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

The sun had sunk to rest in a sky of turquoise, crimson and gold, when Tristan found himself standing on the eminence where seven decades later Crescentius, the Senator of Rome, was to build the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli.

Leaning on a broken pillar, Tristan watched the evening light as it spread a veil of ethereal splendor over the Seven Hills and there came to him a strange feeling of remoteness as to one standing upon some hill-set shrine.

Far beneath him lay the Forum. White columns shone roseate in the dying light of day.

Wrapt in deep thoughts and meditations, Tristan descended the stairs leading from the summit whence in after time the name of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli – Holy Mother at the Altar of Heaven – was to ring in the ears of thousands like a beautiful rhythmic chant, and after a time he found himself in the Piazza fronting the Lateran.

Seized with a sudden impulse he entered the church.

Slowly the worshippers began to assemble. Their numbers increased to almost a hundred, though they seemed but as so many shadows in the vast nave. There was something in their faces, touched by the uncertain glimmer of the tapers and lamps, that filled him with awe, as if he were standing among the ghosts of the past.

At last the holy office commenced.

A very old priest, whose features Tristan could not distinguish, began to chant the Introitus, in deep long drawn notes. Through the narrow windows filtered the light of the rising moon. It did little more than stain the dusk. Over the sombre high altar hung the white ivory figure of the Christ, bowed, sagged, in the last agony. A few blood-red poppies were the only flowers upon the altar. The fumes of incense rose in spiral columns to the vaulted ceiling.

The Kyrie had been chanted, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Later the Host was consecrated and the cup before the kneeling worshippers, and the priest was turning to those near him who, as was still the custom in those days, were present to communicate in both kinds.

To each came from his lips the solemn words:

"Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam ad Vitam aeternam!"

He dipped his fingers in the cup, cleansing them with a little wine. He consumed the cleansings and turned to read the antiphony with resonant voice.

"I saw the heavens opened and Jesus at the right hand of God. Lord Jesus receive their spirit and lay not this sin to their charge!"

Then, with hands folded over his breast, he moved towards the altar in the centre, touched it with his lips, and, turning once more to the people, said:

"Dominus Vobiscum!"

"Et cum spiritu tuo," was not answered.

For at that moment rough shouts were heard and through a side door, near a chapel, a body of ruffians rushed into the Basilica, their faces vizored and masked.

With shouts and oaths they made their way towards the altar. The worshippers scattered, the mail-clad ruffians smiting their way through their kneeling ranks up to the altar where stood the form of a youth clad in pontifical vestments, pale but calm in the face of the impending storm.

It was Pope John XI., held prisoner in the Lateran by Alberic, the Senator of Rome. Tristan had not noted his presence during the ceremony. Now, like a revelation, the import of the scene flashed upon his mind.

Bearing Tristan down by the sheer weight of their numbers, they rushed upon the Pontiff, stripped him of his pallium and chasuble, leaving him but one sacred vestment, the white albe.

Unable to reach the Pontiff's side, unable to aid him, Tristan stood rooted to the spot, an impotent witness of the most heinous sacrilege his mind could picture, almost turned to stone.

Before Tristan's very eyes, before the eyes of the worshippers, who outnumbered the ruffians ten to one, an outrage was being committed at which the fiends themselves would shudder. Violence was being done to the Father of Christendom in his own city, and the craven cowards had but their own safety in mind.

Just what happened Tristan could not immediately remember. For, as he rushed towards the spot where he saw the Pontiff struggling helplessly against his assailants, he was violently thrust back and the ruffians made their way towards a side chapel with their captive. Thus he found himself helplessly borne along in the darkness, and thrust out into the night. Tristan fell beneath their feet and was for a moment so utterly stunned that he could not rise.

As in a dream he heard the leader of the band give a command to his followers. They mounted their steeds which were tethered outside and tramped away into the night.

The sudden appearance of an armed band in the sacred precincts of the Lateran had so terrified and cowed the crowd of worshippers that even when the doors of the Basilica were left unguarded, not one ventured to give assistance. Like shadows they fled into the night.

When Tristan regained some sort of consciousness he looked about in vain for aid.

Dimly he remembered that the ruffians were mounted, and by the time he summoned succor they would have stowed their captive safely away in one of their castellated fortresses, where one might search for him in vain forever more.

The Piazza in front of the Lateran was deserted. Not a human being was to be seen. Tristan pursued his way through waste spaces that offered no clue. He rushed through narrow and deserted streets, abandoned of the living. He felt like shouting at the top of his voice: "Romans awake! They have abducted the Pontiff." But, stranger as he was, and dreading lest he might share John's fate or worse, he withstood the impulse and at last found himself upon the Bridge of San Angelo before the fortress tomb of the former master of the world, dreaming in the surrounding desolation. Before the massive bronze gate cowered a man-at-arms, drowsing over his pike.

Without a moment's hesitation, Tristan shook the drowsy guardian of the Angel's Castle into blaspheming alertness.

"They have abducted the Pontiff!" he shouted, without releasing his clutch on the gaping Burgundian. "Sound the alarums! Even now it may be too late!"

The man in the brown leather jerkin and steel casque stared open-mouthed at the speaker.

"The Lord Alberic is within – " he stammered at last, with an effort to shake off the drowsiness that held his senses captive.

"Then rouse him in the devil's name," shouted Tristan.

The last words had their effect upon the stolid Northman. After the elapse of some precious moments Alberic himself emerged from the Emperor's Tomb and Tristan repeated his account of the outrage, little guessing the rank of him with whom he was standing face to face.

But now they were confronted with a dilemma which it seemed would put all Tristan's efforts to naught.

Who were the leaders of the party that had abducted the Pontiff? For thereon hinged their success of intercepting the outlaws.

Tristan's description of the leader did not seem to make any marked impression on the Senator of Rome.

He questioned Tristan with regard to their coat-of-arms or other heraldic emblems. But the author of the outrage had shown sufficient foresight to avoid a hazardous display. There seemed but one alternative; to scour the city of Rome in the uncertain hope of intercepting the outlaws, if they were still within the walls.

Tristan attached himself to the senatorial party, joining in the pursuit. At first their task seemed hopeless indeed. Those they met and questioned had seen no armed band, or, if they had, denied all knowledge thereof. The frowning masonry of the Cenci, Savelli, Frangipani, and Odescalchi, which they passed in turn, returned but an inscrutable reply to their questioning glances.

For a time they continued their fruitless quest. But as if an outrage so horrible had ignited the very air about them, they soon found people stirring, shutters opening and shadowy figures issuing from dark doorways, while folk were running and shouting to one another:

"The Pontiff has been abducted!"

Between cries of rage and shouts of command and indecision on the part of the leader, who knew not in which direction to pursue, an hour had elapsed, when they suddenly heard the clatter of hoofs. A company of horsemen came galloping down the street. Alberic's suspicions that the ruffians would prefer carrying their victim by devious byways to one or the other of their Roman lairs, rather than attempt to leave the city in the teeth of the Senator's guard, seemed realized. Oaths and sharp orders broke the silence of the night.

It was amongst a gigantic pile of ruins, apart from all habitations of the living, that they came to a halt. To a gaunt brick-built tower they drew close, knocking against the iron-studded door, but ere those within could open, they were surrounded, outnumbered ten to one.

Tristan was the first to bound in amongst them.

His eyes quivered upon the steel-clad form of the leader of the band.

At the next moment a blow from Tristan's fist struck him down and, ere he could recover himself, he had been bound, hand and foot, and turned over to the Senator's guards.

His followers, despairing of success, made a sudden dash through the ranks of the people who had been attracted by the melee, riding down a number, injuring and maiming many.

The Senator of Rome ranged his men, now re-inforced by the Prefect's guard, round the drooping form of John, while a howling and shouting mob, ready to wreak vengeance on the first object it encountered in its path, followed in their wake as they made their way towards the Lateran.

An hour later, in a high vaulted, dimly lighted chamber of the Archangel's Castle, Tristan, the pilgrim, and Alberic, the Senator of Rome, faced each other for the second time.

In the course of the pursuit of the ruffians in which he participated, Tristan had been casually informed of the rank of him who led the Senatorial guard in person and when, their object accomplished, he started to detach himself from the men-at-arms, Alberic had foiled his intention by commanding him to accompany him to the fortress-tomb where he himself held forth.

Seated opposite each other, each seemed to scan the other's countenance before a word was spoken between them.

Alberic's regard of the man who seemed utterly unconscious of the importance of the service he had rendered the Senator betokened approval, and his eyes dwelt for some moments on the frank and open countenance of this stranger, perchance contrasting it inwardly with the complex nature of those about his person in whom he could trust but so long as he could tempt them with earthly dross, and who would turn against him should a higher bidder for their favor appear.

Tristan's first impression of the son of Marozia was that of one born to command. Dark piercing eyes were set in a face, stern, haughty, yet strangely beautiful. Alberic's tall, slender figure, dressed in black velvet, relieved by slashes of red satin, added to the impressiveness of his personality. Upon closer scrutiny Tristan could discover a marked resemblance between the man before him and his half-brother, the ill-fated Pontiff, whom, for political reasons, or considerations of his personal safety, he kept prisoner in the pontifical palace.

But there was yet another present, who apparently took little heed of the stranger, engaged as he seemed in the perusal of a parchment, spread out upon a table before him, – Basil, the Grand Chamberlain.

A whispered conversation had taken place between the Senator and his confidential adviser, for this was Basil's true station in the senatorial household. In the evil days of Marozia's regime he had occupied the same favored position at the Roman court, and, when Alberic's revolt had swept the regime of Ugo of Tuscany and Marozia from Roman soil, the son had attached to himself the man who had shown a marked sagacity and ability in the days that had come to a close.

Basil's complex countenance proved somewhat more of an enigma to the silent on-looker than did the Senator's stern, though frank face.

He was garbed in black, a color to which he seemed partial. A flat cap of black velvet with a feather curled round the brim, above a doublet of black velvet, close fitting, the sleeves slashed, to show the crimson tunic underneath. The trunk hose round the muscular legs were of black silk and gold thread, woven together and lined with sarsenet. His feet were encased in black buskins with silver buckles, and puffed silk inserted in the slashings of the leather.

The whole suggestion of the dark, sable figure was odd. It was exotic, and the absence of a beard greatly intensified the impression. The face, as Tristan saw it by the light of the taper, was expressionless – a physical mask.

At last Alberic broke the silence, turning his eyes full upon the man who met his gaze without flinching.

"You have – at your own risk – saved Rome and Holy Church from a calamity the whole extent of which we may not even surmise, had the Pontiff been carried away by the lawless band of Tebaldo Savello. We owe you thanks – and we shall not shirk our duty. You are a stranger. Who are you and why are you here?"

To the same questions that another had put to him on the memorable eve of his arrival, in the Piazza Navona, Tristan replied with equal frankness. His words bore the stamp of truth, and Alberic listened to a tale passing strange to Roman ears.

And, unseen by Tristan, something began to stir in the dark, unfathomable eyes of Basil, as some unknown thing stirs in deep waters, and the hidden thing therein, to him who saw, was hidden no longer. Some nameless being was looking out of these windows of the soul. One looking at him now would have shrank away, cold fear gripping his heart.

For a moment, after Tristan had finished his tale, there was silence. Alberic had risen and, seemingly unconscious of the presences in his chamber, was perambulating its narrow confines until, of a sudden, he stopped directly before Tristan.

"These penances completed, whereof you speak – do you intend returning to the land of your birth?"

A blank dismay shone in Tristan's eyes. Not having referred to the nature of the transgression, for which he was to do penance, and obtain absolution, he found it somewhat difficult to answer Alberic's question.

"This is a matter I had not considered," he replied with some hesitancy, which remained not unremarked by the Senator.

Alberic was a man of few words, and he possessed a discernment far beyond his years. At the first glance at this stranger whom fate had led across his path, he had known that here was one he might trust, could he but induce him to become his man.

He held out his hand.

"I am going to be your friend and I mean to requite the service you have done the Senator, ere the dawn of another day breaks in the sky. There is a vacancy in the Senator's guard. I appoint you captain of Castel San Angelo."

Ere Tristan could sufficiently recover from his surprise to make reply, another voice was audible, a voice, soft and insinuating – the voice of Basil, the Grand Chamberlain.

"My lord – the chain of evidence against Gamba is not completed. In fact, later developments seem to point to an intrigue of which he is but the unwitting victim – "

Alberic turned to the speaker.

"The proofs, my Lord Basil, are conclusive. Gamba is a traitor convicted of having conspired with an emissary of Ugo of Tuscany, to deliver the Archangel's Castle into his hands. He is sentenced – he shall die – as soon as we discover his abode – "

Basil's face had turned to ashen hues.

"What mean you, my lord? Gamba is awaiting sentence in the dungeon where he has been confined, ever since his trial – "

"The cage is still there," Alberic interposed sardonically. "The bird has flown."

"Escaped?" stammered the Grand Chamberlain, rising from his seat and raising his furtive eyes to those of the Senator. "Then he has confederates in our very midst – "

"We shall know more of this anon," came the laconic reply. "Will you accept the trust which the Senator of Rome offers you?" Alberic turned from the Grand Chamberlain to Tristan.

The latter found his voice at last.

"How shall I thank you, my lord!" he said, grasping the Senator's hand. "Grant me but a week, wherein to absolve the business upon which I came – and I shall prove myself worthy of the lord Alberic's trust!"

"So be it," the son of Marozia replied. "A long deferred pilgrimage to the shrines of the Archangel at Monte Gargano will take me from Rome for the space of a month or more. I should like to be assured that this keep is in the hands of one who will not fail me in the hour of need! My Lord Basil – greet the new captain of Castel San Angelo – "

Approaching almost soundlessly over the tiled floor, the Grand Chamberlain extended his hand to Tristan, offering his congratulations upon his sudden advancement.

Whatever it was that flashed in Basil's eyes, it was gone as quickly as it had come. His thin lips parted in an inscrutable smile as Tristan, with a bend of the head, acknowledged the courtesy.

For a moment, following his acceptance, Tristan was startled at his own decision. Another would have felt it to be an amazing streak of luck. Tristan was frightened, though his misgivings vanished after a time.

Owing to the lateness of the hour and the insecurity of the streets Alberic offered Tristan the hospitality of his future abode for the night and the latter gladly accepted.

After Basil had departed, he remained closeted with the Senator for the space of an hour or more. What transpired between these two remained guarded from the outer world, and it was late ere the sentinel on the ramparts saw the light in the Senator's chamber extinguished, wondering at the nature of the business which detained the lord Alberic and the tall stranger in the pilgrim's garb.