confession – I shall whisper into your holy ear so many interesting little episodes, so many spicy peccadillos, and – to enhance their interest – mention some names so high in the grace of God – '"
"And the reverend father?"
"Looked anathema and vanished" —
Basil paused for a moment, after which he continued with a sigh:
"It is too late! The Church is to be purified. Not even the pale shade of Marozia will henceforth be permitted to haunt the crypts of Castel San Angelo – merely for the sake of decorum. There is nothing less well bred than memory!"
For a moment they relapsed into silence, watching the shifting crowds, then Basil continued:
"Compared with this virtuous boredom the last days of Ugo of Tuscany were a carnival. One could at least speed the travails of some one who required swift absolution."
"Can you contrive to bring about this happy state?" queried Il Gobbo.
"It is always the unexpurgated that happens," Basil replied sardonically.
"I hope to advance in your school," Il Gobbo interposed with a smile.
"I have long had you in mind. If you are in favor with yourself you will become an apt pupil. Remember! He who is dead is dead and long live the survivor."
"In very truth, my lord, breath is the first and last thing we draw – " rejoined the bravo, evidently not relishing the thought that death might be standing unseen at his elbow.
"Who would end one's days in odious immaculacy," Basil interposed grandiloquently, "even though you will not incur that reproach from those who know you from report, or who have visited your haunts? But to the point. There are certain forces at work in Rome which make breathing in this fetid air a rather cumbersome process."
"I doubt me if they could teach your lordship any new tricks," Il Gobbo replied, somewhat dubiously.
The Grand Chamberlain smiled darkly.
"Good Il Gobbo, the darkest of my tricks you have not yet fathomed."
"Perchance then the gust of rumor blows true about my lord's palace on the Pincian Hill?"
"What say they about my palatial abode?" Basil turned suavely to the speaker.
There was something in the gleam of his interrogator's eyes that caused Il Gobbo to hesitate. But his native insolence came to the rescue of his failing courage.
"Ask rather, what do they not say of it, my lord! It would require less time to recite – "
"Nevertheless, I am just now in a frame of mind to shudder soundly. These Roman nights, with their garlic and incense, are apt to befuddle the brain, – rob it of its power to plot. Perchance the recital of these mysteries would bring to mind something I have omitted."
The bravo regarded the speaker with a look of awe.
"They whisper of torture chambers, where knife and screw and pulley never rest – of horrors that make the blood freeze in the veins – of phantoms of fair women that haunt the silent galleries – strange wails of anguish that sound nightly from the subterranean vaults – "
"A goodly account that ought vastly to interest the Grand Penitentiary – were it – with proper decorum – whispered in his ear. It would make him forget – for the time at least – the dirty Roman gossip. Deem you not, good Il Gobbo?"
"I am not versed in such matters, my lord," replied the bravo, ill at ease. "Perhaps your lordship will now tell me why this fondness for my society?"
"To confess truth, good Il Gobbo, I did not join you merely to meditate upon the pleasant things of life. Rather to be inspired to some extraordinary adventure such as my hungry soul yearns for. As for the nature thereof, I shall leave that to the notoriously wicked fertility of your imagination."
The lurid tone of the speaker startled the bravo.
"My lord, you would not lay hands on the Lord's anointed?"
Il Gobbo met a glance that made the blood freeze in his veins.
"Is