The Sorceress of Rome

  *CHAPTER I*

  *THE MEETING*

  Not many days after, in the still noontide of mellow autumn, a smallband of horsemen drew towards Rome. They rode along the Via Appia,between the ancient tombs; all about them, undulant to the far horizon,stretched a brown wilderness dotted with ruins. Ruins of villas, offarms, of temples, with here and there a church or a monastery, thattold of the newer time. Olives in scant patches, a lost vineyard, aspeck of tilled soil, proved that men still laboured amid this vast andawful silence, but rarely did a human figure meet the eye. Marshy groundand stagnant pools lay on either hand, causing them to glance sadly atthose great aqueducts, which had in bygone ages carried water from thehills into Rome.

  They rode in silence, tired with their journey, occupied with heavy oranxious thoughts. Otto, King of the Germans, impatient to arrive, wasgenerally a little ahead of the rest of the company. The pallor of hissmooth and classic face was enhanced by the coarse military cloak, darkand travel-stained, which covered his imperial vestments. A lingeringexpression of sadness was revealed in his eyes, and his lips weretightly compressed in wordless grief, for the tidings of the untimelydeath of the Pontiff, the friend of his youth and his boyhood days, hadreached him just after his departure from the shrines of St. Michael inApulia. Dark hints had been contained in the message, which SylvesterII, Gregory's chosen successor and Otto's former teacher, had despatchedto the ruler of the Roman world, urging his immediate return,--for thetemper of the Romans brooked no trifling, their leaders being ever onthe alert for mischief.

  Earthworks and buildings of military purpose presently appeared,recalling the late blockade; churches and oratories told them they werepassing the sacred ground of the Catacombs, then they trotted along ahollow way and saw before them the Appian gate. Only two soldiers wereon guard; these, not recognizing the German king, took a careless viewof the travellers, then let them pass without speaking.

  At the base of the Aventine the cavalcade somewhat slackened its pace.Slowly they ascended the winding road, until they reached the old wallof Servius Tullius. Here Otto reined in his charger, pausing, for amoment, to observe the view. To the west and south-west stretched thebrown expanse of the Campagna, merging into the distant gray of theRoman Maremma, while beyond that point a clear blue line marked theIonian Sea. Beneath them the Tiber wound its coils round St.Bartholomew's Island, the yellow water of the river, stirred into faintripples by the breeze, looking from the distance like hammered brass.Beyond the Tiber rose the Janiculan Mount, behind which the top of theVatican hill was just visible. To southward the view was bounded by theChurch of Santa Prisca above them and far off rose the snow-capped coneof Soracte. Northeast and east lay the Palatine and Esquiline with theCampaniles of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Pietro in Vincoli. Over theCaelian Mount they could see the heights of the Sabine hills, andrunning their eyes along the Appian way, they could almost descry theAlban lake. At a sign from their sovereign the cavalcade slowly set inmotion. Passing the monastery of St. Jerome and its dependencies, thethree churches of the Aventine, Santa Sabina, Santa Maria Aventina andSt. Alexius, the imperial cavalcade at last drew rein before the gatesof Otto's Golden Palace on the Aventine.

  Again in his beloved Rome, Otto's first visit was to Bruno's grave. Hehad dismissed his attendants, wishing to be alone in his hour of grief.Long he knelt in tears and silent prayers before the spot, which seemedto contain half his young life, then he directed his steps towards theBasilica of St. Peter, there to conclude his devotions.

  It was now the hour of Vespers.

  The area of St. Peters was filled with a vast and silent crowd, flowingin and out of the Confessor's station, which was in the subterraneanchapel, that contains the Apostle's tomb, the very lode-stone ofdevotion throughout the Christian word.

  After having finished his devotions, Otto was seized with the desire toseek the confessor, in order to obtain relief from the strangeoppression which hovered over him like a presentiment of evil. Takinghis station in line with a number of penitents, in the dusky passageleading to the confessional, the scene within was now and then revealedto his gaze for the short space of a moment, when the bronze gatesopened for the entrance or exit of some heavily burdened sinner. Thetomb was stripped of all its costly ornaments, and lighted only by thetorches of some monks, whose office it was to interpret thePenitentiarius, whenever occasion arose. These torches shed a mournfulglow over the dusk, suiting the place of sepulchre of martyred saints.On the tomb itself stood an urn of black marble, beneath which was analabaster tablet, on which was engraved the prophecy concerning theMillennium and the second coming of Christ, and the conditions ofpenance and prayer, which were to enable the faithful to share in andobtain its benefits. Only now and then, when the curtain waved aside,the person of the Grand Penitentiarius became visible, his hands rigidlyclasped, and his usually pale and stern visage overspread with even adarker haze of its habitual gloom.

  While Otto was anxiously waiting his turn to be admitted to the presenceof the Confessor, the gates of the confessional suddenly swung open anda woman glided out. She was closely veiled and in his mental absorptionOtto might scarcely have noticed her at all, but for the singularintensity of the gaze, with which the monk followed her retreating form.

  As she passed the German King in the narrow passage, her veil becameentangled and she paused to adjust it. As she did so, her features werefor the brief space of a moment revealed to Otto, and with such an airof bewilderment did he stare at her, that she almost unconsciouslyraised her eyes to his. For a moment both faced each other, motionless,eye in eye--then the woman quickened her steps and hastened out. Aftershe had disappeared, Otto touched his forehead like one waking from atrance. Never, even in this city of beautiful women, had he seen thelike of her, never had his eyes met such perfection, such exquisitebeauty and loveliness. She combined the stately majesty of a Juno withthe seductive charms of Aphrodite. In dark ringlets the silken haircaressed the oval of her exquisite face, a face of the soft tint ofParian marble, and the dark lustrous eyes gave life to the classicfeatures of this Goddess of Mediaeval Rome. Before she vanished fromsight, the woman, seemingly obeying an impulse not her own, turned herhead in the direction of Otto. This was due perhaps to the strangediscrepancy between his face and his attire, or to the presence of oneso young and of appearance so distinguished among the throngs whichhabitually crowded the confessional.

  How long he stood thus entranced, Otto knew not, nor did he heed thecurious gaze of those who passed him on entering and leaving theconfessional. At last he roused himself, and, oblivious of his stationand rank, flew down the dark, vaulted passage at such a speed as almostto knock down those who encountered him in his headlong pursuit of thefair confessionist. It was more than a matter of idle curiosity to himto discover, if possible, her station and name, and after havingattracted to himself much unwelcome attention by his rash andprecipitate act, he gradually fell into a slower pace. He reached theend of the dark passage in time to see what he believed to be herretreating form vanish down a corridor and disappear in one of thenumerous side-chapels. Concluding that she had entered to perform somespecial devotion, he resolved to await her return.

  Considerable time elapsed. At last, growing impatient, Otto entered thechapel. He found it draped throughout with black, an altar in thecenter, dimly illumined. Some monks were chanting a Requiem, and beforethe altar there knelt a veiled woman, apparently under the spell of somedeep emotion, for Otto heard her sob when she attempted to articulatethe responses to the solemn and pathetic litany, which the Catholicchurch consecrates to her dead.

  But the German King's observation suffered an immediate check.

  A verger came forward on those soundless shoes, which all vergers seemto have, and little guessing the person or quality of the intruderinformed him of the woman's desire, that none should be admitted duringthe celebration of the mass. Otto stared his informant
in the face, asif he were at a loss to comprehend his meaning, and the latter repeatedhis request somewhat more slowly, under the impression that thestranger's seeming lack of understanding was due to his unfamiliaritywith the speaker's barbarous jargon.

  Otto slowly retreated and deferring his intended visit to the chapel ofthe Confessor to an hour more opportune, left the Basilica. As herecalled to himself, trace after trace, line upon line, that exquisiteface, whose creamy pallor was enhanced by the dark silken wealth of herhair, and from whose perfect oval two eyes had looked into his own,which had caused his heart-beats to stop and his brain to whirl, hecould hardly await the moment when he should learn her name, and perhapsbe favoured with the assurance that her visit on that evening was notlikely to have been her last to the Confessor's shrine.

  Imbued with this hope, he slowly traversed the streets of Rome,experiencing a restful, even animating contentment in breathing oncemore the atmosphere of the thronging city, of being once more in a greatcenter of humanity. At a familiar corner sat an old man with an irontripod, over which, by a slow fire, he roasted his chestnuts, a sightwell remembered, for often had he passed him. He threw him some coinsand continued upon his way. Beyond, at his shop-door stood a baker,deep in altercation with his patrons. From an alley came a wine-venderwith his heavy terra-cotta jars. Before an osteria a group of pifferaripiped their pastoral strains. A few women of the sturdy, low-browedContadini-type hastened, basket-laden, homeward. A patrol ofmen-at-arms marched down the Navona, while up a narrow tortuous laneflitted a company of white-robed monks, bearing to some death-bed thelast consolation of the church.

  Otto had partaken of no food since morning and nature began to asserther rights. Finding himself at the doorway of an inn for wayfarers,with a pretentious coat-of-arms over the entrance, he enteredunceremoniously, and seated himself apart from the rather questionablecompany which patronized the Inn of the Mermaid. Here the landlord, aburly Calabrian, served his unknown guest with a most questionablebeverage, faintly suggestive of the product of the vintage, and viandsso strongly seasoned that they might have undertaken a pilgrimage ontheir own account.

  For these commodities, making due allowance for his guest's abstractedstate of mind, the uncertainty of the times and the crowded state of thecity, the host of the Mermaid only demanded a sum equal to five timesthe customary charge, which Otto paid without remonstrance, whereuponthe worthy host of the Mermaid called to witness all the saints of thecalendar, that he deserved to spend the remainder of his life in apig-sty, for having been so moderate in his reckoning.

  As one walking in a dream, Otto returned to his palace on the Aventine.Had he wavered in the morning, had the dictates of reason still venturedto assert themselves--the past hour had silenced them for ever. Beforehis gaze floated the image of her who had passed him in the Basilica.At the thought of her he could hear the beating of his own heart.Rome--the dominion of the earth--with that one to share it--delirium ofecstasy! Would it ever be realized! Then indeed the dream of anearthly paradise would be no mere fable!