The Sorceress of Rome

  *CHAPTER XV*

  *THE DEATH WATCH*

  The sun had sunk to rest and the noises of the day were dying out, oneby one. The deep hush of the hour of dusk settled once more over thecity, shaken to its very depths by the terrible catastrophe and upheavedby the fanaticism of the monks, who roused the populace to a paroxysm offrenzy and fear which gave way to pandemonium itself, when the feelingsof the masses, strung to their utmost tension, leaped into the oppositeextreme. Crescentius had remained shut up in Castel San Angelo, but themonk Cyprianus could be seen stalking through the city at the hour ofdusk, and whosoever met him crossed himself devoutly, and prayed to havetime for confession, when the end was nigh.

  The importance of the impending change impressed itself upon every mind.The time when worldly power alone could hope to successfully cope withthe crying evils of a fast decaying age, of a world, grown old and staleand rotten, upon which had not yet fallen the beam of the Renaissance,was not yet at hand, and the fatal day of Canossa had not yet illuminedthe century with its lurid glare.

  Therefore Otto had chosen Bruno, the friend of his boyhood, for thehighest honours in Christendom, Bruno, one in mind, one in soul withhimself, and the Conclave had by its vote ratified the imperial choice.But Bruno himself had not wished the honour. While he shared the highideals of his royal friend he lacked that confidence in himself, whichwas so essential a requirement for the ruler whose throne swayed on thestorm-tossed billows of the Roman See. Bruno was of a ratherretrospective turn of mind, and it was doubtful, whether he would beable to carry out the sweeping reforms planned by Theophano's idealisticson, and regarded with secret abhorrence by the Italian cardinals. Onlywith the aid of the venerable Gerbert had Gregory consented to enterupon the grave duties awaiting him at the head of the Christian world ata time when that world seemed to totter in its very foundations. And hehad paid the penalty, cut down in the prime of life.

  In the Vatican chapel on a bier, round which were burning six waxcandles in silver-sticks, lay the fast decaying body of Gregory V.Terrible rumours concerning the Pontiff's death were abroad in the city.The doors of the Pope's private apartments had been found locked fromwithin. The terrified attendants had not ventured to return to theVatican until the gray morning light of the succeeding day broke behindthe crests of the Apennines. They had broken down the door, rumour hadit, but to recoil from the terrible sight which met their eyes. On hisbed lay the dead Pontiff. The head and right arm almost touched thefloor, as if in the death-struggle he had lost his balance. Traces ofburnt parchment on the floor and an empty phial on the table beside himintensified, rather than cleared up the mystery. And as theyapproached, terror-stricken, and endeavoured to lift the body, the rightarm almost severed itself from the trunk at their touch, and the bodywas fast turning black. The handsome features of the youth were grayand drawn, his hair clammy and dishevelled and the open eyes staredfrightfully into space as if vainly searching for the murderer.

  Whatever Gerbert's suspicions were when, too late, he arrived in thedeath chamber, no hint escaped his lips. Under his personal care thebody of the hapless youth was prepared for interment, then he hurriedlyconvoked the Conclave and ordered the gates of Rome closed against anyone attempting to leave the city.

  The Vatican chapel was hung with funereal tapestry. Everywhere were seengarlands of flowers entwined with branches of cypress. In the middle ofthe chapel stood the bier, covered with black velvet. A choir of monks,robed in vestments of black damask, was chanting the last Requiem. TheCardinal of Sienna was conducting the last rites. As the echoes of thechant died away under the vaulted arches, a monk approached the bier,and sprinkled the corpse with holy water. The Cardinal pronounced thebenediction; the monk bent slightly over the body when a drop from theforehead of the dead Pontiff rebounded to his face. He shuddered andhastily retreated behind the monks, who formed into the recessional.Only two remained in the chapel. Contrary to all custom theyextinguished the candles which had burnt down half-way. The smallerones they left to flicker out, until they should pitifully flare uponce, more, then to go out in the great darkness like the soul of man,when his hour has come.

  The last and only one to remain within the chapel to hold thedeath-watch with the Pontiff, was Eckhardt, the Margrave. Wrapt in hisdark fancies he sat beside the bier. After his precipitate flight allmemory of what succeeded had vanished. Exhausted and tottering he hadfound himself in the palace on the Caelian Mount, where he shut himselfup till the terrible tidings of the Pontiff's death penetrated to thesolitude of his abode. Now it seemed to him that the moment he wouldset foot in the streets of Rome, some dark and fearful revelationawaited him. Since that night, when the strange apparition had drawnhim from the altars of Christ, had caused him to renounce the vows hislips were about to pronounce, a terrible fear and suspicion had grippedhis soul. The presentiment of some awful mystery haunted him night andday, as he brooded over the terrible fascination of those eyes, whichhad laid their spell upon him, the amazing resemblance of the apparitionto the wife of his soul, long dead in her grave. And the more hepondered the heavier grew his heart within him, and he groped in vainfor a ray of light on his dark and lonely path,--vainly for a guidinghand, to conduct him from the labyrinth of doubt and fear into therealms of oblivion and peace. The Margrave's senses reeled from theheavy fumes of flowers and incense, which filled the Basilica. Thelight from a cresset-lantern on the wall, contending singly with thepale mournful rays of the moon, which cast a dim light through the longcasement, over pillars and aisles, fell athwart his pallid face. Theterrible incidents of the past night, which had thrown him back into thethroes of the world, and had snuffed out the Pontiff's life, weighedheavily upon him, and for the nonce, the commander abandoned everyattempt to clear the terrible mystery which enshrouded him. He almostdespaired of combating the spectre single-handed, and now the one man,who might by counsel and precept have guided his steps, had been struckdown by the assassin's hand.

  The sanctity of the place, the solemnity of the hour, and the deepsilence around were well calculated to deepen the melancholy mood of thesolitary watcher. Weird were the fancies that swept over his mind,memories of a long forgotten past, and dim, indistinct plans for thefuture, till at length, wearied with his own reflections over thatsaddest of all earthly enigmas, what might have been, he seated himselfon a low bench beside the bier. The moonbeams grew fainter and morefaint, as the time wore on, and the sharp distinction between light andshadow faded fast from the marble floor.

  Thicker and thicker drooped the shadows round the bier of the deadPontiff. The silence seemed to deepen. The moon was gone. Save forthe struggling rays of the cresset-lantern above him, the blackness ofnight closed round the solemn and ghostly scene.

  The scent of flowers and the fumes of incense weighed heavily onEckhardt's senses. Vainly did he combat the drowsiness; the silence,the dim light and the heavy fumes at last laid their benumbing spellupon him and lulled him to sleep. His head fell back and his eyesclosed.

  But his sleep was far from calm. Weird dreams beset him. Again he livedover the terrible ordeal of the preceding night. Again he saw himselfsurrounded, hemmed in by a vast concourse. Again he saw the phantom atthe shrine, the phantom with Ginevra's face,--Ginevra's eyes; again heheard her strange luring words. The wine spilled from the sacredchalice looked like blood on the marble stairs of the altar. He heardhis own voice, strange, unearthly; gripped by a choking sensation herushed from the crowded Basilica, the air of which seemed to stiflehim,--rushed in pursuit of the phantom with Ginevra's face,--Ginevra'seyes. At the threshold of the church a hand seized his own,--a woman'shand. How long, since he had felt a woman's hand in his own! It wascold as the skin of a serpent, yet it burnt like fire. And the handdrew him onward, ever onward. There was no resisting the gaze of thoseeyes which burnt into his own.

  A deep azure overspread the sky. The trees were clothed in the raimentof sp
ring. Blindly he staggered onward. Blindly he followed hisstrange guide through groves, fragrant with the perfumes offlowers,--the air seemed as a bower of love. The hand drew him onwardwith its chill, yet burning touch. The way seemed endless. Faster andfaster grew their speed. At last they seemed to devour the way. Theearth flitted beneath them as a gray shadow. The black trees fled inthe darkness like an army in rout. They delved into glens, gloomy andchill. The night-birds clamoured in the forest deeps; will-o'-the-wispsgleamed over stagnant pools and now and then the burning eyes ofspectres pierced the gloom, who lined a dark avenue in their nebulousshrouds.

  And the hand drew him onward--ever onward! Neither spoke. Neitherquestioned. At last he found himself in a churchyard. The scent offaded roses hovered on the air like the memory of a long-forgotten love.They passed tombstone after tombstone, gray, crumbling, with defacedinscriptions; the spectral light of the moon in its last quarter dimlyillumined their path till at last they reached a stone half hiddenbehind tall weeds and covered with ivy, moss and lichen. The earth hadbeen thrown up from the grave, which yawned to receive its inmate. Owlsand bats flocked and flapped about them with strange cries; the foxesbarked their answer far away and a thousand evil sounds rose from thestillness. As they paused before the yawning grave he gazed up into hiscompanion's face. Pale as marble Ginevra stood by his side, the longwhite shroud flowing unbroken to her feet. Through the smile of herparted lips gleamed her white teeth, as she pointed downward, to thenarrow berth, then her arms encircled his neck like rings of steel; hereyes seemed to pierce his own, he felt unable to breathe, he felt hisstrength giving way, together they were sinking into the night of thegrave--

  A shrill cry resounded through the silence of the Basilica. Awakened bythe terrible oppression of his dream,--roused by the sound of his ownvoice, Eckhardt opened his eyes and gazed about, fearstruck anddismayed. After a moment or two he arose, to shake off the spell, whichhad laid its benumbing touch upon him, when he suddenly recoiled, thenstood rooted to the spot with wild, dilated eyes. At the foot of thePontiff's bier stood the tall form of a woman. The fitful rays of thecresset-lantern above him illumined her white, flowing garb. A whitetransparent veil drooped from her head to her feet; but the diaphanoustexture revealed a face pale and beautiful, and eyes which held himenthralled with their slumbrous, mesmeric spell. Breathless with horrorEckhardt gazed upon the apparition; was it but the continuation of hisdream or was he going mad?

  As the phantom slowly began to recede into the shadows, Eckhardt with asupreme effort shook off the lethargy which benumbed his limbs. Hedared remain no longer inert, he must penetrate the mystery, whateverthe cost, whatever the risk. With imploring, outstretched arms hestaggered after the apparition,--if apparition indeed it was,--straininghis gaze towards her slowly receding form--and so absorbed was he in hispursuit, that he saw not the shadow which glided into the mortuarychapel. Suddenly some dark object hurled itself against him; quick as aflash, and ere he could draw a second breath, a dagger gleamed beforeEckhardt's eyes; he felt the contact of steel with his ironbreast-plate, he heard the weapon snap asunder and fall at his feet, butwhen he recovered from his surprise, the would-be assassin, withoutrisking a second stroke, had fled and the apparition seemed to havemelted into air. Eckhardt found himself alone with the dead body of thePontiff.

  With loud voice he called for the sentry, stationed without, and whenthat worthy at last made his appearance, his heavy, drooping eyelids andhis drowsy gait did not argue in favour of too great a watchfulness.Making the sentry doff his heavy iron shoes, Eckhardt bade him secure atorch, then he made the round of the chapel, preceded by his stolidcompanion. The Margrave's anxiety found slight reflex in the coarsefeatures of his subordinate, who understood just enough of what waswanted of him to comprehend the disappointment in his master'scountenance. As every door was locked and bolted, the only suppositionremaining was that the bravo had discovered some outlet from within.But Eckhardt's tests proved unavailing. The floor and the walls seemedof solid masonry which to penetrate seemed impossible. The broken bladeoffered no clue either to the author or perpetrator of this deed ofdarkness, and after commanding the sentry to keep his watch for theremainder of the night, inside, Eckhardt endeavoured once more tocompose himself to rest, while the man-at-arms stretched his huge limbsbefore the pontifical bier.

  The bells of St. Peter's chimed shrill and loud as a mighty multitude,greater even than that of the preceding night, swept within its portalstoward the chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every inch of space,only the more fortunate of the crowd gained a glimpse of the coffin,which had been closed, for the corpse was decaying fast, the effect ofthe terrible and mysterious poison which had been mixed in the holywine. At length, as the solemn chant of the choristers began to swellthrough the edifice, preluding the celebration of the Death Mass for thedeparted Pontiff, a silence as of the tomb pervaded the vast edifice.

  Thus the day wore on,--thus the day departed.

  The solemn chant had died away. The sun of another day had set.

  The funeral cortege set in motion. Fifty torches surrounded the bierand so numerous were the lamps in the windows of the streets throughwhich the funeral procession passed, so abundant the showers of roseswhich poured upon the bier, that the people declared it surpassed theprocession Corpus Domini.

  Interchanging solemn hymns, the cortege arrived at last before thechurch of San Pietro in Montorio, where the body was to be placed in theniche provisionally appointed, where it was to remain till the death ofthe succeeding pope should consign it to its final place of rest.

  The ceremony ended, the people dispersed. Few loiterers remained on thepavement of the church. The sacristan announced that it was about to beclosed, and waiting until, as he thought, all had departed, he turnedthe ponderous doors on their hinges and shut them with a crash. Thereport, reverberating from arch to arch, shook the ancient sepulchrethrough its every angle. The lamps, which at wide intervals burnedfeebly before the shrines of the saints, lent additional solemnity andawe to the obscurity of the place. One torch was left to light a narrowcircle round the entrance to the crypt.

  Silence had succeeded when out of the shadow of the tomb there passedtwo figures, who upon entering the narrow circle of light emanating fromthe dim, flickering taper, faced each other in mute amazement andsurprise.

  "What are you doing here?" spoke the one, in the garb of a monk, as theystood revealed to each other in the half gloom.

  With a gesture of horror and dismay the other, a woman, wrapt in a darkmantle, which covered her tall and stately form from head to foot,turned away from him.

  "I give you back the question," she replied, dread and fear in hertones.

  "My presence here concerns the dead," said the monk.

  "They say, the hand of the dead Pontiff has touched his murderer."

  The monk paled. For a moment he almost lost his self-control.

  "He had to die some way," he replied with a shrug.

  "Monster!" she exclaimed, recoiling from him, as if she had seen a snakein her path.

  "He travelled in godly company," said the monk Cyprianus with a darklaugh. "An entire Conclave will welcome him at the gates of Paradise.Why are you here?" the monk concluded, a shade of suspicion lingering inhis tones.

  "Am I accountable to you?" flashed Theodora.

  "Being what you are through my intercession,--perhaps," replied themonk.

  She measured him with a look of unutterable contempt.

  "Because the prying eyes of a perjured wretch, who screened his vilenessbehind the cassock of the monk, dared to offend the majesty of Death andto disturb the repose of the departed, you come to me like someimportunate slave dissatisfied with his hire? You dare to constituteyourself my guardian, to call Theodora a thing of your creation? Takecare! You speak to a descendant of Marozia. I have had enough ofwhimpering monks. For the service demanded of you in a certain hour youhave been paid. So clear the way, and trouble me
no more!"

  The monk did not stir.

  "The fair Theodora has not inherited Ginevra's memory," he said with asneer. "The gold was to purchase the repose of Ginevra's soul."

  Theodora shuddered, as if oppressed with the memories of the past.

  "Candles and masses," she said, as one soliloquizing. "How signallythey failed!"

  The monk shrugged his shoulders.

  "If a thousand Aves, and tapers six foot long fail in theirpurpose,--what undiscovered penance could perform the miracle?"

  There was something in the gleam of the monk's eye which broughtTheodora to herself.

  "What do you want of me?" she questioned curtly.

  "The fulfilment of your pledge."

  "You have been paid."

  The monk waved his hands.

  "'Tis not for gold, I have ventured this--"

  And he pointed to the crypts below.

  She recoiled from him, regarding him with a fixed stare.

  "What do you want of me?" she again asked with a look, in which hate andwonder struggled for the mastery.

  "The new Conclave will be made up of your creatures. Their choice mustfall--on me!"

  "On the perjured assassin?" shrieked the woman. "Out of my way! I'vedone with you!"

  The monk stirred not. From his drawn white face two eyes like glowingcoals burnt into those of the woman.

  "Remember your pledge!"

  "Out of my way, assassin! Dare you so high? The chair of St. Petershall never be defiled by such a one--as you!"

  "And thus Theodora rewards the service rendered to Ginevra," the monksaid, breathing hard, and making a step towards her. She watched himnarrowly, her hand concealed under her cloak.

  "Dare but to touch the hem of this robe with your blood-stained hands--"

  Cyprianus retreated before the menace in her eyes.

  "I thought I had lived too long for surprises," he said calmly. "Yet,considering that I bear here in this bosom a secret, which one, I know,would give an empire to obtain,--Cyprianus can be found tractable."

  With a last glance at the woman's face, stony in its marble-colddisdain, the monk turned and left the church through the sacristy. Fora moment Theodora remained as one spell-bound, then she drew her mantlemore closely about her and left the sepulchre by an exit situated in anopposite direction. No sooner had her footsteps died to silence whentwo shadowy forms sped noiselessly through the incense-saturated dusk ofS. Pietro in Montorio, pausing on the threshold of the door, throughwhich the monk Cyprianus had gained the open.

  "I need that man!" whispered the taller into the ear of his companion,pointing with shadowy finger to the swiftly vanishing form of the monk.

  The other nodded with a horrid grin, which glowed upon his visage likephosphorus upon a skull.

  With a quick nod of understanding, the Grand Chamberlain and John of theCatacombs quitted the steps of S. Pietro in Montorio.

  Darkness fell.

  Night enveloped the trembling world with her star embroidered robe ofdark azure.