Читать книгу The Sorceress of Rome - Gallizier Nathan - Страница 4

It was the hour of high noon on a sultry October day in Rome, in the year of our Lord nine hundred and ninety-nine. In the porphyry cabinet of the imperial palace on Mount Aventine, before a table covered with parchments and scrolls, there sat an individual, who even in the most brilliant assembly would have attracted general and immediate attention.

Judging from his appearance he had scarcely passed his thirtieth year. His bearing combined a marked grace and intellectuality. The finely shaped head poised on splendid shoulders denoted power and intellect. The pale, olive tints of the face seemed to intensify the brilliancy of the black eyes whose penetrating gaze revealed a singular compound of mockery and cynicism. The mouth, small but firm, was not devoid of disdain, and even cruelty, and the smile of the thin, compressed lips held something more subtle than any passion that can be named. His ears, hands and feet were of that delicacy and smallness, which is held to denote aristocracy of birth. And there was in his manner that indescribable combination of unobtrusive dignity and affected elegance which, in all ages and countries, through all changes of manners and customs has rendered the demeanour of its few chosen possessors the instantaneous interpreter of their social rank. He was dressed in a crimson tunic, fastened with a clasp of mother-of-pearl. Tight fitting hose of black and crimson terminating in saffron-coloured shoes covered his legs, and a red cap, pointed at the top and rolled up behind brought the head into harmony with the rest of the costume.

Now and then, Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain, cast quick glances at the sand-clock on the table before him; at last with a gesture of mingled impatience and annoyance, he pushed back the scrolls he had been examining, glanced again at the clock, arose and strode to a window looking out upon the western slopes of Mount Aventine.

The sun was slowly setting, and the light green silken curtains hung motionless, in the almost level rays. The stone houses of the city and her colossal ruins glowed with a brightness almost overpowering. Not a ripple stirred the surface of the Tiber, whose golden coils circled the base of Aventine; not a breath of wind filled the sails of the deserted fishing boats, which swung lazily at their moorings. Over the distant Campagna hung a hot, quivering mist and in the vineyards climbing the Janiculan Mount not a leaf stirred upon its slender stem. The ramparts of Castel San Angelo dreamed deserted in the glow of the westering sun, and beyond the horizon of ancient Portus, torpid, waveless and suffused in a flood of dazzling brightness, the Tyrrhene Sea stretched toward the cloudless horizon which closed the sun-bright view.

How long the Grand Chamberlain had thus abstractedly gazed out upon the seven-hilled city gradually sinking into the repose of evening, he was scarcely conscious, when a slight knock, which seemed to come from the wall, caused him to start. After a brief interval it was repeated. Benilo drew the curtains closer, gave another glance at the sand-clock, nodded to himself, then, approaching the opposite wall, decorated with scenes from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, touched a hidden spring. Noiselessly a panel receded and, from the chasm thus revealed, something like a shadow passed swiftly into the cabinet, the panel closing noiselessly behind it.

Benilo had reseated himself at the table, and beckoned his strange visitor to a chair, which he declined. He was tall and lean and wore the gray habit of the Penitent friars, the cowl drawn over his face, concealing his features.

For some minutes neither the Grand Chamberlain nor his visitor spoke. At last Benilo broke the silence.

"You are the bearer of a message?"

The monk nodded.

"Tell me the worst! Bad news is like decaying fruit. It becomes the more rotten with the keeping."

"The worst may be told quickly enough," said the monk with a voice which caused the Chamberlain to start.

"The Saxon dynasty is resting on two eyes."

Benilo nodded.

"On two eyes," he repeated, straining his gaze towards the monk.

"They will soon be closed for ever!"

The Chamberlain started from his seat.

"I do not understand."

"The fever does not temporize."

"'Tis the nature of the raven to croak. Let thine improvising damn thyself."

"Fate and the grave are relentless. I am the messenger of both!"

"King Otto dying?" the Chamberlain muttered to himself. "Away from Rome, – the Fata Morgana of his dreams?"

A gesture of the monk interrupted the speaker.

"When a knight makes a vow to a lady, he does not thereby become her betrothed. She oftener marries another."

"Yet the Saint may work a miracle. The Holy Father is praying so earnestly for his deliverance, that Saint Michael may fear for his prestige, did he not succour him."

"Your heart is tenderer than I had guessed."

"And joined by the prayers of such as you – "

The monk raised his hand.

"Nay, – I am not holy enough."

"I thought they were all saints at San Zeno."

"That is for Rome to say."

There was a brief pause during which Benilo gazed into space. The monk heard him mutter the word "Dying – dying" as if therein lay condensed the essence of all his life.

Reseating himself the Chamberlain seemed at last to remember the presence of his visitor, who scrutinized him stealthily from under his cowl. Pointing to a parchment on the table before him, he said dismissing the subject:

"You are reported as one in whom I may place full trust, in whom I may implicitly confide. I hate the black cassocks. A monk and misfortune are seldom apart. You see I dissemble not."

The Grand Chamberlain's visitor nodded.

"A viper's friend must needs be a viper, – like to like!"

"'Tis not the devil's policy to show the cloven hoof."

"Yet an eavesdropper is best equipped for a prophet."

Again the Chamberlain started.

Straining his gaze towards the monk, who stood immobile as a phantom, he said:

"It is reported that you are about to render a great service to Rome."

The monk nodded.

"A country without a king is bad! But to carry the matter just a trifle farther, – to dream of Christendom without a Pope – "

"You would not dare!" exclaimed Benilo with real or feigned surprise, "you would not dare! In the presence of the whole Christian world? Rome can do nothing without the Sun, – nothing without the Pope. Take away his benediction: 'Urbi et Orbi' – What would prosper?"

"You are a poet and a Roman. I am a monk and a native of Aragon."

Benilo shrugged his shoulders.

"'Tis but the old question: Cui bono? How many pontiffs have, within the memory of man, defiled the chair of Saint Peter? Who are your reformers? Libertines and gossipers in the taverns of the Suburra, among fried fish, painted women, and garlic; in prosperity proud, in adversity cowards, but infamous ever! The fifth Gregory alone soars so high above the earth, he sees not the vermin, the mire beneath."

"Perhaps they wished to let the mire accumulate, to furnish work for the iron broom of your tramontane saint! Are not his shoulders bent in holy contemplation, like the moon in the first quarter? Is he not shocked at the sight of misery and of dishevelled despair? His sensitive nerves would see them with the hair dressed and bound like that of an antique statue."

"Ay! And the feudal barons stick in his palate like the hook in the mouth of the dog fish."

"We want no more martyrs! The light of the glow-worm continues to shine after the death of the insect."

"It was a conclave, that disposed of the usurper, John XVI."

"Ay! And the bravo, when he discovered his error, paid for three candles for the pontiff's soul, and the monk who officiated at the last rites praised the departed so loudly, that the corpse sat up and laughed. And now he is immortal and possesses the secret of eternal life," the monk concluded with downcast eyes.

"Yet there is one I fear, – one who seems to enlist a special providence in his cause."

"Gerbert of Cluny – "

"The monk of Aurillac!"

"They say that he is leagued with the devil; that in his closet he has a brazen head, which answers all questions, and through which the devil has assured him that he shall not die, till he has said mass in Jerusalem."

"He is competent to convert a brimstone lake."

"Yet a true soldier seeks for weak spots in the armour."

"I am answered. But the time and the place?"

"In the Ghetto at sunset."

"And the reward?"

"The halo of a Saint."

"What of your conscience's peace?"

"May not a man and his conscience, like ill-mated consorts, be on something less than speaking terms?"

"They kill by the decalogue at San Zeno."

"Exitus acta probat!" returned the monk solemnly.

Benilo raised his hand warningly.

"Let him disappear quietly – ecclesiastically."

"What is gained by caution when one stands on an earthquake?" asked the monk.

"You deem not, then, that Heaven might take so strong an interest in Gerbert's affairs, as to send some of the blessed to his deliverance?" queried Benilo suavely.

The Chamberlain's visitor betrayed impatience.

"If Heaven troubled itself much about what is done on earth, the world's business would be well-nigh bankrupt."

"Ay! And even the just may fall by his own justice!" nodded Benilo. "He should have made his indulgences dearer, and harder to win. Why takes he not the lesson from women?"

There was a brief pause, during which Benilo had arisen and paced up and down the chamber. His visitor remained immobile, though his eyes followed Benilo's every step.

At last the Grand Chamberlain paused directly before him.

"How fares his Eminence of Orvieto? He was ailing at last reports," he asked.

"He died on his way to Rome, of a disease, sudden as the plague. He loved honey, – they will accuse the bees."

With a nod of satisfaction Benilo continued his perambulation.

"Tell me better news of our dearly beloved friend, Monsignor Agnello, Archbishop of Cosenza, Clerk of the Chamber and Vice-Legate of Viterbo."

"He was found dead in his bed, after eating a most hearty supper," the monk spoke dolefully.

"Alas, poor man! That was sudden. But such holy men are always ready for their call," replied the Grand Chamberlain with downcast eyes. "And what part has his Holiness assigned me in his relics?"

"Some flax of his hair shirt, to coil a rope therewith," replied the monk.

"A princely benefaction! But your commission for the Father of Christendom? For indeed I fear the vast treasures he has heaped up, will hang like a leaden mountain on his ascending soul."

"The Holy Father himself has summoned me to Rome!" The words seemed to sound from nowhere. Yet they hovered on the air like the knell of Fate.

The Grand-Chamberlain paused, stared and shuddered.

"And who knows," continued the monk after a pause, "but that by some divine dispensation all the refractory cardinals of the Sacred College may contract some incurable disease? Have you secured the names, – just to ascertain if their households are well ordered?"

"The name of every cardinal and bishop in Rome at the present hour."

"Give it to me."

A hand white as that of a corpse came from the monk's ample parting sleeves in which Benilo placed a scroll, which he had taken from the table.

The monk unrolled it. After glancing down the list of names, he said:

"The Cardinal of Gregorio."

The Chamberlain betokened his understanding with a nod.

"He claims kinship with the stars."

"The Cardinal of San Pietro in Montorio."

An evil smile curved Benilo's thin, white lips.

"An impostor, proved, confessed, – his conscience pawned to a saint – "

"The Cardinal of San Onofrio, – he, who held you over the baptismal fount," said the monk with a quick glance at the Chamberlain.

"I had no hand in my own christening."

The monk nodded.

"The Cardinal of San Silvestro."

"He vowed he would join the barefoot friars, if he recovered."

"He would have made a stalwart mendicant. All the women would have confessed to him."

"It is impossible to escape immortality," sighed Benilo.

"Obedience is holiness," replied the other.

After carefully reviewing the not inconsiderable list of names, and placing a cross against some of them, the monk returned the scroll to its owner.

When the Chamberlain spoke again, his voice trembled strangely.

"What of the Golden Chalice?"

"Offerimus tibi Domine, Calicem Salutaris," the monk quoted from the mass. "What differentiates Sacramental Wine from Malvasia?"

The Chamberlain pondered.

"Perhaps a degree or two of headiness?"

"Is it not rather a degree or two of holiness?" replied the monk with a strange gleam in his eyes.

"The Season claims its mercies."

"Can one quench a furnace with a parable?"

"The Holy Host may work a miracle."

"It is the concern of angels to see their sentences enforced."

"Sic itur ad astra," said the Chamberlain devoutly.

And like an echo it came from his visitor's lips:

"Sic itur ad astra!"

"We understand each other," Benilo spoke after a pause, arising from his chair. "But remember," he added with a look, which seemed to pierce his interlocutor through and through. "What thou dost, monk, thou dost. If thy hand fail, I know thee not!"

Stepping to the panel, Benilo was about to touch the secret spring, when a thought arrested his hand.

"Thou hast seen my face," he turned to the monk. "It is but meet, that I see thine."

Without a word the monk removed his cowl. As he did so, Benilo stood rooted to the spot, as if a ghost had arisen from the stone floor before him.

"Madman!" he gasped. "You dare to show yourself in Rome?"

A strange light gleamed in the monk's eyes.

"I came in quest of the End of Time. Do you doubt the sincerity of my intent?"

For a moment they faced each other in silence, then the monk turned and vanished without another word through the panel which closed noiselessly behind him.

When Benilo found himself once more alone, all the elasticity of temper and mind seemed to have deserted him. All the colour had faded from his face, all the light seemed to have gone from his eyes. Thus he remained for a space, neither heeding his surroundings, nor the flight of time. At last he arose and, traversing the cabinet, made for a remote door and passed out. Whatever were his thoughts, no outward sign betrayed them, as with the suave and impenetrable mien of the born courtier, he entered the vast hall of audience.

A motley crowd of courtiers, officers, monks and foreign envoys, whose variegated costumes formed a dazzling kaleidoscope almost bewildering to the unaccustomed eye, met the Chamberlain's gaze.

The greater number of those present were recruited from the ranks of the Roman nobility, men whose spare, elegant figures formed a striking contrast to the huge giants of the German imperial guard. The mongrel and craven descendants of African, Syrian and Slavonian slaves, a strange jumble of races and types, with all the visible signs of their heterogeneous origin, stared with insolent wonder at the fair-haired sons of the North, who took their orders from no man, save the grandson of the mighty emperor Otto the Great, the vanquisher of the Magyars on the tremendous field of the Lech.

A strange medley of palace officials, appointed after the ruling code of the Eastern Empire, chamberlains, pages and grooms, masters of the outer court, masters of the inner court, masters of the robe, masters of the horse, seneschals, high stewards and eunuchs, in their sweeping citron and orange coloured gowns, lent a glowing enchantment to the scene.

No glaring lights marred the pervading softness of the atmosphere; all objects animate and inanimate seemed in complete harmony with each other. The entrance to the great hall of audience was flanked with two great pillars of Numidian marble, toned by time to hues of richest orange. The hall itself was surrounded by a colonnade of the Corinthian order, whereon had been lavished exquisite carvings; in niches behind the columns stood statues in basalt, thrice the size of life. Enormous pillars of rose-coloured marble supported the roof, decorated in the fantastic Byzantine style; the floor, composed of serpentine, porphyry and Numidian marble, was a superb work of art. In the centre a fountain threw up sprays of perfumed water, its basin bordered with glistening shells from India and the Archipelago.

Passing slowly down the hall, Benilo paused here and there to exchange greetings with some individual among the numerous groups, who were conversing in hushed whispers on the event at this hour closest to their heart, the illness of King Otto III, in the cloisters of Monte Gargano in Apulia whither he had journeyed on a pilgrimage to the grottoes of the Archangel. Conflicting rumours were rife as to the course of the illness, and each seemed fearful of venturing a surmise, which might precipitate a crisis, fraught with direst consequences. The times and the Roman temper were uncertain.

The countenance of Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, Chancellor of the Empire, reflected grave apprehension, which was amply shared by his companions, Archbishop Willigis of Mentz, and Luitprand, Archbishop of Cremona, the Patriarch of Christendom, whose snow-white hair formed a striking contrast to the dark and bronzed countenance of Count Benedict of Palestrina, and Pandulph of Capua, Lord of Spoleto and Beneventum, the lay-members of the group. The conversation, though held in whispered tones and inaudible to those moving on the edge of their circle, was yet animated and it would seem, that hope had but a small share in the surmises they ventured on what the days to come held in store for the Saxon dynasty.

Without paying further heed to the motley throng, which surged up and down the hall of audience, seemingly indifferent to the whispered comments upon himself as a mere man of pleasure, Benilo seated himself upon a couch at the western extremity of the hall. With the elaborate deliberation of a man who disdains being hurried by anything whatsoever, he took a piece of vellum from his doublet, on which from time to time he traced a few words. Assuming a reclining position, he appeared absorbed in deep study, seemingly unheedful of his surroundings. Yet a close observer might have remarked that the Chamberlain's gaze roamed unsteadily from one group to another, until some chance passer-by deflected its course and Benilo applied himself to his ostentatious task more studiously than before.

"What does the courtier in the parrot-frock?" Duke Bernhardt of Saxony, stout, burly, asthmatic, addressed a tall, sallow individual, in a rose-coloured frock, who strutted by his side with the air of an inflated peacock.

John of Calabria gave a sigh.

"Alas! He writes poetry and swears by the ancient Gods!"

"By the ancient Gods!" puffed the duke, "a commendable habit! As for his poetry, – the bees sometimes deposit their honey in the mouth of a dead beast."

"And yet the Philistines solved not Samson's riddle," sighed the Greek.

"Ay! And the devil never ceases to cut wood for him, who wishes to keep the kettle boiling," spouted the duke with an irate look at his companion as they lost themselves among the throngs. Suddenly a marked hush, the abrupt cessation of the former all-pervading hum, caused Benilo to glance toward the entrance of the audience hall. As he did so, the vellum rolled from his nerveless hand upon the marble floor.